5th edition D&D - what the fuck is the point edition

Does your GM hate you?

No one is this dumb

i dont think so..

>and better at bluffing

You might want to reassess that. Don't just go and accuse him of it, have a talk to him and just point out the things you pointed out to us.

They can be user.

i wasn't going to. because i don't think that lol

>Reddit spacing
Please die

You have great stats for a caster in combat, and as a face character. If you are lying, charming, intimidating, or persuading people, you are most certainly going to use your high charisma. If you don't know something, you can always ask your DM if your character has any knowledge of the event or history (Intelligence), and do a history, or religion check. Heck, you'd even be talented at performing investigation. Now if your other party members are consistently good at the same things, and are martials, they either invested in the necessary stats, or your DM is being generous and is setting his/her DC's rather low. If you want to get more out of your charisma, start pushing the NPC's for more information. Haggle with vendors.

Well there is a reason for that. When I see threads for other games I don't enjoy/play, I don't look for questions asking for advice, and tell the players to stop playing the game. That kind of behavior is annoying, and increasingly so because it happens so frequently. Heck you posting that comment is basically just hitting the low average for how many times it is posted in the average D&D help threads. It isn't helpful advice for a player trying to enjoy a game. Your behavior is similar to the people on /s/ that can't help but post monkey pictures in the black girl threads. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean everyone else has to not like it to.

play your character genre savvy. come up with bullshit explanations to what is in reality just you recognising and planning around narrative structure. when you go beyond 20 in any social stat you're allowed to meta game a TINY BIT. but your DM still reserves the right to slap your shit if you do something unfun so use that bullshit knowledge for good not evil

If you are making that suggestion in a general. Yes, it is kind of silly unless it's a constructive "check out system x because you enjoy y & z and system x has more y & z than 5e"

>5e
>22 int

I do not know what the point is in 5e because I do not play it, but in previous editions the ability scores served a useful function in that you can take damage to them and it has an actual in-game effect (unlike HP damage which does nothing). So mental scores represent your ability to continue functioning when you're being mind blasted by illithid, Joker-confused, drugged, and hit in the head.

>any point
spells like shillelagh, which uses your wisdom modifier for atk and dmg rolls, lets druids double-dip in mental stats for different things
additionally options for the paladin, monk, and warlock that allow substitution or adding of mental stats to otherwise str/dex/con rolls, while still being spellcasting stats
if you make your character have 3 Achilles heels in your mental stats, your gm will probably throw challenges aimed at that your way because you'll just dominate other players in everything else
spellcasting DCs on mental stats are usually attached to classes that are casters

>utilize my mental stats in game
play your character like they have those stats and back up your roleplaying with your character's proficiencies. You can't RP your way out of every situation, you will face checks eventually if your GM has good variety in his games.

There are uses for those stats, you just need the mental fortitude to utilize them

Indeed

>normies are starting to wake up to the fact that 5e was as shit as 3.5e all along

>5e
>as bad as 3e
No. Not even close.

It's a very different kind of shit though.

>your dm is a huge cunt about needing knowledge rolls passed.
Every session lately has one person ask something lore wise, and if they pass a check they get some actionable information, otherwise they get nada. I am allowing rolls for "Who the fuck are these elf guys in the space ship?" "What is this demon like?" "Where can we find a red dragon?" I use Investigation all the time for traps and puzzles (usually getting something mechanical to work). The game is pretty political, so insight rolls are common. Ninjas are out and about, so make some perception rolls.

>MFW I am literally worse than Hitler for using knowledge rolls

here comes the corn v peas arguments

Fuck corn. Almost entirely starch and sugar, little nutritional value. Often comes out the other end without being digested. Subsidized by our dumb-ass government until it is so abundant and cheap that corps use corn to make processed filler ingredients as a replacement for real food. Corn is the worst, fuck you all.

>no links in the OP
>anime image
>duplicate thread
>whole thread is garbage and trolls

Now tell us what you think of sugar beets.

Don't worry. This isn't the real /5eg/.

>>anime image
No, that's Dragon's Crown.

I don't often think of sugar beets at all, but it is good that they exist since it lets temperate countries have sugar without being dependent on imports from the tropics.

However, people eat too much sugar, so fuck the sugar beet too.

See It's a different kind of bad. 3.5e was bad because it was broken and clunky (those monster stat blocks, holy shit). 5e traded all of 3.5e's cool shit for blandness, strictly superficial balance, while at its core not being that much better at being D&D

If you want to play D&D, I recommend an OSR system. Modern D&D is just bland fantasy schlock that doesn't do anything very well. It is the unfortunate case where 5e is palatable but not very interesting, and I am willing to use it, but man is it...just not inspiring.

I'm just terrible at typing with the phone. Autocorrect completes words far faster than I ever could.

I concur. My favourite is heavily houseruled 2e, simplifying it and adding things from 1e and b/x, plus a few other things like making characters slightly more survivable.

Does anyone have an adventure/rulebook (third party, conversion, w/e) about running an organied crime syndicate?

Read the DMG black man.

Using paragraphs is "Reddit spacing" now? Geez you guys, get a real education already.

I'm not sure the blocks of text separated by empty lines properly qualified as "paragraphs" in the example post, but it's certainly a means of breaking up large blocks of text into smaller, more digestable chunks. Its use was widespread well before reddit became a thing, so yeah, that guy was being an asshole.

yeah, your DM sucks. Personally I call for Int or Wis checks any time somebody's being clearly smarter than his character is, and Cha checks any time somebody's being significantly smoother than their character is. Occassionally (not very often; I feel like my players are pretty clever) I let them roll to have their characters realize that the player's idea is fucking moronic.

You're lying because you cannot have any stat above 20 except via magic items, spells, divine intervention, specific class bumps or the "epic boons" from the DMG. If you were rolling 4d6 drop lowest, the highest you can roll is 18 and no playable race nets you a +4 to any stat.

And if you're complaining about roleplay, talk it over with your own fucking group, user, not bring your fake complaints here.

You can't have a 22 in 5e through "lucky rolls." Not that you'd have any fucking clue about this because I'm pretty sure it's buried somewhere in the book. Not to mention that stat cap is necessary because the whole retarded game breaks down without it.
And, there has never been much point to mental stats in D&D if you're not a wizard.

You're not posting a paragraph. You're posting a single sentence, maybe two, then hitting enter TWICE to take up as much space as possible. Stop.

I didn't make the post in question, I just know that in the absence of indentation, paragraphs need spacing. I'm not going to teach you how to use paragraphs, so don't even try to argue the point. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

There is no hard fast rule for making paragraphs, user. Like, I could make a whole new paragraph right now if I want. It all falls on the person writing to determine when to make a new paragraph.

Now can we get back to talking about how bad OP is?

I'd say that, as much as /teej/ grognards hate it, you should have your DM use mental stat checks for various things. Knowledge is a skill for a reason, you know? The more int you have, the more likely you are to know something. WIS influences passive observation, so actually have enemies intelligent enough to ambush you. If your passive perception trumps their hide skill, the ambush is foiled and you may even turn the tables on them. Charisma... no explanation needed.

But then you have retarded DMs who seek to detach these stats from roleplay and actually want you to figure shit out on yourself, or "convince" them with words rather than simply saying the words and rolling charisma. Sure, YOU may not find "hand over your wallet, poopyhead" intimidating, but keep in mind that even in real life some people just have such an air about them that they could sell paintings to the blind.

>basically everything in the game can be roleplayed
I feel you dude, we've had 5 or 6 sessions and i've rolled my +8 in persuasion/deception a total of 3 times in this entire campaign. I had to negotiate a truce between 2 rival factions who have literally no reason to cooperate besides ending the fight between them and i didn't have to roll once.
Worse still, all three of those rolls were nat 20s and my DM is trying to appeal to the 3 newbies so 'le epic nat 20' meme is ever present.

>Starting a new homebrew campaign with some friends
>Managed to roll superbly low
>two 12s, two 10s a 9 and an 8
>DM suggests for me to be a conjurer and focus on charm and manipulation magic to make up for the low stats

>Decided I want to go full on crusader
>Recruit and purchase more and more forces from every town I get to and throw the bodies of weak but willing hirelings at the monsters

Assuming that most/all of my recruitable crusaders will be mundane martials, what sort of weapons/tactic/restrictions should I employ?

Is a greatsword the best stand-in for a claymore, or would it be a longsword? Do all the standard European martial weapons work as crusader armaments or should I just go with the most iconic?

>But then you have retarded DMs who seek to detach these stats from roleplay and actually want you to figure shit out on yourself, or "convince" them with words rather than simply saying the words and rolling charisma.
The problem is that CHA skills are so broken that you need to have people explain how they're convincing people to do shit, otherwise you have people saying "I rolled a 30 to convince them to let us pass" without actually giving the GM context to figure out how they're convincing the guards to let them pass.

It ultimately puts more work on the GM and paints a very shitty picture on how CHA is supposed to be used because people assume that it's a button you press to skip over the boring roleplay shit in favor of combat.

>So Is there any real point to mental stats?

It's called "Lift my Fridge".

I.e., the player of a Barbarian does not have to actually be as strong as Conan in order to play Conan; that's what his character's Strength score is for. Whenever the Barbarian wants to hurl a boulder, the player rolls a dice, he does not go over to the DM's fridge and lift it to demonstrate that he personally is capable of lifting and throwing an object of similar weight.

Likewise, the player of a Wizard should not actually have to be as smart as Merlin in order to play Merlin; that's what the Intelligence score is for. Whenever the Wizard wants to solve a puzzle, it would be nice if the player is capable of solving the problem himself, but in reality his Wizard is likely much smarter than him and should know things he doesn't. Thus while the player should be encouraged to try and solve the problem himself (because this is a roleplaying game, after all), if he can't, rolling the dice to see if Merlin can solve the puzzle is the only fair thing to do.

Likewise for the other mental stats.

>It ultimately puts more work on the GM

If you can't stand the heat, why are you in the kitchen? Besides, it's not like the DM doesn't have to deal with this exact problem but multiplied by a hundred.

Ever DM'd a game where a given NPC was supposed to be Rico Suave, but you're a grognard neckbeard so your attempts to get this across just came across as telling your players that they have to eat all the eggs?

>If you can't stand the heat, why are you in the kitchen?
No, if I'm the one doing most of the work, you can either shut the hell up and let me cook or put in your fair share of the labor.
>Besides, it's not like the DM doesn't have to deal with this exact problem but multiplied by a hundred.
With a good group, you can legitimately spend the bulk of the game watching your players roleplay with one another while you get to sit back and watch it all play out.
>Ever DM'd a game where a given NPC was supposed to be Rico Suave, but you're a grognard neckbeard so your attempts to get this across just came across as telling your players that they have to eat all the eggs?
No, because only an absolute fool would attempt to roleplay a character that they have no idea how to roleplay and even if I did, me and my players know that I'm not an actor.

I know the "use Int to solve a puzzle/use player skill to solve a puzzle" is a classic point of endless debate, but does that situation (solving a puzzle with a "correct" solution) ever occur in a game? How often?

GM work should go directly to creating a better experience, not enabling them to be so disinvested that they want the GM to roleplay for them.

Unfortunately yes, and it's always esoteric shit that you wouldn't have thought to try until the GM let's you roll to get a hint or something.

From this response I'm gathering that you have an extremely narrow range of NPCs who ever do talking. Everyone is probably Serious McStubble.

Also I'm going to note that in one breath you claim to do most of the work, and yet with the next you claim it as a goal to make sure you do almost nothing.

>because only an absolute fool would attempt to roleplay a character that they have no idea how to roleplay

So only people who are legitimately charming, likable, and possessed of great force of personality should be bards, paladins, sorcerers, or warlocks? Only actual geniuses should play wizards?

Do you make people take personality tests before you approve their characters or something?

>From this response I'm gathering that you have an extremely narrow range of NPCs who ever do talking. Everyone is probably Serious McStubble.
That's a very big conclusion to leap to but alright.
>Also I'm going to note that in one breath you claim to do most of the work, and yet with the next you claim it as a goal to make sure you do almost nothing.
Again, another big conclusion to leap to.
>So only people who are legitimately charming, likable, and possessed of great force of personality should be bards, paladins, sorcerers, or warlocks? Only actual geniuses should play wizards?
>Do you make people take personality tests before you approve their characters or something?
Wow, another conclusion jumped.

Are you a pro at mental gymnastics?

Sometimes. It's just the easiest point to make. Just as good a one might be to question if, say, you feel that a player who has a speech impediment should not be allowed to have their character give a rousing speech.

Okay, and how is a "better experience" created by enforcing that your CHA-20 bard is incapable of convincing the club bouncer to let you in because you, personally, aren't capable of acting charming enough?

(I'll grant that the bard could roll and fail; that's not the point, however)

That leads to player disinvestment, not a better experience. "My stats say that I should be the most well-liked person in town, and yet here I am in the stocks because my attempt to seduce the baroness for information about the cult's whereabouts led to the DM calling me a creeper without even so much as a roll. So what's the point in even trying? Just bring the monsters on and let me kill something, it's all I'm good for."

I always think it might be nice to make a dungeon crawler where you only get physical stats for your character and everything mental is just what you the player can handle, so characters are more just like a physical chassis that you inhabit for the purposes of the game.

Then I remember that people only play D&D.

>22 on a stat in 5e
Those are indeed lucky rolls

The player doesn't have to be charming at all, they just have to have an idea of the action they want to try. Rolls tell you how successful an action is, not what it is.

Charisma isn't "likability", but force of personality: you could have high charisma because you're terrifyingly intimidating, or horrifically ugly. You need a basic idea of what you plan to do to achieve the desired outcome, not just "I roll CHA to solve the problem".

Roleplaying and solving problems is more than just "I use my highest stat and see if I roll good, then you tell me how it goes". Have a goddamned conversation for crying out loud, even if it's by GM proxy. You don't need to actually act smooth or have the specific words, even a 5-year-old's description of your character's basic response would be enough.

There's no need to act so fucking clueless.

>my stats say
Do people actually not know what stats do? This is pathetic.

The main issue with this is that a character will in-universe always have knowledge that they player doesn't and often can't be expected to know: "Who's the current king of Cormyr?" "Where can you get the best clam chowder in Baldur's Gate?" "Can I find the ingredients for a healing poultice while I'm the Wood of Sharp Teeth?" "what was the year that Obould founded the kingdom of Many-Arrows?" "When first meeting an efreeti, what is the proper way to address them?"

To say nothing of the in-depth knowledge of magical formulae that the wizard should have; or the names of the most popular songs that a bard would know; or the secret codes of the thieves' guild that a rogue would know; and so on.

Our characters live in different worlds with different life experiences that lead to different life experiences. Unless your proposed game is an Isekai or something, then you're going to need some system to determine what player characters do and don't know about the world around them, unless you're content with that whole side of the game being "ask the DM and see if he feels like you should know, based on his own personal, arbitrary decisions."

As long as I have an idea of what the fuck you're going on about, I'll let you have even if you're a tard with a stutter because, god bless ya, at least you're fucking trying.

However, if the only input you give me "I rolled X to convince the guard to let us go" you've just signed me a blank check to fuck you over because now, I have the ability to make up whatever stupid conversation in my head as I want to justify the guard letting you go through.

Now, am I shit for having your character suck the guard's dick in exchange for moving the plot along? Yes. However, you're also being a lazy fuckwit who cannot even give me the most basic idea of how you're convincing the guard and at that point, you discover that you can suck a mean dick if you want to and this will happen until you actually give a shit or leave.

And again we run into a problem: I can't make decisions like someone who's more intelligent than me. Someone with a low "real-life" Charisma can't make decisions like a character with a high in-game Charisma.

Basically what you're suggesting leads to things like 20 Intelligence wizards constantly making stupid choices mistakes that they should be smart enough to avoid or know better to make, but don't because the PLAYER isn't that smart or suave or whatever.

This subject came up in the friggin 1960s, man, with the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror". The one with the Mirror Universe episode.

Prime-Kirk ends up in the Mirror Universe but can blend in with some trouble. Mirror-Kirk ends up in the Prime Universe and is found out and detained essentially immediately. Why? Because as Spock points out, "it is far easier for a civilized man to act barbaric than it is for a barbarian to act civilized."

An intelligent person can pretend to be dumb, but a dumb person can't pretend to be intelligent.

You know full well what I mean, man, come on.

Jesus Christ, spelling and grammar errors all across that post. Mea culpa. I need sleep, clearly.

Looks like someone dumped CON, INT, and CHA.

>You could always try playing a game that's not DnD.

Again, you don't need to be as intelligent or charismatic as your character is supposed to be, just work within the range you have - trust me, you can do better than "I attack it with my CHA; does a 25 hit?"

This is not a GM getting you to jump through hoops for their own amusement or esoteric idea of art. The GM just wants you to play. Pretending to be Mirror-Kirk would be enough; the GM will happily do the rest, or at least take your high roll into consideration to mitigate the negative consequences of any missteps so that you can fumble around until you land on something that works.

I think I have a cold, actually. Plus, again, tired. Still not used to morning shifts at work, though I've got tomorrow/later today (whatever) off, so that's nice.

Interesting observation: this almost never comes up with Wisdom. That is, no one seems to object to the fact that a player is not expected to actually be as attentive to their surroundings as their character. No DM objects to a player making a Perception check to notice something rather than roleplay searching through a treasure pile; nor that a player relies on their passive Perception to notice incoming stealthy enemies instead of making constant note of being wary about their surroundings.

That doesn't make sense. Charisma is explicitly supposed to cover not only performance, but outcome.

Seems like a pretty minor issue honestly, because I think people would have more fun learning that kind of stuff on their own anyway. And even if not, I don't think it's more engaging to do "okay roll this skill check to see if you know this background info" instead of just saying "oh, your characters would know [blank]" or "guess you'll have to find out." I mean really, when is there ever a bit of world information that you don't want the players to just have for free, but you are okay with the players getting randomly on a skill check?

>a player is not expected to actually be as attentive to their surroundings as their character
>a player relies on their passive Perception to notice incoming stealthy enemies instead of making constant note of being wary about their surroundings
No, but you still have to decide when to make an Active Perception check, and what you want to search or check; active Perception checks with no target and passive Perception checks will both be less revealing than an active Perception check with a well-defined target.

>No DM objects to a player making a Perception check to notice something rather than roleplay searching through a treasure pile
Interacting with inanimate objects is different than interacting with people. When performing Sense Motive, basically a perception check performed on a person, it is usual to have to actually engage the person, usually though dialogue, in order to have something to work with.

That's because having WIS is actually pretty fucking useful thanks to Perception running off of it.

That's really the issue with INT and CHA, while everything else has secondary effects that have clear benefits that are worth investing in, INT and CHA just feel superfluous because the only thing they affect is your ability to cast spells (where applicable) or your ability to perform certain skills (where applicable).

If I dump STR, my melee damage will be shite. If I dump DEX, my AC, Initiative, and Finesse damage will be shite. If I dump CON, my HP will be shite. If I dump WIS, my passive perception will be shite. However, if I dump INT or CHA, nothing terrible happens.

> I mean really, when is there ever a bit of world information that you don't want the players to just have for free, but you are okay with the players getting randomly on a skill check?

Something that they're not likely to know but is still within the realm of possibility, I'd guess.

Like, say the party consists of a Fighter, a Rogue, a Ranger, and a Paladin. So no arcane magic users. BUT this is a ridiculous world magic we're talking about, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that one of them recognizes the sigils that make up an Alarm spell before, even if it's unlikely. So you roll.

I actually have a similar system in place in my games with languages, adapted from Spycraft 1.0. Whenever the players encounter a new language for the first time, I have their characters make DC 15 Intelligence checks. On a success, the character knows how to speak and read/write the language. They didn't spontaneously learn it, it's just presumed that they knew it the whole time (adventurers being the sort who pick up languages, even esoteric and odd ones, as they travel to and fro) and this is just the first time it's come up.

Even when attacking, you decide which attacks to use and which targets to attack. Would you expect to roll Int and have the GM determine the best attack pattern in battle? Or are players who aren't as smart and experienced combatants as their characters supposedly "punished" for having to play their own character?

>However, if I dump INT or CHA, nothing terrible happens.

I'm currently running Out of the Abyss. Dumping Charisma is a terrible idea for two reasons: One, because that's a one-way ticket to Madness Town; and two, because a lot of Out of the Abyss depends upon negotiation with Underdark locals, which inevitably means Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation checks that, if failed, can royally fuck you up (case and point, trying to enter the city of Gracklstugh).

Let me put it this way: a great CHA roll can help you succeed if your idea made sense at all and soften your landing if if it didn't, or nudge your idea in the direction of what would actually work, but you still have to be trying to do something specific in the first place.

>but you still have to be trying to do something specific in the first place.

and in many cases if you tried to do the same thing with the same level of justification and roleplaying but with a lower attached mental stat you would probably get away with it.

Then you're GM's doing it wrong, man. It's fine for a GM to point out "Nah dude, sorry, but your character can't possibly pull that off; the NPC gets offended and leaves", or calls the guards, or whatever is appropriate for the attempted action, circumstances, and the adjusted roll.

Wow, if only I had known that being charismatic, wise, and intelligent would make me much better at playing games in real life. It's almost like your real life stats actually effect your real life outcomes.

Of course, dude. There are 20 sides on that die, after all.

Okay? That's one specific instance where CHA is worth having compared to dozens of campaigns where CHA isn't.

Not CHA's fault when people are more interested in hack 'n slash than social adventures.

It is the designer's fault if CHA doesn't offer you any inherent benefits beyond being a better CHA caster or better at performing CHA based skills.

In older editions, CHA helped you add a bonus to your reaction roll and it also determined how many followers you could take with you on dungeon delves. Nowadays, nothing.

>social stat has social usefulness + some special combat usefulness depending on class
>you still think it's the designer's fault that people don't care for social hijinks
It's honestly not the designer's fault you don't use the CHA based skills to properly benefit combat.

CHA modifying your reaction roll made little sense, and the follower mechanic was taken out of the game intentionally and for good reason.

>It's honestly not the designer's fault you don't use the CHA based skills to properly benefit combat.
It's practically impossible to use most CHA skills during combat because most GM's will treat eneies like they were mobs in a shitty MMO who will always run up to the biggest dude and fight until they either die or kill everyone.
>CHA modifying your reaction roll made little sense, and the follower mechanic was taken out of the game intentionally and for good reason.
That doesn't mean that CHA should now be relagated as a dump stat just because the devs couldn't be arsed to either fix or replace it.

Tell your DM you want more than hack 'n slash.

>it's the designer's fault I have a shitty GM that I can't be arsed to communicate with
Seriously, this is where your head is at?
>That doesn't mean that CHA should now be relagated as a dump stat just because the devs couldn't be arsed to either fix or replace it.
It's a dump stat if you're not playing a CHA-based character. Why is this a bad thing, exactly? The only stat that is universally important is CON, and this makes sense as it is positioned as an essential part of the central combat mechanic of the game as well as an intentional trade-off for damage and the lack of it as a weakness to protect within the party.

Have you ever made a character with tits as large as the Sorceress?

The entire sorceress?

Nah, and I had a feeling someone would say that when I posted the comment.

Of course. I assume you mean tits as large as the Sorceress' tits, not the Sorceress herself.

No? There’s no reason to give a character large boobs and it’s honestly sad some people do.

fuck off, metagaming is never justified

>Why is this a bad thing, exactly?
Because you're claiming that being an autist is a weakness when your class a) doesn't require you to be charismatic and b) not expect you to do the talking in the first place.

It's like saying "I can only speak English" is a weakness even though you live in a country that mostly speaks English.

Then they're bad GMs.

Also
>bawww my non combat stat doesn't affect combat it's useless USELESS bawww

Nigga social skills are the best skills in any rpg ever, as long as your GM isn't a chode. And if he is, there ain't no fixing that anyhow so get the fuck outta there and find a better GM.

Or you know.

Communicate with your GM.

"Hey, would they really stick around after we killed 8 of their friends just now?"

Or

"Why are our enemies fearless?"

Or

"Hey I took social skills and I feel invalidated because you keep handwaving or setting impossibly high charm DCs, or at least it feels that way from where I'm sitting, and it's making the game less enjoyable to me than it could be."

Etcetera, you lil bitch.