Skills

Skills are, in my opinion, often abused in D&D and this page lets you see how I will view skills if you play in one of my games.

Take a look in the DMG at the NPC classes. The basic 'class' in the D&D world is The Commoner - nearly all the 'every day' folks you meet will be commoners. The farm labourer you see toiling away in the field, the carter driving a wagon as part of a caravan or the housewife sitting on the porch as she peels vegetables for tonight's dinner. Nothing very special about any of those, at all.

However, if they are Human - they will have twelve skill points and a couple of feats - pretty much the same as a basic starting character. Experts and other 'skilled' NPCs will have many more skills and abilities than that.

So let us take our 'bog standard' farm labourer - he has twelve skill points to spend - it is probably safe to assume he spends at least four of them on farming, a few more on handling the animals he uses and the rest on associated tasks, interests or hobbies.

But Look - he has spent four points on farming - not to be a farmer, but to be a farm labourer. This guy isn't a boss who decides what to plant and when to plant it. Nor is he the guy responsible for choosing when to harvest - Our labourer just does the digging, weeding and picking. Sure he gets some idea of when and how to plant, BUT …..

In other words - you need to spend four points on a skill to get basic competency. Less that that and you are a hobbyist :)

So as an example - If you have blacksmithing 3 - don't expect to be held up as the best blacksmith in the land - most starting blacksmiths will be better than that. The good ones will have blacksmithing 10 or 15. the very best will have Blacksmith 20+ ….

Example skills
Cooking Brewing Wilderness Lore (Finding Food) -
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