D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[iserith]

Half of them are in the PH.

Certainly how to engage in social interaction and handle ability checks, in particular Charisma checks, are in the PHB, but the real meat of the rules, procedurally speaking, are in the DMG. But those are also presented as "use these only if you want more structure." I use them, but almost nobody else I've ever gamed with does, including my own DMs.

 

[Lyxen]

With regard to the social interaction rules in the DMG (which I use a lot to adjudicate challenges), by design it looks to me that you have a chat with the NPC to try to improve their attitude, sussing out the NPC's agenda, ideal, bond, and flaw for advantage if you roll, then you make the ask, which is cross-referenced with the DC table. There is notably nothing that says what level of effort (or successes) is needed to move an NPC from one attitude to another, even temporarily. How hard does the party have to work to turn a hostile creature friendly? This is left to the DM to decide. For my part, I tend to create specific objections to be overcome by the PCs and then if the PCs overcome most of them, it shifts the attitude. Each attempt to overcome an objection may call for a roll or not as with any action declaration.

I agree that it's the general procedure described. I don't use it, because for me the attitude of an NPC is not one-dimensional across all subjects and for all approaches, and I don't like quantifying it with only 3 levels, but YCMV. But assuming that you are using it, as for the DCs, and as usual within 5e (being an open game), there are so many factors influencing what could change the attitude of an NPC that it's obviously up to the DM to set it using the guidelines provided for DCs.

Even more notably as it relates to the discussion, these rules don't apply to influencing PCs!

Of course, because PCs don't have an attitude fixed by the rules (again, assuming that you are using those). But the social rules are not only about changing the attitude.

Certainly how to engage in social interaction and handle ability checks, in particular Charisma checks, are in the PHB, but the real meat of the rules, procedurally speaking, are in the DMG. But those are also presented as "use these only if you want more structure." I use them, but almost nobody else I've ever gamed with does, including my own DMs.

See above about the way we do things. My personal feeling is that these are actually good guidelines for a beginning DM or a DM who wants more structure, again like most things in 5e. They are simple, but they work and give you a framework to start improvising around if you need one.

 

[HammerMan]

There was a massive thread where a number of people said that charm based spells were "evil". In almost every charm based spell, the "focusee" gets some kind of savings throw. That is not the case with a Persuasion check initiated by the DM and another player.

If the people that hate charm based spells have any logical consistency they should hate various ability checks even more.

funny thing. I have for about a year been nurseing my "Charm=Evil" and in person, and on boards, even on TicTok mentioned I was going to do that...and I did, it is my post that started that.

I am also here to say I have 0 issue with social skills being used by any character (PC or NPC) on any character...

but I also say that intimadate especially, but bluff/persuade/diplomacy just diffrent are not "I get what i want " skills they are "You put out a level of X and now that character responds"

 

[Charlaquin]

That is a reasonable position. I'd like to put forth a line of argument for consideration.

A lacuna is that it leaves the inclusion of skills like Intimidate (on orc war chief and champion, for example) poorly explained. To suppose it is flavour text is weak. Skills are called out in the MM as something monsters have and can use, and we see examples of skills such as athletics on champion, and can have no doubt that a champion foe can use athletics to grapple and shove PCs. Intimidate - also on champion - is rules text.

Rejecting a theory that there can be rules text that is empty of meaning, leaves us forced to infer that social skills on monsters are there to be used on one another. I can't find any rules or guidelines that support that, other than the shadow cast by the positive assertion that players decide what their characters do.

Why would you need rules supporting the idea that monsters’ social skills can be used when interacting with other monsters? PCs’ social skills can be used when interacting with monsters, and nothing says monsters’ social skills are not meant to be used

There are exceptions to that positive assertion. For example, players don't get to decide when their character falls to zero hit points and goes down. They don't get to decide when they are tripped by a wolf and fall prone. They can't decide that they can jump 20 feet without a check if they only have strength of 10.

Right, these things are specific exceptions to the general rule that players decide what their characters do. The rules text explicitly calls out what happens to the character when these things occur.

In fact, it is a general exception to player decision-making, that where the game mechanics yield an outcome then players don't get to decide on that outcome.

That doesn’t seem to be in evidence to me.

That might be adduced in an argument that says that Intimidate is a game mechanic that can cause an outcome, and when it does players don't get to decide. Just as they do not decide when dissonant whispers forces their character to move as far as it can away from the caster. Game mechanics clearly and generally decide for players what happens to their characters and what their characters do in precisely the circumstances governed by those mechanics.

The difference is, Dissonant Whispers explicitly states what a character must do when it affects them, making it an explicit exception to the rule that players decide what their characters do. The intimidate skill does not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think our disagreement is on a very minor point. I agree that the DM can just rule (and hopefully narrate colorfully) the party losing to Orcus without using combat rules. But if the DM does call for initiative and formally enter combat, then in my view it's defying RAI to start mixing that with declaring hits and misses without rolling dice.

I think one can make an argument (that honestly I find a little disingenuous and/or arguing for argument's sake) that nowhere do the rulebooks explicitly say the DM can't or shouldn't do that. But in my mind it's an obvious case of specific superseding general.

But it doesn't supercede, this is the point. Nowhere do the combat rules suggest that they are an exception to the general process (in fact, the combat loop works exactly the same) rather than a tool to resolve combat. There's no reason you couldn't just do opposed STR checks to do the same. The combat engine is a tool to use in the normal loop, not a different thing altogether.

 

[HammerMan]

The difference is, Dissonant Whispers explicitly states what a character must do when it affects them, making it an explicit exception to the rule that players decide what their characters do. The intimidate skill does not.

but the intimidate skill also doesn't say what NPCs or Monsters will do...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Such as?

They're in the DMG. I'm away from books atm, but you should be able to find it using the appendix.

ETA: should have just kept reading.

 

[Charlaquin]

We agree on something.

For me it depends on what we decided about graphic descriptions of violence and/or torture in session 0. If everyone already agreed ahead of time that they were cool with such things, an action declaration like that would be fine, unless someone specifically said it made them uncomfortable (in which case we would probably have a discussion later re-evaluating what our baseline ought to be).

 

[Faolyn]

we don't use inspiration... we tried a few times but we always forget about it. I even bought chips that say inpiration to try to help us...

Forget to use it or forget to hand them out? At my table, we give inspiration at the end of the session: one by the DM, and one by the players who choose as a group who to give it to.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

They're in the DMG. I'm away from books atm, but you should be able to find it using the appendix.

ETA: should have just kept reading.

That which I bolded is just cruel and unusual!