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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gorice" data-source="post: 8796809" data-attributes="member: 7032863">I think a lot of issues with help are resolved if you treat it the same way that all skill use is supposed to be treated: the player has to actually describe what their character is doing [edit: just saw [USER=7031982]@Bill Zebub[/USER] 's post above, which says basically the same thing]. As a DM, you just need to ask 'how are you actually helping?', and it resolves most of these cases. If someone isn't proficient in history but is able to come up with some explanation as to how their character's background ties into the roll, more power to them.'Help' is worded in a way that doesn't suggest this, and the general culture of play at a lot of tables seems to reject 5e's official style of rolling in favour of button-pushing, so I'm not surprised that it's a consistent issue.That said, I don't think 'no cost' actions is a problem that can ever be solved in 5e without some kind of time constraints in place. Pretty much all the game's mechanics seem to imply that the PCs will be under time pressure (the lack of any formal way of creating this time pressure is a big hole in the design. IMO).Yup. The common house rule that you can drink a potion as a bonus action also does this. Maybe a lot of players are just narcissists?</blockquote>