Given how powerful the ability to end a fight on your turn (as opposed to swing a sword, casting a spell, etc) is extremely powerful. It's literally the best use of your Action available to you outside of specific circumstances.
Yes, you're risking it failing, just like shooting them with a bow or Fire bolt, but you could end a fight quite a bit earlier and therefore it's almost an equivalent to a "one-hit" weapon. I think it's fair to require an Action.
What does mess with things is requiring an Action for a Perception check - at least in my games.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nice to see int being used for something. Though I don’t see it stopping people from dumping int. In practice, it will make wizards and artificers hard to influence, and the rest of the party it will be a 15. At least, when it’s being used to influence a PC. Though I can also see that leading to fights at the table. Really want to see the DMG advice on this one.
I got a DDB notification because the thread has new replies. If you don't mind, I wanted to ask if you found anything relevant in the DMG about it.
I couldn't find anything special, but maybe I didn't read it closely enough.
Nice to see int being used for something. Though I don’t see it stopping people from dumping int. In practice, it will make wizards and artificers hard to influence, and the rest of the party it will be a 15. At least, when it’s being used to influence a PC. Though I can also see that leading to fights at the table. Really want to see the DMG advice on this one.
I got a DDB notification because the thread has new replies. If you don't mind, I wanted to ask if you found anything relevant in the DMG about it.
I couldn't find anything special, but maybe I didn't read it closely enough.
I didn’t see anything either. At least nothing specific about how to handle an NPC trying to influence a character.
Given how powerful the ability to end a fight on your turn (as opposed to swing a sword, casting a spell, etc) is extremely powerful. It's literally the best use of your Action available to you outside of specific circumstances. [...]
Thinking about it, I guess a DM might use the "Unwilling" card if it feels right to avoid it.
Unwilling. If your urging is repugnant to the monster or counter to its alignment, no ability check is necessary; it doesn’t comply.
Dc 10 is not easy. Dc2 is I’d say a roll that’s passed 95% is easy. 10 is easy for a bard with expertise in persuasion. Tossup for others. 15 is hard. 20 needs you to be special.
A first level character with a 15 charisma and proficiency in the relevant skill has a 75% chance of making a DC 10 check. DC 10 is easy.
But a charactrer without proficiency in the skill and an average Charisma will fail 50% of the time. 15 Charisma and proficiency in the skill is an investment we want to reward.
Actually, you have to have an ability score of 8-9 on top of no proficiency to get a 50% chance of failure. If there's no meaningful chance of failure, there's no point in having a dice roll in the first place. Making someone make a DC 2 check or the like is just wasting time.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
People routinely walk away from sales pitches with things they don’t want. They might have had the ability to say no, but in the moment, they fail to do so. They are literally talked into it.
Some people do, but not everybody, that's the point. Because it's not mind control and it doesn't force people to behave in a specific way: even if it sounds very enticing the person can decide not to get it for some reason. If you want your characters interactions to be based purely on dice rolls, that's fine, but it shouldn't be a rule.
No one is really saying your character’s actions should be based only on dice rolls - that is a straw man.
What folks are saying is that, yes. If your character was lied to, and you fail to detect the lie, you should operate using the knowledge available to your character. If you trust the used car man and have no real car knowledge, maybe you do end up buying a clunker, because they seem like a car expert and you defer to their feigned expertise. Or maybe you know a lot about cars, so you know the Cybertruck is a poorly designed injury machine, so you have other knowledge to counteract the fast talking person, even as your gut is trying to tell you to trust them. Or maybe you trust the person for other reasons - maybe they are a long time friendly NPC - you know there is evidence to suggest you are lying, but you believe them anyway because they rolled higher and your character trusts them more than they trust themselves on that issue.
Or maybe despite their apparent sincerity, you decide not to trust them anyway for whatever reason you choose, like that car salespeople often lie to people they're trying to sell cars to. The dice tell you that the person seems trustworthy. They don't tell you that you have to trust them, that's the distinction I'm trying to make. It's like making a Perception check to try to find hidden enemies while in a dungeon: the fact that you don't detect any hidden enemies does not mean that the party concludes that there are no hidden enemies and proceeds to march into the room without caution.
But when you so decide, you are doing so by way of *your* mental stats, by way of your intelligence, wisdom, auto knowledge, experiences with sales people, etc.
You are not doing so using the stats of some fictional character who is not, actually you. When, say, Arthur Conan Doyle was writing Sherlock Holmes, he did not need to have Sherlock's level of observation skills or reasoning skills or knowledge base to have his character come to conclusions, since he was writing the conclusion as well. If faced with identical situations, himself, as a real person, would he have had Sherlock's level of abilities in such regard? Possible, but unlikely.
There is a significant difference, there, just as there would be if any of us was expected to, say, wield a sword as well as our characters might be able to, or to, ourselves, cast any spell of any sort. Why is it still 'playing our characters' when we roll checks for outcomes on those things?
Given how powerful the ability to end a fight on your turn (as opposed to swing a sword, casting a spell, etc) is extremely powerful. It's literally the best use of your Action available to you outside of specific circumstances.
Yes, you're risking it failing, just like shooting them with a bow or Fire bolt, but you could end a fight quite a bit earlier and therefore it's almost an equivalent to a "one-hit" weapon. I think it's fair to require an Action.
What does mess with things is requiring an Action for a Perception check - at least in my games.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I got a DDB notification because the thread has new replies. If you don't mind, I wanted to ask if you found anything relevant in the DMG about it.
I couldn't find anything special, but maybe I didn't read it closely enough.
I didn’t see anything either. At least nothing specific about how to handle an NPC trying to influence a character.
Thinking about it, I guess a DM might use the "Unwilling" card if it feels right to avoid it.
Dc 10 is not easy. Dc2 is I’d say a roll that’s passed 95% is easy. 10 is easy for a bard with expertise in persuasion. Tossup for others. 15 is hard. 20 needs you to be special.
A first level character with a 15 charisma and proficiency in the relevant skill has a 75% chance of making a DC 10 check. DC 10 is easy.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
But a charactrer without proficiency in the skill and an average Charisma will fail 50% of the time. 15 Charisma and proficiency in the skill is an investment we want to reward.
Actually, you have to have an ability score of 8-9 on top of no proficiency to get a 50% chance of failure. If there's no meaningful chance of failure, there's no point in having a dice roll in the first place. Making someone make a DC 2 check or the like is just wasting time.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Dice is fun. Roll me a d20, if you get a 1this fails…part of me as a player is always hoping for a fun rp moment.
But when you so decide, you are doing so by way of *your* mental stats, by way of your intelligence, wisdom, auto knowledge, experiences with sales people, etc.
You are not doing so using the stats of some fictional character who is not, actually you. When, say, Arthur Conan Doyle was writing Sherlock Holmes, he did not need to have Sherlock's level of observation skills or reasoning skills or knowledge base to have his character come to conclusions, since he was writing the conclusion as well. If faced with identical situations, himself, as a real person, would he have had Sherlock's level of abilities in such regard? Possible, but unlikely.
There is a significant difference, there, just as there would be if any of us was expected to, say, wield a sword as well as our characters might be able to, or to, ourselves, cast any spell of any sort. Why is it still 'playing our characters' when we roll checks for outcomes on those things?
Just as long as players understand that Influence is not mind control.