Alternate, Specific Skill List (WIP)

[ChubbyRain]

Skills come from three lists. There is physical, mental, and general skill list.

Everyone gains either Perception or Investigation. May gain advantage a number of times per day to a Perception or Investigation check equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 0).

Physical Skills (Str/Con/Dex)



Acrobatics (Str/Dex): Performing extraordinary feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination.
Animal Handling (Str/Con): Physically performing a task with a non-humanoid creature such as grappling, shoving, or riding a creature.
Arcana (Con): Being able to perform an arcane ceremonies and rituals.
Athletics (Str/Con): General athletic maneuvers to grapple, shove, and trip.
Endurance (Con): Holding breath, forced marches, resisting athletics.
Creating (Dex): Crafting the physical part of items.
Intimidation (Str/Con): When intimidating through physical means.
Medicine (Dex): Performing medical techniques on creatures. Bandaging, minor surgery, major surgery.
Might (Str/Con): Performing acts of pure physical power and might that require no thinking or tactical skill. Breaking down a door or lifting an iron gate, for example.
Performance (Str/Dex/Con): Dancing or physically performing choreographic stunts. Using fine motor skills and constitution to play instruments.
Religion (Con): Being able to perform a religious ceremony (mainstream or cult) and rituals.
Sleight of Hand (Dex): Taking and giving items without the target knowing.
Stealth (Dex): Being undetected
Survival (Str/Con/Dex): Physically interacting with the PC's surroundings (need not be the natural worlds).


Mental Skills


Animal Handling (Int/Wis): Knowledge of Beasts.
Arcana (Int): Knowledge of Arcane Magic
Deception (Int/Cha): Ability to deceive others through mental manipulation
Engineering (Int/Wis): Knowledge how to create items and structures
History (Int): Knowledge of homeland's history
Insight (Wis): (how trustworthy someone is)
Intimidation Frighten creatures through mental manipulation.
Medicine: Knowledge of how and why medicine works and how to fix (or harm) a creature with medical techniques and items.
Nature: Knowledge of how and why nature works.
Performance: Ability to manipulate emotions in others through comedy, oration, or singing.
Persuasion: Being able to manipulate someone verbally, without lying.
Religion (Int): Knowledge of the various religions around the world.


General Skills


Investigation (Int): Finding hidden objects
Perception​ (Wis): Finding hidden creatures


Skills come in three types; Primary Skills, Secondary Skills, and Teritiary Skills.

Primary Skills = Ability Modifier + (2 * Prof Bonus)
Primary Skills are the skills you gain from Race, Class, and Background. Your choice of Perception or Investigation.

Secondary Skills = Ability Modifier + Prof Bonus
Secondary Skills are skills from your class list that you did not take proficiency in.

Tertiary Skills = Ability Modifier + 1/2 Prof Bonus
Tertiary Skills are all other skills.
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Difficulty Challenge

These DCs are based on what the common person, someone who may have 1 Primary Skill, 1 Secondary Skill, and a multitude of Tertiary Skills will feel is an easy, hard, and exceptionally hard, and impossible tasks.

A basic blacksmith will be lower proficiency and may be able to reliably hit "hard" whereas the legendary blacksmith will reliably be able to hit "exceptional hard" or impossible reliably.


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Still working on this, got to get a few things done but I'll work a bit more on this when I'm done being distracted.

Tangent Note: With this you could actually get rid of ability scores and just use these to describe your character. I'm working on a set up for that but I'm not finished. More to come later.

Note: One of the things I love about the current 5e skill system is the little blurb about how you can mix and match ability scores with different skill proficiency. So if you want to use Intimidate with your strength? No problem. Want to use Medicine with Intelligence? No problem. The issue however, is that many DMs are narrow minded and can't see past their own nose. They see a list and feel that if a player is trying to go past that then they are trying to somehow cheat or munchin.

However with an actual list that shows that Arcana (Con) can in fact work, such as for rituals, more DMs will be willing to be flexible and remember this is a heroic fantasy game.

[ChubbyRain]

Specific Skill Examples (you do not need to be trained to use a skill, training just helps)

Arcana (Con): Whenever you cast a spell from an Arcana spell list as a ritual you perform a skill check versus DC 8 + Spell Level at the end of the casting time for the spell. On a success you cast the spell as a ritual, on a fail your spell is still cast but the duration or effect of the spell is halved.

Might (Str/Con): Whenever you perform an act in which requires very little tactical thought and purely physical power you use your might. When you want to carry or hold an item past your carrying capacity (such as a falling ceiling trap or a huge metal gate) you must pass a DC equal to 8 + 1 for every 250lbs past your carrying capacity. If you want to break a door/wall/other object you deal damage to the object equal to your Might roll, this damage is no halved unlike other damage may be.

Religion (Con): Whenever you cast a spell from an Divine spell list as a ritual you perform a skill check versus DC 8 + Spell Level at the end of the casting time for the spell. On a success you cast the spell as a ritual, on a fail your spell is still cast but the duration or effect of the spell is halved.

Religion (Int): Use this skill whenever you want to know about a religion in the world. Whenever you want to know information about your religion (or a deity within the same pantheon) your d20 result is always considered to have at least rolled a number equal to your level. A level 10 Fighter of Pelor rolls a religion check to recall some information about the deities that work with Pelor. The d20 roll is a 5, but because of his dedication to the faith his roll is considered a 10.

(I absolutely hate how Clerics, in many editions of D&D, and other followers of a faith doesn't know jack squat about their faith even though their deity can talk to the clerics and people of the faith...)

Eventually I would like to have skills be more like spells. No, not as in they do magic. But as in whenever the player wants to do something and their skill covers it, they may tell the DM what the DC is. The DM may give advantage or disadvantage on the roll but the player and character should always know what they can do and how hard it may be for them to perform the action. I know it is next to impossible for me to dunk a basketball right now whereas I have a decent shot at hitting a free throw.