D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Charlaquin]

this is a discussing board not a debate club, if you want to talk about how we play game great... I am not learning rules to debate you on my intperetations.

Epistemology is not rules of debate, it’s the basic underpinning of logic. I can have a reasoned discussion with someone who isn’t familiar with the rules of debate (heck, I’m not terribly familiar with the rules of debate). I can’t have a reasoned discussion with someone who doesn’t accept the fundamental principles of logic.

 

[HammerMan]

If you say (rightly) that the result of the orc's ability check to intimidate the PC cannot "force" the player to portray the character in any particular way, then what we have is the roll being used as a shorthand for describing the situation before the character.

becuse the outcome is in quastion, the quastion being how is this orc's cha and skill togather working into being intimadating...

It serves no other purpose.

what does it force the orc to do if the PC rolls intimadate?

Which is not what ability checks are designed to do per the rules. Fine to use them that way if that's what you're into instead of or in addition to descriptive words, but you can't correctly say that the rules support this approach.

sure I can, I just did

There is no DC. There is no way for the orc to fail.

so you don't think the roll of 2+2 was a failur to be intimadating?

There is no uncertainty to the roll. It is all completely superfluous.

sure there is uncertainty, just like there is with an Arcana check (I the DM have the answer but does the NPC?) or an athletics check

And it's not even a very good tool for how it's being used in my view.

I am so glad you dislike the tool... that means so much, and it's a good thing you said that cause I might have mistaken this whole argument for you liking it...

So, okay, the orc rolled a 24. What does that mean to the player? There's no DC to suggest it's beaten by the DC by a certain amount (which doesn't matter in D&D 5e either unless using degrees of failure or critical success/failure rules). It's a meaningless number.

it is exactly as useless as a PC rolling a 24.

 

[Maxperson]

The idea is that the rules on ability checks to resolve an attempt to influence a PC can be read as a specific rule creating an exception to the general roleplay rule similar to how spells can.

The social interaction influencing rules that are not explicitly for NPCs only would then apply to a PC similar to how casting a spell on a PC will work on them. These are pretty vague and narrative.

That's not how specific beats general works, though. A failure to say it is specifically for NPCs is NOT the same as creating a specific exception to the general rule and allowing it to work on PCs.

page 7 of the PHB

"That said, many racial traits, class features, spells, magic items, monster abilities, and other game elements break the general rules in some way, creating an exception to how the rest of the game works. Remember this: If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins."

There is no exception being made by a specific contradiction.

 

[HammerMan]

Epistemology is not rules of debate, it’s the basic underpinning of logic. I can have a reasoned discussion with someone who isn’t familiar with the rules of debate (heck, I’m not terribly familiar with the rules of debate). I can’t have a reasoned discussion with someone who doesn’t accept the fundamental principles of logic.

i do not think the rules were written to be interpreted by some scientific or legalise reading... they were ment for common reading so common sense not logic.

 

[HammerMan]

That's not how specific beats general works, though. A failure to say it is specifically for NPCs is NOT the same as creating a specific exception to the general rule and allowing it to work on PCs.

page 7 of the PHB

"That said, many racial traits, class features, spells, magic items, monster abilities, and other game elements break the general rules in some way, creating an exception to how the rest of the game works. Remember this: If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins."

There is no exception being made by a specific contradiction.

and everyone argueing with you sees an exception, so except it or not, but please stop trying to be right... we all get to read it as we like

 

[billd91]

If you say (rightly) that the result of the orc's ability check to intimidate the PC cannot "force" the player to portray the character in any particular way, then what we have is the roll being used as a shorthand for describing the situation before the character. It serves no other purpose. Which is not what ability checks are designed to do per the rules. Fine to use them that way if that's what you're into instead of or in addition to descriptive words, but you can't correctly say that the rules support this approach. There is no DC. There is no way for the orc to fail. There is no uncertainty to the roll. It is all completely superfluous.

And it's not even a very good tool for how it's being used in my view. So, okay, the orc rolled a 24. What does that mean to the player? There's no DC to suggest it's beaten by the DC by a certain amount (which doesn't matter in D&D 5e either unless using degrees of failure or critical success/failure rules). It's a meaningless number.

Unless you look at it as the CHA(intimidation) roll is used to resolve a task being performed by the NPC where the outcome, determined by the player running the PC the CHA(intimidation check) is directed toward, is unknown by the DM. Then, the 24 has all the meaning the player of the PC chooses to give it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yet it is also said that you can have NPCs build using PC rules. But that's not really even what I mean. They attack the same way, use actions the same way, they save the same way, and seem to use at least most of the skills in the same way. If it was the indented RAW (instead of just one way to do it) for them to use just handful of skills differently, whilst using the rest of them the same way, I would expect this to be stated. Note how the death saves section explicitly spells out that it tends to work differently for the NPCs.

I don’t even think NPCs are meant to use social skills differently than PCs do. My position is that ability checks are meant to be used, both by PCs and NPCs, when the outcome of the action the character takes is uncertain, and not used otherwise. Since I believe that the outcome of an NPC trying to socially influence a PC is not uncertain, so not calling for an ability check in that situation is using it the same way PCs do.

 

[Maxperson]

and everyone argueing with you sees an exception, so except it or not, but please stop trying to be right... we all get to read it as we like

People can look at an abstract painting and see a deer, too. That doesn't make one there. The rules require specificity. There is no specificity there by any definition of what specific means.

Play how you please, but stop trying to create a specific exception where there isn't one.

 

[HammerMan]

if you don't believe in 1 true way of playing? Why do you believe in 1 true way of reading the rule?

 

[Charlaquin]

i do not think the rules were written to be interpreted by some scientific or legalise reading... they were ment for common reading so common sense not logic.

Ok. So you are literally saying here that your interpretation of the rules is not based on logic. Why, then, would you object to me saying that your interpretation is less logically sound than mine, which is based on logic?