I was wondering if skill checks like persuasion, intimidation, or deception would benefit more from the use of the guidance cantrip vs the friends cantrip?
would plus 1d4 to your roll be that much worse than advantage? And you would have no worries of them being hostile toward you like the friends cantrip causes.
Guidance hands down. It's not really all that awkward when you come up with a simple description of your somatic & verbal component. For instance, my Cleric just grasps his holy symbol, brings it up to his chest, and softly mutters a little benediction "May Lathandar guide my way". To the casual observer, it just looks like something a Cleric would probably be doing regularly anyway.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The friends cantrip has the major drawback that it's completely useless unless you're planning to murder your target before its duration expires. The game design problem it has is that there isn't really much room for 'less than Charm Person, but still does something'.
Guidance is much better than friends. Simply the fact that after 1 minute the target of friends knows you cast it on them and they become hostile towards you makes almost any social check you made in the preceding minute entirely useless.
The one circumstance where friends is useful is when you have disguise self and need to talk your way past a guard/bouncer. You can use friends to get advantage and then change your appearance as soon as you are out of sight so when they become hostile they can't find you. Otherwise friends is one of the more useless cantrips unless you actually want to start a fight.
In comparison, guidance can be applied to almost any skill check. If you know you will need to persuade or deceive someone, guidance can be cast up to a minute in advance as long as you maintain concentration. Guidance averages +2.5 which is only slightly worse than advantage depending on the DC. At higher DCs it is better than advantage.
So for versatility, usefulness and applicability, Guidance is by far the better cantrip.
A bonus has the opportunity to net you something that advantage cannot: a dice total above 20. You could conceivably roll a 24 on your dice with guidance, while advantage’s ceiling is still 20 on the dice. If you cannot achieve success with a 20 on the die, but maybe with a 21-24, then guidance is the only option (albeit with slim chances of success still).
Edit: It is more common than I thought. 12.5% of dice totals would be above 20; all with d20 rolls above 17 of course, but if you do roll above 17 on the d20 then more than half of your totals would be above 20.
The friends cantrip has the major drawback that it's completely useless unless you're planning to murder your target before its duration expires. The game design problem it has is that there isn't really much room for 'less than Charm Person, but still does something'.
Guidance is much better than friends. Simply the fact that after 1 minute the target of friends knows you cast it on them and they become hostile towards you makes almost any social check you made in the preceding minute entirely useless.
The one circumstance where friends is useful is when you have disguise self and need to talk your way past a guard/bouncer. You can use friends to get advantage and then change your appearance as soon as you are out of sight so when they become hostile they can't find you. Otherwise friends is one of the more useless cantrips unless you actually want to start a fight.
In comparison, guidance can be applied to almost any skill check. If you know you will need to persuade or deceive someone, guidance can be cast up to a minute in advance as long as you maintain concentration. Guidance averages +2.5 which is only slightly worse than advantage depending on the DC. At higher DCs it is better than advantage.
So for versatility, usefulness and applicability, Guidance is by far the better cantrip.
It all depends on the context. "Hostile" doesn't mean "attack you with lethal force on sight", you know. Why someone would murderhobo the object of the spell is beyond me. The usefulness of the spell lies elsewhere. For example, you need to get through a checkpoint and want to make sure that you won't be stopped? Cast friends on the guard and say "Hey old friend! nice to see you, let me through will ya and I'll buy you a pint next time I'll see you." Sure, after a minute the guard will be pissed off at your trickery but they most likely won't be leaving their post to go on a lifelong vendetta against you.
The friends cantrip has the major drawback that it's completely useless unless you're planning to murder your target before its duration expires. The game design problem it has is that there isn't really much room for 'less than Charm Person, but still does something'.
Guidance is much better than friends. Simply the fact that after 1 minute the target of friends knows you cast it on them and they become hostile towards you makes almost any social check you made in the preceding minute entirely useless.
The one circumstance where friends is useful is when you have disguise self and need to talk your way past a guard/bouncer. You can use friends to get advantage and then change your appearance as soon as you are out of sight so when they become hostile they can't find you. Otherwise friends is one of the more useless cantrips unless you actually want to start a fight.
In comparison, guidance can be applied to almost any skill check. If you know you will need to persuade or deceive someone, guidance can be cast up to a minute in advance as long as you maintain concentration. Guidance averages +2.5 which is only slightly worse than advantage depending on the DC. At higher DCs it is better than advantage.
So for versatility, usefulness and applicability, Guidance is by far the better cantrip.
It all depends on the context. "Hostile" doesn't mean "attack you with lethal force on sight", you know. Why someone would murderhobo the object of the spell is beyond me. The usefulness of the spell lies elsewhere. For example, you need to get through a checkpoint and want to make sure that you won't be stopped? Cast friends on the guard and say "Hey old friend! nice to see you, let me through will ya and I'll buy you a pint next time I'll see you." Sure, after a minute the guard will be pissed off at your trickery but they most likely won't be leaving their post to go on a lifelong vendetta against you.
I agree that "hostile" doesn't necessarily mean attack on sight. However, consider your example. You cast friends, have a conversation with the guard to let you through the checkpoint, then move on. You have a total of 60 seconds including casting, talking and walking (or running) to get away before the guard raises an alarm and possibly either chases you themselves, sends others after you or raises an alert with your description and instructions to apprehend you. Even if your persuasion worked, everyone will be alerted and after you within 60 seconds.
Keep in mind that friends doesn't make the guard friendly, it just gives you advantage on social interaction rolls.
Compare this to guidance. You gain a +d4 on the social interaction check instead of advantage, however, at the end of 60 seconds, the alarm doesn't get raised and folks aren't potentially chasing you.
If there is a guard post preventing people from passing then it is usually there for a reason and the folks manning it or operating it will likely care that someone got through who was not supposed to. Friends automatically triggers any alarm that is possible while guidance does not.
However, as I said, the one time I might choose friends is when I can cast disguise self so that after the check point they won't be able to find me anyway when they realize they were duped. On the other hand, this will still likely trigger an alarm and search which a successful skill check with guidance would not do.
In the end, I still think that guidance is a much better choice than friends even in these social situations.
I think it would have been balanced and useful if they removed hostility, added a save, and made the creature immune to the spell for the rest of the day pass or fail.
I think it would have been balanced and useful if they removed hostility, added a save, and made the creature immune to the spell for the rest of the day pass or fail.
I'd be happy with that even without requiring a save. Just a simple once per day per creature for advantage on one Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion check.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Mechanically, Friends is better, but think of it as a Jedi Mind Trick...they'll be after you eventually, it's most useful when you just need to get past someone. Need to talk your way into the bad guy's fortress? Friends. Need to haggle with the local mayor? Guidance.
My warlock uses friends to gain advantage on Charisma(Intimidation) checks. He doesn't care if the person he threatens to disembowel becomes hostile towards him 60 seconds later. So long as he gets what he needs.
I've been in campaigns where a place is so unholy that a god's power can not enter it - leaving a Cleric with no access to divine magic. Yeah yeah I know... "that's not RAW"... but it's still a situation I have seen.
Problem with using Friends on Intimidate checks is that the targets you want to intimidate are often Hostile towards you, and thus invalid for Friends. It otherwise seems perfectly useful, as targets of Intimidate are usually going to be annoyed with you anyway. It's also useful for Deception, as long as you can get past the situation and away before its duration expires. It's just that one minute is not very long in social interactions.
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I was wondering if skill checks like persuasion, intimidation, or deception would benefit more from the use of the guidance cantrip vs the friends cantrip?
would plus 1d4 to your roll be that much worse than advantage? And you would have no worries of them being hostile toward you like the friends cantrip causes.
Any thoughts?
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
1d4 is usually less powerful, numerically, than advantage. (But Friends has a pretty nasty drawback, so personally I'd usually prefer guidance!)
I don't like the drawback of friends, plus guidance can apply to any skill.
The problem with guidance is that you have to interrupt what you're doing quite often to pray or cast a spell which can be a bit weird.
Not really. You do your casting before you start. That's it. Most tasks don't require multiple rolls.
Any weirder than standing in front of someone while applying makeup to your face (material component for friends) while you talk? :)
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Guidance hands down. It's not really all that awkward when you come up with a simple description of your somatic & verbal component. For instance, my Cleric just grasps his holy symbol, brings it up to his chest, and softly mutters a little benediction "May Lathandar guide my way". To the casual observer, it just looks like something a Cleric would probably be doing regularly anyway.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
In the gif, is she casting guidance?
You know it!
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The friends cantrip has the major drawback that it's completely useless unless you're planning to murder your target before its duration expires. The game design problem it has is that there isn't really much room for 'less than Charm Person, but still does something'.
Guidance is much better than friends. Simply the fact that after 1 minute the target of friends knows you cast it on them and they become hostile towards you makes almost any social check you made in the preceding minute entirely useless.
The one circumstance where friends is useful is when you have disguise self and need to talk your way past a guard/bouncer. You can use friends to get advantage and then change your appearance as soon as you are out of sight so when they become hostile they can't find you. Otherwise friends is one of the more useless cantrips unless you actually want to start a fight.
In comparison, guidance can be applied to almost any skill check. If you know you will need to persuade or deceive someone, guidance can be cast up to a minute in advance as long as you maintain concentration. Guidance averages +2.5 which is only slightly worse than advantage depending on the DC. At higher DCs it is better than advantage.
So for versatility, usefulness and applicability, Guidance is by far the better cantrip.
A bonus has the opportunity to net you something that advantage cannot: a dice total above 20. You could conceivably roll a 24 on your dice with guidance, while advantage’s ceiling is still 20 on the dice. If you cannot achieve success with a 20 on the die, but maybe with a 21-24, then guidance is the only option (albeit with slim chances of success still).
Edit: It is more common than I thought. 12.5% of dice totals would be above 20; all with d20 rolls above 17 of course, but if you do roll above 17 on the d20 then more than half of your totals would be above 20.
It all depends on the context. "Hostile" doesn't mean "attack you with lethal force on sight", you know. Why someone would murderhobo the object of the spell is beyond me. The usefulness of the spell lies elsewhere. For example, you need to get through a checkpoint and want to make sure that you won't be stopped? Cast friends on the guard and say "Hey old friend! nice to see you, let me through will ya and I'll buy you a pint next time I'll see you." Sure, after a minute the guard will be pissed off at your trickery but they most likely won't be leaving their post to go on a lifelong vendetta against you.
I agree that "hostile" doesn't necessarily mean attack on sight. However, consider your example. You cast friends, have a conversation with the guard to let you through the checkpoint, then move on. You have a total of 60 seconds including casting, talking and walking (or running) to get away before the guard raises an alarm and possibly either chases you themselves, sends others after you or raises an alert with your description and instructions to apprehend you. Even if your persuasion worked, everyone will be alerted and after you within 60 seconds.
Keep in mind that friends doesn't make the guard friendly, it just gives you advantage on social interaction rolls.
Compare this to guidance. You gain a +d4 on the social interaction check instead of advantage, however, at the end of 60 seconds, the alarm doesn't get raised and folks aren't potentially chasing you.
If there is a guard post preventing people from passing then it is usually there for a reason and the folks manning it or operating it will likely care that someone got through who was not supposed to. Friends automatically triggers any alarm that is possible while guidance does not.
However, as I said, the one time I might choose friends is when I can cast disguise self so that after the check point they won't be able to find me anyway when they realize they were duped. On the other hand, this will still likely trigger an alarm and search which a successful skill check with guidance would not do.
In the end, I still think that guidance is a much better choice than friends even in these social situations.
Friends would be much closer to usable if its duration was 10 minutes. At least that's long enough to realistically lose your victim.
I think it would have been balanced and useful if they removed hostility, added a save, and made the creature immune to the spell for the rest of the day pass or fail.
I'd be happy with that even without requiring a save. Just a simple once per day per creature for advantage on one Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion check.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Mechanically, Friends is better, but think of it as a Jedi Mind Trick...they'll be after you eventually, it's most useful when you just need to get past someone. Need to talk your way into the bad guy's fortress? Friends. Need to haggle with the local mayor? Guidance.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
My warlock uses friends to gain advantage on Charisma(Intimidation) checks.
He doesn't care if the person he threatens to disembowel becomes hostile towards him 60 seconds later. So long as he gets what he needs.
I've been in campaigns where a place is so unholy that a god's power can not enter it - leaving a Cleric with no access to divine magic.
Yeah yeah I know... "that's not RAW"... but it's still a situation I have seen.
...cryptographic randomness!
Problem with using Friends on Intimidate checks is that the targets you want to intimidate are often Hostile towards you, and thus invalid for Friends. It otherwise seems perfectly useful, as targets of Intimidate are usually going to be annoyed with you anyway. It's also useful for Deception, as long as you can get past the situation and away before its duration expires. It's just that one minute is not very long in social interactions.