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What is a Social challenge, anyways?
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8949574" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>My own 5e clone game has a handful of narrow, but fairly certain to come up occasionally, "social abilities". For example at level 4 the Sellsword class gets the "Tough Negotiator" ability to add an extra d8 to rolls to negotiate over payment for quests or other services rendered by the group, and can also give this to someone else if they Help them by participating in such a conversation. This can stack with advantage but not with the more common additional die sources like Guidance (or more properly you can roll the Guidance d4 and the Tough Negotiator d6 and take the higher roll of the two, it's a whole mechanic in my game...). Thematically the idea is that having a trained killer for hire in the room should make the other side more compliant, off their game, or confident in your group's abilities.</p><p></p><p>Basically I think social abilities should a) use extra die, or some other bonus, rather than advantage (because getting advantage on social interactions is usually achievable through roleplaying and/or the Help action, as well as many spells and abilities that charm), b) work under some fairly narrow circumstance, but one that will actually come up multiple times in most campaigns, and c) be used to emphasize something thematic about the character, give non-social-oriented characters occasional moments to shine in the social pillar, or ideally both.</p><p></p><p>And that's about all I want out of "social abilities", some additional highlight time for someone other than the face character, and incentive for characters to act thematically. I'm basically pretty happy with how 5e handles social interactions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8949574, member: 6988941"] My own 5e clone game has a handful of narrow, but fairly certain to come up occasionally, "social abilities". For example at level 4 the Sellsword class gets the "Tough Negotiator" ability to add an extra d8 to rolls to negotiate over payment for quests or other services rendered by the group, and can also give this to someone else if they Help them by participating in such a conversation. This can stack with advantage but not with the more common additional die sources like Guidance (or more properly you can roll the Guidance d4 and the Tough Negotiator d6 and take the higher roll of the two, it's a whole mechanic in my game...). Thematically the idea is that having a trained killer for hire in the room should make the other side more compliant, off their game, or confident in your group's abilities. Basically I think social abilities should a) use extra die, or some other bonus, rather than advantage (because getting advantage on social interactions is usually achievable through roleplaying and/or the Help action, as well as many spells and abilities that charm), b) work under some fairly narrow circumstance, but one that will actually come up multiple times in most campaigns, and c) be used to emphasize something thematic about the character, give non-social-oriented characters occasional moments to shine in the social pillar, or ideally both. And that's about all I want out of "social abilities", some additional highlight time for someone other than the face character, and incentive for characters to act thematically. I'm basically pretty happy with how 5e handles social interactions. [/QUOTE]
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