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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7538860" data-attributes="member: 7006">The biggest issue I see is the large disparity between the different groups you have put together, especially when it comes to actually speaking with people for whom negotiation is going to be important.  Bards get nobles and common folk, who are going to be encountered for Persuasion, Deception or Intimidation hundreds of times more often than like the Sorcerer with its hermits and elemental creatures.  How often do your players ever actually talk to hermits wherein they actually need to make any CHA-based checks?I understand your desire to not step on the toes of the proficiency system and want to give additional bonus to those characters who already have proficiency in Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation... but what you're doing is essentially giving the Friends cantrip away for free to every single character in the game (without even the additional "NPC gets pissed at you after a minute" balancing act.)Your original point was that you wanted to "enhance" the social pillar of the game.  But really, all you are doing is just giving an additional numerical bonus over what PCs already do.  Is that really "enhancing" anything?  By my view... your social interactions as far as the actual gameplay is concerned are not going to change at all from what you are currently doing, other than the occasional number that is rolled will be higher or lower than what you already have.So the players occasionally roll two dice instead of one.  Okay.  Other than that, everything else with what you are doing as you play is exactly the same.  I mean maybe your players put much more stock in rolling lots of dice than mine do... but to me, rolling an extra die does not change, let along "enhance" anything at all.To really enhance or change the social interaction pillar, you'd need to actually do things that change the playstyle of what you are doing.  Like for instance incorporate things like the various "social combat" rules that have been created over the years that gives PCs things like "social hit points" and "social attacks and defenses" etc., and you run these interactions as actual D&D fights. Or you find ways to change the actual interplay of the players and you as the DM with how you roleplay... like use the Dread-inspired Jenga tower for social combat where every barb or good point forces the other one to pull a block from the tower.  Or like a bidding mechanic like in Name That Tune style where each side makes points to keep raising the DC they think they can reach until one of them challenges the other to prove their assertion and they then have to roll the dice.  The methodology for resolving social interactions needs to actually be different from what you already do for it to feel like an actual change.For my money, its never enough to just throw additional dice or numeric bonus at a problem and think that's going to make things feel different.  Even things like many of the feats in the game I've never felt made characters actually feel all that different.  People will say "I need the Great Weapon Master feat to really embrace my character concept".  But really, even if you have it what happens?  Your character plays exactly the same as if they didn't have it... except the damage numbers you tell the DM are higher.  But its not like the narration is any different, or the way you behave in the story is any different, or other people react in-game to you any differently.  You essentially just gain nothing but higher numbers.  And unless you are the types for whom the "board game" aspect of D&D is the king and rolling high numbers is the end-all-and-be-all of your experience (which I'm not denigrating as a style of play)... your play experience ends up unchanged.Change the style of gameplay when doing social interaction and you and the players will feel different about it.</blockquote>

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