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

[Corwin]

I think telling a player "no you can't do that even if the rules say you can*" is adversarial.

Sure it is. Good thing no one is advocating such behavior.

Giving adversaries additional characteristics designed to negate a character's abilities for no reason other than to negate the character's abilities is also adversarial. In other words, a fire elemental is going to be immune to fire but if all of my NPCs are suddenly immune to fire because I don't like feature X that does fire damage, I'm just being a dick.

Absolutely right. Again, good thing no one is advocating such behavior. You'd think with all that talk of fire, those strawmen would burn down quickly. Yet here they still are!

 

[Satyrn]

I think telling a player "no you can't do that even if the rules say you can" is adversarial.

Giving adversaries additional characteristics designed to negate a character's abilities for no reason other than to negate the character's abilities is also adversarial. In other words, a fire elemental is going to be immune to fire but if all of my NPCs are suddenly immune to fire because I don't like feature X that does fire damage, I'm just being a dick.

Yeah. I get you. I agree. I really just have no idea what corwin was trying to say. Those two options I mentioned were my best guesses . . . ah, it was indeed the first guess, essentially.

I wonder if the reason we're all seeing adversarialness in each other comes from being so adversarial here. Or maybe we're all so adversarial here because we're all so adversarial in . . . wait, I've said adversarial in my head so many times now it's become rather meaningless now, like static in my brain. I don't even know what I'm trying to say.

Adversarility.

 

[Satyrn]

Adversareality.

 

[Bacon Bits]

The more I think about Menacing, Diplomat, Persuasive, Silver-Tongued, and Empathic, the more I feel like they should mechanically work like the Berzerker's Intimidating Presence:

[Y]ou can use your action to frighten someone with your menacing presence. When you do so, choose one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on the frightened creature until the end of your next turn. This effect ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you. If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can’t use this feature on that creature again for 24 hours.

Don't use opposed checks for things like the effects of these feats. Don't allow Expertise to apply, either. Use Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence saves, because the targets are trying to resist some effect.

 

[Oofta]

The more I think about Menacing, Diplomat, Persuasive, Silver-Tongued, and Empathic, the more I feel like they should mechanically work like the Berzerker's Intimidating Presence:



Don't use opposed checks for things like the effects of these feats. Don't allow Expertise to apply, either. Use Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence saves, because the targets are trying to resist some effect.

While I still don't like the mechanical nature of the feats for a variety of reasons, a DC based on proficiency and bonus would make more sense. A mid level character could have an effective average DC in the mid to upper 20s, and since it's not a save resistances and legendary saves don't apply.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Don't use opposed checks for things like the effects of these feats. Don't allow Expertise to apply, either. Use Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence saves, because the targets are trying to resist some effect.

I agree about opposed checks, they're not the best mechanic in general, too 'swingy' (as it's commonly used around here). Better to have one roll vs a DC based on how good the other is. Saves are a fine model for that, but tend to be pretty heavily associated with magic, just like conditions (even though poisons, for instance, aren't magical and do force saves and impose the poisoned condition), there's just a proprietary feeling about magic having distinct mechanics to make it 'seem really magical,' even if, mathematically, they're still just a simple pass/fail check. :shrug:
Passive scores would be a similar way to go, with the advantage that the mechanic is already associated with skills.

 

[Oofta]

I think telling a player "no you can't do that even if the rules say you can*" is adversarial.

Absolutely right. Again, good thing no one is advocating such behavior. You'd think with all that talk of fire, those strawmen would burn down quickly. Yet here they still are!

Really?

That's ain't 5e. Han's player is free to roleplay. Absolutely. If he even wanted to lob a threat at Vader, cool, I guess. But why is he picking up a die, declaring an Intimidate check, though? Again, not 5e. Threaten Vader all you want, at your own peril. But I'll let you know when, what you are saying, has moved into die rolling territory.

and

I just covered this. Absolutely they can. And if you, the DM, want to take it to a die roll because the result is uncertain, that's your prerogative.

So you've decided that even if Han has the menacing feat, he can't use it against Vader. You are literally saying "I don't care what the feat says, it's not going to work". That, IMHO is the very definition of adversarial play.

 

[iserith]

Diplomat doesn't seem like a problem to me at all. You can, at the cost of a feat, speed things along in a Social Interaction. If you're using the Social Interaction rules from the DMG, this is nice, but not overpowered in my view.

Menacing also seems fine. Dead is a much better condition to inflict upon an enemy than frightened, so giving up an attack and potential damage to potentially demoralize a foe seems like a losing proposition except in very particular circumstances. The duration of the frightened is pretty short and I'd probably just have the target Dodge on its turn rather than flail around attacking with disadvantage.

I didn't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been stated. I assume by page 5, we're just arguing the definition of things at this point. I was late to the show.

 

[SkidAce]

I think telling a player "no you can't do that even if the rules say you can*" is adversarial.

It could be, depending on the group.

But a player telling the DM "you have to allow me a roll even though the rules say you don't have to" can also be adversarial.

Both mainly when taken to extreme.

 

[iserith]

So you've decided that even if Han has the menacing feat, he can't use it against Vader. You are literally saying "I don't care what the feat says, it's not going to work". That, IMHO is the very definition of adversarial play.

It's not. For any given action declaration, the DM is charged with determining if the action has a certain or uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence of failure. That is how the game works. It happens before rules are ever applied. Players need to understand this.

In this case, the outcome of intimidating the target is certain according to the DM - it fails, no roll. A savvy DM, in my view, will telegraph this as a thing while describing the environment so that the player understands that intimidation is not a tactic that will bear fruit.