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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7599106" data-attributes="member: 996">Well, sure, something like walking across a room, or ordering a drink at a bar, or getting out of bed in the morning.  Resolving a social interaction with meaningful consequences to success/failure, OTOH, maybe not what it was talking about.No additional requirement, no.  Though I do know what you're getting at, it's an old stereotype, really: 'That Guy' who would, back in the day, tell you "you can't do that, your character isn't smart enough!"That was before there was any kind of skill system to help model what your character might know how to do.  5e has a skill system, so you can define your character as being quite good (18 CHA bard, w/Expertise) or pretty bad (8 CHA Barbarian w/o Proficiency) with a selection of social skills.  Whether those skills ever see use is prettymuch a matter of the DM's play style.  Many a DM has long experience with skill-deficient versions of the game, and is in the habit of resolving most social challenges by simply talking it through in character.  In such an instance, there's no point investing in such skills: they're entries on your character sheet, but they don't actually do anything. If you're a Bard CHA is just something you use to cast, it might as well be MOJO or POW or something, since it has nothing to do with how persuasive you are, that's you talking in character to the DM.  Of course, in 5e, that DM is ignoring the rules, because he /never/ calls for social checks, no matter how uncertain or significant an action might be, it's resolved in his preferred way.  You can't blame his players for adapting to that.But, if a DM is scrupulously following the advice/guidelines of 5e, and calls for checks only when he sees both a chance of failure, and a consequence for same, then a player who feels confident he can avoid making checks when declaring certain sorts of actions is only acting rationally when he chooses to devote character-build resources to other checks he expects to make more, or even any, of. And, if he's mistaken about his ability to avoid checks, well, too bad, he'll kinda suck at those things.It's all perfectly reasonable, really.  I guess the question (assertion) isn't whether a player should be unable to declare certain actions because his character is poorly suited to doing them, but whether the action should be judged based solely on the declaration, or take the character ability into account (in deciding whether he rolls and/or by simply calling for a roll).  In another thread we have questions about why an NPC who is only a little better at some day-to-day skill than a PC might still be an 'expert', and doesn't he need a bigger bonus?  The answer, that he just doesn't need to make checks /because he's an expert/ doing something routine that he's good at, isn't exactly uncontroversial, but it is related to this objection, too.</blockquote>

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