Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Get Better At Skills With These Feats

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Jeremy Crawford and again featuring guest writer Robert J. Schwalb introduces a number of feats which make you better at skills. Each increases the skill's primary ability score, doubles your proficiency bonus, and gives you a little bonus ability. "This week we introduce new feats to playtest. Each of these feats makes you better at one of the game’s eighteen skills. We invite you to read them, give them a try in play, and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana."

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[Gardens & Goblins]

The Frightened condition is a bit more effective than most intimidate checks would probably allow. Making an intimidate check would normally take an action, so requiring only a single attack is also an improvement to some characters.

How would you arbitrate a successful Intimidate check, when used in battle against a foe? As it stands, Frightened gives disadvantage on attack rolls and skill checks and the target won't approach the source of its fear - that's pretty much what I'd impose on a target that's under the effect of Intimidation during combat, though they could also be given orders/manipulated in certain way, (''Drop the knife! Open the door! etc..'')

Granted, the feat providing the effect on an attack is a boon.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

In my games people can talk, roar, etc while they attack and a good exhibition of combat prowess is a good catalyst for Intimidation.
I don't like how the feat goes the way of the 4e imposing more rules for things that could be a simple skill use and roleplaying using the DM's judgement and the basic rules.

Well aye, sounds like the games we run. The feat does provide the bonus of having the effect occur on an attack but then again, let's say a player choose this feat. Does this mean nobody else can ever attempt to strike a blow and Intimidate a target? I'd hope not but I could see how some folks might argue otherwise.

We basically have something like: ''Player: I want to terrify the orc into submission! Could Blaarg the Barbarian shout and strike the orc with such force to make it so?'' ''DM: Sure, it'll be at disadvantage, and you'll need to make a successful Intimidation check. But hey, let's say you do hit - and it's a decent chunk of damage - then sure!'' - which is a more fast and loose style of play, reliant on DM and player cooperation, compared to: ''Blaarg strikes the orc and uses his Menacing ability to try and Demoralize it!'' - which is arguably a more consistent/cleaner style of play, the result of codification.

Both have their merits. Though, to be clear, while I do prefer the first style, I can accept the advantages and appeal of the second for some tables.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Rolling all the feats into one feat and calling it "Specialist" like the above does two things, both of them good. One, it reduces the amount of text, though I'd amend the above description to include Expertise.

Two, it makes it impossible to take the feat more than once. If someone who isn't a Bard or Rogue wants to be really good at something he can. But he can only be really good at that one thing.

See, I think your point two is a weakness.

If a scholar character wanted to go around spending all their feats getting expertise in Arcana, Religion, Nature and History, I don't see why we should stop them


Expertise is nice for Rogues and Bards, but it isn't defining to them for my table.In fact, I'd argue JAck of All Trades is a better show for Bard's being skill monkeys than Expertise. And Rogues are just as much damage dealers and off-tanks in my games as they are skill monkeys. Both classes have plenty of iconic things to do outside of Expertise that I can't see other people getting Expertise hurting them in the slightest.

 

[Corwin]

All around these feats are bad design for three reasons, possibly four reasons.

...in your opinion. Sorry, its just one of my pet peeves.

1. Part of the special appeal of Bards and Rogues is their Expertise (double proficiency bonus). Making "expertise" something other classes can take diminishes some of the uniqueness of Bards and Rogues.

I'm curious if you think you might have this same opinion, should WotC, down the road, release a whole new sub/class including Expertise to some degree or another (even if its just with a single skill)?

 

[Oofta]

Wasting an attack to intimidate only one humanoid?

The problem I have with Menacing is that it's another magic trick. Let's say as a DM you've set up an encounter that's supposed to be a "we can't win this fight". It's an epic battle that you aren't ready for. So CR 20 something Darth Bader bad guy against level 10 party.

The bard (with high charisma, proficiency, expertise and maybe a magic item) tries to intimidate this guy. Suddenly your BBEG who isn't afraid of anything on heaven or earth is shaking in his boots because the Bard is a +20 to intimidate. The Bader character has a +5 (he is Darth Bader after all), but he's still probably going to fail.

This makes no sense. It takes away the agency of the DM to tell a story and reduces intimidation to an "I win" button - or at least a "I get a huge advantage" button.

Reminds me of the 4E warlock that cranked up his intimidate skill and thought he could scare away any NPC - dragon, demon, so on with a simple die roll because his power read that way. IMHO it really harms the sense of immersion in story telling.

 

[dco]

Well aye, sounds like the games we run. The feat does provide the bonus of having the effect occur on an attack but then again, let's say a player choose this feat. Does this mean nobody else can ever attempt to strike a blow and Intimidate a target? I'd hope not but I could see how some folks might argue otherwise.

We basically have something like: ''Player: I want to terrify the orc into submission! Could Blaarg the Barbarian shout and strike the orc with such force to make it so?'' ''DM: Sure, it'll be at disadvantage, and you'll need to make a successful Intimidation check. But hey, let's say you do hit - and it's a decent chunk of damage - then sure!'' - which is a more fast and loose style of play, reliant on DM and player cooperation, compared to: ''Blaarg strikes the orc and uses his Menacing ability to try and Demoralize it!'' - which is arguably a more consistent/cleaner style of play, the result of codification.

Both have their merits. Though, to be clear, while I do prefer the first style, I can accept the advantages and appeal of the second for some tables.

You are right, I was only thinking how I do it, both styles are valid, the problem is the rule is not good for both styles.

The problem I have with Menacing is that it's another magic trick. Let's say as a DM you've set up an encounter that's supposed to be a "we can't win this fight". It's an epic battle that you aren't ready for. So CR 20 something Darth Bader bad guy against level 10 party.

The bard (with high charisma, proficiency, expertise and maybe a magic item) tries to intimidate this guy. Suddenly your BBEG who isn't afraid of anything on heaven or earth is shaking in his boots because the Bard is a +20 to intimidate. The Bader character has a +5 (he is Darth Bader after all), but he's still probably going to fail.

This makes no sense. It takes away the agency of the DM to tell a story and reduces intimidation to an "I win" button - or at least a "I get a huge advantage" button.

Reminds me of the 4E warlock that cranked up his intimidate skill and thought he could scare away any NPC - dragon, demon, so on with a simple die roll because his power read that way. IMHO it really harms the sense of immersion in story telling.

Exactly, it gets very difficult to fail at something, with 2 feats a player could end with up to 32 or more passive perception, 1 autoshove each combat, esuper high persuasion, etc.
I understand the point of view that the player has invested resources, but the nearly autosuccess chance can ruin the game to the other players and if you upgrade the difficulties then you are damaging all the players.

 

[bganon]

The problem I have with Menacing is that it's another magic trick. Let's say as a DM you've set up an encounter that's supposed to be a "we can't win this fight". It's an epic battle that you aren't ready for. So CR 20 something Darth Bader bad guy against level 10 party.

The bard (with high charisma, proficiency, expertise and maybe a magic item) tries to intimidate this guy. Suddenly your BBEG who isn't afraid of anything on heaven or earth is shaking in his boots because the Bard is a +20 to intimidate. The Bader character has a +5 (he is Darth Bader after all), but he's still probably going to fail.

The whole setup is a DM fail, not a game mechanic fail. If it's really a "can't win" fight, then why is anybody even rolling dice? If you're insisting on railroading your players, just suck it up and railroad your players.

Besides, let's say the Bard does cause Darth Bader to be Frightened. So what? If it's really such a stacked fight then disadvantage on attack rolls and not being able to move closer to the Bard don't sound like a big deal. Darth Bader can still cast Meteor Swarm with no penalty whatsoever. Darth Bader's storm troopers can still focus fire on the Bard. Etc, etc.

 

[Oofta]

The whole setup is a DM fail, not a game mechanic fail. If it's really a "can't win" fight, then why is anybody even rolling dice? If you insisting on railroading your players, just suck it up and railroad your players.

Besides, let's say the Bard does cause Darth Bader to be Frightened. So what? If it's really such a stacked fight then disadvantage on attack rolls and not being able to move closer to the Bard don't sound like a big deal. Darth Bader can still cast Meteor Swarm with no penalty whatsoever.

Unless Darth Bader is a melee character of course. Then he's SOL. All he can do is cower in the corner because someone he's never even heard of said bad things to him.

As far as why a DM would set up this type of encounter? Seriously? You've never seen a movie, read a book, heard about the trope of the heroes not being able to face down a foe? At least not until later in the story when they've gained strength and experience and finally confront their nemesis.

How many times did Luke and company run from Vader or get their asses handed to them?

If the team can find some clever way of getting the upper hand, if they surprise me with tactics I didn't anticipate, if they do more than just build a broken combo that guarantees auto success then I'm OK with it.

But just saying "I have X, Y and Z so I can always, every time intimidate whatever BBEG you throw at me?" How is that fun? How does the DM challenge someone who can intimidate every NPC they ever encounter?

Saying that something like this always works breaks the game IMHO.

 

[Leatherhead]

Not to say the feat is perfect as, but I didn't want my BBEG to be afraid of anything, I would make them immune to the fear condition.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wasting an attack to intimidate only one humanoid?

By the book, any intimidation in combat requires "wasting" an Action. This lets anyone with Extra Attack only "waste" part of their Action, instead of the whole thing.

Also, spending an Action to frighten an enemy isn't a waste of that action, unless you can take hem to 0hp in 1Action, and even then, not always.