Profession (Wis; Trained Only)
You are trained in a livelihood or a professional role, such as apothecary, boater, bookkeeper, brewer, cook, driver, farmer, fisher, guide, herbalist, herder, hunter, innkeeper, lumberjack, miller, miner, porter, rancher, sailor, scribe, siege engineer, stablehand, tanner, teamster, woodcutter, or the like.
Like Craft, Knowledge, and Perform, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. For instance, you could have the skill Profession (cook). Your ranks in that skill don't affect any Profession (miller) or Profession (miner) checks you might make. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge. To draw a modern analogy if an occupation is a service industry, it's probably a Profession skill. If it's in the manufacturing sector, it's probably a Craft skill.
Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half of your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems, For example, a sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck watch at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized casks.
Action: Not applicable. A single check generally represents a week of work.
Try Again: Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried. You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.
Untrained: Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day
Expanded Description - Stormwrack - Profession (sailor)
This skill covers a broad variety of tasks and training, ranging from routine jobs such as steering, setting sails, and dropping or raising anchor to smart shiphandling, tactical maneuver, and handling a ship in a storm.
Characters with only 1 or 2 ranks in Profession (sailor) are simple deckhands - competent to work as part of a crew and handle jobs such as reefing sails, manning the helm under the direction of a commander, and generally make themselves useful.
Characters with 3 to 7 ranks in Profession (sailor) are petty officers, officers, or technical experts such as boatswains.
Characters with 8 or more ranks in Profession (sailor) are expert shiphandlers. They know how sails should be set for current winds. They can handle tricky tasks of piloting such as crossing a river bar. And they are skilled at tactical maneuvers in battle such as executing or avoiding a ramming attack, bringing a ship alongside for boarding, and using the weather gauge ability (see page 57, Stormwrack) to remain at range, rake an enemy's bow or stern, or fall away from action.
Check: Steering a ship in good weather conditions with sufficient crew requires no skill check. However, adverse conditions might require you to make skill checks every round, minute, or hour to keep your ship on course and out of danger.
Any Profession (sailor) checks you make to control or navigate a vessel require a full watch or complement of able-bodied crew. If your ship is undermanned, modify the DCs given below as follows:
| Less than full watch section | DC +5 |
| Less than half watch section | DC +10 |
| Less than quarter watch section | DC +15 |
Foundering: Your vessel is at risk of foundering when you are in high winds, heavy seas, or rough surf (see Chapter 1, Stormwrack). Check for foundering once per day, or once per hour in high winds or storms, or once per minute in heavy surf. Add your vessel's seaworthiness modifier to foundering checks.
| Foundering in strong winds or light surf | DC 5 |
| Foundering in severe winds | DC 10 |
| Foundering in windstorm/gale or heavy surf | DC 15 |
| Foundering in hurricane or very heavy surf | DC 20 |
| Foundering in dire gale | DC 28 |
If you fail a foundering check, your ship begins to sink.
Sailing in High Winds: Keeping control over a vessel in powerful winds requires a check (see Wind Strength, page 22, Stormwrack). Add your vessel's seaworthiness modifier to your check.
If you fail your Profession (sailor) check in dangerous winds, your ship is driven before the wind, but you can retry your check in 1 hour or when the wind drops.
| Sail or row in severe winds | DC 20 |
| Sail or row in windstorm or gale | DC 30 |
Steering in Fast Currents: Handling a vessel in fast-moving waters requires a Profession (sailor) check modified by your vessel's shiphandling modifier. Check once per round. If you fail to steer a vessel through rough waters or vigorous currents, your speed falls to zero and you are simply swept along with the current, unable to turn or avoid obstacles until you regain control.
| Steer in vigorous current | DC 8 |
| Steer in dangerous current | DC 18 |
| Steer in irresistible current | DC 28 |
Rivers with fast-moving water also create surflike conditions that might swamp or overturn your vessel, even if you are steering successfully. A vigorous current is treated like light surf; a dangerous current is equal to heavy surf; and an irresistible current is equal to very heavy surf. See Foundering, above.
Profession (Astrology)
Dragon #340
(Wis. Trained Only)
Your facility with astrology allows you to make extraordinarily shrewd predictions about a persons behavior. It also allows you to cast horoscopes, offering clues about future auspicious and inauspicious actions.
Check: You can cast a horoscope for any living creature. You must know the subject's astrological sign. Your predictive powers increase in accuracy the more information you know. If successful, the horoscope determines an auspicious (lucky) and inauspicious (unlucky) action for a particular day. Roll 1d10 once for each chart (see the sidebar in Dungeon #340, page 33).
Action: It takes considerable time to make a check and fashion a horoscope, requiring 1d4 hours to make calculations and draw charts.
Try Again: No. You may only attempt to cast a horoscope for a particular subject once in any given day.
Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (the planes), you get a +2 synergy bonus on Astrology checks.
| Horoscope DC | Personal Information Known About Subject |
| 30 | Astrological Sign |
| 25 | Exact Date of Birth |
| 20 | Exact Time of Birth (within the hour) |
| Astrology check | |
| Modifier | Condition |
| +5 | Subject's exact place of birth known |
| -10 | Attempting to determine an auspicious action without an inauspicious action |
| -5 | Double the action bonus and penalty (this can only be applied once) |
Expanded Description - Races of the Dragon
The most common profession among kobolds is mining. Mining work involves digging, removing dirt, and building supports.
Check: A Profession (miner) check can be used to indicate the progress of mining or digging operations. Excavation is represented as a fixed number of 5-foot cubes per miner, based on the Profession (miner) check result of the lead worker (but not of the overseer - see Special). Even a pair of unskilled miners can remove a 5-foot cube of stone with 8 hours of labor, while reasonably talented workers can remove twice or even three times as much.
| Check Result | Daily Progress* |
| 10 | 1/2 |
| 15 | 1 |
| 20 | 2 |
| +5 | +1 |
| *In 5-foot cubes. Double this value for each size category above Medium; halve it for each size category below Medium | |
Two Medium miners can work together on a single 5-foot cube, with one using the aid another action to assist the other's check. Only a single large or larger miner can work on any given 5-foot cube. Up to four Small or smaller miners can work together on the same 5-foot cube, with as many as three miners using the aid another action to assist the lead miner's check. Kobolds are an exception to this rule (see Special, below).
The table above assumes the miners are digging through sedimentary rock, such as limestone, sandstone, or shale. Other substances apply a modifier on the check, as shown on the following table.
| Substance | Check Modifier |
| Gravel or sand | +10 |
| Dirt, loose | +5 |
| Clay or silt | +2 |
| Dirt, packed or frozen | +2 |
| Igneous rock (granite, pumice, obsidian) | -5 |
| Metamorphic rock (marble, quartz, slate) | -10 |
Special: Kobolds mine more efficiently than other Small creatures. Treat them as Medium creatures for determining their daily progress, but as Small creatures when determining how many kobolds can work on a given 5-foot cube.
A weak ditherbomb used in conjunction with a Profession (miner) check grants a +2 alchemical bonus on the check. A strong ditherbomb grants a +4 alchemical bonus, while a wyrm ditherbomb grants a +6 bonus. Using more than one ditherbomb doesn't add to this bonus.
Action: Not applicable. A single check represents 8 hours of work.
Profession (Siege Engineer)
For some, war is a disaster. For you, it's a job.
>Check: Aiming an indirect-fire catapult such as a trebuchet, scorpion, or mangonel, requires a Profession(siege engineer) check; see Siege Engines for specific catapult types, DCs and details.