D&D 5E yes, this again: Fighters need more non-combat options

[Mistwell]

This is just not true in an ingame sense. I think a lot of this discussion forgets the Social Interaction section in the DMG pg. 244. NPCs have a starting attitude of friendly, indifferent, and hostile. That attitude isn't going to be the same for every PC in the group. In many situations, the Warlock will be looking at a hostile reaction compared to a fighter looking at a indifferent or even friendly attitude. In many cases having certain PCs present might sour the social interaction.

The reason this topic is even an issue is that the GM isn't doing their job of creating interesting NPCs. If all of the NPCs are 1-dimensional and that a simple CHA check will determine the interaction, then yes the fighter is at a disadvantage.

Interesting and thoughtful response. Thank you. What you say is true.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It is, though. The numbers and mechanics of conversing and charisma are pure OOC knowledge. The PCs have no way of seeing those things and passively picking it up.

You can't see the numbers of gravity, even though there are rules in our world for it. You can't see the numbers of how charisma affects people, even though there are rules for it in the real world. You can't see the numbers for the strength and endurance of two boxers in a fight, even though there are rules for it in the real world. PCs are similarly unable to see the rules for the game world. The rules are purely for the players and DM so that they can play the game.

The PCs see the actual game world, of which the mechanics of conversing and Charisma are only a pale reflection. They have significantly more information than the players do, about virtually everything which happens in their world. They don't see the +3 and +5, but they see every aspect of their reality which corresponds to those numbers; in the same way that you can see the effects of gravity all around you, even if you never stop to consciously quantify it.

In the game world it's lethal virtually every time. If you don't do enough damage to kill outright, you failed to slit the throat. Unless the victim is unconscious, then it's 2 failed death saves which will doom the victim most of the time. Failing the prior situations, the victim moved, escaped your hold, blocked the knife, or some other reason why the throat was not slit. That's how hit points and death work in the game world.

Ah, so your amazing epic hero of destiny, who can defeat ancient dragons and balors in melee combat, is just fantastically incompetent at slitting the throat of a restrained human. You're going to stand there and slice for a couple of minutes, before you can get one to take. That is to say, you acknowledge that the rules of the game determine what actually happen in the game world, so you modify your actions to something that would actually work.

In any case, hit points work differently than the vague stat/skill bonuses that the PCs are completely unable to see or "passively pick up."

So you're saying that PCs can understand the reality behind some of the mechanics, but not others. And there's no real explanation or logic behind which ones they can or cannot see.

That's not a very useful position to take. You lose all of the benefits from choosing either side.

 

[Maxperson]

The PCs see the actual game world, of which the mechanics of conversing and Charisma are only a pale reflection. They have significantly more information than the players do, about virtually everything which happens in their world. They don't see the +3 and +5, but they see every aspect of their reality which corresponds to those numbers; in the same way that you can see the effects of gravity all around you, even if you never stop to consciously quantify it.

Which again is no different from you and I here in the real world. We can't do it here, so absent an explicit rule saying otherwise, there's no reason to think that they are better at it than we are. What you are doing is coming up with a justification for metagaming.

Ah, so your amazing epic hero of destiny, who can defeat ancient dragons and balors in melee combat, is just fantastically incompetent at slitting the throat of a restrained human. You're going to stand there and slice for a couple of minutes, before you can get one to take. That is to say, you acknowledge that the rules of the game determine what actually happen in the game world, so you modify your actions to something that would actually work.

There's no difference between a Balor and a restrained human when it comes to hit points. You want to slit the throat of a Balor? Get rid of its hit points first.

So you're saying that PCs can understand the reality behind some of the mechanics, but not others. And there's no real explanation or logic behind which ones they can or cannot see.

There is a logic and/or explanation for it. It's easy to measure strength, but difficult to measure intelligence for example. They aren't going to be able to measure hit points by the way. Hit points are a measure of luck, skill, physicality, and more. All the PCs will know is when they cut the throat, the human dies.

A normal human in 5e has 4 hit points. With a dagger doing an automatic crit and the strength bonus, you need to do 8 points of damage to auto kill by slitting the throat. That's feasible with one slice. With any larger weapon, it's pretty darn easy.

That's not a very useful position to take. You lose all of the benefits from choosing either side.

It's the reasonable position to take. There's no rule in D&D that would allow PCs to pick up how good they are at something to that degree of accuracy. The difference between +3 and +5 is miniscule and they have no ability to measure which is better with all the complexity involved.

 

[Quartz]

One of the issues with 5E is that, for most of the game, your ability modifier is more important than your proficiency bonus.

If the fighter wants to intimidate something, and they have a +3 bonus because they're actually trained in it, then they're still better off letting the untrained warlock do it, because the warlock is at +5 from Charisma.

I've thought about this some more and I forgot that you only roll when the result is in doubt. So your unskilled warlock might not even get to roll - she auto-fails.

Alternatively, remember the scene with Bishop and the dagger and the hand in the mess hall of the Sulaco in Aliens? That's Intimidation using Dex, not Cha. You don't have to use Cha for Intimidation. The fighter can flex her muscles (Str), down a bottle of whisky or refer to the pain of childbirth (Con), display an uncomfortable knowledge of human anatomy (Int), or something else.

 

[not-so-newguy]

I've thought about this some more and I forgot that you only roll when the result is in doubt. So your unskilled warlock might not even get to roll - she auto-fails.

Alternatively, remember the scene with Bishop and the dagger and the hand in the mess hall of the Sulaco in Aliens? That's Intimidation using Dex, not Cha. You don't have to use Cha for Intimidation. The fighter can flex her muscles (Str), down a bottle of whisky or refer to the pain of childbirth (Con), display an uncomfortable knowledge of human anatomy (Int), or something else.

I was thinking of giving fighters proficiency in intimidation using strength or Dexterity at 3rd level. Other martial classes could attempt the same, but only fighters are allowed proficiency. The intimidation would involve some type of physical display of prowess and/or threats if violence.

 

[WaterRabbit]

As I said, if you introduce additional rules

By additional rules you mean the rules in the DMG on pg. 244? Last I checked they weren't "additional rules".

This is the sort of thing that's going to vary significantly based on the setting.

Not exactly setting. This would be more related to culture and social class. So unless the setting is a mono culture...Also, fighters are the most common occupation in most D&D cultures.

Additionally, as far as 5E is concerned, your place in society is really supposed to depend more on your Background than on your Class.

Here we are in agreement and it is here that the most relevant social interactions should have their basis. A warlock with a hermit background should not be better at social interactions than a fighter with a noble background, regardless of the CHA stat. This goes back to my first point about starting attitudes of NPCs. This is why the OP is seeing a problem -- poorly fleshed out culture and poorly fleshed out NPCs. This has very little to do with the specific class the PC has chosen.

To the extent which that's true, it's not relevant to the topic at hand, which is how the fighter class does not offer support for those things.

It is totally relevant to the extent the fighter class does not offer support for those things in games in which the DM does not inhabit their game world. If every social interaction/skill challenge is solely dependent upon a die roll for its resolution, then the OP's premise is correct.

Otherwise, if the DM inhabits their own world and NPCs, 90% of this "problem" goes away. As I mentioned before, this was never a problem in 1e/2e because CHA was a dump stat and there really wasn't a "face" type of class.

IMHO, the way to fix this "problem" is remove the skills Deception/Insight/Intimidation/Persuasion as they have become crutches for real RP.

 

[Satyrn]

This is just not true in an ingame sense. I think a lot of this discussion forgets the Social Interaction section in the DMG pg. 244. NPCs have a starting attitude of friendly, indifferent, and hostile. That attitude isn't going to be the same for every PC in the group. In many situations, the Warlock will be looking at a hostile reaction compared to a fighter looking at a indifferent or even friendly attitude. In many cases having certain PCs present might sour the social interaction.

I was skipping past the metagame discussion so I only noticed this because [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] quoted it later. I'm glad he did, because this is an excellent point to be reminded of as the social encounters ramp up in my megadungeon. ( I probably won't inflict that last sentence on my players, though, as I don't want too make rulings that encourage the players to split up)

 

[Ratskinner]

I agree, to justify fighter's utter lack of out of combat benefits they do need to be better at combat than they are. (at least the non-feated version does). Or more fun would be to just give them some out of combat options IMO.

I think my only concern with giving them OoC abilities is that "Fighter" has come to encompass quite a bit in peoples' minds.* So that makes it harder to nail down a good mechanical ability to add without either a) "locking down" the class to a particular OoC role or b) giving it such a sweeping OoC ability that it starts stepping on other classes toes as well. (Of course, an OoC role that isn't stepping on other classes might be possible...I don't know what it would be but still...)

Of course, this leads me to question the whole premise. If the fighter won't rogue (or bard or whatever) because he won't be as good (mechanically**) as the rogue (or bard or whatever)....can you even create an ability that makes him confident enough to attempt it without rivaling the rogue (or bard or whatever)? Perhaps there is a serious question as to how much of this is "fighters can't do OoC" and how much is "fighter players hate to miss rolls too much." ::shrug:: Conversely, as in my previous, does the fighter not outshine the others in combat sufficiently to make up for being outshone OoC?

A broader way of looking at the problem is the possibility that the whole traditional D&D class system is flawed in this regard from the beginning. Perhaps every character needs to effective in and out of combat roles (maybe even to the point of having two progressions/classes), and the idea of balancing across pillars is ineffective/unworkable out of the gate.

*I think this started way back in AD&D 2e times, when, IIRC, the followers tables died. That opened the fighter for more than "the man who will be king"

**often by only a few points of bonus.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Saelorn "takes offense" at being accused of metagaming, yet he thinks it's fine to continually accuse others of "not roleplaying"?

Hmmm....

 

[Mistwell]

I think one area that's ripe for a fighter is tool use (and yes I know everyone can gain tool usage, but the incentive for the Fighter to gain them so they have more to do when out of combat is higher than for other classes). It's something which can be learned in downtime, and which has potentially much wider application than I suspect a lot of games use/exploit to their most advantage. Xanathar's Guide went a long way to helping out with this.

For example at level 3 a Battle Master gets "Student of War", where you gain proficiency with one type of artisan’s tools of your choice. I picked Carpentry Tools, and this is on my Character Sheet with all my other abilities:

Carpentry: Enables a character to construct wooden structures; house, a shack, a wooden cabinet, or similar items. Components. saw, hammer, nails, hatchet, square, ruler, adze, plane, chisel. Xanathar's Pg 78
History. Aids you in identifying the use and the origin of wooden buildings and other large wooden objects.
Investigation. Additional insight when inspecting areas within wooden structures, because you know tricks of construction that can conceal areas from discovery.
Perception. You can spot irregularities in wooden walls or floors, making it easier to find trap doors and secret passages.
Stealth. You can quickly assess the weak spots in a wooden floor, making it easier to avoid the places that creek and groan when they’re stepped on.
Fortify. With 1 minute of work and raw materials, you can make a door or window harder to force open. Increase the DC needed to open it by 5.
Temporary Shelter. As part of a long rest, you can construct a lean-to or a similar shelter to keep your group dry and in the shade for the duration of the rest. Because it was fashioned quickly from whatever wood was available, the shelter collapses 1d3 days after being assembled.
And then the list of four DCs listed in Xanathar's.

What this means is I now essentially have proficiency in History, Investigation, Perception and Stealth when those checks are made concerning certain activities over or with wooden structures, objects, floors, walls, etc.. And I can help block a door during short and long rests, and help out with shelters. All good stuff for out of combat activities.