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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7359167" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Bit late to the party, it seems, so the discussion may have moved on, but here are my 2 copper pieces.My problem with this is that it presumes the point you're making: rules restrict desirable behavior. But only some rules do that. If all rules restricted desirable behavior, we would all run completely rules-free games, because there would be no system that didn't restrict desirable behavior except "no system at all." So, clearly, there must be some kind of line, where *un*desirable behavior is restricted, but desirable behavior isn't. Ergo, some rules may go too far, but not all rules, and we must evaluate them on a case-by-case basis.This seems pretty emblematic of a concern you have in every case, so I will only address it once, but know that it applies in every symmetrical case: you fear restricting extemporaneous behavior, because you have interpreted that "since X allows Y, it must be the case that not having X disallows Y." What part of the text leads you to believe this is the case? I admit I have not read the DMG as closely as I should (since I'm not really interested in running it), but I know of nothing in either the PHB nor DMG which says this is the case. Why can't feats be a sufficient condition for their effects, rather than being a necessary one? That is, why can't there be multiple paths to the same thing? To whit: having the Actor feat guarantees that you can make a Cha(Deception) check, contested by Wis(Insight), regardless of situation. They're trained to do it, so they can do it on command. Someone who isn't trained? Maybe they're just good with voices. Maybe it's just a raw Charisma check. Maybe it's exactly the same, but the person being deceived gets Advantage. Maybe the deceiver needs to spin me a tale of how it is they can mimic this particular person's voice well enough to pass a reasonable fraction of the time (real voice mimicry being quite hard).To put it simply: you yourself said, "wouldn't it be natural for a DM to tell Player Y they cannot try that[...]?" No, it's not natural to simply say no. If it's a hasty, off-the-wall plan with no preparation, no justification, and no effort to make it work, maybe then you say no, sorry, you don't have the feat. Feats merely guarantee access/effect (if any conditions therein are met). They don't suddenly limit improvisation. This is the reverse side of exception-based design; the obverse is that when the rules say things work like X, specific rules may contradict that, and specific beats general, while the reverse is that just because a specific rule exists you cannot conclude that the general rule is in contradiction to it.Stop there. *If* the player has, in fact, made a very inspiring speech? That's all that's required to get a mechanical effect. If you are so desperately afraid of stepping on the feat-having-player's toes, give a different effect instead. (For example, given the name, you could have everyone get one free use of Inspiration, in addition to the normal one they may or may not have, which has to be spent during the "scene" for which they've been inspired.) The player who has the feat still gets their guaranteed access, and the other player gets rewarded for a positive, and impressive, contribution.Nothing new here, really. Though I should note that it's pretty blatantly clear that the Keen Mind feat's environmental effects are supposed to be (a) automatic (see the trend? automatic vs. having to roll a check/needing to "sell me on" the plan?) and (b) used when you shouldn't know these things just by looking, e.g. when you're deep underground. The best-trained huntsman isn't going to know north from south in a natural cave when it's been three days since he's seen the sun, unless he can clearly remember the path and the orientation the group started with. I would call that a difficult but not impossible Wisdom check, potentially with Proficiency if the player can justify it. Or, with the feat, you just know, no questions asked. (Well, other than, "Hey, Zeke, which way is North?")Nothing to see here, same responses as above.Now this one is actually interesting (beyond the repeated "auto vs. roll/persuade me"). Because I know, from a limited amount of personal experience, that riding animals is not easy without training. You can do it, but it's risky. Riding animals into combat is dramatically more difficult than that, and an animal must be very heavily trained to not go completely out of its gourd in combat. So, for me, this really comes down to: "You're trying to do something extremely difficult without training. Or do you have some reason to know how to handle an animal? What are you doing to manage your mount's behavior?"This actually reminds me of a thing from 13A rules discussion, but sort of going in the opposite direction. 13A has freeform "backgrounds" instead of skills, which apply whenever it's appropriate. Some DMs struggle with them, because a background like "Secret Agent" can very easily become just a grab-bag of doing anything because the player can invent a backstory on the spot to justify it. This can seem unfair if the other players aren't as light on their feet, mentally; in essence, it's a practical example of actually letting the "featless" run roughshod over those who "spent the feat" in some sense or other. And the simple answer is: you have to set limits for improvisation, because it's not desirable to allow 100% of all proposed improvisational actions/stunts/off-the-wall ideas. Sometimes, a plan is just bad, or just doesn't make sense in context, and it's perfectly fine to Just Say No. A player spends a feat on something in order to lay down more precise rules for when it is and isn't okay to Just Say No. Those who do not are, implicitly, accepting the responsibility to find real, consistent, consensus-fitting justifications for whenever they do something that they aren't guaranteed to be able to do. If they cannot provide those justifications--whether it takes the form of "you explained your plan and I agree it makes sense," "you told us why this is a thing you're capable of," or "you did the work, whether as a player or a character, to make it happen"--then I am under no obligation whatsoever to approve the Wacky Shenanigans. I should be gentle, and try to re-direct any genuine enthusiasm toward plans which are actually possible in my eyes, but beyond "providing a fun experience," I am under no obligation to agree to any specific player proposal. Heck, even feats might not always apply, if a different exception takes precedence (e.g. for Mounted Combat, "The kraken's tentacle is already attacking BOTH you AND your mount; you can't force both attacks to be at you, because you're already being attacked." Perfectly reasonable, and while the player may feel put out by it, these limitations are just as appropriate as limitations on improvisational thinking.)Guaranteed effect (avoiding detection) vs. player must justify, as usual.I have never seen a person get denied the ability to do some particular improvisational thing solely because they lacked a feat, in any game--not even 3e, the king of "anything not expressly permitted is forbidden" design. I've seen, for instance, "You can't use this weapon effectively because you don't know how to wield it; it might be a sharp sword, but for you it's no better than a club." I've never seen someone who had a feat that granted some special effect feel slighted because someone else had the opportunity to get the same or similar effect as a result of some other thing (like giving an inspirational speech vs. having a "you give inspirational speeches" thing).I have never seen anyone upset because a fellow-player got an automatic success when other people had to roll, and in fact have seen exactly the opposite (in 4e, no less, where feats abound). My group was trying to persuade a genius tech CEO to come with us, sans bodyguards, to a secret location to meet with our hidden benefactor in order to get said benefactor to help us save someone we had failed to save ourselves (we were too low-level to cast Raise Dead). My character, the in-setting equivalent of a Paladin, spoke with full honesty; he hates lying, and figured if this guy didn't like the truth, there was little point in trying to sugar-coat it. I expected to need to roll Diplomacy, but the DM, of fairly old-school persuasion, just said, "He looks at you and nods. That's a success. No roll needed." The group was surprised but pleased that I was able to do that--even the party Bard, who had no less silver a tongue than my Paladin and probably more of one. If anything, she was relieved that she didn't have to lie or embellish the truth either. (Only our [strike]shaman[/strike] dronesmith was particularly fond of flexibility with the facts, and even then, pretty much only with people we didn't like or couldn't trust.)Long story short, I think you are overblowing fears of stepping on toes, under-estimating the impact of actually (and consistently) requiring explanation/justification/build-up/resource-expenditure to get an effect that a feat "guarantees" (assuming there isn't a mitigating factor that would prevent the effect either way), and inserting a requirement into the rules that isn't present. I also think you're severely under-valuing the benefits feats provide to players who struggle with on-the-spot improvisational thinking. I consider myself fairly clever, and I still run into issues of "DUH! Why didn't I do X??? I *should* have!" Knowing you have the Actor feat can embolden a player to do things they might have otherwise avoided, or never even considered, and no amount of experience is guaranteed to make a shy/deliberative player become outgoing/spontaneous.TL;DR: Exception-based design. "If you have X, you can do Y" =/= "if you don't have X, you can't do Y." Instead, only conclude, "Y can be done, even if the rules generally say no; X allows it, but maybe other stuff does too."</blockquote>

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