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I'm all for 5e disassociating skills from class. I hated the fact that in previous editions it was very difficult to construct a noble fighter with knowledge of diplomacy and heraldry. But I feel like the current system restricts your choices of background too much.

The rogues class (and particularly the thief option) is obviously tied to the stealth skill. Which limits his background to spy, thief, and thug, since a thief class who can't use stealth really gimps what the theif class can do.

I suggest every class has a class skill:

Rogue: Stealth
Wizard: Forbidden Lore
Cleric: Religious Lore
Fighter: Survival

A character can choose to substitute this class skill for any skill in his background. So if you want to play a cleric, you can take the thief background, and substitute religious lore for open locks. To me, this fits very nicely with a character who was raised on the streets, but was plucked out of poverty by the church and rigorously trained as a priest. If I want to play a thief, I can substitute stealth for heraldic lore, so I can be the noble cad who didn't study as a youth, but instead skulked around the backstreets of the city.

Aug 16, 2012 -- 7:40AM, Da-Ni wrote:

I absolutely agree with you. Skills that are more or less mandatory for a class should come with the class and not with a background. The rogue should not be forced to take a rogueish background.

However, it would be also ok if the class skill is in addition to the skills you get from the background. If the Rogue then decides to take a rogueish background, he/she has stealth twice and can gain training in a different skill per the rules as written.

Yah - that was my original thought... either way really. Your method adds an extra skill to everyone, but I guess that's not really a balance problem seeing as backgrounds usually give only 3 skills anyways... 4 wouldn't be too much.

I'm going to agree with this.
It's a much better method of achieving the effect Class Skills was trying to achieve, without screwing over anyone else who wants those skills for some reason.

In general, it seems to make sense that skills should come with class, but you'd be violating one of the fundamental principles of 5E - skills are optional.  That's why the designers put them in Backgrounds, because those are optional.  That's why feats are in specialities, because those are optional.  If you want an old school feel to your game play, that includes no feats and no skills, so you can still play with your class and race.

Besides, if every Background a rogue can select has roguish skills (and not all rogues are thieves, so they don't all need stealth - a conman for example), I don't see a problem.

Agreed.

Every class should give you atleast 1 skill