Adapting D&D 5e without skill proficiencies
Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition has a little-used variant rule which eliminates skill proficiencies. Early editions of D&D didn’t have a full skill system, and there’s a good argument presented in A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming that it’s unnecessary, and that skills shift the game’s focus from player ingenuity and world interaction to character build.
This raises a question: When we play D&D 5th edition without skill proficiencies, what side-effects need to be accounted for?
- Overview of the rule
- The rule in practice
- Breakdown by ability score
- Effect on background
- Expertise
- Race
- Class
- Equipment
- Feats
- Spells
- Conclusions
- Further reading
Overview of the rule
The D&D 5th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014), Chapter 9: Dungeon Master’s Workshop, has a selection of Skill Variants. Among them is the Ability Check Proficiency rule, where player characters simply gain proficiency in all checks using a given ability score, rather than picking skills.
Each character chooses proficiency in two ability scores: one from their class, picked from a list; and one from their background, depending on what makes sense. You are proficient in all ability checks with those ability scores.
The rules seem like they may have been designed with this variant in mind, perhaps to appeal to players of the Old-School Renaissance. Throughout the 5e core rulebooks, skill checks are referred to as ability checks, and the ability score is given first.
The rule in practice
The DM no longer calls for a Perception check, but a Wisdom check. New players need not be confused because they don’t have that skill or don’t know which ability score that skill uses. The only real confusion is the traditional difference between Intelligence and Wisdom, and the DM may allow some flexibility, e.g. allowing a player to use either Int or Wis to search a room, if they can justify it by the description of their actions.
In theory, it’s simpler for new players, since there are only six ability scores to roll, and for each you have an ability check and a saving throw value. There is no debate over whether Arcana or History applies to this specific thing; either you have Intelligence proficiency or you don’t.
However, skill names can often inspire players to think of actions. Knowing that you have Arcana might suggest to the player that they can roll it for a clue, whereas having Intelligence won’t necessarily inspire that idea.
The bigger drawback is that increasingly, D&D is reliant on tools and resources which assume the standard rules. The newbie-friendly ready-made character sheets use skills. D&D Beyond’s character uses skills. Even the actual printable character sheets have an entry for skills. In that sense, the use of the simpler proficiency system is not all that beneficial to newbie players.
Breakdown by ability score
Under standard 5e rules, there are skill proficiencies for five of the six ability scores; there are no Constitution proficiencies in 5e. Ability Check Proficiency essentially merges each ability score into one proficiency, so that if you have one, you have the others. Characters usually tend to take skills that match the ability scores necessary for their combat abilities, but simplification limits complexity, like rogues mixing Dex and Int skills.
- Strength
- Unmodified. There is only one Strength skill, Athletics, so having Strength proficiency instead is unaffected.
- Dexterity
- Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth are the three skills in this ability score. I have never known anyone to take Sleight of Hand who wasn’t a Rogue, and never known a Rogue who didn’t take Sleight of Hand. High Dexterity characters also tend to wear less armor, and rogues practically have to take Stealth for Sneak Attack. Rarely will you see these skills taken individually in separate archetypes. This does mean that all rogues are going to be Dexterity focused, rather than picking Stealth and three other skills (e.g. Deception, Investigation, Perception and Stealth).
- Intelligence
- Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion. You most commonly see the Intelligence skills spread throughout the party, with the cleric taking Religion, the wizard Arcana, etc. Ability Check Proficiency (lets abbreviate it to ACP) means a single party member has all the knowledge skills. Often that’s a wizard, who now becomes knowledegable about religion, but conversely, it may awkwardly lead the druid to lose Nature. An investigator type PC automatically becomes a Sherlock Holmes who is knowledgeable in a wide variety of fields.
- Wisdom
- Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, Survival. The Druid or Ranger suits all of these. The cleric, assuming Wisdom, now becomes uncharacteristically skilled with wilderness survivalism and calming anxious horses, and becomes skilled at reading people (Insight); conversely, a rogue who is skilled at reading people is unlikely since they are going to take Dexterity. It makes more sense for the cleric to take Intelligence.
- Charisma
- Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion. Anyone who is good at lying is also good at diplomacy and vice versa. this is perhaps the most realistic, although it omits the high-strength character skilled in intimidation. It does mean the party bard becomes good at intimidating.
Effect on background
Background becomes even more important under this selection. At time of writing there is talk in the upcoming rules revision (One D&D, or Revised 5th) of making background more important, too.
Under normal rules, background gives two skill proficiencies, and picking one that you already have lets you pick any proficiency. The normal rules let you use this to play a traditional archetype (say, acolyte cleric) and add any skill you want (a cleric with stealth, perhaps), which adds versatility. Other than that, background is a lot about developing character individuality.
Under the variant, we hit our first snag: how do we handle, say, a sage wizard who who gains the same ability score proficiency from both ability score and class? Do you pick a second freely, so that our sage wizard can have Intelligence and Charisma if they wish? Probably. You could already do something similar under the standard rules.
Aside from this situation, selecting background becomes more important becausae it’s the only way to get a variety of skills. Take the traditional rogue who wants both Stealth and Perception; they naturally take Dexterity from their class, and are forced to take a background which would logically give Wisdom. You cannot, say, play an entertainer rogue with Dex and Wis. You lose the à la carte flexibility of the standard system, which would have let you play an entertainer rogue with Perception.
We might as readily allow the player to pick any two ability scores, of which one must fit their class. Even then, it is less flexible than the standard method.
Expertise
Expertise is specifically accounted for in the variant rules. Normally, Expertise gives you double proficiency bonus in any two skills. In the variant, the double proficiency bonus applies to the entire ability score.
The rest of this article deals with specific instances where skills are called for in the Player’s Handbook. Every situation is trivial to handle, either by calling it a straight situational ability check or by calling it Expertise; you can skip to conclusions without missing much.
Race
Dwarves have stonecunning, granting History proficiency and Expertise related to stonework. Under “ACP”, you have to assume this applies to Intelligence checks related to stonework. It’s effectively the same thing.
Drow have sunlight sensitivity, disadvantage to Perception checks in sunlight. In the variant you have to assume this applies to Wisdom checks in sunlight.
The forest gnome has effective proficiency and expertise in History checks related to magic items or technology. Like the dwarf’s stonecunning, you have to assume this applies to Intelligence checks related to magic items.
Class
Several class abilities apply to certain skills. The solution in most of these cases is to make it an ability score check in that circumstance. For example, the ranger has advantage on Wisdom (Survival) to track enemies; with the variant in play, that just becomes advantage to Wisdom checks to track enemies.
A list of class abilities that are so affected:
- Barbarian
- Path of the Totem Warrior: Aspect of the Beast (Eagle)
- Cleric
- Trickery domain: Blessing of the Trickster
- Druid
- Druidic (chance for non-druids to spot Druidic writing)
- Ranger
- Favored enemy (track enemies); Hide in Plain Sight
- Rogue
- Thief: Fast Hands, Supreme Sneak; Assassin: Impostor; Arcane Trickster: Mage Hand Legerdemain
- Sorcerer
- Wild Magic: Wild Magic Surge (2% chance)
The cleric Knowledge domain grants two Intelligence skill proficiencies at level 1, and effectively Expertise with those. The solution may be for this to grant Intelligence proficiency. This would be more powerful, but it’s in keeping with the variant rule for Expertise, which extends two skills to cover an entire ability score. The Knowledge cleric effectively starts with proficiency in three ability scores.
The rogue remarkably gains Expertise twice at different levels. The result will be that they have Expertise in both their ability proficiencies. This is probably most reasonable for the rogue, who is traditionally the party’s skill guy. It does mean that something like a Dex/Int rogue ends up being more knowledgable about lore than the party wizard.
Equipment
Certain armor grants disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth); this naturally just becomes Dexterity checks to sneak or hide.
Feats
The Actor feat gives advantage to Charisma (Deception) and Charisma (Performance) checks to diguise as another person… this just becomes a Charisma check. Likewise with Deception vs Insight to mimic speech. Nearly all ACP adaptions are just like this.
Dungeon Delver gives advantage on checks to notice secret doors. Interestingly, it suggests that both Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) can be used to spot secret doors.
Skulker and the Armor feats, likewise.
Spells
Various spells use ability checks. Most commonly, Intelligence (Investigation) is used to detect illusions.
Conclusions
In nearly every situation where a game rule modifies an ability check using a certain skill, it is trivial to call this an ability check for a given situation; e.g. “advantage on Wisdom (Perception)” becomes “advantage on Wisdom checks to perceive something”. The only major exception is Expertise, which is covered, and becomes a more poweful ability.
The effect of the skill system is to codify categories of skill use. Multiple game mechanics can converge on that point. You don’t have to measure the edge cases of, say, a bonus to Wisdom checks to hide, and an item granting advantage to Wisdom checks to remain hidden; “Stealth” covers all of these.
The disadvantage of the Ability Check Proficiency variant is that it constrains certain avenues of character optimization. The advantage is to simplify the game for new players, but this complicates things because all the other rules and resources use standard rules. It also creates some awkward side-effects, like making it difficult for some classes to learn traditional skills.
The variant also does not fully address the problem with skills mentioned in A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, namely that they place character ability above player skill. D&D loses something, it is argued, when success is locked behind character build rather than the player’s ingenuity and their interactions with the fictional game world.
Perhaps the true solution to skill over-use is for the DM to allow both skill rolls, in the standard manner, and success purely through player skill, such as working out the correct spot to search in a room, or coming up with a good lie to fool the guard.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide also gives suggestions to grant proficiency based on character background or backstory. This, to me, suggests a system where characters are encouraged to develop backstory over time, within the constraint that they can’t contradict themselves. Suppose the fighter claims proficiency in handling horses because he was part of a cavalry unit during the war; he may do so, but this locks that element in as part of his backstory, so he cannot claim to have spent the same war learning mountain claiming, for example. I am still uncertain whether such background training is best represented using proficiency, expertise, or advantage, but that is another question entirely.