Quote Originally Posted by sithlordnergal View Post
All it really takes is one player not paying attention and just blurting out "Yeah, we're that semi-famous level 9 party. We're here to murder the king and burn down the castle." to the wrong person. Or for the Wild Magic Sorcerer to cast a Subtle Charm Person, only for Wild Magic to go off 10 times in a minute, during which you randomly poison the king, shoot a random guard with a 5th level Magic Missile, fireball themselves, deal 1d10 Necrotic damage to everyone in the room, and more...yeah, good luck talking your way out even WITH a solid false identity.

And those two aren't really hypothetical...
LOL

Your argument of "yeah, but playing as a bunch of lolrandom morons (no judgement) means infiltration is almost impossible" might not hold as much water as you might think. Really go back and read what you wrote there...one player literally saying "we're the baddies!" out loud and another, knowing there's a chance of literal chaos being unleashed any time they cast a spell, casting a spell at a time when the very last thing the party needs is to unleash chaos...can you see why self-sabotage is not the counter argument you appear to claim it is?

By the same token, Pass Without Trace isn't a very good party stealth tool because the Barbarian keeps standing in plain sight.

In a game where the party is a goofy parade of rare and exotic races and classes, using features and spells that make them stand out of a crowd, yeah, an infiltration and espionage focused character is going to spend a lot of time pinching thr bridge of their nose and visiting herbalists and alchemists for tonics for their migraines. Notoriety and reputation is easy to gather when you're the exception to the norm; there's a reason celebrities seem larger than life. Power, importance and position don't necessarily go hand in hand with celebrity though, even in a world with mass media, let alone one without. Some of the most influential people in the real world are faceless suits or uniforms and The Winter Soldier, while we're told is supposed to be one of the the Marvel universe's premier spys, is practically a poster boy for "hey look at that obvious and easily identified person standing out from a crowd by having a massive fight in a public place with little to no regard for preserving his cover".