D&D 5E [Guidance] What, +1d4 to every check ever?

ShadyCharacter · Jun 26, 2019

Solutions

Sorry for the later post, but I know a pretty simple and effective solution, at least for social encounters.
Make it socially unacceptable to pray for guidance in druidic while your companions are speaking to someone. They'll initially just become distrustful of you, but spamming it will make people outright hostile to you, and will either stop talking to you or report you to the guards for suspicion of trying to enchant them (they don't know). Meanwhile your gods or the spirits of nature might just become less effective if you're overusing the ability. Luckily my friends also aren't the type to for example, have everyone stealth over one at a time under guidance. I wouldn't allow that anyway because stealthing is continuous and you'd lose the bonus as soon as it transferred over and suffer any resulting consequences of your unmodified roll.
Don't like it? Not in the rules? Tough, I'm the DM, it's my job to make sure the game runs without abuse and in a narratively satisfying way. Us DM's aren't rules robots that will allow the twisting of the game to carry on. We're Masters of the game and we'll act like it if and when we need to.

ShadyCharacter · Jun 26, 2019

Also here's a useful use of guidance for cave fighting early game for druids.
Cast guidance on self, turn into a big spider, stealth directly above the enemy in the dark (using guidance if you botch your stealth).
Once you're in position, drop directly on top of your enemy aiming to crush them, even if you need to make an acrobatics check (with guidance maybe) Enemy gets no dexterity check because they aren't aware of your presence.
Plead with the DM to allow extra damage for crushing them directly under you.

Fenris-77 · Jun 26, 2019

Role playing is going to be the most common speed bump here IMO, especially in social pillar skill checks.

Rogue: I'm going to cozy up to Lord Fancypants and try to pretend to seduce him..
DM: Ok, roll deception, DC 20, Lord Fancypants is suspicious of your attentions.
Cleric: I'm going to stand behind the rogue, casting guidance every minute while rubbing his back.
DM: Wait, what?!

Li Shenron · Jun 26, 2019

Lehrbuch said:
Good point.

It actually seems like RAW that it wouldn't work at all on ability checks that arise from activities that take longer than a minute. It doesn't seem to allow you to just crazily cast the spell continuously for the activity period. If you are in the library researching for a week, there's never any applicable ability check that occurs over a single minute (unless you get attacked by a book wyrm or similar).

This is still the best way to keep Guidance under reasonable constraints: allow it only to tasks that require minimum an action of any type (hint: knowledge checks do not normally require actions) and maximum 1 minute.

Satyrn · Jun 26, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
Role playing is going to be the most common speed bump here IMO, especially in social pillar skill checks.

Rogue: I'm going to cozy up to Lord Fancypants and try to pretend to seduce him..
DM: Ok, roll deception, DC 20, Lord Fancypants is suspicious of your attentions.
Cleric: I'm going to stand behind the rogue, casting guidance every minute while rubbing his back.
DM: Wait, what?!

So that's why Drake gave Nick Nurse that shoulder rub - and why the NBA banned him from doing so!

Fenris-77 · Jun 26, 2019

Satyrn said:
So that's why Drake gave Nick Nurse that shoulder rub - and why the NBA banned him from doing so!

The weirdest thing about this is that apparently Drake is a Cleric.

Zardnaar · Jun 27, 2019

I have a tomelock with this spell and the DM is kind of sick of it already. I have to restrain myself and not use it all the time.

Stalker0 · Jun 28, 2019

Its one of those spells whose power varies group to group. If your a combat focused group its a nice boost but not all that useful. If your a group that does a lot of skills, and often take time to do things...its one of the most powerful spells in the game.

Reynard · Jun 28, 2019

Remember that spellcasting is obvious. It is loud. It can't be done stealthily or subtly (barring a particular feature). That means that in court or in a place of business, people are going to know you are "cheating" by way of the spell. In the dungeon, that means those goblins know you're there and when the rogue does unlock the door, she's going to get a nasty surprise. Finally, if you play in a world like the Realms where people are away of magic, every court in the land is going to have a foyer where visitors have to hang out for a whole minute (or longer) to allow spells like that to expire before they can see the Duke.

Things in RPGs don't happen in white rooms. There is context to everything. Make that context work for you.