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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8796217" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Okay? You wanted "why is this a roll", I gave it. It doesn't matter why this specific example was a roll. The point was to give an example that could be done by two people without proficiency, in our real world, that makes sense. I just needed an example, the example itself barely matters except to provide the context.sigh Fine, let's make more examples. Acrobatics includes the ability to stay on your feet on ice. Do I need to be a trained acrobat to offer my arm and support someone walking on ice, to help make sure they don't fall? This is something I did for YEARS with my grandmother. Strength checks include pushing through a tunnel that is too small. Do I need to be trained in athletics to shove them from behind and assist them in getting through tunnel? Dexterity checks include wriggling free of ropes that you are bound in. Do I need to be trained in sleight of hand to assist someone while I am tied up, by grabbing an end of the rope and acting as an anchor point, or helping to try and loosen a knot? Investigation checks include helping someone search a room. I don't need to be trained in Investigation to search a room, so why do I need to be trained in investigation to help someone search a room? We often call upon other people to help search for something we have lost, because more people searching makes it more likely to be found. Intelligence checks include winning at games of skill. First of all, the phrasing of the help action as requiring a Skill Proficiency means that, per RAW, I can't use my proficiency in the Gaming Set to perform the help action, because that is a tool proficiency. However, we are all also gamers, we are very aware that two people who are not skilled at a game can work together and lead to better gaming results than either of them alone. People help each other all the time with games they are unfamiliar with. Medicine checks are used for stabilizing someone. Sure, I wouldn't allow someone not trained in medicine to perform surgery or make medicine, but how often in movies have we seen a terrified civilian grabbed and told to "put pressure on the wound" as the other person performs the tasks needed to save the character's life. That is a classic help action, the additional hands are incredibly useful, and they require zero medical training. Heck, I job shadowed a vet for a paper once and I, with no vet training, was asked to help hold a dog to make the vet's job easier. Why is that no longer allowed?Intimidation, Persuasion and Deception can all be aided by simply backing the other person's claim, by adding your own words to their attempt. One person is easier to ignore and dismiss than two or three telling you the same thing. Again, you don't need proficiency in these skills to attempt those rolls, so why do you need proficiency in them to attempt to aid in those rolls? Sure, each one of these may be a corner case. But when you can trivially find eight corners that have cases, many of them things you have directly encountered, it becomes less and less of a "minor" concern, and more and more of a systematic issue. Which generally come back to the same point. I don't need proficiency in the skill to attempt the check, so why do I need it to attempt to assist? That and the toold profs, which I didn't even consider until I went digging for more examples, and seems like a MAJOR oversight.See, but I don't think that line was meant to rule on allowing someone without the skill prof to use the help action. I think it was far more about things like "You can't help the mage remember his schooling" or "You can't help the rogue insight this person" because those actions can often not make sense in the narrative. IF they meant to allow people without the prof to help... then they wouldn't have added in as a requirement, instead they could have added towards the end "The DM may require a skill proficiency to use the Help action for certain d20 tests." Make THAT the exception, for those exceptionally skilled tests, like singing or performing surgery that  would require being more highly skilled to aid.Sorry, I've been dealing with a lot of people who have been trying to shut down conversation, which made me a bit prickly.</blockquote>

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