D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[clearstream]

But as long as I have your attention, let me ask you for the 4th time: who gets to decide whether or not an NPC action declaration (of the sort we have been considering) is an auto success or auto failure?

The DM can decide that any action declaration is a success or failure. That includes NPCs.

You might be wondering if a DM ought to declare NPC actions automatic successes. In some cases it would seem to me that they ought not, but that is a separate question from what RAW entails they may do.

 

[clearstream]

If the player says it's an automatic failure, or an automatic success, then the DM will not call for a check.

In this case, it is not up to the player. That is the meaning of creating an exception.

 

[clearstream]

And that point is key, although @clearstream doesn't seem interested in acknowledging or addressing it. For there to be a general vs. specific ruling, there needs to be a conflict between two rules.

Yes, there needs to be a conflict. I have acknowledged that, and addressed it.

Relocating the point of decision cannot act to override the specific that it must be possible for the DM to call for a check.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The DM can decide that any action declaration is a success or failure. That includes NPCs.

The implications of that give so much power to the DM that I guess there's no point debating this with you.

Happy gaming.

 

[iserith]

The RAW for skills asserts that the DM might call for a check. Let's test that for conflict against PHB 185.

• PC vs NPC - DM might call for a check. No conflict. The DM can say there is a check, or can say there is not a check.
• NPC vs PC - DM might call for a check. Conflict. Supposing PHB 185 prevails, the DM cannot say there is a check.

Might includes the possibility of, but according you you PHB 185 would make it impossible for DM to call for a check in the case of NPC vs PC.


Were there no conflict, I would not have made the argument. However, per RAW, there is a conflict.

The rules say a DM might call for an ability check. A skill or tool proficiency is just a bonus added to an ability check, if the DM calls for one.

The DM calls for an ability check when there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure.

When determining whether there is an uncertain outcome when an NPC attempts to influence a PC, the DM must say the outcome is certain because the player decides what the character does. Because there is no uncertain outcome, there can be no ability check in this case. In the case of an NPC, the DM can say there is uncertainty because the player does not decide what the NPC does. There may therefore be an ability check, if the DM decides that it is appropriate.

 

[Charlaquin]

The RAW for skills asserts that the DM might call for a check.

Umm…?

The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results. (…) Sometimes, the DM might ask for an ability check using a specific skill--for example, “Make a Wisdom (Perception) check.” At other times, a player might ask the DM if proficiency in a particular skill applies to a check. In either case, proficiency in a skill means an individual can add his or her proficiency bonus to ability checks that involve that skill. Without proficiency in the skill, the individual makes a normal ability check.

Let's test that for conflict against PHB 185.

• PC vs NPC - DM might call for a check. No conflict. The DM can say there is a check, or can say there is not a check.
• NPC vs PC - DM might call for a check. Conflict. Supposing PHB 185 prevails, the DM cannot say there is a check.

Might includes the possibility of, but according you you PHB 185 would make it impossible for DM to call for a check in the case of NPC vs PC.

Setting aside the fact that the text in question doesn’t differentiate between NPC and PC like that, there are many cases where the DM might call for an ability check to resolve an NPC action - sometimes even when that action affects a PC in some way. Just not when the action doesn’t have a chance of failure and uncertain outcome - such as when the action would cause the PC to think, feel, or do something.

 

[clearstream]

@clearstream In all the challenges of "our" interpretation of these rules, I'm not sure we've been informed of how things run at your table. Then again, there have been many pages and long posts so I might have missed it. Care to shine a light (or cast light again, as the case may be) on how you run things?

How I run things depends on the game. For D&D I lean toward immersion and what might be labelled neo-trad, with some old school sympathies. I usually maintain an open-world, although recently got drawn into a protracted piece of dungeoneering (the Tomb of Nine Gods) which TBH I can't wait to be over. In my usual game, I have a world in mind and it is up to the players what direction the campaign goes within that world. An important function of game mechanics is to provide players fiat over the emerging narrative: so I avoid arbitrariness about what works or doesn't work. If it's in RAW then it works as it does in RAW. Or I make any change explicit (e.g. our rests are longer, in part to balance with the longer time arcs of an open-world campaign.) My weekly campaigns are long-running, and I always have more players than I would ideally like.

My interest in the possibility of symmetrical social skills arises from my interest in immersion (by which I mean world-immersion.) For me the most immersive world can only be created when its inhabitants are all on one footing - they all inhabit the same world, subject to the same magics, physics, metaphysics etc.

We're about two sessions from completing ToA. What I'm drafting in the background of this discussion is a take on symmetrical social skills for my coming campaign, which is set in a period of colonialism (where of course the players are on the side that is being overwhelmed and potentially disintegrated - culturally and economically - by colonisation.)

But perhaps you have something on your mind? Care to narrow your question?

 

[clearstream]

The rules say a DM might call for an ability check. A skill or tool proficiency is just a bonus added to an ability check, if the DM calls for one.

The DM calls for an ability check when there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure.

You have right there just said that - contrary to what is explicitly provided for in the skills - the DM cannot in some cases call for a check. Might entails the possibility of doing so, and PHB 7 is powerful enough to create an exception to anything general that gets in the way of that.

 

[Charlaquin]

You have right there just said that - contrary to what is explicitly provided for in the skills - the DM cannot in some cases call for a check.

What? Where does the text provided for skills say that there are no cases where the DM can’t call for a check? This text: “The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.” seems to say exactly the opposite of that.

 

[clearstream]

Setting aside the fact that the text in question doesn’t differentiate between NPC and PC like that

Exactly, it does not differentiate. And that cannot be set aside.

there are many cases where the DM might call for an ability check to resolve an NPC action - sometimes even when that action affects a PC in some way. Just not when the action doesn’t have a chance of failure and uncertain outcome - such as when the action would cause the PC to think, feel, or do something.

Here, you are reading the RAW to suit your argument. It does not say - in this case or that case. There is no such hedging.