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.
Sleight of Hand is supposed to be a more comprehensive skill than just picking pockets. Wanna palm something without anyone noticing? Sleight of Hand. Wanna tie a knot in a rope to secure a prisoner or something and need to know how secure the knot is? Sleight of Hand. It’s supposed to be like Acrobatics for your hands.
I think recaling information about the creature you're fighting shouldn't take an action. It's not like you needed to scratch your chin doing "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" for 6 seconds straight to identify what you see.
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.
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!
If Acrobatics and Athletics are being used interchangeably its because the DM has no clue what they are each meant to represent as they are far, far from interchangeable in most circumstances. Athletics is a matter of endurance and stamina and using one’s body to proper advantage in gaining leverage, etc. Acrobatics is all about being able to twist one’s body in various ways and proper balance, etc. How is one to use Athletics to walk across a narrow ledge? Similarly how is one to use Acrobatics to swim across a channel?
Similarly, if Intelligence checks aren’t happening on a regular basis, it’s again only because the DM has no clue how to use them properly. If a player wants to know if their character knows something, it calls for an Intelligence check. That’s it, super easy to use. If the check involves anything magical in nature Arcana gets applied, if it involves anything even remotely religious or having to do with either the upper or lower planes then Religion is a safe bet, anything to do with the natural world is obviously gonna involve Nature, and pretty much any other esoteric knowledge that doesn’t fit into those three fits under History.
It isn’t about locking information behind ability checks. It’s about using ability checks to reveal additional information. Any DM who locks necessary information behind a single ability check is a fool, there should always be multiple routs to success. But having alternative ways to gain the information doesn’t negate the value of the check. Maybe the successful check would have gotten them the information faster, or more easily than the alternatives. Or perhaps the successful check might grant bonus information that might lead to the “extra credit” parts of the adventure or help tie in a side quest or something. There are lots of ways a DM can incorporate Intelligence checks into an adventure in interesting and valuable ways.
In addition, my table has always used the Skills With Different Abilities variant rule, which looks like it will be the standard for ability checks in 1DD. I can come up with ways to pair any skill with Intelligence in some ways or others, even Athletics. Doubt me? Remembering Baseball stats would be an Int (Athletics) check. 😜 But to give an in-game example, analyzing a competitor’s style or estimating their ability would also be Int (Athletics) checks. In that kind of environment, if you can’t find ways to use Intelligence checks then you’re just not trying.
The Search is nothing new, it has always existed in 5e. But it’s not just an in-combat action, every time you make a Wisdom Perception check, you’re taking the Search action. The same will go for the new Study action, it won’t just be an in-combat action. Investigation has absolutely nothing to do with searching a room and never really has. Investigation instead has everything to do with analyzing the clues one has found to suss out new information. That’s what the new Study action does for us. It doesn’t give us in-combat uses for Int checks, not really. It hat it does is help to codify what Intelligence checks and their related skills are for to help DMs use them properly. Make sense?
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.
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!
If Acrobatics and Athletics are being used interchangeably its because the DM has no clue what they are each meant to represent as they are far, far from interchangeable in most circumstances. Athletics is a matter of endurance and stamina and using one’s body to proper advantage in gaining leverage, etc. Acrobatics is all about being able to twist one’s body in various ways and proper balance, etc. How is one to use Athletics to walk across a narrow ledge? Similarly how is one to use Acrobatics to swim across a channel?
Similarly, if Intelligence checks aren’t happening on a regular basis, it’s again only because the DM has no clue how to use them properly. If a player wants to know if their character knows something, it calls for an Intelligence check. That’s it, super easy to use. If the check involves anything magical in nature Arcana gets applied, if it involves anything even remotely religious or having to do with either the upper or lower planes then Religion is a safe bet, anything to do with the natural world is obviously gonna involve Nature, and pretty much any other esoteric knowledge that doesn’t fit into those three fits under History.
It isn’t about locking information behind ability checks. It’s about using ability checks to reveal additional information. Any DM who locks necessary information behind a single ability check is a fool, there should always be multiple routs to success. But having alternative ways to gain the information doesn’t negate the value of the check. Maybe the successful check would have gotten them the information faster, or more easily than the alternatives. Or perhaps the successful check might grant bonus information that might lead to the “extra credit” parts of the adventure or help tie in a side quest or something. There are lots of ways a DM can incorporate Intelligence checks into an adventure in interesting and valuable ways.
In addition, my table has always used the Skills With Different Abilities variant rule, which looks like it will be the standard for ability checks in 1DD. I can come up with ways to pair any skill with Intelligence in some ways or others, even Athletics. Doubt me? Remembering Baseball stats would be an Int (Athletics) check. 😜 But to give an in-game example, analyzing a competitor’s style or estimating their ability would also be Int (Athletics) checks. In that kind of environment, if you can’t find ways to use Intelligence checks then you’re just not trying.
The Search is nothing new, it has always existed in 5e. But it’s not just an in-combat action, every time you make a Wisdom Perception check, you’re taking the Search action. The same will go for the new Study action, it won’t just be an in-combat action. Investigation has absolutely nothing to do with searching a room and never really has. Investigation instead has everything to do with analyzing the clues one has found to suss out new information. That’s what the new Study action does for us. It doesn’t give us in-combat uses for Int checks, not really. It hat it does is help to codify what Intelligence checks and their related skills are for to help DMs use them properly. Make sense?
You've done a great job giving examples of exactly what I said. That many of these skills are used incorrectly by people and they are heavily dependent on the DM.
I believe that I use all of them well at my own table, and have no issues with them as they are in 5e. I also use the variant rules for mixing up skills and ability scores for checks. But many people have a hard time with them. They aren't fools. They are just inexperienced. And explicit value makes skills more appealing to people who don't know how they can be used effectively. Which is why I said that WotC needs more concrete examples and uses that appear more valuable to people.
I feel like people just look for points to argue rather than read the whole post in context. Or I'm just really terrible at explaining myself. When I say that people play a certain way, I'm not saying that I do. I have almost no issues with 5e at all. But I am aware of the problems other DMs and players have. Both from lack of experience and different playstyles. And I would love for the game to work well for everyone.
No problem at all. I think it was the 'make sense?' part at the end that made it sound like you were trying to educate me on something I was being dumb about. Tone lost in text, and all that, haha. :)
This is probably unnecessary. But the last posts made me spend some time thinking about the Search and Study actions and how they apply to Perception and Investigation. Mostly I wanted to make sure I wasn't completely crazy. Here's some random thoughts on them.
The Search action in 5e says you use your action to try to find something. It gives two example skill rolls - Perception or Investigation.
The Perception skill says it is used to spot, hear, or detect something you wouldn't normally. It represents your awareness and keen senses.
The Investigation skill says it is for looking around for clues, and drawing deductions from those clues. It gives examples like figuring out where a hidden item is, what weapon made a wound, or poring through ancient scrolls.
So the Search action in 5e means looking for something. With Perception it's detecting things with your senses. For Investigation it is taking the time to study a room for clues, or a body, or a bunch of old scrolls, and then also for making deductions from that information.
Many players and DMs are confused over the part where both describe looking for something. Both skills are used to Search for things, as the name implies. But more characters have a higher Perception than Investigation. So when they say they want to look around a room for clues or a secret passage, players want to use Perception. DMs might argue its Investigation. But normally one way to justify that is by saying that really searching a room takes time. In older versions of DnD, searching a room took 10 minutes. In 5e, it's more vague. Investigation is also used for making deductions, but the part that many people use them interchangeably for is when looking for things. It happens all the time in live play games, and apparently so many actual tables that it has become a running joke.
This has all changed somewhat in 1DnD.
The Search action is looking for something that isn't obvious.
Insight - state of mind
Medicine - a creature's ailment
Perception - finding something concealed
Survival- tracks or food
The Search action is now looking for all kinds of things. Investigation isn't even a part of it now. By this description, Perception would now be used to look for clues or hidden passages. This seems to be a case of the game designers taking the way people already play the game and just saying 'sure, that's how it works now.'
Investigation is now part of the Study Action. The Study action is for thinking hard, reading a book, studying a creature, etc to either deduce something from it or recall something you know about it. The knowledge skills all get certain topics they cover.
Investigation is for traps, ciphers, riddles, and gadgets.
So now they are focusing Investigation just on the deduction part. The skill called Investigation isn't really for, well, investigating anymore. It's using the clues you found from searching to make deductions about their meaning, or the way they work. It's almost a knowledge skill now. It might be better to call it Deduction?
I think the reason people are saying this is 'in combat' now is because 1DnD has codified certain actions as taking 6 seconds by calling them Actions. In 5e there was some ambiguity. By saying Investigation could be used for poring through a library or searching a room for clues, there was room for the DM to say it could take minutes or hours or days. Investigation might be asked for during a Search action, but it might also just be a skill roll after some time spent doing a task.
That's still the case. If a character spends a day in a library, the DM could call for an Investigation roll. But by giving examples of what can be learned with an Action, they have in a way set an expectation that some of these things can be done in 6 seconds. A player could argue that they can find out what's wrong with a sick person in 6 seconds. They could do it in combat. They could argue that they can solve a riddle in that much time too.
And I think some people are hopeful that it means you can learn about a creature's resistances, attacks, etc by taking a Study action in combat. To give some tangible benefit to the skills. While others have pointed out that recalling a memory on a topic shouldn't even take a full action. It's weird because the more they codify things the more they create strange situations.
Now you can scan a crime scene in 6 seconds and find all the clues. A Thief can find food in the woods with just a Bonus Action. They can run past a body and say 'That guy was poisoned!'
Not that any of this was the intent of the rules. And people probably won't play it this way. But it has lead to questions. I remember people asking the same things about the Influence action. People wondered if they only had to spend 6 seconds taking to someone before they try to convince them of something. I don't know. I think the new rules help people understand what the skills are for. But calling them Actions might not be really helpful. Not sure what the best solution is. It would help if DnD had larger time periods again.
No problem at all. I think it was the 'make sense?' part at the end that made it sound like you were trying to educate me on something I was being dumb about. Tone lost in text, and all that, haha. :)
This is probably unnecessary. But the last posts made me spend some time thinking about the Search and Study actions and how they apply to Perception and Investigation. Mostly I wanted to make sure I wasn't completely crazy. Here's some random thoughts on them.
The Search action in 5e says you use your action to try to find something. It gives two example skill rolls - Perception or Investigation.
The Perception skill says it is used to spot, hear, or detect something you wouldn't normally. It represents your awareness and keen senses.
The Investigation skill says it is for looking around for clues, and drawing deductions from those clues. It gives examples like figuring out where a hidden item is, what weapon made a wound, or poring through ancient scrolls.
So the Search action in 5e means looking for something. With Perception it's detecting things with your senses. For Investigation it is taking the time to study a room for clues, or a body, or a bunch of old scrolls, and then also for making deductions from that information.
Many players and DMs are confused over the part where both describe looking for something. Both skills are used to Search for things, as the name implies. But more characters have a higher Perception than Investigation. So when they say they want to look around a room for clues or a secret passage, players want to use Perception. DMs might argue its Investigation. But normally one way to justify that is by saying that really searching a room takes time. In older versions of DnD, searching a room took 10 minutes. In 5e, it's more vague. Investigation is also used for making deductions, but the part that many people use them interchangeably for is when looking for things. It happens all the time in live play games, and apparently so many actual tables that it has become a running joke.
This has all changed somewhat in 1DnD.
The Search action is looking for something that isn't obvious.
Insight - state of mind
Medicine - a creature's ailment
Perception - finding something concealed
Survival- tracks or food
The Search action is now looking for all kinds of things. Investigation isn't even a part of it now. By this description, Perception would now be used to look for clues or hidden passages. This seems to be a case of the game designers taking the way people already play the game and just saying 'sure, that's how it works now.'
Investigation is now part of the Study Action. The Study action is for thinking hard, reading a book, studying a creature, etc to either deduce something from it or recall something you know about it. The knowledge skills all get certain topics they cover.
Investigation is for traps, ciphers, riddles, and gadgets.
So now they are focusing Investigation just on the deduction part. The skill called Investigation isn't really for, well, investigating anymore. It's using the clues you found from searching to make deductions about their meaning, or the way they work. It's almost a knowledge skill now. It might be better to call it Deduction?
I think the reason people are saying this is 'in combat' now is because 1DnD has codified certain actions as taking 6 seconds by calling them Actions. In 5e there was some ambiguity. By saying Investigation could be used for poring through a library or searching a room for clues, there was room for the DM to say it could take minutes or hours or days. Investigation might be asked for during a Search action, but it might also just be a skill roll after some time spent doing a task.
That's still the case. If a character spends a day in a library, the DM could call for an Investigation roll. But by giving examples of what can be learned with an Action, they have in a way set an expectation that some of these things can be done in 6 seconds. A player could argue that they can find out what's wrong with a sick person in 6 seconds. They could do it in combat. They could argue that they can solve a riddle in that much time too.
And I think some people are hopeful that it means you can learn about a creature's resistances, attacks, etc by taking a Study action in combat. To give some tangible benefit to the skills. While others have pointed out that recalling a memory on a topic shouldn't even take a full action. It's weird because the more they codify things the more they create strange situations.
Now you can scan a crime scene in 6 seconds and find all the clues. A Thief can find food in the woods with just a Bonus Action. They can run past a body and say 'That guy was poisoned!'
Not that any of this was the intent of the rules. And people probably won't play it this way. But it has lead to questions. I remember people asking the same things about the Influence action. People wondered if they only had to spend 6 seconds taking to someone before they try to convince them of something. I don't know. I think the new rules help people understand what the skills are for. But calling them Actions might not be really helpful. Not sure what the best solution is. It would help if DnD had larger time periods again.
Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
KEEN MIND
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Intelligence 13+
Repeatable: No
You have trained to rapidly recall or discover vital details, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Lore Knowledge. Choose one of the following Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion. If you lack Proficiency in the chosen Skill, you gain Proficiency in it, and if you have Proficiency in it, you gain Expertise in it.
Quick Study. You can take the Study Action as a Bonus Action
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
KEEN MIND
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Intelligence 13+
Repeatable: No
You have trained to rapidly recall or discover vital details, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Lore Knowledge. Choose one of the following Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion. If you lack Proficiency in the chosen Skill, you gain Proficiency in it, and if you have Proficiency in it, you gain Expertise in it.
Quick Study. You can take the Study Action as a Bonus Action
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
Thank you! I knew I forgot about one of them! I could only remember the Thief one. Yeah, this really does drive home the feeling that all of these should be normally completed in just seconds. And that there should be some combat benefit of doing it in battle.
Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
KEEN MIND
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Intelligence 13+
Repeatable: No
You have trained to rapidly recall or discover vital details, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Lore Knowledge. Choose one of the following Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion. If you lack Proficiency in the chosen Skill, you gain Proficiency in it, and if you have Proficiency in it, you gain Expertise in it.
Quick Study. You can take the Study Action as a Bonus Action
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
Thank you! I knew I forgot about one of them! I could only remember the Thief one. Yeah, this really does drive home the feeling that all of these should be normally completed in just seconds. And that there should be some combat benefit of doing it in battle.
Yeah, I hate it.
Edit: Hate maybe too strong a word, but I don't like it. You could always perform a skill check as an action, but no one really did. Setting it up in the rules as an "Action" with a capitol A creates the idea that it should have some impact on the course of the fight. However, that is just setting up the player to waste an Action or puts the DM on the spot to make up something worth while.
This is probably unnecessary. But the last posts made me spend some time thinking about the Search and Study actions and how they apply to Perception and Investigation. Mostly I wanted to make sure I wasn't completely crazy. Here's some random thoughts on them.
The Search action in 5e says you use your action to try to find something. It gives two example skill rolls - Perception or Investigation.
The Perception skill says it is used to spot, hear, or detect something you wouldn't normally. It represents your awareness and keen senses.
The Investigation skill says it is for looking around for clues, and drawing deductions from those clues. It gives examples like figuring out where a hidden item is, what weapon made a wound, or poring through ancient scrolls.
So the Search action in 5e means looking for something. With Perception it's detecting things with your senses. For Investigation it is taking the time to study a room for clues, or a body, or a bunch of old scrolls, and then also for making deductions from that information.
Many players and DMs are confused over the part where both describe looking for something. Both skills are used to Search for things, as the name implies. But more characters have a higher Perception than Investigation. So when they say they want to look around a room for clues or a secret passage, players want to use Perception. DMs might argue its Investigation. But normally one way to justify that is by saying that really searching a room takes time. In older versions of DnD, searching a room took 10 minutes. In 5e, it's more vague. Investigation is also used for making deductions, but the part that many people use them interchangeably for is when looking for things. It happens all the time in live play games, and apparently so many actual tables that it has become a running joke.
This has all changed somewhat in 1DnD.
The Search action is looking for something that isn't obvious.
Insight - state of mind
Medicine - a creature's ailment
Perception - finding something concealed
Survival- tracks or food
The Search action is now looking for all kinds of things. Investigation isn't even a part of it now. By this description, Perception would now be used to look for clues or hidden passages. This seems to be a case of the game designers taking the way people already play the game and just saying 'sure, that's how it works now.'
Investigation is now part of the Study Action. The Study action is for thinking hard, reading a book, studying a creature, etc to either deduce something from it or recall something you know about it. The knowledge skills all get certain topics they cover.
Investigation is for traps, ciphers, riddles, and gadgets.
So now they are focusing Investigation just on the deduction part. The skill called Investigation isn't really for, well, investigating anymore. It's using the clues you found from searching to make deductions about their meaning, or the way they work. It's almost a knowledge skill now. It might be better to call it Deduction?
I think the reason people are saying this is 'in combat' now is because 1DnD has codified certain actions as taking 6 seconds by calling them Actions. In 5e there was some ambiguity. By saying Investigation could be used for poring through a library or searching a room for clues, there was room for the DM to say it could take minutes or hours or days. Investigation might be asked for during a Search action, but it might also just be a skill roll after some time spent doing a task.
That's still the case. If a character spends a day in a library, the DM could call for an Investigation roll. But by giving examples of what can be learned with an Action, they have in a way set an expectation that some of these things can be done in 6 seconds. A player could argue that they can find out what's wrong with a sick person in 6 seconds. They could do it in combat. They could argue that they can solve a riddle in that much time too.
And I think some people are hopeful that it means you can learn about a creature's resistances, attacks, etc by taking a Study action in combat. To give some tangible benefit to the skills. While others have pointed out that recalling a memory on a topic shouldn't even take a full action. It's weird because the more they codify things the more they create strange situations.
Now you can scan a crime scene in 6 seconds and find all the clues. A Thief can find food in the woods with just a Bonus Action. They can run past a body and say 'That guy was poisoned!'
Not that any of this was the intent of the rules. And people probably won't play it this way. But it has lead to questions. I remember people asking the same things about the Influence action. People wondered if they only had to spend 6 seconds taking to someone before they try to convince them of something. I don't know. I think the new rules help people understand what the skills are for. But calling them Actions might not be really helpful. Not sure what the best solution is. It would help if DnD had larger time periods again.
Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
KEEN MIND
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Intelligence 13+
Repeatable: No
You have trained to rapidly recall or discover vital details, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Lore Knowledge. Choose one of the following Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion. If you lack Proficiency in the chosen Skill, you gain Proficiency in it, and if you have Proficiency in it, you gain Expertise in it.
Quick Study. You can take the Study Action as a Bonus Action
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
Just because it’s an action that can be used in combat doesn’t mean it’s strictly a “combat action.”
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.
What sort of change do you want to see with this then? What are your expectations for this in and out of combat to make it less weak-sauce in your view? Or do you just think we should discard knowledge checks entirely, because there's little point to them?
They should not take an action of any kind to do. But the main thing they need to do is give intelligence some mechanical heft on its own.
Maybe perhaps knowing something is not the same as +5 to your AC.
Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
KEEN MIND
4th-Level Feat
Prerequisite: Intelligence 13+
Repeatable: No
You have trained to rapidly recall or discover vital details, granting you the following benefits:
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Lore Knowledge. Choose one of the following Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion. If you lack Proficiency in the chosen Skill, you gain Proficiency in it, and if you have Proficiency in it, you gain Expertise in it.
Quick Study. You can take the Study Action as a Bonus Action
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
Thank you! I knew I forgot about one of them! I could only remember the Thief one. Yeah, this really does drive home the feeling that all of these should be normally completed in just seconds. And that there should be some combat benefit of doing it in battle.
Yeah, I hate it.
Edit: Hate maybe too strong a word, but I don't like it. You could always perform a skill check as an action, but no one really did. Setting it up in the rules as an "Action" with a capitol A creates the idea that it should have some impact on the course of the fight. However, that is just setting up the player to waste an Action or puts the DM on the spot to make up something worth while.
As bad as I think those are being defined as an action I still think jump is the worst. Like in combat I think most players will quickly realize its a sub par action the vast majority of times. There will be niche situations with hidden enemies/traps/illusions or enemies with weird immunities that somehow disguise the fact that the fireball did not burn them. But jump burning your action to jump more than 5 feet, holy crap that is a melee nerf. I'd feel like a bully DM setting up a fight with enemies across a ravine that they can jump.
I think if WotC made it so that knowledge skills allow you to know monster stats and languages, these skills would be way more useful and popular. Being able to "scan" monsters for vulnerabilities and low saving throws can be invaluable.
I think recaling information about the creature you're fighting shouldn't take an action. It's not like you needed to scratch your chin doing "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" for 6 seconds straight to identify what you see.
I would agree that it is silly that the base rule for these checks is a full action in combat. I think maybe a bonus action would be better, and if they want to keep some advantage in this area for the feats that have been proposed in the playtest, make it a free action for those characters who have taken them.
I think if WotC made it so that knowledge skills allow you to know monster stats and languages, these skills would be way more useful and popular. Being able to "scan" monsters for vulnerabilities and low saving throws can be invaluable.
Why do you guys think Intelligence skills are useless? Arcana is required to disarm magical traps, Investigation is required to identify traps. Nature and Arcana are required to identify what a monster is (DMs really should stop using official D&D art so that players can't metagame what every monster is), and any weakness/resistances it has - yes this requires an action but that's because sneaking up on a monster, investigating a previous attack by the monster, or researching the monster before heading out to fight it are supposed to be "a thing" that parties do. D&D isn't supposed to be a horror movies where random monsters just jump out at the party with no foreshadowing. History and Religion should be crucial to determining the enemy's plot and figuring out how to foil them, however DMs usually make this irrelevant because they want to keep the plot moving rather than forcing the party to stop and go find a historian or academic to ask what is going on.
Most skills aren't useful in combat (when was the last time you pickpocketed someone in the middle of a combat?), and aren't supposed to be useful in combat, because combat is just 1 of 3 pillars. Skills are crucial for the two other pillars.
If you're playing hack-and-slash D&D then sure intelligence is useless but so is Charisma and Wisdom, but I'd argue that isn't the only way to play D&D and probably isn't even the dominant way to play D&D.
They should not take an action of any kind to do. But the main thing they need to do is give intelligence some mechanical heft on its own.
Maybe perhaps knowing something is not the same as +5 to your AC.
What I was hoping for were ideas or suggestions. This is still too vague.
I put forward knowing a creature's stats basically (and kamchatmonk also suggested the same thing later), and you shot it down by saying it'd be useful in 1 of 25 cases. So I want to know what you have in mind that would catapult this to non-weak-sauce territory, because so far I get the impression that you think the knowledge skills are a lost cause.
They could always take a very different approach and make lowering your Intelligence impose penalties to your character. You are worse at using your skills, you are worse at language, something along those lines. If you have the same Intelligence score as a giant ape on your character sheet, being able to read, write, and speak like an average human probably shouldn't make a lot of sense.
The easiest way to make intelligence matter, would be to have your Intelligence modifier be a benefit or penalty to your number of skill proficiencies.
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Sleight of Hand is supposed to be a more comprehensive skill than just picking pockets. Wanna palm something without anyone noticing? Sleight of Hand. Wanna tie a knot in a rope to secure a prisoner or something and need to know how secure the knot is? Sleight of Hand. It’s supposed to be like Acrobatics for your hands.
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I think recaling information about the creature you're fighting shouldn't take an action. It's not like you needed to scratch your chin doing "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" for 6 seconds straight to identify what you see.
If Acrobatics and Athletics are being used interchangeably its because the DM has no clue what they are each meant to represent as they are far, far from interchangeable in most circumstances. Athletics is a matter of endurance and stamina and using one’s body to proper advantage in gaining leverage, etc. Acrobatics is all about being able to twist one’s body in various ways and proper balance, etc. How is one to use Athletics to walk across a narrow ledge? Similarly how is one to use Acrobatics to swim across a channel?
Similarly, if Intelligence checks aren’t happening on a regular basis, it’s again only because the DM has no clue how to use them properly. If a player wants to know if their character knows something, it calls for an Intelligence check. That’s it, super easy to use. If the check involves anything magical in nature Arcana gets applied, if it involves anything even remotely religious or having to do with either the upper or lower planes then Religion is a safe bet, anything to do with the natural world is obviously gonna involve Nature, and pretty much any other esoteric knowledge that doesn’t fit into those three fits under History.
It isn’t about locking information behind ability checks. It’s about using ability checks to reveal additional information. Any DM who locks necessary information behind a single ability check is a fool, there should always be multiple routs to success. But having alternative ways to gain the information doesn’t negate the value of the check. Maybe the successful check would have gotten them the information faster, or more easily than the alternatives. Or perhaps the successful check might grant bonus information that might lead to the “extra credit” parts of the adventure or help tie in a side quest or something. There are lots of ways a DM can incorporate Intelligence checks into an adventure in interesting and valuable ways.
In addition, my table has always used the Skills With Different Abilities variant rule, which looks like it will be the standard for ability checks in 1DD. I can come up with ways to pair any skill with Intelligence in some ways or others, even Athletics. Doubt me? Remembering Baseball stats would be an Int (Athletics) check. 😜 But to give an in-game example, analyzing a competitor’s style or estimating their ability would also be Int (Athletics) checks. In that kind of environment, if you can’t find ways to use Intelligence checks then you’re just not trying.
The Search is nothing new, it has always existed in 5e. But it’s not just an in-combat action, every time you make a Wisdom Perception check, you’re taking the Search action. The same will go for the new Study action, it won’t just be an in-combat action. Investigation has absolutely nothing to do with searching a room and never really has. Investigation instead has everything to do with analyzing the clues one has found to suss out new information. That’s what the new Study action does for us. It doesn’t give us in-combat uses for Int checks, not really. It hat it does is help to codify what Intelligence checks and their related skills are for to help DMs use them properly. Make sense?
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You've done a great job giving examples of exactly what I said. That many of these skills are used incorrectly by people and they are heavily dependent on the DM.
I believe that I use all of them well at my own table, and have no issues with them as they are in 5e. I also use the variant rules for mixing up skills and ability scores for checks. But many people have a hard time with them. They aren't fools. They are just inexperienced. And explicit value makes skills more appealing to people who don't know how they can be used effectively. Which is why I said that WotC needs more concrete examples and uses that appear more valuable to people.
I feel like people just look for points to argue rather than read the whole post in context. Or I'm just really terrible at explaining myself. When I say that people play a certain way, I'm not saying that I do. I have almost no issues with 5e at all. But I am aware of the problems other DMs and players have. Both from lack of experience and different playstyles. And I would love for the game to work well for everyone.
I wasn’t really arguing with you, just having a conversation. Not all discussions are disagreements.
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No problem at all. I think it was the 'make sense?' part at the end that made it sound like you were trying to educate me on something I was being dumb about. Tone lost in text, and all that, haha. :)
Thanks Crawling_Chaos. :)
It is definitely hard to navigate intent sometimes.
This is probably unnecessary. But the last posts made me spend some time thinking about the Search and Study actions and how they apply to Perception and Investigation. Mostly I wanted to make sure I wasn't completely crazy. Here's some random thoughts on them.
The Search action in 5e says you use your action to try to find something. It gives two example skill rolls - Perception or Investigation.
The Perception skill says it is used to spot, hear, or detect something you wouldn't normally. It represents your awareness and keen senses.
The Investigation skill says it is for looking around for clues, and drawing deductions from those clues. It gives examples like figuring out where a hidden item is, what weapon made a wound, or poring through ancient scrolls.
So the Search action in 5e means looking for something. With Perception it's detecting things with your senses. For Investigation it is taking the time to study a room for clues, or a body, or a bunch of old scrolls, and then also for making deductions from that information.
Many players and DMs are confused over the part where both describe looking for something. Both skills are used to Search for things, as the name implies. But more characters have a higher Perception than Investigation. So when they say they want to look around a room for clues or a secret passage, players want to use Perception. DMs might argue its Investigation. But normally one way to justify that is by saying that really searching a room takes time. In older versions of DnD, searching a room took 10 minutes. In 5e, it's more vague. Investigation is also used for making deductions, but the part that many people use them interchangeably for is when looking for things. It happens all the time in live play games, and apparently so many actual tables that it has become a running joke.
This has all changed somewhat in 1DnD.
The Search action is looking for something that isn't obvious.
Insight - state of mind
Medicine - a creature's ailment
Perception - finding something concealed
Survival- tracks or food
The Search action is now looking for all kinds of things. Investigation isn't even a part of it now. By this description, Perception would now be used to look for clues or hidden passages. This seems to be a case of the game designers taking the way people already play the game and just saying 'sure, that's how it works now.'
Investigation is now part of the Study Action. The Study action is for thinking hard, reading a book, studying a creature, etc to either deduce something from it or recall something you know about it. The knowledge skills all get certain topics they cover.
Investigation is for traps, ciphers, riddles, and gadgets.
So now they are focusing Investigation just on the deduction part. The skill called Investigation isn't really for, well, investigating anymore. It's using the clues you found from searching to make deductions about their meaning, or the way they work. It's almost a knowledge skill now. It might be better to call it Deduction?
I think the reason people are saying this is 'in combat' now is because 1DnD has codified certain actions as taking 6 seconds by calling them Actions. In 5e there was some ambiguity. By saying Investigation could be used for poring through a library or searching a room for clues, there was room for the DM to say it could take minutes or hours or days. Investigation might be asked for during a Search action, but it might also just be a skill roll after some time spent doing a task.
That's still the case. If a character spends a day in a library, the DM could call for an Investigation roll. But by giving examples of what can be learned with an Action, they have in a way set an expectation that some of these things can be done in 6 seconds. A player could argue that they can find out what's wrong with a sick person in 6 seconds. They could do it in combat. They could argue that they can solve a riddle in that much time too.
And I think some people are hopeful that it means you can learn about a creature's resistances, attacks, etc by taking a Study action in combat. To give some tangible benefit to the skills. While others have pointed out that recalling a memory on a topic shouldn't even take a full action. It's weird because the more they codify things the more they create strange situations.
Now you can scan a crime scene in 6 seconds and find all the clues. A Thief can find food in the woods with just a Bonus Action. They can run past a body and say 'That guy was poisoned!'
Not that any of this was the intent of the rules. And people probably won't play it this way. But it has lead to questions. I remember people asking the same things about the Influence action. People wondered if they only had to spend 6 seconds taking to someone before they try to convince them of something. I don't know. I think the new rules help people understand what the skills are for. But calling them Actions might not be really helpful. Not sure what the best solution is. It would help if DnD had larger time periods again.
Ahh. I was just asking if it all made sense. Lol.
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Part of where they get the Study Action in combat is from things like this:
As you can see, making a Bonus action is clearly show that this is combat action, otherwise feature has no meaning.
Edit: I have no idea why it formatted it that way.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Thank you! I knew I forgot about one of them! I could only remember the Thief one. Yeah, this really does drive home the feeling that all of these should be normally completed in just seconds. And that there should be some combat benefit of doing it in battle.
Yeah, I hate it.
Edit: Hate maybe too strong a word, but I don't like it. You could always perform a skill check as an action, but no one really did. Setting it up in the rules as an "Action" with a capitol A creates the idea that it should have some impact on the course of the fight. However, that is just setting up the player to waste an Action or puts the DM on the spot to make up something worth while.
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Just because it’s an action that can be used in combat doesn’t mean it’s strictly a “combat action.”
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They should not take an action of any kind to do. But the main thing they need to do is give intelligence some mechanical heft on its own.
Maybe perhaps knowing something is not the same as +5 to your AC.
As bad as I think those are being defined as an action I still think jump is the worst. Like in combat I think most players will quickly realize its a sub par action the vast majority of times. There will be niche situations with hidden enemies/traps/illusions or enemies with weird immunities that somehow disguise the fact that the fireball did not burn them. But jump burning your action to jump more than 5 feet, holy crap that is a melee nerf. I'd feel like a bully DM setting up a fight with enemies across a ravine that they can jump.
I think if WotC made it so that knowledge skills allow you to know monster stats and languages, these skills would be way more useful and popular. Being able to "scan" monsters for vulnerabilities and low saving throws can be invaluable.
I would agree that it is silly that the base rule for these checks is a full action in combat. I think maybe a bonus action would be better, and if they want to keep some advantage in this area for the feats that have been proposed in the playtest, make it a free action for those characters who have taken them.
I fully agree.
Why do you guys think Intelligence skills are useless? Arcana is required to disarm magical traps, Investigation is required to identify traps. Nature and Arcana are required to identify what a monster is (DMs really should stop using official D&D art so that players can't metagame what every monster is), and any weakness/resistances it has - yes this requires an action but that's because sneaking up on a monster, investigating a previous attack by the monster, or researching the monster before heading out to fight it are supposed to be "a thing" that parties do. D&D isn't supposed to be a horror movies where random monsters just jump out at the party with no foreshadowing. History and Religion should be crucial to determining the enemy's plot and figuring out how to foil them, however DMs usually make this irrelevant because they want to keep the plot moving rather than forcing the party to stop and go find a historian or academic to ask what is going on.
Most skills aren't useful in combat (when was the last time you pickpocketed someone in the middle of a combat?), and aren't supposed to be useful in combat, because combat is just 1 of 3 pillars. Skills are crucial for the two other pillars.
If you're playing hack-and-slash D&D then sure intelligence is useless but so is Charisma and Wisdom, but I'd argue that isn't the only way to play D&D and probably isn't even the dominant way to play D&D.
The easiest way to make intelligence matter, would be to have your Intelligence modifier be a benefit or penalty to your number of skill proficiencies.