Complete Guide to the Deception Skill in D&D 5e
They say that lying is an art form, and can be mastered much like any other. The question is, should you? Morally speaking, probably not, but when has that ever stopped anyone? The uses for the Deception skill are pretty straightforward: making people believe something that isn’t true.
There are a few spells and abilities that specifically call out the Deception skill, but not many. Most spells will just ask for the creature to make an Insight check with the DC equal to your spell save DC. Other features such as the Kenku’s Mimicry do specifically call for a Deception roll, along with a couple of other features like the Whispers Bard’s Mantle of Shadows. As long as you read what features you’ll be getting ahead of time, you should be able to get very good at Deception to utilize those features. Bards, for example, get Expertise, making them masters of Deception if they so choose.
The main use of Deception is and always will be lying through your teeth. Now first off, let’s set some boundaries. No matter how high your Deception roll, you cannot convince the king that you are actually the rightful heir to the throne and have him give you his kingdom. Deception is not mind control, we have spells for that. You could potentially convince that king that you have a very important message for his ears only, and then kill him once you’ve got him alone. Essentially, the lie needs to be at least a little believable to the creature you’re telling it to. For example, you can’t convince a merchant that gold is worthless, but you could tell that lie to a Mindflayer who has no concept of currency and they might believe you.
So how often does Deception come up, and how useful is it? Well, it kinda comes up as often as you want. A Paladin who swore an oath to never tell a lie may never make a Deception check, but a Rogue with a penchant for getting caught at the worse times might see this skill used every session. This is actually really nice, as if you didn’t make your character to be good at Deception, you likely won’t have that come up as a problem, but if you choose to specialize in it, it can be extremely useful.
Lastly, we need to compare Deception to the other social skills: Persuasion and Intimidation. In my opinion, Deception falls squarely in the middle. Intimidation is fairly limited in its usefulness, really only good for threatening and strong-arming, and frequently has a very negative effect if you fail the check, potentially even leading to violence. Deception can have similar effects upon failure, though likely not as severe. A simple lie won’t usually start a fight or immediately turn someone hostile. Hopefully. Persuasion likely won’t cause nearly as bad of a result upon failure, as attempting to persuade someone isn’t inherently bad. This means that Deception should likely be a second resort if persuasion and other forms of social engagement have failed. Thankfully, most characters who are good at one of these skills will be good at the others, so you really get to pick and choose how you want to engage in conversation.
That’s Deception! A little lie here and there can go a long way, especially in a D&D campaign. If you’ve got a decent Charisma, I recommend picking it and Persuasion up to ensure that you have a wide variety of options when talking to people. Some conversations will call for one, and some for the other. Now get out there and start singing Everything You Know is Wrong by Weird Al, and make everyone around you question reality! (Again not really, mind control is available through spells)
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