Skills
We play with a simplified set of rules around skills, designed to reduce the relationship between classes and skills.
New Skill System
All class skill lists are eliminated, and replaced with the following table indicating how many skill proficiencies each class gets:
| Class | Starting Proficiencies | Multiclass Proficiencies |
|---|---|---|
| Artifcier | 2 | 0 |
| Barbarian | 2 | 0 |
| Bard | 3 | 1 |
| Cleric | 2 | 0 |
| Druid | 2 | 0 |
| Fighter | 2 | 0 |
| Monk | 2 | 0 |
| Paladin | 2 | 0 |
| Ranger | 3 | 1 |
| Rogue | 4 | 1 |
| Sorcerer | 2 | 0 |
| Warlock | 2 | 0 |
| Wizard | 2 | 0 |
| #### Using Skill Proficiencies | ||
| The ‘Expertise’ feature is eliminated. Instead, any skill proficiency can be used in the following ways: | ||
| * Become Proficient in a skill | ||
| * Become Expert (double-proficiency bonus) in a skill you are already Proficient in | ||
| * Become Trained (half-proficiency bonus) in two skills | ||
| * Gain 3 competencies |
Trained is a minor benefit except for the skills (see below) where some training is required to even attempt them.
Gaining Skill Proficiencies
All characters gain a bonus proficiency at level 7th, and another one at level 13th. In addition, any character class that previously gained the Expertise feature at certain levels now gains bonus proficiencies equal to the number of skills they would have gained Expertise in.
Skills and Skill Changes
This re-lists the skills from Player’s Handbook, for reference. Changes from RAW are in italic.
Strength Skills
Athletics. Climbing, jumping, running, swimming. Can generally be attempted untrained.
Dexterity Skills
Acrobatics. Balance, cartwheels, dives, dodging. Can generally be attempted untrained.
Sleight of Hand. Pickpocketing, lock picking, disarming traps, tying and escaping from ropes or bonds, planting objects on someone. Some limited uses can be attempted untrained but not lock picking or disarming traps.
Stealth. Hiding and being unnoticed. Can always be attempted untrained.
Intelligence Skills
Arcana. Spells, magic items, how magic works, other planes, magical traditions, gods and magic, souls, the afterlife pantheons and realities of deities. Can never be attempted untrained.
History. Facts and lore about the past. Can never be attempted untrained.
Investigation. Searching for clues, hidden treasure, secret doors, research in libraries. Can generally be attempted untrained.
Nature. Knowledge of plants, animals, terrain, weather, seasons. Can never be attempted untrained.
Religion. No longer exists.
Society. Knowledge of human and non-human culture, current events, geopolitics, trade routes, lore about current rulers, religious orders, rituals of various gods. Can generally not be attempted untrained.
Wisdom Skills
Animal Handling. Skill in calming animals, controlling mounts. Can generally not be attempted untrained, but see Special Competencies below for more information on riding.
Insight. Intentions and emotional state of someone else. Can always be attempted untrained.
Medicine. Healing, herbalism, knowledge of human anatomy, first aid. Can be used to diagnose an illness, figure out the cause of death, or stabilize a dying creature. Can never be attempted untrained, but see Special Competencies below for more information on first aid.
Perception. Finding something hidden, noticing ambushes, sneaking, spotting things that are easy to miss. Can always be attempted untrained.
Survival. Tracking, hunting, guide through dangerous terrain, predict the weather, identify clues in the wilderness. Can generally not be attempted untrained.
Charisma Skills
Deception. Lying, hide the truth, fast-talking. Can always be attempted untrained.
Intimidation. Influencing others through threats and violence. Hostile interrogation, scaring people. Can always be attempted untrained.
Performance. Delighting an audience with music, dance, storytelling. Can generally be attempted untrained.
Persuasion. Influencing others through tact, good nature, diplomacy. Can always be attempted untrained.
Special Rules
Research and Information Gathering
The Investigation skill (or a specific competency, like Research) can be used to discover information you don’t know. This always takes a fair bit of time, and is therefore not a substitute for History or Nature, which indicates the knowledge base your character has.
To investigate a topic, first you need to state the topic or question you will be investigating, and be in a place where there are some resources to help you. You can’t investigate the history of Semara in a dungeon in the mountains!
Once you have started investigating, the GM will indicate:
- The initial DC (usually between 9 and 16)
- How long each investigation roll takes
This might vary based on specific game facts, i.e. if you know additional languages or have access to a specific library the initial DC might be lower, or the time for each roll might be lower.
The investigation then begins, with the player making a roll. The player can continue making rolls for as long as they wish until they get two failures in a row, at which point no further information on this topic can be found.
Each success increases the DC by 2. If the roll beats the DC by 10 or more, the DC does not increase. A critical success counts as 2 successes.
In general:
- 1-2 successes means some useful information was found, but rarely anything secret or esoteric and rarely all of the information that was available
- 3-4 successes means most of the mundane information is found, and perhaps one or two unusual facts
- 5-8 successes means that all of the reasonable mundane information to be found was, and if any esoteric or secret knowledge could be discovered, it probably is
- 9+ successes would usually mean some key piece of secret knowledge is discovered beyond plausibility, i.e. you discover a hidden scroll or something
But this all depends a little bit on what information could plausibly be found. Looking for the secret name of a fey lord in a small hamlet that has never heard of the fey is not going to be successful no matter how many successes a player gets.
Once the player has decided to stop gathering information, they take a couple of hours and make one more roll - to synthesize the gathered information. The DC for this roll depends somewhat on the number of successes. The more information, the easier it is to synthesize. But it would usually be between 5 and 12, depending on the specifics. It could be higher for more esoteric information though.
The syntheses roll helps determine how accurate the information is. Obviously, some information will always be mysterious, but a very poor synthesis roll might result in 2 options that sound plausible with no idea which is correct.
Medicine Skill and First Aid
In general, unless a character specifically doesn’t have the First Aid competency, the following are allowed with 10 minutes of effort:
- Awaken an unconscious comrade
- Keep a fallen non-monstrous humanoid from dying
The following additional actions are possible with a Medicine skill proficiency:
- As part of a long rest, reduce the number of wounds a character has by 1 (DC 10+wound level)
- As an action, grant advantage on a Constitution check to stay conscious while dying