Five additional skills for D&D 5e

[Greywander]

A while back, I posted this thread:

5e has a rather modular system, where just about everything is resolved by making a d20 roll and adding the most relevant ability score modifier and an optional proficiency bonus. This makes it very easy to add new proficiencies to the game, skill proficiencies in this case. What are some skills you'd like to see added to the game? Here's a couple of mine.

Crafting (Intelligence)

"But Greywander," you say, "tool proficiencies already exist." True, but there's actually not nearly as much overlap with this skill as you might think. What I specifically have in mind is a general purpose arts and crafts/handyman/MacGyver skill. Tool proficiencies are about having technical expertise and using that to produce elaborate results, but this skill is more about using creativity to produce simple items with whatever raw materials and scant tools you have available. If you're not making simple items, then maybe you're creating a single-use tool or short-term solution to a problem that will need to be fixed by a professional later. Speaking of, another way to see this skill is as more of a hobbyist DIY skill, as opposed to the professionalism of a tool proficiency. This skill would more or less be the Prestidigitation of crafting, much weaker than dedicated tool proficiencies, but a lot broader in the things it can do.

Business (Intelligence)

"A fool and his money are soon parted." But those with this skill are no fools. This skill encompasses a wide set of skills related to handling money, from appraising the value of items (can also be done with the related tool proficiency), negotiating better deals, accounting and bookkeeping, managing employees, logistics, marketing, and even skills relevant to banking, as well as knowledge of economic systems. This is more of an NPC skill, obvious for a merchant, PCs with the guild artisan background or who come from wealth might pick this up to represent that.

Warfare (Intelligence)

What Business is to peacetime, Warfare is to wartime. Everything from battlefield tactics to grand strategy, this skill helps you manage soldiers, fortify positions, and insure supply lines are kept running. Basically, if you were a competent general or warlord, this would be the skill you need.

Some Bonus Stuff

Let's remember that you don't have to link skills and ability scores. For example, you could make a Charisma (Warfare) check to try to raise your soldiers' morale. In fact, I almost think it would be better to decouple them entirely, just pick the most relevant ability score and skill independently of each other for the task being attempted.

I feel like there should be a skill for having legal knowledge, knowing what the laws are and how to navigate contracts or look for loopholes and such. I'm not sure it makes sense to have a skill just for this, though. Perhaps something like a Bureaucracy skill, also covering politics and government?

Another interesting idea might be to let each player make up one skill for their character (as a free bonus skill). The only issue with this is that the existing skill system covers most things pretty well, so it would be difficult to come up with new skills every time you make a new character.
Since then, I've decided that Warfare should probably be a Wisdom skill, rather than Intelligence. And I've come up with two additional skills to add to this list.

Civics (Intelligence)

This skill covers government, politics, and law, and similar bureaucratic topics. It helps you navigate red tape, or create your own. It helps you look for loopholes in laws and contracts. It may also help somewhat with political intrigue, but Insight and the Charisma skills are probably better suited for that.

Leadership (Charisma)

While Warfare relates to the strategic and tactical side, Leadership has to do with your ability to direct and manage other people. It helps you inspire morale in your soldiers, gives weight to your orders, and identify the best person for the job. With enough Leadership, even people who don't consider themselves your subordinate might obey a command from you.

Not all of these are useful all the time for adventurers (but then the same could be said for a number of existing skills, such as Nature), but all of these can be useful in certain situations. Something nice is that these do overlap slightly in some areas (e.g. religious law can be covered by either Religion or by Civics, business contracts can be covered by Business or Civics), which makes it easier to realize a particular concept without needing to grab a bunch of different skills. Despite any overlap, these skills mostly cover areas not already covered by existing skills, so they still add something to the game.

Some might suggest that PCs should get more skill proficiencies if we're adding more skills. I disagree. In a way, these skills already existed, just not formally. Which skill would you use to, say, look for a loophole in a contract? There... isn't really one. None of the existing skills fit that well. So most likely a DM would simply rule that your proficiency bonus can't be applied. There's also a possibility that they might apply a tangentially related proficiency (e.g. History, since it relates to politics and law somewhat, or Deception, since it has to do with tricking people), or simply decide based on your character's backstory to make the proficient in this specific roll. If the DM simply rules that proficiency doesn't apply to the roll, nothing's actually changed except now proficiency does apply if you're proficient in this particular skill. If the DM takes one of the other options, nothing actually stops them from doing that still (although it is admittedly less likely they would do so).

Now, that said, I often feel starved for skill proficiencies. I definitely wouldn't argue with a DM giving everyone an extra skill. And a typical table is around five players, so with five new skills that means you'd be getting enough extra skills to pick up most of the new skills.

[Mastikator]

Can you give some examples of these skills being used, what are some situations where you roll for business or warfare or civics or leadership? What are appropriate DCs for various tasks, what are the results from succeeding and penalties for failing?

[Greywander]

Can you give some examples of these skills being used, what are some situations where you roll for business or warfare or civics or leadership? What are appropriate DCs for various tasks, what are the results from succeeding and penalties for failing?
Not sure I can give a comprehensive list of things you'd use these skills for, or accurately assess what their DCs should be, but I'll give it a shot. My understanding for DCs is that 15 is about average, and 30 is nearly impossible, so as I'm mostly just guessing how hard something should be, that's the scale I'll use.

Business

Appraising an item (common DC 10, unusual DC 15, rare DC 20, exotic DC 25, unknown DC 30)
Running a shop during downtime (DC varies according to economic conditions and potential outcomes; breaking even under standard conditions is probably DC 13, higher to turn a profit)
Investing in a business (as above, DC varies by potential outcome; breaking even is probably DC 15, higher to turn a profit)
Buying or selling illegal goods (DC 15 to find a buyer/seller, higher rolls decrease odds of a narc or double-cross)
Identifying critical economic infrastructure of a kingdom (e.g. to cripple that kingdom) (DC 22)
Find an exploitable loophole in a contract (DC is the result of the Business check of the person who wrote the contract)

Warfare

Estimate how much food/supplies to bring on an expedition (increases with number of soldiers/travelers and distance to be traveled/time expected away; say DC 20 for 100 men for a month)
Determine the best routes for supply lines (increases with distance, varies with local terrain; say DC 15 for 168 miles (1 week of travel) on standard terrain)
Identify fortifiable positions for camp (yields more defensible positions with higher rolls)
Identify weaknesses in enemy fortifications (DC is the result of enemy commander's Warfare check)
Identify critical elements in enemy camp (e.g. to create mayhem or impose severe disadvantages on enemies) (DC 22)
Organize soldiers into formations best suited to the enemy you are currently facing (common enemy DC 10, unusual enemy DC 15, etc.)

Civics

Find an obscure law that implicates or exonerates someone (DC 25)
Get the better end of a contract (contested Civics (or Business) check)
Bypassing the bureaucracy when filing a claim/request to get it reviewed quickly (DC 20)
Selecting someone capable to govern a small town (DC 15)
Governing a town (DC varies by potential outcome and size of city/town; say DC 12 for neither good nor ill for a small village, higher for the village to grow and prosper)
Drafting a new law (varies depending on the complexity of the law; say DC 15 for a fairly simple and mundane law)

Leadership

Raise your men's spirits when they're losing hope (DC 15/20/25/30, depending on how hopeless your situation is)
Select the most capable people to send on a mission/delegate a task to (DC 15, maybe higher for more difficult/complicated tasks)
Hire a competent and trustworthy person (DC 15)
Ordering someone who isn't your subordinate (contested Leadership check, or Leadership vs. Insight; maybe use passive Leadership/Insight)
Keeping a rowdy bunch of ruffians under control (DC 15 if they're your subordinates, DC 20 if they're not)

Those are just a few that I can think of. I'm sure with playtesting, you'd find yourself in situations where these skills would apply that I wouldn't even have considered. As for DCs, it's helpful that the DMG offers a rough guide of easy/average/hard/very hard/impossible for DC 10/15/20/25/30, respectively. Yeah, it can be tricky to gauge just how hard a task is, especially if you're not at all familiar with such things IRL, but in such situations you can just pick something that feels right and go with it, no need to be perfect.

[Magicspook]

Crafting sounds like tinker's tools proficiency to me.

I think warfare is a bit redundant between history, performance and leadership.

The rest sounds good and I actually have similar skills in a system that I am developing.

[Kane0]

They definitely sound useful for games that go beyond the standard dungeoncrawl experience, with a lot of logistical focus as the PCs accumulate renown and subordinates.

Curious, do you employ additional stats as well, like Honor?

[qube]

I really like the idea!


Crafting sounds like tinker's tools proficiency to me. Tue. I always considered tinker tools to be fine tools to make things as the gnome tinkerer does, but apparently


A set of tinker's tools is designed to enable you to repair many mundane objects. Though you can't manufacture much with tinker's tools, you can mend torn clothes, sharpen a worn sword, and patch a tattered suit of chain mail.

If you want a type of crafting skill, I recall playing a dnd variant (I think it was Star Wars d20), that had the skill "jerry rigging" . It enabled you to fix things quickly, and make things perform better - but at the chance that it breaks.

For warfare, my personal feelings do still suggest intelligence is more important then wisdom.

All the things you describe seem more for a clerc, an architect, ...
Then, for example a ranger.
(and while a ranger does have knowledge of the land to feed a small party ... supplying a 100 man expedition is something entirely different)

[noob]

Buisness when about contact with an individual could turn in "buisness(charisma)"
Ex: negotiating trade deals could be buisness(charisma)

[Khrysaes]

For warfare, my personal feelings do still suggest intelligence is more important then wisdom.

I agree with this somewhat.

Moreso that there is nuance to warfare, namely,

Strategy and Tactics, which are more intelligence based, as I am imagining someone studying to apply these.

Intuition, or going with a gut feeling, based on a given situation, sort of a 6th sense about a battle, and while they may have strategy and tactics, this is more in the moment.

Leadership. Which may be a misnomer, but a charisma based one, such that its about rallying and inciting a group of people. This I am imagining raising moral or convincing a horde of people to swarm an enemy. Less tactics, less intuation, more overwhelming force.

[Joe the Rat]

Now take the attributes away and look at what these are supposed to apply to.
Leadership - as presented, is Persuasion, plus an Insight check for competence, but just for military matters. If you really want a "everything about command and capability for battle" proficiency, just stick with Warfare, and apply the proficiency to attribute checks where appropriate (Intelligence checks for strategic planning and logistics, Charisma for inspiring leadership, Wisdom for reading people and situations as related to fighting).

Civics - I would be inclined to call it Law, but that's me. As-is, I just use History for all things regarding events and rulership.

Business is probably the most salient - existing rules put most of this as Investigation, with a flat Intelligence check on appraisal (where occasionally having a relevant craft tool prof can be applied to the appraisal).

Given the nature of the tasks in questions and relevance to the adventuring world, I'd make these tool proficiencies. Since the default is "you can do anything tool-related, just without proficiency," it will work well here for giving Particular Competency in a Field without getting in the way of your Four Adventuring Things You Are Particularly Good At. Plus, you can plug in the Xanathar Combo and have these stack with skills for advantage - Civics+Persuasion makes for one hell of a legal argument - being one appealing to the logic of law and evidence (Intelligence) or for convincing the decision-makers (Charisma).

[MoiMagnus]

Civics (Intelligence)

This skill covers government, politics, and law, and similar bureaucratic topics. It helps you navigate red tape, or create your own. It helps you look for loopholes in laws and contracts. It may also help somewhat with political intrigue, but Insight and the Charisma skills are probably better suited for that.

Leadership (Charisma)

While Warfare relates to the strategic and tactical side, Leadership has to do with your ability to direct and manage other people. It helps you inspire morale in your soldiers, gives weight to your orders, and identify the best person for the job. With enough Leadership, even people who don't consider themselves your subordinate might obey a command from you.

Usually at our table, we generalise the scope of the (IME underused) History skill to include your Civics skill, and we even rename it to "Civilisation" when we use homebrew character sheet.

Similarly, Intimidation is generalised to include Leadership, and is renamed "Authority". Not because Intimidation is underused, but because we find that having a skill with almost exclusively aggressive uses is bad for gameplay.

As for Warfare , we ended up removing a similar skill from our list a few years ago, as we found "lead by example" gameplay more interesting, even if less realistic (if you want to make the cavalry go faster, the character commanding the unit has to make an Athletics check).

For Crafting, I'd be in favour of bundle it for free with any crafting tool proficiency.

Business could work well enough, but that would require for the GM to put some significant though on the economic system. If not too much though is put on the raw economics system, I would consider generalise it to "Influence" which would also include networking and non-monetary resources. It would be the go-to skill for "we need some help right now, do I have a contact I made during downtime that own us a favour, or would be interested by one of our favour?".

[stoutstien]

I personally think skills should be pruned out rather than more added. Most if not of them overlap at least one other option.

[Kurt Kurageous]

My thought is, "Why not expand the overly broad skills (example History, Arcana) with subcategories?" You can select from Law, Warfare, etc, etc. You can choose a number of subcategories equal to your ability score modifier, minimum of one.

Maybe you get half proficiency if you don't have the specific subcategory?

I dunno, rewriting 5e is such a pain when you are not getting paid to do it.

[Ionathus]

OP, my two cents is that I don't see Warfare or Civics being terribly applicable unless your campaign is heavily diplomacy/subterfuge based. I would not add these skills to every game I run (I imagine you know that already).

Crafting, Business, and Leadership are all useful enough that I want them in my games pretty much immediately :D


My thought is, "Why not expand the overly broad skills (example History, Arcana) with subcategories?" You can select from Law, Warfare, etc, etc. You can choose a number of subcategories equal to your ability score modifier, minimum of one.

Maybe you get half proficiency if you don't have the specific subcategory?

I dunno, rewriting 5e is such a pain when you are not getting paid to do it.

At that point I think it's falling into too much granularity, which 5e has mostly tried to avoid. I remember starting a new character for a tutorial session in 3.5e, and feeling like there were SO many skills and I had so few points to spend. Made my choices feel useless, because what if these niche cases never come up? Not that that's objectively bad -- just that I see why 5e doesn't want to go down that route.

[KorvinStarmast]

I dunno, rewriting 5e is such a pain when you are not getting paid to do it. *snort*
And yet people still want to do it at the edges ...

[KorvinStarmast]

Civics That isn't adventuring, though. Matt Coleville has that warcraft and fortifications 3d party supplement that might be useful ... or just borrow from AD&D 2e material.

Leadership (Charisma)
Leadership is an act, there are sufficient mechanics to handle this. (cf: Warren Blank (http://leadershipgroup.com/) theory of leadership, which has considerable merit).

Also, role playing is about more than skill checks.

Now, that said, I often feel starved for skill proficiencies. Then play a half elf Lore Bard and take the skilled feat and then take the skill expert feat. :smallbiggrin:

[Slipjig]

My biggest hesitation with adding new skills is that when you create rules that say, "Skill X allows you to do Y", that implies that anybody without the skill CAN'T (or is at a major disadvantage while doing so). Unless you give your players extra skill slots, you are narrowing the scope of their abilities.

As for specific abilities, Craft overlaps almost 100% with Tinker Tool proficiency. Leadership is already covered by Persuasion (or Intimidate or Deceive in certain specific situations), and I think both War and Bureaucracy are both covered by History (which I think most tables generally equate to Humanities in general).

If you want to portray someone who has an extremely deep knowledge of a particular topic, I'd allow players to announce a focus area when picking one of the knowledge skills (e.g. Military History, Architecture, or Noble Lineages for History; Fae, The Planes, or Artifice for Arcana, etc), and then allow a player to roll with advantage any time their specialty comes up. This allows the specialists to shine without by default reducing the capabilities of all other characters.

I DO like the idea of a Business ability, but I would definitely make it a Tool proficiency rather than a skill. I would also specify that it is specific to being either a merchant or operating a service business where actually producing the goods isn't part of the business. Running a business actually producing the goods would be covered by the relevant Tool Proficiency, unless the enterprise becomes so large that the owner spends almost all their time administering or in meetings without ever actually picking up tools themselves.

[KorvinStarmast]

My biggest hesitation with adding new skills is that when you create rules that say, "Skill X allows you to do Y", that implies that anybody without the skill CAN'T (or is at a major disadvantage while doing so). Fair point, though strictly speaking anyone can try anything with very few exceptions.

[Slipjig]

Sure, but I'm thinking it could lead to situations where a DM gives a player disadvantage for not having spent one of their four skill points on their new skill. I'm generally a fan of letting adventurers be competent at an unrealistically wide variety of things (unless the DM wants to use their non-competence to justify bringing in an interesting NPC, such as a scholar, ship captain, or wilderness guide).

3e gave you enough points that you could sprinkle one or two for flavor (I know a lot of min/maxxers acted like their chosen skills HAD to be maxxed out, but that was a choice, not a necessity). 5e doesn't give you that luxury.

[Greywander]

Crafting sounds like tinker's tools proficiency to me.

Tue. I always considered tinker tools to be fine tools to make things as the gnome tinkerer does, but apparently


A set of tinker's tools is designed to enable you to repair many mundane objects. Though you can't manufacture much with tinker's tools, you can mend torn clothes, sharpen a worn sword, and patch a tattered suit of chain mail.
Huh, well... I would have thought the same, that tinker's tools were more like a watchmaker's kit, or tools for building machines, but... It seems to fit almost exactly with what I described as the Crafting skill.


Usually at our table, we generalise the scope of the (IME underused) History skill to include your Civics skill, and we even rename it to "Civilisation" when we use homebrew character sheet.

Similarly, Intimidation is generalised to include Leadership, and is renamed "Authority". Not because Intimidation is underused, but because we find that having a skill with almost exclusively aggressive uses is bad for gameplay.
I agree that it might be a better route to merge Leadership with Intimidation to get an Authority skill. Intimidation just seems a bit too specific, and not necessarily very useful; Persuasion will generally get you farther and be more generally applicable.

IMO, a lot of skills are only as useful as you choose to make them. If you find History to be underused, then it's either because (a) your DM really just isn't giving you opportunities to use it, or (b) you aren't looking for opportunities to use it. Knowledge skills are for giving you more information, so they're highly dependent on personal playstyle; do you rush in impulsively, or do you stand back and formulate a plan first? History is already a pretty broad skill (but then, all of the knowledge skills are), I can see why you'd file Civics under History if you had no where else to put it, I just don't see lawyers and politicians as necessarily being historians, or historians necessarily being good at law or politics.


I personally think skills should be pruned out rather than more added. Most if not of them overlap at least one other option.
This is a feature, not a bug. You can have two experts trained in different fields that overlap somewhat, and each one will bring their own perspective, and possibly give you different outcomes. It makes you adaptable by allowing you to apply your skills more broadly, so that you don't need to have literally every skill in your party. If you don't want overlap, then you'll need to split skills into much smaller and highly specific categories (which would add even more skills), which will necessarily result in some categories being overlooked. Since there would no longer be any broad skills, those overlooked categories simply wouldn't exist anymore.


My thought is, "Why not expand the overly broad skills (example History, Arcana) with subcategories?" You can select from Law, Warfare, etc, etc. You can choose a number of subcategories equal to your ability score modifier, minimum of one.
Personally, this is how I would have implemented Expertise, to basically mimic things like Stonecunning. Pick a skill you're proficient in, then make up a subset of that skill, and you get double proficiency for that subset. Then, you can give every character a couple expertises, with rogues and bards getting quite a few more. The downside is that you're not going to have a set list of possible expertises you can choose, you'll have to rely on players being able to come up with their own (which puts a creative burden on the player).


My biggest hesitation with adding new skills is that when you create rules that say, "Skill X allows you to do Y", that implies that anybody without the skill CAN'T (or is at a major disadvantage while doing so).

Sure, but I'm thinking it could lead to situations where a DM gives a player disadvantage for not having spent one of their four skill points on their new skill.
I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a problem with the DM, not a problem with the new skills. To put it another way, "That's not how it works." You are never penalized for not having a skill. Skills don't work on a penalty system, they work on a bonus system. If a skill does not exist, you can't add the bonus; adding the skill to the game only creates a way to get that bonus, it does not introduce any new penalties.

What you've basically said is that you're afraid your DM will misuse the rules and run them incorrectly. The same could be said for any rule. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that; it's not my problem.

[Bjarkmundur]

I've always been of the opinion that the 5e skill list is bloated and the DM should be encouraged to create custom skills that mesh better with his campaign.

On that note, are there any skills you've decided on removing, on the grounds that they present trap options to your players as they are likely to never come into play?

I ended up with, what, 8 skills as core-skills, and 5 crafting skills, and then I just add ontop of that additional skills based on the campagin, as well as allowing my players to suggest their own.



Skills:
Athleticism
Arcana
Vibe Check
Medicine
Lore
Subtlety
Survival
Social

Crafting
Alchemist Supplies
Smith’s Tools
Herbalism Kit
Poisoner’s Kit
Trapmaker's Kit.

Each player gains proficiency with Passive Perception, one Knowledge (intelligence-based) Skill they design on their own, and then they add one social skill (diplomacy, deception, etiquette, seduction, intimidation) they come up with on their own. These "free" proficiencies replace the skill normally bundled with backgrounds.
The social skill is more of a "how people react to my charisma checks" that it is "I can only use charisma checks to do this one specific thing". You can use Intimidation to lie to the guard, even if you don't have deception. The only difference is that by using intimidation, he'll likely be afraid of you after the interaction is done.

My latest fun-build was a Divine Soul Sorcerer wtih:
Preach as a social skill
Legends as a knowledge skill
13 Passive Perception
Medicine
Alchemist's Supplies
Athleticism (Pole-Vaulting)

[bid]

I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a problem with the DM, not a problem with the new skills. To put it another way, "That's not how it works." You are never penalized for not having a skill. Skills don't work on a penalty system, they work on a bonus system. If a skill does not exist, you can't add the bonus; adding the skill to the game only creates a way to get that bonus, it does not introduce any new penalties.
"Close enough" aint, once you add that new skill.

You still end up being penalized that way.

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm thinking it could lead to situations where a DM gives a player disadvantage for not having spent one of their four skill points on their new skill.
To the extent that a skill represents a specialized activity that most adventurers don't engage in, that... makes sense! From a simulationist perspective, those without training aren't expected to have a basic level of competency, and from a gamist perspective, the greater difference between trained and untrained compensates the player for investing in something unnecessary. The main issue in that case would seem to be that at that point we're talking about something more like a language or a tool proficiency, which might therefore better be grouped with those than categorized as "skills".

I assume that most DMs don't generally let player characters easily do things that they shouldn't plausibility be able to do just so long as there's no associated proficiency. Although... I guess that some of them may decide something like how qualified untrained citizens are to represent themselves in court based on whether or not there's a lawyer proficiency, rather than deciding whether there's a lawyer proficiency based on the extent to which adequate legal representation requires specialized training in the setting. That sort of mechanics-first approach to worldbuilding is legitimate enough, I suppose.

Well, if you want to maintain your characters' relative status by preventing your DM from fleshing out a middle class in the campaign you play in... then keep tools for doing that away from your DM, I guess. But to the extent that adventurers are wealthy — and why would they delve into dungeons infested with monsters and traps if it didn't pay well? — we're talking about services that they can purchase, thereby elevating them further above the teeming masses of filthy peasants! Successful sociopathy involves seeing others as tools you can use, not just as competition. Murderhobo smarter, not harder!


"Close enough" aint, once you add that new skill.

You still end up being penalized that way.
Some people being trained at some task generally shouldn't make it more difficult for anyone else. In some cases, e.g. if there's an opposed check, it may, but that's the exception. Yes, the existence of training in a field implies tasks warranting that training, but that's usually due to a civilization including more complex tasks in that field. If a DM raises the difficulty of basic tasks for untrained characters regardless of whether that makes any sense... well, that's an issue with the DM, as Greywander said.

[Bosh]

The main problem with adding more skills is that it, by default, makes the PCs less competent by reducing the percentage of skill rolls they'll be proficient in. I'd only add more skills if I gave out more skill proficiencies to the PCs to compensate.

[KyleG]

Woukd Skill points dished out based on ability score modifiers might work (-1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2 =5), + 4 from 2 background skills, +racial and then increasing by +x when proficiency goes up. I think then your skill level for all skills should start as -1. Cap each skill at 5 ranks. Expertise replaced with an additional +4 to allocate.

[MoiMagnus]

I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a problem with the DM, not a problem with the new skills. To put it another way, "That's not how it works." You are never penalized for not having a skill. Skills don't work on a penalty system, they work on a bonus system. If a skill does not exist, you can't add the bonus; adding the skill to the game only creates a way to get that bonus, it does not introduce any new penalties.

I will contest the bolded part.

+ If Arcane was removed from the skill list, a lot of GMs would be much more likely to hand out free bonuses to every spellcasters to knowledge checks that refer to magic. With the Arcane skill existing, spellcaster that do not take it are assumed to not have invested a lot of time learning about magical knowledge, and will be discouraged from putting in their background that they are very knowledgeable about Arcane magic as that would be inconsistent with their skill choice.
+ Without the Warfare skill, a lot of GMs give free bonuses to every character that has a military background to checks that refer to strategy and tactics. With the Warfare skill, a character from a military background that didn't take this skill will be discouraged from putting in their background that their were an experienced tactician.

More abstractly, if a skill doesn't exists in the rules, but exists in the universe (peoples can learn and improve on it), the GM is still supposed to reflect it mechanically. This can be done in multiple ways:
(1) Lowering the DC of the checks for peoples who realistically know how to do the thing
(2) Giving an advantage to the checks for peoples who realistically know how to do the thing
(3) Homebrewing and additional skill into the game and
(3a) giving it for free to anybody who would realistically know how to do the thing of
(3b) giving if for free to any NPC who would realistically know how to do the thing, but expect PCs whose background would lead to them knowing how to do the thing to spend a skill proficiency on it.

(1), (2) and (3a) being "free" for the player, and the default behaviours of most GMs when unprepared, a GM using (3b) is effectively not giving a bonus commonly available. And for any player that consider this bonus as granted by default, this mean adding a new skill is a penalty to anybody that doesn't take this skill.

[Greywander]

The main problem with adding more skills is that it, by default, makes the PCs less competent by reducing the percentage of skill rolls they'll be proficient in. I'd only add more skills if I gave out more skill proficiencies to the PCs to compensate.
I've already refuted this claim:

I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a problem with the DM, not a problem with the new skills. To put it another way, "That's not how it works." You are never penalized for not having a skill. Skills don't work on a penalty system, they work on a bonus system. If a skill does not exist, you can't add the bonus; adding the skill to the game only creates a way to get that bonus, it does not introduce any new penalties.

What you've basically said is that you're afraid your DM will misuse the rules and run them incorrectly. The same could be said for any rule. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that; it's not my problem.
I completely disagree with what you've said, and in fact I'm going to take the opposite position: adding more skills increases how often players will be able to add proficiency. Adding, say, a Decorative Cake Frosting skill will have zero impact on how often players can apply any of their other proficiencies; if the DM never calls for a Decorative Cake Frosting check, then nothing has actually changed. If, however, Decorative Cake Frosting checks are regular things in your campaign, but there's no skill associated with Decorative Cake Frosting, then players can't apply proficiency to those checks. Adding it as a skill gives access to additional opportunities to apply proficiency to checks.

Now, it is true that these new opportunities come at the cost of getting a different skill instead, but we have to assume that players are at least somewhat optimizing and choosing their skills according to which types of checks they expect to be making most often; if you don't expect to make Decorative Cake Frosting checks more often than, say, Sleight of Hand checks (or if the results of a Decorative Cake Frosting check are generally less important than the results of a Sleight of Hand check, e.g. a sloppy looking cake vs. going to jail), then it would make sense to choose Sleight of Hand instead. In which case, again, nothing has changed. But if you actually do expect Decorative Cake Frosting checks to play a larger role in the campaign than Sleight of Hand checks, then you should take Decorative Cake Frosting instead, and if your expectations turn out to be true, then you've successfully increased the number of ability checks you get to apply proficiency to.

Again, there's no penalty for not having a skill, there's only a bonus for having that skill. The only thing that matters is which skills you take. A skill you don't take has no impact on your character, and can essentially be treated as if it didn't exist. If you make an ability check and don't have a relevant skill, then it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not a skill exists that would apply to that check.

To use a metaphor, if you go to the store to buy four things, then the odds of the store having the four things you want to buy are higher if the store has 1000 things for sale than if they only have 10 things for sale. This is fundamentally the opposite of what you're arguing.

Edit:

I will contest the bolded part.

+ If Arcane was removed from the skill list, a lot of GMs would be much more likely to hand out free bonuses to every spellcasters to knowledge checks that refer to magic. With the Arcane skill existing, spellcaster that do not take it are assumed to not have invested a lot of time learning about magical knowledge, and will be discouraged from putting in their background that they are very knowledgeable about Arcane magic as that would be inconsistent with their skill choice.
+ Without the Warfare skill, a lot of GMs give free bonuses to every character that has a military background to checks that refer to strategy and tactics. With the Warfare skill, a character from a military background that didn't take this skill will be discouraged from putting in their background that their were an experienced tactician.

More abstractly, if a skill doesn't exists in the rules, but exists in the universe (peoples can learn and improve on it), the GM is still supposed to reflect it mechanically. This can be done in multiple ways:
(1) Lowering the DC of the checks for peoples who realistically know how to do the thing
(2) Giving an advantage to the checks for peoples who realistically know how to do the thing
(3) Homebrewing and additional skill into the game and
(3a) giving it for free to anybody who would realistically know how to do the thing of
(3b) giving if for free to any NPC who would realistically know how to do the thing, but expect PCs whose background would lead to them knowing how to do the thing to spend a skill proficiency on it.

(1), (2) and (3a) being "free" for the player, and the default behaviours of most GMs when unprepared, a GM using (3b) is effectively not giving a bonus commonly available. And for any player that consider this bonus as granted by default, this mean adding a new skill is a penalty to anybody that doesn't take this skill.
A rule is bad if it requires the DM to houserule it to be effective.

Yes, it's inevitable that you will encounter situations where there doesn't seem to be a relevant proficiency within the rules, and so the DM will need to improvise and decide whether or not to apply proficiency, likely based on a PC's training and background. This is a good tool to have when such exceptional cases come up. But we could say the same thing about anything in the rules: if there's not a rule for something, then the DM can just improvise. Why have any rules, then? And the answer is, again, because a rule is bad if it requires the DM to houserule it to be effective.

I'd be fine with giving each PC an additional skill proficiency. I think that works fine. If you feel this is necessary to balance adding more skills, then go for it. But let's be honest about what's going on here: adding new skills isn't taking away opportunities to add your proficiency bonus that the rules as written already afford you, all it's doing is reducing the amount of improvisation the DM needs to do, which may deprive you of adding your proficiency bonus in such cases. But you were never entitled to add your proficiency bonus in such cases anyway; nothing in the rules says that you would. It's an edge case, a niche situation (according to the devs, as otherwise they would have included such a skill). The DM could just as easily decide you don't get to add your proficiency bonus. Adding the skill codifies it into the rules, removing the need for the DM to improvise, and allowing you to get that entitlement to the bonus by taking that skill.

In other words, if reducing the DM's workload might end up depriving you of your proficiency bonus on rare and minor occasions, that's not a good reason not to do it anyway.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@Greywander--I think you're misinterpreting the proficiency rules. The DM is supposed to decide if the proficiency bonus applies in every case. All printed proficiencies (yes, including language and weapon/armor proficiencies) are just one way that proficiency bonus might apply. Saying that someone can apply their proficiency bonus to something that they're not formally "skilled" in is totally RAW, not a houserule at all.

Remember, skills are not fundamental. Every such check is an Ability check, first and foremost. And multiple (or no) sources of proficiency might apply, and players are expected and encouraged to ask if they can apply a different proficiency. In fact, the DM is recommended[1] to allow it as long as they have some sort of explanation of how it will work. Skills are not hard-coded.

[1] the DMG contains no rules for DMs. The system contains no rules for DMs. Only recommendations.

[KorvinStarmast]

Sure, but I'm thinking it could lead to situations where a DM gives a player disadvantage for not having spent one of their four skill points on their new skill. DM problem, not a system problem.

The main problem with adding more skills is that it, by default, makes the PCs less competent by reducing the percentage of skill rolls they'll be proficient in. I'd only add more skills if I gave out more skill proficiencies to the PCs to compensate. That's a fair point. :smallsmile:

[Abracadangit]

So much to say! Before I get into my thoughts on the skill debate, I'll take a moment to run through some of the skills you're thinking of adding. Bear in mind, I think all of these skills are a good fit for the game you're running, so my critiques and comments aren't me telling you how to run your games, but rather how I'd make them work in mine:

Business: I like this skill, and think it would make for a fun and flavorful. That being said, if I used it in my game, I might change the name to Merchant or Mercantile. Business isn't bad, but it sounds... businessy. Someone who's skilled at business sounds a bit more like an MBA type, than they do someone who would be good at appraising goods & items, haggling, and knowing things about currencies, accounting, the logistics of running a shop, and so on, which is what you say the core of the skill is all about. "Merchant" (or something similar) sounds a little more fantastical/old-timey and a little more active, while "Business" sounds a little more mundane. But personal preference is a thing.

Warfare: I added a similar skill (even called it Warfare!) to some of my games, but I also used it as a sort of quasi-History skill for arms, armor, ammunition, siege machines, fighting styles & techniques, etc -- basically "Fighter Lore," if there was such a thing. If you add this skill, you might want to add in a martial class feature that says something like "At X level, select either Strength or Dexterity. You may add the modifier from that ability as a bonus to Wisdom (Warfare) checks." While martials don't typically dump Wis as hard as they dump Int, they'll still need a boost to be decent at it. I have my own solution, which I'll get into later.

Civics: In my games where contract loopholes come up, we've always used Intelligence (Investigation), which works well as a catch-all for situations that require the active application of verbal/abstract intelligence (word puzzles, navigating contracts & lengthy documents, etc). While I can't say that there have been a great many times in my games where knowledge of local government came up, what I like here is the notion of a skill that lets you navigate contracts, and find loopholes or gray areas. That's narratively and thematically interesting, but the question is could I take that piece in my game and tack it on to something else...? Maybe an all-purpose social Bargaining skill, or roll it up into Business/Merchant?

Leadership: I'm all for more Cha skills, but I like my Cha skills to sound more like "approaches." Like Intimidation means you're taking a threatening approach, Deception is a lying approach, Persuasion is tact, etc. If I were to use this in my game, I might refluff it as something like "Spirit," a social skill where you use uplifting words, rousing speeches, and positive energy to stir an NPC to action, motivate them to do something dramatic, or turn them into an impromptu assistant for a given task.

So I saved Crafting for the end, because I do something semi-similar in some of the games that I run, with some additional changes:

1) There are three skills: Trade Crafts, Fine Crafts, and Engineering.
2) Each of these works kind of like a knowledge skill for their all of their respective objects. Trade Crafts is for smithing, masonry, leatherworking, etc, Fine Crafts is for needlework, jewelry, carvings, etc, and Engineering is for clocks, locks, gadgets, etc.
3) When you take proficiency in one of these knowledge skills, you get one of the associated tool proficiencies that comes with it.

The idea here is that instead of just having proficiency in, let's say, jeweler's tools, you have the foundation of a training in all small trinkets and objects, but specifically you know how to make & repair jewelry. Now all those just-for-flavor tool proficiencies are linked to a knowledge skill that make your character interesting, and knowledgeable about something.

Solution to the Warfare problem: I make use of a system that I know people here wouldn't like (some people get very touchy about mixing skills & different ability scores), but lots of skills in my game have a Primary Ability and a Secondary Ability. The Primary Ability is what everyone who's not proficient in the ability has to use -- like if you're not proficient in Warfare in my game, it'll always be Int for you (unless I specifically ask for a Charisma (Warfare) check or whatever). But when you acquire proficiency in the skill, you can opt to use the Secondary Ability instead. Warfare's is Strength, since it stands to reason that fighters might know a lot about swords and battles but not be particularly well-read or bookish. Trade Crafts are also Int as primary, Str as Secondary, since it also stands to reason that fighters know a lot about smithing and armormaking. So if you're a big beefy fighter, you're kind of incentivized to take Warfare or Trade Crafts, since they line up nicely with your high Str stat. But you're not compelled to! You can still take Arcana or Religion or whatever you want, but NOW you've got to have the big Intelligence to back those up, because Strength can't save you there.

Finally, regarding the debate of whether or not to add more skills -- I'm not sure I understand the argument "The more skills there are, the more it cuts down on getting hand-wavey advantage in certain situations for my background." In my opinion, the whole notion of getting advantage on random things for your backstory is bizarre. What if I wrote that my backstory was a guild merchant who worked in a magic item shop? Should I get advantage on all checks to identify or appraise magic items? Of course you'd say no, but then why does the guy with the soldier background get advantage on all checks that are vaguely related to military stuff? The hand-waviness can only get you so far, before someone's character is going to be able to take advantage of the hand-waviness more than somebody else's, and then you're stuck.

I'm personally all about adding more skills (specifically more knowledge and social skills), but I appreciate that lots of people like less skills, and that's okay. For me, each additional skill (within reason!) adds a new node that a character can use to meaningfully interact with the game (so long as they're not too hair-splitty), and each additional skill provides a player with a unique way to express their character in the game world.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm personally all about adding more skills (specifically more knowledge and social skills), but I appreciate that lots of people like less skills, and that's okay. For me, each additional skill (within reason!) adds a new node that a character can use to meaningfully interact with the game (so long as they're not too hair-splitty), and each additional skill provides a player with a unique way to express their character in the game world.

Except that the pool of places they can put their bonus in (ie the total number of choices they get to make) is sharply limited. So if you split skills, instead of being good at all of History, now you're only good at History (Lower Lumbsbottom from 234 to 346). Which is a much more limited set. By increasing the pool of choices, you've devalued each and every choice.

Crafting? That's a tool proficiency.
Warfare? Not a proficiency at all--that's up to the player entirely. You're not making checks there, and if you are, they're regular Intelligence ones.

Civics? That's definitionally History. Just like Arcana catches all the "history of magic" stuff, History catches all the political stuff.

Leadership? Not a proficiency, because it doesn't involve making checks most of the time, and if it does, it involves one of the other Charisma (X) checks based on how you're leading.

[Abracadangit]

Except that the pool of places they can put their bonus in (ie the total number of choices they get to make) is sharply limited. So if you split skills, instead of being good at all of History, now you're only good at History (Lower Lumbsbottom from 234 to 346). Which is a much more limited set. By increasing the pool of choices, you've devalued each and every choice.

Crafting? That's a tool proficiency.
Warfare? Not a proficiency at all--that's up to the player entirely. You're not making checks there, and if you are, they're regular Intelligence ones.

Civics? That's definitionally History. Just like Arcana catches all the "history of magic" stuff, History catches all the political stuff.

Leadership? Not a proficiency, because it doesn't involve making checks most of the time, and if it does, it involves one of the other Charisma (X) checks based on how you're leading.

Ok -- when I say "adding more knowledge skills," I don't mean adding a skill for Interpretive Philosophy, and a skill for Dwarven History, and a skill for Elven History, etc. This is what I meant about not getting too hair-splitty, right. Conversely, I could say "Well why don't we just fuse Arcana and History and Religion and Nature into one 'Lore' skill, who needs all those fiddly knowledge skills." I don't think that's your argument, but by using your tactic, I can make your argument look silly, too. There's no right or wrong answer, it's whatever feels right for the kind of game you're running, and if the players are on board with it, you're good to go. If the players AREN'T on board with it, that's a different story.

See, you interpret Crafting as a tool proficiency, but Greywander even goes out of their way to say "Yeah, I know there are tool proficiencies, but I envision this doing something different that isn't accounted for with tool proficiencies." No one's empirically right or wrong here -- this is all interpretation.

I don't understand why Warfare flat-out "can't be a proficiency" because "you're not making checks." The party finds a soldier's corpse in the forest, and want to know who he fights for, based off of the insignia on his shield. Boom, Warfare check. Yes, in a game that's lacking this skill, that could very well be History or a pure Intelligence, but if you have Warfare in your game, then there's a new button that talks to this matter directly. Yes, Greywander knows it's not in the core game, that's why they're adding it.

Civics is History? PHB says History is to "recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations." Your idea that History includes Civics is an interpretation that falls outside the ideas presented by the PHB, while Greywander has a different interpretation. Neither one is valid or invalid.

Leadership isn't a check in the default games or in your games, but that doesn't mean someone else couldn't conceivably have it in theirs, especially in a military-themed campaign where a player can rouse the troops with a fiery monologue. Your game might call it Performance or Persuasion, but again -- Greywander's game could involve a lot of these scenarios, so they decided to make it a skill.

The core of your arguments seems to be "Well these aren't skills in the default game and they're not skills I would use in my game, ergo they couldn't work as skills ever." I even admitted in my breakdown that I probably wouldn't use Civics in my game, but it still might work in Greywander's. These are all questions of interpretation and style and feel, but it feels like you're jumping in to say these are empirically wrong from a factual standpoint.

I apologize if I've misinterpreted your tone.

[stoutstien]

Honestly, I'm all for combining all the information recalling skills into one single proficiency.

[Abracadangit]

Honestly, I'm all for combining all the information recalling skills into one single proficiency.

Ha ha! Nooooooooo

...if that's your style, by all means. Can I ask why, though? I enjoy the idea that a wizard knows about magical theory, spellbooks, and another wizard's research notes (Arcana), while a cleric knows about deities & demigods, the rites and prayers of a given faith, and mythology (Religion). I feel like these distinctions give both of these characters unique areas where their knowledge is useful, making them feel more individualized. Again -- I wouldn't want to run hogwild with 30 knowledge skills for every little thing, but I do enjoy some meaningful & thematic variety.

[stoutstien]

Ha ha! Nooooooooo

...if that's your style, by all means. Can I ask why, though? I enjoy the idea that a wizard knows about magical theory, spellbooks, and another wizard's research notes (Arcana), while a cleric knows about deities & demigods, the rites and prayers of a given faith, and mythology (Religion). I feel like these distinctions give both of these characters unique areas where their knowledge is useful, making them feel more individualized. Again -- I wouldn't want to run hogwild with 30 knowledge skills for every little thing, but I do enjoy some meaningful & thematic variety.

The main reason why I don't mind combining them into one is because I don't like them as system for recalling information at all. When the skills are applied to seeking out new information they are fine but why the heck does the source of the information have any regard on your ability to recall it in the moment when you need it? We could say the scope of Christmas sees represent the possibility of you ever being exposed to that information but once again we run to the issue of the large range of information that would be present in any or all of them. So taking arcana as an example, you could keep it in the game as a practical application of arcane magic and just make history a catch all for info recall. I know plenty of mechanical engineers that have a sound working knowledge of it who couldn't tell me the origins of the screw or what's the oldest known example of a civilization using electricity. Somebody who specializes in history has a much greater chance of being exposed that information in a way that they might actually retain it

Secondly there's no real distinction in magic which is the laws of reality in most D&D settings. If you want to use the optional rules to identify a spell it's arcana regardless of who's casting. If there's no distinction between arcane Divine or others when it comes to the source of the magic why would the information recalling magic be different. It's one of the byproducts of simplifying the system.

Thirdly I hate any stop of gameplay when it is regarding the distinction between the player and character knowledge unless it's actually the purpose of that encounter/arch. In other words unless the quest is actually tracking down truly ancient or lost information I don't want to deal with it it adds nothing to the experience of playing the game that I would consider positive or worth mine or my players time. Stopping to roll to see what they know is just stupid. If you're running almost purely as a passive skill it's better but still not great.

[Abracadangit]

The main reason why I don't mind combining them into one is because I don't like them as system for recalling information at all. When the skills are applied to seeking out new information they are fine but why the heck does the source of the information have any regard on your ability to recall it in the moment when you need it? We could say the scope of Christmas sees represent the possibility of you ever being exposed to that information but once again we run to the issue of the large range of information that would be present in any or all of them. So taking arcana as an example, you could keep it in the game as a practical application of arcane magic and just make history a catch all for info recall. I know plenty of mechanical engineers that have a sound working knowledge of it who couldn't tell me the origins of the screw or what's the oldest known example of a civilization using electricity. Somebody who specializes in history has a much greater chance of being exposed that information in a way that they might actually retain it

Secondly there's no real distinction in magic which is the laws of reality in most D&D settings. If you want to use the optional rules to identify a spell it's arcana regardless of who's casting. If there's no distinction between arcane Divine or others when it comes to the source of the magic why would the information recalling magic be different. It's one of the byproducts of simplifying the system.

Thirdly I hate any stop of gameplay when it is regarding the distinction between the player and character knowledge unless it's actually the purpose of that encounter/arch. In other words unless the quest is actually tracking down truly ancient or lost information I don't want to deal with it it adds nothing to the experience of playing the game that I would consider positive or worth mine or my players time. Stopping to roll to see what they know is just stupid. If you're running almost purely as a passive skill it's better but still not great.

Word. It's funny, I LIKE knowledge skills, but I also agree with everything you said.

Making people roll to recall information is lame -- then when they inevitably fail, you have to be like "Well, uh, never mind. You don't know anything about it. Sorry I asked." Instead, I like to use knowledge skills to shape and flavor scene exposition for the party, as they enter a new area or discover an item. "Alaric, with your background in arcane theory, you know that these writings on the wall are..." etc. In other words, it's virtually all passive, unless you're trying to use the skill in an active way (i.e. using Arcana to attempt the experiment detailed in the mage's research notes). Making everyone roll to remember rote facts or information makes knowledge skills even more useless than they already are.

Yeah, the dumping of all magic into Arcana is lame and almost, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of having Nature and Religion skills. Like there should be those three skills for the three magic families, right? Why do we even have them if not for distinguishing magic types? I rule that if the caster is using divine magic, you can use Religion, and if the caster is using primal magic, you can use Nature, but I know that's not RAW.

Anyway, your grievances are legit, and I understand where you're coming from.

[sandmote]

On the latest turn of the conversation, I've moved a few items from Arana to the other former Knowledge skills. If you do want a more specific system of knowledge, I would maybe knock off how Pathfinder 2e handles its Lore skill.


Your Intelligence (Arcana) check measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes.

I still have arcana apply to studying and understanding methods of interplanar travel, but have made information on environments and inhabitants of the outer planes use religion and those for the inner planes use nature.

Similarly, I went back to 3.5e and broke up knowledge about creatures of different types across the skills, mostly based on the nearest fields of study of 3.5e's knowledge skill:

Arcana allows a bonus when recalling information on Constructs, Dragons, and Aberrations.
History allows a bonus when recalling information on some Monstrosities, Giants, and various Humanoids.
Religion allows a bonus when recalling information on Undead, Celestials, and Fiends
Nature allows a bonus when recalling information on covers Beasts, Fey, Plants, Oozes, Elementals, some Monstrosities, and some unnatural conditions of the wilds, like lycanthropy.
Please note that these are generic default options. As one example, I would allow a PC who fervently follows a moon deity to apply their proficiency in Religion on a roll to recall information on lycanthropes.


The main reason why I don't mind combining them into one is because I don't like them as system for recalling information at all. If this bothers you I'd make them mostly be passive checks. Personally I like that is makes it feel like people with a basic understanding on a particular subject still have gaps in their knowledge (and even then I usually wont allow a roll if there's no sensible way the PC could have encountered information on a subject).

In response to greywander's ideas for additional skills, I would agree a name like "Mercantilism," might be more thematically appropriate than "Business," but the idea does seem a like a good skill to add.

Warfare seems to consist half of uses I give Survival to better differentiate it from Nature and half of uses I grant as part of the Ranger's Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer features. Being able to plan supply lines is a different beast depending on the environment, and different groups of creatures are going to build fundamentally different defenses. As an example, I doubt a sound grasp of pushing through dwarven tunnels would help much in assaulting a treetop elven village.

[Greywander]

@Greywander--I think you're misinterpreting the proficiency rules. The DM is supposed to decide if the proficiency bonus applies in every case. All printed proficiencies (yes, including language and weapon/armor proficiencies) are just one way that proficiency bonus might apply. Saying that someone can apply their proficiency bonus to something that they're not formally "skilled" in is totally RAW, not a houserule at all.

Remember, skills are not fundamental. Every such check is an Ability check, first and foremost. And multiple (or no) sources of proficiency might apply, and players are expected and encouraged to ask if they can apply a different proficiency. In fact, the DM is recommended[1] to allow it as long as they have some sort of explanation of how it will work. Skills are not hard-coded.

[1] the DMG contains no rules for DMs. The system contains no rules for DMs. Only recommendations.
Alright, I'll concede this point. I think the point still stands that adding a few extra skills that cover topics not already covered will make the DM's job easier, but I can see how this could also reduce how often you get to add your proficiency bonus. For example, it's pretty common for History to be used to cover Civics and some aspects of Business, because it really is the closest thing if you had to pick a skill to represent those. And maybe separate History and Civics skills would be too narrow? It's definitely worth debating.

Nature is another skill that feels like it's too broad, as it covers everything from physics to geology to ecology to zoology. At the same time, I feel like Nature is less used than most other knowledge skills, so it doesn't really need to be nerfed. ¯\(ಠ_ಠ)/¯


Making people roll to recall information is lame
Passive checks were made for this sort of thing. The DM can just give out the relevant information without ever needing to make the player role, based solely on their passive scores. Then, you only need to roll when you're trying to do something related to that skill. Alternatively, the DM can use passive scores when describing something, and call for a roll if the player asks "do I know X?"

[Kane0]

Rule of thumb: for every 3-4 new skills you introduce to the list you should probably give characters one additional skill proficiency to cover them, the same way you would increase the point buy for using honor/sanity or whatever other additional stats.