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I see where you are coming from, but high granularity of combat rules is like, the whole point of DnD. It is, after all, the descendant of wargames. On the other hand, social interactions are generally boiled down to single dicerolls of one of maybe 3 skills determined entirely by DM whim. I am suggesting leniency in that fiat, in favor of allowing people to engage more.
Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 04:52
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You're penalising people who have expended character resources on engaging with noncombat mechanics. How would you feel if you'd built a combat-oriented character (at the cost of not having any noncombat utility), only to find that you are allowed to bullshit your way through fights but must always roll for noncombat stuff?
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Mar 18, 2019 04:58
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:You're penalising people who have expended character resources on engaging with noncombat mechanics. I'd say you got yourself a good rear end game system on your hands.  Yeah but real talk don't put the weight of success on someone personally being able to talk their way through a situation. A characters skill should let them solve social problems even if the player behind them can't just like the character can solve a combat situation. Where that line is should vary depending on your table but the characters skill should have value and not be a waste. Epi Lepi posted:I like the Blood Hunter aesthetic a bunch but in play I think it’s a little underwhelming. It’s made of glass but not really a cannon and there are a lot of class abilities that rely on specific circumstances to be useful. Yeah basically, its a class that derives its a ability set from deal damage to itself but then has no real way to actually restore its own health so as a result it has to double dip into hurting itself and take damage like any other character/martial in the game for no really benefit. On top of that your actions get limited use so its not even like you can treat yourself HP as the battery and ride the line, you're just taking damage to trigger you're own stuff (which aren't really any better than stuff other characters get for free) The only reasonable way to play is to be an archer and hang way back so you're avoiding damage from enemies for the most part so you can safely use their own abilities. On top of that the 'I'm good at fighting X type enemy' mechanics are always inherently bad things as you're praying the GMing gets this and understands this and is going to go the extra mile to make sure that type of enemy shows up and you've got stuff to make yourself useful. Especially if its anything but 'you kill these things better' because then you need to hope the GM is going to build whole scenarios around your specific thing becoming useful and that the rest of the party goes for it and doesnt circumvent it by accident. It's real shaky game design that is better handled as a free thing a character gets as a reward for doing stuff than a class feature. kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 05:02
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:You're penalising people who have expended character resources on engaging with noncombat mechanics. The problem here is that they have expended character resources on engaging with non-combat mechanics, in D&D Fifth Edition.
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Mar 18, 2019 05:06
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lightrook posted:Games are meant to be fun, so try things that seem fun! Also a bad idea in 5e (half kidding) I ran LMoP with all custom characters and it was totally fine. Don’t feel like you need to use the pregens, but you might want to steal some of their unique background fluff.
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Mar 18, 2019 05:10
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:You're penalising people who have expended character resources on engaging with noncombat mechanics. Like I said, I think that the point of making a "face" should be less, "this person always does the talking", but rather, this person is most likely to get a favorable outcome when doing unreasonable things. In other words, if someone invests heavily in CHA and persuasion or whatever, then they should be able to get away with bullshit other characters can't, but I think there's a lot that other characters should be able to accomplish through sheer RP before dice come into the equation. For instance, I'd ask for a deception roll if I thought a lie a character gave wasn't wholly plausible. Or a persuasion roll if they were trying to appeal to the better nature of a lousy person. Or an intimidation roll if they were trying to threaten someone they didn't obviously have the upper hand over. But if they had a plausible lie, an appeal I thought a certain character would buy into, or a threat that was 100% credible, I wouldn't ask for a roll. Sometimes, a non "face" is going to have the ability to do those things, but often, they will not. That is where a "face" can shine, because they are going to be more likely to succeed in those instances. Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 05:13
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kingcom posted:don't put the weight of success on someone personally being able to talk their way through a situation. Phoneposting now but yeah, this was my point. If I know I can just bs/rp every social thing, my skill and spell choices will look a bit different than if I know I'll be spellcasting or rolling skill checks to succeed.
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Mar 18, 2019 05:15
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Mr. Lobe posted:Like I said, I think that the point of making a "face" should be less, "this person always does the talking", but rather, this person is most likely to get a favorable outcome when doing unreasonable things. In other words, if someone invests heavily in CHA and persuasion or whatever, then they should be able to get away with bullshit other characters can't, but I think there's a lot that other characters should be able to accomplish through sheer RP before dice come into the equation. Like I don't know what your table is like and what everyone enjoys and I doubt even you have a 100% knowledge of exactly what everyone is enjoying completely but the thing should be that the character who chose to be worse off in some places should be rewarded for the things they decided to be better in. Hopefully you know where that line is in your group so I can't exactly saying you're doing it wrong but I've played in enough D&D and Pathfinder game to know how miserable it is when you get completely shafted because your specific investment just doesn't line up with how the GM imagines those investments should actually reward you. There was this one GM actually where i literally never bothered to spend skill points because outside of perception they literally never helped you mechanically in any way. Like always the solution is running this stuff up front with your players so everyone has the same expectation though.
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Mar 18, 2019 05:55
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in effect, the whole idea of Take 10 mechanic, or even Numenera/Cypher's reduce-the-difficulty-to-zero mechanic, is to formalize the idea of "you don't have to roll, as long as you've invested the skills into doing the thing"
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Mar 18, 2019 06:03
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At my table at least, bring skill checks or be prepared to be undermined by your character's poo poo stats. Clever players can prove their smarts by getting around bad rolls, not ignoring them. You'll get where you're going, never fear, but you need to find a path that your character will succeed at pursuing. Some of the funniest parts of a session come when your character just absolutely fails you and you have to come up with an unlikely alternative. Just like in combat, I'll try to reward your character strengths, but I'm also going to poke at your character faults. Tangentially: I try to encourage players to use their skills in combat as a free action. They usually struggle to come up with stuff, but when they do it's typically the most memorable element. Succeeding at an arcana check and realizing that you need to kick over the ritual candles brings an unpredictable narrative into what is otherwise a straightforward fight.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 06:24
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Kaal posted:At my table at least, bring skill checks or be prepared to be undermined by your character's poo poo stats. Clever players can prove their smarts by getting around bad rolls, not ignoring them. You'll get where you're going, never fear, but you need to find a path that your character will succeed at pursuing. Some of the funniest parts of a session come when your character just absolutely fails you and you have to come up with an unlikely alternative. Just like in combat, I'll try to reward your character strengths, but I'm also going to poke at your character faults. Tangentially: I try to encourage players to use their skills in combat as a free action. They usually struggle to come up with stuff, but when they do it's typically the most memorable element. Succeeding at an arcana check and realizing that you need to kick over the ritual candles brings an unpredictable narrative into what is otherwise a straightforward fight. Idk if I'm just tired or what but you are contradicting yourself every sentence there. It feels like you've just said 'yeah a clever player will be able to just bypass this system and solve most problems with whatever skill they picked to be good at and/or are broad enough that you can apply them to lots of situations'.
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Mar 18, 2019 06:49
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kingcom posted:Like I don't know what your table is like and what everyone enjoys and I doubt even you have a 100% knowledge of exactly what everyone is enjoying completely but the thing should be that the character who chose to be worse off in some places should be rewarded for the things they decided to be better in. Hopefully you know where that line is in your group so I can't exactly saying you're doing it wrong but I've played in enough D&D and Pathfinder game to know how miserable it is when you get completely shafted because your specific investment just doesn't line up with how the GM imagines those investments should actually reward you. There was this one GM actually where i literally never bothered to spend skill points because outside of perception they literally never helped you mechanically in any way. Like always the solution is running this stuff up front with your players so everyone has the same expectation though. Just as a specific example of my DM style, one of the characters from the last campaign I ran a few years ago was a sorcerer who invested in the deception skill. She leveraged it pretty heavily to swindle a lot of people throughout the entire game, and was in effect a kind of a magical spy. For instance, she once successfully convinced the wizard's guild of the campaign's major city that A. she was a wizard, and a member in good standing (sorcerers were very rare in the campaign setting and the guild had a total monopoly on wizardly magical training) , B. that she was to be entrusted with the care of a very important staff in the guild vaults that the characters' employer was seeking. Between her judicious display of her magical ability (fun with prestidigitation) and how well she RP'd the cover story the group cooked up after doing some research, I didn't ask for her to roll when she bullshit the guards into letting her enter the guild tower. When she made her way to the repository of artifacts, however, and she tried to offer an elaborate explanation about how she had no credentials or papers on-hand due of the special kind of super top-secrecy of her mission to protect the staff, it was very entertaining, but not especially plausible. ("It's a secret mission! How secret of a mission could it be if I ran around with papers spelling out exactly what I am doing here?") So, I asked her for a roll which she just barely made thanks to her feat. Of course, things got complicated after that, but she was absolutely successful in that stage of the mission. In general, my sense from my players is that they, like me, prefer not to interrupt the flow of NPC interactions with dice-rolls when it is possible to avoid doing so. That said, I do try to reward character choices. Like, her approach to infiltrating the wizard's guild was only a good idea because of her specific allocation of resources into the social skills. Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 06:54
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What my GM usually does is grant Advantage if the player comes up with good RP or reasoning, allowing players to roleplay their way into being more effective in social scenarios without outright skipping the rolls.
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Mar 18, 2019 08:04
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You should roll when there is the possibility for an interesting failure, a possibility for an interesting success, and the party would gain something obviously useful to their quest from the success. All three. If you don't have all three, don't ask them to roll. The problem that happens is that groups start way too far in the "roll for loving everything" category, and then just swing right the gently caress into "never roll for anything" category, because D&D refuses to teach any of this. So you start off having to roll because you were trying to chat up a cute NPC for flavor reasons, which sucks because now only the designated "face" character is allowed to be friendly, and then goes way too far in the other direction where you just "roleplay" out everything and your shy players get left in the dust.
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Mar 18, 2019 11:11
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And really, how many "Face" players actually sacrifice for the sake of social interactions instead of they just happen to play a class where cha is their main stat so guess I'm face now.
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Mar 18, 2019 11:14
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Kung Food posted:And really, how many "Face" players actually sacrifice for the sake of social interactions instead of they just happen to play a class where cha is their main stat so guess I'm face now. I wonder more the reverse - how many players feel they have to play as the "face" character simply because they want to be social in-game and except to be mechanically punished for it if they don't specialize in it? How many players have sighed and gone on to not play as a fighter or a barbarian or what have you, that they WANTED to play as, all because they expect it mandatory to be the high charisma player if they want to be friendly and/or flirty with NPCs?
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Mar 18, 2019 11:17
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ProfessorCirno posted:I wonder more the reverse - how many players feel they have to play as the "face" character simply because they want to be social in-game and except to be mechanically punished for it if they don't specialize in it? How many players have sighed and gone on to not play as a fighter or a barbarian or what have you, that they WANTED to play as, all because they expect it mandatory to be the high charisma player if they want to be friendly and/or flirty with NPCs? This very much, I love to play martial characters but I will never get to do so because dnd GMs will without a doubt punish you for that. So I either get to play a paladin or 'the loveable idiot' type.
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Mar 18, 2019 13:17
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To be perfectly fair, you don't expect the 8 STR Wizard to be able to lift a heavy rock, so I don't see why it's so absurd that the 8 CHA Fighter is bad at talking people into things. Disagreeing with that is disagreeing with ability scores as a whole, at which point why even still play D&D instead of something better at what you want? An interesting note is that the social stat is explicitly Charisma, not like Rhetoric or Oratory or anything. It's just about the pure natural ability. I'd say a competent but antisocial chancellor can be pretty interestingly defined as having trained Persuasion but low Charisma. These differences were easier to express with the older, more granular skill system I suppose. Also I think it's dumb as gently caress that certain classes can only train certain skills, that part should be homebrewed out. And just give everyone Perception by default because they'd take it anyways.
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Mar 18, 2019 14:26
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I don't see how having skill points or whatever in any way makes a persuasive, low charisma character better. Like it's a bad decision now, and it was a bad decision then. Except back then it costs you even more to train persuasion because if you have low charisma you probably have a class that doesn't get many skill points, low int, or both so now you're spending a larger percentage of a limited resource to be mediocre at something, which in a system with DCs following a level curve assuming a certain level of baseline competence, makes you useless.
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Mar 18, 2019 14:38
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Any unofficial (or even official) adventures with a more heavy RP aspect, besides Curse of Strahd? My players want to do more out-of-combat stuff, and I don't mind because now that they're level 11 it's increasingly hard to come up with interesting combat that isn't a pain to run, but I know that non-combat RP and encounters are my weak point as a DM, and 5e is... not really helpful, either. I'd definitely look at adventures for other systems if people have some in mind, too.
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Mar 18, 2019 16:28
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tzirean posted:Any unofficial (or even official) adventures with a more heavy RP aspect, besides Curse of Strahd? My players want to do more out-of-combat stuff, and I don't mind because now that they're level 11 it's increasingly hard to come up with interesting combat that isn't a pain to run, but I know that non-combat RP and encounters are my weak point as a DM, and 5e is... not really helpful, either. I'd definitely look at adventures for other systems if people have some in mind, too. You can talk your way through most of Dragon Heist and I enjoyed sinking into the different gangs and factions in Waterdeep. I was a Bregan D'aerthe lackey, another player worked for Xanathar, and another was a member of the city guard! We had fun figuring out how we all got involved in the plot, balancing our different motivations, and deciding what to do with the score at the end. The combat side was a bit lacking and you'd obviously need to scale up encounters when they happened but the city setting made for some fun non-combat hours. It's not a perfect adventure as many will attest but it's a good tableau for what you're interested in.
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Mar 18, 2019 16:39
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Quick question: is there an OGL for 5th like there was for 3.5 (even if it's not as expansive as that one was)? I wanna see about banging out some house rules and possibly trying to put some of them up on the DMs Guild, and want to make sure I'm doing everything by the book.
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Mar 18, 2019 18:56
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Aniodia posted:Quick question: is there an OGL for 5th like there was for 3.5 (even if it's not as expansive as that one was)? I wanna see about banging out some house rules and possibly trying to put some of them up on the DMs Guild, and want to make sure I'm doing everything by the book. Yes http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/systems-reference-document-srd
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Mar 18, 2019 18:57
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Aniodia posted:Quick question: is there an OGL for 5th like there was for 3.5 (even if it's not as expansive as that one was)? I wanna see about banging out some house rules and possibly trying to put some of them up on the DMs Guild, and want to make sure I'm doing everything by the book. The DM's Guild does not follow the OGL but instead its own specific license, so follow that instead. It's more permissive with the understanding you're only selling within the walled garden of the DM's Guild.
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Mar 18, 2019 20:55
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The problem with faces and skill checks is that a lot of nerds over and underestimate what would be difficult. Imo the biggest problem is a lot of it relies on one person's charisma/skill. A fighter with 8 charisma shouldn't have a super hard time persuading a barkeep with 10 charisma. Or some underpaid guards with low int.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:49
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Was there any indication in the development of 5e as to why they didn't include "Take 10"?
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Mar 18, 2019 23:59
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Waffles Inc. posted:Was there any indication in the development of 5e as to why they didn't include "Take 10"? They made passive skills instead and it’s basically the same.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:15
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Kaysette posted:They made passive skills instead and it’s basically the same. That's not what Take 10 is for at all though? Passive skills are your 'I'm not paying attention to this specifically, how hard am I to sneak up on/get one by' things with Investigation and Perception. Take 10 (or take 20 for that matter) is 'if there's not any particular time or environmental pressure, and the thing is easy enough that your mod +10 (or +20 if you have more time) works, you can basically just narrate doing it'. They're similar, and the numbers work out the same, but the principle and utility is different. I suspect it was left out because it's something that a lot of DMs do anyway, without needing to be told they can, so they didn't bother including it.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:19
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thespaceinvader posted:That's not what Take 10 is for at all though? Yeah, the name is not a great fit but the mechanics are the same. Instead of passive slight of hand just think of it as trivial slight of hand. Take 20 is dumb because of course you shouldn’t be rolling if there’s no risk or pressure.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:22
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Kaysette posted:Yeah, the name is not a great fit but the mechanics are the same. Instead of passive slight of hand just think of it as trivial slight of hand. Take 20 is dumb because of course you shouldn’t be rolling if there’s no risk or pressure. You're missing the point. Passive is meant to be just that. Passive. If you're actively trying to do something, the passive skill doesn't work any more, and you have to roll. Take 10 (and 20) is the thing that should be covered by 'if there's no threat and no meaningful chance of failure, don't bother rolling at all'.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:26
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thespaceinvader posted:You're missing the point. Passive is meant to be just that. Passive. That's not right. By the PHB: "[A passive] check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, (...)" It can also be used in the truly passive way, but that is not its only function. Unless you want to argue that by searching over and over again for a secret you're being passive. (Mind you, this is just another example of how mind-blowingly bad 5e is at explaining itself. Why did they ever think that using the word "passive" for repetitive actions was a good idea?)
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Mar 19, 2019 00:30
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Oh goddammit what the poo poo. Yeah, that;s take 10. Ignore me, I'm mistaking myself.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:32
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thespaceinvader posted:Oh goddammit what the poo poo. It’s cool, the problem is they picked a lovely name for it and a lot of DMs run it the way you described.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:40
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thespaceinvader posted:Oh goddammit what the poo poo. Yeah same. So is 10+skill a RAW "passive" for every skill?
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Mar 19, 2019 01:50
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Infinity Gaia posted:To be perfectly fair, you don't expect the 8 STR Wizard to be able to lift a heavy rock, so I don't see why it's so absurd that the 8 CHA Fighter is bad at talking people into things. Disagreeing with that is disagreeing with ability scores as a whole, at which point why even still play D&D instead of something better at what you want? It's also only ever social skills people want to work like that. My 8 str wizard doesn't get to lift the rock without rolling, regardless of whether or not I prove I can lift the DM over my head. The cleric doesn't get to try to pick the lock at all no matter how often or how quickly the player opens the host's locked house or car.
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Mar 19, 2019 02:23
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:It's also only ever social skills people want to work like that. If the player explained that there wizard was going to use a pulley or lever to lift the rock they could. If the cleric used his alchemy expertise to melt the lock he could. You don't have to be a charismatic person IRL to explain how your character is going to approach a conversation and benefit from that.
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Mar 19, 2019 04:18
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Waffles Inc. posted:Yeah same. So is 10+skill a RAW "passive" for every skill? Yes, +5 for advantage, -5 for disadvantage if applicable. They don't explain it very well but you can use it for anything even if the official books only really make use of Perception.
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Mar 19, 2019 04:31
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Nasgate posted:If the player explained that there wizard was going to use a pulley or lever to lift the rock they could. Without a roll? Of course not without a roll, that would invalidate high-strength characters out-of-combat utility and any strength based mechanical challenge because a player said "  I use a lever " as if a huge muscled character who lifts every day couldn't possibly understand leverage, the dumb jock. Nasgate posted:If the cleric used his alchemy expertise to melt the lock he could. Are they rolling and/or expending a resource? If so, no problem! Nasgate posted:You don't have to be a charismatic person IRL to explain how your character is going to approach a conversation and benefit from that. No poo poo! Your character just needs a relevant score and skill and to roll high enough, or to expend resources. Same as with any other challenge. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 04:43
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:Without a roll? Of course not without a roll, that would invalidate high-strength characters out-of-combat utility and any strength based mechanical challenge because a player said " A) you seem to not understand basic machines. Would you require a character with 30+ strength roll to lift said object? B) I'm no longer sure what you're arguing for other than literally everything should be rolled because there's numbers on a character sheet.
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Mar 19, 2019 05:06
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Nasgate posted:A) you seem to not understand basic machines. Would you require a character with 30+ strength roll to lift said object? A) You seem to not understand basic game mechanics. You make a character. The character has skills and abilities, and those either cost resources or have the opportunity cost of not taking other skills or abilities. Bypassing mechanical challenges by wannabe clever play like "I use a lever" invalidates the character creation/advancement resources spent on being able to overcome those challenges. If something heavy needs to be moved out the way, the player who invested their resources in being strong has a time to shine. You wouldn't allow that same strong character's player to ignore an INT/WIS based challenge about finding books in the wizard's library by saying "I use the card catalogue", right? That would poo poo on the player who invested resources in being smart. B) I am against making GBS threads on players who spent character resources on having their characters be good at stuff. You are for making GBS threads on some players who spent character resources on being good at stuff, by allowing other players to do the same things without expending those resources. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 05:37
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