Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8673835" data-attributes="member: 93670">I'll bite!  There needs to be (a lot) more information about your games & the group in question. Some of it comes down to the player.  One of my players right now has by far the highest charisma plus at least proficient with persuade  in the party but is the absolute worst when it comes to functioning as the party face.  The reason is simply because the player has some kind of social anxiety and goes deer in the headlights when social situations come up.  A second player is pretty good socially but digs in & holds the game hostage wanting to drag out a social scene till his character is thrown out or the NPC simply walks away.No0 amount of class features can do anything about either of those problems & any social pillar problem that leads  back to a root cause like those is beyond the scope of class abilities.Is the player doing anything to actively shape things in their favor?  This is a social/exploration pillar weakness root cause that again is somewhat beyond the scope of PC abilities & far more common today than it was in past editions for various reasons that go deep into the weeds.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Take this for example: The party arrives in town after finishing their last quest.  Bob the fighter feels like his character didn't have enough in common with the village elder/local noble/etc... does he A: silently sit back & wait for the plot to approach him? B: Suggest something like "Lets go to the local guard captain to report our success first & I can talk swords with him to see what else is going on before we go see the big guy for our pay" C:  say "I want to go to the tavern & listen for [stuff to do]" D: something like one of the others E: something totally different I didn't consider<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">With A that's a player problem, excelling in social & exploration pillars requires some level of proactive dynamic characters.  With B that's a great example of attempting to dynamically stack things with proactive measures,... why did it collapse & is the collapse because the GM shut it down simply because the module doesn't mention a guard captain or something?  With C: that's like complaining a PC is bad at stealth & combat because they stood in whatever form of start point the adventure/dungeon has & nothing happened while the rest of the group went off to do cool stuff.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I used social examples in the last point,  but the same applies to exploration.  Take an example like a pit/canyon that needs crossing<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">5e gives everyone starter packs now so players don't need to learn that they should have things like rope & pitons torches & whatever.  do they A: mention that they remember a big table/door/whatever a few rooms back & ask if maybe it's big enough that they could lay it down to make a bridge after using their high strength & athletics to carry it? B: Note they have/ask if anyone has rope & suggest using athletics to hold the rope so Alice can climb down (or vice versa) this side then climb up the other? C: suggest using the rope & a javelin as some kind of grapple? (possibly in conjunction with B to help the rest of the party cross after). D: declare the chasm is too big to jump or grouse about how the low ceiling makes it impossible to jump the sinkhole pit till a caster gives in & suggests burning a slot of spells like featherfall/levitate/etc?  E: Note that they got a tool proficiency from their background/archetype(at least champion gives tool prof) & ask the GM if it seems reasonable to use their $specificProficiency to do things like construct a ladder/handholds/etc along the way down/up to help the others?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Every single one of those except D are things that most any fighter can do.  The exceptions are things like <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"I didn't take athletics because I wanted $otherSkill"  There's not much extra features can do because athletics on a strength build or acrobatics on a dex build is almost as mandated as arcana on a wizard or thieve's tools on a rogue...  What did they take?  Sometimes the "problem" is simply that bob doesn't have the tools for this problem but might for the next.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"My background/archetype doesn't have a tool prof because I wanted one that gave me other things"  Lets be honest those things are probably ones that excel in combat or things like intimidation if not "no we can ignore that because I'm an outlander/noble/etc"</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lets say they tried anything but D & it failed for reasons other than very bad luck in a system designed to almost guarantee success... how & why did it fail? <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Is that failure some reason other than something like "well at the bottom there was a second problem & they gave up or some other character had skills better suited to the second problem"?  If it isn't then that's like giving up on castle ravenloft because Strahd wasn't the first battle & frankly an unreasonable bar to be expecting one particular class to always be the one with the most optimal tools for any given job.</li> </ul></li> </ul></li> </ul></li> </ul>Back to things we would need to know in order to provide help with the "I want to fix this".  The "problem" is not going to be self evident & even if it is there can be different ways of looking at it with wildly different or even conflicting solutions.  Describe it in detail with specifics.  Why can't they use the skill & tool proficiencies they already have with those specifics?  What's the rest of the group makeup & give a bit of detail about the setting/campaign as it might be relevant to crafting a solution.  At the end of the day D&D is a team game & working with the rest of the group to shape & resolve problems can be a big part of that team aspect....</blockquote>

Verification