I have plenty of complaints about the skill system in 4th, but the thing I missed the most is the skills that fell by the wayside. I understand rolling skills like Listen, Spot, and Search into Perception, and I don’t lose a lot of sleep over that. I’m talking about the skills that are wholly missing from the system, like Profession and Craft. There’s not any way in 4th Edition for, say, a bard to be any better at music than a paladin with an equivalent Charisma.
I could rant for ages on why I miss these skills, what this means for characters in 4th Edition, and why this change is bad (and I have!). However, it’s awfully boring to just listen to me complain, so instead I’d like to put forth an optional rule, secondary skills, designed to fill in the gaps left by the skill system.
The types of secondary skills are described below:
- Appraise – Intelligence: You can gauge the price and quality of an item within a narrow margin. This is for determining the cost of something non-magical, such as a gem, a work animal, a rare piece of art.
- Craft (any one) – Intelligence: You are trained in a craft, trade, or art, such as alchemy, basketweaving, blacksmithing, leatherworking, shipmaking, stonemasonry, or something similar.
- Handle Animal (any group)– Charisma: You can use body language and intuition to train or influence the actions of a group of creature that could not be influenced by a normal Diplomacy check, like housepets, insects, livestock, or marine mammals.
- Knowledge (any one) – Intelligence: You are versed in a particular, narrow field of study, such as engineering, geography, mathematics, fashion, the culture of a specific region, or something similar.
- Perform (any one) – Charisma: You are skilled in a type of artistic expression, such as acting, comedy, dancing, singing, or playing instruments.
- Profession (any one) – Wisdom: You are trained in a non-manufacturing livelihood, such as boater, cook, farmer, fisher, miner, shopkeeper, or something similar.
For the most part, a secondary skill check is the same as an ability check using the relevant ability score, plus half of the character’s level. Also, a character can gain training in secondary skills, which gives them the normal +5 bonus to checks using that secondary skill. A character can train in a number of secondary skills equal to their Intelligence modifier (not counting half of the character’s level).
Importantly, these skills can not be used perform actions better covered by a normal skill. For example, Knowledge (religion) is not a good idea, because Religion already does the same thing, and the point of the secondary skills is not to effectively gain more trained skills than a character should have. One idea, though, is to represent a narrow focus. Knowledge (nature) is bad, but perhaps Knowledge (poisonous plants) could work for an assassin. There’s also some leeway in here for specificity and relative success. A player who rolls a 15 on Knowledge (desert creatures) should get less information than a player who rolls a 15 on Knowledge (scorpions), though the latter skill is not useful for identifying vultures.
This is intended to work almost outside of the normal system, complimenting it rather than changing it. Secondary skills should not be prerequisites for feats or paragon paths. A character can find or make items that give bonuses to secondary skill checks as for normal skill checks, if a character is sufficiently determined. The idea is to add another tool to make characters into people more than bundles of stats and power, and I don’t see any reason to add additional restrictions to the game based on secondary skill choice. More than anything, it’s a way to leverage a character’s non-adventuring life, something that really doesn’t exist in 4th Edition.