What should a face specced character be able to do?

[mehs]

In previous editions, diplomacy had more concrete difficulties and rewards, but this led to diplomancing mind control. 5e has much more open ended rewards for checks, with corresponding less concrete of a picture of what can be accomplished.

In my case, I specced hard into persuasion. 18 cha, expertise (feat), and emissary of peace from oath of redemption paladin. All told, at level 4 I have a +8/13 and have made dc 30 checks about 2-3 times now (mostly giving sermons to a crowd). The feat also gives what is essentially enthralling performance, but it is a mix of homebrew nerfs and UA (Diplomat, once/day), so me and the GM are reigning it in.

So my main question, what would what my character is currently capable of actually look like, and what is reasonable for my character to do (after reasonable nerfs/balancing). The campaign has been social/roleplay heavy in the first 4 sessions, but we are moving towards more episodic (travelling) and combat.

[KorvinStarmast]

In previous editions, diplomacy had more concrete difficulties and rewards, but this led to diplomancing mind control. 5e has much more open ended rewards for checks, with corresponding less concrete of a picture of what can be accomplished.

In my case, I specced hard into persuasion. 18 cha, expertise (feat), and emissary of peace from oath of redemption paladin. All told, at level 4 I have a +8/13 and have made dc 30 checks about 2-3 times now (mostly giving sermons to a crowd). The feat also gives what is essentially enthralling performance, but it is a mix of homebrew nerfs and UA (Diplomat, once/day), so me and the GM are reigning it in.

So my main question, what would what my character is currently capable of actually look like, and what is reasonable for my character to do (after reasonable nerfs/balancing). The campaign has been social/roleplay heavy in the first 4 sessions, but we are moving towards more episodic (travelling) and combat.

PC is likely to talk an NPC acquaintance made in a tavern into a romantic/erotic interlude in their room at the tavern (if you all roll that way during play).

PC may be able to negotiate a lower price or a better bargain (for an item or a service) more often than most.

PC is likely to make a good first impression.

PC has a decent chance, if they approach this carefully, to be able to engage a dragon in conversation rather than be, by default, an hors d'ouvre.

[tKUUNK]

Cool build.

It probably helps for you and the DM to remember Persuasion isn't always going to offer a solution. There will be times when it's simply the wrong tool for the job, or people can't be persuaded, no matter how high you roll. That could fix a lot of balance challenges right there, depending on how you've both been playing it so far.

The above may help answer the "what can this character reasonably do?" question.

It may also help the DM to consider: Sometimes, particularly persuasive people become notorious for their ability to exert undue influence (think about people you know IRL who are very manipulative). Nobles and kings familiar with a manipulative character may become jaded by previous interactions where they were persuaded one way or another. It's reasonable in such cases to make subsequent checks at disadvantage, as those NPCs become reluctant to even trust their own judgment when speaking with your character. On the other hand, if things went really well before, this could work in your favor.

Lastly, even if this IS a situationally strong ability, it's not game-breaking, and heck, you burned an ASI to pull it off. Again, I love the build. It's outside-the-box of typical 5e paladin builds, but thematically it makes 100% sense.

[loki_ragnarock]

You can convince a friendly character to do something that might put the at some significant risk.

You can convince a neutral character to do something for you that entails some small personal risk.

You can convince a hostile character to do something that entails no personal risk.

DMG 245

[Thunderous Mojo]

Great summary Loki!
(I wish WotC had used your summary in the PHB, to set expectations)

Technically, Intimidation is supposed to work exactly like Persuasion, but that strikes me as a bit odd. I allow Intimidation to 'convince' even Hostile creatures to take actions that might put them at risk.

The Interaction rules in the DMG, seem written from the perspective of Persausion, only.

[Angelalex242]

Intimidation vs. Persuasion is mostly about how the other party feels about it.

The NPC who is gently persuaded behaves differently than 'Do this, or I'll chop your fingers off and feed them to you, one by one...'

[Kane0]

Dont forget some way to deal with language barriers.

[Keravath]

You can convince a friendly character to do something that might put the at some significant risk.

You can convince a neutral character to do something for you that entails some small personal risk.

You can convince a hostile character to do something that entails no personal risk.

DMG 245

I'd just add to this that the above are the DC20 entries in a conversation reaction table in the DMG and when it was written there wasn't much besides expertise to boost charisma checks.

In addition, I would substitute "can" in the above with "might be able to". There are many situations where a character would never be able to convince a hostile NPC to do anything at all that might be useful to them. Persuasion might automatically fail while it might be possible to intimidate a hostile NPC to take the desired action.

This is where everything is up to the DM. However, I would tend to say that if the DM is assigning DC30 tasks simply because of your high modifier they should just say that you can't succeed at the check. A DC30 would be impossible for any regular character with expertise in tier 1 with +4 charisma and expertise (+4 again) - a maximum of 28. Even a DC20 would require a die roll of 12 which would succeed only 45% of the time.

For example, no matter how high your persuasion skill, it isn't magic. A greedy merchant isn't going to hand over 100gp just because you tell him to. A king won't hand over their crown. The king's guard won't let you into the throne room just by asking him if he has strict orders to prevent it. There are many situations where a specific social check should just fail and similarly many where a character with your skills should just succeed.

P.S. This is also up the DMs style - in some games you might be able to talk the King out of his crown :)

[mehs]

It wasn't dc 30 as in a set dc 30, just like essentially got a crit success via rolling high.

The thing Dm is worried about, is that the diplomat feat lets me force an encounter to be resolved by roleplay, with advantage, due to the charm effect. That and it being pretty much an auto succeed due to the high bonus i can make even higher with emissary. The charm effect having indefinite duration as well.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

In previous editions, diplomacy had more concrete difficulties and rewards, but this led to diplomancing mind control. 5e has much more open ended rewards for checks, with corresponding less concrete of a picture of what can be accomplished.

In my case, I specced hard into persuasion. 18 cha, expertise (feat), and emissary of peace from oath of redemption paladin. All told, at level 4 I have a +8/13 and have made dc 30 checks about 2-3 times now (mostly giving sermons to a crowd). The feat also gives what is essentially enthralling performance, but it is a mix of homebrew nerfs and UA (Diplomat, once/day), so me and the GM are reigning it in.

So my main question, what would what my character is currently capable of actually look like, and what is reasonable for my character to do (after reasonable nerfs/balancing). The campaign has been social/roleplay heavy in the first 4 sessions, but we are moving towards more episodic (travelling) and combat.

Oh man, now you're speaking my language. I've run 3 face characters from level 0 to 20+ demigods in 5th.

There are 3 critical qualities in a face-- Obviously high persuasion/deception being #1. Performance is less important, and Intimidation is not important at all. To maximize your first pillar, the power class unsurprisingly, is an Eloquence Bard. You mention DC 30 checks, which at mid-levels of play, an Eloquence Bard literally cannot fail. An overlooked thing here is you need a strong Insight, which is tough because Wisdom isn't synergistic with really any of your other abilities. Expertise slots I would allocate to Persuasion, Deception, Athletics, and Insight. The first three are obvious, but without Insight, ironically you are very vulnerable to getting diplomancied-yourself, which leads to hilarious but negative outcomes. Also you need to be able to communicate with everyone. This really forces you to use the Eloquence Bard for the Telepathy feature they get, unless you know you will get that option through a helm of telepathy or something.

The second critical quality is disguise ability. The only viable options for this are a hat of disguise if you know somehow you can get it, or a 2 level dip into Warlock (usually hexblade) for the Mask of Many Faces ability. You have to be able to near-instantly change your appearance to get the maximum use out of the build, especially the deception aspect of it. If you're going to be ripping people off, lying to them, generally manipulating them even with the less aggressive Persuasion option, you're a lot better off if you don't look like yourself or someone associated with your party when you do it. It has the added benefit in dungeon crawling that you can make yourself look like a really beefy Paladin or something and many monsters will leave you alone to focus on others and not use their action to see through the illusion.

Finally, you need survivability, generally through magic and mobility. For a lot of your out-there Face use cases, the critical one, you're going to have to be alone to pull it off, not to implicate the rest of your party. You're obviously very vulnerable while this happens, although again, the disguise feature can help with this. But it's not enough to bet your life on. Shield, Mirror Image, Misty Step, Dimensional Door, etc etc. You need to have the ability to survive a round of the entire throne room throwing hate your way, and then rapidly escape. Obviously these have other utilities in combat in exploration, but they are critical when a deal goes sideways, which if your DM is any good, it will.

Okay, so those are your focuses. How do you build that out?
Eloquence Bard 18, Hexblade 2. Take the Warlock dip early, because you NEED that mask of many faces and at-will cantrip damage boost. For feats, the only one you really HAVE to have is Lucky, in case you botch a critical check, which, to be honest, you will. Otherwise do as you like with them. With Universal Speech (telepathy with several creatures for an hour) Silver Tongued (Minimum roll of 9 on any Cha type ability check), and your regular Bard features, you just dominate any other type of Face character in the social aspect, since you avoid their two weaknesses-- people not speaking your language and the random botched roll.

Okay great-- so now you're a super charismatic / shapeshifting smooth talker. Now what can you do to help the party with that?

The basics:
Haggle for better prices for everything
Interrogations of captured enemies
Demanding the surrender of nearly beaten enemies for interrogation or other purposes
Distracting NPCs while other PCs rob them/ sneak by/ whatever
Turning two factions against each other by impersonating one with your mask of many faces, then deceiving the other or persuading them into a bad course of action
Collecting information about enemies, lairs, legend lore, etc from the locals
Convincing the tough looking NPCs in the tavern to help you on your epic adventure, and using them to eat the first couple traps so you don't have to pay them after
Framing people you want to get rid of for murders or thefts that your rogue etc has committed

Don't overlook the combat utility of a face either. Especially an eloquence bard. They have a ton of very damaging manipulation abilities on enemy saving throws, which can easily end encounters, even aside from fan favorites like Hypnotic Pattern. It's a great class with the Hexblade dip because you are easily the most powerful face in the game, you have medium armor and shields, access to the shield spell, at-will disguise self, excellent at-will cantrip damage, saving throw nuke ability, and all the rest of the bard tricks. You have also the most powerful type of 'standard' bardic inspiration in the game, although I find you use most of your BIs in combat to trash enemy saving throws. It's good out of combat to incite an angry mob or whatever though. Have fun and remember-- never let them see your real face!

[Keravath]

It wasn't dc 30 as in a set dc 30, just like essentially got a crit success via rolling high.

The thing Dm is worried about, is that the diplomat feat lets me force an encounter to be resolved by roleplay, with advantage, due to the charm effect. That and it being pretty much an auto succeed due to the high bonus i can make even higher with emissary. The charm effect having indefinite duration as well.

I think you might be referring to this feature of the diplomat feat?

"If you spend 1 minute talking to someone who can understand what you say, you can make a Charisma (Persuasion) check contested by the creature’s Wisdom (Insight) check. If you or your companions are fighting the creature, your check automatically fails. If your check succeeds, the target is charmed by you as long as it remains within 60 feet of you and for 1 minute thereafter."

Diplomat also seems to just be Unearthed Arcana from what I can tell.

Anyway, you can not force an encounter to be resolved by roleplay with this ability.

1) If you or your companions are fighting a creature the effect automatically fails so no option to be a diplomat in combat.
2) You have to spend 1 minute talking to someone who can understand what you say. This requires sharing a language you both understand AND being allowed to spend a minute talking to them. They could easily decide that they don't like what you are saying and hostility breaks out after 30 seconds again leaving your ability having no effect.
3) IF you succeed on the persuasion vs insight check then the target is charmed. This may not mean what you think it does in 5e

Charmed

A charmed creature can’t Attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful a⁠bilities or magical Effects.
The charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature.

Charmed does two things - they can't attack you but they CAN attack your companions or order their minions to do so. You also have advantage on ability checks to interact socially with the creature. This is ALL that being charmed does.

Spells like charm person have additional effects "The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance. When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you."

The basic Charmed condition does NOT require the creature to think of you as a friendly acquaintance - however, this ability also does not let the creature know they were charmed. What this means is that by using this ability you stand a better chance of convincing a somewhat willing creature to do as you ask. That's it. You can't make a hostile creature friendly, you can't force a fight to be resolved as a social interaction. RAW, the ability is quite weak except in certain specific scenarios where you can convince a creature to assist you. The ability does not make the impossible possible and it does not make a hostile creature friendly. It just prevents them from attacking you and increases your odds of successfully convincing them of something.

4) The charm only lasts as long as you remain within 60 feet. If you leave that distance it ends one minute after you left even if you return. This means that you can retain advantage on social interaction checks for quite some time but doesn't really give you much else.

-----

The only loophole I can see and it is one that I would prevent with a house rule is that the feat says nothing about the charm ending if you or your companions attack the creature. Personally, I would add that element to the feat ability since it doesn't make sense that you could charm them and then attack them without them being able to fight back.

[mehs]

The resolve with roleplays is if you manage to talk to them before a fight or if thing seem to start getting violent.

While by RAW they could just order their minions to attack me, that doesn't make much sense as a bypass of the charm effect.

My dm is worried enough that he is getting to the point of removing the feat and offering me two feats in its place. Not choice between two, but two feats of my choice.