Hopefully others may find this useful!

Something that came up in the 5e game i'm currently playing in: Rolling a skill with an alternative ability, example using your strength to intimidate, or constitution with athletics to see how long you can keep up a chase. "&{template:default} {{ Name = Unbound Skill Check }} {{ Skill = ?{Skill| Acrobatics| Animal Handling| Arcana| Athletics| Deception| History| Insight| Intimidation| Investigation| Medicine| Nature| Perception| Performance| Persuasion| Religion| Sleight of Hand| Stealth| Survival}}} {{Result = [[ ?{Advantage| Advantage,2d20kh1| Normal,d20| Disadvantage,2d20kl1} + ?{Ability|Strength,[[@{Selected|Strength_mod}]]|Dexterity,[[@{Selected|Dexterity_mod}]]|Constitution,@{Selected|Constitution_mod}|Intelligence,@{Selected|Intelligence_mod}|Wisdom,@{Selected|Wisdom_mod}|Charisma,@{Selected|Charisma_mod}}+?{Proficient| Not Proficient,[[0]]|Proficient,@{Selected|pb}|Expertise,[[(@{Selected|pb})*2]]|Jack of all Trades,floor((@{Selected|pb})/2)} + ?{Guidance?| Yes,1d4| No,0} + ?{Bardic Inspiration| None,0|D6,d6|D8,d8|D10,d10|D12,d12} ]] }}" Please You must have your token selected for it to work (Otherwise, just replace every instance of "Selected" with your character name as it appears on their sheet) This will fill in as a template nice and neat in the chat log, prompting you to select the skill, which attribute you're using for it and whether or not you're proficient in said skill. It's entirely possible others may have come across/created something like this before, but I had no luck searching for an example, so worked it out for myself. I hope this will be of use to others as well. *Edit - For the D&D 5E by Roll20 sheet* *Further edit - Adjusted the layout on the advice of GiGs!* Additional notes: - Scott C. raised a fantastic point about being able to do chunks of this directly via the sheet, but I didn't want to leave my little project unfinished. I will openly state though: the only benefits of this macro over creating a custom skill entry, is that it enables you to essentially toggle proficiency based bonuses and Bardic Inspiration, which may make it more useful as a GM tool. I encourage those who want a simple life to go sheet based with a custom skill, but I hope my little foray into macros will help or inspire someone to begin exploring them too.

You'll need to mention which character sheet this is for.

GiGs said: You'll need to mention which character sheet this is for. Apologies, edited to include. First time I've made a macro I've been proud of enough to share to not familiar with etiquette before now.

It's a good idea for a useful macro. Lots of systems should have one like it. If you want to make it more readable, you can add a linebreak after each | in a query, like ?{Skill| Acrobatics| Animal Handling| Arcana| Athletics| Putting the | at the start of a line works too: ?{Skill |Acrobatics |Animal Handling |Arcana |Athletics Personally, I prefer the first version, but I'm growing on the second. You can use either.

GiGs said: It's a good idea for a useful macro. Lots of systems should have one like it. If you want to make it more readable, you can add a linebreak after each | in a query, like ?{Skill| Acrobatics| Animal Handling| Arcana| Athletics| Putting the | at the start of a line works too: ?{Skill |Acrobatics |Animal Handling |Arcana |Athletics Personally, I prefer the first version, but I'm growing on the second. You can use either. Something about having the pipe at the start of each line was causing the math to not work out correctly, the second number wouldn't be added to the total result. On a whim I tried swapping around the PB and Mod sections, just to see if it made a difference, the only thing that changed was which number was excluded from the math, despite being recognised in the output when hovering over the number in chat log. Switching it to having the pipe at the end of each line remedied it entirely.

Interesting. It's handy to know there is a difference. By the way you shouldn't split up attribute calls that look like this @{Selected|pb} The pipe there works a little differently there than in a query, and you can't break that up.

I'll also point out you could handle this in the sheet, by adding a tool proficiency, naming it something like "custom basis for skill", and setting the attribute to the query option.

GiGs said: Interesting. It's handy to know there is a difference. By the way you shouldn't split up attribute calls that look like this @{Selected|pb} The pipe there works a little differently there than in a query, and you can't break that up. That may well have been what was causing the problem then. Scott C. said: I'll also point out you could handle this in the sheet, by adding a tool proficiency, naming it something like "custom basis for skill", and setting the attribute to the query option. God damn..... you really could just do that, couldn't you? Absolutely Stirling point, at least I managed to learn a bit more about writing macros and how different parts of the Character sheet respond when referenced, so not a total bust, lol. Thank you for uncomplicating this 😀