D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Bill Zebub]

Where did automatically come into this? It is true that the DMG specifically endorses a DM in deciding if something succeeds, fails, or needs a roll of some kind.

We've gone through that: the play loop defines the step where possible automatic success/failure is determined. If we're extrapolating the play loop to apply to NPC actions, we can't just magically wish that step away. So, in the case of an NPC influencing a PC:
- If the DM makes that determination, then they essentially have complete authority over PC thoughts/feelings/actions, whenever they choose, just by making an NPC influence them
- If the player makes that determination, then any following roll is tacitly with the player's consent, and I have nothing to say about it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yes…? The player’s ability to decide what the character thinks, says, and does is not constrained here; only the possibility of succeeding at the action they decide to take is in question (and therefore an ability check is a supported way to resolve this action). As you state in this post.

Honestly I can't believe this needs to be explained. Repeatedly.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Then the whole argument is utter sophistry as the end result will be the same! So why not just skip the pointless bit where we waste time inventing mechanics to overcome an imagined restriction that doesn't in effect restrict anything anyway?

Considering that you can't see the painfully obvious distinctions between action declarations and spells, I'm skeptical the subtle philosophical distinction here will sink in. So I'll pass.

And just generally I'm tired of your sneering, mocking tone, so I'll disengage here.

Happy gaming.

 

[clearstream]

Honestly I can't believe this needs to be explained. Repeatedly.

Yes, I feel the same way. Let's stop repeating ourselves and see if we are able to come up with any new arguments.

 

[clearstream]

We've gone through that: the play loop defines the step where possible automatic success/failure is determined. If we're extrapolating the play loop to apply to NPC actions, we can't just magically wish that step away. So, in the case of an NPC influencing a PC:
- If the DM makes that determination, then they essentially have complete authority over PC thoughts/feelings/actions, whenever they choose, just by making an NPC influence them
- If the player makes that determination, then any following roll is tacitly with the player's consent, and I have nothing to say about it.

Deciding how it will be resolved is not the same as taking away volition. You say you want to jump 20 feet. I might call for a check. That doesn't take away the volition you exercised in deciding you want to jump 20 feet.

 

[Charlaquin]

Clarity? Your reading results in a procedure that - according to you - excludes the possibility of anything defined within the scope of ability checks to ever form an s>g exception to PHB 185.

Right, because for the results of a successful ability check to be applied, an ability check must first be called for, and the rules for ability checks don’t support calling for one when the outcome of the action isn’t uncertain. You can’t use what would happen if an ability check succeeds to justify calling for that very ability check in the first place, that’s circular. (And this is even if we accept for the sake of argument that the rules for ability checks are specific game elements rather than general rules of how to play the game, which I don’t think is clear, but there’s enough ambiguity that I’m not going to dispute it.)

But PHB 7 isn't limited that way. Have you modified that?

PHB 7 isn’t limited in what way? PHB 7 says that in cases where circumstances make it challenging for a character* to complete a task, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action. None of that suggests that the potential outcome of a theoretical die roll can establish the challenge necessary for itself to need to be relied upon.

*it actually says adventurer, but I do believe the intent is for this also to apply to NPCs as well

 

[clearstream]

Yes…? The player’s ability to decide what the character thinks, says, and does is not constrained here; only the possibility of succeeding at the action they decide to take is in question (and therefore an ability check is a supported way to resolve this action). As you state in this post.

What happens if that player instead decides their character - bound hand and foot per DMs description of circumstances - wants to dash from the room? They can't decide to dash. They can decide they would like to dash, and DM will ask their approach and if it includes wriggling free of their bonds, perhaps call for a check.

 

[Charlaquin]

Honestly I can't believe this needs to be explained. Repeatedly.

Eh, I don’t expect everyone is reading every post at this point, so when two or more people ask me what amounts to the same question, I assume they haven’t (yet) read the other person asking it and/or me answering them.

 

[clearstream]

Right, because for the results of a successful ability check to be applied, an ability check must first be called for, and the rules for ability checks don’t support calling for one when the outcome of the action isn’t uncertain. You can’t use what would happen if an ability check succeeds to justify calling for that very ability check in the first place, that’s circular. (And this is even if we accept for the sake of argument that the rules for ability checks are specific game elements rather than general rules of how to play the game, which I don’t think is clear, but there’s enough ambiguity that I’m not going to dispute it.)

Based on this, it doesn't seem like you understand my argument. I am not resting calling for a check on what would happen if it succeeds. I am resting it on there existing preconditions - such as challenges and consequences - that a DM decides justifies a check. Which - given they must ask themselves - is in their sole discretion.

PHB 7 isn’t limited in what way? PHB 7 says that in cases where circumstances make it challenging for a character* to complete a task, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action. None of that suggests that the potential outcome of a theoretical die roll can establish the challenge necessary for itself to need to be relied upon.

That's PHB 6.

PHB 7 is specific beats general. The possibility of something specific that is within the scope of an ability check, or the defined part of that scope that falls within a skill, that beats the general of PHB 185.

 

[Charlaquin]

Deciding how it will be resolved is not the same as taking away volition. You say you want to jump 20 feet. I might call for a check. That doesn't take away the volition you exercised in deciding you want to jump 20 feet.

Indeed! But if you say a highwayman threatens to stab me if I don’t give him all my money, and decide to call for him to make a Charisma (Intimidation) check to determine if he succeeds, and then he does succeed, you have taken away my volition to not give the highwayman all my money.

Now, if you take the same scenario and you say that instead of determining whether the approach of threatening to stab me is successful in the goal of getting me to hand him all my money, the result of the roll determines how you will describe the way in which the highwayman threatens me, that’s a different story. That doesn’t take away my volition, but it’s also not the function the rules for ability checks describe.

In my experience, using the results of a die roll weighted by an ability modifier and/or proficiency bonus to determine how to describe an action is most commonly done in groups where the call for a check precedes the description of the action. This is not, as I understand it, how 5e is intended to function, and is in fact the opposite of 5e’s order of operations. It is much closer to how 3e functioned (at least from what I recall; it has been a very long time since I’ve played 3e, and I don’t think I ever read its rules in their entirety so I could well have been playing it in an unsupported way and not realized it), which did require a specific carve-out in the text to prevent ability checks from being used to force PC actions. It made sense there, because of the different way 3e skill checks worked compared to the way 5e ability checks work.