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When is it OK to let a player substitute one skill for another?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8178035" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Under my house rule, yes, you do. Like I said, I let the player determine if one of their proficiencies is appropriate to an ability check I’ve called for.</p><p></p><p>According to the section of the rules titled How To Play, the player’s role is to describe what they want to do, and the DM’s role is to determine what happens as a result, calling for a dice roll if necessary to resolve uncertainty in the outcome (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.)</p><p></p><p>Furthermore, it seems to me that asking to make dice rolls is not an optimal strategy, as dice rolls have a chance of failure. Describing an action with the goal of achieving success without a roll would seem the better approach to me, and then your character’s skills serve as insurance against failure in the event that you do have to make a roll. </p><p></p><p>You don’t have to narrate what your character says. Simply describe what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish it with a reasonable degree of specificity (e.g. “I try to convince the sheriff to let us through town by explaining that we mean no harm” or whatever).</p><p></p><p>No, I determine if your action can succeed, if it can fail, and if there are consequences for failure, calling for an ability check if all of those things are true (to which you can add your proficiency bonus if you believe one of your proficiencies is applicable). Then I describe the results, which will often lead to a new decision point and start the pattern of play over from step 1.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8178035, member: 6779196"] Under my house rule, yes, you do. Like I said, I let the player determine if one of their proficiencies is appropriate to an ability check I’ve called for. According to the section of the rules titled How To Play, the player’s role is to describe what they want to do, and the DM’s role is to determine what happens as a result, calling for a dice roll if necessary to resolve uncertainty in the outcome (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.) Furthermore, it seems to me that asking to make dice rolls is not an optimal strategy, as dice rolls have a chance of failure. Describing an action with the goal of achieving success without a roll would seem the better approach to me, and then your character’s skills serve as insurance against failure in the event that you do have to make a roll. You don’t have to narrate what your character says. Simply describe what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish it with a reasonable degree of specificity (e.g. “I try to convince the sheriff to let us through town by explaining that we mean no harm” or whatever). No, I determine if your action can succeed, if it can fail, and if there are consequences for failure, calling for an ability check if all of those things are true (to which you can add your proficiency bonus if you believe one of your proficiencies is applicable). Then I describe the results, which will often lead to a new decision point and start the pattern of play over from step 1. [/QUOTE]
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When is it OK to let a player substitute one skill for another?
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