DCs for Persuasion?

[Yora]

How do you set the DC for a Persuasion check? You're not trying to be deceiving, so an opposed Insight roll makes no sense. In many situations, talking to someone with good insight should actually be helpful to convince them of your honesty.

[JackPhoenix]

I consider how hard sell whatever the persuader tries to get the target to do is, and set DC accordingly.

Automatic success with no need to roll.
Very easy, DC 5 (though usually, I just declare that one automatic success)
Easy, DC 10
Medium, DC 15
Hard, DC 20
Very Hard, DC 25
Near Impossible, DC 30
Some things, of course, are impossible and there's no need to roll for them.

Everything is +-2, depending on my judgement.

[stoutstien]

How do you set the DC for a Persuasion check? You're not trying to be deceiving, so an opposed Insight roll makes no sense. In many situations, talking to someone with good insight should actually be helpful to convince them of your honesty.

First step would decide if a roll is necessary. If the point is well made or is already in line with their own goals and ideals it probably doesn't need anything past that.

If the NPC is on the fence then you'd have to decide how much convection they have in their current mindset. this would be the easiest way to judge where to set the DC.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

How do you set the DC for a Persuasion check? You're not trying to be deceiving, so an opposed Insight roll makes no sense. In many situations, talking to someone with good insight should actually be helpful to convince them of your honesty.

Perhaps examples would do.

Convincing a rank and file worker with no family its time to betray a genocidal king by helping hid the adventurers, DC15.

Give the worker a family of his own to worry abouy and its DC25.

Do allow for player ideas though but don't force your players to give Shakesperian speaches. Showing said worker the guard plundering gold from a stack of dead bodies may lower either.

[Zhorn]

There's also the social interactions section of the DMG (p244-245) that covers the application of skill checks into social encounters along with DCs for friendly/indifferent/hostile.
I've been to so many tables where the DM and other players have been entirely unaware of that section.

I like that it include a DC 0 state for each attitude, as it gives you a reasonable target to shoot for obtaining via RP before hinging the whole thing on the d20, but also in having the DC range makes for a mechanical target for non-RPers to buff and gear their rolls towards.

[Tanarii]

There's also the social interactions section of the DMG (p244-245) that covers the application of skill checks into social encounters along with DCs for friendly/indifferent/hostile.
I've been to so many tables where the DM and other players have been entirely unaware of that section.
DMG Chapter 8, Running the game should be required reading (with a test!) before being allowed to DM. It makes me sad how few DMs I've met that haven't read it.

It doesn't help that it's buried. It should be the first chapter. But more than that, the number of DMs that think they don't need to read the DMG at all ...

[da newt]

I try to think about how hard it would be to change someone's mind IRL, and what are the risks vs rewards for that person.

People tend to hold onto their beliefs with an illogically stubborn deathgrip. You'd need a very compelling logical argument with irrefutable facts or a very smoothly impassioned emotional plea in order to get most folks to even consider dismissing what they believe in order to accept your new proposal.

Most folks are (perhaps rightly) very selfishly risk averse. If you can't show that a new course of action is truly in the individual's personal best interest, it is very unlikely that they will go for it. If they could get in trouble for doing X, they very likely won't. It's their butt on the line ...

I think JackPhoenix's #s are a great guide, but I'd also say any persuasion of consequence is HARD or more. If the persuasion has almost no stakes at all, then I'd go medium.

[J-H]

I consider how hard sell whatever the persuader tries to get the target to do is, and set DC accordingly.

Automatic success with no need to roll.
Very easy, DC 5 (though usually, I just declare that one automatic success)
Easy, DC 10
Medium, DC 15
Hard, DC 20
Very Hard, DC 25
Near Impossible, DC 30
Some things, of course, are impossible and there's no need to roll for them.

Everything is +-2, depending on my judgement.

This. It's how the books say the game is supposed to work.
Especially "some things are impossible." A natural 20 is not going to convince the king to marry his daughter to you, abdicate, and hand you the family magic armory.

[Pex]

DMG page 245
A handy DC table for NPC conversation reactions. It takes into account the NPC's attitude towards the PC - friendly, indifferent, hostile.

[Tanarii]

DMG page 245
A handy DC table for NPC conversation reactions. It takes into account the NPC's attitude towards the PC - friendly, indifferent, hostile.
Clearly the DMG needs more example tables for common D&D situations. :smallwink:

I have to say my favorite thing about this particular table is it's broadly useful, has a nice preceding explanation on use, and really narrows it down to common factors for DMs to consider:
- what are the PCs asking for?
- how much risk is there for the NPC to do it?
- what's their initial attitude towards the PCs
- did the PCs modify the attitude with the conversation proceeding the check?

There's a lot to unpack there, but the big one is making it clear that Social Interaction is ultimately about the PCs asking an NPC to do what they want. DMs and Players aren't always clear on that.

[RSP]

Just to add, Insight works against Persuasion as well in that it can a) reinforce that the character isn’t lying, but also b) show what their true motivations are.

b) can be a great part of an interaction. The NPC may not be lying, but may be trying to get the PCs to do something they otherwise wouldn’t, or say, setting them up to take a fall.

This is how Insight can help with these interactions.

[Unoriginal]

The other person seeing you're honest doesn't necessarily helps, either.

For example, if you try to convince a lord to help you kill their king, they may see you're sincere instead of trying to trick them into agreeing to betray their liege, but that doesn't mean that they'll be convinced by your arguments.

It also doesn't mean that they'll agree with your POV:

-"The king is a monster who doesn't deserve to rule, he ordered the execution of Blademaster Watalaff. And Watalaff was one of the best persons I've ever met"

-"I can see you really believe that, but I've known Watalaff for 40 years and while he was friendly with adventurers and always ready to help them, he was far, far different with the common folks."

[Yora]

The issue isn't reading the DMG, it's remembering that there was actually something useful that you can look up again later when you need it.
Reading that thing is like searching a haystack, except that you don't know you're looking for a needle.

[stoutstien]

The issue isn't reading the DMG, it's remembering that there was actually something useful that you can look up again later when you need it.
Reading that thing is like searching a haystack, except that you don't know you're looking for a needle.

That's fair. Just about all the reference material in 5e is horrid as far as layout and ease of use are concerned. I always suggest ripping them apart and getting them Rebound in a format that makes more sense. I love my abridged PHB as well with the order now being 7,9,8, conditions,4/1,3,2,6,5,10, and then 11.

[Tanarii]

The issue isn't reading the DMG, it's remembering that there was actually something useful that you can look up again later when you need it.
Reading that thing is like searching a haystack, except that you don't know you're looking for a needle.
Agreed, and apologies for throwing shade.

Running the game should be the first thing in the DMG, and it should cover all as many common typical D&D experiences as possible.