Best and worst skills

[Trandir]

What is in your opinion the best and worst skills?

This might be influenced by: uses in combat and OoC, frequency of use, flavor and PrC requirement.

Personally I think that the best is spot, it helps you not dye to a traps ,an ambush or just notice those little detailes the DM has prepared. The worst is speak language. The automatic and bonus languages covers a decent enough array of languages that a PC will probably never feel the need to learn a new language. Also nearly no class has this as a class skill and speaking more languages despite how usefull might sound for a group of adventurers travelling across the lands nearly every time the NPCs will speak common or they will not engage in a discussion before attacking. Also a couple of scrools of comprehend languages can overcome any barrier for a reasonable price if needed.

[Saintheart]

On the presumption that D&D is primarily concerned with combat, I'd actually argue the best skill is Listen. Works like Spot for surprise purposes. Listen is opposed by Move Silently, which is reliant on DEX bonuses - which monsters as a group don't tend to have great scads of - and don't do much more than invisibility to Spot, i.e. Spot still doesn't allow you to pinpoint an invisible creature either. And indeed against a blinded creature, invisibility has no effect.

The most useless skill, though, is Profession. Outside of qualifying for certain PrCs its only use is basically getting a few miserable gp in your begging bowl, which I guess you could do if you're missing your legs or something and can't go and kill something of a level-appropriate CR in order to make thousands more gold than you could carrying on your profession of barrister or whatever. At least Craft allows you to make stuff.

[pabelfly]

Best skills
Use Magic Device - being able to cast spells from items is always good
Diplomacy - you're near-certainly going to have to speak to people, being able to have some choice as to what happens is really helpful
Tumble - movement options in combat that don't provoke attacks of opportunity
Spot and Listen - helps stop ambushes before battle
Search - find treasure. Everyone loves treasure

Worst skill - Truespeak

[ZamielVanWeber]

Bad skills? Appraise. The volumes of gold you deal in quickly become so massive fiddling with appraise with every transaction becomes pointless and painful.

[AnimeTheCat]

Depending on the campaign, forgery can be absurdly potent. Imagine just flashing about forgeries to get where you need to and take what you want with little to no risk. Forgery can absolutely handle many urban setting campaigns. Though, in most situations, I agree that skills like your perception skills are most used and can be most critically damaging if failed.

Worst skill... probably something obscure like profession or truespeak as have been mentioned above. Maybe add appraise to that list...

[Divine Susuryu]

UMD > Diplomacy (for fanatics) > everything else > truespeak, appraise, profession

[Thurbane]

Use Rope is fairly useless. I mean, yeah, for tying up opponents, but manacles are only 15gp. I know you can get a higher DC using the skill, but still...

Not a skill I'd ever put a rank in.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Profession is great... in one specific context. Profession (sailor) is the single most useful skill in a sailing campaign, useful for everything from operating the ship to narrative naval combat. Even for people not intending to do any of those, in a sailing campaign a single rank to be able to Aid Another is probably a solid investment.

Every other profession skill is worth taking only for flavor or to qualify for prestige classes (e.g. Profession (gambler) for Fatespinner).

[Biggus]

Use Magic Device is the most widely useful skill. Wands can be activated with a flat DC 20 check, which gives you access to every level 0-4 spell in the game: this opens up numerous options which aren't otherwise available. It's worth taking the Apprentice (Spellcaster) feat from DMG2 just to get it as a class skill.

[daremetoidareyo]

disable device. with the right build, you can dismantle your opponents weapons in one round worth of actions.

[The Viscount]

Use Rope is fairly useless. I mean, yeah, for tying up opponents, but manacles are only 15gp. I know you can get a higher DC using the skill, but still...

Not a skill I'd ever put a rank in.

I had to make a use rope check once to tie someone up. Because on opposed use rope checks you get a +10 bonus for being the one tying them up, I succeeded without any ranks.

For best skill, after the popular choice of UMD (which I agree is the strongest) I'm going to say Iaijutsu focus for sheer impact on gameplay when used correctly.

For worst, I'm going to say open lock, because disable device can be used to jam locks open, so there is no use for open lock besides to fulfill requirements.

[Vizzerdrix]

disable device. with the right build, you can dismantle your opponents weapons in one round worth of actions.

That sounds silly and I would love to see a build that can do it!

[Malphegor]

The most useless skill, though, is Profession..

I disagree. Because it's a skill check that directly equates to gold for work.

An exemplar with a lot of iny or smaller permament animated objects can nanobot their way to getting really rich with any Profession they choose. (somehow. I'm not sure how an army of self-animated fragments of metal or whatever let someone be a really good lawyer.).

...
wait.

it's possible to math out Ratatouille in 3.5!

Linguini has Profession(Chef). Remy is using the Aid Another action to just bump the human enough to make good food.

The final dish for the critic was made using a series of Aid Another checks- as normal for a kitchen but each rat provides its own bonus!

D&D- it turns out that too many cooks despite the popular idiom does NOT spoil the broth, but makes it AMAZING!

[Quertus]

So, my favorite skill - in any system - is Sense Motive. And it's pretty darn strong in 3e - distinguishing hostiles, not being lied to, knowing opponents' CR, even reading minds at epic. Yes, please - sign me up!

The arguably best skill in 3e is Appraise. 3e is run on loot, and not leaving behind the million GP statue is kinda strong. Of course, Appraise is kinda pointless to put ranks in, because, even if you fail the roll, you just think that the million GP statue is worth half a million to 2 million GP.

Another really good set of skills - and one of the most commonly rolled - is Spot and Listen. More information = more agency to make good choices.

Spellcraft - and all the Knowledge skills - deserve honorable mention in the "know important things" category.

UMD, of course, deserves to make the list. It will probably be awarded the "munchkin's best friend" award.

Coming in second to UMD may well be Iaijutsu Focus. It's good to give muggles nice things.

Profession is actually a great skill - for the GM. It tells you a lot about your players.

Diplomacy? Eh, like Alignment, it's a huge source of misunderstanding.

The worst-implemented skill is Survival. If you do the math, most species cannot consistently hunt, and die off - especially if they are Large or larger, and/or have young to feed.

[MeimuHakurei]

At low op Profession actually has a bit of merit because while the amount of gold earned is paltry, it's at least something.

Heal (the skill) on the other hand is true garbage - it's obsoleted by cantrips already (since it also requires an expendable resource that's not that cheap at basic levels) and the only prereq I can think of is needing 4 Ranks to get Augment Healing (a questionable feat in itself). It doesn't help that, as a Wisdom skill, it's most likely on classes that already have healing spells (even the Monk can outclass Heal's utility with Wholeness of Body).

@Quertus: Why bother using Appraise to get cash out of your loot when you can use Bluff?

[Asmotherion]

Depends on your build really.

On an incantatrix Spellcraft is your bread and butter but it's not as useful for a Fighter (how much does it matter if you call it a green beam or Disintegrate? you still bite the dust and have no means to protect against it). And i'd really be amazed to see a Wizard that really needs above 5 Jump/Climb/Swim etc when they can replicate those with a spell wile on a non-caster those are essential (either because of survivability or because your build depends on them ex leap attac).

[AnimeTheCat]

@Quertus: Why bother using Appraise to get cash out of your loot when you can use Bluff?

or Forgery!

[DeTess]

I wouldn't write off profession entirely. Since the SRD states that:

You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.

There's an argument to be made that something like profession(bounty hunter) could be used as a substitute for a number of other skills, including gather information, survival, intimidate and use rope when dealing with tasks within the limit of your profession (such as tracking down and capturing a humanoid, in the above example).

[Glimbur]

Best skill? Sleight of hand. Get next to somebody at middle levels and all their magic bling is yours. Also their spell component pouch and almost everything else. With free actions they can't stop. Ok it is abusive but all the good skills were taken.

Worst skill is jump. By the time you can be good enough at it to make it useful magic does it better.

[pabelfly]

Worst skill is jump. By the time you can be good enough at it to make it useful magic does it better.

I don't know if I'd go with Jump - a lot of martial characters want it, especially with Leap attack and various maneuvers that want you to jump and attack.

[Quertus]

@Quertus: Why bother using Appraise to get cash out of your loot when you can use Bluff?

or Forgery!

Because, thanks to Appraise, they can tell that the lie isn't worth the air/ink it took to say/write it?

Best skill? Sleight of hand. Get next to somebody at middle levels and all their magic bling is yours. Also their spell component pouch and almost everything else. With free actions they can't stop. Ok it is abusive but all the good skills were taken.

I can't believe that I forgot this one, given that I intended to call this skill out as one of the best in my long post! So what if the foes flee, if you've already taken all their stuff?

[Unavenger]

The worst skill in 3.5 is Scry, because it no longer does anything (scrying spells no longer call for a Scry check, they use a will save from the target instead).

The best skill is harder, because the strongest ones (Sleight of Hand for free action nonsense shenanigans, Knowledge for literal omniscience, Diplomacy for literal mind control, etc...) are very, very DM-dependant. Y(D)MMV.

[Celestia]

I wouldn't write off profession entirely. Since the SRD states that:



There's an argument to be made that something like profession(bounty hunter) could be used as a substitute for a number of other skills, including gather information, survival, intimidate and use rope when dealing with tasks within the limit of your profession (such as tracking down and capturing a humanoid, in the above example).

Hmm, so my 1 skill point per level idiot beatstick can just buy Profession (Adventurer) and use that as a substitute for every other skill? I can dig it.

[Vizzerdrix]

Hmm, so my 1 skill point per level idiot beatstick can just buy Profession (Adventurer) and use that as a substitute for every other skill? I can dig it.

Don't forget to grab craft: mcguffin so you can short cut quests.


Oh, and I'm calling out control shape. Should just be a will save.

[Malphegor]

I’d say the best skill is Lucid Dreaming. Once mastered, it does little in most campaigns. Then enter the plane of Dream.

Okay so now if you can navigate Dream, you can roll this skill for any number of Inception-based adventures. You have to be careful, you can change the dream but not the dreamer.

But it’s a huge ‘go nuts with creativity’ skill

[Thurbane]

Once you have access to flight, Climb and Jump become largely redundant.

[Celestia]

Don't forget to grab craft: mcguffin so you can short cut quests.


Oh, and I'm calling out control shape. Should just be a will save.

Lol! It would be fun to show up to a game session with those two skills as a prank, just to see the DM's reaction.

[AnimeTheCat]

Lol! It would be fun to show up to a game session with those two skills as a prank, just to see the DM's reaction.

Hopefully the DM just takes it in stride.

[The Viscount]

Once you have access to flight, Climb and Jump become largely redundant.

Jump at least has its role for Tiger Claw maneuvers, but I agree Climb becomes pointless very fast. Same for climb speeds, for that matter.

[AnimeTheCat]

Jump at least has its role for Tiger Claw maneuvers, but I agree Climb becomes pointless very fast. Same for climb speeds, for that matter.

Climb speeds are very useful in caves or other places with ceilings. Fly up there if you want, but be prepared for a critter to drop on you.