Your Eyes and Ears
Wisdom is another confusingly named statistic . I think of a wise person as someone who makes good choices or is able to see what is truly important to them. However, in D&D this statistic governs how good a person’s eyesight and hearing are amongst other things. For many reasons, it is a very strong statistic in its game uses. Of all the stats, it has the quality of not only governing what a character is capable of, but what a player is aware of about the immediate game state. Any aspect of a game that controls how much information you have when making decisions is going to be pivotal.
The Most Magical Stat?
Wisdom is the spellcasting ability for Clerics, Druids and Rangers and also forms one of the three major saves. Neither of the other spellcasting stats (Intelligence and Charisma) have major saves. It is the only stat that is used to both cast and regularly resist spells. Let’s take a look at how this stat feels in play.
Skills
Animal Handling
By the letter of the rules this relates to a character’s ability to control domesticated creatures and read their mood. I find this dissatisfying. The rules for Mounted Combat feel a bit unfinished, which is why I wrote
this.
By ‘Rules as Written’, they do not require Animal Handling rolls; a player either chooses to control the mount or allow it to act independently (great, more work for the DM!) and there is no mechanical difference between riding a donkey or a trained warhorse in combat. I won’t go into mounted combat in 5e in detail here but the link above certainly covers it! I think most people minded to read this article are quite capable of working out an application of Animal Handling.
You can stretch Animal Handling to be a sort of ‘Insight and Persuasion for Animals’ to spot whether mama owlbear is protecting young, hunting or being territorial but again, the skill is left as pretty situational and past a certain point in the character’s levelling up career, the average bear isn’t much of a problem anyway.
Insight
I’ve got to say, I love Insight as a skill but I feel it’s let down. It’s very well placed as it’s the most useful skill for social challenges that isn’t primarily tied to Charisma. Social interaction is such a big part of the modern D&D game that it’s great to have a skill that allows low Charisma characters to play a useful role when negotiating with NPCs. I find that players tend to have one of two attitudes to the application of Insight:
- It’s useless;
- It’s a full on lie detector!
It’s not a lie detector but it can be used to determine an NPC’s motive or mood – are they worried or confident, will they respond well to an offer of a bribe or could they be coerced? What option might make them oppositional? All of these things can be a focus of an Insight check but players tend to ask ‘Is he lying?’
I think the issue is linked to a lack of defined social action or options. There are no ‘Sense Motive’ or ‘Assess Mob’ actions provided to players in the same way that ‘Cast a spell’ and ‘Attack’ are in combat. Whilst some players are keen to speak up in tense social scenes, others are afflicted by analysis paralysis and might not be able to see what choices they have to advance the game and advantage their position.
After the bard tries to schmooze the temple guard into letting them into see the arch-priest and is rebuffed, the barbarian is ready to try his good ol’ trick of Intimidate. No, the guard isn’t lying. Before this escalates and the players get frustrated it would be useful if the cleric player asked what he can learn about the guard from his responses. Does he have a glint his eye as if he’s keen to make a buck on the side or is he a jobsworth but scared of the archpriest? Depending on the responses the party will know whether to offer a bribe or lie about a secret job from the priest.
Hinting to your players some ways they can focus requests for information can transform social encounters from rambling about their quest into clever problem solving and conflict resolution.
The other thing that can happen is Insight is relied on in a passive way, requiring the DM to call for a check irrespective of the actions of the players. I avoid this myself. I stall the loud, extrovert players in social scenes and ask the quieter players ‘Whilst this is going on, what is Freydal paying attention to?” If they give me a general, brush-off response like “Oh, he’s just stood there listening” I leave it but after a player has been asked these sort of things a few times they are likely to start using the chances and learning how to exploit my DMing structures with pointed attention.
Medicine
The rules list this as relevant to stabilizing a dying companion. Does that happen much in everyone else’s game? In my games someone usually casts Healing Word. What is the use of this in a game where you can magically heal a sword wound and cure diseases? The presence of Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration and the paladin’s Lay on Hands feature makes this of marginal relevance unless the DM does some particular work. When the party need to know what killed a person then Medicine has its day in the sun but after that it goes back in its box to sit out the rest of the campaign on its own. The DM can create situations to allow the characters to leverage Medicine checks but that says a lot to me; shouldn’t the players be able to rely upon this skill beyond the mysterious plague afflicting the villages or determining the time of death in a murder investigation. It’s unlikely to be of much use in a dungeon without home brew rules for lasting injury effects. I’m know I’m being simplistic but the point remains, ticking the Medicine box on the sheet comes at the expense of not ticking Survival, Stealth or Perception etc. and in comparison it’s just not going to be as useful.
Of course HP is not physical damage and some injuries might require healing beyond Cure Wounds. I don’t think many players would welcome that in relation to their characters but when a wounded NPC needs help Medicine checks might be useful. It’s something to think about in the context of the tone of your game, how gritty and realistic it is and whether this would be fun for your players. If you’ve read the DM-XP article on Intelligence in this series then you’ll know what I think of the relative importance of that statistic compared to … well, all of the others. With that in mind, I’m not clear why knowledge of plants and weather patterns is linked to Intelligence but understanding injury and disease is tied to Wisdom; but you’ll probably upset the cleric player if on the rare chance they get to make a Medicine check you call for Intelligence (Medicine).
There’s always that one player who wants to harvest poisons from dead monsters and there are some rules in the DMG for this relying on Nature checks. I require a Nature check (to identify how to harvest the poison and from where) and a Medicine check to actually perform the task.
Perhaps you disagree and you find lots of common situations that are resolved with a Medicine check but if not, it can be something to pay attention to. It might be my style and failings but I find this skill proficiency is all but dead space on the character sheet and I might be better off just telling my players that from the get go.
Perception
Perception is a plum skill in D&D. Pathfinder 2e seems to recognise this by placing Perception outside of the regular skill list into a special category by itself. D&D does this too, to a lesser extent, by giving Perception a ‘Passive’ rating as a DC number. Whatever the case, this ‘skill’ governs a character’s situational awareness as they embark on rescue missions, burglaries, assassinations, dangerous hunts where they might become the prey. It is the skill used to spot enemies sneaking up on you, or hiding in the shadows, to hear goings on behind a door or around a corner, to spot traps and find treasure. It can even stop you from missing a turn when enemies ambush you. We might as well call this skill ‘Dungeoneering’.
I find the reliance on Perception to notice traps and secret doors in the core rules and official Wizards of the Coast published adventures leaves me wondering what Investigation is for. In terms of realism, if someone can notice a secret door without looking for it, it’s not really that secret. A trap that can be simply observed feels like less of a purposeful trap and more of a hazard.
As ever, I suppose the most important thing is to be consistent however you apply it. I try to hold to practises that balance the relative utility of these two skills (not to mention Intelligence and Wisdom generally). These are just some ideas rather than advice;
- Perception is to notice something important. Investigation is to find something hidden.
- Perception relates to an individual’s senses. Investigation is linked to their conscious thought.
- Perception is more likely to be used to spot a creature. Investigation is more likely to be used to uncover treasure, traps or secret doors.
The great thing is none of these approaches requires any shift from the written rules. Personally, I don’t like using Passive Perception scores to notice inanimate things. It’s useful as a DC for enemy creature’s Stealth checks if something is sneaking past the party and I don’t want to tip them off that there’s something there by calling for Perception checks. In such circumstances the sneaking creatures are the active … well, actors and the PCs are passive so it feels right. However, if the enemy stage an ambush then they’re going to be spotted in short order anyway and a fast-paced drama is supported the players making the determining rolls. As a player it’s more fun rolling the dice yourself and everyone suddenly rolling a Perception check feels more like the result is in their hands (although of course it’s still random and no decision is involved). The sudden activity by all the players adds to the tension of the scene. I don’t then also make a Stealth check for the ambushing creatures as it’s just as easy to use their passive Stealth (10 + Stealth mod) which also doesn’t distort the result in their favour.
Generally, it’s probably best to call for rolls from the players rather than making them yourself whenever you reasonably can. Their rolls are open and known so they can all share in near misses, terrible failures and overwhelming successes and the narrative prompting these provide. Besides, rolling is fun. This is something supported by a number of RPGs like Mork Borg and the Cypher System; in these games enemies don’t roll to hit, that depends upon the players’ rolls to defend.
Survival
Another great skill in the breadth of its application is Survival. It’s practical and rugged; and if Perception and Stealth are the Dungeoneering skills, Survival might be the Wilderness Travel skill. Route finding, risk assessment of those routes, tracking enemies, discerning how many creatures left those tracks, hunting game and finding shelter are all applications of Survival checks. Because of this is can be useful to have clear distinctions in mind as to when to call for Survival and when to call for Nature checks, Stealth checks or Investigation checks. Balance is discussed a lot in RPGs. It may be entirely optional to balance the adventure against the party’s strengths. However, you only have to scratch the surface of online D&D forums to notice that balancing John’s character vs Jane’s is much more of an issue and can cause frustration if ignored. If your travel sections are short interludes between focal adventure locations then it might be fine to allow one character to shine. I like to run wilderness adventures of a session or two in length when the party are making a significant journey and these require me to consider how to incorporate the skill sets of each party member so that no-one feels like a tagalong.
Saves
Wisdom saves tend to be used to resist magical status effects such as paralysis and fear and in the early levels of the game are usually more common than Con saves in my experience. Whilst Dex saves resist damage, unless a fireball spell puts a character down, the loss of HP won’t stop a player from exercising their agency in the game. Being charmed, paralyzed or frightened restricts or even removes altogether the choices a player can make. In this way a solid Wisdom save is more than just a tactical benefit, it can keep you playing D&D instead of sitting out a round as your character does nothing more than re-take a save.
Wisdom has a lot of skills attached to it, a major save and it determines spell casting potency for some classes. In the meta of how we play, Wisdom is going to be a useful stat for players who want to optimise their characters. More than just governing how powerful your character is, a good Wisdom score allows a player to be useful to their party and take on a prominent role.
Thanks for reading! And remember, we can ALL level up!