Competencies
In addition to skills, this house rule introduces the concept of a competency. A competency is relatively small thing (less broad than a skill) that your character knows how to do or is good at. Good competencies would include:
- Limited subsets of existing skills (“Local history of Embry”, “The rituals of the Dunmari cult of Bishma”, “Hunting”, “first aid”, “swimming”)
- Knowledge of specific instruments,forms of entertainment (“poetry”, “lute”, “singing”)
- Random knowledge skills that don’t fit nicely into the main knowledge skills (“astronomy”, “cooking”, “geology”)
- Professional skills (“soldier”, “sailor”, “merchant”, “carpentry”)
- Unclassified abilities (“disguise”, “forgery”, “poison-making”, “gambling”)
- Random color (“wine connoisseur”, “flower arranging”, “heraldry”)
In addition, with the exception of thieves’ tools, a competency can be spent to learn any standard D&D tool proficiency, as well as any of the Taelgar-appropriate languages.
Starting Competencies
All characters start with 5 competencies, as well as a number of languages defined by your species. You can replace one of your species starting language with a competency, if you wish. In addition, some classes gain bonus competencies at first level or on multiclassing as per the following table. Classes that are not listed do not gain bonus competencies.
| Class | Level 1 Competencies | Multiclass Competencies |
|---|---|---|
| Artifcier | 3 | 2 |
| Bard | 3 | 1 |
| Druid | 1 | 0 |
| Monk | 1 | 0 |
| Rogue | 1 | 1 |
Notes
The follow class features are replaced with competencies, which are not included in the table above:
* Rogue’s Thieves Cant: 2 competencies
* Ranger’s Deft Explorer (Languages): 2 competencies
Gaining Competencies
At 3rd level, and every other level afterwards (5th, 7th, 9th, etc) all characters gain a bonus competency. These competencies can only be gained after some plausible in-game event: downtime with a teacher, practice, etc. In some cases this might mean that the actual gain of a competency is delayed by a session or two from when the character gains a new level. In other cases, it might be that practice or training during the previous level results in getting the competency on level up.
Game Effect of Competencies
Most competencies act like skills: they give you proficiency bonus on some ability check you are trying to make. For many competencies, having the competency is necessary for even attempting the check. In other cases, it may be something you can do untrained.
In you have both a skill and a competency, depending on the specific game situation, you might:
- Gain advantage on the skill check
- Not have disadvantage on the skill check (where someone without the competency would have disadvantage)
- Be able to try something with your skill that otherwise would be impossible
In general, the idea is to apply common sense, and use the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic as a way to avoid numbers inflation.
Special Competencies
A handful of abilities are things that all characters can do, but not necessarily well. This includes:
| Competency | Game Effect if you don’t have it |
|---|---|
| Swimming | You must make a DC 8 STR check to not drown anytime you are in water over your head. You have disadvantage in situations where characters who know how to swim would make checks. |
| Climbing | You must make a DC 8 STR check to climb anything at all. You have disadvantage in situations where characters who know how to climb would make checks. |
| Reading and Writing | You can’t decipher written language nor write anything yourself |
| Arithmetic | You can’t add or subtract even small sums and are largely innumerate. You have disadvantage when haggling or selling items, and in any social situation where math might be relevant. |
| Riding | You must have a DC 8 DEX check to stay on horseback in any situation. You have disadvantage in situations where characters who know how to ride would make checks. |
| First Aid | You may not attempt to stabilize dying creatures. |
For all of these, a character by default can “do the thing”. If anyone wants their character to not be able to “do the thing”, you can take a bonus competency in exchange. Also, all of the above are eligible to be competencies, allowing you to apply your proficiency bonus to roles.
For example, all characters can swim by default, and in a situation where a check is needed, would make a straight STR check. If anyone wants to not be able to swim, you can note “unable to swim” on your character sheet and take a bonus competency instead.
If you want to be good at all athletics skills, you should take Athletics. But if you wanted to be JUST good at swimming, you could take the Swimming competency which would then allow you to add your proficiency bonus to your STR check when swimming only.