D&D 5E Menacing and Diplomat from UA Skill Feats

Chaosmancer said:

And I do agree that insight might not be the best defense, it seems to be their go to “defense stat” for persuasion, deception, intimidation, ect. A morale stat could be good for stuff like that, but I doubt the designers will add a new stat for this section, we’d have to homebrew it in… or wait.. isn’t there a variant for morale in the DMG? I’m AFB, but I think it was with the Honor variant.

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Using the same defense stat for persuasion, deception, and intimidation is a design mistake on their part because they work differently.

Insight is a reasonable "defense stat" for deception. If you see the truth, you don't get deceived, period.

For persuasion, higher insight should actually make you easier to persuade, not harder, in any case where persuasion (vs. deception) is applicable: that is, whenever the thing you're being asked to do is actually in your own best interest, such as changing your mind when presented with a valid argument. If you see the truth, you accept the truth. With low insight you might stubbornly refuse to change your mind; or you might turn down a deal that benefits you (5% profit) just to spite the other guy and hold out for a 20% profit that won't come.

For intimidation, higher insight should make you more accurate. If you see the truth, you get scared by beholders and dragons and archmages, but not by random peasants pretending to be archmages. But higher morale should determine whether your quite-rational fear manifests itself in physical and mental symptoms like hesitation which impose the Frightened condition, and that has nothing at all to do with your ability to perceive truth.

I think the DMG variant for Morale just says to use Wisdom saves. I remember I thought that was lazy design.

Oofta said:

If these feats make it into a book I chose to use in my home game, my house rule will probably be that, as a DM I get to decide the result.

Intimidate the leader of the bandits? Sure. He attacks the person who intimidated him, provoking opportunity attacks and attacking with such abandon that he provides advantage to everyone else attacking him and he has disadvantage on saves.

Fighting conscripts? You may be able to demoralize several opponents, based on how high you get more than one may flee the battle and you think if you do it again others will be even more demoralized and susceptible.

Basically I want to reward my players investment in a feat, I just don't want the result of that to be a hard coded power like 4E had.

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They could have done a better job by writing up a few options like you have above, and then saying, "the DM will choose one of these options or a comparable one appropriate to the creature and situation."

Satyrn said:

But you can already do that sort of thing with the skills. When the player declares his character is trying to do one those things the DM can 1) rule that it's possible, 2)set a DC, then 3) call for a skill check. That's how I use the skil

What these feats are doing is taking that first step out of the DM's hands. Which is good if you prefer codified skill uses, but terrible for my game.

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It in no way whatsoever takes the first step out of the GMs hands. if the skill cannot be used, the effects flowing from the skill will not occur.

Skill uses are both codified and flexible, and nothing about any of these feats changes that, except to give the users specialisations that are more potent than general usage... which is what most feats do btw...

That's what it basically boils down to, doesn't it? Do the general rules governing ability checks (that the DM has to determine whether both success and failure are even possible before calling for a roll) still apply, or do these feats create specific rules exceptions that say these are powers PCs can always accomplish? It's one of those scenarios where "rulings over rules" and "specific beats general" contradict. And they in fact in many ways are contradictory statements. The question then, is that a feature or a bug?

I'd submit that it's a feature. D&D, at any edition but certainly 5e, is too big and too broad to expect complete consistency from. I mean, the guys in charge of the "official rulings" channels can't seem to keep things straight sometimes. They've hard-coded in two defining statements that seem to fly completely in the face of each other, on purpose I suspect, to give us as DMs plenty of justification to play the game and make the rulings we were always going to do in the first place.



Basically, these feats play much more nicely with the rabbit then they do the duck. If you see the rabbit you can square these feats with the way you play the game no problem, and if you see the duck, and you can't not see the duck, then these feats break your game.

Of course there are plenty of duck-viewers who have done some great work in this thread and the other figuring out the tweaks and changes that would be necessary to make these feats compatible with such a playstyle, whether to the feats themselves or the encounters one would worry about them breaking.

What if it looks more like a seagull than a duck

Chaosmancer said:

What if it looks more like a seagull than a duck

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Then you might be better off playing 7th Sea

Gradine said:

That's what it basically boils down to, doesn't it? Do the general rules governing ability checks (that the DM has to determine whether both success and failure are even possible before calling for a roll) still apply, or do these feats create specific rules exceptions that say these are powers PCs can always accomplish?

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Nice post.

My biggest concern, though, is still that I feel like the feats, rather than providing something the PCs can always accomplish (which is cool and something totally spongefeatworthy) my time in 3e and 4e makes me see these as a little ducked up, telling players "no you can't do this cool thing unless you have the feat/skill trick/utility power."

But yeah, I feel I've said that half a dozen times this past week, and I feel silly for doing so again.

I think I'd boil most of these down into a rewritten Skilled feat - if a player takes the feat he can learn only two skills (instead of the normal 3) in order to gain expertise in one skill he knows (either one he already had, or from this feat).

But I like the arcanist feat, because it makes sense that learning arcana and prestidigitation go together - but then I think I'd rather house rule Magic Adept to let you swap out one cantrip known for proficiency/expertise in Arcana, Religion or Nature, depending on which spell list you chose.

Satyrn said:

Nice post.

My biggest concern, though, is still that I feel like the feats, rather than providing something the PCs can always accomplish (which is cool and something totally spongefeatworthy) my time in 3e and 4e makes me see these as a little ducked up, telling players "no you can't do this cool thing unless you have the feat/skill trick/utility power."

But yeah, I feel I've said that half a dozen times this past week, and I feel silly for doing so again.

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I'm totally on board with disliking the idea that "this feat lets you do X, which means now you can't do X without the feat", and I think some of these feats do exactly that and are terrible (Performer, looking at you). There are a few more that seem like that's what they do, but they instead codify the way in which X is accomplished via feat (say, with a bonus action, or opposed roll), so it's easy enough for me to rule that you can do X without the feat, just not as well, and that works great for me.

I think I'd boil most of these down into a rewritten Skilled feat - if a player takes the feat he can learn only two skills (instead of the normal 3) in order to gain expertise in one skill he knows (either one he already had, or from this feat).

But I like the arcanist feat, because it makes sense that learning arcana and prestidigitation go together - but then I think I'd rather house rule Magic Adept to let you swap out one cantrip known for proficiency/expertise in Arcana, Religion or Nature, depending on which spell list you chose.

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Now we're getting into generic, modular feats. Spend a feat, pick 3 benefits from the following list: I'm really on the fence on that in that I like the idea of it but I also hate the idea of it.

Gradine said:

I'm totally on board with disliking the idea that "this feat lets you do X, which means now you can't do X without the feat", and I think some of these feats do exactly that and are terrible (Performer, looking at you). There are a few more that seem like that's what they do, but they instead codify the way in which X is accomplished via feat (say, with a bonus action, or opposed roll), so it's easy enough for me to rule that you can do X without the feat, just not as well, and that works great for me.

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Agree with this. As long as they figure out a way to impress that these feat are allowing a character to do a "thing" more easily than someone could otherwise, we're good.

I've seen somewhat similar arguments in the past regarding disarm, for example. Some have complained that only battlemasters should ever bother trying to disarm because they have a maneuver that provides that benefit. But anyone can attempt to do so. There are even some suggestions in the DMG on how to adjudicate such things. If these feats make efforts to stay in a similar lane, I'm all good with them.

Gradine said:

Now we're getting into generic, modular feats. Spend a feat, pick 3 benefits from the following list: I'm really on the fence on that in that I like the idea of it but I also hate the idea of it.

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close to generic, yeah, but I don't think my Skilled houserule would make it any more so than it already is.

And you probably convinced me into breaking my houseruled Magic Adept into 3 separate but essentially identical feats, one for wizard, one for divine, one for primal. Essentially - or exactly - the feats from the Skill Feats UA

No, not exactly. You'd still get Magic Adept's choice of which 1st level spell you learn, plus get the spell slot.