#skill monkey

My favorite role in any friend group, fictional or otherwise, is the skill monkey. I personally fill this role a lot in my groups, so I wanted to talk about it for a bit. Rambling ahead.

When I say “skill monkey”, I don’t mean the friend who’s booksmart or even that dude who actually knows how cars work. I mean the friend who has the most seemingly useless knowledge ever that somehow turns out to save the day. The kind of person who’s dabbled in pretty much every out-of-place skill you can think of. It’s the difference between actually studying and binging Wikipedia and Reddit at 3 in the morning. They're not booksmart at all, but they're still very knowledgeable. Bonus points if this skill or knowledge is never mentioned until it’s actually needed, or is mentioned with zero context whatsoever like during group banter.

The Skill Monkey is that friend who will randomly bring up experiences and skills and knowledge they've had that seems so nonsensical and weird in the most charming way possible. Like maybe the gang is fighting a killer clown and it turns out they’ve dabbled in clown college or know a lot about the history of clowns. Or a situation comes where they need to lead an enemy away and they’re suddenly able to throw their voice because SURPRISE! They were a ventriloquist for a year or two! Or they need to contact a Spirit and the skill monkey is already pulling out the Planchette and Pendulum because they just randomly had it with no prior context.

This makes a character who’s perfectly set up for both comedy and badassery. It’s perfect for Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass characters, or characters who seem stupid on the surface but suddenly become badass and amazing at something when the situation calls for it. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a very good video on this too. The skill monkey is the character who saves everybody’s asses by using a skill that no normal person would ever casually know. They’re particularly versatile and useful in a plot because they can know almost anything so long as the situation calls for it, though it works better if it’s a particularly strange skill. It leaves the audience wondering how the skill monkey will get everyone out this time, or what else they might know. Loads of room for both canon characterization and potential headcanons for the fandom to come up with.

But it’s important to make sure that the skill monkey doesn’t know everything. If they solve literally every single problem by themselves, it gets boring really really fast. That’s why the skill monkey works best in groups where they can work off of others and everyone’s unique skills and knowledge plays a role. Skill monkeys work really well in mystery, paranormal or fantasy series, particularly if it also has a comedy aspect. And remember to give the skill monkey certain quirks and defining traits beyond their skills - like maybe they’re constantly tired because they’re up all night researching new things. Or maybe it’s the opposite and they’re so full of energy that they rarely even need to sleep, hence why they have so much time for these things. Maybe they’re a non-human creature who doesn’t even need to sleep, or has lived for like 500 years so they’ve had the time to gather all their knowledge. What’s their aesthetic? Their defining personality traits? Stuff like that.

Skill monkeys are also fun because both the writer and even the audience can project their unique skillset onto them. If the writer knows a lot about witchcraft, so will the skill monkey. Got really into Mayan civilizations back in middle school? Give the story a plot point revolving around that and let the skill monkey work their magic! They practically write themselves, so personally I hope more people use this archetype in the future.

Really stretching the putty of Dungeons and Dragons builds into shapes that probably weren’t entirely intended today.

D&D has a total of 18 base skills in which your character may be proficient. I figured out how to get proficiency in all of them. 

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Disclaimer: I don’t recommend actually building or playing this character unless it’s ok with your DM and also all the other players. If you make a skill monkey, make sure it doesn’t end up being a monkey’s paw for game enjoyment.

I came up with this just to see if I could.

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1. Your Race options include Half-Elf, Kenku, Lizardfolk, or Tabaxi. All of these give two skill proficiencies within varying limits. Do NOT choose Deception, Persuasion, Nature, or Survival for any of these, given the choice. (2)

2. Your choice of Background, provided said background does NOT include proficiency in Deception, Persuasion, Nature, or Survival. If you chose Tabaxi above, also make sure the background doesn’t overlap with Perception or Stealth. That’s two more skills, specific to said background. (2)

3. Scores: make Charisma your highest score and put a minimum of 13 in Dexterity. Everything else is up to you.

4. Start with Bard. That’s three skill proficiencies of your choice. Keep to the exceptions above. (3)

5. Third level Bard - Lore subclass. Three more skill proficiencies, exceptions that apply. As a bonus you can also turn two of your proficiencies into expertise, which is nice. (3)

6. Fourth level Bard - ASI. Take a feat: Skilled. This gives you three more skill proficiencies! (3)

7. Switch over to Warlock for two levels. Patron doesn’t matter, take whatever flavor suits you for this. Great Old One seems like an interesting choice for being all-skilled, or perhaps Genie. Up to you though. The important thing here is at 2nd level, you get two Invocations. Make sure one of them is Beguiling Influence. There’s your Deception and Persuasion. (2)

8. Now take a level in Rogue. Multiclassing into Rogue immediately gives you one skill proficiency of your choice - avoid Nature and Survival of course - and at that first level you also get to turn two more proficiencies into expertise. Nice. (1)

9. Third level Rogue - Scout subclass. You get Nature and Survival proficiencies which immediately double to expertise. (2)

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That’s it. That’s all it takes to get all 18 skills in the game locked down with a proficiency bonus, and some of them are doubled by other features.

If you continue on until Bard 10 and Rogue 6, you get a total of four more proficiencies turned to expertise - ten expertise skills overall at level 18. Jack of All Trades is a backup feature, boosting Initiative rolls and non-skill ability checks (i.e. DM rules that something is raw, untrained [Ability] as a roll) by just a bit.

Really rough sketches but i figured out a more solid & accurate way to draw Urmo, my current 3.5e D&D character! I don’t know how to draw animals (especially big buff dogs: he’s a boerboel) one bit so Mudpelt needs work but i’ve been doing a good job with practicing challening art junk. no better way to improve than to practice right? u_u☆

Urmo is a Neutral Evil desert kobold, rogue/sorcerer/fighter/swashbuckler… Urmo’s self proclaimed speciality is Trap making but he loves stabbin’ with his masterwork kukris. He wears a Hat of Disguise for traveling in populated areas but now that he has found a group of weirdos to bother and mooch off he stays undisguised for the most part. He’s very dirty and smelly! he hates gnomes but disguises himself as a fancily dresses gnome as a sort of joke.

Urmo is frail and shaky and is nearly always mounted on Mudpelt. they’re the best buds~ Urmo specializes in charging into battle mounted, jumping off and tumbling through enemy squares for dat Flank bonus with his pupper!

Related to my Skill Monkey Character Trope post

Learning how to throw my voice (Ventriloquist style)

Overtone Singing

How to properly feed and care for Crows and Corvids so you can build your own guild of feathered trinket-loving thieves

Actual Witchcraft (I’m literally a follower of Apollo. Like, actual Apollo)

Lock-picking (accidentally, it’s a long story)

Playing the Didgeridoo and Ukulele

Color Theory and Lighting

The culture and biology of fictional creatures

Vampire lore

How to do the entire Thriller Dance (They made us learn it in Elementary School for some reason. We didn’t even perform it or anything, it was just a semester in gym class for no reason)

Pendulum, Tarot, Osteomancy (Bone Divination), and Bibliomancy Divination

Every Renaissance Fair skill known to man, from metalsmithing to jousting

Magical and Alchemic symbols

The Fair Folk and all the arbitrary rules for interacting with them

Geology and the science of Gemstones for some reason

Tidbits about shows and movies I’ve literally never watched

Medieval Armor from around the world

Herbalism and Home Remedies

The cultural and spiritual Symbolism for almost anything

Wayyy to much lore from my favorite series

Basic etymology, like the meaning of names and such

Strange Historical facts, like Yasuke, the first Black Samurai

And too many other things