D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Maxperson]

Yes.

Step 1: find a source of uranium.
Step 2: invent calculus.

(spoiler: there are a LOT of steps)

Hmm. It could be shortened to.

Step 1: Yes.
Step 2: BOOM!
Step 3: Roll up a new character.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Hmm. It could be shortened to.

Step 1: Yes.
Step 2: BOOM!
Step 3: Roll up a new character.

Or die of radiation poisoning on step 32,718.

“You could roll up a new character and start over…?”

 

[Faolyn]

You should have bet me. I'd have gone with "Jump to the moon."

Like I said, formal rules. There are already formal rules on how high you can jump. What's your Strength score? Is it high enough so you can jump approximately 239,000 miles?

And I'm not as demanding as @Bill Zebub is. I wouldn't force you invent calculus. I'd start by having you sharpen your sword on the Smith god's whetstone until it was sharp enough it could cut reality itself, after wetting the stone with tears from the goddess of Infinity. Both of which you'd need to collect yourself. Of course, the blade would have to be made of the purest adamantine-diamond alloy or it would crumble long before it became sharp enough.

And then, of course, you'd need to get the Atom that lies at the very center of the Plane of Earth and guarded by deadly elementals. And only then could you attempt to split the Atom--which you would have to do with your sword, which has a reach of 5 feet so you will be at point-blank range and instantly die, obliterated in such a way that even a wish can't guarantee that you'd be brought back to life.

(Telling PCs they can't do something just because there's no rules for it isn't as much fun as saying yes.)

 

[Maxperson]

Or die of radiation poisoning on step 32,718.

“You could roll up a new character and start over…?”

Wouldn't that just start a Gamma World campaign?

 

[Maxperson]

Like I said, formal rules. There are already formal rules on how high you can jump. What's your Strength score? Is it high enough so you can jump approximately 239,000 miles?

The athletics skill explicitly has jump farther than normal as one of the examples, but doesn't specify how far. The DM is supposed to say yes, right?

Where is this advice in the DMG to always say yes no matter what?

 

[Faolyn]

The athletics skill explicitly has jump farther than normal as one of the examples, but doesn't specify how far. The DM is supposed to say yes, right?

Where is this advice in the DMG to always say yes no matter what?

...Did you not actually read what I wrote three times already? Specifically, that it's not about always saying yes. It's about making up mechanics for things that don't already have rules.

There are already rules about jumping. I don't need to make up mechanics for it.

 

[Mordhau]

I said if there's no formal rule. There's already formal rules about movement. You need either a flying speed or something that has a flying speed that you can ride on in order to fly. Merely having a skill like Athletics doesn't grant any sort of movement type.

But, as an example involving movement, to the best of my knowledge there are no rules in this edition about moving in the vacuum of space. I don't mean the Astral Plane; I mean literal space, the place with stars and planets and the like. So if the PCs somehow find themselves in outer space, the DM would have to make up rules for them to move around. The DM shouldn't just say "It's not in the books, so you're suck in L5 orbit forever until your air runs out. Too bad, roll up a new character."

This is covered by the rules. The players decide what they want to do, and the DM decides if an ability check is required and if so it is rolled.

It's a very open system.

How do you resolve a game of chess against a demon prince for the soul of your loved one? By default you use the game's resolution system. You make a relevant ability check. It might be more fun to come up with a new subsystem to resolve it, and god knows the game could use some kind of skill challenge/dramatic task type rules, but it does have an existing system to resolve this kind of thing.

 

[Maxperson]

...Did you not actually read what I wrote three times already? Specifically, that it's not about always saying yes. It's about making up mechanics for things that don't already have rules.

I already know the DM can make house rules if he wants to. You said that the intro section of the DMG says that the DM should find a way to make what the players try happen. Can you quote that please? The intro section in my DMG is 3 paragraphs long and says nothing like that.

There are already rules about jumping. I don't need to make up mechanics for it.

As I said, the athletics skill allows for unusually long jumps. How long? The rules..............do.................not...................say. So theoretically if I'm supposed to find a way to make it happen, the rule for jumping to the moon is already there, kinda sorta.

 

[Faolyn]

I already know the DM can make house rules if he wants to. You said that the intro section of the DMG says that the DM should find a way to make what the players try happen. Can you quote that please? The intro section in my DMG is 3 paragraphs long and says nothing like that.

Didn't read enough, because The Dungeon Master is a subheader under Introduction. The actual Introduction is quite a bit longer than three paragraphs.

Part 3: Master of Rules
The rules don't account for every possible situation that might arise during a typical D&D session. For example, a player might want his or her character to hurl a brazier full of hot coals into a monster's face. How you determine the outcome of this action is up to you. You might tell the player to make a Strength check, while mentally setting the Difficulty Class (DC) at 15. If the Strength check is successful, you then determine how a face full of hot coals affects the monster. You might decide that it deals 1d4 fire damage and imposes disadvantage on the monster's attack rolls until the end of its next turn. You roll the damage die (or let the player do it), and the game continues.

Note that while it says that how to determine the outcome of the action is up to you, it doesn't say "don't let them do it unless you want them to."

As I said, the athletics skill allows for unusually long jumps. How long? The rules..............do.................not...................say. So theoretically if I'm supposed to find a way to make it happen, the rule for jumping to the moon is already there.

The rules for Jumping tell you how far you can long or high jump. As you say, there's nothing that says what to do if you want to jump beyond that limit. However, since jump allows you to triple your distance, it's clear that any unusually long jump of that length would require magic. Additionally, each foot of movement you jump costs one foot of movement, so you would need to have a walking speed of whatever 238,900 miles converted to feet per round is in order to jump to the moon. And if you don't have that speed, then you would fall at the end of your turn.

So, first step is getting a walking speed of 238,900 miles is, then having jump cast on you. Let me know when you reach that speed, OK?

Then the next step would be to get your Strength up high enough so that (3 + your Strength mod) x3 equals 238,900 miles. The ability modifiers table peters out at a 30 (+10), so I'll leave it up to you to do the math to figure out what the modifier is. It's somewhere north of "pick up the tarrasque using your pinky finger" levels of Strength.

So yes, if you get your Strength modifier up high enough so that (modifier +3) x 3 = 238,900 miles, I will let you jump to the moon. Heck, if you have anything else in there that will increase the height of your high jump, lemme know! I'll fix the math.

Have any attempted gotchas that aren't actually covered by the rules?

 

[Bill Zebub]

@Faolyn and @Maxperson: the two of you are talking past each other. You are not arguing about the same thing.