Yeah. The variant rule is now basically the default for 1d&d. Any skill you can justify using for any particular Action, the DM will probably let you use it.
Then, if anything, I consider this and Haravikk's previous post more a point of not tethering skills to specific ability scores period. But rather just simply state what skill proficiencies the character has, and the DM ultimately uses their judgment to decide what score fits best for the situation.
From Expert Classes UA: "When you make an Ability Check, the rules or the DM determines whether a Skill Proficiency is relevant to the check. If you have a relevant Skill Proficiency, you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the roll. For example, if a rule refers to a Strength Check (Acrobatics or Athletics), you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the check if you have Acrobatics or Athletics Proficiency."
From Cleric and Species UA: "The Influence Skills table suggests which Skills are applicable when you make the Charisma Check, depending on the interaction that precedes the roll. [...] Animal Handling - Gently coaxing a Beast or a Monstrosity".
This is stated pretty clearly in the rules already. Probably just not explicitly enough.
It really bugs me that Animal Handling uses Charisma for one of its most common situations. I'm all for mixing up different abilities and skills, and have always used that rule in 5e. But this one being the default to influence a beast makes me sad. :/
It really bugs me that Animal Handling uses Charisma for one of its most common situations. I'm all for mixing up different abilities and skills, and have always used that rule in 5e. But this one being the default to influence a beast makes me sad. :/
"Influence" is the key word here. Influence=Charisma. Intelligence is knowledge, wisdom is awareness. Animal Handling is basically Insight, Persuasion, Intimidation, and Deception all rolled into one, but only affecting beasts and monstrosities. Using Animal Handling with Wisdomis about understanding the beast's mood and what it wants to convey with its behavior.
If you notice, my argument is rooted in the standard uses of the skills in question. Medicine use as a skill is primarily used to observe and diagnose patients. Not recalling facts and figures. Religion's primary use, and the one we're discussing here in this thread, is the recalling of facts and figures.
I don't know medical school seems to be pretty knowledge intensive. Yes observing the client is part of it but just as much if not more is recalling facts about what those observations could mean and remembering a course of action to treat it. Diagnosing will mostly be about recall. Medicine would actually make more sense under int than wisdom I suspect. It has mainly been there due to class reasons. I see no reason why Religion couldn't be the same for its sort of default normal use stat in 1dnd.
As for dump stats in general the game stats need more mechanical value on their own in the game. Go the 4e route is my suggestion. When it comes to initiative make it either dex or int whichever is higher for example. The hope a few tied in skills will cut it wont ever pan out. The stats need to be roughly on equal footing without any skill check being thought of especially when the game will be moving towards a more what stat does the DM want to use for that skill model.
It really bugs me that Animal Handling uses Charisma for one of its most common situations. I'm all for mixing up different abilities and skills, and have always used that rule in 5e. But this one being the default to influence a beast makes me sad. :/
"Influence" is the key word here. Influence=Charisma. Intelligence is knowledge, wisdom is awareness. Animal Handling is basically Insight, Persuasion, Intimidation, and Deception all rolled into one, but only affecting beasts and monstrosities. Using Animal Handling with Wisdomis about understanding the beast's mood and what it wants to convey with its behavior.
And if you were tryto decern an animals mood I would allow animal handling instead of insight as part of the search action.
It really bugs me that Animal Handling uses Charisma for one of its most common situations. I'm all for mixing up different abilities and skills, and have always used that rule in 5e. But this one being the default to influence a beast makes me sad. :/
"Influence" is the key word here. Influence=Charisma. Intelligence is knowledge, wisdom is awareness. Animal Handling is basically Insight, Persuasion, Intimidation, and Deception all rolled into one, but only affecting beasts and monstrosities. Using Animal Handling with Wisdomis about understanding the beast's mood and what it wants to convey with its behavior.
Charisma totally works for people and demons. But there are a lot of charismatic people in real life that just scare animals off. And a lot of people with what would be very low charisma that are wonderful with animals. With no special training needed on their part (eg skill proficiency).
A super intimidating dragonborn oath of conquest paladin is unlikely to get a squirrel to come get a snack by looming over it menacingly. A silver tongued Bard is not going to be able to calm a wolf by flirting with it. Either of those characters might be good with animals, but it won't be because of their overwhelming presence. That is more likely to spook the beast.
The Paladin might intimidate the animal. It might scare the wolf into submission. The Bard might play some music and gradually endear some animals with a performance. But neither of them are using their Charisma to shift the beasts attitude the way they would with a person. People that are good with handling animals and gaining their trust often have more subdued presence. And they often do it with intuition and empathy.
So Wisdom usually makes sense. It just feels like the better default to me. But WotC appears to have just wanted to make the chart look consistent. Which isn't a great reason if that's the case. It's not a big deal to me. I'm happy to just ignore it in my own game. It just doesn't make sense.
If you notice, my argument is rooted in the standard uses of the skills in question. Medicine use as a skill is primarily used to observe and diagnose patients. Not recalling facts and figures. Religion's primary use, and the one we're discussing here in this thread, is the recalling of facts and figures.
I don't know medical school seems to be pretty knowledge intensive. Yes observing the client is part of it but just as much if not more is recalling facts about what those observations could mean and remembering a course of action to treat it. Diagnosing will mostly be about recall. Medicine would actually make more sense under int than wisdom I suspect. It has mainly been there due to class reasons. I see no reason why Religion couldn't be the same for its sort of default normal use stat in 1dnd.
As for dump stats in general the game stats need more mechanical value on their own in the game. Go the 4e route is my suggestion. When it comes to initiative make it either dex or int whichever is higher for example. The hope a few tied in skills will cut it wont ever pan out. The stats need to be roughly on equal footing without any skill check being thought of especially when the game will be moving towards a more what stat does the DM want to use for that skill model.
I really agree that the stats are fundamentally unequal. Every stat is important to some class. But for the other ones, they just don't carry the same weight. Some have more direct mechanical effects with their bonuses. Some are more common saves than others. Some have very useful skills and others have none at all. And some skills are more DM dependant than others.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand. Investigation is barely better since so many people aren't sure when to use it and just roll Perception most of the time instead. Intelligence has one of the least common saves. It isn't added to anything other than spell attacks and save DCs for 2 classes, one of which isn't fully supported. So when people are looking for a stat to dump, that's usually number one.
I would really love to see all of the stats have more useful applications and skills until they are closer to balanced. Unfortunately I don't see that happening if they want to be 'backwards compatible.' I get why they want to try that, and I know a lot of people at going to insist on it, but I think it is holding them back a lot on fixing bigger issues.
Charisma totally works for people and demons. But there are a lot of charismatic people in real life that just scare animals off. And a lot of people with what would be very low charisma that are wonderful with animals. With no special training needed on their part (eg skill proficiency).
A super intimidating dragonborn oath of conquest paladin is unlikely to get a squirrel to come get a snack by looming over it menacingly. A silver tongued Bard is not going to be able to calm a wolf by flirting with it. Either of those characters might be good with animals, but it won't be because of their overwhelming presence. That is more likely to spook the beast.
The Paladin might intimidate the animal. It might scare the wolf into submission. The Bard might play some music and gradually endear some animals with a performance. But neither of them are using their Charisma to shift the beasts attitude the way they would with a person. People that are good with handling animals and gaining their trust often have more subdued presence. And they often do it with intuition and empathy.
So Wisdom usually makes sense. It just feels like the better default to me. But WotC appears to have just wanted to make the chart look consistent. Which isn't a great reason if that's the case. It's not a big deal to me. I'm happy to just ignore it in my own game. It just doesn't make sense.
These are all quite ephemereal matters, they're very up to interpretation. Communication in itself is a two-way thing - you have to both read your collocutor, their disposition and their reactions, and to convey your point in the most persuasive (or manipulative) way. People that are adept at both are good with both humans and animals. But well, it is a game and it has to simplify things. I like to use all all three stats - Wis, Int, Cha - in a conversation. Insight to determine what your collocutor wants to hear, one of knowledge skills if you want to make a point related to these fields of expertise, and one of Cha skills to convey your argument in the best way possible. I just don't like it when the entire social pillar of the game is basically just Charisma checks.
But anyway, I share the sentiment that DnD could use a big ability score system overhaul, which won't happen because of backwards compatibility. I liked the stats and skills in Disco Elysium. Awesome game, one of a kind experience; I highly recommend it.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand.
If you notice, my argument is rooted in the standard uses of the skills in question. Medicine use as a skill is primarily used to observe and diagnose patients. Not recalling facts and figures. Religion's primary use, and the one we're discussing here in this thread, is the recalling of facts and figures.
I don't know medical school seems to be pretty knowledge intensive. Yes observing the client is part of it but just as much if not more is recalling facts about what those observations could mean and remembering a course of action to treat it. Diagnosing will mostly be about recall. Medicine would actually make more sense under int than wisdom I suspect. It has mainly been there due to class reasons. I see no reason why Religion couldn't be the same for its sort of default normal use stat in 1dnd.
As for dump stats in general the game stats need more mechanical value on their own in the game. Go the 4e route is my suggestion. When it comes to initiative make it either dex or int whichever is higher for example. The hope a few tied in skills will cut it wont ever pan out. The stats need to be roughly on equal footing without any skill check being thought of especially when the game will be moving towards a more what stat does the DM want to use for that skill model.
I really agree that the stats are fundamentally unequal. Every stat is important to some class. But for the other ones, they just don't carry the same weight. Some have more direct mechanical effects with their bonuses. Some are more common saves than others. Some have very useful skills and others have none at all. And some skills are more DM dependant than others.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand. Investigation is barely better since so many people aren't sure when to use it and just roll Perception most of the time instead. Intelligence has one of the least common saves. It isn't added to anything other than spell attacks and save DCs for 2 classes, one of which isn't fully supported. So when people are looking for a stat to dump, that's usually number one.
I would really love to see all of the stats have more useful applications and skills until they are closer to balanced. Unfortunately I don't see that happening if they want to be 'backwards compatible.' I get why they want to try that, and I know a lot of people at going to insist on it, but I think it is holding them back a lot on fixing bigger issues.
It’s been my experience that the Intelligence skills are all very useful, especially History and Investigation, and that Intelligence is rarely a total dump stat and that Strength is dumped far more often. Heck, I see Charisma dumped almost as often as Intelligence since not everyone in the party needs to be good at Charisma skills, but some folks need to be good at Intelligence skills.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand. Investigation is barely better since so many people aren't sure when to use it and just roll Perception most of the time instead. Intelligence has one of the least common saves. It isn't added to anything other than spell attacks and save DCs for 2 classes, one of which isn't fully supported. So when people are looking for a stat to dump, that's usually number one.
I would really love to see all of the stats have more useful applications and skills until they are closer to balanced. Unfortunately I don't see that happening if they want to be 'backwards compatible.' I get why they want to try that, and I know a lot of people at going to insist on it, but I think it is holding them back a lot on fixing bigger issues.
To be fair, as has been mentioned multiple times by now, the Study Action does exist in One D&D now.
If you want to know about something you're looking, just make an Intelligence check, and apply the most appropriate skill listed in the table to it.
And I get why they don't just bunch everything into one knowledge skill, because people specialize their knowledge, so it's weird to be able to just make a check to know pretty much anything.
That actually made it worse imo.
You can do something useful like you know kill the enemy or you can use you entire action to find out something that most likely wont help you much if at all. Unless they dramatically change monsters so are large % of them are immune to damage or something until you know their secret it will almost always be a worse use of your action.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand.
My sense of humor doesn't translate well in text (Nor in real life). Sleight of Hand doesn't see a ton of use, but it's still more than all of the knowledge skills combined at many DnD tables. You're definitely right - perception, stealth, and persuasion are by far some of the most common skills rolled. Insight too. Acrobatics and Athletics are used almost interchangeably in most games. If an action specifies that only Athletics be used, the Dexterity crowd gets upset.
Rather than quote everyone that responded to that post, I'll just try to be a little more clear in this one. :)
I'm not advocating for them to combine all the knowledge skills into one. I like them the way they are. I use them in my games. I'm just saying that they might as well, considering how little as they get used by most players. Not that I want them to. I'm also just using Intelligence as an example of a place that skills could use more benefits.
There are some problems with knowledge skills in DnD. They are very DM dependant, and even the DM has their hands tied. Because knowledge skills lock plot behind rolls.
A skill like Persuasion, Athletics, or Stealth is easy to use and see the benefits of. You want to get a discount on that sword? Roll Persuasion. You want to jump a gap? Roll Athletics. You want to sneak by the guards? Roll Stealth.
But what does a high History proficiency mean to the average player? They might take it because it fits their character concept. But when do they use it? Well, that depends on the DM. 1DnD has tried to give it a combat value with the new action. That may or may not be useful depending on the combats. It's a step in the right direction, but we will have to see how good of a step it is.
But the normal application is tricky. Not impossible, just more difficult than something like Perception, especially for new DMs and players. Because it's a key to the plot. The DM wants the players to uncover the plot. It's vital that they do. They can hide secrets to the plot behind knowledge checks. That definitely makes the skills more useful. But what happens when the characters fail their rolls? You are left with two bad options. You have to either give them the information another way, and in the process negate the value of the knowledge skill in the first place. Or you leave the information locked, and your plot suffers for it.
Another use might be to give you advantage in social situations. Maybe you roll History to know something about the people you talking to. And then you can use that to give you a bonus to your Persuasion or Insight when dealing with them. That's a good use, but only if the DM and players know that's an option.
So what DnD needs to do is make more used for the underutilized skills. Things like the Study action. That was what I was trying to say. Int gets dumped because it's skills don't see much use, are DM dependant, or are used interchangeably with other skills. We need good solid uses for the skills, and better guidance for DMs on how to use them in other situations. None of it will stop the problem of locked plot, but it can help even out the usefulness of different stats and skills.
Sleight of Hand isn't the most popular skill because when you fail the Sleight of Hand check, you go to prison. Failing perception might get you into an ambush - but you can fight your way out of it, failing to sneak past the guards might get you into combat - but you can fight or maybe even talk your way out of it, but getting caught picking pockets gets you in trouble with the law because it's 100% illegal. And fighting your way out of it is way more troublesome. So usually it is left to rogues with their Expertise and Reliable Talent. But when the rogue does use it successfully, boy oh boy can it change the course of a fight or an entire story.
As for knowledge skills, there should be more codified uses and bonuses to them. At least they could grant bonus languages. I mean, the point of Intelligence is to procure information, isn't it?
As for knowledge skills, there should be more codified uses and bonuses to them. At least they could grant bonus languages. I mean, the point of Intelligence is to procure information, isn't it?
Proficiency in Intelligence skills providing extra languages actually makes a lot of sense. You could get Infernal, Celestial, maybe Deep Speech from Religion; some sort of ancient language from History; with Nature you could get Primordial, or any of the elemental languages (or Hook Horror); and Arcana could give you Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant (cause runes), or Sylvan.
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I have said in the past that the propensity for athletics and acrobatics to be used so interchangeably makes me want them to combine them into just 1 skill that sometimes uses strength and sometimes uses dex depending on the situation and GM discression.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand. Investigation is barely better since so many people aren't sure when to use it and just roll Perception most of the time instead. Intelligence has one of the least common saves. It isn't added to anything other than spell attacks and save DCs for 2 classes, one of which isn't fully supported. So when people are looking for a stat to dump, that's usually number one.
I would really love to see all of the stats have more useful applications and skills until they are closer to balanced. Unfortunately I don't see that happening if they want to be 'backwards compatible.' I get why they want to try that, and I know a lot of people at going to insist on it, but I think it is holding them back a lot on fixing bigger issues.
To be fair, as has been mentioned multiple times by now, the Study Action does exist in One D&D now.
If you want to know about something you're looking, just make an Intelligence check, and apply the most appropriate skill listed in the table to it.
And I get why they don't just bunch everything into one knowledge skill, because people specialize their knowledge, so it's weird to be able to just make a check to know pretty much anything.
That actually made it worse imo.
You can do something useful like you know kill the enemy or you can use you entire action to find out something that most likely wont help you much if at all. Unless they dramatically change monsters so are large % of them are immune to damage or something until you know their secret it will almost always be a worse use of your action.
I wasn't talking about using it in combat though. When I talk about using Intelligence-associated skills, I almost never talk about using them in combat.
But even so, the most useful info you can glean in combat is what save proficiencies it has, damage types they're resistant/immune/vulnerable to, and whether or not they have some weird sense like truesight or blindsight. That way, you don't waste resources trying to hit it with acid damage when it's immune to acid, or waste time trying to use illusions when it can see right through those, or waste resources using something like tasha's mind whip when it's awesome at Intelligence saves.
Out of combat its the same as before, its not really an action unless you have some ticking time bomb scenario and knowledge skills already existed and they pretty much all used int. And in combat that comes in handy like 1 time in 25 fights. So woo.
Sleight of Hand isn't the most popular skill because when you fail the Sleight of Hand check, you go to prison. Failing perception might get you into an ambush - but you can fight your way out of it, failing to sneak past the guards might get you into combat - but you can fight or maybe even talk your way out of it, but getting caught picking pockets gets you in trouble with the law because it's 100% illegal. And fighting your way out of it is way more troublesome. So usually it is left to rogues with their Expertise and Reliable Talent. But when the rogue does use it successfully, boy oh boy can it change the course of a fight or an entire story.
As for knowledge skills, there should be more codified uses and bonuses to them. At least they could grant bonus languages. I mean, the point of Intelligence is to procure information, isn't it?
Good point about the consequences of failure haha. Sleight of Hands has tons of uses outside of picking pockets. Otherwise the skill would just be called Pick Pockets. But yeah, that's the most common application people tend to think of, and the one most likely to result in trouble if you fail it. Maybe I should have picked a different example for my joke.
You used to get extra languages from high Int. That's a good idea to add some value to it again. I think it would be cool if that's how they locked out some of the more 'exotic' languages. But that might be overcomplicating things.
Out of combat its the same as before, its not really an action unless you have some ticking time bomb scenario and knowledge skills already existed and they pretty much all used int. And in combat that comes in handy like 1 time in 25 fights. So woo.
It's not the same as before, because it wasn't as concretely laid out as before. It didn't have that handy table before to tell you precisely what skill applies to which topic you're asking about. And it didn't clearly lay out that this has to be an Intelligence check. Now, you as a player can choose to explicitly Study something, and there's less ambiguity about how that will go.
That's the point of these new rules regarding the Study, Search, and Influence action. It makes clearer just what to do when they come up.
It being more clear the DM is nice but does not change how effective it is. It is pretty much exactly how it was before just easier to run as its more clear. And hey since I mostly DM making things clearer and more obvious I'm all for. That does not change how weak sauce the action is in or out of combat compared to most skills.
I have said in the past that the propensity for athletics and acrobatics to be used so interchangeably makes me want them to combine them into just 1 skill that sometimes uses strength and sometimes uses dex depending on the situation and GM discression.
Yeah that's kind of what I was saying about the knowledge skills. The way they were used in practice, they might as well have combined them. Though both cases annoy me somewhat the way they are commonly used.
Same with perception and investigation too. The Search and Study Actions don't completely help that one. They clear things up if you reference the charts, but they are kind of the opposite of how they used to be thought of in some ways.
It used to be the best way people could explain the difference between perception and investigation was to say that Perception was a cursory glance. And investigation was really searching a room for clues and figuring out what they meant. Now Perception is used in the Search action, which is just a case of the word they picked adding some confusion. And Investigation is now something you can do in 6 seconds, which feels weird. But hey, at least they are defined now I guess!
Yeah. The variant rule is now basically the default for 1d&d. Any skill you can justify using for any particular Action, the DM will probably let you use it.
From Expert Classes UA: "When you make an Ability Check, the rules or the DM determines whether a Skill Proficiency is relevant to the check. If you have a relevant Skill Proficiency, you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the roll. For example, if a rule refers to a Strength Check (Acrobatics or Athletics), you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the check if you have Acrobatics or Athletics Proficiency."
From Cleric and Species UA: "The Influence Skills table suggests which Skills are applicable when you make the Charisma Check, depending on the interaction that precedes the roll. [...] Animal Handling - Gently coaxing a Beast or a Monstrosity".
This is stated pretty clearly in the rules already. Probably just not explicitly enough.
It really bugs me that Animal Handling uses Charisma for one of its most common situations. I'm all for mixing up different abilities and skills, and have always used that rule in 5e. But this one being the default to influence a beast makes me sad. :/
"Influence" is the key word here. Influence=Charisma. Intelligence is knowledge, wisdom is awareness. Animal Handling is basically Insight, Persuasion, Intimidation, and Deception all rolled into one, but only affecting beasts and monstrosities. Using Animal Handling with Wisdomis about understanding the beast's mood and what it wants to convey with its behavior.
I don't know medical school seems to be pretty knowledge intensive. Yes observing the client is part of it but just as much if not more is recalling facts about what those observations could mean and remembering a course of action to treat it. Diagnosing will mostly be about recall. Medicine would actually make more sense under int than wisdom I suspect. It has mainly been there due to class reasons. I see no reason why Religion couldn't be the same for its sort of default normal use stat in 1dnd.
As for dump stats in general the game stats need more mechanical value on their own in the game. Go the 4e route is my suggestion. When it comes to initiative make it either dex or int whichever is higher for example. The hope a few tied in skills will cut it wont ever pan out. The stats need to be roughly on equal footing without any skill check being thought of especially when the game will be moving towards a more what stat does the DM want to use for that skill model.
And if you were tryto decern an animals mood I would allow animal handling instead of insight as part of the search action.
Charisma totally works for people and demons. But there are a lot of charismatic people in real life that just scare animals off. And a lot of people with what would be very low charisma that are wonderful with animals. With no special training needed on their part (eg skill proficiency).
A super intimidating dragonborn oath of conquest paladin is unlikely to get a squirrel to come get a snack by looming over it menacingly. A silver tongued Bard is not going to be able to calm a wolf by flirting with it. Either of those characters might be good with animals, but it won't be because of their overwhelming presence. That is more likely to spook the beast.
The Paladin might intimidate the animal. It might scare the wolf into submission. The Bard might play some music and gradually endear some animals with a performance. But neither of them are using their Charisma to shift the beasts attitude the way they would with a person. People that are good with handling animals and gaining their trust often have more subdued presence. And they often do it with intuition and empathy.
So Wisdom usually makes sense. It just feels like the better default to me. But WotC appears to have just wanted to make the chart look consistent. Which isn't a great reason if that's the case. It's not a big deal to me. I'm happy to just ignore it in my own game. It just doesn't make sense.
I really agree that the stats are fundamentally unequal. Every stat is important to some class. But for the other ones, they just don't carry the same weight. Some have more direct mechanical effects with their bonuses. Some are more common saves than others. Some have very useful skills and others have none at all. And some skills are more DM dependant than others.
Four out of five of the Intelligence skills could be rolled into one called Knowledge. It might then be used in the average game about as much as Sleight of Hand. Investigation is barely better since so many people aren't sure when to use it and just roll Perception most of the time instead. Intelligence has one of the least common saves. It isn't added to anything other than spell attacks and save DCs for 2 classes, one of which isn't fully supported. So when people are looking for a stat to dump, that's usually number one.
I would really love to see all of the stats have more useful applications and skills until they are closer to balanced. Unfortunately I don't see that happening if they want to be 'backwards compatible.' I get why they want to try that, and I know a lot of people at going to insist on it, but I think it is holding them back a lot on fixing bigger issues.
That's what I was talking about)
These are all quite ephemereal matters, they're very up to interpretation. Communication in itself is a two-way thing - you have to both read your collocutor, their disposition and their reactions, and to convey your point in the most persuasive (or manipulative) way. People that are adept at both are good with both humans and animals. But well, it is a game and it has to simplify things. I like to use all all three stats - Wis, Int, Cha - in a conversation. Insight to determine what your collocutor wants to hear, one of knowledge skills if you want to make a point related to these fields of expertise, and one of Cha skills to convey your argument in the best way possible. I just don't like it when the entire social pillar of the game is basically just Charisma checks.
But anyway, I share the sentiment that DnD could use a big ability score system overhaul, which won't happen because of backwards compatibility. I liked the stats and skills in Disco Elysium. Awesome game, one of a kind experience; I highly recommend it.
Huh? IME sleight of hand is pretty much never used -- the big skills are usually perception, stealth, and persuasion.
It’s been my experience that the Intelligence skills are all very useful, especially History and Investigation, and that Intelligence is rarely a total dump stat and that Strength is dumped far more often. Heck, I see Charisma dumped almost as often as Intelligence since not everyone in the party needs to be good at Charisma skills, but some folks need to be good at Intelligence skills.
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That actually made it worse imo.
You can do something useful like you know kill the enemy or you can use you entire action to find out something that most likely wont help you much if at all. Unless they dramatically change monsters so are large % of them are immune to damage or something until you know their secret it will almost always be a worse use of your action.
Haha, yeah that was the joke.
My sense of humor doesn't translate well in text (Nor in real life). Sleight of Hand doesn't see a ton of use, but it's still more than all of the knowledge skills combined at many DnD tables. You're definitely right - perception, stealth, and persuasion are by far some of the most common skills rolled. Insight too. Acrobatics and Athletics are used almost interchangeably in most games. If an action specifies that only Athletics be used, the Dexterity crowd gets upset.
Rather than quote everyone that responded to that post, I'll just try to be a little more clear in this one. :)
I'm not advocating for them to combine all the knowledge skills into one. I like them the way they are. I use them in my games. I'm just saying that they might as well, considering how little as they get used by most players. Not that I want them to. I'm also just using Intelligence as an example of a place that skills could use more benefits.
There are some problems with knowledge skills in DnD. They are very DM dependant, and even the DM has their hands tied. Because knowledge skills lock plot behind rolls.
A skill like Persuasion, Athletics, or Stealth is easy to use and see the benefits of. You want to get a discount on that sword? Roll Persuasion. You want to jump a gap? Roll Athletics. You want to sneak by the guards? Roll Stealth.
But what does a high History proficiency mean to the average player? They might take it because it fits their character concept. But when do they use it? Well, that depends on the DM. 1DnD has tried to give it a combat value with the new action. That may or may not be useful depending on the combats. It's a step in the right direction, but we will have to see how good of a step it is.
But the normal application is tricky. Not impossible, just more difficult than something like Perception, especially for new DMs and players. Because it's a key to the plot. The DM wants the players to uncover the plot. It's vital that they do. They can hide secrets to the plot behind knowledge checks. That definitely makes the skills more useful. But what happens when the characters fail their rolls? You are left with two bad options. You have to either give them the information another way, and in the process negate the value of the knowledge skill in the first place. Or you leave the information locked, and your plot suffers for it.
Another use might be to give you advantage in social situations. Maybe you roll History to know something about the people you talking to. And then you can use that to give you a bonus to your Persuasion or Insight when dealing with them. That's a good use, but only if the DM and players know that's an option.
So what DnD needs to do is make more used for the underutilized skills. Things like the Study action. That was what I was trying to say. Int gets dumped because it's skills don't see much use, are DM dependant, or are used interchangeably with other skills. We need good solid uses for the skills, and better guidance for DMs on how to use them in other situations. None of it will stop the problem of locked plot, but it can help even out the usefulness of different stats and skills.
Sleight of Hand isn't the most popular skill because when you fail the Sleight of Hand check, you go to prison. Failing perception might get you into an ambush - but you can fight your way out of it, failing to sneak past the guards might get you into combat - but you can fight or maybe even talk your way out of it, but getting caught picking pockets gets you in trouble with the law because it's 100% illegal. And fighting your way out of it is way more troublesome. So usually it is left to rogues with their Expertise and Reliable Talent. But when the rogue does use it successfully, boy oh boy can it change the course of a fight or an entire story.
As for knowledge skills, there should be more codified uses and bonuses to them. At least they could grant bonus languages. I mean, the point of Intelligence is to procure information, isn't it?
Proficiency in Intelligence skills providing extra languages actually makes a lot of sense. You could get Infernal, Celestial, maybe Deep Speech from Religion; some sort of ancient language from History; with Nature you could get Primordial, or any of the elemental languages (or Hook Horror); and Arcana could give you Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant (cause runes), or Sylvan.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
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I have said in the past that the propensity for athletics and acrobatics to be used so interchangeably makes me want them to combine them into just 1 skill that sometimes uses strength and sometimes uses dex depending on the situation and GM discression.
Out of combat its the same as before, its not really an action unless you have some ticking time bomb scenario and knowledge skills already existed and they pretty much all used int. And in combat that comes in handy like 1 time in 25 fights. So woo.
Good point about the consequences of failure haha. Sleight of Hands has tons of uses outside of picking pockets. Otherwise the skill would just be called Pick Pockets. But yeah, that's the most common application people tend to think of, and the one most likely to result in trouble if you fail it. Maybe I should have picked a different example for my joke.
You used to get extra languages from high Int. That's a good idea to add some value to it again. I think it would be cool if that's how they locked out some of the more 'exotic' languages. But that might be overcomplicating things.
It being more clear the DM is nice but does not change how effective it is. It is pretty much exactly how it was before just easier to run as its more clear. And hey since I mostly DM making things clearer and more obvious I'm all for. That does not change how weak sauce the action is in or out of combat compared to most skills.
Yeah that's kind of what I was saying about the knowledge skills. The way they were used in practice, they might as well have combined them. Though both cases annoy me somewhat the way they are commonly used.
Same with perception and investigation too. The Search and Study Actions don't completely help that one. They clear things up if you reference the charts, but they are kind of the opposite of how they used to be thought of in some ways.
It used to be the best way people could explain the difference between perception and investigation was to say that Perception was a cursory glance. And investigation was really searching a room for clues and figuring out what they meant. Now Perception is used in the Search action, which is just a case of the word they picked adding some confusion. And Investigation is now something you can do in 6 seconds, which feels weird. But hey, at least they are defined now I guess!