Generic, Text: Skills

A short description of the skill and examples of it’s use when paired with certain attributes:
 

Active-Only Skills

Skills that are acquired through background or class training that are designed to be used in many situations within the game. Keep in mind Proficiency can be used to both enhance an already good talent into excellence, or to offset a weakness into competency.
 
Acrobatics: Manoeuvres or stunts that rely on your practice and skill in them. Typically used with Dexterity for rolls, somersaults, flips, swinging along on a rope, or walking a tightrope. Can also be paired with Constitution to handle dives and falls from great height, or Strength to swing from rope to rope as you traverse a ships rigging.


Animal Handling: Used when trying to interact non verbally, most often with Wisdom to judge animals intentions, or Charisma to control a skittish beast or train a wild creature into domesticity. Could even be paired with Constitution for stamina skills like rodeo riding or breaking in a new mount. Intelligence would be used to recall husbandry for a beast.


Arcana: Mostly dealing with your ability to know things involving the arcane. Often paired with Intelligence for recalling lore and traditions about spells, symbols, creatures and energies. Can be used with Wisdom to react to mystical encounters and events in an appropriate manner, or with Charisma to negotiate with a mystical force like a genie or devil.


Athletics: Your athletic ability, specifically things that draw upon your ability to create and control force. Climbing, Hiking, Jumping, Swimming, Shoving, and Lifting. These are activities where leanness is not of significance in the activity. Usually involving Strength checks, but especially long-distance or long-term activities like hiking up slopes or swimming in deep ocean would require Constitution checks. Even more complex manoeuvres like wall running could even use Dexterity.


Deception: Used to obscure information in its purest form. Can be used with Charisma to lie or obscure the truth from someone, or to be used with Intelligence to use sophistry to hide ignorance, say in pretending to be a role or a particular person. Can even be used with Spellcasting to hide the verbal components of a spell while casting.


History: Having knowledge of events both recent and ancient, paired with Intelligence to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations. Wisdom Can make for good understanding of current political ideologies and alliances, and Charisma for heraldry and political speech crafting.


Intimidation: To influence someone with fear to a course of action while their are within your power and influence (A poor way to make friends). Paired with Strength to use your physical bulk to cow-tell a smaller person, Dexterity to intimidate with the use of a butterfly-knife or juggling small throwable sharp objects in a display of thuggery, Constitution to show your overwhelming toughness against a tired foe, Intelligence to threaten them through logical and cold calculating threats, or finally Charisma to simply overpower their will with your own.


Medicine: Knowledge of a humanoid’s physiology, paired with Dexterity to treat an acute and traumatic wound with surgery to stabilise them, or with Wisdom to detect or treat the presence of more subtle distress or illness. Proficiency allows you to stabilise a target with the use of medical supplies you carry with you.


Nature: Your familiarity with aspects of the natural and fey worlds. When used with Intelligence To recall lore about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles. Wisdom is best used with nature to deal with, mitigate or appease fey beings and creatures, Constitution to test plant life or animals products from the nearby environment for use.


Performance: Able to delight and captivate an audience, through Charisma and singing, jokes, general crowd-work; Dexterity for dances, juggling or acrobatic/contortion acts; Intelligence for lore recital or storytelling. This skill does not the use of musical instruments.


Persuasion: Attempting to influence through grace, social tact, of good nature. For most people Charisma to foster friendship through relaxed attitudes and light-hearted banter with the typical man. For more martial and archaic societies, this might be done with Strength by lifting a heavy boulder, or doing a feat of power to win approval. For more high-minded societies Intelligence through the use of complex etiquette and mannerisms.


Psionics: Knowledge of mentalist, psionic powers and sources.Often paired with Intelligence for recalling lore and information about psionic disciplines, their users and various cultures. Can be used with Wisdom to react to psionic encounters and events in an appropriate manner, or with Charisma to negotiate with a mystical force like a elder evil or psionic race.


Religion: Knowledge of aspects of faith. Used with Intelligence to recall lore about the long discarded deities and their religious organisations, current churches and their practices, more secretive cults, and the few holy relics floating around the world still. Wisdom is used to understand a church or cults current hierarchy and the nature of their follows, and Charisma is used for religious speeches, sermons, or zealous acts.


Sleight of Hand: For acts of legerdemain or pickpocketing. Used with Dexterity for typical cutpurse and thievery, but can also be paired with Charisma for a more performance based show of illusion and trickery! And finally can be paired with Wisdom to do things like palm a note to someone or subtle communication skills, and finally can be paired with Intelligence to tie effective and quick knots in a pinch, or Spellcasting to hide your attempts at the somatic and material components.


Stealth: Used for obscuring your presence from people to your advantage. This can be paired with Dexterity to hide in dim light (disadvantage against) or darkness (automatically succeed), from view, or from sound (background noise might provide advantage). However, it can also be used to hide in a crowd with good use of Charisma to avoid their notice amongst the throng, or with Intelligence to memorise guard rotations and procedures.


Survival: Knowledge of how to live in self-sufficiency in the various environments of the world, and often tied to a specific environment (Arctic, Coast, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Mountain, or Swamp), often paired with Wisdom to track beasts, humanoids and creatures, monitor for environmental threats, predict weather and avoid hazards. Can also be used with Intelligence to set basic traps or hog-tie something for slaughter or capture. And finally with Constitution for surviving long periods of time out in isolation.
 

Passive Skills

These skills are important for most characters, to quantify how alert they are to the world and their surroundings. They can still be used actively like the other skills, but will have significant impact behind the DM screen.
 
Insight: Used for assessing a persons innermost thoughts and feelings, often paired with Wisdom to determine the true intentions or predict the behaviour of a humanoid from their mannerisms, body language and speech patterns. It is also used to determine a characters Passive Insight (10 +Wisdom modifier +Proficiency bonus if proficient). It can also be paired with Intelligence could also be used for more abstract deductions of a persons intentions or plans from information gathered in a more distant situation.


Investigation: Determining the significance of your environment. You could use Intelligence to make deductions or clues around you, or even find a hidden object or doorway. It can also be used for examining the types of wounds, a tunnel weakpoint, or look for something in a library. Dexterity could be used for examining and solving a puzzle box or cubic’s cube. Wisdom might be used for more crime-scene analysis, or intuitive leaps about a situation with Passive Investigation (10 +Wisdom modifier +Proficiency bonus if proficient). A good example being a eureka moment of why the feathers on the living room are important.


Perception: Your awareness of the world around you, surroundings and general awareness. Wisdom pairs to allow you to spot, hear or otherwise detect the presence of things, as well as Passive Perception (10 +Wisdom modifier +Proficiency bonus if proficient). Whereas Intelligence would be more for memorisation of a document, list or pattern for later recollection without assess to writing materials or notes.