D&D 5E Question on rage/rolls

[Lucas Blackstone]

I wouldn't have it be a die roll. Too random for my tastes. But to each their own. Losing control of your character because of a background facet that didn't involve something more sinister like having been brainwashed by a cult feels like too much to me.

That being said, I would have it either be a wisdom save or a charisma save. Mind controlling effects often go against wisdom, but I see maintaining one's composure in a situation like that as more of a charisma thing.

As for inspiration, there is a section on it in the PHB, nice and short, about a quarter of a page. Feel free to tinker with it. One house rule we use at our table is that you can have more then 1 point even though that is the normal limit. For us it seems silly to not be allowed to have more then 1 point.

 

[GaitsuLore]

Here's what it says in the Basic Rules regarding inspiration:

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INSPIRATION

Inspiration is a rule the Dungeon Master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that's true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in negotiating with the Beggar Prince. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to the defense of your home village to push past the effect of a spell that has been laid on you.

GAINING INSPIRATION

Your DM can choose to give you inspiration for a variety of reasons. Typically, DMs award it when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way. Your DM will tell you how you can earn inspiration in the game. You either have inspiration or you don't-- you can't stockpile multiple "inspirations" for later use.

USING INSPIRATION

If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. spending your inspiration gives you Advantage on that roll. Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.

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Basically, if you as the DM decides to use the Inspiration system, each player selects (or creates) one or more Personality Traits, an Ideal, a Bond, and a Flaw to help flesh out their character. They help define who this PC is, what is important to them, what they believe in, how they behave, and what things make them act poorly. Then throughout the course of the game, you as the DM can give the player Inspiration (I personally use poker chips) if they play their PC in a way that matches their traits, ideal, bond or flaw. You can also oftentimes offer Inspiration to the player if they could act in a way that is emblematic of one of their more problematic or issue-creating traits... in order to create drama and interesting new twists in the story. The player doesn't have to accept it... but it can be fun if they do and they get a small reward for it.

The Personality And Background chapter in the Player's Handbook talk about Inspiration more in depth, and also give many examples players can select from based on their backgrounds on the various traits, ideals, bonds and flaws. And if you want even more details on the kind of depth you can get from this kind of system... D&D inspiration system is influenced heavily from the roleplaying game FATE. If you go check out the FATE system reference document website:

https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/basics

...it goes all into Aspects and how they help create your character's personality and can drive the game. You might even find some of the ways FATE does their system to be more interesting and compelling that the Inspiration method in the PHB. I believe my "offering" of Inspiration example above is more in line with FATE than the D&D's system (as it talks about Compels of a character's aspects.)

For new players to roleplaying, or even just players who've never really thought about creating personalities for their characters (with wants, needs, and desires)... using Inspiration is a nice little way to reward players for doing so.

Thanks, I'm on the page for that in the phb right now, but your extra explanation summed it up a bit better for me. I'll think about doing that, since it will reward her for acting on her background, as opposed to it being "just another dice roll"

 

[GaitsuLore]

I wouldn't have it be a die roll. Too random for my tastes. But to each their own. Losing control of your character because of a background facet that didn't involve something more sinister like having been brainwashed by a cult feels like too much to me.

That being said, I would have it either be a wisdom save or a charisma save. Mind controlling effects often go against wisdom, but I see maintaining one's composure in a situation like that as more of a charisma thing.

As for inspiration, there is a section on it in the PHB, nice and short, about a quarter of a page. Feel free to tinker with it. One house rule we use at our table is that you can have more then 1 point even though that is the normal limit. For us it seems silly to not be allowed to have more then 1 point.

Thank you, I happened to see Defcon's response first. I already knew it was in the phb, I"ve been looking through it for the past few days while helping a few others with character creation, so i haven't really gotten further than Equipment section, and really, anything that said optional, i just skipped. I'll be going through it again fully now, without skipping anything (As it seems the good stuff is the optional stuff)

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Wisdom save, DC = context (Cackling over the death of parents whilst wearing their ears as a necklace? Higher. Sobbing in the corner of a tavern during a mid-life crisis with an apology list? Lower). Possible Disadvantage if surprised by the meeting.

Even then, with a save, you'll need to be ready for if they succeed. They're a monk - a class known for mental discipline. If anyone's going to keep their schtick together regardless of the circumstances, it's probably going to be the monk.

Now personally, since all this does is add a random element to a narrative moment, I'd either go full 'This happens to your character' (which at your table would seem to be aok & expected) or, more likely (due to the nature of our table), let them play their character as they wish and avoid all the kafuffle but hey, if you're going to bring a roll into it, I'd go with the above.

 

[iserith]

I recommend you give the players the right to "claim" Inspiration. This makes it easier on you and more reliable to them. In my games, if a player plays to an established personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw, he or she says "I'm taking Inspiration for that." The limitation is that you can't claim Inspiration for a given personal characteristic more than once per session (so in this case, 4x per session is the max). With this method, the players can seek out Inspiration whenever they need it and it makes sense and means the DM doesn't have to track 16 to 20 different personal characteristics on top of everything else he or she is doing. What you will tend to see in my experience is players almost constantly claiming Inspiration by playing to the established characteristics (5 players times 4 Inspiration is 20 divided into a, say, 240 minute session is someone playing their character as established at least every 12 minutes or so) which, if you like that sort of thing, is a pretty good outcome.

 

[BluejayJunior]

As an alternative to Rage, you might look at something like the Barbarian's reckless attack feature instead. You could have the save or not (I agree that it should probably be wisdom or charisma). But at the start of the battle, say something like, "You are overcome by a rage against the creatures who killed your parents, causing you to strike out at them without regard for your own saftey. For the duration of the battle (or as long as orcs are alive), all your attacks have advantage, but all attack against you also have advantage." This could show that the character is so hellbent on killing them that they don't care about what happens to them. I would avoid using something like this too often, though. It steps into Barbarian territory then and you want those encounters to be special/memorable.
Although if they are a cautious player, that approach may also just make them more cautious because of the drawback.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'll try to explain my reasoning as clearly as possible.

The character usually approaches things with caution, often with more hesitation than is really needed (Three turns of successful perception checks in the same room to make sure no-one is going to just turn around and deck her). When it comes to orcs, who she knows killed her parents, she might fly off the handle seeing as she has been training for revenge ever since. What I'm trying to do is find a dice roll for her to resist the rage building up, in the event that she doesn't want to rage, not to see if she can go into a rage.

Aside from the odd situation, she's also playing a Monk, who doesn't have the Rage ability, so it's a conditional 'skill'.

Hope that explained where my head is at.

A couple of points:

Firstly, the player seems to like playing the character as very much a 'think first' person. Not the sort who would be prone to reckless or emotional action.

Secondly, they're a Monk. Their mental discipline and fortitude is able to defy reality itself. I can't see simply seeing an orc is going to break their zen.

Thirdly, are they playing as a massively racist character? Is there a particular reason that they associate all orcs with the particular individuals that killed their parents?

Fourthly, what are orcs in your setting? Are they tolkienesque and inherently vicious and evil, with all civilised nations having bounties and kill-on-sight policies towards them? Or are they individuals with a range of motivations and alignments, that might be treated with suspicion, but not immediate violence.

I mean all bets are off if the character sees the actual orc that killed their parents. But just an individual of that particular race going about their business? I can't see that as inducing incontrollable rage in most characters.

 

[GaitsuLore]

Before I respond to the following, I want to thank everyone who came in with their opinions, and who helped me come up with some ideas, even if they didn't really agree with my personal thoughts. I'll definitely come back with more questions in the future, knowing that I can expect quick and helpful responses.

A couple of points:

Firstly, the player seems to like playing the character as very much a 'think first' person. Not the sort who would be prone to reckless or emotional action.

Secondly, they're a Monk. Their mental discipline and fortitude is able to defy reality itself. I can't see simply seeing an orc is going to break their zen.

Thirdly, are they playing as a massively racist character? Is there a particular reason that they associate all orcs with the particular individuals that killed their parents?

Fourthly, what are orcs in your setting? Are they tolkienesque and inherently vicious and evil, with all civilised nations having bounties and kill-on-sight policies towards them? Or are they individuals with a range of motivations and alignments, that might be treated with suspicion, but not immediate violence.

I mean all bets are off if the character sees the actual orc that killed their parents. But just an individual of that particular race going about their business? I can't see that as inducing incontrollable rage in most characters.

In response to the first thing, yes, you are probably right, the norm would be that. The person (Not character) in question, though, tends to fly off the handle very quickly when it comes to their family. While I am trying to give her an experience that isn't quite what she's used to (It's my wife, I tend to coddle her and guide here where she needs to go in games), I'm also trying to implement things in a way that she can relate with as well. (Kinda rambled here, moving on.)

We picked Monk for her less because of the calm disposition, and more to fit her character's fighting style. I'll explain more of why when I get to your third point.

Her character isn't racist per say. The gist of the story is (In as few words as I can, because this thread is already somewhat long), her character is a 1500 years old Unicorn who has learned to shift into a human form, her parents were killed when she was round 270, so the orcs that actually killed her parents are long gone. She had been shielded from the horrors of the world, so she didn't really know that other creatures don't live as long as her, and all this time she has slowly forgotten the faces of her parent's murderers. Because of this, she simply hates all orcs, not willing to admit to herself that she will never really be able to avenge her parents.

As for part 4, no, they are not LOTR Orcs. They, in theory, are just green skinned, jagged toothed humans who live in the swamps and marshes (In one of the 5 kingdoms of the story, Nocturnis). The majority of the orcs they would meet on their journey, however, would be members of small bands of raiders. There are small settlements of peaceful Orcs just trying to tend to their crappy land.

 

[5ekyu]

I'll try to explain my reasoning as clearly as possible.

The character usually approaches things with caution, often with more hesitation than is really needed (Three turns of successful perception checks in the same room to make sure no-one is going to just turn around and deck her). When it comes to orcs, who she knows killed her parents, she might fly off the handle seeing as she has been training for revenge ever since. What I'm trying to do is find a dice roll for her to resist the rage building up, in the event that she doesn't want to rage, not to see if she can go into a rage.

Aside from the odd situation, she's also playing a Monk, who doesn't have the Rage ability, so it's a conditional 'skill'.

Hope that explained where my head is at.

For a character in my game, if they always approached situations with caution, the last thing i would do is decide for them that they have to make an Ability check to avoid losing that aspect of the character. If, they have built hatred of orcs into their background and they wanted to have that be a case where they decide the character gets really really mad and acts in that way, choosing to not be cautious, that is great and likely would be rewarded (by inspiration or some other aspect.)

But... it would not be a RAGE as per Barbarian Rage and it would not be involuntary unless it was caused by some external force like a spell or curse.

Its just way too often a bad idea for the Gm to decide the character needs to roll to act the way the player wants UNLESS some prior agreement exists to that effect - like say games where sanity or faith scores are used. The Gm gets to control all the other characters in thw world, they do not need to invent and insert on the fly new ways to control/influence/interfere with the player control of theirs.