D&D 5E Some Skill Questions & Commentary

[CM]

Reducing falling damage: Playtest rules mention that you stay standing after a fall if you avoid taking falling damage, but there doesn't appear to be any way to do so other than magic. Acrobatics doesn't mention it. I'd probably rule it a Dex save with Acrobatics skill proficiency adding proficiency bonus, DC 15 to reduce fall distance by 10', DC 20 for 20', DC 25 for 30', etc.

Stacking skills and tools: Alice and Bob are scaling a wall. Alice is proficient in Athletics and Bob is proficient in the climber's kit. Both roll a Strength check and add their proficiency bonus. If Alice becomes proficient in the climber's kit too, she doesn't appear to gain any benefit from it. It seems to me if a tool completely duplicates a skill's effect and you are trained in both, you should get advantage, but there's nothing hard and fast in the rules AFAICT.

Perform Skill: not having modes of performance specified doesn't really sit well with me, but I fully understand the need for simplicity.

Tool Proficiencies: Anybody have any new homebrew tools? Also, I wish the adventuring gear lists denoted which items were tools with an asterisk or something. What is a tool proficiency "worth" compared to a skill proficiency? It seems some, like thieves tools are pretty significant.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Falling Damage: They are probably just indicating a general rule so that it will apply to any situations where falling damage can be reduced to zero. For instance, a monk has slow fall, which allows them to reduce falling damage to zero. You're free to create rules for anyone to give it a try (if you want to, you're even encouraged to in this edition!), but it is unlikely that is the intent of the written rules.

Stacking: Skills and tools do not stack. We're looking at outdated playtest documents. When the 5e game begins to roll out next month, they will most likely address this issue by allowing tools to have non-redundant functions.

Perform: It's also not just about simplicity, it's about value for your skill slot. Skills such as History or Arcana give you access to vast bodies of knowledge, Perception is absurdly valuable to any adventurer, and Stealth is a must have for many characters. If you had to take Perform multiple times based on type of performance, it would require you to weaken your character significantly if you wanted to be trained in multiple types of performance, by missing out on other choices. I personally take non-optimized character choices for role-playing purposes regularly, but that would just be adding insult to injury with how precious your few skills are.

Thieves' Tools: In the playtest thieves' tools were uniquely powerful. Balanced more like a skill than like any of the other tools. Depending on how you chose to read it, you might even have been required to be proficient to attempt to open locks (it can be interpreted either way). It looks like they may be maintaining its "king of tools" status, but we'll have to see.

Remember, you'll be able to see the final game implementation on July 3rd. Right now we're looking at information that is 9 months old.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Stacking skills and tools: Alice and Bob are scaling a wall. Alice is proficient in Athletics and Bob is proficient in the climber's kit. Both roll a Strength check and add their proficiency bonus. If Alice becomes proficient in the climber's kit too, she doesn't appear to gain any benefit from it. It seems to me if a tool completely duplicates a skill's effect and you are trained in both, you should get advantage, but there's nothing hard and fast in the rules AFAICT.

Perform Skill: not having modes of performance specified doesn't really sit well with me, but I fully understand the need for simplicity.

Perform is actually an interesting case for stacking skills and tools as well, since in the final play test documents, Bards were given proficiency in a certain number of musical instruments as tools. Further, since there was no list of sets of instruments, a bard could be trained in "lyre" but not be proficient with a magic zither (since, y'know, they're so different). (more -- see below)

Tool Proficiencies: Anybody have any new homebrew tools? Also, I wish the adventuring gear lists denoted which items were tools with an asterisk or something. What is a tool proficiency "worth" compared to a skill proficiency? It seems some, like thieves tools are pretty significant.

For a while I was nodding around with "tool" proficiencies with some things that weren't tools, but were binary on/off abilities, where if you didn't know them, ability alone wouldn't do. Things like "literacy" and "swimming" and (as eventually implemented) mounts -- something where the choice to do something required an up-front investment by the character, but most adventurers would never know they hadn't invested (esp in a pre-industrial [fantasy] society). I think the system worked, and I offered it in a feedback report, but I don't have any expectations of it being implemented to the degree that seems sensible to me.

I also wanted to cascade some proficiencies (such as gaming set and instruments), where players would choose a class of items from a discrete list.

So for gaming, I had Dice, Cards, Chess to reflect different broad categories. For instruments I had Strings, Wind, Voice, Percussion. This degree of specialization made some strategic investment for players, without ever totally screwing them over, but still allowing those proficient in the tool to be meaningfully better than those non proficient.

Proficiencies are "cheaper" than skills, but still a resource players need to commit.


[Edit: I also wanted rogues not to get Thieves' tools from their class automatically (or at most for it to be a choice from the *skills* they chose), and for the primary way to be proficient in thieves tools is from a Guild Thief background. Again, players need to choose to invest.]

 

[CM]

For a while I was nodding around with "tool" proficiencies with some things that weren't tools, but were binary on/off abilities, where if you didn't know them, ability alone wouldn't do. Things like "literacy" and "swimming" and (as eventually implemented) mounts -- something where the choice to do something required an up-front investment by the character, but most adventurers would never know they hadn't invested (esp in a pre-industrial [fantasy] society). I think the system worked, and I offered it in a feedback report, but I don't have any expectations of it being implemented to the degree that seems sensible to me.

I also wanted to cascade some proficiencies (such as gaming set and instruments), where players would choose a class of items from a discrete list.

So for gaming, I had Dice, Cards, Chess to reflect different broad categories. For instruments I had Strings, Wind, Voice, Percussion. This degree of specialization made some strategic investment for players, without ever totally screwing them over, but still allowing those proficient in the tool to be meaningfully better than those non proficient.

Some good food for thought here. Since proficiencies of all kinds vary so much in their utility I wonder how much sense it would make to draw up a grand skill list which includes actual skills, tools, languages, and other similar class-agnostic proficiencies, each with a weighted cost.

Say your broad, highly useful thieves' tools or Athletics proficiencies cost 5 skill points, while narrow, situational things like Chondathan language, basket weaving, piccolo, and ballad recital might only cost 1. Gamist to be sure and not to everyone's taste, but it would work for me. Would be helpful for building custom feats and backgrounds, too. Sort of a point-based system within the standard class-based system.

 

[Remathilis]

Perform is actually an interesting case for stacking skills and tools as well, since in the final play test documents, Bards were given proficiency in a certain number of musical instruments as tools. Further, since there was no list of sets of instruments, a bard could be trained in "lyre" but not be proficient with a magic zither (since, y'know, they're so different). (more -- see below)

I think the performance skill is more for other non instrument types like singing, dancing, storytelling or the like.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I think the performance skill is more for other non instrument types like singing, dancing, storytelling or the like.

Absolutely -- for most characters that's true. But things become weird for bards, who need to wield instruments, etc. I've not seen (or thought up) anything that's absolutely clean that works withi the rules in the last play test. I'm hopeful for August!

(I should also have said that for both of the cascade skills I mentioned above, the option exists to choose-your-own: these just represented broad categories, but if a bard wanted to specialize in something else, that's cool!)