Opinion: Disguised as another race

[Naanomi]

This is totally a 'DM's call' situation, so I am not looking for RAW, but...

Assuming one had all the necessary skills (Tool: Disguise Kit, Performance: Acting, Deception); would you allow a player to disguise themselves as another race and/or gender without Disadvantage? Would it matter if they had the Charlatan background trait and/or the Actor feat and/or Assassin sub-class features?

Specifically, would you allow a female light-foot halfling to have a 'Charlatan' background alter-ego be a male human child without significant complication?

[Occasional Sage]

This is totally a 'DM's call' situation, so I am not looking for RAW, but...

Assuming one had all the necessary skills (Tool: Disguise Kit, Performance: Acting, Deception); would you allow a player to disguise themselves as another race and/or gender without Disadvantage? Would it matter if they had the Charlatan background trait and/or the Actor feat and/or Assassin sub-class features?

Specifically, would you allow a female light-foot halfling to have a 'Charlatan' background alter-ego be a male human child without significant complication?

I can't see a problem with this. Disadvantage seems harsh, unless the halfling is trying to disguise herself as an adult half-orc, or as a specific person known to the person rolling.

[Hydra98]

It really depends, for example a half elf could be both human and elven with minor alteration but to change drastically like half it's size would be much harder. At that point your better off using magic

[rlc]

With all of the right skills and tools, you should be fine.

[Totema]

I think if it involves moving up or down by a size category, you might want to apply disadvantage, but otherwise it should be fine.

[Mandrake]

"Damn, that's one big-headed kid! Poor parents..."

:smallcool:

[eastmabl]

This is totally a 'DM's call' situation, so I am not looking for RAW, but...

Assuming one had all the necessary skills (Tool: Disguise Kit, Performance: Acting, Deception); would you allow a player to disguise themselves as another race and/or gender without Disadvantage? Would it matter if they had the Charlatan background trait and/or the Actor feat and/or Assassin sub-class features?

Specifically, would you allow a female light-foot halfling to have a 'Charlatan' background alter-ego be a male human child without significant complication?

If it seems reasonable to you as a DM (and it does to me), I would see a problem with it. Let your player play it up.

Alternately, I would have the player just roleplay and not do at all (assuming of course that the player in real life feels comfortable with social interaction). If the player doesn't break character and seems convincing, it's fine.

[hawklost]

I would not allow them to shift their height any more than a couple of inches though. That means a tall half-orc would not be able to pretend to be a Dwarf without a lot of trouble and definitely could not pretend to be a halfling or gnome no matter how much they tried.

Also figure that it is easier to 'add-on' things than it is to remove them. Someone who is skinny can look fat by getting padding, but someone who is fat has a lot harder time looking skinny. Same would be true with trying to look like a different race. Adding on Teifling horns to a human and painting their face the correct color could work, but having a tiefling try to hide their horns and tails and cover up those differences is much harder.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

This relates pretty closely to a character concept I have. A tiefling con-man/woman (warlock with the charlatan background) who's alternate identity, a feature granted from being a charlatan, is non-tiefling, likely human with appropriately exotic coloring. Since this is a particularly cynical and deceptive tiefling, I was going to RP it that I had my horns trimmed off and I cover the stumps with hair/clothing, and I hide my tail by having my alter-ego be fairly portly and wrapping the tail around my stomach. Round it out with the disguise kit and using Thaumaturgy to hide my normally solid-colored eyes.
I think this would allow my tiefling to go about his business in a town without having to deal with the usual deamon hate or my past reputation unless I'm caught out somehow.

[hymer]

I don't think I'd make a blanket ruling on disguising as a different race. I'd evaluate the individual cases. Halfling to gnome is probably not too hard. Halfling to dwarf is harder. Halfling to half-orc, well, this is getting really hard. And a particularly large halfling would have an easier time impersonating a dwarf.

[Tehnar]

I would apply the following modifiers to your disguise check:

-2 for different gender
-2 for different race
-10 for different size category

See what I did there?

[Naanomi]

-2 for different gender
-2 for different race
-10 for different size categoru
Penalties like this seem very rare in 5e. Also, same size category, human child

[Tehnar]

Penalties like this seem very rare in 5e. Also, same size category, human child

I guess I was being too subtle. The modifiers above are from Pathfinder; so there you would have a -4 modifier for such a disguise.

The reason I posted that is to demonstrate that having clear rules is much better then relying on DM rulings. As you can see from the posts above, every poster has a different opinion on how far a disguise can take you. So when planning your character, or making plans how that character can complete a adventure, you have no way of knowing what the DM will rules unless you go through all contingencies with him. In other words you have no idea how successful is your character likely to be at a given task (disguise) without extensive discussion with the DM.

Other editions have things more clearly defined.

obligatory in before the crows: When the DMG comes out it will fix all those things of course

[Cambrian]

If a character took enough time, and put enough resources into something I'd probably consider removing the disadvantage on most things. The amount of time would depend on what race was trying to look like another. I wouldn't ever put a half-elf at disadvantage trying to imitate an elf or human; it would be easier for a human to attempt to imitate an elf than a half-orc or dwarf to; etc...

If it feels fair then let it go. The important thing is to let players have fun.


The reason I posted that is to demonstrate that having clear rules is much better then relying on DM rulings.
It makes the game more consistent. It isn't better or worse, it's different.

Pathfinder, following 3rd, attempts to simulate DCs with a chart of modifiers. This makes the rules more consistent one table to another.

5th allows the DM to set the DC with the situation in mind. This puts more reliance on the DM.

5th is faster than juggling the modifiers of pathfinder, and for that alone I'd give up consistency-- especially since 5th can provide better verisimilitude (DM depending).

[Ragnarok_Aeon]

I personally felt that the disguise skill from 3.5/Pathfinder was a rather pitiful skill. I let players describe their characters however they want, and sometimes that involves a half breed looking rather human, sometimes they have androgynous characters, and sometimes they have wildly unique features even being a human (Such as a huge scar taking up their entire face or sorcerous bloodlines showing through). With that in mind, you really do have to take it case by case (at least I do) because appearance isn't codified, nor should it be.

If they take the time to describe their character going through the effort of covering their features, I'll just give it to them. Some features may need additional props or magic.

Acting and charading as someone else, however, is another story.

[pwykersotz]

I guess I was being too subtle. The modifiers above are from Pathfinder; so there you would have a -4 modifier for such a disguise.

The reason I posted that is to demonstrate that having clear rules is much better then relying on DM rulings. As you can see from the posts above, every poster has a different opinion on how far a disguise can take you. So when planning your character, or making plans how that character can complete a adventure, you have no way of knowing what the DM will rules unless you go through all contingencies with him. In other words you have no idea how successful is your character likely to be at a given task (disguise) without extensive discussion with the DM.

Other editions have things more clearly defined.

obligatory in before the crows: When the DMG comes out it will fix all those things of course

Methinks the DMG won't rebel against the stated design goals of using more rulings and having less strict rules. As for knowing how effective your character will be, I've never had trouble if I ask the GM up front: "I want to play x. Will that be useful?" Of course, YMMV.

[Naanomi]

So, a minimum height halfling is 33'' tall and weighs in at 37 lbs; so an obese two year old, but just on the edge of obesity (95th percentile for weight if a modern human). The tallest halfling would be 39'' tall and 43 lbs; about the height of a four year old and firmly in the morbidly obese category (99.97 percentile for weight if a modern human); so for a halfling passing themselves off as a human child one would want to be the minimum height and find a good reason to be a butterball.

My alter ego, therefore, is a toddler child of a prolific distant noble known to send his children abroad to get them out of his house; a spoiled brat and a bit of a glutton, but with parents just influential enough to indulge when he comes as a guest to your home.

Lightfoot Halfling, Charlatan Background
Stat wise, I think STR: 8, DEX: 15+2, CON: 14, INT: 10, WIS: 8, CHA: 15+1

I want Rogue 4/Warlock 2/Rogue +9 as a base, with a few options beyond this. Combat-wise, an end result of Rogue 17/Warlock 3 or Rogue 18/Warlock 2 seems best; though Rogue 13/Warlock 2/Bard 5 is a more 'skill-monkey' build.

The 'Actor' feat is the only really necessary Feat. 3 Ability boosts (+ the bonus from Actor) would take Dexterity and Charisma to 20; leaving another free Feat for Alertness or Lucky later. A way to get more languages would be very nice for other uses of the schtick... something to throw wealth at between adventures I guess, or try to find an item/potions of Tongues asap.

[Warskull]

I would say it really depends on the disguise the are going for. I would pick the DC based on how difficult the disguise would be. A half-orc disguising himself as a gnome should be near impossible. The size difference would give it away.

A human disguising himself as an orc or elf seems reasonable. A little makeup, maybe some fake ears, these are things that would come in the disguise kit. A short race disguising as a full height race should be more difficult but possible, I could see a halfing with some stilts posing as a short human. It should have a high DC, but be theoretically possible.

As for posing as a different gender, absolutely, people actually do this, sometimes very successfully.


Specifically, would you allow a female light-foot halfling to have a 'Charlatan' background alter-ego be a male human child without significant complication?

That seems like a reasonable disguise, but one that would require a disguise kit and time to pull off.

[TheOOB]

Disadvantage isn't the only tool in the DM's box of tricks. If a DM feels something should be a little harder, or a little easier, a +2 bonus or -2 penalty can be leveraged without the full nastiness that is dis/advantage.