Talents (4E)

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

Professions are the non-combat equivalence of skills, and most rules that apply to skills apply to professions as well. Professions are considered skills for abilities that affect the use of skills. Unlike skills, a character does not start with any professions, they must all be learned using talents.

Many vocations lack a profession and people who make their living that way are unskilled, use raw attribute rolls like Strength for manual labor, or use regular skills such as Nature for farming, hunting and fishing or Dungeoneering for mining.

Professions generally have no application in combat or action scenes. Using them takes time; from several minutes to several months. They are used to define and flesh out character backgrounds, and their usefulness is in downtime and in skill challenges taking longer than rounds. Additionally, many professions can be used for the aid other action, both to help skills and ritual casters. Where a profession is relevant for rituals, this is noted in the description of the profession.

Learning profession skills

You can spend a Talents (4E) to learn a professional skill. When you do so, pick either Fame or one area for Profession, Craft, Perform.

Skill overview

A cursory description of professional skill areas is presented below. See the talk page for more information.

Craft

Ability as a craftman represented by several skills:

• Alchemy
• Smithing
• Engineering
• Jewelcrafting
• Leatherworking
• Tailoring
• Woodworking

Perform

Ability as a performer is represented by several skills:

• Act (comedy, drama, mime)
• Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
• Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
• Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
• Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
• Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
• String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
• Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet)
• Sing (ballad, chant, melody)

Profession

List interesting or useful professions. It is probably a good idea to list common professions (such as Farmer) which use existing skill such as Nature. The list below includes Academics and Service, and some can probably be removed.

• Architect
• Barber
• Captain -> Overseer, sailor and stargazer should suffice
• Composer -> Makes Writer apply to any perform skills you know instead
• Farmer -> Nature, Endurace. ABC I thik this could be useful, if nothing else so for the contacts element. It can absorb Husbandry.
• Governor
• Husbandry -> Nature
• Lover -> Courtesan
• Merchant
• Officer -> Overseer and Soldier
• Overseer ("Boss")
• Peddler -> Does small-scale retail need a separate profession?
• Stargazer
• Writer
• Sailor
• Soldier - this is a professional military background
• Valet

Fame

See talk page for full text

Fame is not so much as profession as a measure of how successful and well-known you are in your career. It is used to see whether people have heard of you and what their impression is, to find fans and admirers, to gauge your popularity and to check the loyalty of your followers.

External links

• List of medieval professions