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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[Gradine]

All I can say is that I can see some people getting upset if they invested in a feat and it doesn't work as written.

I get it. A feat is a big investment. I just want flexibility of how to adjudicate the action and the intent. Some people will be OK with the target having a different response than what is written, others will get pissed.

Some of these feats feel like 4E powers. I found that while 4E had good points, most people I played with (that had played other versions as well) felt that by having hard coded things like this that it sucked the spontaneity out of the game.

It's a subtle thing, and not something I expected when I started playing 4E. I just don't want to go down the same road with 5E.

It's not that it's not working as designed; it's that it's not working in a way against a specific opponent, wherein if it was allowed to work would upset others players' sense of verisimilitude. The dude can terrorize goblins and force random thugs to back down all the live long day. I'd start applying circumstance bonuses (that is, advantage and disadvantage) against humanoid foes that are trained to overcome their fear of others (professional soldiers and the like). But against that one big scary dude who knows you're way beneath him? The guy with the authority and confidence to be a legitimate campaign Big Bad? No way it's going to work so why would I bother rolling in the first place? This is not breaking anything, not taking a guy's feat away, and any internal consistency in your world remains absolutely intact.

If somebody actually gets upset because they think they're playing 4e, it's incumbent on the DM to remind them that they are not actually playing 4e.

Now, I'm with you the way in which codifying abilities can sometimes limit creativity and spontaneity in player action, which is why I think this UA's Performer feat is absolutely rubbish (among others). Menacing gives a specific cost in the action economy to the move, which informs me that any player can attempt the same thing, but at a greater cost (a full action rather than a single attack, in this case, or maybe I'm a lot harsher in ascribing circumstance bonuses/penalties to those without the feat). So I can excuse that.

But I also think that, as long as I'm clear enough to my players that just because you don't have the feat doesn't mean you can't ever attempt to perform these actions, but there will be a greater cost or degree of difficulty to them, the existence of these feats will actually increase the range of spontaneity and creativity in my players. YMMV, but my players would definitely read this and think "I don't even realize I could try to do something like this with [insert skill here]". Then they'd try to think of other interesting actions that could utilize their skill proficiencies. It could border on silly at times but ultimately I see this is a pretty big boon for my table.

 

[Gradine]

Were you of the assumption that any amount of language, worded in any way, could mitigate tortured conversations in this place?

You, sir, deserve an XP in the form of a laugh for that one!

I dare to dream.

 

[Corwin]

There are uses of skills that can give the target a condition such as grappled or prone. But those feel different from "frightened" and "charmed".

You can house rule that the successful skill check has a different effect other than the condition all you want, but then you are ignoring the clear wording of the feat.

Would you say that someone that won an athletics check to knock someone prone suddenly can't do it because it doesn't make sense for the story? Or that instead of being knocked prone they get pushed back 5 feet? Or that it has no effect?

You completely missed my point. You keep moving past DM adjudication and straight to skill check resolution, then complaining that the DM adjudication isn't working as intended (which it would if you used 5e's system design as intended).

 

[Corwin]

5e as intended:
Player: "My character, Charismo the Oratious, leers at the hobgoblin king and levels an eloquent threat hoping to get him to back down."
DM: <determines that the outcome is uncertain> "Make an intimidate check. If you succeed he will consider you dangerous and will probably back down. But if you fail, you may enrage him."

5e, using the playstyle in question:
Player: "I rolled a 37 on Intimidate! My character, Charismo the Oratious, leers at the hobgoblin king and levels an eloquent threat making him back down."
DM: "I guess he is intimidated and backs down."

They are subtle, but different. Using the second playstyle has unintended consequences and gets you were you are now.

 

[Oofta]

You completely missed my point. You keep moving past DM adjudication and straight to skill check resolution, then complaining that the DM adjudication isn't working as intended (which it would if you used 5e's system design as intended).

All I can say is that I can guarantee that some players I've DMed for would be upset if the feat does not work as written.

That may not be your experience, I don't know your players. In my experience (I've judged many, many, tables in AL type games over the years) I would say that 10-20% of players would be upset if I told them their target of a successful check was not frightened.

Heck, I would disagree with a DM that told me that the attack action I just used to knock someone prone had no effect simply because the DM decided it shouldn't be possible. Many people would not see this feat any differently.

 

[Gradine]

5e as intended:
Player: "My character, Charismo the Oratious, leers at the hobgoblin king and levels an eloquent threat hoping to get him to back down."
DM: <determines that the outcome is uncertain> "Make an intimidate check. If you succeed he will consider you dangerous and will probably back down. But if you fail, you may enrage him."

To take it even further, the DM actually says "Make a Charisma [Intimidate] check", since there aren't even technically such a thing as "skill checks" anymore.

And to take it even further than that, if you're using the variant ability score rule (which I love), it's possible to roll something other than Charisma, depending on exactly how the character is attempting to be intimidating. Strength [Intimidate] is one of the ur-examples of that type of ruling.

 

[Prakriti]

5e as intended:
Player: "My character, Charismo the Oratious, leers at the hobgoblin king and levels an eloquent threat hoping to get him to back down."
DM: <determines that the outcome is uncertain> "Make an intimidate check. If you succeed he will consider you dangerous and will probably back down. But if you fail, you may enrage him."

5e, using the playstyle in question:
Player: "I rolled a 37 on Intimidate! My character, Charismo the Oratious, leers at the hobgoblin king and levels an eloquent threat making him back down."
DM: "I guess he is intimidated and backs down."

They are subtle, but different. Using the second playstyle has unintended consequences and gets you were you are now.

You forgot the most important scenario:
DM: <determines that the outcome is already certain> "Don't bother rolling, it's not going to happen. You have no chance of intimidating the hobgoblin king (even though your Intimidation modifier is +20, and mechanically, you absolutely WOULD intimidate him if I let you roll)."

Many players would feel cheated in that scenario, as I'm sure you know.

 

[Lanliss]

All I can say is that I can guarantee that some players I've DMed for would be upset if the feat does not work as written.

That may not be your experience, I don't know your players. In my experience (I've judged many, many, tables in AL type games over the years) I would say that 10-20% of players would be upset if I told them their target of a successful check was not frightened.

Heck, I would disagree with a DM that told me that the attack action I just used to knock someone prone had no effect simply because the DM decided it shouldn't be possible. Many people would not see this feat any differently.

[MENTION=1560]Corwin[/MENTION] is pointing out that there shouldn't be a check. You are assuming the player has made a check, which is only supposed to happen if the DM says "OK make an intimidation check". If the DM says there is no check, how can the player get mad about a "Successful check" if there was never one in the first place to be successful or unsuccessful? If they get mad about something completely reasonable, like some random Adventurer being unable to strike Terror into the heart of the Right Hand of Terror, then you have bigger problems than a poorly written ability.

The way you are describing these players, they follow Corwin's second scenario above. Player declares they are rolling a check, rolls, and asks for the result.

The way it is meant to be played, by raw, is that the Player declares an action (I want to try and intimidate him), and the dm decides if that is even possible. Otherwise, why wouldn't the player just say "I pick up the mountain and THROW it. *rolls Nat 20*". If the action is impossible, like intimidating the BBEG who knows he can tear you in half, and is literally afraid of nothing in the world, then the DM is supposed to say so, not allow a check anyway.

 

[Gradine]

All I can say is that I can guarantee that some players I've DMed for would be upset if the feat does not work as written.

That may not be your experience, I don't know your players. In my experience (I've judged many, many, tables in AL type games over the years) I would say that 10-20% of players would be upset if I told them their target of a successful check was not frightened.

Heck, I would disagree with a DM that told me that the attack action I just used to knock someone prone had no effect simply because the DM decided it shouldn't be possible. Many people would not see this feat any differently.

The problem is you are treating this type of ruling as an arbitrary and capricious DM simply deciding to penalize a player for no reason, instead of a specific and self-evident ruling that makes perfect sense given the specific narrative context of a specific given ruling. Such as the examples you are using.

In such circumstances, what is arbitrary and capricious is letting the player attempt the action thinking they have a chance to succeed, and then declaring their action void and wasted. "No, McTerrorpants, the ultra-powerful Wardlord Darkblade Evilplans, who has spent the last minute speaking to you as if you were vermin barely worth his notice, is not going to be frightened by you. Do you want to try something else?" They might decide it's what their character would do anyway, but at least then the player doesn't feel like they're being punished for no reason.

If the player is still upset then it becomes apparent that they what they wish is to be playing a board game with consistent rules and not a roleplaying game with consistent narrative integrity. Or at the very least, that they don't understand the difference between the two. That's not be derogatory; both styles of game are worthwhile endeavors, but 5e, especially with its "rulings over rules" mantra, is clearly in the latter category, and nobody who understands that could reasonably be upset by such a ruling.

 

[Lanliss]

You forgot the most important scenario:
DM: <determines that the outcome is already certain> "Don't bother rolling, it's not going to happen. You have no chance of intimidating the hobgoblin king (even though your Intimidation modifier is +20, and mechanically, you absolutely WOULD intimidate him if I let you roll)."

Many players would feel cheated in that scenario, as I'm sure you know.

If I was told that I wouldn't be able to intimidate someone, for completely reasonable reasons (Me being a 3rd level bard or something like that, and this being a 10th level bada**) I wouldn't be bothered one bit. Guess I am just special, if this sort of behavior is outlandish, but it seems like basic common sense to me.