I Didn’t Know You Could Do That in 4e – Social Combat -or- Making Charisma the Overpowered Attribute for Once

Johenius (that would be me, I just like talking in the third person) is one-half of the awesome combination of seldom-updating South African DM’s that are Awesome Gaming. He enjoys long walks on the beach, pretty much every RPG system ever made, and  coming up with weird mechanics to copy from one system that you’ve never heard of to the popular one he’s interested in at present. Enjoy!

So. You’ve seen movies or comic books where people can use their words as a tangible means to fight. You’ve been impressed by witty insults in swordfights, fierce battle cries, and people who use words to defend themselves with more than a snippy comeback.And you’ve thought to yourself, “Self, wouldn’t it be badass to be able to do that in a role-playing game?”.

Well, I believe it not only to be possible – but easily done in a variety of handily house-rulable forms. And not just the charismatic few who use as verbal buffs in combat to help allies or intimidate enemies – but that any characters can use a well-placed jibe to throw an opponent. Elan would be proud.

This article was inspired by the concept of social combat, an idea I stumbled upon reading a transcript for a game of Scion: Hero in the RPG.net forums. Of course, White Wolf games have an edge on d20 games in terms of mechanical representations of social concepts, in that they have three distinct social attributes where d20 offers one: Charisma. This presented an opportunity (or challenge, if you’re that way inclined) that was too good to pass up.

There are several distinct ways that social combat can be implemented in your game of D&D 4e, with differing degrees of buy-in, and an varying scale of mechanical additions. Two of them are presented in this article:

• (Pardon the alliteration:) Subtle skill-based social combat (The “Mutants and Masterminds” way), where a few effects in combat can be triggered by social skill use.

• Feat-(and thus power-)based social combat, where sticks and stones compete with words to hurt people (closest to the original concepts of D&D 4e)

Both of these options are far from “Rules As Written” in terms of balance, canonicity and acceptance, so, should any of the systems catch your eye, add them to your gaming groups’ collection of house rules and be aware that some systems suit a group better than others.

Let’s look at each of the proposed social combat systems in the order presented.

“What Do You Mean, You Prefer Reaping Strike?!” – Subtle Changes

In the great superheroes RPG “Mutants and Masterminds”, there are a variety of actions a character can take in combat related to social skills. Some are only accessible by feats, and this will be expanded in the next section – but the ability to throw out a taunt mid-fight, bluff an opponent to make a mis-step, or intimidate an enemy can add real character to a fight.

The challenge in this regards is balance. Many classes have utility or even attack powers that target an NPCs mind via trickery or coercion in combat. These concepts should not be absolutely limited to those classes though: a wizard with large, bushy eyebrows and a scary stare should be able to intimidate as well as a 7 foot tall fighter with plate armour and a great big sword, screaming a vicious warcry while charging straight at you. Actually, no wait. Bad example.

A WIZARD USING A CANTRIP THAT MAKES IT APPEAR THAT HE CAN EXPLODE YOU WITH *HIS MIND* AND WITH AWESOME SCARY EYEBROWS. He’d be intimidating too.

So the challenge of introducing a generic intimidation – or any other social skill – combat ability (other than an intimidation check when an enemy is bloodied, mentioned in the PHB) resides in keeping it subtly useful, without making it equal or superior to a class skill. Keep in mind that ANY player should be able to use these skills, in the same way that any PC can use a basic attack.

The two best solutions that suit both the mechanics, and the imagined reality the mechanics represent, are as follows: making the abilities one-shot per encounter (to keep them from being abused, and because monsters who see you trick their friend will be wary and won’t fall for it themselves), and to keep the effectiveness limited to a single minor status effect.

This might seem to severely curtail the usefulness of the abilities, but keep in mind that talking is a free action. Talking to an NPC who is hostile to you, however, is probably somewhat more problematic – a minor action would be required for their use. Furthermore, social powers are limited (typically) to living creatures – mindless undead, animates and constructs can’t be cowed by insults to their maternal parents.

Social skills use the relevant social skill as an attack modifier – no other modifiers (for weapons, proficiency, etc.) can be added beyond the standard +1 per 2 levels. Social skills are defended against with the target’s passive Insight, or the same skill that is being used for the “attack” (whichever is higher). Note that for brevity, the remainder of this document lists the defense as Insight only, though either are valid.

Some examples of social skill uses in combat can be seen below:

Of course, the use of these powers is entirely up to your DM – they might easily unbalance your running game or campaign, but I feel they add a dimension to combat that – I feel – has been lacking. Quipping, wisecracks, taunts and so on give character to a scene. Dialogue with an arch-nemesis is a time-honoured trope, and this brings mechanical benefits to that dialogue. Guybrush Threepwood would be proud.

“I Have This Bridge in Faerun to Sell You” – Using Feats to Balance the Mechanics

Another means of balancing the gameplay aspects of the use of social skills in combat is to introduce a feat requirement. By sacrificing the possibility of other feats, you can justify the power increase implicit in the use of social skills, and it also has a handy narrative explanation too: it requires great concentration to throw out a wise-crack while avoiding blows and attempting to land some attacks of your own. Feats come with the implicit understanding that they represent innate talent or extensive training. As the character trains to keep their cool during the heat of combat, they unlock the capability to throw off an opponent.

One option available to players is to introduce the above Encounter powers as At-Will powers instead, at the cost of a feat each. This option may appeal to some DMs who would rather limit the social aspect of encounters to PCs that choose to invest in this course of action – leaving the dour, silent-fighting types who prefer straight-forward [boring] combat (and whose butts, frankly, look fat in those breeches) – to leave out this wonderful system, focusing instead on “power attacks” and “weapon focuses”.

Another option, should you choose to “stack” the social combat systems, is to leave social combat as a once-per-encounter power, but increase it’s effect after training. In that case, the following feats and associated powers are suggested:

Feat: Barbed Jibe

Prerequisite: Charisma 13, any alignment except Lawful Good

Benefit: By insulting your opponent, getting under their skin and generally taunting them, you may use the Barbed Jibe social combat power once per encounter:

Feat: Shock and Awe

Prerequisite: Charisma 13, trained in Intimidate skill

Benefit: Suddenly looming, giving a vicious warcry or flourishing a great weapon, you attempt to intimidate your opponent into cowering.

Feat: The Ol’ Dodge and Weave

Prerequisite: Charisma 13, trained in Bluff skill

Benefit: By tricking the opponent into making an unwise attack against you by using The Ol’ Dodge and Weave, the opponent is left exposed for your allies.

“Your Mama’s a Bog-Hag” – The Highest Level of Social Comment

One thing to note about social combat – it requires active social roleplay in combat. You cannot just declare “I’m using Shock and Awe on the hobgoblin this round” – players must narratively buy in to the social action. “I cry ‘FOR THE CHILD YOU STOLE FROM ME, AAAARGH!”, followed by the declaration and rolls gives a much better sense of what you’re trying to achieve.

Of course, the habit of adding story-flavour to your attacks is an established tradition – but the social powers infinitely moreso. Their role is to simulate the exciting and imaginative combats that we read in literature, see on the silver screen, or imagine in our minds.

Final Words

So this is where I shall leave you: there is much more to do out there. Social combat as a mechanism can be taken even further than this brief article. Entire combats composed entirely of words should be more than possible with the strong base that D&D 4e has provided in terms of powers, feats, skills and attributes. Especially since the redefinition of hit points to include “mental attitude” (and the silly statement that zero hit points means “terminal sadness” – a concept that can be expanded for some real mechanical – and narrative – fun!). Always remember that the rule of fun trumps everything, and that one of the DM’s many great priorities should always be helping players to translate the characters that they have in their minds into the characters that their stats, feats and powers indicate they are.

I would like to thank ChattyDM very much for this opportunity to contribute on his blog in this guest spot, and to thank you, the reader, for bearing with my wild and bizarre D&D 4e mechanical ideas 🙂

I would also like to apologize for the terrible power-tables. OpenOffice.org mangled the HTML, and the images seem to render strangely in this browser. Clicking “View Image” or the equivalent for your webbrowser might help.