Martial Prowess
Magic is a wonderful, fascinating thing... but it also elevates its users above the realm of mere mortals, offering feats that can't be replicated any other way. While this isn't unreasonable, in a level-based system, two characters of the same level, no matter their focus, should be roughly comparable, and characters who lack spellcasting sometimes have a hard time rivaling their magic-using companions when it comes to things other than "hitting bad guys in the face."
D&D expects a certain level of superheroism at higher levels, and the martial prowess system embraces that, giving non-casters significant bonuses to their skill-related activities that allow them to reach Herculean DCs. A 40 on your Acrobatics result might be high enough to let you run across the surface of water, or with an Investigation check, recreate the scene in a Holmesian fashion. Casters still change reality, but now, to some degree... so do the other heroes.
Martial classes—the barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, and rogue—gain the following ability at first level, though the effects are delayed until level 10 (or level 14 for the paladin and ranger.)
Martial Prowess
Beginning at 10th level, you begin to pull ahead of your peers in the things you most excel at. Choose two skills or tools you are proficient in; when you make an ability check using one of the chosen skills or tools, add the number in the Prowess Bonus column to your roll.
Incredible DCs
Inflating the numbers, by itself, doesn't change anything unless you also make achieving a higher result valuable. Recommendations for results of a 40+ check using this system are obviously incomplete, but a good place to start.
Many of them can be considered mechanically similar to an existing spell, such as using Athletics or Acrobatics to avoid falling damage (a la feather fall); as a rule of thumb, a DC 32 could replicate the effects of a 1st level spell, 2nd level spells with a 36, and 3rd level spells with a 40.
- Athletics. Separate objects stuck together with sovereign glue; leap tall buildings in a single bound; swim through a whirlpool or up a waterfall; grapple a ghost.
- Acrobatics. Move across the surface of water at a run; fight on a delicate branch; ignore all falling damage.
- Sleight of Hand. Remove something worn by an individual without them noticing; move an object around your person to keep it concealed while being actively searched; juggle hazardous materials without harm.
- Stealth. Hide even while there is no cover (halve your result to spot); cover the trail of a 60-man regiment;
- Investigation. Study a crime scene and recreate the events in detail without having seen them; find something hidden in an extradimensional space.
- Knowledge (Arcana, History, Nature, Religion). Make a new discovery via intuitive leap; solve "unsolvable" problems.
- Animal Handling. Tame a beast immediately; communicate with bestial monstrosities; speak with a pet or trained animal as though you share a language.
- Insight. Communicate articulately with another sentient without having a shared language; determine someone under the effect of glibness is lying; know what someone is going to do a round before they do it (duplicate foresight effect for one round).
- Medicine. Raise the recently deceased (quickly); create a Frankenstein's monster (over time); determine the course of or cure for a never-before-seen disease.
- Perception. Locate someone not moving in a pitch-black room; read lips from a half-mile away; identify a specific person from a mile.
- Survival. Forage enough for a dozen people in a wasteland; locate clean water in the Abyss; identify a specific person through their tracks.
- Deception. Fool someone reading your mind with detect thoughts; lie even while in a zone of truth where you failed your saving throw; make someone
- Intimidate. Bully someone into taking a single action against their will; scare a group badly enough to penalize their efforts (as per bane) for some time; intimidate a mindless creature, such as a golem.
- Perform. Enthrall a group so that they don't notice anything else; charm a horde of animals to follow you; create an illusion of what you're performing.
- Persuasion. Push someone to take an action they are uncomfortable with, without knowing why they're doing it (as suggestion); persuade an inanimate object to perform an aspect of its function for you, such as a door unlock itself.
Limitations
You may wish to not apply the martial prowess bonus to opposed grapple attempts or defending against the same; the intention with the system is not to heavily inflate the [rare] combat use of skills such that martial characters become impossible to escape from.
In this case, you may allow a character with an extreme Athletics check to attempt to grapple something, like a ghost or an ooze, that normally wouldn't be possible, but determine their check result normally.
Likewise, the perform skill is a tricky one to handle here; Perform effects that reach superhuman levels should really be the domain of the bard, but they already have spells with musical components that can handle it.
Multiclassing
Martial Prowess. You determine your martial prowess bonus by adding together all your levels in the barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue classes. Then add all but four levels of your levels in the paladin or ranger classes.
| Total | Prowess |
|---|---|
| 10-11 | +2 |
| 12-13 | +4 |
| 14-15 | +6 |
| Total | Prowess |
|---|---|
| 16-17 | +8 |
| 18-19 | +10 |
| 20 | +12 |
Variations & Insights
TThe numbers - both their scale and rate of increase - can be tweaked; I chose 10th level to begin because casters have 5th level spells that are changing the landscape of the world (raise dead, for example). The top bonus of +12 was chosen because it greats a five-step system of bonuses (ignoring ability scores) that scales cleanly at level 20:
- Untained (+0)
- Proficient (+6)
- Expertise (+12)
- Prowess, proficient (+18)
- Prowess, expertise (+24)
If this seems like too much of a buff, consider limiting it to a certain number of times per day, or when the character spends inspiration. Personally, I'm okay with a 20th level barbarian regularly making jumps that just aren't possible here in reality, but I recognize that some of what makes that special can be lost this way.
Knowledge skills - Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion - may be best kept separate from this system, if only to avoid scenarios where an intelligent, trained cleric knows less about his faith than a fighter who picked up Religion proficiency as a side study; beyond that, it's potentially trickier to consider "knowledge" epic feats outside of things like "create a new field of study" (Einstein, Euler) or "intuiting things you can't possibly know" a la divination. The same can be said for many tool - especially craft - proficiencies.
But Bounded Accuracy!
5E's vaunted bounded accuracy is a fantastic thing, and I don't intend to trash it. Not only are these effects designed primarily for out-of-combat usage, but it is important to recognize that results with these modifiers are not meant to be used as opposed checks, but to enable specific actions that only highly-trained, superheroic individuals are even capable of attempting.
If high check results will only inflate your expectations of what is necessary to complete normal tasks, this system isn't going to work well for you.
Sample Tables
The following is a sample of how class tables would look with this applied, truncated to where there are changes.
Fighter
| Level | Prof. Bonus | Prowess Bonus | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th | +4 | +2 | Martial Archetype feature |
| 11th | +4 | +2 | Extra Attack (2) |
| 12th | +4 | +4 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 13th | +5 | +4 | Indomitable (two uses) |
| 14th | +5 | +6 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 15th | +5 | +6 | Martial Archetype feature |
| 16th | +5 | +8 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 17th | +6 | +8 | Action Surge (two uses), Indomitable (three uses) |
| 18th | +6 | +10 | Martial Archetype feature |
| 19th | +6 | +10 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 20th | +6 | +12 | Extra Attack (3) |
Ranger
| Level | Prof. Bonus | Prowess Bonus | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th | +4 | — | Natural Explorer improvement, Hide in Plain Sight |
| 11th | +4 | — | Ranger Archetype feature |
| 12th | +4 | — | Ability Score Improvement |
| 13th | +5 | — | — |
| 14th | +5 | +2 | Favored Enemy improvement, Vanish |
| 15th | +5 | +2 | Ranger Archetype feature |
| 16th | +5 | +4 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 17th | +6 | +4 | — |
| 18th | +6 | +6 | Feral Senses |
| 19th | +6 | +6 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 20th | +6 | +8 | Foe Slayer |