Skills in combat, and lesser rolled skills made more frequent

[Rillian]

This isn't a new idea, but lately I've been thinking about what skills don't get much use in my game. I'm really generous with handing out tactical information in the middle of a fight. For example, I just tell my players "the necromancer moves within 30 feet and casts Blight at you." I mean, I add way more narrative than that, but that's the clearest information I give out so people understand what is going on. I've considered withholding immediate spell identification without an arcana, religion, or even nature check depending on the type of spellcaster. I've been toying around with 10+spell level to know what spell is cast, otherwise I just give out flavor narrative of what happens. However, in practice it has been causing too much rolling over all and disrupts the flow of combat. I know XgtE suggests using a reaction to make an arcana check during an enemy spell cast as an optional rule. Our table is having a difficult time getting accustomed to using a reaction to gain tactical information like that, myself included.

A homebrew idea I had was using Medicine to determine the remaining hit points of an enemy in mid combat. Or at least if it looks barely scratched, injured, half dead, badly wounded, or near death. These descriptors already exist in video games, and also 4e had "bloody" indicating less than half hp remaining. Again I use these words to describe the state of an enemy normally, I'm just considering gating this info behind a skill check. That way lesser used skills gain more relevance. I think medicine is one of the least rolled skills in my game.

The last idea I have, which I have not tried out yet is to use Sleight of Hand to interact with held objects and stowed objects. Like using the skill to work like some kind of quick draw or even quick sheath sometimes. The risk of failure being that you drop an item, or fail to interact with it that round. This breaks the action economy, because I intend for it to be used in addition to the one object interaction you get for free each round. It also overlaps with warcaster and dual wielder regarding what you can have in your hands during a single round. I admit that this idea is stupid and extreme, but it comes from being worn out by policing my players constantly about needing a free hand for spell casting, or swapping between melee and ranged weapons. Sleight of Hand is another skill that never gets used in my game.

My gaming style mostly revolves around political intrigue in the city (lots of Insight, Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Investigation, History), followed by dungeon bashing combat and short dungeon crawls (mostly Perception, Stealth, Athletics, Acrobatics). I don't really do a lot of wilderness travel, but I have thought of doing hex crawls on an overland map, but this style of gaming seems to be kind of dead. It would involve a lot of (Survival, Nature, Handle Animal, Stealth, Medicine) kind of like Oregon Trail for those old enough to remember.

Performance is the absolute least used skill in my game. It is a novelty skill used occasionally by bards in a tavern. I have no idea how to get more use out of this skill, or how to make it worth while in combat. The skill is so unimportant that I've never heard of a bard even mention putting expertise into it, even though that seems like something a bard would prioritize.

[Vogie]

You could also borrow 4e's Skill challenge mechanic, and include encounters that are just a series of skill challenges - that'd allow for the more obscure skills to be used in an encounter environment. You can use Skill challenges in political/social encounters where there is no conflict or even a lot of movement, or something like running away from the guards, or trying to chase the mark through a crowd

This could include rolling:

Medicine to identify that the thing you ingested was toxic
Survival to stay conscious after that revelation
Animal Handling to release vermin into the ballroom to create a distraction
Nature to identify where to go after you bust out of the dark hallway into the sunlight
Performance to disguise your intent, after Deception had been used this round
Arcana to "use a spell" in a noncombat encounter without expending a spell slot
Religion to recall the best possible insult to intimidate that priest

[Lunali]

The reason few PC bards put expertise in perform is that most PCs don't need to entertain people, at most they need to distract them, and a bad performance is still pretty distracting.

[ProfLucario]

On the subject of Performance, the DM in a game I once played in had us make Performance checks to be allowed into the "fancy" part of a tavern, in the sense of showing proper etiquette for the upper-class members.

[RocksInMyDryer]

At my table, I allow each player a Knowledge roll to identify the monster(s) at the start of their first turn in combat. This was something that existed in previous editions of the game, which I adapted to 5E. Each of the following skills correlates to creature types:


Arcana: Aberrations, Constructs, Elementals
History: Dragons, Giants, Humanoids, Monstrosities
Nature: Beasts, Fey, Oozes, Plants
Religion: Celestials, Fiends, Undead

If a party member rolls at least a 10 on their turn, they know the name, creature type, and a bit of fluff from the creature's description. If they roll 10+CR, they also know any immunities, resistances, or vulnerabilities that their player is capable of generating.

For example, if my fighter rolls well on his turn, he knows the monster is resistant to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from nonmagical weapons and that it's immune to being prone.

The same roll from the Sorcerer would tell her instead that the creature is vulnerable to fire, but immune to being charmed or stunned (though if she went to attack it with a mundane weapon, I would tell her about that resistance before she rolled).

I've found that this way you don't just have every person rolling to identify the creature when the battle kicks off and when one of them rolls well, the entire party knows every intricacy of fighting the thing. It's proven to be quite immersive.

Additionally, I allow a player to roll Arcana to identify an arcane spell being cast, or Religion to identify a Divine spell being cast. The DC is 10+spell level. But, they're only allowed to roll if they have a valid reaction, such as a prepared Counterspell or Shield spell. Or if they're the target of the spell and they've failed the save, but they have Inspiration, the Lucky feat or some other feature that they may want to use for a reroll, depending on the effect. I give this identifying roll advantage if it's on the player's class spell list, and it's an automatic success if they currently have it memorized or prepared.