[RPG] Are there issues about making up own skills, when commonly used

dnd-5ehouse-rulesskills

When using ability checks I often think about whether knowledge of something fits into one of the skills.

Is it a nature-, religion- or just a plain intelligence check to recall knowledge about creatures of other planes or undead?
When talking about laws, what kind of check would it be? Probably plain intelligence.

The problem occurs when one of the characters is a demon hunter or a lawyer by background. There is as far as I can see no written rule which lets you get proficiency in such checks.

Do you have experience in adding own skills and let players get proficiency in them? Are there problems coming with it?

When thinking about a demon hunter and giving him the "demon lore" skill (or comparable) it would also give him proficiency for checks to recognize demons and recall their abilities, but might be to a too edge case skill. Giving him something like "Monster/Creature Lore" it might be too widespread for the character.

Best Answer

Most of the time, custom skills (unless they're super common for a given setting) are going to be a trap option for your players. They won't be useful very often when compared to the less specific default skills built in to the game, which tend to be quite broad in their application for a standard D&D style fantasy game.

As an alternative, you might consider taking the character's background into account when calling for checks related to such matters. So if the character is a demon hunter give them their proficiency bonus when making Intelligence (Whatever Skill Is Relevant) checks related to Demons. You'll need to make sure your players aren't taking advantage of things by giving themselves the I Know Everything About Everything style background, but if it's not abused it can make the players feel like their back story matters.