[Homebrew]Differentiating classes for the Social Pillar

[Satyrn]

I'm curious, if Goth is a group, would that include vampires?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm curious, if Goth is a group, would that include vampires?

I think that's automatic. As soon as you are turned Your 'type' changes to 'undead' and 'goth'.

BUT...on-topic!

I think it really depends how broad you want the terms to be.

You can use Aristocrat to be any 'rich person with influence'. If you do that then, in The Capital City, it's going to be people who are probably incredibly rich and have a fair bit of influence.

In a rural setting, in might be a clan chief or a Mayor whose influence doesn't reach further than the Tribe's herds or the villages fields.

But, if you are in the Capital City, talking to the Clan Chief from that rural town trying to convince him to help you meet the King, Aristocrat might not apply.

The other option is to get super-specific...but if you do that, you risk the 'Ranger's Favoured Enemy' problem.

You could do something like: Artists, Merchants, Mercenaries, Politicians, Blue Collar, White Collar, Servants, Military...

It's still generic enough to apply often enough but Kind of specific as it relates to class and profession. Blue Collar could be a farmer or fisherman, White Collar could be a Barrister or Administrator of some kind

Or you could create factions - like guilds and stuff 'The Masons' and let players just get an advantage when dealing with those groups...but if you do that, I see no reason to codify rules. Just hand-wave it when it seems appropriate.

....and once you figure that out, you still have to decide on how to implement the system...

 

[Blue]

I think for the player to make a decent decision, you'd need to define the groups a lot better. It's not even clear to me if these groups are considered overlapping or disjoint. If they're disjoint, then some of the lines seem really arbitrary (do country gentry count as 'nobles' or 'rural folk', and are farmers 'rural folk' or 'common folk' or 'underclass'). If they aren't, how do you handle if someone's advantage/disadvantage hits both groups? For example, would a druid who takes advantage on rural folk and disadvantage on nobles and end up dealing with country gentry get either or neither?

Sure there can be overlap, with what you just described. And there are prejudices for and prejudices against that cancel out, just as if there's nothing either way.

But the idea I put forth with asking the player is explicitly to have the player make up groups. If the player defines one group as "dwarves" and another groups as "little old ladies", that's the player giving the DM invaluable information about what they want to see in the campaign regularly. Run with it. Make them both come up with equal importance (which can differ from equal frequency), and come up enough that the player feels that their interests are being observed.

 

[CubicsRube]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Some good thoughts.

I will definately give thought to backgrounds instead. It's not too common that one chooses the same background.

Also worth thinking about is other mechanics beyond using advantage. I feel that advantage is an underused mdchanic in the core rules and would like to double down on that, but I recgonise that to be a personal taste.

I really am hoping to find a way to strongly encourage different characters to atep up in the social space.

It makes sense to me that a sailor come adventurer would be best to speak to pirates, or a noble come fighter to speak to the city elite.

If i can achieve the above then I'll be happy with whatever mechanic gets me there.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Advantage isn’t an underused mechanic. At least not in the games I’ve ever played. People get advantage (or disadvantage) very very often.

If you base it on proficiency and have people choose the groups to be proficient in then they can still get advantage from other means. whatever you do, I’d like to hear how it goes with your group.

 

[Blue]

Advantage isn’t an underused mechanic. At least not in the games I’ve ever played. People get advantage (or disadvantage) very very often.

If you base it on proficiency and have people choose the groups to be proficient in then they can still get advantage from other means. whatever you do, I’d like to hear how it goes with your group.

Are you picturing adding proficiency in such a way that stacks if you already have the skill?

Both ways have merits and flaws.

If it overlaps, it negates the social skills. Two characters with equal CHR, one who's invested in persuasion, deception and intimidation, and the other just among a wide group of people they are familiar with, have the same roll.

If they add, they you can have things like "Well, I have expertise with intimidation, and I understand these people. Triple my proficiency bonus is +6 to +18 above someone with the same CHR. That's well outside bounded accuracy.

One advantage of Advantage (*snirk*) is that it doesn't change the range of what you can roll, just alters the distribution within in.

 

[CubicsRube]

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] - one of my thought precisely was how advanrage makes higher scores more probable, but doesnt change the bounds of those scores.

It also doesnt habe any overlap with proficiency and expertise, which i like


The other option is effectively based off the dmg variant of nackground proficiency to allow prof bonus, or even doubling proficiency for those chaeacters already proficient. Expertise would like have to be changed in the system to make it workable.

Other systems like shadows of the demon lord dump any kind of skill bonus and instead give their version of proficiency instead.

I was thinking about making a seperate ruling for the exploration pillar instead, but i may in fact roll these up into the same area.

It makes sense that a sailor would be proficient at perception on the seas, but not in a forest, or a hermit would be adept and stealth in the woods, but not in a city, etc.

The more i think about it, the more I'm inclined towards that variant rule instead.

 

[Blue]

@Blue - one of my thought precisely was how advanrage makes higher scores more probable, but doesnt change the bounds of those scores.

It also doesnt habe any overlap with proficiency and expertise, which i like


The other option is effectively based off the dmg variant of nackground proficiency to allow prof bonus, or even doubling proficiency for those chaeacters already proficient. Expertise would like have to be changed in the system to make it workable.

Other systems like shadows of the demon lord dump any kind of skill bonus and instead give their version of proficiency instead.

I was thinking about making a seperate ruling for the exploration pillar instead, but i may in fact roll these up into the same area.

It makes sense that a sailor would be proficient at perception on the seas, but not in a forest, or a hermit would be adept and stealth in the woods, but not in a city, etc.

The more i think about it, the more I'm inclined towards that variant rule instead.

At this point you may want to steal from a different d20, 13th Age. They don't have separate skills, you have a few player-defined backgrounds each with a rating. Mechanically, it's just like 5e skills of d20+ability+skill, except instead of adding proficiency, you add the rating of the background which is +1 to +5.

Now, you could have a background "soldier", but the book strongly recommends being more specific, tying in you character's actual background. Because a "15 year infantry vet, Silver Sappers dwarven legion +3" is a heck of a lot different then a "Quartermaster 2nd Class, Emperor's Own Bodyguards +3" which is a lot different then "Dishonorably discharged Mage-Major +3"

EDIT: And all of those groups are made up by the player, helping to flesh out the world a bit mroe and provide hooks into it.

And it's up to the players to say why a background fits, and the DM to agree or not. Only the highest one adds, no stacking.

One example I heard was about trying to console a young window who's son was killed by the werewolf (?) the party was hunting. The player with a military officer background from an active combat zone told the DM "you don't know how many of those letters I had to write to grieving parents that their sons and daughters would never come home again. I know the words to say." *Poof*, DM let the background add to this roll.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Are you picturing adding proficiency in such a way that stacks if you already have the skill?

Both ways have merits and flaws.

If it overlaps, it negates the social skills. Two characters with equal CHR, one who's invested in persuasion, deception and intimidation, and the other just among a wide group of people they are familiar with, have the same roll.

If they add, they you can have things like "Well, I have expertise with intimidation, and I understand these people. Triple my proficiency bonus is +6 to +18 above someone with the same CHR. That's well outside bounded accuracy.

One advantage of Advantage (*snirk*) is that it doesn't change the range of what you can roll, just alters the distribution within in.

No, I mentioned it in a previous post.

When you choose a social skill, you choose one sub group for each point of proficiency. So at 1st that is two groups that you are proficient in and you are only proficient when dealing with those groups. As you level and your proficiency increases, you get to add more groups which represents your career of adventuring and learning to deal with a greater variety of people.

You could go several ways(let’s assume you’ve chosen to be proficient in all three social skills: play the guy who specializes in a few groups
Deception: nobles & merchants
Persuasion: nobles & merchants
Intimidate: nobles & merchants

Because maybe you are a noble and those are the groups you most associate with.

Or maybe you are a rogue who cons the upper class, uses his ties in the crime world and crooked guards to gather info and was once involved in a protection racket/loan collections

Deception: nobles & merchants
Persuasion: criminals & guards/military
Intimidate: blue collar & poor

(I’m just throwing out groups as examples. That would obviously have to be hammered out)

Bards would still be better generalists because Jack of All Trades would give them half proficiency on groups they aren’t proficient in.

Expertise wouldn’t give you more groups, Just make you better at the ones you have. And you can still use other sources to gain advantage.

 

[Blue]

No, I mentioned it in a previous post.

When you choose a social skill, you choose one sub group for each point of proficiency. So at 1st that is two groups that you are proficient in and you are only proficient when dealing with those groups. As you level and your proficiency increases, you get to add more groups which represents your career of adventuring and learning to deal with a greater variety of people.

You could go several ways(let’s assume you’ve chosen to be proficient in all three social skills: play the guy who specializes in a few groups
Deception: nobles & merchants
Persuasion: nobles & merchants
Intimidate: nobles & merchants

Because maybe you are a noble and those are the groups you most associate with.

Or maybe you are a rogue who cons the upper class, uses his ties in the crime world and crooked guards to gather info and was once involved in a protection racket/loan collections

Deception: nobles & merchants
Persuasion: criminals & guards/military
Intimidate: blue collar & poor

(I’m just throwing out groups as examples. That would obviously have to be hammered out)

Bards would still be better generalists because Jack of All Trades would give them half proficiency on groups they aren’t proficient in.

Expertise wouldn’t give you more groups, Just make you better at the ones you have. And you can still use other sources to gain advantage.

Ubnderstood. It's a nerf to the social skills - they do nothing more, and they now only apply to specific groups.

That may fit your realism, but unless you thought that they were too strong, I think you need to put in a corresponding buff to keep the power of them at an even level.

Preferably not one that breaks bounded accuracy by changing the min/max of what you can roll, nor one that invalidates getting advantage/disadvantage some other way.