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Well, , why do you need a investigatory phase? Just send them down into the sewers or dungeons and let them kill stuff.
Tell them OOC that by not having those skills, they are losing out on a lot of stuff.
When the level, they can make that choice.
Maybe they just wanna kill monsters.
Give them lots of tough fights. Later on, you can let them know which fights they could have avoided or gained some advantage on if they had not neglected certain skills. If they shrug it off, just accept it -- you have a hack and slash group.
You could rely more heavily on how they roleplay and less on rolls if you actually want to give them info. If they're not willing to do that either then they're pretty clearly telling you that they don't want an investigative phase.
Sometimes, events just happen and the player's end up in the right place at the right time (or wrong). If things are happening in town that they need to find out about, have it happen right in front of them, or even to them.
Examples:
The thieves' guild in town is running amok: Hey! Who took my pouch/weapon/spellbook?!.
Creatures are kidnapping townsfolk and doing awful things to them: Hey, where'd that guy go I was just talking to?
Villain is looking for a special magic item that was stolen from him: Hey, look what I bought from the guy, and it was for practically nothing!
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Have an NPC seek them out for a job of sorts. Maybe the NPC needs a rough an tumble group to do some dirty work. Maybe they need to shakedown someone that hasn't been keeping up on their payments.
Alternatively, tone down the requirement of skills a bit. ie: If they're able to eloquently role-play an engaging verbal back and forth, give them a secret, behind the screens, competence bonus on the follow-up d20 roll.
Or maybe don't require a check at all if they put things well and into specifics.
Buy an NPC at a tavern a drink? Lower the diplomacy DC! ^_^
There's lots of things that you have GM fiat to allow to mellow out their lacking skill points, but still make them work a little bit for it.
Lack of a trap disabler can actually be a bit of a fun thing for you as GM. I had a group lacking one once. I actually made more traps than I usually would, but would tone down the lethality of each. The result was that the group was more careful in their movements, but weren't penalized so much if they missed a few traps.
UMD is a great skill to have, but it's rare that it's strictly necessary. However, they will probably need access to a temple frequently for disease or poison removal and healing. Especially at low levels.
Anyhow, that's my 2cp, anyway. Hope it helps ^_^
First of all, I don't think you need a diplomacy skill check for every interaction. If someone is going into a shop to buy an apple, there is no reason to roll to see if the shopkeeper develops an irrational hatred of the customer. For the most part, even if a shopkeeper finds someone distasteful, they still sell them what they want.
If they try to bargain or something they might get little traction, but just going for general interaction, don't worry about it too much.
To an extent I think you should adjust the game for the party. This group isn't going to be called upon by someone who desires a subtle investigating team to ferret out information, those jobs are going to go to someone else. This team is probably a blunt instrument, and will be used as such.
At the same time, I also think that having a hole in your parties capabilities should hurt at times. Disable Device is a good example of this. Some advocate that if your party doesn't have disable device they shouldn't encounter traps. I think that is unfair. For one thing, from a meta perspective it means if a player decides to make a character with disable device, they are actually making the party more vulnerable to traps, rather then protecting them from them, since by having the skill it means they will encounter them, when otherwise they wouldn't.
For this party, I would hit them with the occasional trap, I would have them sometimes really wish they could make a friend and not be able to, or be betrayed by someone. UMD has simply built in consequences of not being able to activate some items, with a Wizard and a Druid in the party, they probably don't really need it too much.
Basically, tailor the adventures to the kinds of things this group would want to get involved with, but at the same time, make the occasional consequence of not having things matter, or require some other work around.
Greasing palms with a few gold pieces usually provides a decent circumstance bonus to either Diplomacy or Knowledge (local) checks.
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It sounds like the game the players want to play and the game that you want to run might not be the same game.
K Local can be used to gather info in the 'asking around' form, yes. Linguistics may be useful in puzzles or going through documents or records, appraise & the other knowledges may be useful with similar things. Perception is useful for finding and overhearing things.
Despite that I'd see if they're willing to RP with the consequences determined by the exact RP rather than rolls. It seems the best way to cut the knot.
Well, have some friendly people in town.
Having asking about work be a -5 like asking for simple advice or directions.
Make use of the take 10 rule, it would allow that 15 cha person to get at least a 12 all the time.
That makes the check 10+cha, which the 12 should be able to make against most people.
UMD is nice, but unless you don't have any casters in the party it's far from necessary, it's fun to use as a rogue to play with wands etc but you can easily get through a whole campaign, level 1-20 without using it once. Knowledge (local) can often handle information gathering, you don't need diplomacy to sell things unless you try to haggle, if you need someone to do something intimidate and bluff can work, as can magical persuasion like charm person, a decent sized bribe (decent to the person being bribed, it might not actually be much by the standards of adventurers) or finding a way to do something without their help. As for disable device, pretty much any door can be bypassed using either brute force or a knock spell, for traps you won't want too many but there should be some, if they have good perception they have a decent chance of noticing them, if a trap isn't self resetting then they can trigger it from afar with a summon, lure a monster to it, charm/dominate an enemy and tell them to walk over it, throw a heavy rock at the pressure plate etc., if it resets then they can try to tank it, find an alternate route (ideally longer and harder), try to dispel it magically depending on the exact nature, fly over it, find a way to go through a nearby wall etc. most of these options are more complicated/resource wasting than having a rogue, but they exist and sometimes playing the trap monkey just isn't what you want.
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The Unchained book had a rule, I liked. It gave every PC 2 extra background skills. These could be used for Craft, Knowledge (a few), Profession, etc. These really help round out characters.
You can find the rules here:
Background skills and expanded uses
No reason, you cannot let your PC have more skills.
You might want to talk with them about things now. See why they chose the classes they did and see if any want to change now that they've played a little.
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Maybe they need a "manager" or an agent of sorts. Somebody who helps them out with getting jobs and quests and figuring out where to go and who to hit. He can be slightly sleazy but with a heart of gold. And he works on 15% of the gross take (or otherwise is getting something out of them).
First of all, I don't think you need a diplomacy skill check for every interaction.
This.
As the GM it is your job to determine when a roll is appropriate and when it is not. For typical interactions with townsfolk and diplomacy roll shouldn't come into play. Keep in mind that someone with a 15 Charisma is an extremely charismatic person, well above the average for a typical person. As the GM you can simply acknowledge this and allow most townsfolk to take a friendly attitude with that person. If said townsfolk is angry at the player/group or hostile for some reason, then the diplomacy check would be prudent in order to attempt to "move the needle" so to speak.
Another thing to think about: what if someone in the party had an 18 charisma? This would be a profoundly charismatic person and yet they would only get +2 more on their rolls than a 15 charisma player. +2 is a nice bonus but the swingyness of a d20 means that subjecting players to rolls every time they interact will result in them failing more often than they should.
With a game as complex as Pathfinder it is helpful to learn areas where you can simply RP your way through a situation without subjecting the players to a swingy roll that relies on good fortune.
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Slayer can pick up trapfinding(via a talent) if he wants to, and there's always destroy the chest with an adamantine weapon to get the stuff inside if the chest is locked. Feel free to declare that some items were damaged/destroyed if players hack open the chest, but not all of them.
They don't really need UMD as they have a full arcane and divine caster.
If the GM wanted me to roll diplo for every interaction with NPCs I made, I'd get irritated. The average commoner doesn't have ranks in diplo. How does he go to the general store to get his farming supplies and sell his produce?
If you do funny, maybe have an eager eyed youngster tag along with highest cha guy like a puppy asking to be his sidekick, saying he wants to be a feature of heroic tales too. Then have him handle the assorted skill checks, but during combat, hide behind the pillar, hide in a sack, etc.
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When they try to do something they are totally unable to do, maybe try and make it amusing instead of just telling them they can't do that.
To the point of trying to parley with beings that don't speak common and enjoy the flesh of sentient beings:
PC: "Please, sir. We wish to understand more about you. Shall we cease these flirtations with violence and engage in some cooperative discourse?
GM: "Do you speak gnoll?"
PC: "No."
GM: "Alright, well you got the gnoll's attention, but he seems fixated on you after you said 'discourse'. Turns out that's a very severe insult in gnoll. Roll initiative."
Something. It's very often better to have more going on than just pass/fail when it comes to the social engagements.
Besides, druids can TOTALLY try to influence animals with 0< intelligence. Specifically, as long as they're animals. And even then it's okay to go "The wolves seem conflicted, but they look ravenous, and you look delicious." But, maybe throw them (the PCs) a bone if they happened to roll spectacularly well. 'else it feels like they wasted a good roll on nothing.
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idk if anyone replied with this (too many responses to sift through) but you could always roll up a dmpc, id reccomend rogue, you have UMD, disable and diplomacy as class skills, and you can get away with 16-18 cha and not be dragging your party back. ik 6 can be hard to manage, but its not that bad once you get used to it.
if your having trouble writing a new character into the plot, just have the rogue show up looking for work.
on the contrary you could find a 6th member and encourage them to play a character who fills the role.
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I've got an unbalanced party of five. We're all somewhat new to d20, and all completely new to Pathfinder RPG. As I had a better idea than most what was coming up, I strongly encouraged the players to select a balanced party, but instead they insisted on Bloodrager, Slayer, Druid, Brawler, Wizard. No one has UMD, Disable, or Diplomacy. Highest CHA is 15.
These are all classes that get nice selections of class skills and a fair amount of skill points each level. The players aren't locked to this problem; they could just put in some skill points here and there as they level up, in the skills they've discovered are important to them.
UMD isn't a necessary skill; between a wizard and a druid, you should be able to use 80% of all scrolls/wands you run into. The only important stuff you'd be missing out on is hard-core clerical stuff. So if the party has access to a friendly temple with a cleric that can fix stuff the druid can't do in the field, they'll be fine. (UMD isn't necessary, it's nice. It's extremely valuable if the party is missing a role, but your party could cover a lot without it.)
Disable Device is just one way of overcoming traps and locks. Beating down the door with a hammer or a Knock spell also works, and if you notice a trap (Perception, no special ability required) you can try to find another way around, or hope that it doesn't reset automatically and try throwing a summoned lemming at it. If the players learn from experience that traps are serious ("the tripwire made the alarm go off and alerted all the monsters") maybe the slayer will pick up the Trapfinding talent and actually start covering this role.
Diplomacy can be used untrained. It's basic uses are to get people to like you (which you can also achieve by doing nice stuff for them) or to agree to requests (you can also offer them more in return). So it's very nice to have and certainly something you'll want in the long run, but not a show-ender if you don't have it. If you just keep telling the players "this is his asking price, to haggle him down you'd need a diplomacy check" they can learn that. And Charisma 15 isn't particularly low either. With skill points, this role is within their grasp.
My main advice to you is: tell your players not to plan out their build all the way to level 20. Look ahead a bit, but also be ready to change plans if during the game you discover that you'd really like it if your character was better at something that turns out to be important. You can never know in advance just what exactly you'll need in the campaign in 10 levels, so don't plan your build to tightly that you have no free points to spare.