What skill do you wish your players would use more?

[Spiritchaser]

The two current threads on perception, and on most used skills got me thinking... what skills do I not provide an opportunity to use?

It also got me thinking... What opportunities do I really really provide, but are ignored far, far too often.

For me that just has to be insight.

My players tend to queue off of my imperfect acting skills when determining who they should trust and who they shouldn't, or most commonly, just not trust anyone.

I'm not sure why this is., but none of the obvious answers are particularly flattering.

[Scathain]

History! My homebrew world is rich in lore, and while I understand that not everybody is into it, you'd be surprised how knowing just a little bit about the terrain or monster you're facing not only HELPS you defeat it, but adds to the enjoyment of the game overall.

[Millstone85]

Insight is that one Wisdom skill that hangs out with the Charisma ones.
So I guess it depends on how you deal with the latter. Do you also rely on your players' imperfect acting skills when determining if NPCs should trust them?

[Slayn82]

I'm working on creating a few diplomatic contests in my campaign, where the pc's try to persuade some Neutral party while a rival group tries to do the same against them. As such, the characters need to gather information about their rivals, spread convincing lies to decrease their rival's reputation, discover what lies are being spread about them and deal with those, and find convincing arguments to score points with their targets. Everything from Intimidation, Persuasion, Investigation, Perception, etc.

[Kane0]

Well there's a couple i'd like to see used more but in reality they are probably better off being tool proficiencies (Animal Handling, Performance)

Survival would be nice to see more use out of, especially since goodberry in conjunction with ranger or outlander background renders it largely obselete.
Sleight of hand also sees little use, I guess because everybody always assumes the rogue has a dagger hidden on their person at all times anyways...

[Spiritchaser]

Insight is that one Wisdom skill that hangs out with the Charisma ones.
So I guess it depends on how you deal with the latter. Do you also rely on your players' imperfect acting skills when determining if NPCs should trust them?

Typically it has more to do with who the NPC is and what they're like, though I do have the PCs make persuasion rolls a fair bit.

[MrStabby]

Proficiency with land vehicles.

[Temperjoke]

Common sense, but I'm not sure how they'd roll for it

[mephnick]

For me that just has to be insight.


I just use it passively and tell players if their characters sense something wrong with what something is saying. That has it's own problems so mainly I just avoid lying to the party unfortunately. Insight is one of those skills I've never been able to implement properly as a DM. I basically just treat it as "perception for social encounters", but mostly ignore it because I don't like it.

[Misterwhisper]

Staying on topic.

[Vaz]

Any Intelligence based ones. Since 5e (maybe before, I didn't play much 4e) divorced knowledge of monsters from the skills, and that skills no longer are reliant on taking Intelligence, and PrC's have gone away and they are not gated by Skills, there is no reason to ever max that ability score, nor to ever take that skill over any other, even in a niche. It becomes even less relevant when you have homebrew monsters to go up against.

I homebrew that my players with Proficiency in a relevant skill can make a Bonus Action Knowledge check against the monster they are facing, with a DC equal to the monsters CR. If they pass it they know most of the abilities (such as a Green Dragon has a Poison Breath, etc) while for each 5 higher they get, they get a choice of some abilities, such as a bonus of +Int to hit and +damage, or get to reroll the first failed save caused by the monster or its lair actions and as an action they can make their colleagues aware of it, giving them the same benefit.

The Knowledge Cleric becomes very useful when he's getting a bonus of +5 to hit and damage to the rest of the party.