D&D 5E 11/1/13 google hangout with

[I'm A Banana]

We have this "Charisma equals Bluff" non sequitur attached to our D&D reasoning because it was couched this way starting with 3.0 and we just accepted it. Sure, it counts this way in SOCIAL settings where persuasiveness, force of personality, leadership, sense of self/presence is predominant. However, in physical situations it falls almost exclusively under the purview of Intelligence (canniness, reasoning, information processing and guile) + Dexterity (requisite coordination/agility needed for the body control to pull it off) + Strength (explosiveness required to be "faster than your opponents mind" and destroy their instantaneous calculations of velocity/spatial orientation/etc). Most of the guys I play with have (these are my pals...but its true) little to no persuasiveness, force of personality, leadership, sense of self/presence (Charisma) but they can cross someone over or stutter step or execute a pump fake and leave a defender in the dust. I always liked the Flick of the Wrist (Dexterity) modeling of a physical deke/fake much better than Bluff (Charisma) for a Combat Feint.

Sure. There's no wrong way to call it, much to 5e's credit. I'd maybe go Dex vs. Dex myself (reaction time vs. reaction time!), but whatever makes sense to you (or your DM) is probably right for you (or them).

In total, you are controlling them. You are dictating what they do because their information processing skills + their coordination + their explosiveness + their perception is undone by your own.

But you don't tell them how to act. Metaphysically, they are not under your control. You are not taking away their ability to make choices. Even if such choices are limited by their own processing skills/perception, they are not removed. The behavior is not mechanistic in the way that a shove is.

And for D&D, I believe it's pretty key to keep decisions of characters in the hands of the players. Saying "I slip past her guard!" is fine. Saying "She does not guard me" is less fine. This bangs onto the idea of actor-and-director stances mentioned here, to a degree: an actor doesn't dictate the actions of other performers, they react to them. If someone is laying down some defense on you, you don't contradict that, you work with it by saying something about yourself: You're skilled enough to cut through it, if you make this check. That doesn't mean they weren't laying down the D, it just means they lacked the skills necessary to keep it up against you this time.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Yeah, there are manipulative people in the world, but they don't remove your free will -- they don't MAKE you do something. You end up CHOOSING to do something. That's an important element that I don't think should be missed.

Forcing actions is more the domain of powerful magic. I really don't have a problem with low-level magic ALSO not being able to dictate the enemy's choices. Removing free will is all sorts of evil mind-magic abuse in the world, no? And I like non-magical abilities able to apply conditions like charm.

Dictating actions is kind of kludgy and kind of weird and kind of just not a lot of fun, when compared with incentivizing certain actions, and encouraging the DM to act in-character. Is the big ogre going to take advantage of that damage bonus? Oh, probably. Is that clever necromancer? Well, probably not.

I dunno, maybe I'm out in left field on this one.

Yeah, I just can't see some really intelligent and combat savvy character doing something stupid because his opponent is charming. PC or NPC.

 

[Manbearcat]

And for D&D, I believe it's pretty key to keep decisions of characters in the hands of the players. Saying "I slip past her guard!" is fine. Saying "She does not guard me" is less fine. This bangs onto the idea of actor-and-director stances mentioned here, to a degree: an actor doesn't dictate the actions of other performers, they react to them. If someone is laying down some defense on you, you don't contradict that, you work with it by saying something about yourself: You're skilled enough to cut through it, if you make this check. That doesn't mean they weren't laying down the D, it just means they lacked the skills necessary to keep it up against you this time.

Yup. I don't disagree with any of that. An abstracted contest for martial forced movement is our D&D conflict resolution tool.

My only concerns with secondary abstracted contests for martial forced movement is:

- Action economy concerns whereby (See Reposition in Pathfinder) it is never advantageous to spend your action on whatever forced movement action (Bull Rush, Reposition) may be present in 5e. Same thing stands for movement (which we don't have to worry about 5e has no Full Attack Action tying up Martial Character's Action economy).

- Math concerns whereby a secondary check (where casters only have to pass their primary check) puts martial characters in a disadvantageous position (regarding riders such as forced movement) which weighs on the cost/benefit analysis of players leading to the action (while rules for the contest are present in the system) being rendered obsolete and thus nonexistent.

I just want dynamically mobile combat. If those two above are problems addressed (action economy and math/cost/benefit) then we're good. If Martial characters must have a secondary abstracted contest for forced movement/riders/etc so we feel that we have the requisite process simulation in our D&D, then they can just give Martial Characters advantage or + bonus enough such that the secondary contest favors them greatly (and the math works).

 

[Phoenix8008]

I don't think that particualar skill checks should be hard coded to specific ability scores. I would use what seems appropriate.

Like our first playtest session last night: the PC's had been sniped once down a long hallway while invading the hobgoblin cave in the Caves of Chaos. The Hob's had readied actions to fire and then run away around the next corner when they saw the party round the first corner.

The Fighter got a bright idea and returned quickly back to the one room where they had killed some regular goblins (because Hobgoblins were too heavy). He carried it back to the next corner and hefted the body up in front of his arm like a shield. They proceeded to the corner and he stuck his meat puppet goblin (affectionatly nicknamed 'Bernie'!) around the corner. Three arrows whistled by (all rolled misses) and the fighter added a shriek followed by gibberish as he pulled the puppet back around the corner. He was basically bluffing them, but not in a way Charisma would apply. So I used Dex for his puppeteering skills instead. He rolled an 18 and the 3 Hobgoblins all rolled low on their Wisdom checks. They dropped their guard and walked forward to the corner to see why there was a goblin in their domain and why it was screaming gibberish. They came around the corner to find 4 PC's with readied actions that proceeded to cut them down!

Lotsa fun and a great creative idea got said 'Yes' to. It was the highlight of the night!

 

[Remathilis]

But you don't tell them how to act. Metaphysically, they are not under your control. You are not taking away their ability to make choices. Even if such choices are limited by their own processing skills/perception, they are not removed. The behavior is not mechanistic in the way that a shove is.

And for D&D, I believe it's pretty key to keep decisions of characters in the hands of the players. Saying "I slip past her guard!" is fine. Saying "She does not guard me" is less fine. This bangs onto the idea of actor-and-director stances mentioned here, to a degree: an actor doesn't dictate the actions of other performers, they react to them. If someone is laying down some defense on you, you don't contradict that, you work with it by saying something about yourself: You're skilled enough to cut through it, if you make this check. That doesn't mean they weren't laying down the D, it just means they lacked the skills necessary to keep it up against you this time.

110% agree on this. I've never been a fan of non-magical powers that change how another person acts. Even reaction rolls/charisma skills still allow the DM to reasonably act using the clues given (the bluff worked; how will the guards react to it?) Players control their PC (and any henchmen, animals, or such) but not other PCs or NPCs.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I do hope they change the name 'Skills' to something else as they mentioned... because I think we do need to get people's heads around the fact that its now all about ability checks that have special character focuses to give bonuses to those checks, than it is a list of skills that you choose from to do what you want.

I'm seriously thinking they should go with "Skill Proficiency" for skills. If you have it, you can use your skill die. If not, you can't. This brings the terminology in line with armor and weapon proficiencies, and harkens back to the non-weapon proficiencies of Second Edition.

 

[jbear]

That was a very interesting video. It's a good idea they do these videos every now and again.

The discussion about DNDN on these forums are, in short, wearisome. But watching this was refreshing. It also addressed some of my concerns with DNDN related to my own playstyle preference.

I was impressed with most everything I heard to be honest. I am not interested in playtesting any more (this has been the case since he first play test package), but I am interested in following the development underway. And when the game is complete, from what I am hearing in this video, it will be well worth checking out.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Yeah, I just can't see some really intelligent and combat savvy character doing something stupid because his opponent is charming. PC or NPC.

Have you ever been to a bar? same thing. Making bad decisions based on charisma happens all the time, trust me. And if you think the dating scene is not a way more intricate battle grid than D&D, you need to get out more. (not meaning any offense). I just know a lot of D&D players who have virtually no guile because they just simply have no game in real life.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

110% agree on this. I've never been a fan of non-magical powers that change how another person acts. Even reaction rolls/charisma skills still allow the DM to reasonably act using the clues given (the bluff worked; how will the guards react to it?) Players control their PC (and any henchmen, animals, or such) but not other PCs or NPCs.

If the answer to "The bluff worked; how will the guards react to it?" is anything other than "pretty much how the rogue wants them to," or at least "exactly as the rules define on page X," then the party would be better off ditching the rogue and letting the wizard cast a nice reliable Charm spell.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I think the conversation about non-magical forced action is good.

What I would like to see is less dictation of actions, and more things like the 4e mark: something that introduces an incentive to perform a particular action.

I'd just like to point out that something like this does exist in the playtest packet: "Distract."