D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Swarmkeeper]

Due to special beats general, the p185 text is blank anywhere it would act to forestall what is expressly provided for in each skill.

I mean we can keep riding this carousel if you really want.

The outcomes of ability skill checks do not prescribe how one thinks, acts, or speaks. Just like the DM will determine how the NPC thinks, acts, or speaks in response to a successful social check by a PC, the player will determine how the PC thinks, acts, or speaks in response to a successful social check by an NPC. And, in the latter case, since there the player decides, there is no uncertainty. No roll is called by the DM.

 

[HammerMan]

Those rules do not say or even imply “the player decides how their character thinks, acts, and speaks within the bounds of ability check rolls.”

it also doesn't say “the player decides how their character thinks, acts, and speaks unless a spell stops them and only a spell because nothing else will work against a PC”

Suppose you had a player that had a PC with a flaw that said they were afraid of orcs for… reasons. Do you force a check in an encounter with an orc to determine what they think? If so, what if the orc rolls a 3? Is the player not able to have their PC act frightened per their flaw?

strawman noboday has argued against auto success auto failure... no one

 

[HammerMan]

I mean we can keep riding this carousel if you really want.

The outcomes of ability skill checks do not prescribe how one thinks, acts, or speaks. Just like the DM will determine how the NPC thinks, acts, or speaks in response to a successful social check by a PC, the player will determine how the PC thinks, acts, or speaks in response to a successful social check by an NPC. And, in the latter case, since there the player decides, there is no uncertainty. No roll is called by the DM.

if that is the case, then no PC can use intimidate either, because by the rules the DM decides what NPCs do...

 

[Maxperson]

Each of the skills explicitly includes provision for a check, i.e. a provision for there being uncertainty in the outcome of that which they are applicable to. They do not distinguish between PCs and NPCs on that score.

The skills do provide circumstances for the types of checks that can be certain or uncertain, but do not provide a method for determining certainty. And while they do not exclude PCs, neither do they include them and a lack of exclusion does not equal inclusion.

The only game rule that possibly forces them to distinguish is PHB 185. A general rule that they excuse themselves from as specifics. We can tell that this is true because if PHB 185 were blank text, then nothing in the remaining RAW would prevents an NPC making an ability check to intimidate a PC.

Or allow it. Nothing specifically allows it, either. With no specific exception or contradiction to the rule on page 185, it's up to the player to decide.

Seeing as they are specific game elements that beat the general of PHB 185, PHB 185 is blank text in their regard.

This is a misapplication of Specific Beats general. Specific Beats general requires there specific exception or contradiction to a specific rule. You need to be able to point to a rule such as, "Dragons cannot eat coal." and then to a specific exception, "The Dragonwarder class ability Eat Coal allows dragons who have it to eat coal." That's the sort of specifics required to defeat a general rule.

You being able to point a rule in the game and say, "Well, nothing prevents me from applying this, so it specifically allows me to apply it." is not a correct application.

 

[Bill Zebub]

There may be an issue herein, however, involving the difference between the De Jure and De Facto use of skills in D&D 5e. While some may believe that the former is what matters when discussing the game per the rules, I would argue that the latter in some respects reflects a more accurate sense of the game per common practice.

For example, I noted earlier that Dungeon World (and PbtA) don't really have "action skills" either. Nevertheless, players may attempt to trigger or name their Moves in the fiction as if they were. So while Dungeon World does not have "action skills" de jure, moves can cultivate a quasi-"action skill" status through gameplay.

In the case of 5e D&D, as skills are one of the most player-facing means of mechanically affecting the fiction outside (or sometimes within) of combat, would it really be surprising for them to take on an action-like quality in common practice of play?

No, it absolutely makes sense in a common parlance way. Just like I keep using "moot" in the common, but tecnically incorrect, way.

But, if we are trying to have a conversation about technical correctness, then we need to be technically correct, yes? So what I'm interested in is not whether everybody understands what is meant (however technically incorrect) by, "I'll make an Investigation check", but rather that if by accepting that language we are somehow turning "Investigation checks" into a mechanic with the same specificity of, say, the Hide action or the Shove action.

The argument in question is that a skill is specific enough to override the general case. But, really, the way a skill is used it's just an add-on to an attribute. Right? You don't make a skill roll, you make an attribute roll, and sometimes you add proficiency bonus if you have a skill. So, if the theory that skills are specific exceptions to the general rule is to be true, it means one of two things:

1. Attribute roll are also meet the definition of specific, which basically means everything meets the definition of specific. Which means the general rule is always overridden, and isn't actually a general rule.

2. Attribute rolls without a skill proficiency aren't specific, but if you get the skill bonus somehow it suddenly becomes specific enough. ???

I don't really think either of those arguments make sense.

 

[Maxperson]

okay except, that IS my house rule it was inquired about multi times (I have failed, failed misrable, almost but not enough) it doesn't invalidate the rules, it is just why I can't help you form your own DCs,

I came into say originally that YES you can have PC vs PC or even NPC vs PC social skill rolls, all be they most likely rare.

Fair enough.

I am sure that something he argued at some point swayed someone... I am pretty sure nothing he has or will say in this thread is changing anyone's mind... and anyone who was interested but not invest left 40 page ago.

You are probably correct. I say probably, because 1) I hate to use absolutes as absolutes are almost always wrong, and 2) because I've seen people arrive late to threads and enter the discussion, and one of them might be swayed.

no, by raw:
If I cast suggestion and say "I suggest (is that part of the casting?) you go home and revaluate your life" you get a save, if you fail it you go home and think about it... that is it you get no choice.

There's still a lot of interpretation involved with that. My PC fails the save. Does he consider the inn to be his temporary home and go there? Does he view himself as a homeless wanderer and have no home to go to? Does he view the room his parents still keep for him three countries away as home and walk towards it for 8 hours? Is home wherever you make it and he just sits there and contemplates? There are lots of ways an adventurer can play that.

IF instead I use persuasion "I suggest you go home and revaluate your life" you get to interpret and react as you will... maybe you go home, maybe you just take a moment to reconsider there, maybe you go to a brothels' or bar because you think better there.

If you've persuaded me to do something and I have to do it, then I would have to go home(with the same possibilities above). Only this time it would work without a max duration of 8 hours, and it would work on me if I were immune to charm, and it could be used at will to persuade the next 15 people you meet to do the same thing. That's more powerful than Suggestion.

If you've persuaded me to do something and I don't have to do it, then you haven't actually persuaded me to do something and there was no point to the roll at all. The player is deciding and there's no uncertainty.

 

[Bill Zebub]

all you are doing is being insulting and smug at this point... what goal could you possibly have that has you state for sure that you have found the one true reading of the rule book and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and falls into house rules?

When debating with @iserith you just need to imagine you are debating with Dr. Spock. The cold, clinical language is not meant to be dismissive, it's just what they do. Don't take it personally.

 

[iserith]

it is an attempt to, Me (and others) arguing with you keeps it going.

First, there is more discussion in this thread than people responding to my assertions. The thread goes where it goes. It's not just me and it's not just you (or people you think agree with you).

Second, anyone is free to stop responding at any time. It's not a game to be won or lost by post count. There are no winners here. We all play D&D so we're all by default losers.

 

[clearstream]

The skills do provide circumstances for the types of checks that can be certain or uncertain, but do not provide a method for determining certainty. And while they do not exclude PCs, neither do they include them and a lack of exclusion does not equal inclusion.

Or allow it. Nothing specifically allows it, either. With no specific exception or contradiction to the rule on page 185, it's up to the player to decide.

On this, up thread we discussed the way 5th ed rules are written as addressed to the player. My position is that when you consider RAW holistically, nothing can be read into that - it's just a stylistic choice. That is because there are basic rules that it makes no sense for NPCs and monsters not to be able to rely on (IIRC interacting with objects is an example.)

This is a misapplication of Specific Beats general. Specific Beats general requires there specific exception or contradiction to a specific rule. You need to be able to point to a rule such as, "Dragons cannot eat coal." and then to a specific exception, "The Dragonwarder class ability Eat Coal allows dragons who have it to eat coal." That's the sort of specifics required to defeat a general rule.

You being able to point a rule in the game and say, "Well, nothing prevents me from applying this, so it specifically allows me to apply it." is not a correct application.

Yes. In Persuasion it says the DM can call for a check. Only through appeal to PHB 185 is that narrowed to PC against NPC. Thus there is a direct conflict, which must be resolved in favour of the specific.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You’ve lost me. I don’t understand how what I said denies skills status as game elements that can form specifics that beat generals. They simply do not conflict with the general case here. Their function is to allow a creature to add its proficiency bonus to a subset of ability checks. That is a game mechanical function, and it does not contradict the general case of the DM determining based on fictional positioning and guidance in the rules whether an action can succeed or fail and has stakes, and calling for an ability check (which may or may not have proficiency bonus added to it, if the use case coincides with that of one of the skills the creature taking the action is proficient in) if all three are true.

I also can’t parse your hypothetical at all. You’re framing it in terms so abstract and generalized as to be meaningless to me.

I was kinda lost, too. Ask @HammerMan. They 'liked' the post, so they must understand it.