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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[Hussar]

No. I even quoted the rules above. You can ask for an athletics check as part of movement to do a stunt (jumping to land on the dragon's neck wasn't guaranteed). If you have multiple attacks, one of those attacks can be a grapple.

So stunt while moving required a check, grapple required a check as part of the attack, character has two attacks so I let her swing her axe as her second attack.

I did mention that in my first post.

But, the point is, you followed the rules pretty much to the letter. How would having a feat have changed any of this? In what way would any of the existing skill feats have impacted this scene? AFAIK, none of them apply, so, again, where's the problem?

 

[Hussar]

The feats state "this is specifically what you can do with this skill if you have this feat". They are not just examples. If they were just examples, I wouldn't have a problem with them. Acrobatics specifies a DC. Diplomat, Performance, Menacing tell you what the skill contest is and give a specific result.

These feats also imply that if you don't have that feat that you cannot do what you want. That you can't distract someone with a performance check unless you have the performer feat. That you can't dextrously get around the difficult terrain unless you have the acrobatics feat.

That gets people thinking more about the rules and restrictions than "what would my character do".

But, the thing is, and this was brought up earlier, these style of feats already exist. These style of mechanics already exist. And they aren't causing the problems you are talking about. Nobody claims that only Battlemasters and Open Hand Monks can trip. Nobody argues that only someone with the Charger feat can charge.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have a confession. I was a 4E fanboy for quite a while. I was right in there arguing that the system worked just fine, and that it didn't limit role playing. That the people who had flocked to PathFinder were just resistant to change. I did everything I could think of to breath life into the game. Sometimes it even worked. I'll spare you the "This one time at band camp" story.

But the longer I played, the more I found that the people that stuck with the game were people that were less into RP and creativity and more into tactical combat. That in our home campaign we would sit around the game table over lunch and have discussions about "What happened? Why are we less creative and into RP?"

The conclusion we came to is what I've been arguing. That the more you have "powers" (and several of these feats feel like powers to me) the more people focus on tactics and rules. Maybe that conclusion is incorrect, it would be an interesting game theory study.

BTW, I'm not upset. If I were upset I'd be using the emoji, not the emoji.

If something I said implied that you are upset, I apologize, if such an implication is controversial or insulting. If you mean "calm down", I thought my "lol" would have indicated a jovial mood, but perhaps not. What I was saying there was, "stop jumping to the conclusion of argument in bad faith, you just hadn't posted that post yet, when I was writing mine".

Anyway, what I am saying, again, is not that your experiences aren't real, or anything like that, or that no one else had them. What I'm saying is simply that the problem is not an inherent result of codification. Where it is the fault of the rules, and in 4e it sometimes is, it is that the rules don't do anything to make clear that the powers and skills and whatever are just starting points, that should be used as a foundation, not as a ceiling or walls.

What confuses me is, when folks don't have this problem with magic users and their spells. Like my example question, "Do you make arcanists blind to magical effects without the Detect Magic spell?"

Because I know DMs who in 5e, don't let someone use skills or anything to see magical effects at all, because there is a spell for that. Now me, depending on what they want to do that is either just an Arcana check, or what amounts to a skill challenge. Because the abilities specified in the book are just the things you've memorized, not the totality of what you can do.

I guess what I don't get is how people see that just fine in 5e, but not in 4e. But I've also seen people of get it in games like The One Ring, which is less codified than 5e.

 

[Oofta]

Nobody argues that only someone with the Charger feat can charge.

If by "charge" you mean move, dash and still get a single attack, I disagree. Pretty much everyone I game with would disagree.

If by "charge" you mean move and take their attack action, sure.

 

[Oofta]

...Except for Performer. Of course. Because Performer is terrible.

At least we agree on something. I just think Diplomat and Menacing are just as terrible. Acrobat is simply annoying.

I simply disagree. Many of the feats are not giving examples. They give very specific powers.

Acrobat: Bonus action make DC 15 Acrobatics to ignore difficult terrain
Diplomat: Persuasion vs Insight on success target is Charmed
Performer: Performance vs Insight on success target has disadvantage on perception and investigate
Menacing: Instead of an attack make Intimidate vs Insight on success target is Frightened

Those are not "examples". They are specific results to specific actions. Charmed and Frightened in particular are conditions.

By implication you can only way to get around difficult terrain in combat is with Acrobat. The only way to get advantage on social checks is Diplomat, to distract someone by playing a song is Performer, to intimidate in combat is to have Menacing (and the result of that intimidation is always going to be Frightened).

Obviously as DM I can override any condition or rule. I can tell the bard that no matter how pretty their song is they are not going to distract the highly trained veteran guard. But I should not have to do so.

But I think arguing semantics is kind of pointless. Having a feat that says if you win an intimidation contest the target will be frightened has very real in-game mechanical consequence and one I'd rather not introduce into my campaign.

And ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

By implication you can only way to get around difficult terrain in combat is with Acrobat. The only way to get advantage on social checks is Diplomat, to distract someone by playing a song is Performer, to intimidate in combat is to have Menacing (and the result of that intimidation is always going to be Frightened).

I don't think any of that is remotely true. Each of these makes doing a thing easier, or more powerful, or both. Just like the Battlemaster's maneuvers.

Edited because I was being a jerk.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think any of that is remotely true. Each of these makes doing a thing easier, or more powerful, or both. Just like the Battlemaster's maneuvers.

Edited because I was being a jerk.

I think we just need to agree to disagree. If someone said "I acrobatically jump through the thorns to avoid the difficult terrain" I guarantee someone else in my group would say "you can only do that if you have a feat".

Same goes for several of the other feats in the list.

I don't think we've added anything new here for a while. I think that when people say "these are just suggestions" they are making house rules, and overriding what the feat clearly says. Some people think that if there's a feat that says "if you do X then Y" doesn't mean people won't try to do "X" without a feat. I can tell you from my personal experience, that's exactly what I've seen happening.

And yes, I was accidentally following the rules in my example of the barbarian jumping on the back of a dragon. I probably need to read through the DMG again some day. Eventually. When I have time.

Good gaming!

 

[cmad1977]

UA: Skill Feats

Yeah....
Me no like much.
Ultimately I see extra rules that are completely unnecessary and don't add anything valuable.
And then Menacing... nope.
'I intimidate the Mighty Giant King in his throne room surrounded by all his retainers.... 20!'
'No dude, King MokMok isn't scared of you. He's in a position of strength, surrounded by allies and real angry at you guys'
'But I have menacing! He has to be scared!'
'Find another table'


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Gradine]

By implication you can only way to get around difficult terrain in combat is with Acrobat. The only way to get advantage on social checks is Diplomat, to distract someone by playing a song is Performer, to intimidate in combat is to have Menacing (and the result of that intimidation is always going to be Frightened).

I don't really follow that flow of logic. I've never seen a feat that said, either explicitly or implicitly "and by the way this is now the only way to accomplish this". I'm not even sure I'd buy that argument about a 4e feat, to say nothing of 5e. Even if I did, what you're claiming is implicit is only so if you look at these feats from outdated action resolution frameworks. 5e works differently from that.

Obviously as DM I can override any condition or rule. I can tell the bard that no matter how pretty their song is they are not going to distract the highly trained veteran guard. But I should not have to do so.

This is the heart of 5e. DM empowerment. Rulings over rules. If you feel you have a responsibility as a DM to maintain verisimilitude and internal consistency in your world, you are empowered to do so, to the explicit extent that you can declare that a PC's proposed action has no chance of success. This is made as clear to the players as it is to the DM. Presumably your players also care about verisimilitude and internal consistency; if not they might not be at the right table.

But I think arguing semantics is kind of pointless. Having a feat that says if you win an intimidation contest the target will be frightened has very real in-game mechanical consequence and one I'd rather not introduce into my campaign.

And ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Now this I can absolutely respect. I'd been giving this some thought and I think one of the biggest problems is the use of conditions. Because conditions are such a hard-coded and clearly-defined part of the game system, I don't think they should interact in the more nebulous world of ability checks. Certainly not to the extent that these feats suggest. I'd like the option to decide if your action, your target and the context of the scene in question warrant a specific condition like charmed or frightened. There are obvious situations where they don't seem to be warranted; I'd like the riders to be a bit more nebulous and "DM determines results of the ability check"-esque. I don't blame them doing so; it's an easy resolution and I still don't really see how either effect would be game-breaking in any game run by a DM with half a pulse. It's just that I don't think conditions and ability checks mesh well together. So yeah, I've come around to the idea that the conditions ought to be removed from Diplomat and Menacing.

They're still not anywhere near as terrible as Performer though

 

[Ashkelon]

I think we just need to agree to disagree. If someone said "I acrobatically jump through the thorns to avoid the difficult terrain" I guarantee someone else in my group would say "you can only do that if you have a feat".

Same goes for several of the other feats in the list.

I don't think we've added anything new here for a while. I think that when people say "these are just suggestions" they are making house rules, and overriding what the feat clearly says. Some people think that if there's a feat that says "if you do X then Y" doesn't mean people won't try to do "X" without a feat. I can tell you from my personal experience, that's exactly what I've seen happening.

And yes, I was accidentally following the rules in my example of the barbarian jumping on the back of a dragon. I probably need to read through the DMG again some day. Eventually. When I have time.

Good gaming!

This is kind of why I wish certain parts of the game were more codified.

If the rules were explicit that anyone can make an acrobatics check to tumble to avoid difficult terrain, or use their action to try and frighten an opponent, and so on, then these feats could simply make such things more likely or more efficient.

The skill rules give very little guidance to what can and what cannot be accomplished by them, which means that at many tables even attempting to use intimidation to frighten an enemy or acrobatics to avoid difficult terrain might not ever be worthwhile (if the DM is a harsh abjudicstor) or might not even be possible at all.

If the many of the tricks and stunts one could accomplish with skill use were laid out for players and GMs alike, and the skill feats only served to enhance these options instead of providing brand new capabilities, then their codification wouldn't get in the way of improvisation.