Attempt to Rebalance and Clarify 5e's "Knowledge" Skills

[sandmote]

I don't think it is controversial to say the Intelligence based skills are a bit lacking in 5e D&D. Things to do with other planes and spellcasting fall into Arcana, and everything else is somewhat up in the air.

Attempt at Clarification: I consider there to be a lack of cases where a player tries to roll History, Religion, or Nature instead of other skills, to the point I find it hard as DM to pepper in cases where a PC proficient in any of these skills benefits from having that proficiency. Regularly someone proficient in Survival or Investigation comes up with some excuse to roll those instead, making proficiency in History, Religion, and Nature less useful. I feel this has gotten to the point in my games that players seem to start avoiding taking proficiency in the the former skills at all (and therefore exacerbating the problem). I have no intent to force players to roll a particular skill to see if they know information on a particular subject. /Attempt at Clarification

So the following is an attempt at 3 things:

To break up events taking place on different planes between different skills. The Arcana focused characters can keep the knowledge of traveling between planes, but I want to give other PCs at least the opportunity to know things once the party has arrived on the other plane.
I want to be a bit more explicit in what each skill does, so I'm aware of the options going forward. So far I've mostly just added in more of the listed examples from different subtypes of 3.5e's Knowledge skill to the four 5e skills built off from it. Any suggestions on how to keep tool proficiencies sperate and additional examples of clarify as welcome, as are suggestions for how to determine when a PC's particular background should allow the substitution of one skill with another.
A standardized grouping of which skill applies to knowledge about which creature types; recalling information on the thing the party is fighting comes up often enough for me to list this separately. Monstrosities feel like a wastebasket creature type to me, but the others creature types I've each attached to a particular skill. Not sure what to do with lycanthropes or similarly cursed creatures either.

I'm posting this on the forum specifically to request any commentary on other types of information to add between these skills, as well as for notes on how I have grouped the listed types of information. I know there can be some awkwardness when PCs learned a skill from a particular source with overlap (ex: I've listed astronomy under religion while Circle of Stars druids are a thing), but I am trying to focus on where to default a particular type of knowledge before considering where a PC would have specifically studied a particular subject.


Magical Abilities of a creature, irrelevant of creature type.
Origins and General Knowledge on Aberrations
Origins and General Knowledge on Constructs
Origins and General Knowledge on Dragons
Crossing Planar Boundaries
Traversing the Ethereal and Astral planes
Recognizing things from the Far realm
Knowledge of Arcane Symbols
Recognizing Cast Spells
Interaction with Magical Traps

Recognizing the cultural origin of objects and buildings, irrelevant of creature type.
Origins and General Knowledge on Humanoids and subtypes of Humanoids
Origins and General Knowledge on Giants
Origins and General Knowledge on "monstrous humanoid" type Monstrosities
Knowing Noble Linages
Knowing historical rivalries and alliances, irrelevant of creature type.
Recognizing and interpreting heraldry
Knowledge of local traditions and legends
Regional geopolitics, including the formation and destruction of political factions and settlements.
Knowledge of wars and battles. For particular creatures, this can include famous battles involving that creature or a similar subtype (ex: green dragon tactics, when the party encounters a green dragon).
Which culture and/or class a creature belongs to based on appearance and manner.

Origins and General Knowledge on Celestials
Origins and General Knowledge on Fiends
Origins and General Knowledge on Undead
Traversing the Outer Planes
Knowledge of Religious Figures, irrelevant of creature types.
Recognizing holy symbols and iconography
Recognizing and performing Religious Rites
Astronomy
Astrology
Recognizing and Interpreting Portents and Signs.
Tracking of holy days and knowledge of their significance.
Traditional Rivalries and Friendships between religious figures.

Ecological Information, irrelevant of creature type.
Origins and General Knowledge on Beasts
Origins and General Knowledge on Elementals
Origins and General Knowledge on Fey
Origins and General Knowledge on Plants
Origins and General Knowledge on Oozes
Information on "magical beast" and "outsider" type Monstrosities
Traversing the Elemental Planes, Feywild, Shadowfell, and Material Planes
Life forms that mechanically function as traps rather than creatures
Origin and uses of natural materials
Recognizing Herbs and otherwise useful or saleable plants. PCs don't need a roll to guess a plant is valuable; only to determine if they know how valuable or why.
Predicting the Weather


I've also included lists for Medicine and Survival, as the overlap between them and Nature seem relevant. I'm not sure where to put curses (ex: lycanthropy) and I hope to better differentiate Survival from Nature, even though I'm aware many DMs allow them to be substituted for each other in most cases.

Recognizing Medicines (including herbs)
Recognizing Poisons
Applying Specific Antidotes, but not crafting them.
Replaces Investigation for determining causes of death
Identifying Illnesses
Treating Illness
Diagnosing Injuries
Treating Injuries
Stabilize a dying creature.


Recognizing and locating Edible/Inedible/Poisonous Foods, including fishing, hunting, and gathering.
Finding and following paths by land on Inner, Outer, and Material planes
Recognizing Ambush Sites on Inner, Outer, and Material planes
Setting up traps and ambushes.
Following Tracks
Basic Navigation
Protection against the elements.

[Lunali]

Survival vs Nature: Survival is the practical knowledge that someone might take you out in the woods and teach you, nature is the sort of knowledge that someone would hand you a book and tell you to study. In particular, I would add following someone's tracks, building shelter, fishing, preparing traps, hunting and gathering to the skills for survival.

Also, I would add knowledge of monstrosities (or at least most monstrosities) to nature as they are mostly beasts that don't exist in our world, so they got classified as monstrosities.

[greenstone]

I use the word "research" rather than "knowledge." Being proficient in arcana, history, etc means that you have read books, studied their content, made notes, done research. Academic stuff. Also, you know where to go for more information and how to extract that information.

I feel that skill proficiency is not the answer to "does my character know what this is?"

Proficiency is what you roll when a character goes away and does some research about a topic. Which skill you use depends on where you are looking for the information. Trawling through a dusty library would require arcana or history. Reading gospels and talking to older members of a priesthood would require religion. Sitting down in front of a carving and trying to decipher the runes might cover any of the skills.

Survival is different in that it is a practical skill not an academic skill. Survival teaches you how to bend a tree to build a shelter. It doesn't teach you the name of the tree (maybe) or how it is venerated by local tribes. Survival teaches you how to navigate by the stars. It doesn't teach you any historical or astrological significance of those stars.

Medicine I struggle with.

[Pex]

When I DM I call for a Medicine check when a player wants to know how close a bad guy is to dropping. It doesn't cost an action. The DC is based on creature type. Starting at 10 for basic PC races and common humanoid foes likes orcs and bugbears it increases from there.

When a player wants to know what his character knows about what a creature can do - powers, resistances, immunities, etc. they can make an appropriate roll as a bonus action and I tell them relevant but informal information if any based on their total. If they roll high enough I'll tell them not to use fire for example if resistant or immune. If they make the roll as an action they get more detail but can also ask me for something specific they want to know.

[Tanarii]

By default, 5e doesn't have "knowledge" checks, which are state-of-the-character checks. It has Intelligence checks modified by Lore skills, which you use when trying to recall information when your character has limited time, and can't take ten times as long to automatically recall it.

DM and/or Players need to decide if a character knows something before they can even make a check to recall it in a stressful situation with limited time.

[Catullus64]

I feel like trying to assign monster categories wholesale to each skill is misguided. Nearly any monster has information about it that can be gleaned from a natural, arcane, historical, or religious perspective. Assigning whole groups to skills will flatten out interesting corner cases. Rather than divide things by monster type, my preference is to assign monster knowledge to skills based on what kind of information a player is querying. If the players ask very broad questions ("what do I know about this thing?") I ask them to get specific.

Arcana tells you:

Any magical abilities the creature may possess.
Whether the creature was created by magic, and what sort.
The creature's susceptibility or resilience to particular spells.


History tells you:

Notable recorded sightings/fights/interactions with the creature or its kind.
Any practical information learned in fighting the creature in the past.
For sentient creatures, its language, political affiliations, culture.


Nature tells you:

Simple physical characteristics of the thing, like damage resistances or special movement speeds.
How it interacts with its environment, sustains itself.
For non-sentient creatures, its behavior patterns and instincts.


Religion tells you:

Any religious beliefs or practices of the thing itself.
How the creature fits into religious belief systems, particularly the characters' own.


This is kinda reflective of how I think these skills should be handled overall; not mainly as groupings of subject matter (though they sometimes are that), but as skills; the ability to think about and understand the world through the lens of a specialized discipline.

Medicine is a funny skill because I think its utility increases the more the players care about and are responsible for non-player characters. NPCs, after all, aren't necessarily the super-heroes that the game rules expect PCs to be, able to walk off the most lethal injury with a potion and a quick nap. Long-term treatment of wounds and care for mundane medical conditions are common concerns in some of my games, not to mention "medicine" practices for protecting against hostile magic.

[Gryndle]

Survival vs Nature: Survival is the practical knowledge that someone might take you out in the woods and teach you, nature is the sort of knowledge that someone would hand you a book and tell you to study. In particular, I would add following someone's tracks, building shelter, fishing, preparing traps, hunting and gathering to the skills for survival.

Also, I would add knowledge of monstrosities (or at least most monstrosities) to nature as they are mostly beasts that don't exist in our world, so they got classified as monstrosities.

I think you are spot on. I am going to go the dangerous route of using an RL example. I was raised as hunter. I worked in the US's largest natural habitat zoo for 14 years. The place is massive with an expansive staff of specialized animal care, vet, horticulture and arborists, and then there is me and my former colleagues who were trained to deal with the most dangerous animal of all-humans.

The hort/arbor staff is going to know SO much more about plants than me (Nature skill, possibly even with expertise), the animal keepers are going to know SO much more about the animals (Animal Handling & Nature, again likely with expertise). I know more about what is edible in the wild (at least in this region), what is dangerous, dealing with elements, and how to identify prints and track animals (Survival skill, though I am not good enough to have expertise).

There are going to be areas where our knowledge is going to overlap. Hort staff is going to be able to id local flora that is toxic. Animal staff may not be able to track, but a lion keeper should be able to id a cougar or bobcat print and point out details about their preferred hunting patterns and dens. Canid keepers should be able to do the same with native fox, a coyote or even domestic dog.

I think the gripe some folks have about these skills in particular comes from not knowing where those overlaps should and shouldn't be.

The same with arcana and religion. Religion should probably get you some knowledge (though maybe not too detailed) of the planes where the gods, devils and demons reside. Arcana might get you more knowledge of the planes themselves, but when it comes to the actual physical domains of gods & devils it probably shouldn't get as much as religion.

I don't think the skills themselves need to be reworked; I think the way the skills are perceived and interpreted by some DMs & players needs to be adjusted.

[LudicSavant]

I feel like trying to assign monster categories wholesale to each skill is misguided. Nearly any monster has information about it that can be gleaned from a natural, arcane, historical, or religious perspective. Assigning whole groups to skills will flatten out interesting corner cases.

Strong agree.

Some DMs get this intuition that skills should have exclusive dominion over a certain thing. "Skill X is for Y, therefore all other skills are NOT for Y."

I believe this sort of thinking does not mesh with the design of the larger system. We can see from the example uses of skills that they are MEANT to have overlap. For example, Arcana can be used to locate and disarm any and all magic traps. But you can also locate and disarm them with other skills.

Instead of asking "are dragons more Arcana-y or Religion-y?" I'll ask "what does this PC who is a scholar of Religion know about dragons?"

I often will hand out different information on the same topic to different PCs, and they'll share among themselves and have interesting conversations and interactions puttng things together. As opposed to the issue becoming the dominion of one person.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Strong agree.

Some DMs get this intuition that skills should have exclusive dominion over a certain thing. "Skill X is for Y, therefore all other skills are NOT for Y."

I believe this sort of thinking does not mesh with the design of the larger system. We can see from the example uses of skills that they are MEANT to have overlap. For example, Arcana can be used to locate and disarm any and all magic traps. But you can also locate and disarm them with other skills.

Instead of asking "are dragons more Arcana-y or Religion-y?" I'll ask "what does this PC who is a scholar of Religion know about dragons?"

I often will hand out different information on the same topic to different PCs, and they'll share among themselves and have interesting conversations and interactions puttng things together. As opposed to the issue becoming the dominion of one person.

I agree. And there's support for this in the DMG, which councils that you can assign multiple sources of proficiency, such as (my example) an Intelligence (History OR Religion OR Jeweler's Kit) check to know about the significance of a particular jeweled object. And suggests allowing players to suggest alternative/additional sources of proficiencies.

[Psyren]

Strong agree.

Some DMs get this intuition that skills should have exclusive dominion over a certain thing. "Skill X is for Y, therefore all other skills are NOT for Y."

I believe this sort of thinking does not mesh with the design of the larger system. We can see from the example uses of skills that they are MEANT to have overlap. For example, Arcana can be used to locate and disarm any and all magic traps. But you can also locate and disarm them with other skills.

Instead of asking "are dragons more Arcana-y or Religion-y?" I'll ask "what does this PC who is a scholar of Religion know about dragons?"

I often will hand out different information on the same topic to different PCs, and they'll share among themselves and have interesting conversations and interactions puttng things together. As opposed to the issue becoming the dominion of one person.

+1 to this.

Certainly if you're looking for a starting point, Tasha's Monster Research" section (TCoE 148) is a good indicator of which knowledge skill could be considered a "default" for a given creature type. But I'm never going to limit monsters to only be understandable using the proficiencies on that list.

I'll further add that recalling knowledge is no different than any other ability check - namely, you should only call for a roll if success is possible + nontrivial, and if there is a meaningful consequence for failure. Don't be afraid to simply give the info to the players (especially the proficient ones) without a roll if the roll wouldn't add anything, especially if a failure would get in the way of the story or the action.

[sandmote]

I as interrupted halfway through writing this post and have had to come back later. I'll respond to the following bit first:

Some DMs get this intuition that skills should have exclusive dominion over a certain thing. "Skill X is for Y, therefore all other skills are NOT for Y."
I'm looking at which skills particular information should fall into by default. I can and do stop and determine what information a PC would know based on background and where they gained their skill proficiency. Rather, I want a cheat-sheet to speed up this process. Some more detail is split up between different notes I have on this comment, but I think Ludic hit this point the hardest, so I'm including this note up here.


Survival vs Nature: Survival is the practical knowledge that someone might take you out in the woods and teach you, nature is the sort of knowledge that someone would hand you a book and tell you to study. In particular, I would add following someone's tracks, building shelter, fishing, preparing traps, hunting and gathering to the skills for survival. Examples that sound obviously part of the skill once someone mentions them are precisely what I was looking for; thanks you, and I'll add these to the list.


Also, I would add knowledge of monstrosities (or at least most monstrosities) to nature as they are mostly beasts that don't exist in our world, so they got classified as monstrosities. Monstrosities seem to be a wastebasket category. There's the sort of monstrosity you mention, but there's also sapient creatures with their own cultures like doppelgangers, minotaurs, and yuan-ti.

I feel that skill proficiency is not the answer to "does my character know what this is?"

Proficiency is what you roll when a character goes away and does some research about a topic. Which skill you use depends on where you are looking for the information. Trawling through a dusty library would require arcana or history. Reading gospels and talking to older members of a priesthood would require religion. Sitting down in front of a carving and trying to decipher the runes might cover any of the skills. I still use a check (or the passive score) to determine if a PC is able to find a particular piece of information or has encountered the information in previous study. My attempt here is to get a better idea of how to clarify when you would apply proficiency in Arcana/History/Nature/Religion/Medicine/Survival when a PC would apply bonuses of different magnitude based on which skill they use.


When I DM I call for a Medicine check when a player wants to know how close a bad guy is to dropping. It doesn't cost an action. The DC is based on creature type. Starting at 10 for basic PC races and common humanoid foes likes orcs and bugbears it increases from there.

When a player wants to know what his character knows about what a creature can do - powers, resistances, immunities, etc. they can make an appropriate roll as a bonus action and I tell them relevant but informal information if any based on their total. If they roll high enough I'll tell them not to use fire for example if resistant or immune. If they make the roll as an action they get more detail but can also ask me for something specific they want to know. I stole 'bloodied' for 4e from the former purpose, relegating medicine checks to figuring out lasting injuries. For some reason only the "Identifying Diseases" aspect of that got listed initially; I'll add more such examples.

In the latter case, I listed different creature types with a particular skill to help clarify which between Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion to roll to determine that information.


I feel like trying to assign monster categories wholesale to each skill is misguided. Nearly any monster has information about it that can be gleaned from a natural, arcane, historical, or religious perspective. ... Rather than divide things by monster type, my preference is to assign monster knowledge to skills based on what kind of information a player is querying. If the players ask very broad questions ("what do I know about this thing?") I ask them to get specific. I as focusing on combat information wen writing the list. For instance, constructs generally don't have religious significance (as least the D&D versions, I'll mention edge cases shortly) and are typically made magically, so I listed them as defaulting to Arcana. I'll add "irrelevant of creature type" to the relevant fields elsewhere.


Assigning whole groups to skills will flatten out interesting corner cases. In my experience, a discussion of interesting corner cases starts with determining the 'usual' case, in which case my goal would speed up the discussion of interesting corner cases.


This is kinda reflective of how I think these skills should be handled overall; not mainly as groupings of subject matter (though they sometimes are that), but as skills; the ability to think about and understand the world through the lens of a specialized discipline. I'm not clear how you're using "discipline" here. My best guess would be that PCs trained in (say) Arcana would focus on finding information related to their field of study, whereas a different PC with proficiency in (say) religion would focus on searching different channels to find information, possibly ending up with a different source.


I think the gripe some folks have about these skills in particular comes from not knowing where those overlaps should and shouldn't be.

The same with arcana and religion. Religion should probably get you some knowledge (though maybe not too detailed) of the planes where the gods, devils and demons reside. Arcana might get you more knowledge of the planes themselves, but when it comes to the actual physical domains of gods & devils it probably shouldn't get as much as religion.

I don't think the skills themselves need to be reworked; I think the way the skills are perceived and interpreted by some DMs & players needs to be adjusted. +1, and what I'm trying to clarify for myself with this thread.

This post is going up before I update the original post; there may be a slight delay in implementing changes I list here.

[Monster Manuel]

Compared to previous editions, characters have proficiency in a lot fewer skills, so those proficiencies have to be more widely applicable. I used to think along the lines of "list out the specific things you can do with X skill proficiency", and to alleviate the relatively low number of proficiencies, I would give players bonus knowledge or language proficiencies based on INT bonus.

I still kind of like that approach (I prefer for players to have more proficiencies, and I like that it gives a mechanical benefit for a higher INT), but I've gotten away from that kind of thinking. The game is more fun for me, and less wonky, with a broader application of proficiencies. Nature proficiency does whatever the player can convince me it can do. Three players want to create a mild poison which can sicken an ogre guarding a bridge. I ask them how they want to go about doing that. One of them says they use their Nature proficiency to find some poison berries. One says they use their Medicine proficiency to distill an Emetic to induce vomiting. The third wants to use their proficiency in History to recall that Ogres in this region are historically likely to be allergic to shellfish. I'm perfectly happy to let them roll on any of these, or with proficiency in Alchemist's Supplies, or whatever.

Essentially, I prefer to start with the task that they are trying to achieve, and adapt the skill roll to fit, rather than trying to start with what the skill can do, and assign it to tasks as they come up, if that makes sense?

I would agree that Medicine and Survival are in a different category, though, because there are discrete mechanical effects that use these proficiency rolls to determine an in-game outcome that is hard to justify with using the knowledge-based skills. You make a medicine check to apply first aid to a would with a healer's kit. Hard to justify using History skill to do that, in the best of circumstances. So, while I would allow a Medicine roll to achieve the same effect as a History roll in some cases, there are cases where I wouldn't allow the opposite. This makes these skills (Medicine and Survival) inherently better than the purely knowledge-based ones, which is why I consider giving these out more freely as bonuses.

[KorvinStarmast]

The assertion that these skills contain a balance problem in the first place is unsupported.

I don't think it is controversial to say the Intelligence based skills are a bit lacking in 5e D&D.
I find your thinking to be superficial at best. We get plenty of mileage out of them at our tables.

Caveat: a lot of illusion spells require an Intelligence based ability check to see through. But some of them also become clearly an illusion based on mere physical interaction. Illusions are a weird case, maybe even an edge case, as regards ability checks since most spells have saving throws, not ability checks, as a counter to them.

Pun intended here as regards INT checks: I feel that you are overthinking it. :smallsmile: (Overthinking is easy to fall prey to, I run into it every time I level up and need to pick/discard a spell).

[sandmote]

Essentially, I prefer to start with the task that they are trying to achieve, and adapt the skill roll to fit, rather than trying to start with what the skill can do, and assign it to tasks as they come up, if that makes sense? I agree with this while playing at the table. But I also like setting up material beforehand to help me run the game smoother.


I find your thinking to be superficial at best. We get plenty of mileage out of them at our tables. Would it be possible for me to get a clarification of what you think my thinking is? I seem to be getting more responses on that than anything I wanted help on when posting the thread, so it might help if I an get away from what I meant long enough to find out what I've apparently written.

Note: I know what I meant. I don't know what other people are thinking I meant when they read my initial post. It looks like they don't match, and I am assuming I have written down my thoughts poorly. I am asking for help cleaning it up to make the written statements match my thoughts, not asking anyone to read my mind.

[Pex]

I feel like trying to assign monster categories wholesale to each skill is misguided. Nearly any monster has information about it that can be gleaned from a natural, arcane, historical, or religious perspective. Assigning whole groups to skills will flatten out interesting corner cases. Rather than divide things by monster type, my preference is to assign monster knowledge to skills based on what kind of information a player is querying. If the players ask very broad questions ("what do I know about this thing?") I ask them to get specific.



Your way is cool, but since I'm used to the 3E way it works for me. I don't gate knowledge behind being proficient. The not wrong motive for the player to ask is to help the party battle the creature in combat. It's cool for flavor text for your game if a History check tells them shambling mounds were in the battle of Podunk 300 years ago and it was learned lightning should not be used against them, but that encourages players to only use their best skill for everything. I leave it as a Nature check even if it's simplistic. If your History check only told them they were in the battle of Podunk then it was a waste of time for the player's interest at the moment battling shambling mounds.

[Frogreaver]

When you call for a nature roll or religion roll, does the whole party get to roll?

Expanding on this a bit, do players tell you they want to roll perception or do you tell them when to roll it? More than likely you call for the perception roll because if you didn’t players would either say they try to perceive every 5 seconds or it would never come up.

I’m speculating that you don’t treat history and nature that way. You instead expect players to ask about using those skills even though it’s guesswork to them about whether they could ever matter.

My suggestion is to treat them more like perception where you call for the roll when there’s some piece of useful but non-essential information you are willing to give them.

[sandmote]

I've attempted to add a bit more detail to the list.


The not wrong motive for the player to ask is to help the party battle the creature in combat. It's cool for flavor text for your game if a History check tells them shambling mounds were in the battle of Podunk 300 years ago and it was learned lightning should not be used against them, but that encourages players to only use their best skill for everything. I'm not sure what other motives the party would have for asking about any non-sentient creature, but yeah, similar reasoning for me. Part of the reason I didn't think it would be controversial to say 5e doesn't go into enough depth here.


Expanding on this a bit, do players tell you they want to roll perception or do you tell them when to roll it? More than likely you call for the perception roll because if you didn’t players would either say they try to perceive every 5 seconds or it would never come up.

I’m speculating that you don’t treat history and nature that way. You instead expect players to ask about using those skills even though it’s guesswork to them about whether they could ever matter.

My suggestion is to treat them more like perception where you call for the roll when there’s some piece of useful but non-essential information you are willing to give them. For new players I do call rolls more often, typically by describing what I want the party to do, and then try to list a default skill I expect to apply, the better to help that party learn the skills. For Arcana/History/Religion/Nature, this typically consists of asking player to roll to see if they've learned about a particular subject (or to find it out, if there's downtime). This cues questions about which specific skill would best represent that piece of information that I think a cheat sheet would speed things up.

This is also why I've missed some really obvious information on the list in the original post: If I don't have to think about which skill a question applies under, I don't worry about it, and if I don't worry about it it doesn't regularly occur to me.

For all games if someone suggests using a skill to roll for a particular item I'll treat it about the same as if I asked for it; I don't expect to be able to think of it each time a PC might know how to use a skill.

[Pex]

When you call for a nature roll or religion roll, does the whole party get to roll?

Expanding on this a bit, do players tell you they want to roll perception or do you tell them when to roll it? More than likely you call for the perception roll because if you didn’t players would either say they try to perceive every 5 seconds or it would never come up.

I’m speculating that you don’t treat history and nature that way. You instead expect players to ask about using those skills even though it’s guesswork to them about whether they could ever matter.

My suggestion is to treat them more like perception where you call for the roll when there’s some piece of useful but non-essential information you are willing to give them.

For my game only the player who specifically asks for the Knowledge or any skill check gets to roll. No piggy back rolls from anyone else on their turn. Depending on the situation another PC may Help for Advantage. Piggy backs in general are not forbidden. It depends on the situation. No piggy backs is to allow everyone to participate when the player thinks of something. I don't want only the player with the highest plus number to roll of the moment to roll. When I call for a roll I may ask a specific player to do it because his character is relevant for the situation. I may allow piggy back because I was arbitrary in choosing who rolls. Only in the case where the specific character I chose had exclusive relevancy would I deny piggy back. Other times I will allow anyone to roll and tell the party it's fine if they want the person with the highest plus number to roll. It all depends on the situation as is the DM's prerogative to adjudicate. I purposely handle it this way because as a player I get very annoyed when the party only wants the player with the highest plus number to roll. That's gaming the system, and sometimes I want to attempt the Thing but don't have the highest plus number.

[KorvinStarmast]

When you call for a nature roll or religion roll, does the whole party get to roll? Feel free to use group checks as described in Chapter 7. :smallsmile:

[Tanarii]

Feel free to use group checks as described in Chapter 7. :smallsmile:
This is especially appropriate if the group is discussing what they're trying to recall, and it's a one time pass/fail to get the right or wrong information check. A group of people can easily arrive at the wrong answer as a while if several folks insist on bad info being the correct answer.

[Rukelnikov]

When you call for a nature roll or religion roll, does the whole party get to roll?

Expanding on this a bit, do players tell you they want to roll perception or do you tell them when to roll it? More than likely you call for the perception roll because if you didn’t players would either say they try to perceive every 5 seconds or it would never come up.

I’m speculating that you don’t treat history and nature that way. You instead expect players to ask about using those skills even though it’s guesswork to them about whether they could ever matter.

My suggestion is to treat them more like perception where you call for the roll when there’s some piece of useful but non-essential information you are willing to give them.

I think this is a pretty good approach, or better yet, using a "Passive Knowledge" check.

Lets take for instance Player knowledge of creatures. You come across a Troll, do you need to stop and think, "What was these creatures trademark? Oh Right regeneration! And how was it supposed to be overcome?"

Ingrained knowledge comes to mind without one actively trying to remember. Things we have studied less, or paid less attention to, we do need to actively try and remember ("How was it that the Sharn portals worked exactly?"). And finally there are things we just don't know and never knew, so we can't remember them.

I think Passive Knowledge + roll when players actively ask, more properly mimics how we remember stuff.

If the Passive score doesn't meet the arbitrary DC, then it means the character doesn't have that information in mind, if the player asks for a roll, then that means their character is actively trying to remember, hence them asking the DM.


I feel like trying to assign monster categories wholesale to each skill is misguided. Nearly any monster has information about it that can be gleaned from a natural, arcane, historical, or religious perspective. Assigning whole groups to skills will flatten out interesting corner cases. Rather than divide things by monster type, my preference is to assign monster knowledge to skills based on what kind of information a player is querying. If the players ask very broad questions ("what do I know about this thing?") I ask them to get specific.

Arcana tells you:

Any magical abilities the creature may possess.
Whether the creature was created by magic, and what sort.
The creature's susceptibility or resilience to particular spells.


History tells you:

Notable recorded sightings/fights/interactions with the creature or its kind.
Any practical information learned in fighting the creature in the past.
For sentient creatures, its language, political affiliations, culture.


Nature tells you:

Simple physical characteristics of the thing, like damage resistances or special movement speeds.
How it interacts with its environment, sustains itself.
For non-sentient creatures, its behavior patterns and instincts.


Religion tells you:

Any religious beliefs or practices of the thing itself.
How the creature fits into religious belief systems, particularly the characters' own.


This is kinda reflective of how I think these skills should be handled overall; not mainly as groupings of subject matter (though they sometimes are that), but as skills; the ability to think about and understand the world through the lens of a specialized discipline.



I don't think this is representative of how studying usually works. Lets suppose a priest has some knowledge of celestials.

To know Angels have wings (Nature), healing powers (Arcana), are the servants of the good aligned gods (Religion), and speak in Celestial (History), said priest would need 4 different knowledges.

They don't have much knowledge of the local flora and fauna, but they can recognize different celestials.

They don't know magic glyphs, but they know what powers these creatures command.

They don't know what battles were fought in the land they inhabit 300 years ago, but they know of all the major appeareances of celestials in the last 300 years.

Why is this? Because celestials are a topic of study for religious people, and thus all things celestial are the province of knowledge religion.

This doesn't mean, someone with knowledge history can't know anything about them either, they may know celestials were present in one battle or another, and their power turned the tide of the battle, but they may not know what those powers are, or even how the celestials look.

You can swap celestials with dragons, fey, or a lot of other creatures, and priest for some other scholar and the same would hold.

[sandmote]

I only just remembered to add "Stabilize a dying creature" to the list of uses for medicine. Wasn't strictly necessary to add given the intent of these lists, but its the sort of thing I was looking for help with.

Also added a few more examples to the four "Knowledge" skills.

Probably not worth me quoting every new statement I agree with to say so and every new statement I disagree with to say why.

As a general comment, It is possible to allow multiple skills to apply to relevant information, for different reasons. So someone proficient in History might know the Symbol of [Religious Organization of Particular Deity] because they've studied heraldry, while someone proficient in Religion knows the same information because they've studied that deities' pantheon.

Applying that to creature type, I want to list each creature type under the skill where someone would know about a creature because someone studying in that field would read texts on creatures of that type. To me, particular fields of information (like battles involving the same sort of creature) can be listed separately in a different (or same) one of the "knowledge" skills without this becoming a problem.

I have creature types formatted as "Origins and General Knowledge on [Creature Type] in the original post. Would it help to come up with a standardized formatting for particular subject matters?

[KorvinStarmast]

I think the gripe some folks have about these skills in particular comes from not knowing where those overlaps should and shouldn't be.

The same with arcana and religion. Religion should probably get you some knowledge (though maybe not too detailed) of the planes where the gods, devils and demons reside. Arcana might get you more knowledge of the planes themselves, but when it comes to the actual physical domains of gods & devils it probably shouldn't get as much as religion.

I don't think the skills themselves need to be reworked; I think the way the skills are perceived and interpreted by some DMs & players needs to be adjusted. +1. :smallsmile:

Monstrosities seem to be a wastebasket category. Yeah, monsters of many types. A druid might understand them via Nature (since they aren't natural?) while a wizard might understand them via arcana or nature. And using either proficiency is OK, but it's worth remembering that (1) anyone can make a check without being proficient, and (2) applying advantage or disadvantage to a given check for a circumstance is a thing that a DM can do any time (it's right there in Chapter 7) - if it makes sense for that check that time.
Compared to previous editions, characters have proficiency in a lot fewer skills, so those proficiencies have to be more widely applicable. While I agree with this in general, nobody needs to be proficient to do a skill check.

The game is more fun for me, and less wonky, with a broader application of proficiencies. We have found the same at all of the tables I play at, save one. I have one DM who gates checks behind proficiencies.

Essentially, I prefer to start with the task that they are trying to achieve, and adapt the skill roll to fit, rather than trying to start with what the skill can do, and assign it to tasks as they come up, if that makes sense?
That's what I do, but it took me a while to get there.

Would it be possible for me to get a clarification of what you think my thinking is? That there was/is a problem with INT skills. But as this conversation as gone on beyond that query, you seem to be getting the kind of feedback that you are looking for to help you with a cheat sheet, so question is overcome by events.