What does it mean to be good at something in 5e?

[Zaq]

So I recently sprung for the core 3 5e books. I haven't actually played yet, and I don't have a group organized for a game, but that hasn't stopped me from reading through the books and trying to accustom myself to the system just in case I ever end up in a game.

If it helps you a little bit for where I'm coming from, I went into my D&D background a bit in my last 5e topic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?477774-Sell-me-on-5e). If you don't feel like following the link, in a nutshell, I'm a WotC D&Der rather than a TSR D&Der (I've read some 1e and 2e material, but I didn't grow up with it, and I've never actually played it), but I'm a big fan of both 3.5 and 4e (for some reasons that are shared and for some reasons that are divergent). Fiddly options don't bother me as long as I feel like using those fiddly options gives me some measure of control over what's going on. If I make a character to do something, I want them to feel competent at it—they don't necessarily have to be the world record holder, but if I design a character around doing X, I want to succeed at doing X more often than I fail at it. (Ideally much more often.) I enjoy the character building aspect of the game quite a lot, and I like having options at the table (I don't generally build one-trick ponies, and I don't like feeling like I do the same thing every round).

I've read over a bunch of topics on this forum and spent a couple days going through the PHB and the DMG, and I feel like I still don't have a good handle on what it means to be good at something in 5e. I understand that there's this whole "bounded accuracy" thing that's being fetishized to no end, and I'm not at all sure how I feel about that—like, I'm not opposed to flattening the numbers treadmill (I loved the hell out of 4e, but you definitely had to make some assumptions and concessions about how the numbers treadmill worked, so I'm on board with trying to mitigate that whole mess on a system level), but I'm worried that in doing so, WotC has kind of made it hard to actually be really good at anything.

Let me take a minute to explain what I'm not looking for. I'm not looking for DPR kings or world record holders or characters who trivialize the party. I'm not looking for characters who can nova things into oblivion and then sit around for 8 hours. I'm not looking for characters who hyperspecialize in one narrow thing and can't do anything else. I'm not looking for characters who get really impressive at level 15 despite being underwhelming before then. And I'm not looking for characters who can just "check lots of boxes" without blending into a harmonious whole (like characters who end up proficient in a zillion skills without actually being great at any of them or actually having something useful to do with them).

But what I am looking for is someone who sets out to be good at something and then is, well, good at it. Good enough that they succeed more often than they fail. Good enough that they're better at it than average. Good enough that it lets them solve problems in ways that not everyone can do. I think that last part is the key—the game is all about solving problems, and it's not very interesting to solve problems in ways that anyone can do. That doesn't make you feel special or interesting. (I mean, you don't have to have a crazy method for doing absolutely everything, but we don't remember the characters who don't have unusual capabilities.)

Let's get back to how I understand this whole "bounded accuracy" thing works. It seems like, at best, you can end up proficient in something, or in very rare circumstances, you can double your proficiency bonus. And, well, that's basically it. That's the difference between being good at something and being bad at something. That seems, um, less than thrilling? Like, I appreciate the fact that it doesn't take much to reach the low end of competence, so you can just get proficiency with something and then you're okay at it without having to constantly invest more in it. Cool. I can dig it. I actually really like that it doesn't take much to reach the "it's not a 100% waste of time to try rolling" stage. But what I don't like is that you don't seem to have the option to invest more to actually become really good at things. That seems weird to me.

The whole mess with stats kind of just emphasizes this problem. On the one hand, stats matter because they're basically your only damn source of getting good at things, but then the game gets all antsy about them and makes it impossible to start with more than a +2 or +3, and you can't actually get them higher than 20 (with two or three rare exceptions that basically don't matter). And then there's a ridiculously high opportunity cost for bumping up your stats, since that directly competes with feats, and feats are basically the ONLY choice you get to make after level 3 or so (if you're not a spellcaster). So you have to choose between having a cool new capability or just making your numbers one step bigger. And that's actually really annoying! On the one hand, since they were so stingy with numbers in 5e, bumping up your numbers is actually pretty valuable, since it's something that's not just naturally happening all the time anyway. On the other hand, you're still just getting 5% better at something (give or take adv/dadv), and while being 5% more likely to succeed with your primary stat might be useful (scratch that, it is useful), it's still not very exciting on an emotional level. I don't feel like it's good game design to have feats and stats competing for the same build resources.

But back to my main point. You've got a teeny-tiny number of stat points to spend (sure hope you weren't trying to get good at a skill that isn't your attack stat or casting stat! You wanted an insightful Fighter? Gee, hope that wasn't actually important to your character concept), you can get proficient, and if you're really lucky you can get doubly proficient (which generally means dipping Rogue, so I hope that you could both afford 13 DEX and the exit cost from your base class, plus a level). That's about all there is for being good at skills. If you're lucky enough to get Guidance, there's a d4 for you at the cost of an action, and if you happen to be a 14th level Lore Bard, you can spend your precious and limited Inspiration dice to boost your own skills. There's a couple sources of advantage that you can control. That's most of what I've found for skill boosting. There's probably one or two other things, but the point is that it's bizarrely difficult to actually become remarkably good with any skills.

I repeat, I'm 100% okay with the fact that they made it easy to be proficient in something, but why did they make it so bloody hard to be good at something?

So we come to the crux of what I was asking in my title: what does it mean to be good at something in 5e? Historically, for skills in the other D&D editions I'm used to, there's roughly three or four levels of competence: there's the character who doesn't care at all or who has the right stat but no other bonuses, which we can consider "unskilled" or "low-skilled" in the given skill. There's a middle range of people who care (with various levels within that range): these are the people who have training in the skill (binary training in 4e, max or near-max ranks in 3.5) but who haven't supercharged it. Some will have a higher key stat, some will have a racial bonus or something, but they're still all clearly in the middle. We can call them "competent" in the given skill. Then there's the people who turbocharge it: training, probably a good key stat, and then something else besides that. They've collected a bunch of nickel-and-dime bonuses from race and class and feats and stuff to the point where they're markedly above the middle range. Or they've poured enough resources into it that they basically can't fail, or so much that the challenges they attempt are just of a totally different caliber than ordinary adventurers. These are your diplomancers, your unfindable permastealth guys, your Truenamers who need a stupidly high Truespeak mod to function, and so on. We can call them "specialists." Some are more devoted than others (if a trained-but-not-diplomancer Bard has a +10 Diplomacy, we'd call both someone with a +17 and someone with a +30 a "specialist," though one is clearly more intense than the other), but the point is that they invested specifically in it and ended up better as a result. What I'm seeing in 5e is that it's really easy to be on the low end of "competent" (proficiency), it's kinda hard to be on the high end of "competent" (proficiency and a noticeably higher-than-average key stat), and it's really hard to be a "specialist" (double proficiency and a high stat, reliable self-generated advantage, and/or other actual bonuses). So what does that look like? If we basically can't make the characters who have the crazy high skills and everyone's in the middle range, how does that affect making characters who want to be known for being skillful? What's more, if that middle range is still pretty close to the low range, how does THAT affect things? Can you even make a character with a deep enough bag of tricks to often be able to solve problems in ways that other people can't?

Now, of course, there's more to being good at things than just having high skill totals. Much more. I recognize that, so let's talk about that for a little bit. I also feel like the system's gone a little bit too vague in terms of what kinds of open-ended capabilities you can have. They did it really well in some ways and really poorly in other ways.

For example, let's look at backgrounds. I think backgrounds are really cool. I like the fact that it opens up a few miscellaneous proficiencies, and I like many of the features. (I don't like forcing me to pick "ideals" and "bonds" and "flaws" tied to my background—I know perfectly well how to roleplay without the game forcing me into its own mold, thank you—but I like the fun parts of the backgrounds.) And those features are actually really neat! They're a great example of an open-ended capability that lets you feel like you have agency. If a Sage doesn't know the answer to something, they know how to find the answer, and that's super cool! Noble gives you a gently mechanical way to have an "in" with the aristocracy, which is neat. Charlatan gives a crazy useful ability to forge things, which has a lot of potential in the hands of a creative player. Criminal gives you criminal contacts, and that's something that can be fun if you do it right. So backgrounds are really neat, and I love the open-ended capabilities they offer. (They aren't perfect, but they're the kind of thing I like to see.) I would actually really like to see more things in line with background features. I haven't noticed a lot of them (there's a couple here and there in the classes, like Thieves' Cant, but not a ton), so I'm wondering how well the system supports this sort of thing beyond one background per person.

But then there are some other things that don't really have enough information to be useful. Many tools, for example, are so vague as to be nearly meaningless. On a broad level, I'm okay with the concept of being proficient in a tool as well as in a skill. There's some strange overlap (notably Performance and musical instruments), but it kind of makes sense. That overlap definitely causes some confusion (a disguise kit lets you make a disguise with proficiency, but Deception also lets you make a disguise with proficiency? Do I need both? Am I good with either? Why does Intelligence also have disguises as a use?), but I sorta-kinda get what they were aiming for. The problem is that the rules just say you can "add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make using that tool," but there's often not enough information to indicate what that means or what capabilities that gives you.

Let's look at some examples. You can gain proficiency in a "dice set" to add your proficiency bonus to checks made with that dice set. What does that mean? When do you do that? Do you only do it if you're trying to cheat? What checks do you roll to play dice without cheating? When do you make checks with a dice set in the first place? The game doesn't say, but apparently proficiency in that is just as valuable as proficiency in anything else. A poisoner's kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to "checks you make to craft or use poisons." What checks are those? We have rules for crafting (5 gp per day, and you have to be proficient in an appropriate tool), but there aren't any checks involved. It just happens. I would love rules allowing a check to craft more than 5 gp a day, because crafting is basically impossible to use as written—yes, crafting a fine weapon or suit of armor takes a long time and I'm okay with keeping that in the game if you insist on that particular quirk of verisimilitude in a game about sorcerers and fairies and beholders, but why make me spend ten days on a single-use improvised weapon that doesn't directly do damage but might do 1d4 damage later (alchemist's fire), or why make me spend twenty days on something that has me spend an extra action for a low chance to possibly (not definitely!) do 1d4 extra damage exactly once (poison)? (And what checks do I make to "use" poison? Would proficiency with a poisoner's kit make me proficient with a poisoned weapon even if I'm not normally proficient with that weapon, because that's a "check to use poison"?) You can get proficiency with cartographer's tools, which presumably makes you better at checks to draw maps, but PHB pg. 183 lets you draw a map with no check and no proficiency. Sure, a map sketched by a traveling adventurer in a dungeon is going to be less pretty than a professional ocean map or something, but there's still no provision for screwing up the map you make while you're walking, so I'm not clear when you'd ever need to make a check that would make that proficiency bonus relevant.

The exception is the thieves' tools (why they're for plural thieves while all the other tools are for singular members of the relevant profession is beyond me), because those actually have rules and examples of what those tools are for and why they matter. They don't have a lot of rules and examples, but it's clear what kinds of checks you're making with them and why it's important to have proficiency. If all the tools were like this, I would have a much smaller problem. But that's not what's in the book.

Basically, the tool proficiency rules are ugly. The developers kind of kludged tool proficiency into both meaning "add proficiency bonus to relevant checks" and "you're allowed to use these tools at all," but they didn't really explain it, and they gave very little text indicating what you can and can't do with proficiency or without proficiency. We know that crafting is a binary yes/no for proficiency (PHB pg. 187: "you must be proficient with tools related to the object you are trying to create"), so we have at least one example of "proficiency means you can just straight up do something, nonproficiency means you just straight up can't," but that's an incomplete picture. The game doesn't really come out and say what kinds of things are possible with checks and without checks and with proficiency and without proficiency. Presumably not everyone in the world who's ever cooked a meal has proficiency with cook's utensils, but what possibilities are open to a player who is proficient in them? Does that just mean they can earn money cooking food? They're presumably better at cooking than someone without that proficiency (they add their bonus, after all), but how would you show that? Do you have to roll a check to cook dinner, and if not, when do we get to show that proficiency bonus? The game has indicated that there is some mechanical effect to being proficient with cook's utensils (and the game has extracted a cost from me for the privilege—that proficiency slot took up build resources that weren't spent on something else), but the game also has not told me what that mechanical effect is or why I care about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding that the game spell out every single thing I can do with a tool. I'm totally okay with open-ended capabilities. What I'm not okay with is the fact that the game hasn't even tried to show me what those capabilities are. I don't need a table saying that it's DC 5 to make scrambled eggs and DC 10 to make a quiche and DC 15 to make a souffle. I don't even want a table saying that it's DC 5 to cook dinner for your friends and DC 15 to cook dinner in a way that impresses the queen. But right now the game hasn't given me anything. I add my proficiency bonus to checks with that tool. That's it. No indication when I need to make a check versus when I can just do something. No indication what kinds of things a proficient character can do that a nonproficient character cannot. That, I think, is the single biggest issue. I just want a few examples for each tool of what proficiency lets you do that a nonproficient character can't do—or even things that proficient characters and nonproficient characters can both do but that proficient characters do better. Thieves' tools are a good start, and honestly, if everything got as much detail as they did (even if that detail is scattered about the books), we'd be in a better position. And if we look back at background features, that's the sort of thing I'm asking for. I don't need to be able to trivialize every problem I come across, but I want the game to tell me that I have a (metaphorical) tool for problem-solving that goes beyond what everyone can do.

So we're back to my same question. What does it mean to be good at something? Is proficiency a start, a finish, or something else? What capabilities does it open up for you? What does it enable you to do that you couldn't otherwise?

Basically, I want to know what tricks and abilities my character has that set them apart from the rest of the world. I don't need the game to give me a hard list of exactly what I can do, but I want to know why it matters that I'm proficient in a tool. Even skills aren't that great in terms of the book telling you what they can do, to be honest. They're vague. Open-ended is good, but vague is bad. They're better than tools, but they still don't tell you a lot. There aren't examples of what requires a check and (more importantly) what doesn't require a check. There aren't examples of DCs of common tasks. (Again, I don't need a whitelist spelling out everything I can do, but give me some idea how likely I am to need a check, and give me some idea how good I have to be to succeed at common checks.)

I've heard arguments that this sort of thing is intentionally left up to the GM. To be honest, I don't like that. I mean, in an ideal situation, that's fine; a really good GM will adapt what you need to do into the campaign and will allow/require checks for fun things (and won't call for checks for things that aren't fun). A really good GM will work with you to figure out what that tool proficiency means and will work with you to find ways for you to make it relevant. A really good GM will encourage creative skill use and will foster an environment where you can feel good about applying proficiencies to different tasks. The problem, of course, is that not every GM is a really good GM.

I'm not worried about bad GMs. Some GMs are just bad, and there's only so much the rules can do to prevent them from making the game not fun. WotC can't fix that. But there are plenty of GMs who are just okay. And while you obviously would prefer a really good GM to an okay GM, that isn't always an option. (Maybe no one in your group of friends is a really good GM. Maybe the really good GM would rather play than GM for this campaign, and they've earned a rest. Whatever. It's not always up to you.) And it's not even a problem that okay GMs exist! I vastly prefer playing to GMing, and when I do GM, I know that I'm probably much closer to "okay" than to "really good." Very very few really good GMs started as really good GMs. GMing is a skill that requires practice. Many okay GMs have the potential to become really good GMs. And an okay GM can still make a fun game! But you still want to write your rules in such a way that encourages even okay GMs to have good results. Basically, I read the 5e rules and I see a ruleset written for good GMs instead of for okay GMs. An okay GM might not know how to apply skills in creative ways if they don't get any good examples. An okay GM might not know how to set fair check DCs without good examples. An okay GM might not know how to encourage a player to make proficiency part of their identity if the rules don't tell them that's important. And if I don't have enough rules text to give guidelines on this matter? If I don't have something I can point to to encourage a GM to work with me? That, my friends, is scary. I repeat, no rules can fix a bad GM, and a really good GM doesn't need the rules to tell them to make things fun, but I don't feel like the 5e rules meet a GM halfway. So it's hard to tell from reading them what my baseline expectations should be as far as making a competent character.

Now, I understand that what I've said so far has had a critical tone to it, but my intent is not to come in and complain about how this game isn't what I want it to be. That wouldn't be fair of me. I haven't even played an actual game yet, and it's not like anyone's forcing me to work with this ruleset instead of another form of D&D. My goal in making this topic is to open up discussion and get input from people who have actually played this game. To what degree are my observations held up by your play experience? Am I asking for something that the rules don't support at all, or do the rules support this better than I'm giving them credit for? If I can't make a character who's competent in the way I want them to be competent, what else does the system offer in return? If you don't have a great GM who's super responsive to your attempts to be creative, how well do the mechanical components of your character encourage you to work with different (metaphorical) tools?

I have some other questions about optimizing in a more traditional (combat-focused) sense, and I also understand that spells are going to be another aspect of problem-solving, but I've already written a ginormous wall of text, and I don't want this aspect of the discussion to get lost in the discussion of combat optimization, so I'll leave that for a later time.

tl;dr: How hard is it to make a character who can solve problems in ways that not everyone else can do? What does a "skillful" character look like, and is there any value to trying to be skillful when the gap between a skillful character and a baseline character is pretty small? How easy is it to actually have your proficiencies matter at the table? How much support is there for open-ended capabilities beyond background features? What does it mean for a 5e character to be good at something?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've been wrestling with much the same thing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?63-D-amp-D-5e-Next). The basic issue, I think, is that Bounded Accuracy was calibrated too low-- the RNG dwarfs the bonuses for pretty much your entire career, with the possible exception of those with Expertise. I've been looking at alternate dice systems, trying to find a way to make proficiency mean more consistency.

[mgshamster]

It works just fine if you take into account that the dice roll is only for uncertain outcomes. There's no roll if you expect someone to auto-succeed or auto-fail.

Your expert would just auto succeed more often than someone untrained - the untrained may need a roll or may even auto-fail, depending on their ability scores, background, and experiences.

[Biggstick]

It sounds like 5e just doesn't have what you want in it. There isn't a huge stack of books with tons of numbers and thousands of different ways (spelled out for you in the book) to pull something ridiculous off. Talk with your DM before the game and figure out how s/he uses proficiencies in their game. Bring up your concerns and a reasonable person will work with you on your requests.

[Tehnar]

Like I said before, 5e doesn't have a skill system. It appears to have one, and there are skill proficiencies, but they do not actually do anything. Instead you have two distinct resolution mechanics:

1) LOLRANDOM. Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM and he has no idea how to judge the outcome of a action. So he calls for a dice roll with what sounds like a plausible skill attached. If the d20 shows as high you succeed, and if it shows low you fail, regardless of any modifiers you might have. If you roll around a 10 you get into a half and hour argument as the game grinds to a halt.

2) DMFIAT: Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM, so he decides to rule that your character can do things based on what he thinks your character can do, or how much he likes you as a player, or how many beers he had. Skill rolls are called for but actually do nothing to influence the DMs opinion of wherever a character can or cannot do something. You get into half hour arguments when you have a different opinion then the DM about what your character can do and the game grinds to a halt.

[mgshamster]

Like I said before, 5e doesn't have a skill system. It appears to have one, and there are skill proficiencies, but they do not actually do anything. Instead you have two distinct resolution mechanics:

1) LOLRANDOM. Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM and he has no idea how to judge the outcome of a action. So he calls for a dice roll with what sounds like a plausible skill attached. If the d20 shows as high you succeed, and if it shows low you fail, regardless of any modifiers you might have. If you roll around a 10 you get into a half and hour argument as the game grinds to a halt.

2) DMFIAT: Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM, so he decides to rule that your character can do things based on what he thinks your character can do, or how much he likes you as a player, or how many beers he had. Skill rolls are called for but actually do nothing to influence the DMs opinion of wherever a character can or cannot do something. You get into half hour arguments when you have a different opinion then the DM about what your character can do and the game grinds to a halt.

Wow. That was condescending and inaccurate.

[Telok]

I've sort of been working on this because of the rolled vs bought stats thread and some severe difficulties in making a competent character build to fit a fairly simple concept.

I can't say anything to the skill DCs published in the books as I haven't combed the dmg or adventures for info. In combat though there are some trends.

At first level you want a minimum of 14 ac, +4 to hit, +2 on saves (two of dex, wis, and con), and a +2 con bonus if you plan on ever entering melee. At this level your proficency bonus is +2. I got this from a survey of about 30 monsters from cr 1/4 to 2.

I've just finished looking at 20 monsters from cr 10 to 16 and have formed an opinion. The absolute minimums are 19 ac (or really good hit mitigation), +8 attacks, +7 on saves, and 8 hp/level after first if you ever plan on entering melee for even a single round. These numbers will give you a 50% success rate and you'll probably still have more than one hit point after three 'hits'. Each 'hit' being an averaged damage roll of a single attack monster or the average damage of all the multiattack rolls. In general a single attack monster does roughly what the full routine of a multiattack monster does, a bit over 40 damage.

So my takeaway is that stat 14+proficency is the absolute minimum acceptable level of performance. This will get you a 50% success rate the majority of the time.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I can't say anything to the skill DCs published in the books as I haven't combed the dmg or adventures for info. In combat though there are some trends.
The DMG lists an "easy" task as DC 10, a "moderate" one as DC 15, a "hard" one as DC 20, "very hard" at 25 and "near-impossible" at 30. Dunno what published adventures do with that, though. (There's also a table of expected monster stats, which roughly lines up with with what you found)

[UberMagus]

I, too, have been wrestling with this, as well.
I've always leaned toward knowledge-junkies, kinda the whole "Encyclopedia Jones/Nose-in-a-book" guys, who know a crapload about History/Arcana/Lore type stuff, but I hate the idea that you can't build to that unless you specifically pick a CLASS with it. One of my favorite characters was a Fighter who took all his non-fighter feats in skill focuses and the like, and his fighter feats in combat, meaning he wasn't quite as good at hitting things with other things, but had the fun flavor of being a clever bastard. :smallsmile:

To me, it seems the biggest flaw in 5e: In order to keep anyone from being BAD at something, they rendered it impossible to be awesome at it.

[Talamare]

My personal view of it is that d20 is a RNG heavy system and bounded accuracy is kinda of the opposite

There is more or less no real check that can't be succeeded by someone with 10 in all stats with a lucky roll
The problem is that the chance of getting the lucky roll and the unlucky roll is basically the same 5% consistent

My suggestion for 'fixing' the d20 system is to basically replace the die rolling with 2d10. Creating a soft bell curve that pulls all rolls towards average results. With Average results of 9~12, it becomes more likely that proficiency and attributes take a larger part.

[weaseldust]

Suppose I have 3 level 1 adventurers: a wizard with a -1 dexterity mod and no proficiency in acrobatics, a fighter with a +2 dexterity mod and proficiency in acrobatics, and a rogue with a +3 dexterity mod and expertise in acrobatics.

There are 4 chasms to cross. The first is spanned by a rope bridge which is swaying in the wind and has low railings. The dexterity (acrobatics) check to stay on it has DC 5. The second is spanned by a similar swaying bridge with many missing slats and some gaps in the railings. The DC to stay on is 10. The third has no railings and is swaying more violently. The DC to stay on is 15. The fourth is a tightrope - DC 20.

Chances of failing by character and bridge:




DC 5
DC 10
DC 15
DC 20


Wizard (-1):
25%
50%
75%
100%


Fighter (+4):
0%
25%
50%
75%


Rogue (+7):
0%
10%
35%
60%



At level 1, the Fighter cannot fail the easiest balance check and succeeds on a fairly hard task half the time. That is being good at acrobatics. The Rogue is somewhat better than good, and the gap between them and the Fighter increases as they gain levels.

Bear in mind that adventurers can expect to face these challenges at all levels. The DM is fine to throw in the occasional DC30 check for the Rogue at high levels if they want to stretch them, but the bread and butter DCs will stay the same. After all, the wizard will probably never improve their modifier from -1. A moderately tricky bridge will always be a problem for them (one they can maybe solve by expending spell slots, but that's the point of spell slots).


On tool proficiencies - I would ask for a check with a poisoner's kit for extracting poison from a plant or animal, for mixing poison into an unusual form (e.g. soap), or for making it in adverse conditions. But I think they don't spell it out because such checks will only come up in circumstances unique to each adventure. I expect their existence is only mentioned so a DM can ask for a check if they think the circumstances require it, rather than because making ability checks is part of the usual process for preparing poisons.


EDIT: On reflection, I think you were asking more about what it takes to be skilled rather than merely good. Though I don't think there's that much difference - I'd describe the fighter in my example as skilled because they can reliably succeed in challenging circumstances. Even if a DC is called "Easy", that only means "easy for skilled adventurers". Commoners and unskilled adventurers will fail them reliably.

You also have to bear in mind that the things called "skills" often don't relate to being skilled in the colloquial sense. Many displays of skill don't require "skills" - e.g. proficiency with smiths tools gives you an ability that almost no-one else has, but you'll rarely have to make a check to use it. And using History, Insight, and Perception, for instance, could be described as demonstrating skillfulness or not, depending on the character and circumstances.

But to be really good with the things called "skills", you pretty much do have to have levels in Rogue or Bard (or Knowledge Cleric for knowledge skills). That's just how they chose to differentiate those classes. It's always been a feature of class systems that you can't get everything from every class. I think that would be a mistake if having expertise with "skills" corresponded to being a skillful character, but see above for why I think that isn't the case.

[Submortimer]

tl;dr: How hard is it to make a character who can solve problems in ways that not everyone else can do? What does a "skillful" character look like, and is there any value to trying to be skillful when the gap between a skillful character and a baseline character is pretty small? How easy is it to actually have your proficiencies matter at the table? How much support is there for open-ended capabilities beyond background features? What does it mean for a 5e character to be good at something?

Here's the rub: 5e's skill set requires that a DM recalibrate their expectations for successful rolls. For previous editions, skill bonuses grew through the roof, and set the expectation of what a successful roll is very high: 5e ain't that way.

Going back to the post about difficulty, remember that 10 is easy while 30 is nearly impossible. Combine this with the fact that a 20 isn't an automatic success and a 1 isnt an automatic fail when it comes to skills, and you can get the sense of what it means to be fair, good, or amazing at something.

Example: player wants to Tame a dog. As a DM, I would call this an "Easy" handle animal check, since dogs are domesticated.

A commoner with 10 wisdom and no proficiency has a 50% chance.

A PC with 20 wis has a 75% chance.

A PC with 20 wis and proficiency has a 85% chance at 1st level and a 100% chance at level 16 and beyond.

A PC with 20 wis and expertise has a 95% chance at 1st level and 100% from then on.

On the other end, the player wants to tame a wild tyrannosaurus, a "nearly impossible" feat (DC 30)

A commoner with 10 wisdom and no proficiency has a 0% chance.

A PC with 20 wis has a 0% chance.

A PC with 20 wis and proficiency has a 0% chance at 1st level and a 5% chance at level 17 and beyond.

A PC with 20 wis and expertise has a 0% chance at 1st level, a 5% chance at 5th level, and a 65% chance st level 20.

Being good at something in 5e is the difference between having a 0% chance and a 65% chance to make the nearly impossible happen.

[Zaq]

I've been wrestling with much the same thing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?63-D-amp-D-5e-Next). The basic issue, I think, is that Bounded Accuracy was calibrated too low-- the RNG dwarfs the bonuses for pretty much your entire career, with the possible exception of those with Expertise. I've been looking at alternate dice systems, trying to find a way to make proficiency mean more consistency.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying. I'll be interested in hearing if your solutions work out well. Not sure if alternate dice systems are going to be a silver bullet here, but I'd still like to hear more.


It works just fine if you take into account that the dice roll is only for uncertain outcomes. There's no roll if you expect someone to auto-succeed or auto-fail.

Your expert would just auto succeed more often than someone untrained - the untrained may need a roll or may even auto-fail, depending on their ability scores, background, and experiences.

Okay, great. Give me some examples in the book that indicate when that should be the case and when it shouldn't be the case.

Your solution is one that a reasonable GM might propose, but the problem is that it's not actually really supported by the text. Like, I wouldn't be sad to have a game that actually runs like this, but we run back into the problem of really good GMs versus okay GMs.

I mean, when I GM or when I advise new GMs, I try to make it a guiding principle that you should only pick up the dice if both success and failure are interesting. But that isn't emphasized in the rules, if it's even spelled out at all. And while you and I might agree that GMing best practices would include something like that, that only goes so far if the rules don't support it. (Again, I'm not worried about playing under a great GM. I'm worried about playing under an average GM who might not have the same principles.)

Or let's even say that I'm a GM who wants to run with this, but I don't really know where to start. What help does the book offer me in that regard? Is there anything in the text that helps me make this happen, or am I responsible for coming up with it on my own?

That's what I mean when I say that this is a ruleset written for good GMs instead of average GMs, and that's what I mean when I say that it doesn't meet the GM halfway. Your solution is completely reasonable, but it's also not something the printed rules would push you towards. Especially if, say, this were your first time GMing.

I do see the variant rule on pg. 239 of the DMG, but one, that's a variant rule, and two, the text even says that it aggravates the problem of matching highly skilled characters with hard tasks.

(There's also the fact that taking 10 doesn't seem to be a thing anymore? And neither does taking 20? Like, taking 20 has kinda been replaced by taking 10, in that it takes 10 times as long but treats the roll as a 10? I can't find where the hell I read that rule. It exists, right? I'm not imagining things?)


It sounds like 5e just doesn't have what you want in it. There isn't a huge stack of books with tons of numbers and thousands of different ways (spelled out for you in the book) to pull something ridiculous off. Talk with your DM before the game and figure out how s/he uses proficiencies in their game. Bring up your concerns and a reasonable person will work with you on your requests.

Maybe. (I definitely understand that it doesn't have the options and the optimization potential of 3.5 or 4e, but I'm trying to be open-minded and see what it is instead of what it isn't before I write the system off entirely.) Again, that's kind of what I'm looking at here. And if I had a real game with a real GM, I'd talk with my real GM. But I don't have one, so I want to get a handle on what the system itself expects/allows/encourages/discourages before we let a GM fix everything.


Like I said before, 5e doesn't have a skill system. It appears to have one, and there are skill proficiencies, but they do not actually do anything. Instead you have two distinct resolution mechanics:

1) LOLRANDOM. Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM and he has no idea how to judge the outcome of a action. So he calls for a dice roll with what sounds like a plausible skill attached. If the d20 shows as high you succeed, and if it shows low you fail, regardless of any modifiers you might have. If you roll around a 10 you get into a half and hour argument as the game grinds to a halt.

2) DMFIAT: Lack of a functioning skill system confuses the DM, so he decides to rule that your character can do things based on what he thinks your character can do, or how much he likes you as a player, or how many beers he had. Skill rolls are called for but actually do nothing to influence the DMs opinion of wherever a character can or cannot do something. You get into half hour arguments when you have a different opinion then the DM about what your character can do and the game grinds to a halt.

That's perhaps a bit harsher than I would put it, but it's not entirely different from the impression I've picked up from just reading the books. It's really as bad as I'm thinking?


Wow. That was condescending and inaccurate.

Okay, cool. Tell me more. What's inaccurate about it? What would be a more accurate assessment? Your earlier comment indicated that you feel like a GM has to step in and impose some semblance of order where the book doesn't really provide it, so how would you describe 5e's skill system, both at the low end and at the high end?


I've sort of been working on this because of the rolled vs bought stats thread and some severe difficulties in making a competent character build to fit a fairly simple concept.

I can't say anything to the skill DCs published in the books as I haven't combed the dmg or adventures for info. In combat though there are some trends.

At first level you want a minimum of 14 ac, +4 to hit, +2 on saves (two of dex, wis, and con), and a +2 con bonus if you plan on ever entering melee. At this level your proficency bonus is +2. I got this from a survey of about 30 monsters from cr 1/4 to 2.

I've just finished looking at 20 monsters from cr 10 to 16 and have formed an opinion. The absolute minimums are 19 ac (or really good hit mitigation), +8 attacks, +7 on saves, and 8 hp/level after first if you ever plan on entering melee for even a single round. These numbers will give you a 50% success rate and you'll probably still have more than one hit point after three 'hits'. Each 'hit' being an averaged damage roll of a single attack monster or the average damage of all the multiattack rolls. In general a single attack monster does roughly what the full routine of a multiattack monster does, a bit over 40 damage.

So my takeaway is that stat 14+proficency is the absolute minimum acceptable level of performance. This will get you a 50% success rate the majority of the time.

Ugh, that's frustrating, given that 14 is bafflingly considered a "high stat" in point buy. That just kind of solidifies my understanding that you'd better not be trying to be good at anything that isn't tied to your attack/casting stat. (That wouldn't be so bad if the system had other damn bonuses to make up the difference, but the entire problem is that there aren't other bonuses, so it's really frustrating that you have to devote "high" stats to things to just hit 50% success rate.)

And for what it's worth, I really don't feel like someone who sets out to be an expert at something should have a 50% failure rate. That's not how heroic fantasy works. That's how gritty survival horror works, or it's how madcap "succeed by failing" systems like Kobolds Ate My Baby work, but that seems totally out of place with D&D.


The DMG lists an "easy" task as DC 10, a "moderate" one as DC 15, a "hard" one as DC 20, "very hard" at 25 and "near-impossible" at 30. Dunno what published adventures do with that, though. (There's also a table of expected monster stats, which roughly lines up with with what you found)

Yeah, I'd love to hear about how those DCs actually get used and if WotC follows their own advice.


I, too, have been wrestling with this, as well.
I've always leaned toward knowledge-junkies, kinda the whole "Encyclopedia Jones/Nose-in-a-book" guys, who know a crapload about History/Arcana/Lore type stuff, but I hate the idea that you can't build to that unless you specifically pick a CLASS with it. One of my favorite characters was a Fighter who took all his non-fighter feats in skill focuses and the like, and his fighter feats in combat, meaning he wasn't quite as good at hitting things with other things, but had the fun flavor of being a clever bastard. :smallsmile:

To me, it seems the biggest flaw in 5e: In order to keep anyone from being BAD at something, they rendered it impossible to be awesome at it.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of. Like I said over and over in the original post, I'm totally okay with making it easy to be decent, but why is it so insanely hard to actually be good? Is it really so terrible to want the know-it-all Wizard to, well, know it all?


My personal view of it is that d20 is a RNG heavy system and bounded accuracy is kinda of the opposite

There is more or less no real check that can't be succeeded by someone with 10 in all stats with a lucky roll
The problem is that the chance of getting the lucky roll and the unlucky roll is basically the same 5% consistent

My suggestion for 'fixing' the d20 system is to basically replace the die rolling with 2d10. Creating a soft bell curve that pulls all rolls towards average results. With Average results of 9~12, it becomes more likely that proficiency and attributes take a larger part.

Yeah, if they're going to make it such a big freaking deal to just get a +1 bonus, I question the wisdom of using a d20 as your RNG. That said, my problem isn't that someone with a 10 in all stats can succeed if they get lucky (though it is weird if you can't get the Wizard's Arcana check up high enough to beat the Barbarian's more than 40% of the time); my problem is that there's no room for someone who really want to specialize and become good at something. 2d10 might work, but I'm not sure if it would have other unforeseen consequences. Worth thinking about, though.

[OldTrees1]

Being good at something in 5e is the difference between having a 0% chance and a 65% chance to make the nearly impossible happen.

Provided you are a Rogue or Bard and also at 20th level.


That is why I favor the Rogue/Bard multiclass. You get ~2 more Expertise.

[UberMagus]

Provided you are a Rogue or Bard and also at 20th level.

THIS!! So much this!

[pwykersotz]

You cannot be good at things using the metrics of 3.5 in this system. You won't be able to bump a skill high enough that you have a 100% chance of succeeding on simple tasks. Tehnar, while completely and utterly condescending and putting things in entirely the wrong context to be helpful, is pretty much right in the overall point. The RNG is high because the DM is supposed to adjudicate these checks and not call for them if they aren't necessary or interesting. 5e is much more of a game than a hardcore simulation machine. So looking to the d20 roll and skills aren't the answer.

You have a few choices here.

Custom Backgrounds. You've looked at these, and the rules explicitly allow custom ones. Create a background power that exemplifies whatever you're good at. Don't focus around a particular skill check, focus on a talent. Say for example, that you are a Parkour expert. When not threatened by enemy arrows or dragonfire, you can always successfully leap and pass an obstacle. Maybe you even still roll the check, and a failure means you take a small amount of damage but you still make it across.

Magic. Spells the main thing in the game that provide a degree of certainty, since they're pretty hard-coded and explicit. You might want to focus on using magic to maximize your enjoyment.

Working with the GM. There are two ways to do this, either by working to set expectations with the GM about how he'll rule with regard to skill checks, or by altering the dice you roll and thus altering the bell curve.

However, based on your comments above, you seem to be looking for a definitive RAW answer. There are few to be had. This is a DM ruling edition, designed to be accommodating. It's one of the reasons I still profess a deep love of 3.5. In that edition I can micromanage EVERYTHING. In this one, it's a breath of fresh air because I don't have to.

[Submortimer]

Provided you are a Rogue or Bard and also at 20th level.


That is why I favor the Rogue/Bard multiclass. You get ~2 more Expertise.

Totally agree. You want to be good using skills? Be a Rogue or a Bard: that's their schtick.

[Submortimer]

You cannot be good at things using the metrics of 3.5 in this system. You won't be able to bump a skill high enough that you have a 100% chance of succeeding on simple tasks.

Totally disagree, as long as your definition of of "simple task" equates to a DC 10 check. A rogue with expertise and an 18 in the associated stat will have a +10 bonus to a given skill at level 5, guaranteeing success on Easy skill checks.

As in 3.5, you need to focus your build to make a skill heavy character work.

[UberMagus]

Totally agree. You want to be good using skills? Be a Rogue or a Bard: that's their schtick.

I guess this bugs me a bit. It just makes no sense to me that the Rogue knows more about Arcana than the Wizard, or more about Religion than the Cleric.

[Grod_The_Giant]

And for what it's worth, I really don't feel like someone who sets out to be an expert at something should have a 50% failure rate. That's not how heroic fantasy works. That's how gritty survival horror works, or it's how madcap "succeed by failing" systems like Kobolds Ate My Baby work, but that seems totally out of place with D&D.
Agreed. My preference is for a specialist to have about a 70% success rate on level-appropriate tasks; 50% is more appropriate for a guy making a cross-class type check. (And 30% for a "probably won't work but worth a shot" type of deal.) Maybe a slight bump to the total proficiency bonus would be enough?


Yeah, if they're going to make it such a big freaking deal to just get a +1 bonus, I question the wisdom of using a d20 as your RNG. That said, my problem isn't that someone with a 10 in all stats can succeed if they get lucky (though it is weird if you can't get the Wizard's Arcana check up high enough to beat the Barbarian's more than 40% of the time); my problem is that there's no room for someone who really want to specialize and become good at something. 2d10 might work, but I'm not sure if it would have other unforeseen consequences. Worth thinking about, though.
Yeah, the whole "every little bonus counts!" bit seems much better suited to something with more of a bell curve. If this was a cRPG you wouldn't be interested in getting a 5% bonus to hit; why should pen and paper be any different?


You cannot be good at things using the metrics of 3.5 according to normal expectations in this system.
Fixed that for you. I don't need to be good at things in the "have a +30 modifier" sense; I'd just like to be good at them in the "see a meaningful advantage over the guy who didn't invest in the thing" sense, and maybe also the "capable of reliably making basic checks" sense. One noticeable in play-- a 20% advantage doesn't really feel like that much.

I can deal with swingy combat; it's the skill checks, I think, where the issue is worse. I'd like to see Proficiency be slightly more meaningful than it is at low levels. Having it scale faster might help; having it do some sort of probability manipulation might be better. (Different die rolls? Minimum roll result?)

[pwykersotz]

Totally disagree, as long as your definition of of "simple task" equates to a DC 10 check. A rogue with expertise and an 18 in the associated stat will have a +10 bonus to a given skill at level 5, guaranteeing success on Easy skill checks.

As in 3.5, you need to focus your build to make a skill heavy character work.

Well, you got me there, but while eating my choice of words I'll clarify.

I mean that the flexibility and power of the skill point metric is gone. In 3.5 anyone, regardless of class, could specialize in at least something, and the point system caused crazy scaling that some people love because it is symmetrical design for NPC's, adventurers, monsters, and everything else. 5e narrowed the gap to make these skill checks designed for adventurers, so that mindset of a Blacksmith needing to be a level 5 Rogue in order to make a sword properly 100% of the time is gone. I wholeheartedly support this change, I love what it does to the flow of the game. But a lot of people dislike it because it's not useful for making the rules of the game into the rules of the universe.


Fixed that for you. I don't need to be good at things in the "have a +30 modifier" sense; I'd just like to be good at them in the "see a meaningful advantage over the guy who didn't invest in the thing" sense, and maybe also the "capable of reliably making basic checks" sense. One noticeable in play-- a 20% advantage doesn't really feel like that much.

I can deal with swingy combat; it's the skill checks, I think, where the issue is worse. I'd like to see Proficiency be slightly more meaningful than it is at low levels. Having it scale faster might help; having it do some sort of probability manipulation might be better. (Different die rolls? Minimum roll result?)

I disagree with your "fix", but that's semantics. You are in good company with Kurald Galain and several other forum-goers who dislike the way this shakes out. Ultimately there are three choices. Recalibrate your expectations, import a new skill system, or just play 3.5 or another system which scratches that itch. This third one is what I do from time to time.

[Pex]

Wow. That was condescending and in but accurate.

Fixed that for you.

With undefined examples of skill DCs, what is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. How to resolve the matter given the DM allows it also differs - see continuing arguments on how someone can identify a spell being cast for Counterspell or just knowing it for want of knowing it. You can't know what your character can do outside defined class abilities until the moment you want to do something that's not a class defined ability, such as a skill check. If you play a game with a different DM you have to relearn the rules to accommodate that DM's interpretation of things. The DM has to think of everything on the spot, easily allowing for jerk DMs to run roughshod. New players to roleplaying in general won't know that's not how it's supposed to be and might quit altogether because of it. Given a DM who isn't a jerk, he can be overwhelmed having to design the game for himself instead of just running the session. He doesn't necessarily want to come up with rules to define how things work. That's what he supposedly paid the game designers to do.

[Submortimer]

I guess this bugs me a bit. It just makes no sense to me that the Rogue knows more about Arcana than the Wizard, or more about Religion than the Cleric.

You know, there's a fix for this: You could give every class Expertise.

Hear me out: Every class gets expertise in one of their class skills (not background skill, class skill) or tools. That wizard? He knows everything about Magic ever. The mounted knight? he can do horse tricks with his eyes closed. I heard that Warlock could sell water to an Aboleth.

This still makes Rogues and Bards special, since they know LOTS of things, but allows a player to give their character a skill that they can actually be good at.

[Vogonjeltz]

Basically, the tool proficiency rules are ugly. The developers kind of kludged tool proficiency into both meaning "add proficiency bonus to relevant checks" and "you're allowed to use these tools at all," but they didn't really explain it, and they gave very little text indicating what you can and can't do with proficiency or without proficiency. We know that crafting is a binary yes/no for proficiency (PHB pg. 187: "you must be proficient with tools related to the object you are trying to create"), so we have at least one example of "proficiency means you can just straight up do something, nonproficiency means you just straight up can't," but that's an incomplete picture. The game doesn't really come out and say what kinds of things are possible with checks and without checks and with proficiency and without proficiency. Presumably not everyone in the world who's ever cooked a meal has proficiency with cook's utensils, but what possibilities are open to a player who is proficient in them? Does that just mean they can earn money cooking food? They're presumably better at cooking than someone without that proficiency (they add their bonus, after all), but how would you show that? Do you have to roll a check to cook dinner, and if not, when do we get to show that proficiency bonus? The game has indicated that there is some mechanical effect to being proficient with cook's utensils (and the game has extracted a cost from me for the privilege—that proficiency slot took up build resources that weren't spent on something else), but the game also has not told me what that mechanical effect is or why I care about it.


Zaq, you're referencing the wrong pages when it comes to using tools, in general. The information on 187 is specific to crafting equipment or works of art.

Tool use (and the impact of tool proficiency), in general, is found on PHB 154. A tool is required to do a particular task, but proficiency is not required to use the tool, it's just value added.

As to the title question, I'd draw a distinction between natural talent and training. The ability score is natural talent, the proficiency and some class features represent skilled training.

[Sigreid]

While I fully admit that this falls under the realm of DM fiat, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the boon system in the DMG to give a character expertise if you think it is appropriate. Just try to be fair and not invalidate one of the things that makes Rogues and Bards cool and unique.

[Zaq]

You cannot be good at things using the metrics of 3.5 in this system. You won't be able to bump a skill high enough that you have a 100% chance of succeeding on simple tasks. Tehnar, while completely and utterly condescending and putting things in entirely the wrong context to be helpful, is pretty much right in the overall point. The RNG is high because the DM is supposed to adjudicate these checks and not call for them if they aren't necessary or interesting. 5e is much more of a game than a hardcore simulation machine. So looking to the d20 roll and skills aren't the answer.

You have a few choices here.

Custom Backgrounds. You've looked at these, and the rules explicitly allow custom ones. Create a background power that exemplifies whatever you're good at. Don't focus around a particular skill check, focus on a talent. Say for example, that you are a Parkour expert. When not threatened by enemy arrows or dragonfire, you can always successfully leap and pass an obstacle. Maybe you even still roll the check, and a failure means you take a small amount of damage but you still make it across.

Magic. Spells the main thing in the game that provide a degree of certainty, since they're pretty hard-coded and explicit. You might want to focus on using magic to maximize your enjoyment.

Working with the GM. There are two ways to do this, either by working to set expectations with the GM about how he'll rule with regard to skill checks, or by altering the dice you roll and thus altering the bell curve.

However, based on your comments above, you seem to be looking for a definitive RAW answer. There are few to be had. This is a DM ruling edition, designed to be accommodating. It's one of the reasons I still profess a deep love of 3.5. In that edition I can micromanage EVERYTHING. In this one, it's a breath of fresh air because I don't have to.

Honestly? I wouldn't need an ironclad RAW mandate if I could just get enough RAW examples to give me a good idea about what to expect. I don't need to know the DC of everything I would ever expect to do, but the problem is that we're too far in the other direction—I basically don't know the DC for ANYTHING. I could roll up a character and end up with a +7 to my best skills, but without any examples whatsoever, I can't tell if that's high or low or middling or what.

I'm not looking for 3.5's style of "Escape Artist is DC 20 for a net, DC 23 for a snare spell, DC 30 for manacles . . ." or "Handle Animal is DC 15 to teach Fetch, DC 20 to teach Guard . . ." Do you by any chance have the 4e Rules Compendium? THAT'S the kind of thing I'm looking for. It gives you a few concrete things that you can do with a given skill (some of which have fixed DCs, some of which use 4e's floating level-based DC; I understand that floating DCs are very emphatically not a thing in 5e, and that's okay), and then it gives you a few examples of ways you can improvise with that skill. If I could get that for every skill in the game (and something similar for the tools), I'd feel better. But WotC didn't bother to give that to me. So I don't know what qualifies as an "easy task" or a "medium task" or a "hard task."

I'm fine with the GM being the primary arbiter, but without examples to point to in the book, the GM is the ONLY arbiter. And then you're not playing D&D anymore. You're playing "guess what'll make the GM happy."


Totally agree. You want to be good using skills? Be a Rogue or a Bard: that's their schtick.


Totally disagree, as long as your definition of of "simple task" equates to a DC 10 check. A rogue with expertise and an 18 in the associated stat will have a +10 bonus to a given skill at level 5, guaranteeing success on Easy skill checks.

As in 3.5, you need to focus your build to make a skill heavy character work.

I respect needing to invest build resources to become specialized at something, but part of my problem is that you have significantly fewer build resources in 5e than in previous editions. Your stats are way tighter (you start with much lower stats and it's much harder to raise them). You don't get feats unless you sacrifice your stats. You don't get magic items. You don't get skill points. When you only make a few choices in your career, each choice becomes more costly than when you actually controlled most of how your build worked. I mean, you never really had enough feats (as they say, if you're comfortable with how many feats you have, you aren't optimizing enough), but you could still afford to throw a feat at something you wanted to be good at. Maybe even two, depending on your starting level and which edition you were playing. But that isn't really the case here.

A big problem with the solution of "just dip Rogue for Expertise" is that multiclassing has annoying stat requirements. Requiring a 13 in a class-appropriate stat was easy in 4e, since a 13 was considered to be a lowish stat. It wasn't the dumpiest of dump stats, but neither was it a major investment to get a 13. Here, though? If you use the standard array, that's your third highest stat. That's not trivial. So now you need a 13 in DEX in addition to whatever your actual important stats are. Some characters can afford that, but some others just plain can't. And of course there's the issue of delaying your progression in your main class by a level; if your Wizard is dipping Rogue to become better at Arcana, he's somehow becoming better at Arcana while failing to get better at magic. Yes, of course there's going to be a cost to getting a build element in place (and that's fine; I'm not demanding to be an expert for free), but it still bothers me that the ONLY way to get something like this is to dip.

I think part of what bothers me the most is that this really seems to be the be-all and end-all of getting better at skills: get Expertise somehow. That's all well and good for someone who's entirely defined by one skill, but in the past, it didn't take that much dedication to just become better than average at a pet skill. There were nickel-and-dime bonuses you could pick up from your race or your background or from cheap items. You could throw a feat at it without interrupting your main progression. You could keep investing skill points and get synergy bonuses and masterwork tools and stuff to help you. But since I'm already chafing under 5e giving me fewer choices to make, I don't appreciate being forced to give up what few toys I have to replicate an effect that I didn't think of as being especially costly.

[Zaq]

Zaq, you're referencing the wrong pages when it comes to using tools, in general. The information on 187 is specific to crafting equipment or works of art.

Tool use (and the impact of tool proficiency), in general, is found on PHB 154. A tool is required to do a particular task, but proficiency is not required to use the tool, it's just value added.

As to the title question, I'd draw a distinction between natural talent and training. The ability score is natural talent, the proficiency and some class features represent skilled training.

I was looking at both 154 and 187 while writing that section. The only reason I brought in 187 is because it's the only rules text I can find that tells you about something you CAN do with proficiency that you CAN'T do without it.

154 just tells you that "proficiency with a tool allows you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make using that tool." With basically the exception of the thieves' tools, it spectacularly fails to tell you when you would need to make an ability check with any given tool or what kinds of things can be accomplished with and without checks. Like I said, you probably don't need proficiency in cook's utensils to cook dinner, and someone with proficiency there is probably better than someone without proficiency, but how do we portray that? If it comes down to a check, then the proficient character has a higher bonus to that check, but what kinds of checks are involved with cooking? If you don't need to make checks and don't need proficiency with cook's utensils to make dinner, then what benefit do you get from spending a proficiency slot on cook's utensils? And this applies to basically every tool on that page, with very few exceptions.

You'd think that the primary benefit of proficiency in tools should come from 154 rather than from 187, but with zero examples of what kinds of checks you make with most tools and zero indication of when that proficiency bonus is going to be valuable, 187 is the page with more hard rules text about what proficient characters can do better than nonproficient characters.

[pwykersotz]

Honestly? I wouldn't need an ironclad RAW mandate if I could just get enough RAW examples to give me a good idea about what to expect. I don't need to know the DC of everything I would ever expect to do, but the problem is that we're too far in the other direction—I basically don't know the DC for ANYTHING. I could roll up a character and end up with a +7 to my best skills, but without any examples whatsoever, I can't tell if that's high or low or middling or what.

I'm not looking for 3.5's style of "Escape Artist is DC 20 for a net, DC 23 for a snare spell, DC 30 for manacles . . ." or "Handle Animal is DC 15 to teach Fetch, DC 20 to teach Guard . . ." Do you by any chance have the 4e Rules Compendium? THAT'S the kind of thing I'm looking for. It gives you a few concrete things that you can do with a given skill (some of which have fixed DCs, some of which use 4e's floating level-based DC; I understand that floating DCs are very emphatically not a thing in 5e, and that's okay), and then it gives you a few examples of ways you can improvise with that skill. If I could get that for every skill in the game (and something similar for the tools), I'd feel better. But WotC didn't bother to give that to me. So I don't know what qualifies as an "easy task" or a "medium task" or a "hard task."

I'm fine with the GM being the primary arbiter, but without examples to point to in the book, the GM is the ONLY arbiter. And then you're not playing D&D anymore. You're playing "guess what'll make the GM happy."

Less predictability is definitely a downside of the flexibility. I personally set the expectation with my table. A majority of the checks they roll are within the 10-15 range. Going beyond that tends to be for truly exceptional challenges. 20-30 tends to be the range of combating supernatural phenomena with your mere mortal prowess. So like "climbing the sheer underside of a floating glacier in Pandemonium while being attacked from all sides" would be a 30. Demigod level stuff. But that's all me. A DM who wants to run a 30 as being that "guy at the gym" can do so, and someone who wants to treat that glacier as a 15 DC can do so.

And yes, 5e takes away the veil that makes a player think that the DM doesn't completely control the DC anyway. That can be a problem in some respects, and I very much sympathize with your dilemma. But my table has been set in their expectations, and I've been consistent. An inconsistent GM would probably be maddening. :smalleek:

I never played 4e, so I don't have that book, but I'll look into that to grab some more context for your point. :smallsmile:

[Vogonjeltz]

I was looking at both 154 and 187 while writing that section. The only reason I brought in 187 is because it's the only rules text I can find that tells you about something you CAN do with proficiency that you CAN'T do without it.

154 just tells you that "proficiency with a tool allows you to add your proficiency bonus to any ability check you make using that tool." With basically the exception of the thieves' tools, it spectacularly fails to tell you when you would need to make an ability check with any given tool or what kinds of things can be accomplished with and without checks. Like I said, you probably don't need proficiency in cook's utensils to cook dinner, and someone with proficiency there is probably better than someone without proficiency, but how do we portray that? If it comes down to a check, then the proficient character has a higher bonus to that check, but what kinds of checks are involved with cooking? If you don't need to make checks and don't need proficiency with cook's utensils to make dinner, then what benefit do you get from spending a proficiency slot on cook's utensils? And this applies to basically every tool on that page, with very few exceptions.

You'd think that the primary benefit of proficiency in tools should come from 154 rather than from 187, but with zero examples of what kinds of checks you make with most tools and zero indication of when that proficiency bonus is going to be valuable, 187 is the page with more hard rules text about what proficient characters can do better than nonproficient characters.

By my count there are 14 different ability checks listed under the various tools on 154, and that is not counting the thieves tools.

Tools and skills aren't fungible, so there's zero opportunity cost to picking any given tool.

[Telok]

What could be an issue is that we don't seem to have much guidance on what constitutes the average/hard/very hard DCs. Is lion taming hard or very hard? Is using Heat Metal and a fire cantrip to weld a drawbridge chain average or hard? Is navigating the shoals of despair very hard or extremely difficult?

[Zaq]

By my count there are 14 different ability checks listed under the various tools on 154, and that is not counting the thieves tools.

Tools and skills aren't fungible, so there's zero opportunity cost to picking any given tool.

They use the words "ability checks," but there is zero indication of what those ability checks represent, how difficult it is to do different things, what circumstances call for checks and which don't, or what kinds of tasks will reward proficiency and which will not.

Like I said, what kind of ability check comes up while playing with a dice set? Do you roll an ability check every time you play dice? Do you only roll if you're trying to cheat? Is it an opposed roll? Is there a flat DC? The rules don't say. We know that we add our proficiency bonus to ability checks made when playing a game with our dice set. We do not know when those checks come up, what they represent, if they're required for normal games of dice or just for special circumstances, or what kinds of DCs we're attempting to hit. Leaving things open-ended is one thing, but this isn't so much open-ended as it is simply incomplete. And the same thing goes for most other tools. When do I roll an ability check with my cook's utensils and when do I just make dinner? How does a map made with an ability check for cartographer's tools differ from a map made with the rules on pg. 183? On and on.

The rules tell us that proficiency allows you to add your proficiency bonus when making certain ability checks. The rules do not tell us when those checks will come up, what they will allow us to accomplish, and when we can just do things without rolling (nor do they tell us why it is valuable to be proficient in circumstances where we aren't rolling—again, if we don't require an ability check to make dinner, then how do we represent the benefit of being proficient in cook's utensils? If we do roll an ability check to make dinner, why do we have zero guidelines about what that check represents?). THAT'S my problem. There's just a massive gap there. All I want are a few specific examples and guidelines. I don't need a whitelist of every single thing I can do with a hard-coded DC. But I want to know what the actual benefit of proficiency is, and if I don't know what it means for me to roll an ability check with a proficiency bonus, then I have no idea how a proficient character will differ from his nonproficient partymates in actual play.

[pwykersotz]

Oh, and off topic Zaq, I used your Truenamers guide to build one quite a while back. Good stuff!

[Roderick_BR]

Something most folks dont get at first is that in 5E, the number crunching is not important. Yes, your competence is pretty much an ability check and the fact you are proficient or not (or gets double proficiency bonus). Everything else important comes from your race and class features.
Back in previous editions, fighters had a much higher hit rate (bigger to-hit/base attack bonus, faster advancing thac0, etc), now anyone with the same strength/dexterity hits the same, but you have, say, more direct combat-oriented features than a rogue, that primes in ambushes and have a few more better skills than a fighter. Skills are made less important(or broken) than in 3.x, since everyone just pumps it the heck up and doesnt bother to check what it really does anyway.

I feel 5E tries to support more RP and exploration instead of micromanaging and complete customization that 3.x/Pathfinder does. You want to be "good at something", see what your character does better as whole, not checking each skill separatelly.

[Zaq]

Something most folks dont get at first is that in 5E, the number crunching is not important. Yes, your competence is pretty much an ability check and the fact you are proficient or not (or gets double proficiency bonus). Everything else important comes from your race and class features.
Back in previous editions, fighters had a much higher hit rate (bigger to-hit/base attack bonus, faster advancing thac0, etc), now anyone with the same strength/dexterity hits the same, but you have, say, more direct combat-oriented features than a rogue, that primes in ambushes and have a few more better skills than a fighter. Skills are made less important(or broken) than in 3.x, since everyone just pumps it the heck up and doesnt bother to check what it really does anyway.

I feel 5E tries to support more RP and exploration instead of micromanaging and complete customization that 3.x/Pathfinder does. You want to be "good at something", see what your character does better as whole, not checking each skill separatelly.

How well is this actually supported in the rules? As I mentioned in the OP (though I don't blame you if you lost it in the Wall o' Text), I absolutely love the open-ended capabilities represented by background features, but that's about all I'm seeing that does that sort of thing. I mean, like I keep saying, a really good GM will work with you to let your character do things that are appropriate for your character to do, but to what degree do the actual rules give the GM encouragement to make this happen?

I'll likely be starting another topic soon about what combat-oriented optimization looks like in 5e, but as I said in the OP, I don't want the skill-focused (and similar out-of-combat-problem-solving-focused, though I'll probably get into spells in my combat topic) conversation to be lost in the combat discussion, because both are important. (They're important in different ways, naturally, but . . . you know what I mean.)


Oh, and off topic Zaq, I used your Truenamers guide to build one quite a while back. Good stuff!

That's always gratifying to hear. Thanks a lot!

[pwykersotz]

How well is this actually supported in the rules?

A lot of the tone is covered in Chapter 8 of the DMG.


Remember that dice don't run your game- you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.

That's just a small snippet, but there's a lot on how to foster different playstyles.

[Giant2005]

There are a couple of things that needs to be addressed here.

Firstly, you seem to have forgotten all about the passive skills system. A level 1 character with +3 Wis and proficiency in Nature has a passive Nature score of 15 - that means he knows all "easy" things about nature entirely passively. He doesn't even need to think about them. By level 20 he could potentially have a passive score of 27 which would have him passively knowing everything to do with Nature that isn't nearly impossible to know. If you had some means of consistently having advantage, then your passive score would boost up to 32 and you would passively know literally everything in your field of study.

Secondly, to be honest your entire post sounds like you are just expecting too much from a level 1 character. Sure you can write in your backstory that your character is a prominent figure in their field of expertise, but they are level 1 - that would be a lie. The prominent figures in that field are all heavily experienced and consequently high level characters. You are essentially trying to take someone that is entirely inexperienced and present them as a foremost expert. The game just doesn't work that way and nor should it - that is a roleplaying issue, not a mechanical one.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying. I'll be interested in hearing if your solutions work out well. Not sure if alternate dice systems are going to be a silver bullet here, but I'd still like to hear more.

You don't need alternate dice systems. You can get the same bell curve effect by just tying success or failure to more than a single roll. Ways to do this include simply asking for more rolls "DC 15 athletics to climb the cliff; 3 of 5 successes or more means you make it up; one or zero means you fall" or group checks with hidden rolls and individualized results (very fun for knowledge rolls for e.g. monsters--do you trust the info from the one guy with +7, or the three guys with +0 who unanimously agree? You don't know what anyone rolled so the expert could be wrong--but there's also a reason he's an expert.)

RE: what makes you good in 5E, it isn't quantitative bonuses. It's qualitative capabilities. You're a Sharpshooter? Oh, you're deadly with a bow, no matter whether your Dex is 14 or 19. You're Mobile? Hard to kill in melee. You're a Heavy Armor Master? A real tank, when properly equipped.

The extra damage from fully exploiting your action economy with Polearm Master trumps the incremental bonus from Str +2. Your skeleton army trumps the decreased damage from the fact that your Necromancer has only Int 14. Your Monk of Long Death is extremely hard to kill despite having Con 8, because of Mastery of Death. Etc.

5E is not built to be a numbers game. Dominant strategies usually involve more sideways thinking than just boosting your stats.

[Giant2005]

I guess this bugs me a bit. It just makes no sense to me that the Rogue knows more about Arcana than the Wizard, or more about Religion than the Cleric.

It doesn't bother me so much.
A modern day equivalent is a theoretical physicist compared to an engineer. An engineer needs to know everything in their field that relates to practical uses. A theoretical physicist needs to take that knowledge a step further in order to have enough understanding to perhaps develop new practical uses.

Edit: The Wizard is the one that uses the practical applications of magic (Engineer) and the Rogue or Bard are the ones that deal with the theory of magic (Theoretical Physicist).

[Grod_The_Giant]

It doesn't bother me so much.
A modern day equivalent is a theoretical physicist compared to an engineer. An engineer needs to know everything in their field that relates to practical uses. A theoretical physicist needs to take that knowledge a step further in order to have enough understanding to perhaps develop new practical uses.
Who is what in this example?

[REVISIONIST]

Zaq, I may be mistaken but it seems like you have found the 5E DMG to be big on fluff and short on crunch. If that is the case then I totally
agree. I feel as GM that I could better handle a game having just the PHB and the MM manuals than ever having had a look at the DMG. Some of the variant rules in the DMG bear a little looking at but for the most part I feel like I got a rehash of the PHB with a bunch of magic items spelled out. Oh and some fluff on the planes, alternate enviroments, etc. I've dropped back into some of my 4E books for altrnate traps, hazards, monsters
(not part of the DMG, I know) I'm glad you started this thread. Darmantle, strength 16, DC13 strength to remove? Why. shouldn't it be opposing
checks? Thanks for bringing this up. A bit of clarity from Wotc on DC's in general would have helped.

[Zaq]

There are a couple of things that needs to be addressed here.

Firstly, you seem to have forgotten all about the passive skills system. A level 1 character with +3 Wis and proficiency in Nature has a passive Nature score of 15 - that means he knows all "easy" things about nature entirely passively. He doesn't even need to think about them. By level 20 he could potentially have a passive score of 27 which would have him passively knowing everything to do with Nature that isn't nearly impossible to know. If you had some means of consistently having advantage, then your passive score would boost up to 32 and you would passively know literally everything in your field of study.

Secondly, to be honest your entire post sounds like you are just expecting too much from a level 1 character. Sure you can write in your backstory that your character is a prominent figure in their field of expertise, but they are level 1 - that would be a lie. The prominent figures in that field are all heavily experienced and consequently high level characters. You are essentially trying to take someone that is entirely inexperienced and present them as a foremost expert. The game just doesn't work that way and nor should it - that is a roleplaying issue, not a mechanical one.

Honestly, I don't think I was looking at level 1 at all. Unless something very strange happens, I have no intention of ever playing a level 1 game, so I'm not sure which part of my post was written around level 1. Since I don't have a specific group or a specific game, I don't have a specific level range, but I basically don't think it's ever a good idea to actually play at level 1. If anything, I was probably thinking around closer to the 6-8 range as a baseline.

Passive scores are all well and good for some things, but since taking 10 is no longer officially a thing, they only apply when the GM jolly well feels like they do, which by default isn't for much. (And there's plenty of situations where they don't make sense. I'm 100% in favor of taking 10 at every single chance I get, since dice hate me, but it's a rare GM who allows a social interaction check to be a passive score without hard rules saying that works, for example.)

I'd also feel better about this if there were some damn examples of what you know with a DC 15 Nature check, honestly. Though even that wouldn't fix my main point about how bloody difficult it is to actually become good at things.


You don't need alternate dice systems. You can get the same bell curve effect by just tying success or failure to more than a single roll. Ways to do this include simply asking for more rolls "DC 15 athletics to climb the cliff; 3 of 5 successes or more means you make it up; one or zero means you fall" or group checks with hidden rolls and individualized results (very fun for knowledge rolls for e.g. monsters--do you trust the info from the one guy with +7, or the three guys with +0 who unanimously agree? You don't know what anyone rolled so the expert could be wrong--but there's also a reason he's an expert.)

I can see that being fun for some things in some groups, but in a vacuum, I'm in favor of rolling as few dice as necessary. On the spectrum between 3.5's "make a Climb check every turn to move half your speed, falling a certain distance if you fail by 5 or more, rolling each round until you're at the top of the cliff" and Legend's "make an Athletics check; if you succeed, you climb the cliff," my natural inclination is waaaay closer to Legend than to the other extreme. Similarly, with your monster knowledge check example, I can see it being fun in certain groups and in certain situations, but none of the people I regularly game with (whether they're usually GMs or usually players, and I'm including myself in that) would ever want to make four individual hidden rolls and craft four unique results for every damn monster we face. If you've got a GM willing to put in that kind of effort, godspeed, but that sounds way too finicky for me, and I already want to roll Knowledge on every monster ever to begin with.

[Giant2005]

Who is what in this example?

The Wizard is the one that uses the practical applications of magic (Engineer) and the Rogue or Bard are the ones that deal with the theory of magic (Theoretical Physicist).

[Shaofoo]

Fixed that for you.

With undefined examples of skill DCs, what is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. How to resolve the matter given the DM allows it also differs - see continuing arguments on how someone can identify a spell being cast for Counterspell or just knowing it for want of knowing it. You can't know what your character can do outside defined class abilities until the moment you want to do something that's not a class defined ability, such as a skill check. If you play a game with a different DM you have to relearn the rules to accommodate that DM's interpretation of things. The DM has to think of everything on the spot, easily allowing for jerk DMs to run roughshod. New players to roleplaying in general won't know that's not how it's supposed to be and might quit altogether because of it. Given a DM who isn't a jerk, he can be overwhelmed having to design the game for himself instead of just running the session. He doesn't necessarily want to come up with rules to define how things work. That's what he supposedly paid the game designers to do.

I don't get this logic, this is no different from any other system in existence, I don't see why is this a fault of 5e when all other systems can be modified by the DM to do what he wants or that a failure to learn will cause problems down the line for all.

A good DM should be prepared ahead of time, it is hard to come up with things on the spot but the game does not expect you to ad lib every single thing and even has tools to help you deal with doing random things. You should know your player's abilities and anticipate what they'll do.

A bad and unprepared DM will struggle with all games, 5e is not responsible if you don't do your homework ahead of time nor does it bill itself as a system that can only be done freeform.

[Giant2005]

Honestly, I don't think I was looking at level 1 at all. Unless something very strange happens, I have no intention of ever playing a level 1 game, so I'm not sure which part of my post was written around level 1. Since I don't have a specific group or a specific game, I don't have a specific level range, but I basically don't think it's ever a good idea to actually play at level 1. If anything, I was probably thinking around closer to the 6-8 range as a baseline.
The point still stands. A level 6-8 character can be very good at something (+11 modifier, or passive 21, 26 with advantage) but they are never going to be the best and they should never be the best. The best is reserved for higher level characters - a level 8 character that is focused on a skill shouldn't be competitive at that skill with a level 20 character that is focused in that skill; and thankfully he isn't.


Passive scores are all well and good for some things, but since taking 10 is no longer officially a thing, they only apply when the GM jolly well feels like they do, which by default isn't for much. (And there's plenty of situations where they don't make sense. I'm 100% in favor of taking 10 at every single chance I get, since dice hate me, but it's a rare GM who allows a social interaction check to be a passive score without hard rules saying that works, for example.)
Yes passive checks are entirely in the hands of the DM. You may very well get yourself a less competent DM that never uses the mechanic, but that isn't really the game's fault. Either way, only an extremely bad DM wouldn't consider passive checks when you mention them to him, and as you said, there isn't much that can be done about a bad DM.
As for the taking 10 thing, it does still exist (well actually a better version of it exists), you just need to be a level 11 Rogue. If you want to be as competent at something as possible, you need to specialize rather heavily into it, although you can sacrifice abilities just like that one in order to be only above average in that field, without sacrificing much in other areas. The tools and options are all there to be used, you just need to decide what degree of expertise you really want and how much you are prepared to sacrifice for it. Having the potential to do something but having an associated opportunity cost is imo, perfect game design. It puts options in the hands of the players without making those options far too easily attainable - in a sense it heightens the difference between being the top in your field and just being another heavily skilled pretender.


I'd also feel better about this if there were some damn examples of what you know with a DC 15 Nature check, honestly.
That is a fair point (and it applies double to the tool proficiencies that you mentioned, which I absolutely agree need more of an explanation), but 5e has been designed to put more control in the hands of the DM, so it has been intentionally left vague so the DM can decide what constitutes easy or not.
Too many examples tend to serve as more of a limitation than anything. For example, if the book cited identifying a pansy as an easy (DC 15) nature check, that would seem pretty reasonable until someone tries to identify a pansy on a world where a pansy has never been known to exist. The latter is a near impossible (DC 30) task that would be made easily simply by having the DM's hand forced by the example in the book.

[JackPhoenix]

On tool proficiencies - I would ask for a check with a poisoner's kit for extracting poison from a plant or animal, for mixing poison into an unusual form (e.g. soap), or for making it in adverse conditions. But I think they don't spell it out because such checks will only come up in circumstances unique to each adventure. I expect their existence is only mentioned so a DM can ask for a check if they think the circumstances require it, rather than because making ability checks is part of the usual process for preparing poisons.

They do, DMG p. 258. It's called Crafting and harvesting poisons

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't get this logic, this is no different from any other system in existence, I don't see why is this a fault of 5e when all other systems can be modified by the DM to do what he wants or that a failure to learn will cause problems down the line for all.

A good DM should be prepared ahead of time, it is hard to come up with things on the spot but the game does not expect you to ad lib every single thing and even has tools to help you deal with doing random things. You should know your player's abilities and anticipate what they'll do.

A bad and unprepared DM will struggle with all games, 5e is not responsible if you don't do your homework ahead of time nor does it bill itself as a system that can only be done freeform.
Zaq and I are concerned about 5e's basic functioning when it comes to skills; the counterargument seems to be that it's okay because a DM can fiat away situations where the skill system gives nonsensical results. There are plenty of systems out there that don't rely on DM fiat, and I, at least, would like to find a way to reduce that need in 5e.


The point still stands. A level 6-8 character can be very good at something (+11 modifier, or passive 21, 26 with advantage) but they are never going to be the best and they should never be the best. The best is reserved for higher level characters - a level 8 character that is focused on a skill shouldn't be competitive at that skill with a level 20 character that is focused in that skill; and thankfully he isn't.
Outside of Rogues and Bards, the level 20 character will have a bonus three or four points higher. That's still 100% competitive. Heck, the level 20 is only six points up from the level 1-- hardly a commanding lead. (Also I'm not sure where you're getting +11, unless you're assuming Expertise)

[pwykersotz]

Zaq and I are concerned about 5e's basic functioning when it comes to skills; the counterargument seems to be that it's okay because a DM can fiat away situations where the skill system gives nonsensical results. There are plenty of systems out there that don't rely on DM fiat, and I, at least, would like to find a way to reduce that need in 5e.

And that's a valid concern that in previous forum discussions has been make-or-break for some people. But this edition does in fact strip away hard-coded DC's because putting them in necessarily constrains the type of game you can run, and this edition was designed to be a wide-reaching love child of 2e and 3.5 that would be evergreen. DMG chapter 8 has a lot of the reasons for keeping it loose, and some guidelines to follow, but if you want more...well, there's nothing more. For some people it works fantastically, but sadly nothing is universal.

[Giant2005]

Outside of Rogues and Bards, the level 20 character will have a bonus three or four points higher. That's still 100% competitive. Heck, the level 20 is only six points up from the level 1-- hardly a commanding lead. (Also I'm not sure where you're getting +11, unless you're assuming Expertise)

I was assuming expertise. This thread is about being good at something, so I think that one would seek to be an expert in their field if they wanted to be considered good. Proficiency is basically a high school graduate, whereas expertise is a university graduate - a high school graduate would need to have some phenomenal natural talents to be able to compete with your average university level graduate in their fields.

And yes a level 20 character that is merely proficient in something isn't too far ahead of a level 1 character that is also proficient. Neither of them are really considered "good" at their fields mind you, they are only competent. The level 20 guy has the advantage of being both competent and having years of experience backing his talents but he still doesn't compare to someone that has seriously studied the field of expertise, or an expert that is considered "good" at that field.

The tools to become a genuine expert exist, the game just doesn't give them out for free - players have to choose if they are willing to sacrifice potential talents in other fields in order to achieve that level of expertise.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I was assuming expertise. This thread is about being good at something, so I think that one would seek to be an expert in their field if they wanted to be considered good. Proficiency is basically a high school graduate, whereas expertise is a university graduate - a high school graduate would need to have some phenomenal natural talents to be able to compete with your average university level graduate in their fields.
I would argue to the contrary: Proficiancy is supposed to represent actual useful training. It's fine if you need a specific ability to be a master, but requiring people to take a level of Rogue or three of Bard in order to reliably hit moderate DCs at low levels/high DCs and mid levels (what I'd call "competence") is frankly ludicrous, and poor design. It's not even like taking a level of Fighter for TWF-- these are both classes with appreciable fluff and quite distinctive abilities. That sort of investment should make you exceptional, not passable.

[OldTrees1]

The tools to become a genuine expert exist, the game just doesn't give them out for free - players have to choose if they are willing to sacrifice potential talents in other fields in order to achieve that level of expertise.

Every character having Bard 3 or Rogue 1 and having the multiclass ability score in order to become skilled in 2 original class relevant skills seems like a poor design.

[Giant2005]

I would argue to the contrary: Proficiancy is supposed to represent actual useful training. It's fine if you need a specific ability to be a master, but requiring people to take a level of Rogue or three of Bard in order to reliably hit moderate DCs at low levels/high DCs and mid levels (what I'd call "competence") is frankly ludicrous, and poor design. It's not even like taking a level of Fighter for TWF-- these are both classes with appreciable fluff and quite distinctive abilities. That sort of investment should make you exceptional, not passable.

You are talking about a low level character that is merely proficient at something. All they have is a basic education and little to no experience - they aren't, nor should they be great off the bat. That basic education can serve them well once they get enough experience to support it with, or they can increase that level of education enough that experience is less of a requirement.
The point is that basic education + no experience = sucking, basic education + experience = passable, high education + no experience = passable, high education + experience = exceptional.
We can agree to disagree but I think that is exactly how it should be. Low level characters with low levels of education absolutely should suck until they can overcome their limited education with experience, whereas more educated people have an easier time dealing with less experience and can attain even higher levels of competency when they finally do get that experience. That sounds like a perfect emulation of real life to me.

[Giant2005]

Every character having Bard 3 or Rogue 1 and having the multiclass ability score in order to become skilled in 2 original class relevant skills seems like a poor design.

They don't need to! All they need is their proficiency and enough experience and they will become skilled. They just won't be experts - being an expert requires a greater commitment than mere proficiency, and just like in real life that commitment requires both natural talent and time (time that results in the lost opportunity to develop other skillsets).

[Grod_The_Giant]

You are talking about a low level character that is merely proficient at something. All they have is a basic education and little to no experience - they aren't, nor should they be great off the bat. That basic education can serve them well once they get enough experience to support it with, or they can increase that level of education enough that experience is less of a requirement.
The point is that basic education + no experience = sucking, basic education + experience = passable, high education + no experience = passable, high education + experience = exceptional.
We can agree to disagree but I think that is exactly how it should be. Low level characters with low levels of education absolutely should suck until they can overcome their limited education with experience, whereas more educated people have an easier time dealing with less experience and can attain even higher levels of competency when they finally do get that experience. That sounds like a perfect emulation of real life to me.
Firstly, nothing else suggests that this is supposed to be a game where "first level means sucking." On the contrary, all levels are supposed to be in a much tighter band of ability than ever before. You can see this because most characters will get, at best, another +4 (20%) over the first half of their career-- and that's assuming it's using their main stat and said stat got boosted. And there's pretty much no significant difference between a first level character's skill checks and a fifth level character's. Your score for the first three levels will be identical; it might go up a point at 4th, it goes up a point at 5th, you might get another point at 8th... You need to wait until 13th goddamn level, two-thirds of the way through your career, before training means more than natural talent. That's just sad.

And I refuse to calibrate the system to the master. You calibrate to the midpoint; that means that the master (Expertise) feels better than expected and the schmuck (non-proficient) feels the loss in a meaningful way, while the guy with default investment (Proficiency) feels competent. You can't have it both ways and argue that Expertise is both an exceptional mastery and the default assumption for "I want to use skills"

[Pex]

I don't get this logic, this is no different from any other system in existence, I don't see why is this a fault of 5e when all other systems can be modified by the DM to do what he wants or that a failure to learn will cause problems down the line for all.

A good DM should be prepared ahead of time, it is hard to come up with things on the spot but the game does not expect you to ad lib every single thing and even has tools to help you deal with doing random things. You should know your player's abilities and anticipate what they'll do.

A bad and unprepared DM will struggle with all games, 5e is not responsible if you don't do your homework ahead of time nor does it bill itself as a system that can only be done freeform.

Pathfinder has defined DCs.

Monster Lore: DC = 15 + CR on the appropriate skill check. Make it, get one question to ask DM about the monster. Every 5 you beat the DC you get another question.

Identify a spell being cast: DC = 15 + spell level on a Spellcraft check.

We have guidelines to work with. DMs who want to modify them can, but at least they have something to work with. For example, a DM might house rule a Religion check is necessary to identify a divine spell being cast. Great. DC = 15 + spell level. Simple.

A player wants to know what his character knows about a monster.
Ghoul - Knowledge Religion
Blue Dragon - Knowledge Arcana
Succubus - Knowledge Planes
A strange moving ooze glob - Knowledge Dungeoneering

Great. How? Roll skill check. DC = 15 + CR. Done.

Dragons have different age categories affecting their CR. The DC changes based on that. DM might house rule even if you fail the check for the blue dragon the party is facing the PC still might have made it for a younger dragon. DM might give something common to all blue dragons yet the one the party is facing looks more menacing than what the PC is familiar with. A PC has no ranks in Knowledge Dungeoneering. DM may say he cannot roll at all to recognize the glob of ooze.

A player wants to identify a spell being cast in 5E. How? What's the DC? Does being proficient matter? Does class list matter? Perhaps it should be impossible because it screws Illusionists?

A player wants to identify a monster the party is facing in 5E. How? What's the DC? What skill? Does being proficient matter? How much information does the DM give presuming the player makes what ever check?

The 5E DM has to be a game designer. The 5E player has to relearn the game for the audacity of playing with a different DM.

[Giant2005]

Firstly, nothing else suggests that this is supposed to be a game where "first level means sucking." On the contrary, all levels are supposed to be in a much tighter band of ability than ever before. You can see this because most characters will get, at best, another +4 (20%) over the first half of their career-- and that's assuming it's using their main stat and said stat got boosted. And there's pretty much no significant difference between a first level character's skill checks and a fifth level character's. Your score for the first three levels will be identical; it might go up a point at 4th, it goes up a point at 5th, you might get another point at 8th... You need to wait until 13th goddamn level, two-thirds of the way through your career, before training means more than natural talent. That's just sad.

And I refuse to calibrate the system to the master. You calibrate to the midpoint; that means that the master (Expertise) feels better than expected and the schmuck (non-proficient) feels the loss in a meaningful way, while the guy with default investment (Proficiency) feels competent. You can't have it both ways and argue that Expertise is both an exceptional mastery and the default assumption for "I want to use skills"

You are right in that I misused the term "sucking", keep in mind that even a low level character is reasonably adept at low level tasks (a level 1 character with a +3 ability modifier can achieve very easy, easy, and medium tasks passively). When I said they sucked, that was in comparison to what higher level, or more educated people can accomplish, not a statement of what they are capable of in isolation. That same low level character will even be able to eventually treat hard tasks in the same manner once they gain enough experience in the field.
It is only Very Hard and Near Impossible tasks that require a deeper education to trivialize, and even Very Hard tasks can be made equally trivial by an experienced, yet only proficient character, if they have some means of gaining advantage in that field.

[Talamare]

What I'm getting from the last few posts is that there should be a feat called Expert that gives you Expertise in 2 skills

[Giant2005]

What I'm getting from the last few posts is that there should be a feat called Expert that gives you Expertise in 2 skills

I think Expertise and Advantage in 1 skill would be better.

[Vogonjeltz]

They use the words "ability checks," but there is zero indication of what those ability checks represent, how difficult it is to do different things, what circumstances call for checks and which don't, or what kinds of tasks will reward proficiency and which will not.

Like I said, what kind of ability check comes up while playing with a dice set? Do you roll an ability check every time you play dice? Do you only roll if you're trying to cheat? Is it an opposed roll? Is there a flat DC? The rules don't say. We know that we add our proficiency bonus to ability checks made when playing a game with our dice set. We do not know when those checks come up, what they represent, if they're required for normal games of dice or just for special circumstances, or what kinds of DCs we're attempting to hit. Leaving things open-ended is one thing, but this isn't so much open-ended as it is simply incomplete. And the same thing goes for most other tools. When do I roll an ability check with my cook's utensils and when do I just make dinner? How does a map made with an ability check for cartographer's tools differ from a map made with the rules on pg. 183? On and on.

The rules tell us that proficiency allows you to add your proficiency bonus when making certain ability checks. The rules do not tell us when those checks will come up, what they will allow us to accomplish, and when we can just do things without rolling (nor do they tell us why it is valuable to be proficient in circumstances where we aren't rolling—again, if we don't require an ability check to make dinner, then how do we represent the benefit of being proficient in cook's utensils? If we do roll an ability check to make dinner, why do we have zero guidelines about what that check represents?). THAT'S my problem. There's just a massive gap there. All I want are a few specific examples and guidelines. I don't need a whitelist of every single thing I can do with a hard-coded DC. But I want to know what the actual benefit of proficiency is, and if I don't know what it means for me to roll an ability check with a proficiency bonus, then I have no idea how a proficient character will differ from his nonproficient partymates in actual play.

Well, actually the rules do tell us when a check is necessary in chapter 7: when the outcome is uncertain (phb 174).

And that is a question purely for the DM to answer based on the circumstances and the players desired activity. Do you want to try and cook a special recipe you've never made before to try and impress someone who routinely eats it? I'd say that's probably a Hard check using the scale on phb page 174, depending on the complexity of the dish.

Opposed rolls are only used when someone is opposing the activity. So most of the time, cooking is not opposed.

The rules on 183 are for a basic map of the parties travels. Think map on a napkin vs National Geographic for the professional cartography map. Both would probably require the tools however.

The game leaves a lot of latitude to the DM to determine how difficult something is. If you're not sure, set the DC low and adjust from there.

Forgot the last question:
The actual benefit of proficiency is +2 to +6 on the roll. That effectively allows a character to pass an ability check one step more difficult than they could absent proficiency. I.e. A non proficient character is incapable of completely a nearly impossible task, a proficient one is.

Similarly a non proficient character would be unlikely to pass a very hard check, and only capable of doing so if they had reached the peak of human ability for the relevant score. Proficiency makes that possible even with an average score (+0).

In regards to the question on an Intelligence (nature) of DC 15, that would allow someone to recall lore about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles that would be moderately difficult to remember.

What exactly that translates to is really up to the DM

[OldTrees1]

They don't need to! All they need is their proficiency and enough experience and they will become skilled. They just won't be experts - being an expert requires a greater commitment than mere proficiency, and just like in real life that commitment requires both natural talent and time (time that results in the lost opportunity to develop other skillsets).

All experts were once rogues? That historian that loves history? Took their mandatory level of rogue at 5th level. The high priest, expert on religious lore and theology? Mandatory rogue level at 3rd. The archmage who is the expert on the arcane lore of thaumaturgy? Mandatory rogue level was taken at 10th.

Yup, real life commitment to a field of study requires taking "How to Rogue" as a 1 credit elective.

Making Expertise a feat is a better solution than forcing the most druidy druids to dip rogue in order to represent their expertise in understanding nature. Even that feels like a cop out.

[Giant2005]

All experts were once rogues? That historian that loves history? Took their mandatory level of rogue at 5th level. The high priest, expert on religious lore and theology? Mandatory rogue level at 3rd. The archmage who is the expert on the arcane lore of thaumaturgy? Mandatory rogue level was taken at 10th.

Yup, real life commitment to a field of study requires taking "How to Rogue" as a 1 credit elective.

Making Expertise a feat is a better solution than forcing the most druidy druids to dip rogue in order to represent their expertise in understanding nature. Even that feels like a cop out.

You can be a historian or whatever you like without taking levels in Rogue or Bard, but no you will never be an expert. Being an expert requires higher learning and Rogues and Bards are the classes of higher learning.

Although I do agree - a feat is a better solution.

[Aelyn]

Home brew suggestion: All classes have a single "Expert" skill, where they have Proficiency by default and, instead of getting Proficiency in any other skill, can choose to get Expertise in that skill. For example, a Druid could have Nature, a Wizard could have Arcana, and a Barbarian could have Athletics.

There is also a new Feat, "Expert Training," which allows the character to upgrade a Proficient feat to an Expert feat and also grants a +1 to the appropriate attribute (Expertise: Insight? Gain +1 WIS)

This is a little dangerous with Bounded Accuracy, but I think the cost is sufficient to justify it.

[Shaofoo]

Pathfinder has defined DCs.

Monster Lore: DC = 15 + CR on the appropriate skill check. Make it, get one question to ask DM about the monster. Every 5 you beat the DC you get another question.


This seems backwards to me, why can I only ask a question after I make the check? Shouldn't I ask the question and then get the check to see if I get the answer? It'd be like saying that learning that Vertuk the Orcish Warlord has several towns under his control and learning that Vertuk has a secret teddy bear that he sleeps with at night are equivalent questions to answer and all questions are equivalent in difficulty to answer. This is a problem with rigid systems that it can't account for all variables and you end up with such fallacies






A player wants to identify a spell being cast in 5E. How? What's the DC? Does being proficient matter? Does class list matter? Perhaps it should be impossible because it screws Illusionists?


Well I don't see why are you asking about class lists because that doesn't apply to Pathfinder either.


A player wants to identify a monster the party is facing in 5E. How? What's the DC? What skill? Does being proficient matter? How much information does the DM give presuming the player makes what ever check?

I prefer this to the previous version where common knowledge everyone knows and deep dark carefully guarded secrets are somehow equivalent in difficulty to find out. The player can just ask the right question after a good roll and you are compelled to answer regardless if the player should even be able to know about Gruthuk's secret fetish for women's clothing just because a person asked the right question.




The 5E DM has to be a game designer.

Not really, a game designer has to make a game from scratch, basically just adjudicate easy, medium, hard, very hard and nearly impossible and go from there. There are guidelines in 5e about making skill checks, it isn't as rigid as the previous systems but it isn't truly make it as you go along. If you look you will find that the books gives you help.


The 5E player has to relearn the game for the audacity of playing with a different DM.

Which is no different from any other system. You don't need to relearn the game unless the DM makes huge changes to the game itself, you make characters the same way, pick spells the same way and even do skills the same way. That the DCs can change is not a point of complaint because DCs are not something that you should know as a player (in your previous example you should not know a monster's CR so you can't complain that your 17 should be enough to identify an orc when that specific orc needs a 20 to be able to find out).

There is merit in having a rigid system but it has its flaws as I've shown. Of course if you prefer Pathfinder over 5e because of this then go right ahead and play Pathfinder.

[Talamare]

I think they should have been a little be more liberal with giving out specific Expertise as class bonuses

[djreynolds]

True, but you can always multiclass for rogue for expertise, 1 level and grab a skill as well.

The highest skill is +17, without fillers and spells and inspiration. DC 30 seems to be the high end of skill checks, maybe your party gives you advantage some how. It gives everyone a chance to succeed but a real chance for failure.

That's a big switch from 3.5 where one could take feats and class feature and really buff up Bluff, great for rogues who needed to sneak attack but couldn't flank always.

Now you have a real chance for failure. With ability cap, there is an ever present danger of failing saves and skill checks. Now you need that cleric with bless or that bard. You really become much more team dependent.

Gone is the weapon master, the feinting master, much more parity and that's a good thing but at the sacrifice of the top end elites.

I always say you can get an A in 3.5 and 5E, but in 3.5 your know your grade is 98 or 99 or 91, in 5E its just an A for your grade.

So 5E is for gaming and playing here or there, 3.5 is about having the one awesome character, the master of something, the best.

[Tehnar]

To me, it seems the biggest flaw in 5e: In order to keep anyone from being BAD at something, they rendered it impossible to be awesome at it.



That's perhaps a bit harsher than I would put it, but it's not entirely different from the impression I've picked up from just reading the books. It's really as bad as I'm thinking?


This is exactly the point. 5e skill system is both random and arbitrary that in effect there is no functional skill system. No player will feel awesome at something their character does if every other character can do the same. Likewise no character will be awesome if their ability to perform is determined by DM fiat.

There is no correlation between what you write on your character sheet (or resources you invest) and how actual mechanics play out at the table*. 5e doesn't have a skill system.

*Unless you go to extreme examples, with lvl 20 rogues with expertise.

[djreynolds]

Home brew suggestion: All classes have a single "Expert" skill, where they have Proficiency by default and, instead of getting Proficiency in any other skill, can choose to get Expertise in that skill. For example, a Druid could have Nature, a Wizard could have Arcana, and a Barbarian could have Athletics.

There is also a new Feat, "Expert Training," which allows the character to upgrade a Proficient feat to an Expert feat and also grants a +1 to the appropriate attribute (Expertise: Insight? Gain +1 WIS)

This is a little dangerous with Bounded Accuracy, but I think the cost is sufficient to justify it.

IMO, expertise in Athletics becomes very powerful, especially for a rogue/fighter. But it comes with a cost, I must select rogue and have a 13 in dexterity, something I may put a 10 in. But when I finally combine it with shield master, it starts taking shape. Now it is a contest, athletics vs your acrobatics/athletics and not a strength save like BM maneuvers are. I can really keep the enemy under control.

If a paladin could get expertise, because he/she dumped dexterity along with intelligence, other classes will lose favor. There's a balance. A paladin may not want to wait three level of bard to get expertise at the sacrifice of his smites. But give expertise in athletics to a paladin as a feat, really powerful. Making him take a 13 in dexterity for rogue keeps things in balance and in check.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Home brew suggestion: All classes have a single "Expert" skill, where they have Proficiency by default and, instead of getting Proficiency in any other skill, can choose to get Expertise in that skill. For example, a Druid could have Nature, a Wizard could have Arcana, and a Barbarian could have Athletics.

There is also a new Feat, "Expert Training," which allows the character to upgrade a Proficient feat to an Expert feat and also grants a +1 to the appropriate attribute (Expertise: Insight? Gain +1 WIS)

This is a little dangerous with Bounded Accuracy, but I think the cost is sufficient to justify it.
That's not bad. I'm kind of leaning towards "if you roll less than 8 on a skill check you're proficient in, it counts as an 8." Maybe also using 2d10 for stuff--I usually play M&M that way and it doesn't feel bad.


IMO, expertise in Athletics becomes very powerful, especially for a rogue/fighter. But it comes with a cost, I must select rogue and have a 13 in dexterity, something I may put a 10 in. But when I finally combine it with shield master, it starts taking shape. Now it is a contest, athletics vs your acrobatics/athletics and not a strength save like BM maneuvers are. I can really keep the enemy under control.

If a paladin could get expertise, because he/she dumped dexterity along with intelligence, other classes will lose favor. There's a balance. A paladin may not want to wait three level of bard to get expertise at the sacrifice of his smites. But give expertise in athletics to a paladin as a feat, really powerful. Making him take a 13 in dexterity for rogue keeps things in balance and in check.
Um. If both people are rolling d20s, that extra +2 or +3 actually becomes less important, due to increased randomness.

[Kurald Galain]

The point still stands. A level 6-8 character can be very good at something (+11 modifier, or passive 21, 26 with advantage) but they are never going to be the best and they should never be the best.
But the math doesn't bear that out. A level 6-8 character will frequently beat the best.


The best is reserved for higher level characters - a level 8 character that is focused on a skill shouldn't be competitive at that skill with a level 20 character that is focused in that skill; and
And by the math he is. The difference between a level 20 character and a level 8 character is pretty small, so yes, they are competitive. Also, that is entirely by design.

Aside from that, the game ends at level 20. If you must cite level 20 examples in order to get the results you're looking for, then that suggests there is a problem on the first nineteen levels.

[Giant2005]

But the math doesn't bear that out. A level 6-8 character will frequently beat the best.


And by the math he is. The difference between a level 20 character and a level 8 character is pretty small, so yes, they are competitive. Also, that is entirely by design.
But that's not true - the minimum roll for the best in the field is 27. A level 8 character would need to have expertise and 20 in the associated ability himself to even have a chance of beating that. Even then he could only beat it 20% of the time. Beating the foremost expert's worst possible roll 20% of the time obviously won't result in frequently beating the best and that is just a lower level expert going up against the higher level version - non-experts wouldn't even be able to touch it.


Aside from that, the game ends at level 20. If you must cite level 20 examples in order to get the results you're looking for, then that suggests there is a problem on the first nineteen levels.
I have no idea what results anyone is looking for and I expect the goals of every player are going to be far from consistent.
Level 20 does give us a fair baseline however of what the potential is, and what the world's foremost experts would possibly look like. If you want to consider yourself the best at something - those are the people you need to be capable of competing with.

[Grod_The_Giant]

But that's not true - the minimum roll for the best in the field is 27. A level 8 character would need to have expertise and 20 in the associated ability himself to even have a chance of beating that. Even then he could only beat it 20% of the time. Beating the foremost expert's worst possible roll 20% of the time obviously won't result in frequently beating the best and that is just a lower level expert going up against the higher level version - non-experts wouldn't even be able to touch it.
Assuming the foremost expert has 11 levels of Rogue, which is doofy. That's a single, most-optimized-possible build. You can't judge all characters against the most optimized build. That's not how game design works. Yes, that may be the best possible, but in practical terms, a level 20 character will have a +11, or a +17 if he dipped for Expertise at some point. The level 8 will have +8, +11 with Expertise. The level 5's numbers are only a point lower. Those are... not terrifically different scores.

But honestly, all that is besides the point. The issue is more about reliably hitting those DC 15 to 20 skill checks. I think it's pretty bad that someone supposedly well-trained in the subject can only succeed at a moderately difficult task around 50% of the time.

[OldTrees1]

15th level vs 5th level AND vs lower grade at 15th level
Grades defined as Expertise, Proficiency, Knack(1/2 Prof), and Untrained
Relevant Ability is presumed 16 at 5th and 18 at 15th
DCs examined: DC 15 moderate and DC 25 hard

Data collection
Modifiers @ 15th: +14, +9, +6, +4
Modifiers @ 5th: +9, +6, +4, +3

DC 15 success
15th: 100%, 75%, 60%, 50%
Skill gaps across adjacent grades range from 10% to 25%
5th: 75%, 60%, 50%, 45%
Skill gaps across levels range from 5% to 25%

DC 25 success
15th: 50%, 25%, 10%, 0%
Skill gaps across adjacent grades range from 10% to 25%
5th: 25%, 10%, 0%, 0%
Skill gaps across levels range from 0% to 25%

Finally a comparison of 15th DC 25 vs 5th DC 15
15th: 50%, 25%, 10%, 0%
5th: 75%, 60%, 50%, 45%
Gap ranges from -45% to -25%. (Negative gaps?!)

Perhaps DC 25 is not meant to be as level appropriate for 15th level characters as DC 15 is for 5th? Let's replace DC 25 with DC 20

DC 20 success
15th: 75%, 50%, 35%, 25%
Skill gaps across adjacent grades range from 10% to 25%
5th: 50%, 35%, 25%, 20%
Skill gaps across levels range from 5% to 25%

Finally a comparison of 15th DC 20 vs 5th DC 15
15th: 75%, 50%, 35%, 25%
5th: 75%, 60%, 50%, 45%
Gap ranges from 0% to -20%.

Analysis:
Well, I guess a +5 DC is level appropriate for 10 level gaps in characters with Expertise, but otherwise it seems like 10 levels does not make the next grade of DCs into a level appropriate challenge. I was going to suggest replacing skill selection with a point buy for grades of proficiency(to remove the mandatory level of Rogue while keeping the Rogue and Bard niche). However if Expertise is mandatory to have 10 levels translate into at least a better DC grade, then that shoots down or at least marks point buy for skill grades as insufficient (and by extension mandatory Rogue levels or Expertise feats).

[ravenkith]

As I said in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480171-The-ol-5e-problem-how-to-deal-with-Small-bonuses) thread....

The below feats should fix some of the problem....

Feat: Journeyman (Skill)
Requirements - Level 8, Proficiency in skill to be chosen

When you take this feat, choose one skill that you are proficient in. Whenever you roll a skill check for that skill, any number rolled on the d20 used for the check gets raised to an 8 if the actual number shown on the die is less than 8.

Feat: Master (Skill)
Requirements - Level 12, Proficiency in skill to be chosen and either Journeyman feat for skill to be chosen -OR- Reliable Talent class feature

When you take this feat, choose one skill that you are proficient in. Whenever you roll a skill check for that skill, any number rolled on the d20 used for the check gets raised to a 12 if the actual number shown on the die is less than 12.

This means that, at level 8, upon selection of the first feat, a Character with an 18 in the relevant score (+4 bonus), will have an automatic floor for their chosen skill of 8 (Roll minimum) + 3 (Proficiency) + 4 (modifier), for a total of 15 - This means they would succeed at most normal tasks involving the check.

At level 12, the same character would have a floor of 12+4+4, for a total of 20.

Of course a character with expertise in the chosen skill would get double the proficiency on each of these, meaning their minimum becomes 18 as a Journeyman and 24 as a Master.

At level 20, a Journeyman character would have either 8+6+4 (18) or 8+12+4 (24), depending on expertise, as their floor, while a Master character would have 12+6+4 (22) or 12+12+4 (28) as his floor.

[Kurald Galain]

Assuming the foremost expert has 11 levels of Rogue, which is doofy.

It becomes even funnier when you realize that characters can only become an "expert" at something related to their primary ability score.

Yeah. "The skill system kind of works at level 20 if you squint" is just a roundabout way of admitting that no, it doesn't work.

[pwykersotz]

It becomes even funnier when you realize that characters can only become an "expert" at something related to their primary ability score.

Yeah. "The skill system kind of works at level 20 if you squint" is just a roundabout way of admitting that no, it doesn't work.

I was glad to see you showed back up, you were one of the most eloquent attackers of the skill system in 5e's early days. :smallsmile:

I can agree that the skill system has little guidance built in and also little ability to simulate growth from complete amateur to master, but for the purpose of playing the darned game, it works very well for my table. The stated objectives are met. Players always have a chance to succeed and a chance to fail, making it an actual game as opposed to a binary mix-&-match of auto-success and auto-failure, and becaue the system necessitates lower DC's overall it gets more people involved in the process. Just different ideals about play, I guess.

[Segev]

RE: Pathfinder and asking questions about monsters based on your skill roll - the questions aren't "Does Warlord Grod control any major cities?" sorts of things. They're a specific list, and the questions are essentially:

"What is its AC?"
"What resistances does it have?"
"What vulnerabilities does it have?"
"What is its most damaging attack?"
"What is its most common attack?"

and the like. (I don't have the list in front of me right now, but it is specific, and with enough questions, you could essentially ask the DM for the whole statblock.)

[Pex]

This seems backwards to me, why can I only ask a question after I make the check? Shouldn't I ask the question and then get the check to see if I get the answer? It'd be like saying that learning that Vertuk the Orcish Warlord has several towns under his control and learning that Vertuk has a secret teddy bear that he sleeps with at night are equivalent questions to answer and all questions are equivalent in difficulty to answer. This is a problem with rigid systems that it can't account for all variables and you end up with such fallacies


That's being pedantic.


Well I don't see why are you asking about class lists because that doesn't apply to Pathfinder either.

Since 5E doesn't give any guidelines at all, anything is open to interpretation. Still doesn't change not knowing a DC or if proficiency matters.

I prefer this to the previous version where common knowledge everyone knows and deep dark carefully guarded secrets are somehow equivalent in difficulty to find out. The player can just ask the right question after a good roll and you are compelled to answer regardless if the player should even be able to know about Gruthuk's secret fetish for women's clothing just because a person asked the right question.

Monster lore in Pathfinder is to know the game statistics of the monster manual, whether the player really doesn't know them himself or does know them but uses the skill to allow out of character knowledge become in character knowledge. Allowing for specific personal details of a specific NPC could be auto-No because you never heard of or met that NPC before. If you did know the NPC the DC can be whatever the DM thinks appropriate because it is an ad hoc thing the rules couldn't possibly cover. However, these sort of details are more in the territory of the Lore ability of Bards and other classes that have the ability. Actually, Pathfinder just gives Bards bonuses to Knowledge Checks. 3E specifically gave a DC table for Bardic lore and gave an example of a high DC for obscure knowledge only known by a few or known only by those who don't understand the significance of the knowledge such as an archmage's childhood nickname. There's your DC for Gruthuk's secret fetish for women's clothing.



Not really, a game designer has to make a game from scratch, basically just adjudicate easy, medium, hard, very hard and nearly impossible and go from there. There are guidelines in 5e about making skill checks, it isn't as rigid as the previous systems but it isn't truly make it as you go along. If you look you will find that the books gives you help.



Which is no different from any other system. You don't need to relearn the game unless the DM makes huge changes to the game itself, you make characters the same way, pick spells the same way and even do skills the same way. That the DCs can change is not a point of complaint because DCs are not something that you should know as a player (in your previous example you should not know a monster's CR so you can't complain that your 17 should be enough to identify an orc when that specific orc needs a 20 to be able to find out).

There is merit in having a rigid system but it has its flaws as I've shown. Of course if you prefer Pathfinder over 5e because of this then go right ahead and play Pathfinder.

I'll say again. What is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. Skill used for a particular task, the DC of the task, the application of Advantage/Disadvantage, whether Proficiency is needed for permission to try the task in the first place all has to be determined by the DM, i.e. designing the game. Once that is established, a player playing with a different DM then has to learn what he does, relearning the game. In Pathfinder, a DM always knows Monster Lore DC is 15 + CR. A player doesn't have to relearn that playing with a different DM. If a DM uses house rules, they are known exceptions before the game starts.

[Dimolyth]

I, too, have been wrestling with this, as well.
I've always leaned toward knowledge-junkies, kinda the whole "Encyclopedia Jones/Nose-in-a-book" guys, who know a crapload about History/Arcana/Lore type stuff, but I hate the idea that you can't build to that unless you specifically pick a CLASS with it. One of my favorite characters was a Fighter who took all his non-fighter feats in skill focuses and the like, and his fighter feats in combat, meaning he wasn't quite as good at hitting things with other things, but had the fun flavor of being a clever bastard. :smallsmile:

To me, it seems the biggest flaw in 5e: In order to keep anyone from being BAD at something, they rendered it impossible to be awesome at it.

Well, I`ve played rogue/ranger sage. Rogue`s expertise + advantage from ranger`s favored enemy feature worked awesome even with average Int. He was freaking investigator who knew everything about everyone (at least in his domain of study).

That`s much more a DM`s fiat when he manages DC around your rolls, and not using 10=easy, 15=average, 20=hard.

[Sigreid]

I see a lot of effort here to take one of the rogues coolest advantages -skill mastery - and give it to everyone.

[mephnick]

I'll say again. What is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. Skill used for a particular task, the DC of the task, the application of Advantage/Disadvantage, whether Proficiency is needed for permission to try the task in the first place all has to be determined by the DM, i.e. designing the game. Once that is established, a player playing with a different DM then has to learn what he does, relearning the game. In Pathfinder, a DM always knows Monster Lore DC is 15 + CR. A player doesn't have to relearn that playing with a different DM. If a DM uses house rules, they are known exceptions before the game starts.

How many people are playing with multiple DMs? I have to think the vast majority of players play with the same group most of the time, so consistency shouldn't be much of an issue.

Also I have played in more 3.5 games than I can count where the DM changed the DCs regardless of what was in the book. "This monster is rare in my setting, so the DC is 30, not 18".

Even if you play with a couple of DMs it's not that hard to talk to them and figure them out. You make it seem like some nearly impossible (DC 30) feat.

[Shaofoo]

That's being pedantic.



Doesn't invalidate my point.



Since 5E doesn't give any guidelines at all, anything is open to interpretation. Still doesn't change not knowing a DC or if proficiency matters.

Except 5e does give guidelines. Maybe not for specific skills but they also don't leave out skills in any sort of discussion. As a player you should never know the DC and the DM should always call for a specific skill roll which you should know. You may not know that you require to hit a DC 20 but you should require to know that it is an Arcana roll before you roll. The only way proficiency matters is when the proficiency matches a skill that you know, which is self evident.



Monster lore in Pathfinder is to know the game statistics of the monster manual, whether the player really doesn't know them himself or does know them but uses the skill to allow out of character knowledge become in character knowledge. Allowing for specific personal details of a specific NPC could be auto-No because you never heard of or met that NPC before. If you did know the NPC the DC can be whatever the DM thinks appropriate because it is an ad hoc thing the rules couldn't possibly cover. However, these sort of details are more in the territory of the Lore ability of Bards and other classes that have the ability. Actually, Pathfinder just gives Bards bonuses to Knowledge Checks. 3E specifically gave a DC table for Bardic lore and gave an example of a high DC for obscure knowledge only known by a few or known only by those who don't understand the significance of the knowledge such as an archmage's childhood nickname. There's your DC for Gruthuk's secret fetish for women's clothing.

Still doesn't invalidate my point that all knowledge is accessible regardless how common or obscure it is by your explanation. Also out of character knowledge is always useless because the DM has the right to modify the stats as he sees fit, including Pathfinder. If the Dm has to use his judgement to curb what knowledge is available then why is it when 5e does it it is suddenly unwanted? Seems like some double standards in play.

And you still didn't give me any DC for the fetish clothing. You were talking Pathfinder and you suddenly gave me 3e, and your justification was that it is obscure knowledge that only a few would know... which is eerily similar to knowledge that is nearly impossible to get... which in 5e terms is a DC of 30, wasn't that hard to extrapolate. So there is your DC.




I'll say again. What is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. Skill used for a particular task,

Really, picking a skill to roll is hard? There are a ton of examples for all skills and I would think some skills are self evident. You aren't going to sneak with Arcana or Jump with Medicine. I don't think that picking a skill should even be considered as a problem because I can't think of any DM that ever had a problem picking a skill. Even similar things are well explained what the difference is.



the application of Advantage/Disadvantage,

Quite frankly if you are having problems adjudicating things on the fly I wouldn't put advantage or disadvantage unless something specifically is giving you advantage or disadvantage. Someone is using the Help action then you get advantage, you are poisoned then you get disadvantage. If you want to change the DC because of circumstance then do so but I don't see the game say grant advantage or disadvantage unless there is an effect in play that says to grant advantage or disadvantage.


whether Proficiency is needed for permission to try the task in the first place all has to be determined by the DM, i.e. designing the game.

Well in this case then you are being a game designer because trained only skills does not exist in 5e, it isn't the game's responsibility to deal with your home brew. If 5e does have trained only skills then please point it out to me the PHB page. Otherwise this isn't a factor because this isn't part of 5e game design.


Once that is established, a player playing with a different DM then has to learn what he does, relearning the game.

Not relearning the game, just because skill DCs can change around on you that isn't relearning the game. You jump, sneak, gather knowledge and treat wounds the same way the only difference is that maybe the DCs have changed around. But here skills have a bad rep because people here seem to be adverse to DM rulings so I don't expect you to accept this.


In Pathfinder, a DM always knows Monster Lore DC is 15 + CR. A player doesn't have to relearn that playing with a different DM. If a DM uses house rules, they are known exceptions before the game starts.

And if you know that things will be different... then what? You are back to square one as in 5e. The only difference is that you know things are different except before in 5e where... you know that things are different. I am not really seeing a problem that somehow is endemic to 5e when a Pathfinder DM can take those DCs and chuck them out the window (which I would and instead implement a more 5e system where instead of all knowledge being an uniform roll it depends on the knowledge that you are asking that sets the DC).

[Kurald Galain]

How many people are playing with multiple DMs?
Well for starters, everyone in the organized play campaign.

[Shaofoo]

Well for starters, everyone in the organized play campaign.

At least then the DCs should be the same because the DMs should follow similar guidelines because the adventures are all premade, the problem is that somehow you must "relearn" 5e because you have to switch DMs because the DCs might change on you.

[mgshamster]

Since Pathfinder keeps getting brought up, I recommend this thread:

5e Advice for Pathfinder Players (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2t6qj?5e-Advice-for-Pathfinder-Players)

[Tanarii]

5e design goals for skills:
1) Proficiency bonus and natural talent from Ability Score are on par for any given level.
2) All PCs are within striking distance of success chance for any given chance regardless of class or level
2) d20 roll is always meaningful in comparison to bonus
3) DC difficulty doesn't scale with level
4) DC for tasks are flexible

The goal for 5e proficiency is simple: If you are proficient, you are as good as someone who is a natural, for your given level of experience. In other words, the proficiency bonus is approximately on par with the bonus for a character with an expected 'high' ability score at the same level. Ability score 15 (+2) at level 1, to 20 (+5) at level 12. Proficiency is +2 at level 1, to +5 at 13th. Trained characters gain an slight edge after level 17, very naturally talented characters gain an edge by starting with a 16 or 17 ability score at level 1. Expertise mimics being naturally talented AND proficient by double the proficiency bonus.

The goal for PCs being within striking distance for success chance was met. -1 to +11 is a 60% variance in success chance. (Then they gave Bards/Rogues the ability to be far and above with another +30%, intentionally breaking the design goal.)

Another goal is intentionally making the die roll meaningful, at all levels. In other words, the range of the total bonuses (-1 to +11) is only slightly more than half the check value on purpose. What goes hand in hand with that is the assumption you should only make a check when it is meaningful to fail, not for anything routine. (Again Expertise intentionally breaks this design goal, bringing your total bonus to be on par with the variance of a d20 roll.)

Another goal is twofold: 1) having the DCs be flexible as opposed to pre-defined, allowing the DM to make judgment calls as needed; and 2) have the DCs NOT scale with level, having a given difficulty being static. That's addressed on two fronts. First, the DCs are roughly assigned across all categories as Easy, Medium, Hard etc. And total bonuses are intentionally kept low so that those tasks never become trivial.

IMO 5e succeeded very well in it's design goals for skills, and added in a nice way to break the system for players that get all up in arms about not being able to be 'good' at something with the Expertise Class Feature.

[Segev]

I see a lot of effort here to take one of the rogues coolest advantages -skill mastery - and give it to everyone.

Nobody's suggested that. The rogue's power lets them roll and THEN take 10 if they didn't get at least a 10. That is significantly better than anybody's suggested. And rogues can do it even when stressed.

[Knaight]

I'll say again. What is easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM. Skill used for a particular task, the DC of the task, the application of Advantage/Disadvantage, whether Proficiency is needed for permission to try the task in the first place all has to be determined by the DM, i.e. designing the game. Once that is established, a player playing with a different DM then has to learn what he does, relearning the game. In Pathfinder, a DM always knows Monster Lore DC is 15 + CR. A player doesn't have to relearn that playing with a different DM. If a DM uses house rules, they are known exceptions before the game starts.

This is stretching the definition of designing the game to the breaking point. There's an established framework, and the DM is applying it. It involves some decision making on their part and isn't a completely mechanistic algorithm, but that doesn't make them a game designer. It's also not nearly as distinct as you're claiming; Pathfinder has a bunch of stuff listed for every skill but the things not listed are far larger, and even for the listed things there's a judgement to be made. For instance, here's (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/climb) the climb skill.

DC 0: Is that slope too steep to walk up, or can it be walked up? That's a GM judgement call, and it will vary by GM; and avid mountain hiker will have a different idea of where that line lies than someone who lives in a very flat area and doesn't exercise much.

DC 5: The rope situation is straightforward, but what about vines? They aren't directly listed and even considering this as an analog involves a judgement call, but how knobby makes them count as equivalent to knotted? Also, even for the rope situation, how close does a rope need to be to a surface to count as having a wall to brace against? What if it's hanging from a ceiling near a wall? How knotted does a rope need to be to count as climbing a knotted rope; clearly one knot at the bottom probably shouldn't count, but one knot every 15 feet? 10? 5?

DC 10: What defines a "very rough" wall compared to just a "rough" wall, where's the border between ledge and handhold? Judgement call.

DC 15: Vines are back, and here's the other place to put them. What about that DC 10 though, should it see use?

DC 20: How narrow qualifies as narrow depends on judgement.

DC 25: The line between rough surface and narrow holds is pretty variable.

DC 30: At this point, the DM is supposed to picture the surface, and judge whether it has handholds but no foot holds. There's also the matter of overhang being ambiguous, technically a 1 degree overhang is an overhang but it's not like that adds any climbing difficulty.

Then there's the matter of how to qualify things not listed here. For instance, what's the difficulty in climbing up a series of free floating rocks (which could easily appear in the style of fantasy D&D is)? There's how the idea of what qualifies as a handhold or foothold varies between people; what actual expert climbers use as them and what works for a normal person are two very different things.

Ultimately, a GM is going to have to tie the setting of their game to the mechanics, and there will be judgement calls involved. The question is just the nature of said judgement calls, and how many examples they are working from. At no point does "being a game designer" come into it unless there's no structure to work within. There's also advantages to both methods - having more examples makes DCs more predictable from a player standpoint, but they also increase the risk of a poor fit where the output of the rules of the system for a general case break down in a way that a difficulty ladder can't. My climbing vine example fits that, where the obvious analog for a vine is either DC 5 or DC 15, even though plenty of them would be better fit to DC 10.

That's not to say that 5e is a particularly well implemented system in this regard; I'd consider the ladder-DC curve messy and the skill levels poorly assigned. That's a completely different issue than whether 5e forces a DM to be a game designer though.

[ravenkith]

Nobody's suggested that. The rogue's power lets them roll and THEN take 10 if they didn't get at least a 10. That is significantly better than anybody's suggested. And rogues can do it even when stressed.

Note: The rogue's reliable talent feat works on ALL their proficient skills, not just one - and it doesn't cost an ASI to get, either.

[OldTrees1]

I see a lot of effort here to take one of the rogues coolest advantages -skill mastery - and give it to everyone.

That is indeed a problem. Most people here are bemoaning
1) How it is hard it is for non Bards/Rogues to improve in a single solitary skill enough to preform a grade better than either themselves 10 levels previously or a contemporary that is less skilled.
2) How hard it is to become skilled enough for auto succeeding on easy tasks (presuming the easy task DC 10 is calibrated correctly)

Solving neither of these requires or is sufficient if it removes the Rogue and Bard having an advantage at skills.

[Sigreid]

Nobody's suggested that. The rogue's power lets them roll and THEN take 10 if they didn't get at least a 10. That is significantly better than anybody's suggested. And rogues can do it even when stressed.
Several have proposed expertise for all.

[georgie_leech]

I look at it as similar to the problem with 4e's skill system: Skill Challenges.

No, I actually love them. I love how they keep situations with skill checks from being binary success or failure, I love how they encompass more than a single instant letting complications or lucky happenstance alter what's going on, I love how it helps tie the skills into the experience system in a more concrete way than 3.X. What I don't like is how they're presented in the base rule book. It's easy to read them (at first glance) as allowing Players to just roll their best skill for any challenge, removing any sense of coherence. It's difficult to get a sense of what progression looks like, as there are sections telling the DM to adjust the DC's so that the character that needed to roll a 14 at level 1 still needs the 14 at level 15. Until more adventures were published, there was a lack of useful examples to turn to of what a proper Skill Challenge looked like.

In a similar way, 5e's skill system suffers from a critical lack of examples or proper explanation. In that regard, I share your pain. All I can recommend is working with any new DM you play with to figure out a sense of where they set skill checks, how high or low they set them (for instance, I tend to use the 5-15 range for most common occurrences; 5 to climb a tree while running from wolves, 10 if there aren't many branches or the tree is especially smooth, 15 if it's also raining and windy...). 5e really seems like a system meant for veteran players instead of new ones. It sort of tries to attract new players by being simpler, but that simplicity comes at the expense of useful guidance for new DM's, trusting them to have a good sense for rules adjudication before they've even tried all the rules.

[Zaq]

I don't get this logic, this is no different from any other system in existence, I don't see why is this a fault of 5e when all other systems can be modified by the DM to do what he wants or that a failure to learn will cause problems down the line for all.

A good DM should be prepared ahead of time, it is hard to come up with things on the spot but the game does not expect you to ad lib every single thing and even has tools to help you deal with doing random things. You should know your player's abilities and anticipate what they'll do.

A bad and unprepared DM will struggle with all games, 5e is not responsible if you don't do your homework ahead of time nor does it bill itself as a system that can only be done freeform.

You're right, it doesn't bill itself as being freeform. Which is exactly why I'm having problems with the fact that the skill system is, well, basically freeform.

Yes, any GM can modify any aspect of any game. But other games give us a baseline to start with. 5e doesn't seem willing to do that.

And I could say that I'm "doing my homework ahead of time" right now. If I make a character with a +8 in their relevant skills, what does that mean? What kinds of things can they do with that +8? It means I succeed on "easy" things almost all of the time, I succeed on "medium" things about 65% of the time (more often if the GM deigns to allow taking 10, which isn't guaranteed), and I succeed on "hard" things about 40% of the time, but I have no examples of what any of those things are. No idea whatsoever. Is climbing a rope near a wall Easy or Medium or Hard? Ask your GM. Is intuiting that a guard might be willing to accept a bribe Medium or Hard or Very Hard? Sure, it'll depend on the guard, but I still have no idea what a baseline would be (before factoring in someone being incorruptible or someone all but flat out asking for a bribe—like I said, baseline). Ask your GM. Is recognizing a demon as a demon Easy or Medium or Hard? What if I want to know common characteristics of demons? The books don't say. Ask your GM. I can figure out numbers, but if I have no idea what those numbers will actually allow me to do, then I don't have a good idea of what my character is capable of. So if I want to make a character capable of succeeding regularly at a list of tasks, I can't figure out ahead of time what my numbers need to be, because I have absolutely no baseline for what difficulty a GM may decide those tasks are.

I'm not saying I need numbers that can never be deviated from. But without any starting point at all, I can't really get a good feel for what a character can and can't do, now can I?


The point still stands. A level 6-8 character can be very good at something (+11 modifier, or passive 21, 26 with advantage) but they are never going to be the best and they should never be the best. The best is reserved for higher level characters - a level 8 character that is focused on a skill shouldn't be competitive at that skill with a level 20 character that is focused in that skill; and thankfully he isn't.

Yes passive checks are entirely in the hands of the DM. You may very well get yourself a less competent DM that never uses the mechanic, but that isn't really the game's fault. Either way, only an extremely bad DM wouldn't consider passive checks when you mention them to him, and as you said, there isn't much that can be done about a bad DM.
As for the taking 10 thing, it does still exist (well actually a better version of it exists), you just need to be a level 11 Rogue. If you want to be as competent at something as possible, you need to specialize rather heavily into it, although you can sacrifice abilities just like that one in order to be only above average in that field, without sacrificing much in other areas. The tools and options are all there to be used, you just need to decide what degree of expertise you really want and how much you are prepared to sacrifice for it. Having the potential to do something but having an associated opportunity cost is imo, perfect game design. It puts options in the hands of the players without making those options far too easily attainable - in a sense it heightens the difference between being the top in your field and just being another heavily skilled pretender.

That is a fair point (and it applies double to the tool proficiencies that you mentioned, which I absolutely agree need more of an explanation), but 5e has been designed to put more control in the hands of the DM, so it has been intentionally left vague so the DM can decide what constitutes easy or not.
Too many examples tend to serve as more of a limitation than anything. For example, if the book cited identifying a pansy as an easy (DC 15) nature check, that would seem pretty reasonable until someone tries to identify a pansy on a world where a pansy has never been known to exist. The latter is a near impossible (DC 30) task that would be made easily simply by having the DM's hand forced by the example in the book.

I explicitly said in the OP that I don't need a character to be a world record holder, and that I'm really just interested in someone being able to solve problems in ways that typical people can't. I do find it disturbing that Rogue and Bard are basically required to be any better than average (I'm okay with them being The Best, but it's really unsettling that there's basically no middle ground between proficiency and expertise).

The Rogue's Reliable Talent has nothing to do with taking 10. It's a powerful feature, and I'm not demanding it on everyone. I just want the old-school option of taking a slightly-below-average roll in a nonstressful situation. (Reliable Talent is much better than that because it offers the chance of rolling high without the chance of rolling low. It's powerful and it's cool on Rogues who have it, but it's not the same thing as just taking 10.)

I'm glad you agree with me that the tool section is basically incomplete. As far as identifying a pansy goes, there's plenty of ways to include that example without giving any wiggle room for it. They could say "it's DC 5 to identify a pansy, though that might change if pansies are exceptionally rare in the world." They could say "it's DC 5 to identify a common flower that's local to a region you're familiar with." Either of those give wiggle room for worlds/regions without common pansies, but they give us SOMETHING to start with. Right now I don't know what the DC is to identify a common flower. One GM might say DC 5 ("very easy") because it's, well, common. One GM might say DC 10 ("easy") for basically the same reason. One GM might say DC 15 ("medium") because not everyone actually studies or remembers details about plants, and that GM had a hard time getting the Botany merit badge at scout camp, so they think it's a nontrivial task to identify plants. None of these GMs are inherently wrong, but since I don't have any baseline to start with, I don't know if my character is likely to identify a pansy or not, even if pansies are common in the world.




They do, DMG p. 258. It's called Crafting and harvesting poisons

Well praise Vecna, we finally found something! Any other tool DCs hidden away, safe from the prying eyes of GMs and players who want to not have to guess about everything they do?


I was assuming expertise. This thread is about being good at something, so I think that one would seek to be an expert in their field if they wanted to be considered good. Proficiency is basically a high school graduate, whereas expertise is a university graduate - a high school graduate would need to have some phenomenal natural talents to be able to compete with your average university level graduate in their fields.

And yes a level 20 character that is merely proficient in something isn't too far ahead of a level 1 character that is also proficient. Neither of them are really considered "good" at their fields mind you, they are only competent. The level 20 guy has the advantage of being both competent and having years of experience backing his talents but he still doesn't compare to someone that has seriously studied the field of expertise, or an expert that is considered "good" at that field.

The tools to become a genuine expert exist, the game just doesn't give them out for free - players have to choose if they are willing to sacrifice potential talents in other fields in order to achieve that level of expertise.


I would argue to the contrary: Proficiancy is supposed to represent actual useful training. It's fine if you need a specific ability to be a master, but requiring people to take a level of Rogue or three of Bard in order to reliably hit moderate DCs at low levels/high DCs and mid levels (what I'd call "competence") is frankly ludicrous, and poor design. It's not even like taking a level of Fighter for TWF-- these are both classes with appreciable fluff and quite distinctive abilities. That sort of investment should make you exceptional, not passable.

I'm with Grod on this. My objection is not in needing the Bard/Rogue dip to become great (though I do wish there were other methods); my objection is in needing it to become good at all.


Every character having Bard 3 or Rogue 1 and having the multiclass ability score in order to become skilled in 2 original class relevant skills seems like a poor design.

Agreed.

Part of what bothers me is that the process for becoming really good at certain skills requires such specific paths, paths which necessitate interrupting the rest of your build. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. (Let me emphasize off the bat that I'm giving this as an example, not as one specific result I'm trying to achieve. Even if you can find something that loosely approximates this character, the principle holds for other characters.)

I had a 4e Runepriest who was based on a 3.5 character I used to play. Runepriests are STR-based (secondary WIS or CON, and I chose WIS for this guy), so you don't really think of them as being knowledge monkeys, but since the 3.5 character this guy was based on was a know-it-all, I wanted him to be knowledgeable about as much as possible. My class let me train Arcana and Religion, but that was about it; there were no other boosts coming from my class features. So I looked elsewhere. I found a background that helped with knowledge checks, and I found a theme that trained me in a couple more. I took feats that boosted that sort of thing. I squeezed a 14 into INT despite not having any class features that use INT. I found magic items that made me better at knowing what I wanted to know. And I ended up being the party's go-to guy for knowing things.

Were there costs? Yeah, of course there were costs. A feat spent making my skills better is a feat that isn't spent optimizing combat or other tricks. A 14 in INT is stat points that don't make my powers better. Same for items and for everything else. And was I the very best possible knowledge monkey? Of course not; a Wizard or a certain style of Bard (or any other INT-primary class) would have quite a bit higher INT, and they would have had access to class features and class-specific feats that made them even better at knowledge skills than I was. So I wasn't getting something for nothing, and I wasn't expecting to turn a class who usually isn't good at something into being the world record holder. But the system was still flexible enough to allow me to do that without completely sabotaging my other capabilities. I didn't have to stop advancing as a Runepriest to get better at knowing things. I didn't have to completely ruin my point buy to get 14 INT (and/or to get the multiclass taxes for Rogue and/or Bard); my secondary stat was a bit lower than normal, but the system gave me ways to compensate for that, and it still wasn't a make-or-break to put some points into INT. Every feat spent on knowing things was a feat not spent on traditional Runepriesting, but I had enough feats available to be able to cover the basics and still branch out without neglecting my base class's combat style entirely (even at low/mid-levels).

Again, this is one specific example. I'm not necessarily looking to recreate that exact character in 5e. But I feel like a similar process should be possible for whatever skill you want to emphasize. Maybe you want a Ranger who's really intimidating. Maybe you want a Fighter who's really insightful and hard to trick. Maybe you want a Paladin who reveres a god of magic and wants to be knowledgeable about arcana. I feel like you should be able to do something similar to what I did on my Runepriest without having to make massive sacrifices in other areas of basic character competence. Getting proficiency in the relevant skill basically just requires a clever background choice, but proficiency only goes so far without high key stats or Expertise, but it looks like your only real option after proficiency is to chase that Expertise-granting dip, and that seems costlier than necessary.


Well, actually the rules do tell us when a check is necessary in chapter 7: when the outcome is uncertain (phb 174).

And that is a question purely for the DM to answer based on the circumstances and the players desired activity. Do you want to try and cook a special recipe you've never made before to try and impress someone who routinely eats it? I'd say that's probably a Hard check using the scale on phb page 174, depending on the complexity of the dish.

Opposed rolls are only used when someone is opposing the activity. So most of the time, cooking is not opposed.

The rules on 183 are for a basic map of the parties travels. Think map on a napkin vs National Geographic for the professional cartography map. Both would probably require the tools however.

The game leaves a lot of latitude to the DM to determine how difficult something is. If you're not sure, set the DC low and adjust from there.

Forgot the last question:
The actual benefit of proficiency is +2 to +6 on the roll. That effectively allows a character to pass an ability check one step more difficult than they could absent proficiency. I.e. A non proficient character is incapable of completely a nearly impossible task, a proficient one is.

Similarly a non proficient character would be unlikely to pass a very hard check, and only capable of doing so if they had reached the peak of human ability for the relevant score. Proficiency makes that possible even with an average score (+0).

In regards to the question on an Intelligence (nature) of DC 15, that would allow someone to recall lore about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles that would be moderately difficult to remember.

What exactly that translates to is really up to the DM

And that's the problem. I don't know ahead of time when the outcome is in doubt, and I don't know ahead of time what's considered Easy or Medium or Hard. As I keep saying, I don't need every possible use of every possible skill to be hard-coded with flat DCs, but I have nothing to go on to tell ahead of time what's "moderate" and what's not.

All I want are some RAW examples. The GM is, and should be, the final arbiter, but I don't like that I can't establish a baseline without knowing what a specific GM will deem to be easy or medium or hard.

And you know full well that you weren't answering my question about what the actual benefit of proficiency is. Of course I know that it means that you add a proficiency bonus (between +2 and +6) to a relevant ability check. What I was saying when I said I don't know what the actual benefit of that proficiency would be is that I have no idea when I'm going to need to roll a check, I have no idea what that check will accomplish (compared to an action that requires no check), I have no idea how difficult that check is likely to be, and therefore I have no idea what kind of actual in-game actions will benefit from proficiency.

Let's say you're starting your very first game of D&D ever (3.5 or 4e or 5e; I'm not familiar with older editions, but you'll see why that matters in a second). You're making a Cleric because you want to heal people, but you don't want that to be all that you can do. Still, you find out that there's a skill called Heal (or, in 5e, Medicine). You think, okay, great, I want to heal people really well, so I should probably invest in that skill, right? So you do. But then you get to the table and you find out that the Heal skill has nothing to do with a Cleric healing people in nine cases out of ten. Mostly you just cast magic and that fixes people. If you're completely out of spell slots, you can use Heal to stabilize someone, but you're more likely to just cure them magically. Same for disease and poison—Heal has some uses there, but a Cleric has better options for that sort of thing, so you just cast Remove Disease instead of rolling Heal checks. You thought you had some idea what Heal would do for you, but in-game, it never came up; there was always another mechanic that was more relevant, and while you succeeded at healing people, that had very little to do with your investment in the Heal skill.

Now, this isn't a perfect analogy, because if you really read the Heal skill in 3.5 or 4e, you could see that Clerical magic doesn't need the Heal skill, and you'd also see that the Heal skill isn't really about refilling missing HP. Nothing in the Heal skill explicitly says "magic does this better," but the information is still there to let you figure out that the skill doesn't do much on a Cleric who has healing magic. If you were lucky, you'd have had a more experienced friend tell you that Heal isn't good for Clerics and that you don't need it to patch people up. But I think you still see the point of what I'm getting at—you might know that you had a +7 modifier to your Heal checks, but if you didn't know ahead of time that Heal checks weren't a part of being the party HP refiller, you wouldn't know when that Heal modifier would come up or what good it would do you. The actual benefit wouldn't have been apparent to you. You know what the numbers are, but you don't know when those numbers will come up or what they'll allow your character to do that can't be done in some other way.


All experts were once rogues? That historian that loves history? Took their mandatory level of rogue at 5th level. The high priest, expert on religious lore and theology? Mandatory rogue level at 3rd. The archmage who is the expert on the arcane lore of thaumaturgy? Mandatory rogue level was taken at 10th.

Yup, real life commitment to a field of study requires taking "How to Rogue" as a 1 credit elective.

Making Expertise a feat is a better solution than forcing the most druidy druids to dip rogue in order to represent their expertise in understanding nature. Even that feels like a cop out.

Yeah. I don't mind Rogues and Bards being good (or even The Best), but it bothers me that ONLY Rogues and Bards can break free of "average competence."


You can be a historian or whatever you like without taking levels in Rogue or Bard, but no you will never be an expert. Being an expert requires higher learning and Rogues and Bards are the classes of higher learning.

Although I do agree - a feat is a better solution.

Why is there nothing between being competent and being an expert? Why can't we have someone who's good at something (better than average, even) without needing special Rogue training?

A feat would be a partial solution. It would be a damn sight better than nothing. Though with how bloody expensive feats are, I wonder if we couldn't even find something else as well.


True, but you can always multiclass for rogue for expertise, 1 level and grab a skill as well.

The highest skill is +17, without fillers and spells and inspiration. DC 30 seems to be the high end of skill checks, maybe your party gives you advantage some how. It gives everyone a chance to succeed but a real chance for failure.

That's a big switch from 3.5 where one could take feats and class feature and really buff up Bluff, great for rogues who needed to sneak attack but couldn't flank always.

Now you have a real chance for failure. With ability cap, there is an ever present danger of failing saves and skill checks. Now you need that cleric with bless or that bard. You really become much more team dependent.

Gone is the weapon master, the feinting master, much more parity and that's a good thing but at the sacrifice of the top end elites.

I always say you can get an A in 3.5 and 5E, but in 3.5 your know your grade is 98 or 99 or 91, in 5E its just an A for your grade.

So 5E is for gaming and playing here or there, 3.5 is about having the one awesome character, the master of something, the best.

Maybe that's just what it comes down to. There's no granularity between proficiency and expertise. They made it really easy to be okay but really hard to be anything beyond okay, even if you aren't looking to be a world record holder. And they also made it impossible to tell ahead of time what it even means to be okay (since nothing has a DC beyond the whims of the GM).

[mgshamster]

2) How hard it is to become skilled enough for auto succeeding on easy tasks (presuming the easy task DC 10 is calibrated correctly.

This one is super easy to solve - use the Automatic Success rules in the DMG on page 239.

If your ability score is at least 5 greater than the DC, you automatically succeed. If your proficiency bonus applies, you automatically succeed on a DC 10 (or DC 15 if you're higher than 11th level).

Although I have seen someone dismiss this as a "variant rule," despite the fact that 5e is all about customization and variances within the rules, and the DMG is practically nothing but variant rules.

[Shaofoo]

You're right, it doesn't bill itself as being freeform. Which is exactly why I'm having problems with the fact that the skill system is, well, basically freeform.

Yes, any GM can modify any aspect of any game. But other games give us a baseline to start with. 5e doesn't seem willing to do that.

And I could say that I'm "doing my homework ahead of time" right now. If I make a character with a +8 in their relevant skills, what does that mean? What kinds of things can they do with that +8? It means I succeed on "easy" things almost all of the time, I succeed on "medium" things about 65% of the time (more often if the GM deigns to allow taking 10, which isn't guaranteed), and I succeed on "hard" things about 40% of the time, but I have no examples of what any of those things are. No idea whatsoever. Is climbing a rope near a wall Easy or Medium or Hard? Ask your GM. Is intuiting that a guard might be willing to accept a bribe Medium or Hard or Very Hard? Sure, it'll depend on the guard, but I still have no idea what a baseline would be (before factoring in someone being incorruptible or someone all but flat out asking for a bribe—like I said, baseline). Ask your GM. Is recognizing a demon as a demon Easy or Medium or Hard? What if I want to know common characteristics of demons? The books don't say. Ask your GM. I can figure out numbers, but if I have no idea what those numbers will actually allow me to do, then I don't have a good idea of what my character is capable of. So if I want to make a character capable of succeeding regularly at a list of tasks, I can't figure out ahead of time what my numbers need to be, because I have absolutely no baseline for what difficulty a GM may decide those tasks are.

I'm not saying I need numbers that can never be deviated from. But without any starting point at all, I can't really get a good feel for what a character can and can't do, now can I?



Actually this topic give us a good reason why not giving an example is a good idea.

Cause that breed expectations and could lead to some people claiming that the rules say that the DC should be X even if the DM doesn't agree (see Pathfinder example learning anything about a monster is the same DC regardless of the information that you actually want to learn is common or obscure).

But numbers taken out of context means nothing. Every single stat in D&D has no meaning when taken out of context. What does it mean that a person has 50 HP or that their spell DC is 17?

And some of these things are dependent on setting and the book can't answer because you can't tell. Maybe the DC for bribing a guard depends on how much you give, some guards might require a few gold while others might require a chest full of it, you don't know. Some guards might be offended at the offer of gold and that is an instant fail. The book can't fathom every single thing that can work or fail to a guard, even things that can be contradictory, but the DM does. There can't be a baseline.

Finding out what the world knows about demons, are they beings that are only spoken in legends and myths or are they hanging around in the local pub? Depending on the setting is your baseline, again the book can't hold every single setting responsible (and again the example of a monster having a set DC to know about regardless of wanted knowledge is bad imo).

Maybe a couple of examples could've sufficed, at the very least in the DMG where it is off limits to players and we won't have the situation of players expecting the DC to be something. Maybe things could've been better explained but then again people still seem to treat skills with some sort of disdain.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Cause that breed expectations and could lead to some people claiming that the rules say that the DC should be X even if the DM doesn't agree (see Pathfinder example learning anything about a monster is the same DC regardless of the information that you actually want to learn is common or obscure).
That's not a problem with known DCs, that's a problem with players being jerks--which is not something you'll ever solve with rules. Known DCs, even known guidelines, help players figure out what those abstract numbers on their sheet mean. If the game just says "moderate difficulty: DC 15," that tells me nothing-- is it moderate for a schmuck? A skilled character? A master? Is it supposed to change based on who's rolling it?" Even something as simple as "DC 15: Professional-level difficulty. These are the sorts of things that experienced professionals regularly do--forge good swords, entertain tavern crowds, or bypass cheap locks" tells me volumes more, while still leaving plenty of room for GM adjudication.

[Shaofoo]

That's not a problem with known DCs, that's a problem with players being jerks--which is not something you'll ever solve with rules. Known DCs, even known guidelines, help players figure out what those abstract numbers on their sheet mean. If the game just says "moderate difficulty: DC 15," that tells me nothing-- is it moderate for a schmuck? A skilled character? A master? Is it supposed to change based on who's rolling it?" Even something as simple as "DC 15: Professional-level difficulty. These are the sorts of things that experienced professionals regularly do--forge good swords, entertain tavern crowds, or bypass cheap locks" tells me volumes more, while still leaving plenty of room for GM adjudication.

You are right that it is a player problem and not the problem of the game. And that the game isn't responsible for dealing with bad players and DMs.

I feel though that giving meaning to numbers is a bit of a futile exercise. Because as I explained before two similar activities can have different outcomes depending on context. Maybe normally you could entertain a tavern crowd with a DC 15 check but that shouldn't be all the taverns, some might be more and some might be less and all because of different reasons.


The game shouldn't tell the players what the numbers mean because there might be something that can be taken out of context that the DM does not want. What do you mean with bypassing a lock? Can I take a crowbar and pry the lock off or can I smash the lock or door open? Would all checks involving the lock somehow be DC 15 regardless?

Some examples for the DM to help visualize things a bit sure but the players should never get any expectations. Like I said, giving context to numbers is meaningless in the great scheme of things because what does it mean that the character has 14 Wisdom or that his initiative is at +1? Heck when you give meaning it can be very muddled when there are double standards. Does a 20 Dex and Wis Monk with 20 AC and a Fighter with Plate Mail and a Shield with an AC of 20 both deal with blows in the same way? Giving meaning to the numbers without context might mean that the Fighter just dances around blows like it was nothing of that the Monk can have blows glance off its skin (which is awesome and I would allow but not the context the designers wanted).

[georgie_leech]

That's not a problem with known DCs, that's a problem with players being jerks--which is not something you'll ever solve with rules. Known DCs, even known guidelines, help players figure out what those abstract numbers on their sheet mean. If the game just says "moderate difficulty: DC 15," that tells me nothing-- is it moderate for a schmuck? A skilled character? A master? Is it supposed to change based on who's rolling it?" Even something as simple as "DC 15: Professional-level difficulty. These are the sorts of things that experienced professionals regularly do--forge good swords, entertain tavern crowds, or bypass cheap locks" tells me volumes more, while still leaving plenty of room for GM adjudication.

This. For all I love 5e's looser approach, their presentation really leaves something to be desired.

[Laereth]

5e design goals for skills:
1) Proficiency bonus and natural talent from Ability Score are on par for any given level.
2) All PCs are within striking distance of success chance for any given chance regardless of class or level
2) d20 roll is always meaningful in comparison to bonus
3) DC difficulty doesn't scale with level
4) DC for tasks are flexible

The goal for 5e proficiency is simple: If you are proficient, you are as good as someone who is a natural, for your given level of experience. In other words, the proficiency bonus is approximately on par with the bonus for a character with an expected 'high' ability score at the same level. Ability score 15 (+2) at level 1, to 20 (+5) at level 12. Proficiency is +2 at level 1, to +5 at 13th. Trained characters gain an slight edge after level 17, very naturally talented characters gain an edge by starting with a 16 or 17 ability score at level 1. Expertise mimics being naturally talented AND proficient by double the proficiency bonus.

The goal for PCs being within striking distance for success chance was met. -1 to +11 is a 60% variance in success chance. (Then they gave Bards/Rogues the ability to be far and above with another +30%, intentionally breaking the design goal.)

Another goal is intentionally making the die roll meaningful, at all levels. In other words, the range of the total bonuses (-1 to +11) is only slightly more than half the check value on purpose. What goes hand in hand with that is the assumption you should only make a check when it is meaningful to fail, not for anything routine. (Again Expertise intentionally breaks this design goal, bringing your total bonus to be on par with the variance of a d20 roll.)

Another goal is twofold: 1) having the DCs be flexible as opposed to pre-defined, allowing the DM to make judgment calls as needed; and 2) have the DCs NOT scale with level, having a given difficulty being static. That's addressed on two fronts. First, the DCs are roughly assigned across all categories as Easy, Medium, Hard etc. And total bonuses are intentionally kept low so that those tasks never become trivial.

IMO 5e succeeded very well in it's design goals for skills, and added in a nice way to break the system for players that get all up in arms about not being able to be 'good' at something with the Expertise Class Feature.

I find the need to bring up Tanarii's point again since nobody discussed it yet. I feel he brings up a good deconstruction of the system which comforts me with 5e's way of doing it which keeps DCs at a manageable level.

Moreover, I feel tool proficiencies are there to cover some situations where a skill is non-existant (thieves tool proficiency for example, replaces Disable Device). And thoses proficiencies can be gained with downtime training, thus furthering what your character can and cannot do well. You want to be a sailor ? Get profiency in water vehicules. Gambler ? Proficiency in dice set. etc.

[OldTrees1]

This one is super easy to solve - use the Automatic Success rules in the DMG on page 239.

If your ability score is at least 5 greater than the DC, you automatically succeed. If your proficiency bonus applies, you automatically succeed on a DC 10 (or DC 15 if you're higher than 11th level).

Although I have seen someone dismiss this as a "variant rule," despite the fact that 5e is all about customization and variances within the rules, and the DMG is practically nothing but variant rules.

O.O That initially sounds like a great answer. Just applying that to the 5th & 15th level examples yields the following for various proficiency grades:
5th (16 score): DC 17, 14, 12, 11 (rounded down: 15, 10, 10, 10)
15th (18 score): DC 23, 18, 15, 13 (rounded down: 20, 15, 15, 10)

Modifiers @ 15th: +10, +5, +2, +0
Modifiers @ 5th: +9, +6, +4, +3

Now since that looks good for the non Bard/Rogues, let's check to see if it invalidated any of the 3 features. It allows Expertise/Jack of All Trades to apply so those look fine. The real question is Reliable Talent.
Rogue 15(18 ability score, +10 or +5 proficiency):
Reliable Talent of 24 or 19 vs Automatic Success DC 23 or 18.

So while the Automatic Success rules in the DMG on page 239 sounds good, it does seem to practically obsolete the Rogue's Reliable Talent ability. It is a decent rule but is not a complete answer.

[Tanarii]

I find the need to bring up Tanarii's point again since nobody discussed it yet. I feel he brings up a good deconstruction of the system which comforts me with 5e's way of doing it which keeps DCs at a manageable level.One thing I left out is that 5e explicitly is NOT trying to provide a simulation for a fantasy world. It is somewhere in between oD&D's post-war-gamer abstract resolution roots, and 3e's attempts to move towards heavier simulation. Not that 3e is that heavy a simulation, but that's clearly it's basic mentality behind the skills system and fixed DCs.

In fact, 5e is even LESS of a world simulation than AD&D 1e was, although in other regards to skills it is more of a rules-based character simulation. For example, it actually has skills check resolution method at all, which AD&D didn't until the Survival Guides came out. OTOH AD&D famously had tables for things like catching diseases or parasites, as well as the wilderness survival guide having a detailed and complex way to simulate not just weather, but an entire climate.


Moreover, I feel tool proficiencies are there to cover some situations where a skill is non-existant (thieves tool proficiency for example, replaces Disable Device). And thoses proficiencies can be gained with downtime training, thus furthering what your character can and cannot do well. You want to be a sailor ? Get profiency in water vehicules. Gambler ? Proficiency in dice set. etc.Yeah, 5e Skills are, with a few exceptions, supposed to be what all PCs are supposed to be capable of to some degree of difficulty. They are the bare-bones adventuring skills that every adventurer knows. Even when it comes to the basics of Arcane, Religion or Nature lore, the most unintelligent PC of any class can potentially know something below a DC 20. It's an inherent assumption to the underlying game of dungeon delving and wilderness adventuring, which is what the 5e rule-set is designed for.

Tool proficiency, with the possible exception of Thieves Tools, are additional capabilities that are not necessarily specifically required for dungeon and wilderness adventuring. That's why they allow you to do things you otherwise can't do at all, unlike skills.

Edit: I'll add .. if you want your PC to be NOT capable of doing certain adventure-y type things, just tell your DM you don't know how to do those things.

[Kurald Galain]

I find the need to bring up Tanarii's point again since nobody discussed it yet.

Right. So correspondingly, the (perceived) problems are,

(1) Untrained characters too frequently beat trained characters at their expertise;
(2) Trained characters too frequently fail at easy or moderate tasks (except for high level rogues and bards);
(3) Two characters can get different outcomes even when they get the exact same result on a check;
(4) Characters can only become good at tasks related to their primary ability score;
and (5) While it's good to give the DM leeway, the rulebooks should give guidance to the DCs of common tasks.

So it looks like there's some room for improvement here, which is what these threads are for.

[mephnick]

So while the Automatic Success rules in the DMG on page 239 sounds good, it does seem to practically obsolete the Rogue's Reliable Talent ability. It is a decent rule but is not a complete answer.

Maybe modify Reliable Talent to drop the DC for automatic successes somehow? Like say "If your ability score matches the DC of a check, you automatically succeed"?

Or is that fiddling too much?

[Tanarii]

Right. So correspondingly, the (perceived) problems are,

(1) Untrained characters too frequently beat trained characters at their expertise;
(2) Trained characters too frequently fail at easy or moderate tasks (except for high level rogues and bards);
(3) Two characters can get different outcomes even when they get the exact same result on a check;
(4) Characters can only become good at tasks related to their primary ability score;
and (5) While it's good to give the DM leeway, the rulebooks should give guidance to the DCs of common tasks.

So it looks like there's some room for improvement here, which is what these threads are for.
1 & 2) There are no untrained characters. Only ones that are not proficient. There are no trained characters. Only ones that are proficient.
All adventurer's are assumed by D&D 5e to be around or about the same capabilities as adventurers. This applies to combat and non-combat situations. Some are just a bit better at certain types of adventuring tasks that others, from melee attacks to ranged attacks to specific skill checks. The closest that exists for "Trained" in 5e is Bards/Rogues with Expertise.

3) That's up to the DM and how he decides to set difficulties, or players and how they decide to set the limitations of their characters. The idea that Barbarians don't know Arcana vs a Wizard know lots about Arcana isn't baked into the system. It's been put forth by posters assuming some level of simulation, as opposed to a system designed to support the idea that ALL PCs are adventurers, and as such have some capabilities in these areas.

4) Define "good". And I disagree. I think that the way the DCs are structured, the assumption is that a PC is "good" if they either have a high ability score OR have proficiency. PCs that have both are exceptional at that task. Based on checks only being called for when there is significant consequence to failure, and DCs being set fairly low.

5) The DCs give guidance as to common tasks under each skill. They also give guidance as to how to set DCs from Very Easy to Impossible. It can't be much less abstract than that without going down the 3e route towards simulation, with DCs of specific tasks being set.

[mephnick]

All adventurer's are assumed by D&D 5e to be around or about the same capabilities as adventurers.

Yeah, your "untrained" barbarian is still supposed to be an adventurer that has likely seen/heard of some magic somewhere.

Sure, the wizard should be more like to figure out what a spell effect is (he is) but the barbarian wasn't locked away behind a rock his whole life, so there should be some chance he recognizes some magic (there is).

[pwykersotz]

1 & 2) There are no untrained characters. Only ones that are not proficient. There are no trained characters. Only ones that are proficient.
All adventurer's are assumed by D&D 5e to be around or about the same capabilities as adventurers. This applies to combat and non-combat situations. Some are just a bit better at certain types of adventuring tasks that others, from melee attacks to ranged attacks to specific skill checks. The closest that exists for "Trained" in 5e is Bards/Rogues with Expertise.

I think this is a good point. If you want a character who has devoted their entire lives to monster study and is thus an "expert", then it might be better suited to a background feature.

[Tanarii]

Yeah, your "untrained" barbarian is still supposed to be an adventurer that has likely seen/heard of some magic somewhere.

Sure, the wizard should be more like to figure out what a spell effect is (he is) but the barbarian wasn't locked away behind a rock his whole life, so there should be some chance he recognizes some magic (there is).


I think this is a good point. If you want a character who has devoted their entire lives to monster study and is thus an "expert", then it might be better suited to a background feature.
For sure to both of these. 5e character rules aren't there to build any character you can imagine. They're there to build archetypical Dungeons & Dragons adventurers. (Edit: and build ones with a roughly equivalent base level of capability as said adventurers, but with different specific areas they excel at.)

If that's not what you want, it's time to either bust out your house-ruling skills, or use a different system to play.

[Shaofoo]

Maybe modify Reliable Talent to drop the DC for automatic successes somehow? Like say "If your ability score matches the DC of a check, you automatically succeed"?

Or is that fiddling too much?

The Barbarian already has an ability like it. If a Strength check is lower than your Strength Score you use your Strength Score instead as the check result. Basically the devs were mindful to keep the big muscle guy to be constantly consistent with doing muscle things. In fact this extends beyond because Rage can also give you advantage on Strength Checks.

[OldTrees1]

Maybe modify Reliable Talent to drop the DC for automatic successes somehow? Like say "If your ability score matches the DC of a check, you automatically succeed"?

Or is that fiddling too much?

You are right that one of the easy ways to make the Automatic Successes rule complete is to change/replace Reliable Talent.

While I don't think that solution is a good one(because it replaces the "roll with a minimum" of Reliable Talent), I systematically eliminated every alternative I could think of. Alternatively make the automatic successes DC+10<=Score+Proficiency while Rogue would rather roll with their minimum of a "10"(but that has its own problems).

[Knaight]

This one is super easy to solve - use the Automatic Success rules in the DMG on page 239.

If your ability score is at least 5 greater than the DC, you automatically succeed. If your proficiency bonus applies, you automatically succeed on a DC 10 (or DC 15 if you're higher than 11th level).

Although I have seen someone dismiss this as a "variant rule," despite the fact that 5e is all about customization and variances within the rules, and the DMG is practically nothing but variant rules.
This causes a weird jump though, as if you're anywhere below the automatic success threshold your odds are often not even that good.


For sure to both of these. 5e character rules aren't there to build any character you can imagine. They're there to build archetypical Dungeons & Dragons adventurers. (Edit: and build ones with a roughly equivalent base level of capability as said adventurers, but with different specific areas they excel at.)

If that's not what you want, it's time to either bust out your house-ruling skills, or use a different system to play.
While this is a solid argument for things like the absence of classes for merchants, farmers, craftspeople, etc. it doesn't really hold up that well for the skill system. Consider the literary* heroes of Drizzt and Raistlin. Drizzt is generally pretty athletic, with solid reflexes and motor skills. Raistlin is severely physically impaired. Neither is particularly well represented with either the Rogue or Bard classes, so expertise is out. Take a fairly routine task - balancing while crossing something narrow. Drizzt is established as the sort of character who could probably run across a tight rope with no issue, Raistlin is liable to have issues with a fairly wide beam unless he breaks out the magic. Yet even using 20th level characters, Drizzt gets only +11 to Raistlin's -1. Drizzt only has an 85% chance to succeed at a DC 15 task, Raistlin still has a 25% chance.

That 20th level assumption doesn't really hold though. Drizzt was dexterous early on, and while 20 dex at level 1 is reasonable, that only gets a +7. Even by mid levels, we're looking at the +9 range. That's a 65% and 75% chance respectively for the DC 15, and a 40% or 50% for the DC 20. The 5e skill system struggles to have a meaningful range of character ability outside of edge cases, breaking down for simple archetypes that could be reasonably expected. This issue doesn't show up in combat though, because there the introduction of damage variability, meaningful abilities, changes in number of attacks, etc. really show up. The difference between a novice with some talent and an expert in skills is about a 30% shift in success rates for skills. For combat, it's something like 10 times as much reliable damage, 20 times as many hit points, a grab bag of tricks, etc.

*In the loosest sense.

[Tanarii]

While this is a solid argument for things like the absence of classes for merchants, farmers, craftspeople, etc. it doesn't really hold up that well for the skill system. Consider the literary* heroes of Drizzt and Raistlin. Drizzt is generally pretty athletic, with solid reflexes and motor skills. Raistlin is severely physically impaired. Neither is particularly well represented with either the Rogue or Bard classes, so expertise is out. Take a fairly routine task - balancing while crossing something narrow. Drizzt is established as the sort of character who could probably run across a tight rope with no issue, Raistlin is liable to have issues with a fairly wide beam unless he breaks out the magic. Yet even using 20th level characters, Drizzt gets only +11 to Raistlin's -1. Drizzt only has an 85% chance to succeed at a DC 15 task, Raistlin still has a 25% chance.

*In the loosest sense.In the loosest sense is right, especially in the case of Raistlin. He was a D&D character that was a bog-standard mage, who was RP'd and later written to be something that no longer resembled his character sheet. In other words, he was extrapolated to be something his 'character' never really was in mechanical terms.

That's one reason D&D was even more abstract originally. Because the designers realized the same thing the 5e designers understood: The game rules are just that, abstract game rules for 'fair' resolution of common adventuring/dungeon-delving tasks. Not for simulating any narrative character concept out there.

By the way, Raistlins official stats totally put him being severely physically impaired to the lie. From DL1 (Dragons of Despair):
RAISTLIN
3rd Level Human Magic-user
STR 10 (Door 2; Bars 2%)
INT 17 (Lang: 6; Q. Elf, Magius, see below)
WIS 14
DEX 16 (Attack +l; Def -2)
CON 10 (Sys shock 70%; Resur 75%)
CHA 10
AL N
AC = 5
HP = 8
Spell use: 2 1st level and 1 2nd level per day

Edit: Remember, these stats came first. Not the character in the books. (Or more accurately, the character was developed from a play-test version of what eventually became these stats. So you can consider them to be concurrant development. Regardless, 'Raistlin' was very Dextrous, as well as human norm for Str & Con.)

[Pex]

You're right, it doesn't bill itself as being freeform. Which is exactly why I'm having problems with the fact that the skill system is, well, basically freeform.

Yes, any GM can modify any aspect of any game. But other games give us a baseline to start with. 5e doesn't seem willing to do that.

And I could say that I'm "doing my homework ahead of time" right now. If I make a character with a +8 in their relevant skills, what does that mean? What kinds of things can they do with that +8? It means I succeed on "easy" things almost all of the time, I succeed on "medium" things about 65% of the time (more often if the GM deigns to allow taking 10, which isn't guaranteed), and I succeed on "hard" things about 40% of the time, but I have no examples of what any of those things are. No idea whatsoever. Is climbing a rope near a wall Easy or Medium or Hard? Ask your GM. Is intuiting that a guard might be willing to accept a bribe Medium or Hard or Very Hard? Sure, it'll depend on the guard, but I still have no idea what a baseline would be (before factoring in someone being incorruptible or someone all but flat out asking for a bribe—like I said, baseline). Ask your GM. Is recognizing a demon as a demon Easy or Medium or Hard? What if I want to know common characteristics of demons? The books don't say. Ask your GM. I can figure out numbers, but if I have no idea what those numbers will actually allow me to do, then I don't have a good idea of what my character is capable of. So if I want to make a character capable of succeeding regularly at a list of tasks, I can't figure out ahead of time what my numbers need to be, because I have absolutely no baseline for what difficulty a GM may decide those tasks are.

I'm not saying I need numbers that can never be deviated from. But without any starting point at all, I can't really get a good feel for what a character can and can't do, now can I?


This.

Not even Pathfinder has DCs for every possible thing and scenario. It's not supposed to and would be insanity to try. What it does have is a baseline. Of course the DM has to make judgment calls. That's the DMs job. The guidelines provide a metaphoric framework in which he and players can determine what characters are capable of doing. 5e provides no framework. It's nice to say what the DC is for something easy or hard, but it says nothing for what tasks are easy or hard. What's easy for one DM is hard for another. A player might disagree on the DM's interpretation. Yeah, I know, DM is the decider, but it can lead to frustration because the DM's concept of what PCs can do are clashing with the player's. With the guidelines of Pathfinder, the player knows the DC and can see for himself how easy or hard a task is to accomplish based on his appropriate skill for the task.

[greenstone]

…the dice roll is only for uncertain outcomes.


QFT.

Additionally, as a DM I often make rulings that characters who have proficiency in something automatically succeed or get to roll but characters with no proficiency don't even get a roll.

In the Dragon Age RPG, these were described as "INT (Arcana required)" checks, as opposed to "INT (Arcana)".

[Shaofoo]

This.

Not even Pathfinder has DCs for every possible thing and scenario. It's not supposed to and would be insanity to try. What it does have is a baseline. Of course the DM has to make judgment calls. That's the DMs job. The guidelines provide a metaphoric framework in which he and players can determine what characters are capable of doing. 5e provides no framework. It's nice to say what the DC is for something easy or hard, but it says nothing for what tasks are easy or hard. What's easy for one DM is hard for another. A player might disagree on the DM's interpretation. Yeah, I know, DM is the decider, but it can lead to frustration because the DM's concept of what PCs can do are clashing with the player's. With the guidelines of Pathfinder, the player knows the DC and can see for himself how easy or hard a task is to accomplish based on his appropriate skill for the task.

Sorry but again, DCs are not for the players to decide. DCs are part of the DM's world which a player has no say in how it goes.

Again you actually prove my point that I answered in the same quote that you are quoting, giving examples leads to players thinking that certain things should be a certain way when the DM disagrees and is within his right to change the DCs as he sees fit (see again the whole all knowledge about a particular monster has the same DC regardless of the actual knowledge that is being imparted). Which isn't a problem with the game so much as it is a problem with the player overstepping his bounds and doing the DM's job. If the player is frustrated about DC checks made by the DM that is beyond the game, that is personal between the player and the DM at this point. It seems that you are confusing personal problems with game problems. Again there is some guidelines about skills so it isn't that it isn't discussed at all.

This isn't a flaw it is a feature. That Pathfinder gives a more rigid structure is meaningless.

I agree that maybe some baselines are good for the DM to help them think of maybe what can be done but they should never be used as rules and definitely they shouldn't be accessible to the players because that isn't the player's job. Each DM might have their own interpretations as to how skill checks will work (including setting up training only skills).

[Shaofoo]

I think the biggest problem is the application of Newton's 25th theory of game motion "For every action there is a d20 that must be thrown"

Basically we should stop treating every single action with a d20 and instead relegate it to a lesser role, adjudicate more auto success and failures instead of allowing everything with a d20 roll.

Also I feel that the players should also have more disciplined and not jump at every single opportunity to chuck a d20 at it. If the barbarian is about to throw a d20 for Arcana ask him why would he do such a thing if you believe that he has no way he could know. Of course as a player he should catch himself and not roll the d20 in the first place if he knows that his character wouldn't know such information at a glance.

Sure such things is harder for the DM and it won't make the Dm's life any easier.

[Pex]

Sorry but again, DCs are not for the players to decide. DCs are part of the DM's world which a player has no say in how it goes.

Again you actually prove my point that I answered in the same quote that you are quoting, giving examples leads to players thinking that certain things should be a certain way when the DM disagrees and is within his right to change the DCs as he sees fit (see again the whole all knowledge about a particular monster has the same DC regardless of the actual knowledge that is being imparted). Which isn't a problem with the game so much as it is a problem with the player overstepping his bounds and doing the DM's job. If the player is frustrated about DC checks made by the DM that is beyond the game, that is personal between the player and the DM at this point. It seems that you are confusing personal problems with game problems. Again there is some guidelines about skills so it isn't that it isn't discussed at all.

This isn't a flaw it is a feature. That Pathfinder gives a more rigid structure is meaningless.

I agree that maybe some baselines are good for the DM to help them think of maybe what can be done but they should never be used as rules and definitely they shouldn't be accessible to the players because that isn't the player's job. Each DM might have their own interpretations as to how skill checks will work (including setting up training only skills).

The player doesn't need to decide what the DC is. He just needs to know what it is. In Pathfinder he knows. In 5E it depends on how the DM is feeling that day and who the DM is.

The bolded part, right there, that's the problem. Each DM has to recreate their own game. A player has to learn the game again for each new creation playing with a different DM. This is beyond house rules. It's the fundamental playing of the game.


I think the biggest problem is the application of Newton's 25th theory of game motion "For every action there is a d20 that must be thrown"

Basically we should stop treating every single action with a d20 and instead relegate it to a lesser role, adjudicate more auto success and failures instead of allowing everything with a d20 roll.

Also I feel that the players should also have more disciplined and not jump at every single opportunity to chuck a d20 at it. If the barbarian is about to throw a d20 for Arcana ask him why would he do such a thing if you believe that he has no way he could know. Of course as a player he should catch himself and not roll the d20 in the first place if he knows that his character wouldn't know such information at a glance.

Sure such things is harder for the DM and it won't make the Dm's life any easier.

Yet other people in this very thread said they think a barbarian should be able to roll, that it's a feature any PC can try anything. There it is, right there again, what's easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM.

[mephnick]

There it is, right there again, what's easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM.

Yes and that isn't a problem for a lot of people. I like the fact that I can adjudicate the world completely differently than some other DM. I like the fact that in my campaign I can say that forging a flowing river is a DC 15 and in another DM's grittier campaign he can say it's a DC 30. If you don't like then that's totally fair. It's not the system's problem, it's your problem because it doesn't fit your gaming style. Play Pathfinder. Or Burning Wheel. Or Pendragon. Or Numenera. I hated Numenera so I don't play it any more. It's easy.

[mgshamster]

Yes and that isn't a problem for a lot of people. I like the fact that I can adjudicate the world completely differently than some other DM. I like the fact that in my campaign I can say that forging a flowing river is a DC 15 and in another DM's grittier campaign he can say it's a DC 30. If you don't like then that's totally fair. It's not the system's problem, it's your problem because it doesn't fit your gaming style. Play Pathfinder. Or Burning Wheel. Or Pendragon. Or Numenera. I hated Numenera so I don't play it any more. It's easy.

It's kind of like claiming that 5e's variant rules, adaptability, and customization are all bad, because some people may choose different variants for their game than other people.

[mephnick]

Exactly.

And I'm not saying it's perfect, nor is it perfect for my gaming style. I would actually like a little more spread in ability depending on specialization. Not 3.5 level, not even halfway, but a little more than 5e. But the the DC's being completely at the discretion of the DM suits me very well.

[djreynolds]

For sure to both of these. 5e character rules aren't there to build any character you can imagine. They're there to build archetypical Dungeons & Dragons adventurers. (Edit: and build ones with a roughly equivalent base level of capability as said adventurers, but with different specific areas they excel at.)

If that's not what you want, it's time to either bust out your house-ruling skills, or use a different system to play.

This is the truth. I like both games. But 5 and 3.5 are different. 3.5 is much more specific, and for some its too specific.

5 is more about the game itself, not your character's ascension to godhood and his later novelization. The dice rolls are much more dangerous, advantage and disadvantage are big. Every class is now considered to be able to hold his own in combat, the wizard's staff isn't for walking around, he trains with it. Saves and skills do not increase every level unless you've selected them or are proficient in them, and then you still need to be increasing your ability in them.

But someone with a 20 in an ability score and expertise can have a +17 in a skill. He can get help from the party and roll advantage, and can get inspiration as well. And if someone is untrained, that skill may stay -1 forever.

If he beat you on a skill check, that's the power of the roll, just call it fate or divine intervention. If you have +10 in a skill, that's pretty good.

[Telok]

Part of my issue here is that I'm playing with people new to DMing. They use published modules, read boxed text, run the skill DCs as printed in the books, and don't use variant rules that add more for them to do. They are already having a tough time just keeping up with managing the monsters and dealing with the scripted plot. Extra rules to work with aren't happening here.

These people don't have the time and experience to fiddle with rules and be confidant in making judgement calls. They're playing things by the book. The book says you roll, so you roll. If the dice say that the Int 6 monster rolled a 18 and your proficent 20 Int 20th level wizard rolled a 3 then yeah, the idiot finishes the dc 15 arcana test while the trained genius fails it. Guess who just got into the secret halls of the archmage and who got left behind?

Seriously, our first combat was six disarmed and unequipped level 2 characters against a level 5 fighter with 18ac and two attacks of 1d6+4, in an antimagic zone we didn't know about untill we lost half our first level spells to it. Because that's what the module said was there. Plus we also needed to reference the stealth "rules", the ones in the Player's Handbook. Both sentences. Then we talked for five minutes to come up woth a spot ruling. That may not hold, or even be remembered, next week.

Yeah, newbie DMs could use a bit more than "guess and wing it" from the skill rules. Some of us are adults who don't usually have hours to pour over the books and comb forums in order to find out what's problematic and what the possible fixes are. I'm lucky this month but starting next week I'll be busy enough that I won't even get to turn my computer half the days.

[Kurald Galain]

The player doesn't need to decide what the DC is. He just needs to know what it is. In Pathfinder he knows. In 5E it depends on how the DM is feeling that day and who the DM is.

Indeed. In threads like this one, several people have proposed the "solution" that the DM simply allows (e.g.) elves or rangers to automatically succeed at climb checks instead of making them roll; but doing so requires that the DM keeps in mind at all times what race and class all the characters are. If he doesn't think of it (because he's, you know, running a complicated encounter or something) then suddenly your character's climbing ability disappears.

[Shaofoo]

The player doesn't need to decide what the DC is. He just needs to know what it is. In Pathfinder he knows. In 5E it depends on how the DM is feeling that day and who the DM is.

In Pathfinder he MIGHT know but if the DM decides to change it (see previous example) then he is at the same mercy as in 5e. It seems that things aren't different unless the book explicitly forbids DMs to tamper with DCs. And I'm pretty sure you'll throw a tirade about the DM changing anything and that then it is all moot but then that proves my point that in Pathfinder DMs can change the game and that your position of "relearning" the game is equivalent in both systems.

And the most I will say to a player about a potential DC is if it is easy or hard or somewhere in between (and that doesn't mean that they can extrapolate it into 10 or 20, basically it is the probability of success that tells me if something looks easy or hard, a rogue about to pick a look will make me say that it looks easy while a Fighter about to pick a lock will see that it is very hard. Because I don't think that a Rogue and a Fighter should look at a task and have the same expectations when their skill sets wildly differ.).


The bolded part, right there, that's the problem. Each DM has to recreate their own game. A player has to learn the game again for each new creation playing with a different DM. This is beyond house rules. It's the fundamental playing of the game.

See I think you are coming from a point of melodrama, as if a couple of DCs changed and suddenly you'll have to relearn everything. I mean for me every time I game with a new DM I throw away expectations and start a new, maybe for you this is very hard but I think it is crucial to treat every single DM as their own entity instead of upholding them all to one standard (unless said standard is firmly established like D&D Adventures).

It seems that you play to win, you want to learn the ins and outs of the game system and suddenly when the numbers shift you must relearn the numbers again to regain the level of mastery over the game that you had.

Unless you mean that learning the game again as in coming from Pathfinder into 5e... which I really don't know what to say except of course a new system will require you to learn things again, wasn't this the case for all other systems? I don't remember the 5e developers claiming that you can come from Pathfinder and hit the ground running.

Either way it just seems like there is no problem except within you. Maybe the best is that you keep with Pathfinder because it seems that any minute change will not sit well with you, at least Pathfinder does make the effort to keep things level.




Yet other people in this very thread said they think a barbarian should be able to roll, that it's a feature any PC can try anything. There it is, right there again, what's easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM.

I was talking from a roleplaying perspective and I said that sometimes the players are the one that must show restraint. That the players shouldn't reach out for that d20 everytime a situation happens if maybe their character shouldn't know regardless if the DM would've allowed it or not. Of course feel free to try anything and throw all the d20s that you can but it just seems to me that the system would be better if maybe not everyone gets a chance to chuck a d20 and maybe the players should be the ones to know if their character would actually be able to do the thing or not, I would expect the player of all people to know their character.

But I am sure it doesn't sit well with your "winning D&D" attitude so I doubt I'll convince you about the players not rolling every single chance they have.

[mgshamster]

Seriously, our first combat was six disarmed and unequipped level 2 characters against a level 5 fighter with 18ac and two attacks of 1d6+4, in an antimagic zone we didn't know about untill we lost half our first level spells to it. Because that's what the module said was there. Plus we also needed to reference the stealth "rules", the ones in the Player's Handbook. Both sentences. Then we talked for five minutes to come up woth a spot ruling. That may not hold, or even be remembered, next week.

You had a brand new player running Out of the Abyss?!? Dear god, man! That's a very complex campaign! Let them get used to the game by being a player, and then GM a couple of modules before running multi-chapter campaigns. If you're going to continue doing that (and 15+ chapter campigns are a bit of a steep learning curve), I suggest having your player start reading the plethora of advice threads for that campaign; you can PM me for the links if you're interested. I've compiled a lot of them.

Now let's get on to the players - presuming that at least some of you are experienced players and adults capable of making rational decisions, then why did you decide to fight as an unarmed prisoners against an armed Elite Drow prison guard? Why didn't you talk, or hide, or beg for mercy, or use one of the 11 NPCs that are there to assist you in your escape and any potential fights (including your own drow, a quoggoth, an Orc, an a shield dwarf, among others)? There's more to the game than "attack everything." Think outside the box; this is an old school style campaign, and attacking everything will get you killed.

Heck, that entire first chapter is there for you to understand that this campaign will not be providing level appropriate encounters as you travel. Be careful, or be prepared to roll up new characters frequently.

(Sneak rules are easy - you roll a sneak check; if they're paying attention, then it's against their percetion roll. If they're not paying attention, it's against their passive perception; See the 6 paragraph Side Bar on Hiding, PHB 177).

And tell your GM to read ahead and understand each chapter before running it. (If your GM is having the drow try to kill you, then your GM didn't read the entire chapter).

[Shaofoo]

Part of my issue here is that I'm playing with people new to DMing. They use published modules, read boxed text, run the skill DCs as printed in the books, and don't use variant rules that add more for them to do. They are already having a tough time just keeping up with managing the monsters and dealing with the scripted plot. Extra rules to work with aren't happening here.

These people don't have the time and experience to fiddle with rules and be confidant in making judgement calls. They're playing things by the book. The book says you roll, so you roll. If the dice say that the Int 6 monster rolled a 18 and your proficent 20 Int 20th level wizard rolled a 3 then yeah, the idiot finishes the dc 15 arcana test while the trained genius fails it. Guess who just got into the secret halls of the archmage and who got left behind?

Seriously, our first combat was six disarmed and unequipped level 2 characters against a level 5 fighter with 18ac and two attacks of 1d6+4, in an antimagic zone we didn't know about untill we lost half our first level spells to it. Because that's what the module said was there. Plus we also needed to reference the stealth "rules", the ones in the Player's Handbook. Both sentences. Then we talked for five minutes to come up woth a spot ruling. That may not hold, or even be remembered, next week.

Yeah, newbie DMs could use a bit more than "guess and wing it" from the skill rules. Some of us are adults who don't usually have hours to pour over the books and comb forums in order to find out what's problematic and what the possible fixes are. I'm lucky this month but starting next week I'll be busy enough that I won't even get to turn my computer half the days.

If things are too tight of time for your group then maybe think of some other activity for your group to enjoy. D&D does need some form of planning to make a good game, if you can't do such an investment then consider other games, like the D&D Temple of Elemental Evil board game which has everything ruled out. Or even try 4th edition where things are much more structured and streamlined for both players and DMs, as much as 4th edition gets a lot of flack it is a version where it is probably the easiest to get into.

I mean you also seem to be worried about potential problems which is a bad way to run things. You should fix problems as they come along rather than trying to prevent problems based on whatever other players say. 99% of "problems" I am sure aren't universal problems for everyone, for every player saying that Beastmaster Ranger is broken and unusable someone else says that they are playing Beastmaster Ranger as written in the rules and they are having fun. Basically don't take what other people say at heart, otherwise everything is wrong and nothing is right and you won't get anywhere.

Also I question the encounter of being weaponless, itemless and without magic to help you (never mind that I would think that in an antimagic field you should be aware when your spells fail to materialize, at the very least something is up). The module might have said it but I would think that basically nullyfying nearly every single part of your character be somewhat tough. It'd be one thing if the encounter had the players going at full strength but it is another if you suddenly can't attack effectivley or cast spells. I wouldn't consider blindly following a module without at least looking for what potential effects it can happen.

I don't think any amount of preparation could've helped the DM from unleashing the one sided fight. At the very least the DM should read the module over before unleashing it, I don't think throwing my character's itemless and magicless would be much fun. Again I don't know the context and apparently there was alternate ways to deal with the problem.

Playing D&D is an investment, you get out what you put in. If you feel that time is too tight then consider other games or systems that can accommodate your life, 5e isn't for everyone.

[mgshamster]

Also I question the encounter of being weaponless, itemless and without magic to help you (never mind that I would think that in an antimagic field you should be aware when your spells fail to materialize, at the very least something is up). The module might have said it but I would think that basically nullyfying nearly every single part of your character be somewhat tough. It'd be one thing if the encounter had the players going at full strength but it is another if you suddenly can't attack effectivley or cast spells. I wouldn't consider blindly following a module without at least looking for what potential effects it can happen.

No, it's accurate. OotA campaign starts with you being captured by the Drow, all your stuff is taken away, and you're thrown in to a cell with an anti-magic field in the cell (only). Why they were fighting an elite drow in the cell, I don't know - that is not part of the chapter.

What is part of the chapter is that you...

have 11 NPCs to interact with (fellow prisoners) and plan your escape. You have several instances where you leave the cell to do hard labor (like mopping floors, cleaning the kitchen, stacking rocks, etc), where you're outside of the anti-magic field (it's in the cell only) and potentiall have the option to swipe some stuff (like a knife from the kitchen), and there are several options for the GM to give to the players to assist with the escape. There is also an option to get all their equipment back.

So while the scene is accurate - the scenario is not straight from the book; at no point in the chapter do the drow come in and start fights with the prisoners. So already we have a GM who is not following the book verbatim, as presented in that post. If the GM is running it verbatim, then we have players who opted to start a fight with an armed drow while they were severely disadvantaged. Which is no fault of the campaign or the 5e rules. Doesn't matter what edition of D&D you play - if you start a fight with a superior foe while you're unarmed, unarmored, unequiped, and in an anti-magic zone - you're a fool. At best, they should have been trying to subdue him and take his weapons, but even then the best option is to bide your time until you have the advantage.

And if that's how they play, well...

When they face an effective Demi-God at level 4/5, then their choice to fight will lead to an immediate TPK

[Vogonjeltz]

And that's the problem. I don't know ahead of time when the outcome is in doubt, and I don't know ahead of time what's considered Easy or Medium or Hard. As I keep saying, I don't need every possible use of every possible skill to be hard-coded with flat DCs, but I have nothing to go on to tell ahead of time what's "moderate" and what's not.

I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. You have to use your best judgment. Being a DM is about being an arbiter of decisions.

Here's a vignette:

You've described a scene and one of the players says they want their character to attempt X.

Questions:
1) Do you think the character would just automatically succeed?
If yes, no roll.
If no, maybe a roll.
2) Do you think the character would automatically fail?
If yes, no roll.
If no, (and #1 was also a no) a roll would be necessary.

Then we set the DC:
How difficult a task is this? Remember, this is difficulty in the grand scheme of things, so you yourself as DM would establish what you think is literally impossible vs possible.

Imagine the task is picking a lock, maybe a simple lock with a large keyhole and the most basic of all tumblers is a Very Easy task, whereas one with a small keyhole and many tumblers of unusual shapes would rate at Very Hard, where only a trained character who is an expert or extremely talented could pick it.


All I want are some RAW examples. The GM is, and should be, the final arbiter, but I don't like that I can't establish a baseline without knowing what a specific GM will deem to be easy or medium or hard.

Your guide is on page 174, it specifies what a Very easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, Very hard, and Nearly Impossible difficulty is; given that a DM is free to determine what that constitutes, no example would be helpful. If you don't think a DM is being evenhanded, or is setting unreasonably high expectations, tell them so.


And you know full well that you weren't answering my question about what the actual benefit of proficiency is. Of course I know that it means that you add a proficiency bonus (between +2 and +6) to a relevant ability check. What I was saying when I said I don't know what the actual benefit of that proficiency would be is that I have no idea when I'm going to need to roll a check, I have no idea what that check will accomplish (compared to an action that requires no check), I have no idea how difficult that check is likely to be, and therefore I have no idea what kind of actual in-game actions will benefit from proficiency.

A) You know now that you only roll when the outcome of an action is in doubt.
B) The outcome is that you do the action you as a player said you wanted to do. This has never been in doubt, it's odd that you raise this now.
C) No, you don't know how difficult the check will be, that's the DM's purview.
D) All actions that the proficiency adds to would benefit. This should be self-evident. If you want a more specific answer, ask a more specific question (e.g. Question: To what does proficiency in nature add? Answer: Attempts to recall lore about nature topics.)


Let's say you're starting your very first game of D&D ever (3.5 or 4e or 5e; I'm not familiar with older editions, but you'll see why that matters in a second). You're making a Cleric because you want to heal people, but you don't want that to be all that you can do. Still, you find out that there's a skill called Heal (or, in 5e, Medicine). You think, okay, great, I want to heal people really well, so I should probably invest in that skill, right? So you do. But then you get to the table and you find out that the Heal skill has nothing to do with a Cleric healing people in nine cases out of ten. Mostly you just cast magic and that fixes people. If you're completely out of spell slots, you can use Heal to stabilize someone, but you're more likely to just cure them magically. Same for disease and poison—Heal has some uses there, but a Cleric has better options for that sort of thing, so you just cast Remove Disease instead of rolling Heal checks. You thought you had some idea what Heal would do for you, but in-game, it never came up; there was always another mechanic that was more relevant, and while you succeeded at healing people, that had very little to do with your investment in the Heal skill.

So in this scenario: Before reading any rules I make a bunch of unwarranted assumptions and then realize at the end I made a huge mistake in making a bunch of assumptions without checking on them?


Now, this isn't a perfect analogy, because if you really read the Heal skill in 3.5 or 4e, you could see that Clerical magic doesn't need the Heal skill, and you'd also see that the Heal skill isn't really about refilling missing HP. Nothing in the Heal skill explicitly says "magic does this better," but the information is still there to let you figure out that the skill doesn't do much on a Cleric who has healing magic. If you were lucky, you'd have had a more experienced friend tell you that Heal isn't good for Clerics and that you don't need it to patch people up. But I think you still see the point of what I'm getting at—you might know that you had a +7 modifier to your Heal checks, but if you didn't know ahead of time that Heal checks weren't a part of being the party HP refiller, you wouldn't know when that Heal modifier would come up or what good it would do you. The actual benefit wouldn't have been apparent to you. You know what the numbers are, but you don't know when those numbers will come up or what they'll allow your character to do that can't be done in some other way.

I'm not sure I do see your point. Don't judge a book by it's cover? Reading too much into names can lead to a misunderstanding?

[mgshamster]

So in this scenario [assuming the medicine skill is all there is to healing]: Before reading any rules I make a bunch of unwarranted assumptions and then realize at the end I made a huge mistake in making a bunch of assumptions without checking on them?

If I were new and making a healer, I'd check out the Table of Contents, see that there's a specific section for "Damage and Healing" and read that. Then I'd learn that the most common way to heal in the game is through magic and rest, and that the healers kit and the medicine skill are used for preventing people from dying when they're at 0 HP.

At least, using the Table of Contents and the Index are what I usually do when I'm looking for specific rules in a game I'm unfamiliar with. I try not to just assume that a game rule will work the way I think it does without checking to see if there are any rules on it to begin with. And I most certainly don't blame the game when the game's rules don't match my assumptions.

[Tanarii]

Part of my issue here is that I'm playing with people new to DMing. They use published modules, read boxed text, run the skill DCs as printed in the books, and don't use variant rules that add more for them to do. They are already having a tough time just keeping up with managing the monsters and dealing with the scripted plot. Extra rules to work with aren't happening here.OotA is *not* a good place for a new DM to try and start running games. IMO no 5e WotC adventure arcs are.

However, I think your point has validity. 5e is great for a DM who is comfortable adjudicating actions on the fly. It's fast, it doesn't require looking up many rules, and it's simple(ish). But if you're NOT comfortable adjudicating on the fly, it is a pain, because you can't just hunt down the rule and be done with it.

For consistency it's still a good idea to make notes of your DM calls for future use.


The player doesn't need to decide what the DC is. He just needs to know what it is. In Pathfinder he knows. In 5E it depends on how the DM is feeling that day and who the DM is.

The bolded part, right there, that's the problem. Each DM has to recreate their own game. A player has to learn the game again for each new creation playing with a different DM. This is beyond house rules. It's the fundamental playing of the game.As long as the DM tells the player what the difficulty is for the action, he knows what the DC is, or at least it's approximate range.

But yes, some players prefer more precise advanced knowledge of their capabilities for decision making. That's a fair point. Otherwise you end up with a 'fog of war' in regards to your own character abilities. OTOH, sometimes that's a good thing for verisimilitude. The expectation that a character (not player) should know exactly what he's capable of before trying it doesn't always make sense. Certainly for things he's practiced or trained or done before a reasonable accurate guess is in order, if not precise knowledge. But you have that ... you know what your odds are of succeeding in Easy, Hard, etc checks. You just don't know what constitutes those checks until the task is right in front of you, if you've never done it before.


Yet other people in this very thread said they think a barbarian should be able to roll, that it's a feature any PC can try anything. There it is, right there again, what's easy for one DM is hard for another DM and impossible for a third DM.



Also I feel that the players should also have more disciplined and not jump at every single opportunity to chuck a d20 at it. If the barbarian is about to throw a d20 for Arcana ask him why would he do such a thing if you believe that he has no way he could know. Of course as a player he should catch himself and not roll the d20 in the first place if he knows that his character wouldn't know such information at a glance.I'm one of those people that thinks the game is designed so that all PCs, regardless of class and background, are assumed to be capable of the basics of adventuring. As defined by the 13 skills. But I think the idea of not making checks that wouldn't make sense for your character to be able to do or know works fine. Again, that allows DM and player flexibility. At the cost of fog of war in regards to your abilities before the game starts.

That's not to say I think a check is always called for. Just that I think if a check *is* called for, I think the default assumption of the game is any PC is assumed to be capable of making an attempt. Totally my personal opinion on the design intent though.

Also I think that DMs and Players need to approach the skill system in 5e with a whole lot of good faith. ;)

[Shaofoo]

I'm one of those people that thinks the game is designed so that all PCs, regardless of class and background, are assumed to be capable of the basics of adventuring. As defined by the 13 skills. But I think the idea of not making checks that wouldn't make sense for your character to be able to do or know works fine. Again, that allows DM and player flexibility. At the cost of fog of war in regards to your abilities before the game starts.

That's not to say I think a check is always called for. Just that I think if a check *is* called for, I think the default assumption of the game is any PC is assumed to be capable of making an attempt. Totally my personal opinion on the design intent though.

Well my opinion has been modified with my idea of variable successes. The Barbarian and Wizard can both make Arcana check but the success will not be the same if they hit the DC, the Wizard will get more info from his success than the Barbarian. A Rogue picking a lock will probably take a minute and do so flawlessly, a Fighter that lucks out will take 3 minutes and open the door but jam the lock in the process. Of course this think will lead to much more work for the DM.


Also I think that DMs and Players need to approach the skill system in 5e with a whole lot of good faith. ;)

It seems that in here the default is player vs DM. It is kinda hard to talk about things when people complain that the DM is out to get me what can I do to either stop him or mitigate the damage. Which I find it weird that people with that kind of mindset are in 5e where they give so much power to DMs.

[Telok]

No, it's accurate. OotA campaign starts with you being captured by the Drow, all your stuff is taken away, and you're thrown in to a cell with an anti-magic field in the cell (only). Why they were fighting an elite drow in the cell, I don't know - that is not part of the chapter.

What is part of the chapter is that you...

So while the scene is accurate - the scenario is not straight from the book; at no point in the chapter do the drow come in and start fights with the prisoners. So already we have a GM who is not following the book verbatim, as presented in that post. If the GM is running it verbatim, then we have players who opted to start a fight with an armed drow while they were severely disadvantaged. Which is no fault of the campaign or the 5e rules.

And if that's how they play, well...

Honestly this is how people new to DMing and this edition are playing here. They say "Hey! A new and easier to play edition! Hey! This adventure starts at level 2! I'll read the rules and the first two chapters and we can start!" These guys are expecting that WotC knows what they're doing in putting the game out. The module apparently didn't say "expert level module" or anything so if you're starting at level 2 then it most be ok for a beginning adventure. Add in the players being told that they are in a drow jail and must escape before they are split up and sold soon and you have time pressure to start acting now instead of waiting to see what the drow do to you. Other prisoners? Passive information sources that will answer questions, because an 18 person combat with 12 npcs isn't what a new DM is up to. Elite drow? How do the characters know? It isn't printed on his forehead, you don't know if it's a 1st level guard or an 8th level fighter untill you start trading blows. Antimagic field? If the module doesn't say there are glowing runes and an Arcana check then you don't know untill spells start failing.

If something doesn't say that it's for experienced players and starts at low level people will think it's ok for beginners. If players are told to escape or else and not told that there will be noncombat options if they wait then they lure the guard in and attack. New DMs don't always know to feed the players lots of information and clues, they give the players the two lines of bare bones description from the book.

New DMs and new players (often with jobs, kids, etc.) expect game systems you can play by reading the books once. They expect that adventurers with low level characters are the place to start. Frankly, they need a little more hand holding than I'm seeing from 5e.

It absolutely applies to skills too. There were assumptions that invisibility and darkness spell made people hidden and unfindable, that arcana is used to figure out what spells are being cast, persuasion can get people to go along with your plan. But without examples or printed DCs combat stops and you have to hash out what you think is supposed to happen. Then you get the d20 so heavily outweighing stat+proficency that the new DM gets confused about what characters are good at what skills and what the difference between medium and hard DCs is. Does having someone with a +5 investigation mean that the party can be expected notice the signs that the rope bridge is trapped? Why is the 8 int street rat thief beating the pants off a trained priest on trivia questions about the priest's own religion?

Without clear instruction or advice in the books it's going to hard for new DMs to make decisions. Relying on fan based community forums for "How do I play the game?" information shouldn't have to happen.

We're doing round robin DMing this time, I'm not up untill the fourth or fifth adventure. The guys getting to DM for the first time need solid guidelines and examples in the books with the rules.

[Tanarii]

New DMs and new players (often with jobs, kids, etc.) expect game systems you can play by reading the books once. They expect that adventurers with low level characters are the place to start. Frankly, they need a little more hand holding than I'm seeing from 5e.I've played D&D for 30 years, and the only version of the game that even came close to allowing an inexperienced DM to run an adventure for new players straight out of a module was BECMI D&D. No other edition has had that capability, and even with BECMI it was pretty hard not to kill off your players instantly.

New modules require extensive reading before being run, especially if they're a full adventure arc spanning multiple levels. New players require lots of hand-holding. Hell, new DMs require hand-holding from experienced players. :)

I was going to do a pickup group at a store with OotA, and told myself I was an experienced DM, two hours the night before was plenty of time. I ended up rescheduling for the following week to give myself time to read it properly.

[Shaofoo]

Honestly this is how people new to DMing and this edition are playing here. They say "Hey! A new and easier to play edition! Hey! This adventure starts at level 2! I'll read the rules and the first two chapters and we can start!" These guys are expecting that WotC knows what they're doing in putting the game out. The module apparently didn't say "expert level module" or anything so if you're starting at level 2 then it most be ok for a beginning adventure.

I don't know the module personally but if you start at level 2 I wouldn't consider the module to be beginner level, at the very least not First DM and Player material if you are skipping even one level. I would assume the system expects players and DMs to start at level 1 if they really want to start things. I would assume that experienced players in other systems might want to start higher due to the familiarity but that doesn't seem to be the case for you.


Add in the players being told that they are in a drow jail and must escape before they are split up and sold soon and you have time pressure to start acting now instead of waiting to see what the drow do to you. Other prisoners? Passive information sources that will answer questions, because an 18 person combat with 12 npcs isn't what a new DM is up to.

I think you are looking at it from a wrong perspective. Sure maybe not all the NPC prisoners are fighters or even willing to fight but I am sure they can do more than answer questions, maybe get certain things for you or perform certain tasks like distractions or sabotage. I don't know what does the module say so I can't tell the extent the NPCs can or are willing to help. Also apparently while there was time pressure you still had time to prepare, which is how it should be.


Elite drow? How do the characters know? It isn't printed on his forehead, you don't know if it's a 1st level guard or an 8th level fighter untill you start trading blows.

This is on you personally, the guards are armed and armored and you are not. It doesn't matter if the drow are elite or not (and apparently such drow doesn't exist in the module) but you were obviously gonna fight at a disadvantage. If you guys initiated a fight thinking that you are supposed to win regardless the odds then I think maybe you should quash such think for next time.


Antimagic field? If the module doesn't say there are glowing runes and an Arcana check then you don't know untill spells start failing.

I would think as soon as one spell fails to materialize then you know that you are in an antimagic field. And you didn't consider talking to the NPC information only prisoners about how does the prison work? I would assume that all prisons have ways to deal with magic users somehow, especially drow which are innately magic, which might be a clue that maybe the drow don't like having their own abilities being supressed.



If players are told to escape or else and not told that there will be noncombat options if they wait then they lure the guard in and attack. New DMs don't always know to feed the players lots of information and clues, they give the players the two lines of bare bones description from the book.

I think this is on you again. You are unarmored and unarmed and the opposition is, you chose to fight at such at a disadvantage without knowing the area or capabilities of your opponent. The initiative to do noncombat things should start with you especially if there are some people around you to give you info. Sure the time pressure but unless you knew for certain that the next day you were going to be separated then you should've given yourself time to prepare and get things, especially if you could go around the compound.


Then you get the d20 so heavily outweighing stat+proficency that the new DM gets confused about what characters are good at what skills and what the difference between medium and hard DCs is.

I don't get this, the DM should never be confused what a character is good at because of the proficiency of skills and the stats that govern said skills. That part is laid out bare for you. Also the book does explain that a medium DC is 15 and a hard DC is 20 and does go over and explain how you should adjucate the DCs, basically think of them from the common people instead of the master.


Does having someone with a +5 investigation mean that the party can be expected notice the signs that the rope bridge is trapped?

If the party does make an effort to carefully investigate the place then probably. You could also run forward and hope that you catch yourself on time but that is a much harder DC. Basically your example is no different than opening a chest and triggering a trap because of it.


Why is the 8 int street rat thief beating the pants off a trained priest on trivia questions about the priest's own religion?

It shouldn't happen on a consistent basis, maybe the street rat got lucky but in average the priest with +7 to Religion should beat the Street Rat, in fact the Street Rat is at a disadvantage because he can never answer a Hard question (DC 20) while the priest can go up to Very Hard Questions (DC 25). Also like I said before, ask if the Street Rat should even know said trivia and allow a roll in the first place.


Without clear instruction or advice in the books it's going to hard for new DMs to make decisions. Relying on fan based community forums for "How do I play the game?" information shouldn't have to happen.

Relying on fans is a horrible way to learn the game and the game doesn't expect you to do so. You could ask around for help but you shouldn't depend on it.


We're doing round robin DMing this time, I'm not up untill the fourth or fifth adventure. The guys getting to DM for the first time need solid guidelines and examples in the books with the rules.

Well you could use guidelines found in 3.x and Pathfinder as a reference if you really want to. It shouldn't be a 1:1 conversion at all and you should still spend some time thinking things over before adding them to the game.

While I do agree that maybe some examples could suffice your group also has to put in effort and time to learn things and not just jump into things. If time is so precious and limited then D&D is not a game for your group. I play D&D because I want to tell a story or be part of a story.

But if you guys want to play D&D then why not start with something that the game does advertise as a starter set?

https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/rpg_starterset

Sure it is bare-bones and lacks personalization but at the very least it should be much more streamlined. The adventure included does seem like it is hard but not impossible with just a cursory search in Google.

[Tehnar]

In Pathfinder he MIGHT know but if the DM decides to change it (see previous example) then he is at the same mercy as in 5e. It seems that things aren't different unless the book explicitly forbids DMs to tamper with DCs. And I'm pretty sure you'll throw a tirade about the DM changing anything and that then it is all moot but then that proves my point that in Pathfinder DMs can change the game and that your position of "relearning" the game is equivalent in both systems.

Having set DCs doesn't make them immune to DM intervention. Its easy for a DM to say, I think Spellcraft DCs are too low, Ill increase them all by 5.
If the DC is different then what players expect then the players can figure out something is different/special. Lets say the DM wants to introduce a custom spell that he doesn't think anyone can identify. I rolled a 30 on my spellcraft, what is the enmey mage casting? You don't recognize the spell, the gestures are all wrong. It does appear to be a transmutation of some sort. The takeaway is the player knows something is up (different from the norm) and if they defeat the enemy mage they can pilfer his spellbook and find the spell in question.

The point is that in 5e there is no baseline to change. Every DC depends on the DM and the situation. And by situation I mean the DC can be different for the same thing between session for the same DM, as people simply forget rulings they made two weeks ago.

Its quite frustrating really. I personally play with the same group for over 10 years now. Currently there are two 5e campaigns going on, each ran by a different DM from the group. There is little consensus between their rulings, even going so far as one DM things some things are impossible while another allows them. I literally have no idea what my character can do until the situation comes up and the group gets into a discussion what to roll and what would be the DC. This takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. And if a similar issue comes up the next session we play (which can be in two to three weeks), we are back to discussing things.

This is a group that has been playing for 10 years together, 40 sessions per year on average. We didn't have problems of this magnitude with any other system, and we went through a lot.



It seems that you play to win, you want to learn the ins and outs of the game system and suddenly when the numbers shift you must relearn the numbers again to regain the level of mastery over the game that you had.

But I am sure it doesn't sit well with your "winning D&D" attitude so I doubt I'll convince you about the players not rolling every single chance they have.

I just want to know what my character can do without asking the DM every time what is the DC, so the game can move faster.


5e design goals for skills:
1) Proficiency bonus and natural talent from Ability Score are on par for any given level.
2) All PCs are within striking distance of success chance for any given chance regardless of class or level
2) d20 roll is always meaningful in comparison to bonus
3) DC difficulty doesn't scale with level
4) DC for tasks are flexible

IMO 5e succeeded very well in it's design goals for skills, and added in a nice way to break the system for players that get all up in arms about not being able to be 'good' at something with the Expertise Class Feature.

Those are terrible goals if you want:

1) have a mechanical difference between proficient and non proficient characters
2) allow characters to be good or bad at something

So anything resembling a heroic fantasy game. 5e's style of skills is suited for a slapstick game or a horror game, but not heroic fantasy.

[Shaofoo]

Having set DCs doesn't make them immune to DM intervention. Its easy for a DM to say, I think Spellcraft DCs are too low, Ill increase them all by 5.
If the DC is different then what players expect then the players can figure out something is different/special. Lets say the DM wants to introduce a custom spell that he doesn't think anyone can identify. I rolled a 30 on my spellcraft, what is the enmey mage casting? You don't recognize the spell, the gestures are all wrong. It does appear to be a transmutation of some sort. The takeaway is the player knows something is up (different from the norm) and if they defeat the enemy mage they can pilfer his spellbook and find the spell in question.

See here is the thing, does the DM think that the reason anyone can't identify is because he set his DC high (which he should know that isn't the case because he has access to your stats and should know that the Wizard has enough of a bonus to beat his established DC with a high enough roll) or because he meant it to be unbeatable? cause I think at times players force skill checks where none are supposed to be and suddenly because they lucked out and rolled high they expect something to happen because they "succeeded" in their minds even though they never let the DM give them a chance to explain the situation and there will be bad feelings because if the Dm goes as he wanted to then the player will feel cheated out of his win. And I say this out of experience because I had players force checks and then complain when I didn't allow them to proceed even though they rolled an 18 because I never authorized such a roll.

So did the DM allow a spellcraft check or did you throw the dice as you declared a spellcraft check?


The point is that in 5e there is no baseline to change. Every DC depends on the DM and the situation. And by situation I mean the DC can be different for the same thing between session for the same DM, as people simply forget rulings they made two weeks ago.

There is a baseline but it isn't explicitly stated for an individual skill. The game explains how you should adjucate DCs in a general manner. The DM will have to go over some things and think things a bit more thoroughly. It is more work for DM though.


Its quite frustrating really. I personally play with the same group for over 10 years now. Currently there are two 5e campaigns going on, each ran by a different DM from the group. There is little consensus between their rulings, even going so far as one DM things some things are impossible while another allows them. I literally have no idea what my character can do until the situation comes up and the group gets into a discussion what to roll and what would be the DC. This takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. And if a similar issue comes up the next session we play (which can be in two to three weeks), we are back to discussing things.

This is a group that has been playing for 10 years together, 40 sessions per year on average. We didn't have problems of this magnitude with any other system, and we went through a lot.

Like I said before, maybe for you having a consistent system is one of the most important things but 5e does not promise a consistent system. You seem to be complaining about something that was at no point promised. Do you play the same character between both campaigns? I would think that two campaigns should bring about two different expectations even if it is among known people.

Let me tell you a story about transfering expectations from one game to another. I remember when I got left 4 Dead there was a point that you had to cross a fallen bridge to get to the other side. I remember going over to the edge of the fallen bridge and in my mind saying "Okay I'll jump off here, take a bit of damage and go on" and as soon as I make the not so high in my mind leap and as soon as I hit the floor I instantly die because I took the Team Fortress 2 nearly cartoony expectations of fall damage and transferred them into the more realistic Left 4 Dead campaign. Even though they are both games made by Valve and using the same Steam engine the game itself has different expectations of what you can and can't do because I was thinking of being the Medic instead of Bill.

Maybe because of this I can easily divorce any notion that maybe in one game I could burst through an iron door with a decent check with my strongest character while in another game I will be unable to perform such feats even with the highest rolls because I don't expect the inner system to be the same even though the game engine is.

As for the inconsistent rulings, the easiest way is to record the roll results and the situation and jot them down with permission from the DM and the players so if another similar deal comes up you can easily go back and see how did you rule it. Part of things is to be a bit proactive before any potential problems arise, if you see a potential problem try to solve it.

Of course maybe 5e is just not the system for you, I never expected 5e to be an universal system and not even an upgrade for players who play D&D. If you think that 3.x or Pathfinder did it better then you can go back there and leave 5e.

But one thing that I don't understand is how can you be okay with DMs modifying DCs in Pathfinder yet complain when things aren't to your expectations. Like I said before in this topic I might agree with help for the DMs but the player is some what in the dark as to what he can do until the DM says so because the DM is supposed to be the one setting the world, you still can tell your base proficiency and that you are probably better suited at the job than a normal non skilled person.

If you are a player then I see things as they should be, if you want expectations then either start tracking the success and failures or go to another system that has baseline checks that can't be modified by a GM.


I just want to know what my character can do without asking the DM every time what is the DC, so the game can move faster.


I personally don't ask and don't tell DCs, I might say if an action is easy or hard depending on their expertise level (Someone with +5 might see a DC 15 as simple enough while someone with -1 will see it as very hard). It is the same reason I don't say "This hobgoblin has 37 out of 48 HP and has an AC of 16" and instead say "This armored hobgoblin seems to look at you with a wary look" and then I expect players to roll free action skill checks if they want more information or just go and beat on the hobgoblin. I never say stats out loud unless something forces me to say stats (like the Fighter observation skill).

[Tehnar]

See here is the thing, does the DM think that the reason anyone can't identify is because he set his DC high (which he should know that isn't the case because he has access to your stats and should know that the Wizard has enough of a bonus to beat his established DC with a high enough roll) or because he meant it to be unbeatable? cause I think at times players force skill checks where none are supposed to be and suddenly because they lucked out and rolled high they expect something to happen because they "succeeded" in their minds even though they never let the DM give them a chance to explain the situation and there will be bad feelings because if the Dm goes as he wanted to then the player will feel cheated out of his win. And I say this out of experience because I had players force checks and then complain when I didn't allow them to proceed even though they rolled an 18 because I never authorized such a roll.

So did the DM allow a spellcraft check or did you throw the dice as you declared a spellcraft check?

I actually DMed in that example, and I ruled that if a player rolled high enough for to identify that spell normally, he would get limited data instead of the whole package. More information would come if he rolled even higher, similar to one question for every 5 you beat the DC thing that works for identifying monsters.



There is a baseline but it isn't explicitly stated for an individual skill. The game explains how you should adjucate DCs in a general manner. The DM will have to go over some things and think things a bit more thoroughly. It is more work for DM though.

Like I said before, maybe for you having a consistent system is one of the most important things but 5e does not promise a consistent system. You seem to be complaining about something that was at no point promised. Do you play the same character between both campaigns? I would think that two campaigns should bring about two different expectations even if it is among known people.

Maybe because of this I can easily divorce any notion that maybe in one game I could burst through an iron door with a decent check with my strongest character while in another game I will be unable to perform such feats even with the highest rolls because I don't expect the inner system to be the same even though the game engine is.

As for the inconsistent rulings, the easiest way is to record the roll results and the situation and jot them down with permission from the DM and the players so if another similar deal comes up you can easily go back and see how did you rule it. Part of things is to be a bit proactive before any potential problems arise, if you see a potential problem try to solve it.


I'm surprised at how much work you are hoisting on the DM's shoulder just to make the system work.


Other systems don't require the DM and players having a sit down every once in a while while the DM explains how his world works. And it appears to me those talks need to be extensive. Ain't nobody got time for that.
As a DM I don't need or want to anticipate actions my players will do so I can think of fair DCs. In other systems I describe a scene, and the players knowing their character abilities react to the scene. For example if I describe to players a throne room they are infiltrating during a social event, and one player decides to climb the walls behind a banner and jump from one supporting beam to another and later shimmy down a chandelier while the others create a distraction, I do not want to think of those things before hand, nor start looking at character sheets during play and improvise DCs. I could have used the time to prepare NPC's the players are likely to meet, instead I have all this bunch of work for no reason. Ain't nobody got time for that.
I have to record my rulings, and that is every other ruling. Let the players wait around while I write in my notebook. Hopefully me and my players will remember that next time. Doesn't that strike you as much more complicated then it needs to be? Ain't nobody got time for that.



5e skill system might work with the Worlds Greatest DM (tm) who has 20h to devote to preparing a session, but even then wouldn't you rather the DM invest that time in NPCs or making maps or creating a compelling story instead of wasting time on mechanical nitty gritty the designers should have done.



Let me tell you a story about transfering expectations from one game to another. I remember when I got left 4 Dead there was a point that you had to cross a fallen bridge to get to the other side. I remember going over to the edge of the fallen bridge and in my mind saying "Okay I'll jump off here, take a bit of damage and go on" and as soon as I make the not so high in my mind leap and as soon as I hit the floor I instantly die because I took the Team Fortress 2 nearly cartoony expectations of fall damage and transferred them into the more realistic Left 4 Dead campaign. Even though they are both games made by Valve and using the same Steam engine the game itself has different expectations of what you can and can't do because I was thinking of being the Medic instead of Bill.

I do not see how that applies. Your example is like comparing Shadowrun and Pathfinder and complaining why they are not alike, as both are TTRPG games.



But one thing that I don't understand is how can you be okay with DMs modifying DCs in Pathfinder yet complain when things aren't to your expectations. Like I said before in this topic I might agree with help for the DMs but the player is fully in the dark as to what he can do until the DM says so because the DM is supposed to be the one setting the world. If you are a player then I see things as they should be, if you want expectations then either start tracking the success and failures or go to another system that has baseline checks that can't be modified by a GM.

I personally don't ask and don't tell DCs, I might say if an action is easy or hard depending on their expertise level (Someone with +5 might see a DC 15 as simple enough while someone with -1 will see it as very hard). It is the same reason I don't say "This hobgoblin has 37 out of 48 HP and has an AC of 16" and instead say "This armored hobgoblin seems to look at you with a wary look" and then I expect players to roll free action skill checks if they want more information or just go and beat on the hobgoblin. I never say stats out loud unless something forces me to say stats (like the Fighter observation skill).

As I said modifying DCs is a great tool if you have some sort of baseline. If characters fail at something they used to succeed on means something is up. It adds versimilitude.
To use your example of breaking a Iron door. If a player could break a iron door before and now can't that could mean any of the following:


Its not a iron door, but a door made of some other material made to look like iron.
Its a illusion of a iron door, there is only stone behind.
Its reinforced by a Hold Portal spell.

Those are all much more interesting then that the DM doesn't think you should be able to break iron doors and forgot that he allowed that before.

[Tanarii]

Those are terrible goals if you want:

1) have a mechanical difference between proficient and non proficient characters
2) allow characters to be good or bad at something

So anything resembling a heroic fantasy game. 5e's style of skills is suited for a slapstick game or a horror game, but not heroic fantasy.3e must have been your first edition of d&d. Because before and after 3e, d&d has always been about:
1) Dice randomness is the major factor in determining your success resolution, not total bonuses.
2) good or bad depended on class features.

even 1e thieves, the skill characters went from no chance of success in their abilities (seriously, 10-30% chance of success) to middling (60-80%) at name level. For a total swing of 50% chance between rookie and expert prior to ad&d 1e's post-name level 'epic' territory.

Meanwhile non-weapon proficiencies, once they came around, we're just d20 vs your ability score. Regardless of task. So a fixed chance for every task that purely depended purely on rolling a d20 lower than your ability score.

The only edition with a skill system resembling 'chance of different tasks known precisely, but variable based on circumstances involved' in conjunction with 'wide difference in skill between untrained and trained' & 'beginner tasks impossible to fail for experienced and expert tasks impossible to succeed for newbies' is 3e. And it was frequently disparaged.

I don't recall anyone arrogant enough to try and claim 3e wasn't useful for anyone wanting to play heroic fantasy, just because it didn't match their preconceptions from older editions. But I'm sure they existed.

Otoh, I've already described repeatedly exactly why the 5e system DOES work for heroic fantasy. It assumes ALL PCs are like NBA players. Even at level one they can regularly make free throws, even if they're a 7-1/2ft center renowned as being 'bad' at free throws, they're still good compared to any normal person. Then on top of that, they can improve, to a degree, from there. They don't go from bad to expert. They go from already good at everything adventuring related to top-flight at it. Sounds pretty heroic to me.

[Tehnar]

3e must have been your first edition of d&d. Because before and after 3e, d&d has always been about:
1) Dice randomness is the major factor in determining your success resolution, not total bonuses.
2) good or bad depended on class features.

even 1e thieves, the skill characters went from no chance of success in their abilities (seriously, 10-30% chance of success) to middling (60-80%) at name level. For a total swing of 50% chance between rookie and expert prior to ad&d 1e's post-name level 'epic' territory.

Meanwhile non-weapon proficiencies, once they came around, we're just d20 vs your ability score. Regardless of task. So a fixed chance for every task that purely depended purely on rolling a d20 lower than your ability score.

The only edition with a skill system resembling 'chance of different tasks known precisely, but variable based on circumstances involved' in conjunction with 'wide difference in skill between untrained and trained' & 'beginner tasks impossible to fail for experienced and expert tasks impossible to succeed for newbies' is 3e. And it was frequently disparaged.


Rolling under ability score was a superior system (especially with multiple NWP involved and task difficulties) then what 5e has. Essentially it was d20+ABILITY SCORE+modifiers instead of d20+ABILITY MODIFIER+proficiency. Not to say it was a good system, but it was mechanically better then 5e. A system that was invented what is it 40 years ago?



Otoh, I've already described repeatedly exactly why the 5e system DOES work for heroic fantasy. It assumes ALL PCs are like NBA players. Even at level one they can regularly make free throws, even if they're a 7-1/2ft center renowned as being 'bad' at free throws, they're still good compared to any normal person. Then on top of that, they can improve, to a degree, from there. They don't go from bad to expert. They go from already good at everything adventuring related to top-flight at it. Sounds pretty heroic to me.

That makes no sense at all. Why do NPC's have similar modifiers to their skills? Are they all pro basketball players, then why make the distinction at all?

[mgshamster]

Rolling under ability score was a superior system (especially with multiple NWP involved and task difficulties) then what 5e has. Essentially it was d20+ABILITY SCORE+modifiers instead of d20+ABILITY MODIFIER+proficiency. Not to say it was a good system, but it was mechanically better then 5e. A system that was invented what is it 40 years ago?

For 2e,rolling under ability score was not d20+ability score+modifiers. It was d20 +\- NWP modifier (anywhere from -3 to +3 for your entire career, depending on the proficiency, and it rarely* changed). That's it. Most of the time modifiers were +/-1.

*By spending a second proficiency slot (akin to a feat), you improved the modifier by 1.

From there, the DC was set as your ability score.

Want to use the heal NWP? It takes one proficiency slot, and you have to roll under your wisdom score with a +2 penalty to the d20**. That only ever improved if you spent another proficiency slot on the heal skill or if you improved your wisdom score (rare; requires powerful magic items). You got around 8-11 proficiency slots your entire 1-20 level career, depending on your class.

**Per the rules, you would subtract 2 from your wisdom score and roll an unmodified d20. So a wis 16 character would need to roll a 14 or less.

[Tehnar]

For 2e,rolling under ability score was not d20+ability score+modifiers. It was d20 +\- NWP modifier (anywhere from -3 to +3 for your entire career, depending on the proficiency, and it rarely* changed). That's it. Most of the time modifiers were +/-1.

*By spending a second proficiency slot (akin to a feat), you improved the modifier by 1.

From there, the DC was set as your ability score.

Want to use the heal NWP? It takes one proficiency slot, and you have to roll under your wisdom score with a +2 penalty to the d20**. That only ever improved if you spent another proficiency slot on the heal skill or if you improved your wisdom score (rare; requires powerful magic items). You got around 8-11 proficiency slots your entire 1-20 level career, depending on your class.

**Per the rules, you would subtract 2 from your wisdom score and roll an unmodified d20. So a wis 16 character would need to roll a 14 or less.

It was a roll under system, but what I am saying is that rolling d20+ABILITY SCORE+NWP vs DC 20 +/- task difficulty is functionally equivalent to the d20 roll under. I used the equivalency to demonstrate the difference between 2nd and 5e, that is to show that even 2nd edition had a functionally greater range of possible modifiers.

[mgshamster]

It was a roll under system, but what I am saying is that rolling d20+ABILITY SCORE+NWP vs DC 20 +/- task difficulty is functionally equivalent to the d20 roll under. I used the equivalency to demonstrate the difference between 2nd and 5e, that is to show that even 2nd edition had a functionally greater range of possible modifiers.

I am not understanding you. Do you think you could explain it in a different way? The system you proposed is not what 2e had; it seems as if you're proposing a new system that is superficially similar to 2e, and then declaring that 2e had a better system than 5e.

You may be right, but it doesn't look like you've actually shown it to be the case. Maybe I'm just not understanding, which is why I'm asking for a different approach to your explanation.

Let's see if I can understand you via math. Let's take our Heal NWP (Wis -2) with wis 16.

You claim: d20+16-2 target DC 20. So d20+14 vs 20 is a 75% chance to succeed.

Vs

D20, DC 14 roll low: 70% chance to succeed.

Close, but we'd need modification to make it similar. Also note that this target never changes no matter what level you are, except by maybe 5% (additional 1 point bonus) every 3-4 levels if that's what you spend your NWP slot, or if you can somehow improve your wisdom (unlikely). Compared to 5e that has an improvement on your skills dependent on level and you have multiple ways to improve your ability score via non-magical means. Additionally, 5e has ability score bonuses that directly modify your chance to succeed in a skill; 2e did not.

[Tanarii]

Yeah, 1e wilderness/dungeon NWPs and 2e NWPs had nothing in common with either 3e or later skills. They were effectively a fixed chance of success for all tasks, for any given character. And that chance of success was determined only by ability score. (you could improve them by 5% per extra slot spent, but that was considered a very sub-par option.)

Don't get me wrong. 3e skills were a HUGE and AWESOME innovation! They were based on your ability score, but you could regularly improve a select number of them, and the chance of success actually changed depending on the difficulty of the task! It also attempted to integrate common adventuring tasks (some of which had previously been the domain of specific classes only) with non-weapon proficiency. It was ground breaking. That's why 4e used it, and 5e uses it. Just tweaked.

And those tweaks were to address certain perceived flaws. The biggest one was that some adventurers would more than just suck at things they should be able to do, but be completely incapable. Another way that getting good at something non-adventuring actually detracted from your ability to be good at something adventuring. All in all, those were considered less than heroic ways of doing things, overall. D&D is supposed to be about adventurers! (etc etc)

Personally I love fiddly numbers and being able to have +20 to underwater basket weaving (or smithing) and do things no other adventurer could ever do, and to be able to play Aristocrats and Experts if I damn well want. It's fun. But I understand what 4e and 5e are trying to do, and I think it's a superior base system to have. Those who want additional complexity can layer it on top with house rules, or it can be released as optional supplements (or Unearthed Arcana) later on.

[Shaofoo]

I actually DMed in that example, and I ruled that if a player rolled high enough for to identify that spell normally, he would get limited data instead of the whole package. More information would come if he rolled even higher, similar to one question for every 5 you beat the DC thing that works for identifying monsters.


But did you just set the DC high enough or should it have been unbeatable (DC doesn't matter you fail). Did the player force his check as I said? Did you placate him because you know he would raise a stink when he thought he beat the impossible DC?

Not saying what you did is wrong of course.



I'm surprised at how much work you are hoisting on the DM's shoulder just to make the system work.

The DM has a ton of power and freedom in this version, of course he will need to do some work to make it work. Like I said before maybe 5e isn't the kind of game for you.



Other systems don't require the DM and players having a sit down every once in a while while the DM explains how his world works. And it appears to me those talks need to be extensive. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Point to me where in 5e does it say that you need to sit down to explain anything to the players. I don't see anywhere where when you ask for a skill check you have to explain to the players why did you choose such a number. They just roll a number and move on, if they complain that is with you and them. If you feel the need to compulsivley explain your ruling that is on you.


As a DM I don't need or want to anticipate actions my players will do so I can think of fair DCs. In other systems I describe a scene, and the players knowing their character abilities react to the scene. For example if I describe to players a throne room they are infiltrating during a social event, and one player decides to climb the walls behind a banner and jump from one supporting beam to another and later shimmy down a chandelier while the others create a distraction, I do not want to think of those things before hand, nor start looking at character sheets during play and improvise DCs. I could have used the time to prepare NPC's the players are likely to meet, instead I have all this bunch of work for no reason. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Seems like a bunch of Athletics and Acrobatics checks done at DC 15-20 to describe the situation of climb and jump. Or you can just let him do the stuff that he wants to do without rolling if you think he is good enough. Why do you wish to roll unless you want there for a chance to fail, why can't you climb, jump and slide down be part of the action without requiring one roll? See I solved the problem in 2 minutes, either some checks done at Normal to Hard (Climbing might be Athletics normal, swinging on a chandelier is Acrobatics hard) or just let him do it without any rolls. The game does state the important of not all actions require rolls.

Really it isn't hard at all. You supposedly have some form of improvisational art as you said you did in the first part so why can't you do it here?



I have to record my rulings, and that is every other ruling. Let the players wait around while I write in my notebook. Hopefully me and my players will remember that next time. Doesn't that strike you as much more complicated then it needs to be? Ain't nobody got time for that.



no you don't have to record anything, I was just saying that if inconsistent rulings would be a problem recording them would help keep things straight. If you don't have time for that then I question what do you even have time for? Do you even have time to be here and complain about not having enough time to prepare? I am surprised you decided to play D&D which is probably one of the most time consuming things you can do. I mean even if you went Pathfinder and got your easy DC reference making a character is intensive there (and all bets are off as soon as you try to cross reference other books and people aren't necessarily the most proficient).


5e skill system might work with the Worlds Greatest DM (tm) who has 20h to devote to preparing a session, but even then wouldn't you rather the DM invest that time in NPCs or making maps or creating a compelling story instead of wasting time on mechanical nitty gritty the designers should have done.

It took me all of 2 minutes to come up with a solution to your panache problem and I am not Worlds Greatest DM, I did however did some cursory reading on how the system works and read the page (literally one page) about skill checks for DM and read the skills in the PHB which took me at most an hour. I would think an hour to understand skills is a good investment, right?

The problem I am seeing is that you don't want to dedicate ANY time to the mechanical aspect of the game. I mean if you would rather tell a story then why play D&D, just tell a story. Maybe consider other systems where the system takes care of all the crunchy stuff and you can deal with what you really want to do. I don't know of any but maybe someone else can point you in the right direction. 5e is about making the mechanical part your own and you clearly don't want that.




I do not see how that applies. Your example is like comparing Shadowrun and Pathfinder and complaining why they are not alike, as both are TTRPG games.

I'd be surprised if you did understand it, simile never seem to work in the internet, just thought that it would be different this time, c'est la vie.




As I said modifying DCs is a great tool if you have some sort of baseline. If characters fail at something they used to succeed on means something is up. It adds versimilitude.
To use your example of breaking a Iron door. If a player could break a iron door before and now can't that could mean any of the following:


Its not a iron door, but a door made of some other material made to look like iron.
Its a illusion of a iron door, there is only stone behind.
Its reinforced by a Hold Portal spell.

Those are all much more interesting then that the DM doesn't think you should be able to break iron doors and forgot that he allowed that before.

So the problem is that there is no problem?

Really I don't get it, you were complaining before that you were so worried that the DM will fail you when under similar circumstances he would allow you to succeed and yet now you are telling me that maybe things aren't all as they seem? I mean did you just punk me about there being a problem with inconsistent rulings when you later say "There must be some alternate reason as to why this is like this, continue".

I mean so the whole tirade about wanting to write down things and "Ain't nobody got time for that!" was all just a ruse on your part, I must conclude you are just being insincere at this point. It seems that the only problem is that you don't (or aren't willing, my money is on this personally) have time to actually sit down and learn the system of the game. Maybe go to another system where telling a story is what you need and everything else can be handled. I am sure a system like that exists.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So spinning this all back to the original point of the thread, your answer would be something like this, Shaofoo?

Q: "What does it mean to be good at something in 5e?"
A: "The DM thinks that you should be able to do it."

Because I've played quite a few systems, and I honestly can't think of one other game that's so dependent on the GM to more-or-less invent the primary noncombat mechanic. Even rules-light games like Fate are better-- Fate has pretty clear rules about how Aspects work, clear connections between skill and DC, straightforward and functional die mechanics, the rules/dice quite clearly make your skills matter a lot. 5e has difficulties because it has both vague DCs and inconsistent check results. Either would be fine by itself, but the combination is considerably worse.

[pwykersotz]

So spinning this all back to the original point of the thread, your answer would be something like this, Shaofoo?

Q: "What does it mean to be good at something in 5e?"
A: "The DM thinks that you should be able to do it."

This is an apt summation. There's a little more to it, in that as you add a higher stat/proficiency bonus/expertise to a given check you narrow the band between the floor of your roll and the highest bounded result (30), but you're basically on track.

[Shaofoo]

So spinning this all back to the original point of the thread, your answer would be something like this, Shaofoo?

Q: "What does it mean to be good at something in 5e?"
A: "The DM thinks that you should be able to do it."

Because I've played quite a few systems, and I honestly can't think of one other game that's so dependent on the GM to more-or-less invent the primary noncombat mechanic. Even rules-light games like Fate are better-- Fate has pretty clear rules about how Aspects work, clear connections between skill and DC, straightforward and functional die mechanics, the rules/dice quite clearly make your skills matter a lot. 5e has difficulties because it has both vague DCs and inconsistent check results. Either would be fine by itself, but the combination is considerably worse.

I don't see inconsistent results as a problem when the game gives carte blanche to DMs to modify how they want. I don't see a problem when a DM allows you to break a door with a 15 while you roll a 25 and can't break a similar door in another campaign, when in other systems the exact same thing can unfold.Unless the previous systems say that DMs can't change DCs inconsistent between campaigns are not a problem solely to 5e. If you mean the DM isn't consistent with their own judgement then that is a problem with the DM which stops being a problem if the Dm remembers his ruling or there is someone else in charge to keep rulings if the problem is so bad. If there is consistency then it stops being a problem, no?

There is explanations HOW the skills work, you know you climb and swim with Athletics and you sneak with Stealth. No one is going to suddenly try to look for stuff with Acrobatics or use Persuasion to treat a disease. The skills are well explained as to what they do, the extent to how you are able to do it is in the air but you don't need to redefine the list of skills because the game does it for you. You don't have to invent a skill system, just come up with a DC.

[OldTrees1]

I don't see inconsistent results as a problem when the game gives carte blanche to DMs to modify how they want. I don't see a problem when a DM allows you to break a door with a 15 while you roll a 25 and can't break a similar door in another campaign, when in other systems the exact same thing can unfold.Unless the previous systems say that DMs can't change DCs inconsistent between campaigns are not a problem solely to 5e. If you mean the DM isn't consistent with their own judgement then that is a problem with the DM which stops being a problem if the Dm remembers his ruling or there is someone else in charge to keep rulings if the problem is so bad. If there is consistency then it stops being a problem, no?

There is explanations HOW the skills work, you know you climb and swim with Athletics and you sneak with Stealth. No one is going to suddenly try to look for stuff with Acrobatics or use Persuasion to treat a disease. The skills are well explained as to what they do, the extent to how you are able to do it is in the air but you don't need to redefine the list of skills because the game does it for you. You don't have to invent a skill system, just come up with a DC.

You are talking about what Grod called vague DCs* but think you are talking about what Grod called inconsistent results.

*Technically about something related to what Grod called vague DCs.

[Shaofoo]

You are talking about what Grod called vague DCs* but think you are talking about what Grod called inconsistent results.

*Technically about something related to what Grod called vague DCs.

What I see the problem is that:

DCs for actions aren't consistent between campaigns made by different DMs even (I am not sure how is this a problem, I mean this can happen in any other system as well so I think this point is moot).

DCs for actions aren't consistent between the same campaign made by the same DM (This is a DM problem, because if the DM is consistent with the DC for actions then it stops being a problem, if the check is constant then what is the problem?)

DC for actions are not defined for the DM's convenience and help (I agree that maybe a bit more explanation could help especially for people who are absolutely new, though as you gain more experience then this becomes less of an issue).

DC for actions are not defined for players' convenience and help (Definitely not a problem, PCs not knowing what a DC is for an action is intended in my opinion. If they want to know they can ask the DM and if the players are adverse to doing so then I wonder why they are playing 5e.)

If you are a DM there can be done more to help, if you are a player I feel that the DM should be the one to tell you how much you know or don't know because if you plaster the DCs for players to know then there are expectations when you wish to change the DCs because of other things (either you don't agree or a secret situation has happened). The players not knowing the DCs helps quash any such expectations and the players should treat such expectations on a per campaign basis and not drag one expectations to another campaign.

[OldTrees1]

What I see the problem is that:

Let's try this a little blunter:
When Grod referred to Vague DCs and Inconsistent Results, one can infer that those are 2 distinct separate things. The rules for assigning DCs being Vague and thus DCs can readily vary from DM to DM is not the same as Inconsistent Results

[Kurald Galain]

I don't see inconsistent results as a problem when the game gives carte blanche to DMs to modify how they want.

As a famous writer once said, "I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want." - Rich Burlew

Note how every single RPG ever gives DMs carte blanche to modify it how they want. That's not something new or unique for 5E. And neither is it an excuse for a lack of guidance to DMs in the rulebooks.

[mgshamster]

As a famous writer once said, "I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want." - Rich Burlew

Note how every single RPG ever gives DMs carte blanche to modify it how they want. That's not something new or unique for 5E. And neither is it an excuse for a lack of guidance to DMs in the rulebooks.

False dilemma. We have tools to use in the game. This isn't a binary thing, it's a range. The skills in this game may be further down the scale than you'd like, but they're not non-existent.

[Shaofoo]

Let's try this a little blunter:
When Grod referred to Vague DCs and Inconsistent Results, one can infer that those are 2 distinct separate things. The rules for assigning DCs being Vague and thus DCs can readily vary from DM to DM is not the same as Inconsistent Results

I think my response covered both bases regardless of your intent.

Unless somehow there is a mistake of my definition of Inconsistent Results (The same action to the same degree done to the same situation does not produce the same outcome all the time) or vague DCs (DCs that are not defined in the book by table or specifics). If there is something else that you meant please correct me


As a famous writer once said, "I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want." - Rich Burlew

Note how every single RPG ever gives DMs carte blanche to modify it how they want. That's not something new or unique for 5E. And neither is it an excuse for a lack of guidance to DMs in the rulebooks.

There is guidance for skills in 5e. You might think it isn't sufficient but it isn't a lack of guidance. You should also read on the PHB as to how skills work (I would think the DM also has to read the PHB, I think it is required reading even more so than the DMG which is just a bunch of alternate rules.

You wish to say that more can be done then say so but saying that there is none tells me that you didn't try at all. The tools are there, it is up to you to use them as you see fit. The thing is that the tools are not meant to be used in a singular way. And if you don't like the tools then go get another set of tools. The 5e toolset is far from an universal system or even an universal high fantasy system. If you feel that another toolset helps you out better then use that toolset. I do not pretend to think that 5e is the end all be all RP system in all the land.

But there is guidance for skills, there are tools to help you. Might not be sufficient to your personal needs but they exist.

[Kurald Galain]

You might think it isn't sufficient but it isn't a lack of guidance.

You are aware of what the word "lack" means, yes? :smallbiggrin:

[gkathellar]

I've been looking at 5e for the first time recently too, and I've been struggling with the same issues. For me, it's also a question of context. At 20th level, a rogue can tame a dinosaur or whatever - while a wizard can call literal meteors down from the heavens. I kinda like the small scale of 5E's numbers, but they seem disconnected from the kind of things the game wants to present at higher levels.

There are other places where this comes out, too. Song of Rest starts as a decent little boost, for instance, which decreases in relevance with every level despite ostensibly scaling. That's just what comes to mind immediately, but the game really just seems unable to make up its mind about what it means to be a high-level character.

[Shaofoo]

You are aware of what the word "lack" means, yes? :smallbiggrin:

It probably helps that you used a better word to better explain what you mean rather that one that left me with a 50/50 chance to guess what you meant.

lack
lak/
noun
noun: lack; plural noun: lacks

1.
the state of being without or not having enough of something.

Probably not sufficient or not enough is a better term.

Besides if you did read I did answer your "not enough" claim but I'll add that you can't really quantify what is enough. I am pretty sure there are people who look at the large list of DCs in Pathfinder and also consider it insufficient (see my complaint of knowledge DCs being uniform).

At this point I don't think there is more that can be said because it is basically your opinion ( not enough) over mine (enough) and I don't think that we can change our opinions (not that I care to, frankly I don't care if you never play 5e ever again, I don't care if anyone ever plays 5e again). I don't think there is anything more to be said.

[Kurald Galain]

the game really just seems unable to make up its mind about what it means to be a high-level character.

That's a very good assessment actually. It's quite possible that some of the designers were expecting high-level characters to be Beowulf and Cuchulainn, whereas others were expecting them to be Tyrion Lannister or Roo Avery.

[Tanarii]

I've been looking at 5e for the first time recently too, and I've been struggling with the same issues. For me, it's also a question of context. At 20th level, a rogue can tame a dinosaur or whatever - while a wizard can call literal meteors down from the heavens. I kinda like the small scale of 5E's numbers, but they seem disconnected from the kind of things the game wants to present at higher levels.I think that's a fair assessment, and it stems from the developers trying to take 5e back to D&D's roots. Which included porting in some sacred cow spells of the highest levels, which (unless you MASSIVELY nerf them like 4e tried to do) just flat out give rise to the old-school motto 'Fighters Drool while Wizards Rule'. Or in the more modern context, Casters Rule while Martials Drool. 5e did a fair job of trying to ameliorate that issue, but it's still there when you're talking about the top tier of the game (17+), possibly earlier.

One thing to remember through all the editions of D&D is that in AD&D 1e, levels above 10-12 ('Name' level) were basically Epic-level play. Clerics needed to roll a 17+ Wis on 3d6 in order to be able to cast 6th level spells, and needed Wis 18+ and to be character level 16 to cast level 7 spells. Magic-users needed Int 16, 17, & 18 and character level 14, 16 and 18 respectively to cast 7-9th level spells. So those spells were epic-level insane-attribute-requirement game breakers.

As editions advanced, the standard non-epic range of play was set to 20, but those formerly "epic-level play" game-breaking spells were kept at the same character levels, and attribute requirements reduced or dropped. And said spells became part of what it meant to be a caster in D&D.

[Knaight]

Don't get me wrong. 3e skills were a HUGE and AWESOME innovation! They were based on your ability score, but you could regularly improve a select number of them, and the chance of success actually changed depending on the difficulty of the task! It also attempted to integrate common adventuring tasks (some of which had previously been the domain of specific classes only) with non-weapon proficiency. It was ground breaking. That's why 4e used it, and 5e uses it. Just tweaked.

Where "ground breaking" in this context means "GURPS did it two decades earlier, D&D's main competitor of World of Darkness had been doing it for a decade, and if one looks into earliest examples instead of those in the most popular games, another few years can be stuck on top". 3e skills were D&D trying to catch up to the rest of the industry in that regard, and given the mess that ensued, not doing a particularly good job of it.

[Tanarii]

Where "ground breaking" in this context means "GURPS did it two decades earlier, D&D's main competitor of World of Darkness had been doing it for a decade, and if one looks into earliest examples instead of those in the most popular games, another few years can be stuck on top". 3e skills were D&D trying to catch up to the rest of the industry in that regard, and given the mess that ensued, not doing a particularly good job of it.lol trying to do anything with skills in GURPS is a huge mess. Unless you don't mind spending forever digging through the rule books just to figure out how to reload a revolver in a stressful situation. (Hyperbolic statement intentional ;) )

i was mostly familiar with Palladium skills at the time of 3e release. They were basically NWP but with variably scaling success chance, equally vague descriptions of applicability, except for a few that became defacto required skills because of explicit combat bonuses.

However, you're right. It was ground-breaking for D&D, but not globally among RPGs. ;)

[Knaight]

lol trying to do anything with skills in GURPS is a huge mess. Unless you don't mind spending forever digging through the rule books just to figure out how to reload a revolver in a stressful situation. (Hyperbolic statement intentional ;) )

As long as you're using a skill you actually have, GURPS works pretty smoothly. It's when you get off that track and suddenly need to figure out which skill default works out best that things get messy. Still, I'd honestly rather deal with GURPS and its 300 separate skills than D&D 3.5.

WoD is actually the most mechanically solid out of the group. That's not a sentence I ever saw myself typing, but there it is.

[Lucas Yew]

I basically agree with the OP that we desperately need some sort of definite metrics for determining skill competence, free of GM difference by table. No vague DCs nor inconsistent check results, to say precisely. Preferrable if it wasn't too harsh to characters without any kind of magical aid, like it was in 3rd Edition...

Maybe something similar to Pathfinder's Skill Unlock system might be one solution. Like your total HDs gained on skill based classes determining extraordinary stuff you can attempt to do with a skill check.

Oh, but one thing, NO floating/treadmill DCs (like 4E), ever. Their anti-simulationism vibe makes me sick...

P.S. Currently the highest DC a 1st level character can make is 29 (natural 20 + 20 ablilty score after racial bonus assuming rolled scores + expertise), so I'd fix that DCs 25~29 are in the "monkeys on typewriter" kind of possibility. Any result higher I'd treat as (Ex) by nature in 3E terms, at the very least.
By this logic, 20th level characters with multiple epic boons and expertise (+22 bonus) will be making those DC 30 65% of the time ("easy" in 4E terms), really make them look epic when skills are actually applied in story AND those higher DCs are provided within the rules with concrete epic examples for such DCs.

[Regulas]

I'm generally of the opinion that a more complicated skill system is basically simulationism

I'm also of the opinion that the DM giving an appropriate result for a check is not Fiat. If you roll a listen check and the DM says you hear something, that isn't a special DM fiat judgement call, it's just the most basic of common sense. The DM giving a result to a skill check appropriate for a specific character to get similarly isn't fiat to me it's again just common sense.

[Final Hyena]

Have you considered having a check be auto succeeded if their bonus is high enough?
If it's with regards to opposed rolls you could give the one with the higher bonus advantage, or the lower disadvantage.

[Shaofoo]

Have you considered having a check be auto succeeded if their bonus is high enough?
If it's with regards to opposed rolls you could give the one with the higher bonus advantage, or the lower disadvantage.

This already exists in the DMG, if your bonus is 5 lower than the DC then you pass automatically, a +5 means that DC 10 is automatic success. Of course this is a variant rule as are all rules in the DMG and they do say that this can lead to some unbalancing issues.