The most easily felt effect of a charge is the force it exerts on another charged body. We can describe the entire electrostatics with just the force idea.

But let us see how this field idea benefits us.

Consider a point charge q isolated in space. Whenever another point charge Q is introduced in the system, our original charge  q exerts a force on Q. Now, if q were not there, then there would be no force on Q. So the presence of q can be thought of as the trigger for the force on Q. extending this idea, it can be said that the very presence of q alters the properties of space around it  so that another charge placed in space will experience  a force. Electric field is just one way of quantifying this alteration of space properties by a charge. another method is by electric potential