D&D 5E Can a Player gain an advantage from a Passive Skill that required no effort or cost?

[Tonystar73]

I currently have a player who is working on a Paladin Oath Subclass that would act in a similiar way to that of a Cleric Trickery Domain but with a little bit of Rogue/Bard thrown into the mix. The diety the paladin will follow will be towards gods like Mask, etc...

Now i rather not get into if this can be done or not as that is not the problem for me. My issue is this...

He has mad a Oath that has 2 Channel Divinity Skills and a 3rd skill, which he claims is fluff due to already exsiting in the PHB's rule book under Assisting another player within a skill check.

This is what he wrote...

BLESSING OF THE TRICKSTER
Starting when you take this oath at 3rd level, you can use your action to touch a willing creature other than yourself to give it advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. This blessing lasts for 1 hour or until you use this feature again.

CHANNEL DIVINITY: INVOKE DUPLICITY
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to create an illusory duplicate of yourself.
As an action, you create a perfect illusion of yourself that lasts for 1 minute, or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell). The illusion appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within 30 feet of you. As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the illusion up to 30 feet to a space you can see, but it must remain within 120 feet of you.
For the duration, you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space, but you must use your own senses. Additionally, when both you and your illusion are within 5 feet of a creature that can see the illusion, you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature, given how distracting the illusion is to the target.

CHANNEL DIVINITY: CLOAK OF SHADOWS
Starting at 3rd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to vanish.
As an action, you become invisible until the end of your next turn. You become visible if you attack or cast a spell.

He is telling me that the "BLESSING OF THE TRICKSTER" skill is not actually a skill. He says its meant to be for fluff for a player to understand what he could do with this subclass but has written it as a skill since no one is likely to read into doing this otherwise. He also says that this skill works exactly like giving assistants to another player found in the PHB on pg. 192 under 'Help'. So it works no differently to that of the help action when another player of another race or class does it.

I tried telling him that A) No other paladin has 3 Skills obtained at level 3, B) The clerics Level 1 Tricky domain skill is ok for them as they have lost out on gaining any other skill when comapred to other cleric subclasses, C) When taking the help action, you are using your action, your time in effect to give someone else an advantage, using this skill by passes that, D) Gaining an advantage must be met with something being lost in the process, such as a spell slot or action or something, it cant be gained for free.

He then tries to argue his point that nothing is changed by the outcome from gaining this advantage. His example...

A) You assist (Help) another player in a stealth check, then gain an advantage roll, that person you help fails both rolls, both of you are caught.
B) You give Stealth advantage to another player through your skill/Ability, that person you gave advantage fails both rolls, both of you are caught.
C) No help is given to another player for an advantage, standard rolls only, the parson with no advantage fails there 1 roll, both of you are caught.

In all 3 situations, you are either caught or you start combat. I agreed that this outcome would be true if they failed. However i feel like my player doesn't understand the importances of gaining an advantage for nothing.


So I turn to everyone here on EnWorld, Who do you think is right or wrong... and why?

 

[Thurmas]

The way I look at it, when you are helping someone on a skill to give them advantage, that is all you are doing. So, sure you can help a creature stealth, but he can't do anything else, including stealth himself. So this is strictly better then a normal help action.

Also, the way he has this worded, he can use it on as many creatures as he has actions, with no limit. At a minimum, it needs to be worded as to being one creature at a time. A limited number of uses, one per short rest would also probably be needed if it will continue to last for an hour.

 

[Charlaquin]

The way I look at it, when you are helping someone on a skill to give them advantage, that is all you are doing. So, sure you can help a creature stealth, but he can't do anything else, including stealth himself. So this is strictly better then a normal help action.

Also, the way he has this worded, he can use it on as many creatures as he has actions, with no limit. At a minimum, it needs to be worded as to being one creature at a time. A limited number of uses, one per short rest would also probably be needed if it will continue to last for an hour.

The “or until you use this feature again” clause does limit it to only working on one creature at a time.

The feature in question looks pretty fair to me, personally. It’s just a Help Action limited to a specific Skill it can apply to and given a longer duration. I would cut the duration down to one minute, and probably have it require concentration. Either that or make it apply to the next Dexterity (Stealth) check the creature makes in that hour, after which the effect ends.

 

[Thurmas]

The “or until you use this feature again” clause does limit it to only working on one creature at a time.

That's very true. Silly me. It's been a long day.

 

[Bardbarian]

This actually is one of those cases where it seems reasonable. most of those abilities are not as strong as existing options given to the paladin and are stronger for a cleric than a paladin because of how other class features work with them. Casting spells through the duplicate for example is not as strong because of 1/2 caster spell slots. Advantage gained from those abilities seems in line with Oath of Vengeance or Oath of Ancients. Your player might not be completely insane. of course the final arbiter is you as the DM.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Curious - why don't they simply play a Cleric of Trickery? They can pick up a feat for Heavy Armour if they need it and it comes free with a little bit or rogue/bard (skills).

As it stands, it seems like the like the flavour & utility of the Trickery features -- but want to have the Paladin's smites, auras and the like?

It's a shame Paladin of Treachery didn't make it to XGTE - I reckon that've been right up their shadowy alley. The UA is still out there - perhaps you can use it as a guide? https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UAPaladin_SO_20161219_1.pdf

 

[5ekyu]

Honestly, somewhere along that description and counter argument i would have said "no, final answer" with "why" being that for my table custom creations need to be clearly less than or equal to by the book builds and if that convoluted a set of push back and counter logic is needed to "show" its lack of potency, it failed the "clearly" test.

I am a "say yes unless compelled to say no GM" but i learned long ago dont waste time with convoluted minutae.

Folks working for an interesting character concept do NOT see the concept in terms of it being hinged on arguments around what actiin provides advantage etc or passive "actions". That kind of thing is more the case of someone arguing for getting a new mechanic into play and viewing the freedom to customize as an opprtunity to game the GM.

Also, arguing what advantage does from the perspective of what happens after failure is absurd. Advantage alters the CHANCE of failure and has nothing to do with the stakes.

I would suggest to the player that they deliver to me a detailed concept of this new "oath" and what it is about and what makes it different from the other oaths and one clear statement of why they want it - all from a description within game kind of perspective with not one single game mechanic element. After that i would either say "that doesnt fit" etc or i would go design a new oath mechanic set myself and offer it to him.





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[machineelf]

Maybe I dreamed it, but I believe that another player can't really use the help action to grant assistance on a skill to another player if the skill they are attempting can only realistically be performed by one person at a time. In other words, it has to be something they can both work on together. And I think to grant help, both characters have to be proficient on the skill. I think I read that somewhere in the rules recently, but I'll have to check where. Have I gone mad, or does anyone else recall this?

 

[5ekyu]

Maybe I dreamed it, but I believe that another player can't really use the help action to grant assistance on a skill to another player if the skill they are attempting can only realistically be performed by one person at a time. In other words, it has to be something they can both work on together. And I think to grant help, both characters have to be proficient on the skill. I think I read that somewhere in the rules recently, but I'll have to check where. Have I gone mad, or does anyone else recall this?

Its under WORKING TOGETHER

" character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone. For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves' tools, so a character who lacks that proficiency can't help another character in that task. Moreover, a character can help only when two or more individuals working together would actually be productive. Some tasks, such as threading a needle, are no easier with help."

the two criteria are both can do it and it can be helped.

But arguably the help is in the form of camoflage ot muffling sound (stealth) or other deceptive effects thru some mystical blessing and those are *to me* in and of themselves reasonable concepts.



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[The Crimson Binome]

Maybe I dreamed it, but I believe that another player can't really use the help action to grant assistance on a skill to another player if the skill they are attempting can only realistically be performed by one person at a time. In other words, it has to be something they can both work on together. And I think to grant help, both characters have to be proficient on the skill. I think I read that somewhere in the rules recently, but I'll have to check where. Have I gone mad, or does anyone else recall this?

The general rule is that, in order to help someone do something, you have to actually be able to do something that would significantly help them in whatever the task is. The specifics are left up to the DM, but a couple of examples are that you usually can't have someone help you pick a lock (because you can only fit one set of tools in there at a time), and you may not be able to help analyze an obscure magical phenomenon if you aren't proficient in Arcana.

Honestly, I would probably say that you can't help someone sneak around in most cases, but if you could then it would be by walking ahead of them and pointing out where they should avoid stepping, or acting as a spotter so they would know when to duck. It's definitely not something you could do from around a corner, as you send someone off to scout ahead.