So, for those who like unconventional face characters, I've got a build you might like to see- it leverages the elegant courtier feature of the samurai fighter to achieve the game's highest persuasion, passing out what seems to be the bard's highest base persuasion.
Start with a variant human or half elf (you'll need the prodigy feat, so a half elf will be more well rounded stats at the cost of losing one of your precious ASI's and having slightly lower persuasion, you still get very high either way)
As a half elf you could point buy 15 and 15 for your wisdom and dex, and 14 for charisma to benefit from the +2, also leaving you two points to get rid of the negative con modifier for what that's worth, after racial bonuses you should have 16 in all three stats (and a 10 in con). One of your skills trained should be proficiency, from race or background. Also try and get your hands on insight, beyond that more charisma skills, or maybe stealth would all be good choices for the kinds of activities you want to get up to with this character.
As you can probably guess, you're going to be using a rapier or a bow with this build for respectable damage, though DPR isn't our concentration- it's important to contribute to the combat pillar. I suggest a shield and duelist, as it goes well with your fighting spirit advantage and temp HP and eventually rapid strikes.
You need to be a Samurai Fighter, don't bother multi-classing, we need all of those sweet sweet extra ASIs.
Here's where things get clever, your first feat (at character creation if you're a variant human) is going to be the human racial feat from XGTE, Prodigy and you're going to be taking persuasion as your expertise. For every subsequent ASI you're going to pump Wisdom or Charisma- Charisma if you need to be the parties only face (for Intimidation and Deception and Performance) or if they have other Charisma characters for the other social skills, I suggest wisdom (as this will give you a neat character with excellent insight and persuasion, something of a rarity to have on one chassis.) You can become more specialized the more you invest in wisdom/charisma, Dex can be pumped instead to keep your AC and damage up, and some combo of these is optimal as you season to taste, I personally use the build to max out dex and wisdom, and then charisma gets the leftover points.
If you do this right, you'll be getting Training (+Prof) expertise (+Prof Again) ability mod (+ Charisma Mod) and Elegant courtier (+ Wisdom mod), with the added benefit yielded by good perception and insight. This will net you somewhere on the order of a +20 to persuasion depending on combo and your ASIs
Contrast with a full investment bard who has: Training (+Prof) expertise (+Prof Again) ability mod (+ Charisma Mod.)
This is a relatively simple trick, but I don't see it discussed so I thought I'd share it, I like that it rewards you for ending up with a high wisdom/charisma character, so you can insight check and persuasion check in house, while still allowing you to fighter respectably. Kind of like the archetype of the wise quiet samurai in old movies and anime.
You need to be a Samurai Fighter, don't bother multi-classing, we need all of those sweet sweet extra ASIs.
You don't lose any ASIs if you take 1 or 4 levels in another class. That lets you take:
1 level in Hexblade Warlock for Hex Warrior
1 level in Archfey Warlock for Fey Presence
1 level in Bard for Bardic Inspiration
1 level in Knowledge Cleric for Blessings of Knowledge
4 Rogue levels for Expertise, 2d6 Sneak Attack and the Inquisitive's Eye for Deceit/Detail or Swashbuckler's Rakish Audacity.
Also worth pointing out that the DMG's social interaction rules max out at DC 20 so rolling higher than that doesn't buy you anything, and a Rogue with Reliable Talent and a +10 bonus will reliably hit that target.
Valid about being able to dip (though you will be delaying ASI's), as for the second thing you mentioned, while the social interaction stuff might mention only up that point, most DMs likely draw on the regular DC chart to govern all skill checks- I know I do when I DM (which I've been doing for near on a decade), which can go up to 30.
Sure, but the very same section that has the DC table also points out most checks should fall in the 10/15/20 range. DC 30s are reserved for borderline impossible tasks, like moving an Immovable Rod. And even then, the "nearly impossible" assumption only holds for ability checks that don't allow proficiency; double proficiency makes "nearly impossible" tasks hard at best, medium at worst.
In my opinion the social interaction rules lead to better results than setting ad-hoc DCs because the NPC's disposition is incredibly important and you can't nudge anyone more than two steps away from their default behavior. Under those rules you can't get your mortal enemy to risk life and limb for you just by having a +20 and convincing the DM to let you roll, but you can still regularly convince them not to impede you if it doesn't cost them anything.
I mean that's nice, but the questionable value of 20+ bonus to persuasion is realistically going to vary from table to table and DM to DM, for those who might enjoy or utilize a build like this, it's here, for those whose DMs run the game in such a way that it wouldn't be useful, than they can simply leave it disused.
So, for those who like unconventional face characters, I've got a build you might like to see- it leverages the elegant courtier feature of the samurai fighter to achieve the game's highest persuasion, passing out what seems to be the bard's highest base persuasion.
Start with a variant human or half elf (you'll need the prodigy feat, so a half elf will be more well rounded stats at the cost of losing one of your precious ASI's and having slightly lower persuasion, you still get very high either way)
As a half elf you could point buy 15 and 15 for your wisdom and dex, and 14 for charisma to benefit from the +2, also leaving you two points to get rid of the negative con modifier for what that's worth, after racial bonuses you should have 16 in all three stats (and a 10 in con). One of your skills trained should be proficiency, from race or background. Also try and get your hands on insight, beyond that more charisma skills, or maybe stealth would all be good choices for the kinds of activities you want to get up to with this character.
As you can probably guess, you're going to be using a rapier or a bow with this build for respectable damage, though DPR isn't our concentration- it's important to contribute to the combat pillar. I suggest a shield and duelist, as it goes well with your fighting spirit advantage and temp HP and eventually rapid strikes.
You need to be a Samurai Fighter, don't bother multi-classing, we need all of those sweet sweet extra ASIs.
Here's where things get clever, your first feat (at character creation if you're a variant human) is going to be the human racial feat from XGTE, Prodigy and you're going to be taking persuasion as your expertise. For every subsequent ASI you're going to pump Wisdom or Charisma- Charisma if you need to be the parties only face (for Intimidation and Deception and Performance) or if they have other Charisma characters for the other social skills, I suggest wisdom (as this will give you a neat character with excellent insight and persuasion, something of a rarity to have on one chassis.) You can become more specialized the more you invest in wisdom/charisma, Dex can be pumped instead to keep your AC and damage up, and some combo of these is optimal as you season to taste, I personally use the build to max out dex and wisdom, and then charisma gets the leftover points.
If you do this right, you'll be getting Training (+Prof) expertise (+Prof Again) ability mod (+ Charisma Mod) and Elegant courtier (+ Wisdom mod), with the added benefit yielded by good perception and insight. This will net you somewhere on the order of a +20 to persuasion depending on combo and your ASIs
Contrast with a full investment bard who has: Training (+Prof) expertise (+Prof Again) ability mod (+ Charisma Mod.)
This is a relatively simple trick, but I don't see it discussed so I thought I'd share it, I like that it rewards you for ending up with a high wisdom/charisma character, so you can insight check and persuasion check in house, while still allowing you to fighter respectably. Kind of like the archetype of the wise quiet samurai in old movies and anime.
You don't lose any ASIs if you take 1 or 4 levels in another class. That lets you take:
Also worth pointing out that the DMG's social interaction rules max out at DC 20 so rolling higher than that doesn't buy you anything, and a Rogue with Reliable Talent and a +10 bonus will reliably hit that target.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Valid about being able to dip (though you will be delaying ASI's), as for the second thing you mentioned, while the social interaction stuff might mention only up that point, most DMs likely draw on the regular DC chart to govern all skill checks- I know I do when I DM (which I've been doing for near on a decade), which can go up to 30.
Sure, but the very same section that has the DC table also points out most checks should fall in the 10/15/20 range. DC 30s are reserved for borderline impossible tasks, like moving an Immovable Rod. And even then, the "nearly impossible" assumption only holds for ability checks that don't allow proficiency; double proficiency makes "nearly impossible" tasks hard at best, medium at worst.
In my opinion the social interaction rules lead to better results than setting ad-hoc DCs because the NPC's disposition is incredibly important and you can't nudge anyone more than two steps away from their default behavior. Under those rules you can't get your mortal enemy to risk life and limb for you just by having a +20 and convincing the DM to let you roll, but you can still regularly convince them not to impede you if it doesn't cost them anything.
Agree to disagree I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I mean that's nice, but the questionable value of 20+ bonus to persuasion is realistically going to vary from table to table and DM to DM, for those who might enjoy or utilize a build like this, it's here, for those whose DMs run the game in such a way that it wouldn't be useful, than they can simply leave it disused.
I wish I had seen this a year ago. My fighter dwarf is the face of my party (somehow). This is despite her -1 on persuasion rolls.