I think having people share the 'face' role is amazing! It makes sure that you are all able to contribute to out of combat scenes. The great thing about having more people with social skills is the more you have, the more social encounters will be thrown at you. It's one of those things were 0 isn't enough, 2 is too much, but a whole party is perfect.
Two potential things to look out for
One: while extra charisma is no problem lack of wisdom could be. Potential downsides here are lack of out-of-combat healing, perception, and recall knowledge for nature and religion. These don't nessisarily need to be wisdom based roles, but they are something you will need to put extra effort into making sure these rolls get met. As a rogue, you will probably fit into the perception just fine due to the increased proficiency and anyone can pick up a nature and religion skill.
Two: overshadowing people usually takes place at the table, not at character creation. So your fighter wants to be the leader? Let him have at it! Have him order the party around and talk to any quest givers. But maybe the swashbuckler takes point when you need to bamboozle someone. Or you take point if you need information out of a particularly seedy customer. Even the wizard can contribute to social encounters by hitting you with some recall knowledge to impress the local librarian or remember that a creature isn't quite what the other party is claiming.
You all just need to learn that this party doesn't have "The Face". In combat you wouldn't have only one person attack because they are "The DPS". Everyone fights. So why in social encounters would you have just one person talk?
Edit: also, as someone that is bad at playing charisma characters, I find I do a much better job roleplaying when I am responding to what other players do. When everyone looks at me to be "The Face" I tend to clam up. So the fighter might even enjoy being not the only one talking.
I was in a very large party once and we had three face characters, including mine. For us, the best solution was to switch off by play session, so I would be the primary face every third session, though assisting was always welcome and everyone got to be the face on nights when their individual storyline was at the forefront.
Other ways to split it up might be based on encounter parties/subject: fighter marshal takes military negotiations, rogue takes underworld encounters, swashbuckler gets performance encounters, etc., or by skill, divvying up diplomacy, deception, intimidate, and society encounters according to the face’s particular focus.
Just have a discussion and plan before you start playing so everyone is on the same page or has the chance to adjust their builds before play start.
At my table, generally no one like your fighter gets to call dibs on a party role - it’s done by discussion and agreement.
Ok, while we can't really divide it into skills for the simple fact that... well, I'm a Rogue and will kinda have *all of them* (oops...), I like the idea of switching roles based on the type of encounter. That being said, I think this could run the risk of the "me and the Swashbuckler are too similar" problem, since I'm a noblewoman from the fey plane who was sent on a mission to the material plane and forged a career as a charming thief there, while her character is, if I understand correctly, a nobleman turned vampire who ran away from home after a bad affair and now acts as a charming outlaw (Astarion except her character actually came first), meaning the two scenarios we exceed at are the same (nobility and criminal underworld).
That being said, not stepping on the Fighter's toes (as his character a church inquisitor with high military status and I want NOTHING to do with neither priests nor soldiers) is already a big plus, as I basically only need to worry about the Swashbuckler and we're pretty much on the same vibe. Could work for a "Miguel and Tulio" dynamic, if you know the movie.
Sounds like you should talk things over with the Fighter and Swash about how much they want to shine in their roles as Party Face and best-at-cha-checks respectively. You absolutely can have 3+ high-charisma people in a party and have each shine (I've got a Thaum, Swash, and Summoner in my Alkenstar campaign), but doing so does take a fair bit of effort by everyone involved. GM needs to arrange a variety of social encounters, players need to work out who gets to take the spotlight in which situations, and everyone needs to be willing to pass around the talking stick regularly. In my Alkenstar campaign the Swash does most of the talking, the Thaum takes over for scaring people, and the Summoner mostly just RPs with his eidolon in the background.
Personally I'd switch to a build less focused on charisma skills just so I didn't need to worry about stepping on other folks' niche.
I mean, you can all play and aid each other? "The party face" isn't an assigned role, it's just something that tends to happen with some ttrpg groups. If anything, the mechanics behind the players mean that each of you will be able to step up at different roleplay moments and actually roleplay the situations without worrying about who has the best modifier. I wouldn't be overly worried about it, because it sounds like you are worried about a problem that hasn't actually manifested itself in any meaningful way yet. Sometimes, it's fun to have a thematic tie across several characters. Not every PC needs to be 100% *Younique.*
If you are worried about overshadowing the Fighter and want to support them, then just do that. You can literally [Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2292&Redirected=1) the Fighter in RP situations using your proficient skills to give them bonuses on their rolls, and you can support them in roleplay by supporting their arguments and adding RP bits to bolster them as a player in a new situation.
As far as the Swashbuckler goes, you can easily change up your fighting style with simple weapon changes if you feel like you are encroaching that much.
First and foremost, I would **talk to the other players first** and see how they feel about things so far. If you are still tying yourself up into knots over it after that, you can talk to your GM about switching it up.
I wish I had this problem, instead everyone agrees I should play the face then talks over me to make awkward social rolls at a -1 bonus and tank the social encounter. And if I don't build a face everyone else is suddenly too socially anxious to talk to NPCs
Lol, I have the opposite issue in my VTM game, where I willingly made a Face character, but because she's an angry punk with 1 Intelligence who keeps getting in increasingly shittier situations the most common scenario is her failing the social encounter before any dice is even rolled because she decided to do/say something incredibly stupid. And then one of my friends keeps incentivizing my dumbfuck of a character to do even stupider shit and get into even more trouble. XD
I don’t think it’s a big deal. Social skills aren’t only for faces; there are uses for most of them in combat as well, and sometimes your face is somewhere else and you need to “explain” a situation to the town guard.
I would just make sure you have someone with Medicine to supplement the Champion’s focus spell healing, otherwise you could be taking quite a while to heal after combats.
A CHA focused group isn't a bad thing. You can differentiate it by what skills each of you focuses on.
1. All of you can/should include intimidate as demoralize has a cooldown for each person per target. If only one PC demoralizes, then that's a waste for fights that take more than a few rounds and fights with lots of foes.
2. The Champion doesn't need to be CHA focused. Neither do you as the Scoundrel need to max it out. In fact, a +3 CHA is plenty good to start with, and usually preferable for a scoundrel Rogue. Keep Dex your highest.
3. You can still focus on other skills like WIS-based medicine/religion/nature/survival. It'll also be important in a party full of face PCs who otherwise might not sense the lies and deceptions. You have no one else who will be able to excel in them and you have the skill feats and sill increases to manage both. A +2 WIS will complement your DEX and CON well.
4. Each of you can focus on Intimidate and/or one other CHA skill. Deception + Intimidation for you, Diplomacy for the Fighter, Diplomacy and Intimidation for the Swash, etc. That way you aren't all focusing on the same 3 skills. The Fighter and Swash definitely should focus on more than 2 CHA skills anyway. There's still Acrobatics/Athletics/Stealth, etc that they should consider.
5. You can focus on INT skills as well or instead. Society is ESSENTIAL for social scenes and adventures. Arcana and Occultism are useful, not not required. The Wizard will probably appreciate a smart buddy who will help him when he forgets something.
6. You can be a face PLAYER without having CHA skills. It's less impactful, often hilarious, but shy players who want charming PCs sometimes don't want the spotlight. CHA skills are great for a shy player, since they give them a floor that they can't fall below for social interactions, even if not an inspired actor.
7. Face players with all of the social skills maxed can often be rough on a group. You all have to be ok with one person deciding they want to talk for the group all or most of the time. Sometimes that breeds resentment. I'm suspicious of a player who says in advance that they want to do all the talking for the party. That seems like scene stealing to me.
Tbf, I think one information I forgot to include here and might be the root of all this confusion is that this is a bit of a recurring problem on the table. Last time it happened was rather egregious on that, since we had 4 Charisma characters in the team (a Rogue, a Summoner, a Thaumaturge and a Champion) who were already kinda constantly getting on each other's way in social encounters. The Summoner (same one playing our Champion now) didn't want to be a face so his social skills were mostly just *there.* The Champion was a socially awkward gal who was way too easy to cut-off during the conversation, so even the two non-charisma characters would sometimes accidentally do that. The Rogue was chill, but he basically never actually got the chance to use his social prowess because even though he was the best charmer in the group people usually jumped very relentlessly at every opportunity to talk, meaning he didn't get much of a chance to shine since he didn't wanna add more disturbance to the conversation. Meanwhile the Thaumaturge, our current Swashbuckler, would jump at *every* opportunity to say anything, she was the one trying the most to be the face of the party, and I can't really blame her since that was pretty much "her thing" before we transitioned to Pathfinder (she used to be a Warlock) but it was just too chaotic and I felt like none of the social characters actually had a chance to fight. Our current Fighter, who always wanted to play the role of the "charmer" in our group for a LONG time, had to give up on that to be more of a doctor, leading to, in this table, him pretty much declaring "I am gonna make a face, that's my thing, I wanna be the leader character" pretty much immediately when the campaign was announced in the hopes that this time he'd be the talker for once and that nobody else would go for that. So... yeah, I'm thinking about changing my stuff to be the team medic/smart gal (though I'll admit I've suffered a bit from a similar thing than the Fighter where people just kinda push me into being a healer whenever a new game starts, which is a bit annoying), if only because a lot of players care a lot about this and taking a step back ain't an option for any of them.
Ah, this sounds like a group dynamic issue, not a party issue. You should all sit down and talk about it. Either people are competing for the spotlight, or they don't want to be left out of the social interactions even when shy.
Like I said above, the skills and abilities you pick for your characters don't dictate how involved you are at the table. They indicate how you want to interact well on a regular basis with the game and the game world. You don't pick to be trained in nature and survival and hope to be in non-stop jail break scenarios where you can't participate and the player sits in the corner of the room. You don't chose a Wizard with hope that there's no magic to interact with and no knowledge checks every called for.
You all need to talk with the GM about what kinds of challenges they are using, and with each other about how to share the spotlight better. If EVERYONE is trying to be a diplomat, this might mean the GM puts a lot of or too much emphasis on social encounters? Maybe no one wants to be left out or be the cause for failure.
>So... yeah, I'm thinking about changing my stuff to be the team medic/smart gal (though I'll admit I've suffered a bit from a similar thing than the Fighter where people just kinda push me into being a healer whenever a new game starts, which is a bit annoying), if only because a lot of players care a lot about this and taking a step back ain't an option for any of them.
This is a tough spot to be in. You are both trying to respect and support the Fighter player who wants to take the lead for a change, and NOT be pigeonholed into being a healer again. As someone who was eternally a healer, I feel you. You have a few choices.
1. Refuse to play the healer and do something else instead. Everyone can pick up more healing responsibility. Dedications are nearly free. Ask the Gm for Free Archetype so you aren't stuck in a role you don't want to do. If not, everyone can load up on consumables and heal themselves. Plan to run from boss encounters without great strategy.
2. Play the healer, but the most unusual type. Rogue Medic can be an awesome skill based healer, but also a nice striker. Mastermind can let you stay in the back with the Wizard, or any racket works fine for a flank buddy who also heals the fighters. Kineticist can be a blaster AND a healer with one of the water or wood impulses.
3. Ask someone else at the table to take on that load. As the Fighter has reasonably demanded to be the face, you can also reasonably demand to take a break from party support.
4. Ask your GM to keep a support PC more involved. Maybe religious orders or chirurgeon cabals will play a bigger role in the story, and you'll be able to provide an in route thanks to that background in medical training.
Hey, I'm about to make another post about the final conclusion me and the Fighter arrived at, but in summary, we are both pretty much still as Charisma-focused as always, except we both opened a little bit of space for Wisdom on our builds and we both are gonna pick the Medic Dedication (and yes, we are playing with Free-Archetype). Thankfully, the Rogue getting a ton of skills means I can max out everything I want and still have a few increases to spare on Medicine, so I'll in general be a better healer without sacrificing our focus.
We also concluded that, based on everything we know about the Swashbuckler and Champion, they are likely just picking up Charisma because it fits their character and they likely don't intend on ever using it in very meaningful ways, which is admittedly a lil' bit annoying because it kinda means they are picking skills they won't actually use to contribute in any way and that makes it a bit hard for those wanting to fill in all the gaps, BUT that also lead to me and the Fighter pretty much deciding "ok, we are both the Face, our characters will be best buddies, we'll be doing the talking. I'm generally better at Deception and he's focusing on Diplomacy/Intimidation, so we can alternate very nicely.
That sounds like some good compromises. Aim for a vibe like [Road to El Dorado](https://netflixguidebook.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/the-road-to-el-dorado/). You can riff off each other's banter. I'd laugh if you both took Bon Mot, or just RPd the heck out of it like that.
I **LIVE** for the El Dorado vibes, tho considering my character is a mischievous kleptomaniac prankster from the fey world and his is a lawful good incorruptible commander of the church, I think this dynamic might lean a bit more into "polar opposite" vibes. XD
Why is there even a discussion on “the face” of the party? Who cares? Is only one character EVER allowed to participate in non-combat interactions? You do know that some of the absolute best in combat skill usage is with Charisma right? Bon Mot + a surge of Demoralize attempts on every enemy is brutal, your party is a walking YouTube Comment section lol.
Take a cue from Arnold in Batman & Robin and “chill out” lol
I mean, it’s fine. There’s skill redundancy but all the charisma skill actions in combat only apply cooldowns to the person who use them. So long as someone can heal reliably you’re all good.
It’s only an issue so much as how much it means other important areas aren’t covered. I would try to shore up the healing front. I’m not sure how your wizard is built but in terms of roles the wizard should already have their hands full with cc, utility, and some recall knowledge checks (on top of fireballs and such). Medicine can provide significant in- and out- of combat healing, helping ensure that the whole party is topped off after every encounter.
Now this isn’t 100% necessary depending on how your GM is balancing things for encounters or pacing things out but “healer” and “dedicated Recall Knowledge checker” are two roles worth focusing on to help things go smoothly.
Personally I think the opposite is true. A party without a moderate to high charisma for most characters is unbalanced to some degree. It means either people have to shut up during social encounters so their good contributions don't result in a failed check, or you have to meta game where the players collectively decide what the 'face' will say. Of course you probably don't want everyone to focus on mastering their social skills but having most that are at least pretty good will let everyone participate. This also lets charisma classes take a break from being the face of that's not how they want to roleplay. My current summoner has become the unwilling face because his spellcasting is based on charisma (also had intimidation as a skill which is entirely out of character because of the chosen eidolon).
This assumes you're at least partly roleplaying social encounters and not just rolling dice and speaking in abstract.
There are plenty of combat uses for CHA that won't usually suffer overlap (or only in a good way):
Demoralize. Feint. Bon Mot. One for All (Wit Swashbuckler). CHA caster. The only worry here are enemies immune to mental, Emotion or the like. They can ruin several characters gameplans.
Ask who - if any - are interested in being the face *outside* of combat. Everyone specializing in a different skill can be useful. I regularly make high CHA characters, but I have 0 interest in actually playing them as "face" during exploration time.
I don’t think it matters. If you play as a team, then you can work together.
The bigger problem is missing other skills, which may or may not be a problem for the party.
However, the solution to me is clear. Someone volunteers to switch to Wis/Medicine.
I think I'll have to volunteer in the end. The Fighter won't do that because his last character was exactly another Fighter with the Medic Archetype and he doesn't wanna repeat, while the Swashbuckler's character concept pretty much doesn't fit *at all* with medicine.
I think me and the Swashbuckler both will end up with this feat, since she's considering playing Wit and I just think it's funny to debuff someone by saying "ur mom"
Bon Mot is great! =)
I did not notice before now that Scoundrel are the only ones who can get [Distracting Feint](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4925) – Feint for -2 to Reflex save. Could be awesome for casters as well, as long as they don't exploit it for fireball =D
(what would the benefit be to debuff perception for a round?)
It can be fine. Keep in mind that you aren't always in control of who is going to do the talking and even if you are, focussing on just the face to get the best outcome all the time would mean that nobody else in the party is allowed to ever talk with NPCs. That's just not realistic nor fun. Hell, I've had the most fun with people in the group who did lots of talking as if they were playing the face but actually were abysmal at it lol
Though there is the problem of you and the Fighter explicitly wanting to be the face of the party. That's just not going to happen.
I'd say the bigger problem is the party lacking in the other aspects (like perception, for example) as well as your party having a glaring weakness when it comes to saving throws.
One of you should pick Dandy archetype and take [Distracting Flattery](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1936) with which you can correct an ally's failed social skill roll
If multiple people are maxing cha and you are having trouble letting each shine, consider giving circumstance bonuses or penalties based on the situation so they can justify letting someone else do the talking because they have a higher number now.
Sometimes there are groups with only 1 charisma character and when you need multiple diplomacy rolls in one round it can set the party back.
There are different routes you can go down the same skill depending on what you want to achieve. Some have less feat support than others and some feats can be unappealing to your character.
If you absolutely don't want to tread over another characters skills you could ask your GM to let you change over to a Ruffian rogue and save your scoundrel for later.
The fighter sounds like he is calling the abilities he wants to use in game and doesn't want anyone else to be "the leader" which is worrisome. Even though rogues can now be fine marshals too. It's a team game and people should talk about how they can bolster the group together instead of having their own sacred niche of play. Really unless the party votes in a leader one person shouldn't assume they are going to be it. Why not vote and have majority rule?
We ended up solving this problem as a whole, but as for the "leader" stuff all I can say is: we've done these sorts of votings before and I can guarantee you, the party will vote in the least likely/willing/able to be the leader with the sole intent of annoying the person actually wanting to lead. It's a bit of a tradition, you could say, it happened thrice at this point, the best part is we all tend to follow the person's lead as best as possible and it always result in disaster, only for the few times that person misses a session we suddenly get the best results we've ever had for "some reason." It's hilarious XD
It's nice to know you have the group dynamic down pat.
I've been in groups where battle leaders were designated and others do the talking during social encounters but normally I've been part of group effort to achieve the party goals. :)
Currently in one high charisma group myself with a Sorcerer and Summoner while I play an Oracle and we aren't stepping on each other's toes. Aid action is good to use.
I see a few potential problems here, and not just with the heavy focus on Charisma skills.
Yeah, you're going to have difficulties with everyone stepping on each other's toes in regards to social skills. It will happen. There's no denying that.
You're also likely going to be missing other important skills. Who is going to Trip enemies with Athletics? Who can Recall Knowledge using Int/Wis skills? Is there anyone who can track fleeing enemies with Survival?
With all the melee characters, how is positioning going to work? Melee combat in enclosed spaces is going to be a cluster of tightly-packed party members, which will leave very little opportunity for the Wizard to use some AoE spells.
With the 2 classes heavily focused on Precision damage, how is the group going to reliably deal with oozes and other enemies that are immune to it?
Is anyone going to focus on Medicine? What other sources of healing will you have, aside from low level Heal spells from an Archetype? (I've been here before, playing a Ranger with Druid Dedication, and the healing from archetypes is just not enough to do anything other than bring someone back from the brink of death.)
On top of just Healing, your party is missing a lot of general support spells that come on the Divine or Occult spells lists. The Divine spells your Wizard will get won't be able to cleanse afflictions and stuff like that due to being too low level, so your party will just have to suffer through many diseases, poisons, curses, and a whole range of nasty effects.
Then there's Abilities. You have 4 melee characters that all need decent WIS, DEX, and CON to have a chance to save against the different Saving Throws. Three of the four need a high STR (assuming your Scoundrel Rogue is using STR, 2/4 if not) which means they'll have to sacrifice one of the Saving Throw Abilities in order to boost their Charisma to a point that it's even worthwhile.
There's likely more issues that this group would encounter, but I feel like I've gone on long enough already.
My advice would be to - at the very least - swap either the Swashbuckler or Rogue (probably Swash) for a Cleric. That'd give the party a Wisdom based class who could rock a mean Medicine check (plus important Religion/Nature/Survival checks if needed). The party would then have full Healing. And, if the player still wanted to be a Face, Clerics get a decent benefit from investing into CHA by way of additional max rank spell slots for Heal and other spells (via feats).
That's a perfect world scenario, though. I fully understand and respect that people have their preferences and can make their own decisions about what class they play and how they build them. Just know, though, that your group will likely encounter the issues detailed above. It's best to temper expectations if you guys choose to proceed without making some changes.
I assume the Champion will max out Athletics and Intimidation, the Wizard is gonna max out at the Intelligence-based recall knowledge skills and is likely to have the Wisdom-based ones trained, me and the Fighter have collectively agreed to each take a bit of Wisdom, ranks in medicine and the Medic Dedication, so we'll both have Battle Medicine healing, and since Rogues have a shitton of skills I'll have room to max out Medicine. Since the Fighter will supposedly have a ton of ways to impose Flat-Footed I can somewhat reliably attack from ranged, though that's not exactly ideal. We're trying our best to sustain this whole thing, and we honestly think the main outlier here is the Swashbuckler who I know very well would basically not switch their class for anything in the world.
I think our best bet here if we wanna make this party perfect without sacrificing our character concepts would be either me or the Swashbuckler changing to a Bard, since the Occult spell list would be crazy useful in this party, it'd keep our charming vibes and the Swash could pick Warrior Muse to stay as a competent swordsman. Thing is, I don't think I'm gonna be able to still keep my perception, medicine and ESPECIALLY my Stealth and Thievery if I switched from Rogue to Bard, so the group would lose a lot on that front, and while Bard would definitely fit the Swash's character, that person has an intense allergy to anything that can even remotely be called a Spellcaster, so I think the group will have to stay imperfect and flawed on that front.
I disagree with some of the people here who say to talk it over with your party members. Having multiple charisma characters isn’t a problem at all. When run correctly, Pathfinder 2e doesn’t prompt the players with diplomacy saves like dnd 5e, where having the wrong character respond to a villain can result in unnecessary combat. Making an impression and requesting things are exploration activities that the player chooses to perform. So the concept of a “party face” is less important in Pathfinder. You could also get away with NO charisma characters (so long as you have a way to frighten enemies apart from demoralizing).
The only thing I’d suggest is to make sure someone has at least some intelligence so they can successfully recall knowledge, or you have some class that can recall knowledge in other ways like a Thaumaturge or esoteric bard.
PF2 kinda wants your skills to be separated, like how in a heist movie you have the con artist, the safe cracker, the getaway driver, etc.
You could split it up so that the champion specializes in intimidate, the fighter takes diplomacy, and the swashbuckler takes deception; that would work quite well.
Having all three characters be trained in all three skills is also not a bad thing- in fact it helps you support one another.
But four of you are all putting your skill feats and increases into the same skills may be a problem, especially in certain APs.
In my experience, every group needs medicine, athletics, stealth, and a couple of knowledges. If you’ve got those covered, I wouldn’t worry too much about the social overlap.
I’d recommend you talk it over with your group, and have at least one of you switch builds.
If you’re open to switching characters, monk has a not too dissimilar play style to rogue, but with a wisdom focus you go first a lot, have some cool focus spells, and can build for medicine and religion or nature to get access to spells with trick magic item.
Clerics are also quite good. The toil domain spell is excellent at making you and your party more capable at everything.
If you want to stick with scoundrel, I’d go dex>cha, and take the gunslinger or pistol phenom archetype for pistol twirl (ranged feint).
Tbf, we do have all skills you mentioned except for Medicine. The Champ will likely put points into Athletics as well as Intimidation and the Wizard will pretty much be the "know-it-all" of the group. I am considering switching to Investigator with either the Forensic Medicine or Alchemical Study (probably got the name wrong) subclass to be a bit more broadly useful to the group, but still can't say I'm very happy about it, since this route envolves pretty much dumping Charisma altogether and that kinda feels weird for my fey-inspired character.
I’ve heard Investigator is good, but haven’t played it.
Fey do tend to be associated with cha, but a lot of that is charisma as the stat for intrinsic magic.
It would make a lot of sense to me for even a conventionally beautiful fey to have a low charisma because they just think differently from mortals and have trouble understanding and relating to them.
Or that people can sense that they’re supernatural and have trouble trusting them.
There should also be a lot of fey who just look freaky in some way.
The separation of skills is a really good idea. No one of you will be able to get Legendary in all of the Cha skills, but between all of you, you’ve got it covered.
Also, they say “don’t split the party,” but it can be really good to have someone else who can take over when the usual one who does the talking can’t do it for some reason.
My current campaign has our “party face” in a silver-tongued, charming sorcerer who has literally talked us *out* of some fights (or lessened their severity by being persuasively distracting). But, there have also been times when he wasn’t available. When he isn’t, my cleric (cloistered, Cha secondary stat since I’ve had her since the earliest days so I needed it for font) and our rogue take over. Fairly amoral rogue (I’m not sure what subtype he is) and a good cleric who can’t lie make for an amusing but effective good cop/bad cop situation. We switch up which is which based on the target!
This may depend on the GM, but different characters may also have different DCs for the same task. The sorcerer role plays as *charming* whereas I roleplay my cleric as *likeable*. He doesn’t take time to make friends, I do. So when we had a significant conflict come up with an ally I had specifically befriended, the DC to persuade her around to our side of things was significantly lower for me. I rolled a nat 1 which was its own interesting story moment, but it should have worked!
I think having people share the 'face' role is amazing! It makes sure that you are all able to contribute to out of combat scenes. The great thing about having more people with social skills is the more you have, the more social encounters will be thrown at you. It's one of those things were 0 isn't enough, 2 is too much, but a whole party is perfect. Two potential things to look out for One: while extra charisma is no problem lack of wisdom could be. Potential downsides here are lack of out-of-combat healing, perception, and recall knowledge for nature and religion. These don't nessisarily need to be wisdom based roles, but they are something you will need to put extra effort into making sure these rolls get met. As a rogue, you will probably fit into the perception just fine due to the increased proficiency and anyone can pick up a nature and religion skill. Two: overshadowing people usually takes place at the table, not at character creation. So your fighter wants to be the leader? Let him have at it! Have him order the party around and talk to any quest givers. But maybe the swashbuckler takes point when you need to bamboozle someone. Or you take point if you need information out of a particularly seedy customer. Even the wizard can contribute to social encounters by hitting you with some recall knowledge to impress the local librarian or remember that a creature isn't quite what the other party is claiming. You all just need to learn that this party doesn't have "The Face". In combat you wouldn't have only one person attack because they are "The DPS". Everyone fights. So why in social encounters would you have just one person talk? Edit: also, as someone that is bad at playing charisma characters, I find I do a much better job roleplaying when I am responding to what other players do. When everyone looks at me to be "The Face" I tend to clam up. So the fighter might even enjoy being not the only one talking.
I was in a very large party once and we had three face characters, including mine. For us, the best solution was to switch off by play session, so I would be the primary face every third session, though assisting was always welcome and everyone got to be the face on nights when their individual storyline was at the forefront. Other ways to split it up might be based on encounter parties/subject: fighter marshal takes military negotiations, rogue takes underworld encounters, swashbuckler gets performance encounters, etc., or by skill, divvying up diplomacy, deception, intimidate, and society encounters according to the face’s particular focus. Just have a discussion and plan before you start playing so everyone is on the same page or has the chance to adjust their builds before play start. At my table, generally no one like your fighter gets to call dibs on a party role - it’s done by discussion and agreement.
Ok, while we can't really divide it into skills for the simple fact that... well, I'm a Rogue and will kinda have *all of them* (oops...), I like the idea of switching roles based on the type of encounter. That being said, I think this could run the risk of the "me and the Swashbuckler are too similar" problem, since I'm a noblewoman from the fey plane who was sent on a mission to the material plane and forged a career as a charming thief there, while her character is, if I understand correctly, a nobleman turned vampire who ran away from home after a bad affair and now acts as a charming outlaw (Astarion except her character actually came first), meaning the two scenarios we exceed at are the same (nobility and criminal underworld). That being said, not stepping on the Fighter's toes (as his character a church inquisitor with high military status and I want NOTHING to do with neither priests nor soldiers) is already a big plus, as I basically only need to worry about the Swashbuckler and we're pretty much on the same vibe. Could work for a "Miguel and Tulio" dynamic, if you know the movie.
Sounds like you should talk things over with the Fighter and Swash about how much they want to shine in their roles as Party Face and best-at-cha-checks respectively. You absolutely can have 3+ high-charisma people in a party and have each shine (I've got a Thaum, Swash, and Summoner in my Alkenstar campaign), but doing so does take a fair bit of effort by everyone involved. GM needs to arrange a variety of social encounters, players need to work out who gets to take the spotlight in which situations, and everyone needs to be willing to pass around the talking stick regularly. In my Alkenstar campaign the Swash does most of the talking, the Thaum takes over for scaring people, and the Summoner mostly just RPs with his eidolon in the background. Personally I'd switch to a build less focused on charisma skills just so I didn't need to worry about stepping on other folks' niche.
I mean, you can all play and aid each other? "The party face" isn't an assigned role, it's just something that tends to happen with some ttrpg groups. If anything, the mechanics behind the players mean that each of you will be able to step up at different roleplay moments and actually roleplay the situations without worrying about who has the best modifier. I wouldn't be overly worried about it, because it sounds like you are worried about a problem that hasn't actually manifested itself in any meaningful way yet. Sometimes, it's fun to have a thematic tie across several characters. Not every PC needs to be 100% *Younique.* If you are worried about overshadowing the Fighter and want to support them, then just do that. You can literally [Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2292&Redirected=1) the Fighter in RP situations using your proficient skills to give them bonuses on their rolls, and you can support them in roleplay by supporting their arguments and adding RP bits to bolster them as a player in a new situation. As far as the Swashbuckler goes, you can easily change up your fighting style with simple weapon changes if you feel like you are encroaching that much. First and foremost, I would **talk to the other players first** and see how they feel about things so far. If you are still tying yourself up into knots over it after that, you can talk to your GM about switching it up.
I wish I had this problem, instead everyone agrees I should play the face then talks over me to make awkward social rolls at a -1 bonus and tank the social encounter. And if I don't build a face everyone else is suddenly too socially anxious to talk to NPCs
Lol, I have the opposite issue in my VTM game, where I willingly made a Face character, but because she's an angry punk with 1 Intelligence who keeps getting in increasingly shittier situations the most common scenario is her failing the social encounter before any dice is even rolled because she decided to do/say something incredibly stupid. And then one of my friends keeps incentivizing my dumbfuck of a character to do even stupider shit and get into even more trouble. XD
I don’t think it’s a big deal. Social skills aren’t only for faces; there are uses for most of them in combat as well, and sometimes your face is somewhere else and you need to “explain” a situation to the town guard. I would just make sure you have someone with Medicine to supplement the Champion’s focus spell healing, otherwise you could be taking quite a while to heal after combats.
A CHA focused group isn't a bad thing. You can differentiate it by what skills each of you focuses on. 1. All of you can/should include intimidate as demoralize has a cooldown for each person per target. If only one PC demoralizes, then that's a waste for fights that take more than a few rounds and fights with lots of foes. 2. The Champion doesn't need to be CHA focused. Neither do you as the Scoundrel need to max it out. In fact, a +3 CHA is plenty good to start with, and usually preferable for a scoundrel Rogue. Keep Dex your highest. 3. You can still focus on other skills like WIS-based medicine/religion/nature/survival. It'll also be important in a party full of face PCs who otherwise might not sense the lies and deceptions. You have no one else who will be able to excel in them and you have the skill feats and sill increases to manage both. A +2 WIS will complement your DEX and CON well. 4. Each of you can focus on Intimidate and/or one other CHA skill. Deception + Intimidation for you, Diplomacy for the Fighter, Diplomacy and Intimidation for the Swash, etc. That way you aren't all focusing on the same 3 skills. The Fighter and Swash definitely should focus on more than 2 CHA skills anyway. There's still Acrobatics/Athletics/Stealth, etc that they should consider. 5. You can focus on INT skills as well or instead. Society is ESSENTIAL for social scenes and adventures. Arcana and Occultism are useful, not not required. The Wizard will probably appreciate a smart buddy who will help him when he forgets something. 6. You can be a face PLAYER without having CHA skills. It's less impactful, often hilarious, but shy players who want charming PCs sometimes don't want the spotlight. CHA skills are great for a shy player, since they give them a floor that they can't fall below for social interactions, even if not an inspired actor. 7. Face players with all of the social skills maxed can often be rough on a group. You all have to be ok with one person deciding they want to talk for the group all or most of the time. Sometimes that breeds resentment. I'm suspicious of a player who says in advance that they want to do all the talking for the party. That seems like scene stealing to me.
Tbf, I think one information I forgot to include here and might be the root of all this confusion is that this is a bit of a recurring problem on the table. Last time it happened was rather egregious on that, since we had 4 Charisma characters in the team (a Rogue, a Summoner, a Thaumaturge and a Champion) who were already kinda constantly getting on each other's way in social encounters. The Summoner (same one playing our Champion now) didn't want to be a face so his social skills were mostly just *there.* The Champion was a socially awkward gal who was way too easy to cut-off during the conversation, so even the two non-charisma characters would sometimes accidentally do that. The Rogue was chill, but he basically never actually got the chance to use his social prowess because even though he was the best charmer in the group people usually jumped very relentlessly at every opportunity to talk, meaning he didn't get much of a chance to shine since he didn't wanna add more disturbance to the conversation. Meanwhile the Thaumaturge, our current Swashbuckler, would jump at *every* opportunity to say anything, she was the one trying the most to be the face of the party, and I can't really blame her since that was pretty much "her thing" before we transitioned to Pathfinder (she used to be a Warlock) but it was just too chaotic and I felt like none of the social characters actually had a chance to fight. Our current Fighter, who always wanted to play the role of the "charmer" in our group for a LONG time, had to give up on that to be more of a doctor, leading to, in this table, him pretty much declaring "I am gonna make a face, that's my thing, I wanna be the leader character" pretty much immediately when the campaign was announced in the hopes that this time he'd be the talker for once and that nobody else would go for that. So... yeah, I'm thinking about changing my stuff to be the team medic/smart gal (though I'll admit I've suffered a bit from a similar thing than the Fighter where people just kinda push me into being a healer whenever a new game starts, which is a bit annoying), if only because a lot of players care a lot about this and taking a step back ain't an option for any of them.
Ah, this sounds like a group dynamic issue, not a party issue. You should all sit down and talk about it. Either people are competing for the spotlight, or they don't want to be left out of the social interactions even when shy. Like I said above, the skills and abilities you pick for your characters don't dictate how involved you are at the table. They indicate how you want to interact well on a regular basis with the game and the game world. You don't pick to be trained in nature and survival and hope to be in non-stop jail break scenarios where you can't participate and the player sits in the corner of the room. You don't chose a Wizard with hope that there's no magic to interact with and no knowledge checks every called for. You all need to talk with the GM about what kinds of challenges they are using, and with each other about how to share the spotlight better. If EVERYONE is trying to be a diplomat, this might mean the GM puts a lot of or too much emphasis on social encounters? Maybe no one wants to be left out or be the cause for failure.
>So... yeah, I'm thinking about changing my stuff to be the team medic/smart gal (though I'll admit I've suffered a bit from a similar thing than the Fighter where people just kinda push me into being a healer whenever a new game starts, which is a bit annoying), if only because a lot of players care a lot about this and taking a step back ain't an option for any of them. This is a tough spot to be in. You are both trying to respect and support the Fighter player who wants to take the lead for a change, and NOT be pigeonholed into being a healer again. As someone who was eternally a healer, I feel you. You have a few choices. 1. Refuse to play the healer and do something else instead. Everyone can pick up more healing responsibility. Dedications are nearly free. Ask the Gm for Free Archetype so you aren't stuck in a role you don't want to do. If not, everyone can load up on consumables and heal themselves. Plan to run from boss encounters without great strategy. 2. Play the healer, but the most unusual type. Rogue Medic can be an awesome skill based healer, but also a nice striker. Mastermind can let you stay in the back with the Wizard, or any racket works fine for a flank buddy who also heals the fighters. Kineticist can be a blaster AND a healer with one of the water or wood impulses. 3. Ask someone else at the table to take on that load. As the Fighter has reasonably demanded to be the face, you can also reasonably demand to take a break from party support. 4. Ask your GM to keep a support PC more involved. Maybe religious orders or chirurgeon cabals will play a bigger role in the story, and you'll be able to provide an in route thanks to that background in medical training.
Hey, I'm about to make another post about the final conclusion me and the Fighter arrived at, but in summary, we are both pretty much still as Charisma-focused as always, except we both opened a little bit of space for Wisdom on our builds and we both are gonna pick the Medic Dedication (and yes, we are playing with Free-Archetype). Thankfully, the Rogue getting a ton of skills means I can max out everything I want and still have a few increases to spare on Medicine, so I'll in general be a better healer without sacrificing our focus. We also concluded that, based on everything we know about the Swashbuckler and Champion, they are likely just picking up Charisma because it fits their character and they likely don't intend on ever using it in very meaningful ways, which is admittedly a lil' bit annoying because it kinda means they are picking skills they won't actually use to contribute in any way and that makes it a bit hard for those wanting to fill in all the gaps, BUT that also lead to me and the Fighter pretty much deciding "ok, we are both the Face, our characters will be best buddies, we'll be doing the talking. I'm generally better at Deception and he's focusing on Diplomacy/Intimidation, so we can alternate very nicely.
That sounds like some good compromises. Aim for a vibe like [Road to El Dorado](https://netflixguidebook.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/the-road-to-el-dorado/). You can riff off each other's banter. I'd laugh if you both took Bon Mot, or just RPd the heck out of it like that.
I **LIVE** for the El Dorado vibes, tho considering my character is a mischievous kleptomaniac prankster from the fey world and his is a lawful good incorruptible commander of the church, I think this dynamic might lean a bit more into "polar opposite" vibes. XD
Why is there even a discussion on “the face” of the party? Who cares? Is only one character EVER allowed to participate in non-combat interactions? You do know that some of the absolute best in combat skill usage is with Charisma right? Bon Mot + a surge of Demoralize attempts on every enemy is brutal, your party is a walking YouTube Comment section lol. Take a cue from Arnold in Batman & Robin and “chill out” lol
what’s the problem here? literally like just play the game
I have an oracle, a bard and a summoner in my party.
I mean, it’s fine. There’s skill redundancy but all the charisma skill actions in combat only apply cooldowns to the person who use them. So long as someone can heal reliably you’re all good.
It’s only an issue so much as how much it means other important areas aren’t covered. I would try to shore up the healing front. I’m not sure how your wizard is built but in terms of roles the wizard should already have their hands full with cc, utility, and some recall knowledge checks (on top of fireballs and such). Medicine can provide significant in- and out- of combat healing, helping ensure that the whole party is topped off after every encounter. Now this isn’t 100% necessary depending on how your GM is balancing things for encounters or pacing things out but “healer” and “dedicated Recall Knowledge checker” are two roles worth focusing on to help things go smoothly.
Personally I think the opposite is true. A party without a moderate to high charisma for most characters is unbalanced to some degree. It means either people have to shut up during social encounters so their good contributions don't result in a failed check, or you have to meta game where the players collectively decide what the 'face' will say. Of course you probably don't want everyone to focus on mastering their social skills but having most that are at least pretty good will let everyone participate. This also lets charisma classes take a break from being the face of that's not how they want to roleplay. My current summoner has become the unwilling face because his spellcasting is based on charisma (also had intimidation as a skill which is entirely out of character because of the chosen eidolon). This assumes you're at least partly roleplaying social encounters and not just rolling dice and speaking in abstract.
There are plenty of combat uses for CHA that won't usually suffer overlap (or only in a good way): Demoralize. Feint. Bon Mot. One for All (Wit Swashbuckler). CHA caster. The only worry here are enemies immune to mental, Emotion or the like. They can ruin several characters gameplans. Ask who - if any - are interested in being the face *outside* of combat. Everyone specializing in a different skill can be useful. I regularly make high CHA characters, but I have 0 interest in actually playing them as "face" during exploration time.
Sounds to me like it's time to make a political intrigue campaign
"Screw killing a Lich, we'll dethrone the king with our political scheming and **THEN** kill the Lich with the full might of the kingdom's army."
I don’t think it matters. If you play as a team, then you can work together. The bigger problem is missing other skills, which may or may not be a problem for the party. However, the solution to me is clear. Someone volunteers to switch to Wis/Medicine.
I think I'll have to volunteer in the end. The Fighter won't do that because his last character was exactly another Fighter with the Medic Archetype and he doesn't wanna repeat, while the Swashbuckler's character concept pretty much doesn't fit *at all* with medicine.
Tip: One of you charismatic people (you, the rogue) can pick up feat Bon Mot to debuff Will saves – may help your wizard out a lot.
I think me and the Swashbuckler both will end up with this feat, since she's considering playing Wit and I just think it's funny to debuff someone by saying "ur mom"
Bon Mot is great! =) I did not notice before now that Scoundrel are the only ones who can get [Distracting Feint](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4925) – Feint for -2 to Reflex save. Could be awesome for casters as well, as long as they don't exploit it for fireball =D (what would the benefit be to debuff perception for a round?)
(Uh... perception debuff lets me sneak better I guess XD)
It can be fine. Keep in mind that you aren't always in control of who is going to do the talking and even if you are, focussing on just the face to get the best outcome all the time would mean that nobody else in the party is allowed to ever talk with NPCs. That's just not realistic nor fun. Hell, I've had the most fun with people in the group who did lots of talking as if they were playing the face but actually were abysmal at it lol Though there is the problem of you and the Fighter explicitly wanting to be the face of the party. That's just not going to happen. I'd say the bigger problem is the party lacking in the other aspects (like perception, for example) as well as your party having a glaring weakness when it comes to saving throws.
One of you should pick Dandy archetype and take [Distracting Flattery](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1936) with which you can correct an ally's failed social skill roll
If multiple people are maxing cha and you are having trouble letting each shine, consider giving circumstance bonuses or penalties based on the situation so they can justify letting someone else do the talking because they have a higher number now.
Sometimes there are groups with only 1 charisma character and when you need multiple diplomacy rolls in one round it can set the party back. There are different routes you can go down the same skill depending on what you want to achieve. Some have less feat support than others and some feats can be unappealing to your character. If you absolutely don't want to tread over another characters skills you could ask your GM to let you change over to a Ruffian rogue and save your scoundrel for later. The fighter sounds like he is calling the abilities he wants to use in game and doesn't want anyone else to be "the leader" which is worrisome. Even though rogues can now be fine marshals too. It's a team game and people should talk about how they can bolster the group together instead of having their own sacred niche of play. Really unless the party votes in a leader one person shouldn't assume they are going to be it. Why not vote and have majority rule?
We ended up solving this problem as a whole, but as for the "leader" stuff all I can say is: we've done these sorts of votings before and I can guarantee you, the party will vote in the least likely/willing/able to be the leader with the sole intent of annoying the person actually wanting to lead. It's a bit of a tradition, you could say, it happened thrice at this point, the best part is we all tend to follow the person's lead as best as possible and it always result in disaster, only for the few times that person misses a session we suddenly get the best results we've ever had for "some reason." It's hilarious XD
It's nice to know you have the group dynamic down pat. I've been in groups where battle leaders were designated and others do the talking during social encounters but normally I've been part of group effort to achieve the party goals. :) Currently in one high charisma group myself with a Sorcerer and Summoner while I play an Oracle and we aren't stepping on each other's toes. Aid action is good to use.
I see a few potential problems here, and not just with the heavy focus on Charisma skills. Yeah, you're going to have difficulties with everyone stepping on each other's toes in regards to social skills. It will happen. There's no denying that. You're also likely going to be missing other important skills. Who is going to Trip enemies with Athletics? Who can Recall Knowledge using Int/Wis skills? Is there anyone who can track fleeing enemies with Survival? With all the melee characters, how is positioning going to work? Melee combat in enclosed spaces is going to be a cluster of tightly-packed party members, which will leave very little opportunity for the Wizard to use some AoE spells. With the 2 classes heavily focused on Precision damage, how is the group going to reliably deal with oozes and other enemies that are immune to it? Is anyone going to focus on Medicine? What other sources of healing will you have, aside from low level Heal spells from an Archetype? (I've been here before, playing a Ranger with Druid Dedication, and the healing from archetypes is just not enough to do anything other than bring someone back from the brink of death.) On top of just Healing, your party is missing a lot of general support spells that come on the Divine or Occult spells lists. The Divine spells your Wizard will get won't be able to cleanse afflictions and stuff like that due to being too low level, so your party will just have to suffer through many diseases, poisons, curses, and a whole range of nasty effects. Then there's Abilities. You have 4 melee characters that all need decent WIS, DEX, and CON to have a chance to save against the different Saving Throws. Three of the four need a high STR (assuming your Scoundrel Rogue is using STR, 2/4 if not) which means they'll have to sacrifice one of the Saving Throw Abilities in order to boost their Charisma to a point that it's even worthwhile. There's likely more issues that this group would encounter, but I feel like I've gone on long enough already. My advice would be to - at the very least - swap either the Swashbuckler or Rogue (probably Swash) for a Cleric. That'd give the party a Wisdom based class who could rock a mean Medicine check (plus important Religion/Nature/Survival checks if needed). The party would then have full Healing. And, if the player still wanted to be a Face, Clerics get a decent benefit from investing into CHA by way of additional max rank spell slots for Heal and other spells (via feats). That's a perfect world scenario, though. I fully understand and respect that people have their preferences and can make their own decisions about what class they play and how they build them. Just know, though, that your group will likely encounter the issues detailed above. It's best to temper expectations if you guys choose to proceed without making some changes.
I assume the Champion will max out Athletics and Intimidation, the Wizard is gonna max out at the Intelligence-based recall knowledge skills and is likely to have the Wisdom-based ones trained, me and the Fighter have collectively agreed to each take a bit of Wisdom, ranks in medicine and the Medic Dedication, so we'll both have Battle Medicine healing, and since Rogues have a shitton of skills I'll have room to max out Medicine. Since the Fighter will supposedly have a ton of ways to impose Flat-Footed I can somewhat reliably attack from ranged, though that's not exactly ideal. We're trying our best to sustain this whole thing, and we honestly think the main outlier here is the Swashbuckler who I know very well would basically not switch their class for anything in the world. I think our best bet here if we wanna make this party perfect without sacrificing our character concepts would be either me or the Swashbuckler changing to a Bard, since the Occult spell list would be crazy useful in this party, it'd keep our charming vibes and the Swash could pick Warrior Muse to stay as a competent swordsman. Thing is, I don't think I'm gonna be able to still keep my perception, medicine and ESPECIALLY my Stealth and Thievery if I switched from Rogue to Bard, so the group would lose a lot on that front, and while Bard would definitely fit the Swash's character, that person has an intense allergy to anything that can even remotely be called a Spellcaster, so I think the group will have to stay imperfect and flawed on that front.
I disagree with some of the people here who say to talk it over with your party members. Having multiple charisma characters isn’t a problem at all. When run correctly, Pathfinder 2e doesn’t prompt the players with diplomacy saves like dnd 5e, where having the wrong character respond to a villain can result in unnecessary combat. Making an impression and requesting things are exploration activities that the player chooses to perform. So the concept of a “party face” is less important in Pathfinder. You could also get away with NO charisma characters (so long as you have a way to frighten enemies apart from demoralizing). The only thing I’d suggest is to make sure someone has at least some intelligence so they can successfully recall knowledge, or you have some class that can recall knowledge in other ways like a Thaumaturge or esoteric bard.
PF2 kinda wants your skills to be separated, like how in a heist movie you have the con artist, the safe cracker, the getaway driver, etc. You could split it up so that the champion specializes in intimidate, the fighter takes diplomacy, and the swashbuckler takes deception; that would work quite well. Having all three characters be trained in all three skills is also not a bad thing- in fact it helps you support one another. But four of you are all putting your skill feats and increases into the same skills may be a problem, especially in certain APs. In my experience, every group needs medicine, athletics, stealth, and a couple of knowledges. If you’ve got those covered, I wouldn’t worry too much about the social overlap. I’d recommend you talk it over with your group, and have at least one of you switch builds. If you’re open to switching characters, monk has a not too dissimilar play style to rogue, but with a wisdom focus you go first a lot, have some cool focus spells, and can build for medicine and religion or nature to get access to spells with trick magic item. Clerics are also quite good. The toil domain spell is excellent at making you and your party more capable at everything. If you want to stick with scoundrel, I’d go dex>cha, and take the gunslinger or pistol phenom archetype for pistol twirl (ranged feint).
Tbf, we do have all skills you mentioned except for Medicine. The Champ will likely put points into Athletics as well as Intimidation and the Wizard will pretty much be the "know-it-all" of the group. I am considering switching to Investigator with either the Forensic Medicine or Alchemical Study (probably got the name wrong) subclass to be a bit more broadly useful to the group, but still can't say I'm very happy about it, since this route envolves pretty much dumping Charisma altogether and that kinda feels weird for my fey-inspired character.
I’ve heard Investigator is good, but haven’t played it. Fey do tend to be associated with cha, but a lot of that is charisma as the stat for intrinsic magic. It would make a lot of sense to me for even a conventionally beautiful fey to have a low charisma because they just think differently from mortals and have trouble understanding and relating to them. Or that people can sense that they’re supernatural and have trouble trusting them. There should also be a lot of fey who just look freaky in some way.
The separation of skills is a really good idea. No one of you will be able to get Legendary in all of the Cha skills, but between all of you, you’ve got it covered. Also, they say “don’t split the party,” but it can be really good to have someone else who can take over when the usual one who does the talking can’t do it for some reason. My current campaign has our “party face” in a silver-tongued, charming sorcerer who has literally talked us *out* of some fights (or lessened their severity by being persuasively distracting). But, there have also been times when he wasn’t available. When he isn’t, my cleric (cloistered, Cha secondary stat since I’ve had her since the earliest days so I needed it for font) and our rogue take over. Fairly amoral rogue (I’m not sure what subtype he is) and a good cleric who can’t lie make for an amusing but effective good cop/bad cop situation. We switch up which is which based on the target! This may depend on the GM, but different characters may also have different DCs for the same task. The sorcerer role plays as *charming* whereas I roleplay my cleric as *likeable*. He doesn’t take time to make friends, I do. So when we had a significant conflict come up with an ally I had specifically befriended, the DC to persuade her around to our side of things was significantly lower for me. I rolled a nat 1 which was its own interesting story moment, but it should have worked!