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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cap'n Kobold" data-source="post: 9137970" data-attributes="member: 6802951">All PCs can contribute. All have ability scores, 4 proficiencies, a background feature and a player with a working brain. All classes have additional features that allow them to contribute outside of combat. The suggestion is to give the fighter class options to bring their non-combat options closer to those of other classes.The fighter is still having to roll for it. The bard might have the option to teleport or phase their way out, Shatter the door to smash it, Animate it to open, Polymorph themselves into something with a better strength etc. etc.Even if they don't happen to have a spell that could be leveraged in that situation, they still have better ability checks than the fighter does. Therefore even if they have a lower bonus for this check in this very specific situation leveraging the fighter's primary ability score, they have a decent chance at other options like diving out the window and landing safely with Acrobatics.This is the heart of the issue: Much can be achieved with just creativity, a hammer, and a complete disregard for the Laws of God and Man.Much more can be achieved with creativity, a hammer, and a toolkit full of more specialised tools. They can not only do things that no amount of creativity would allow the hammer to achieve, they can also be used with creativity to achieve much more.And, at the end of the day, if you cannot use any of those more specialised tools, because you don't have the right ones, or you already used them, or you're saving them for something else . . . You still have that hammer.The issue there is that unless the DM lays a fairly heavy thumb on the scales, the Bard's background is going to be the one that is useful an equal amount of times as the Fighter's. And there will be a fair amount of the time when neither can be applied and a check is called for, which is where the the bard having a much greater total of their modifiers to ability checks will mean that they will generally be better at those. Plus options like disguise or alter self to look like people the guard would be willing to parley with, detect thoughts to give an idea of what approach would go well, suggestion spell etc if the bard has them.</blockquote>

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