Does the swingyness of 5e bother you?

[NewDM]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

[BurgerBeast]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you?

No.


Do you like it?

No. I don't mind it, and I like 5e. If I was designing a game, I'd probably try to make it less swingy, but it doesn't bother me.


Do you wish is was less swingy?

I don't think so but I understand the sentiment.

[Reaper34]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

sometimes. but it's a tradeoff. if we want a bit more "realism" we play 3e/pathfinder. if we want speed and smoothness of play we go 5e.
3e lets your experience shine through. you adventure you get better at skills but all the bonuses from gear and skills and whatever else takes time to add up. slows down the game. 5e is more class and race features. you can up stats but it's much harder and more of a trade off. makes for faster play but is a lot more swingy due to it being dice dependent. many 3e skills I would take 1 cause my bonus was so high on certain things at high levels.

[mgshamster]

I haven't noticed the swinginess of it at all. Mostly because I use the book's recommendation to only use the dice when the results are uncertain.

Most of the time, my players are simply able to accomplish what they try to do. Occasionally, there's something they absolutey cannot accomplish - and some extreme situations may make typically easy or challenging tasks more likely to be a default fail. The rest of the time, the dice determine the result.

[JumboWheat01]

It's RNG. It doesn't matter if it's 5e, 3.5e, a trading card game, some video game with loot that only has a certain percentage to show, or heck, something in real life. RNG can be your enemy in just about everything. So no, it doesn't bother me in 5e anymore than it does anywhere else. Would I change it? Well... knowing the outcome all the time is rather boring, really. Even if I complain about it, a gaming life without RNG would be dreadfully dull. So it can stay.

[pwykersotz]

Almost paradoxically, I've noticed more successes in 5e than with 3.5. Having the die be a bigger factor means that more of the rolls that I do call for are able to be made by those who did not build for it. This means a higher chance of success for a given player and for the party. So the swinginess on a given roll is less of a factor for my table overall.

[Hrugner]

I haven't noticed swingyness honestly. The advantage disadvantage system lets you null much of the binary swingyness with good planning. The first few levels where many people don't have their methods of gaining simple advantage do have some issues though, and the method of determining adv/disad is a little wonky later on as well. But I don't really list swingyness with my complaints for 5e.

[hymer]

I don't like it. It bothers me. Though not to the point where I want to change things. I guess the swinginess itself isn't what bothers me, it's more that an expert at something is only slightly better than a novice, most particularly at low levels.

[longshotist]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

up until this moment i've never heard that term and didn't know swingyness was a thing.

it doesn't bother me as a player; that's the thing i most enjoy about tabletop rpgs

[djreynolds]

I don't like it. It bothers me. Though not to the point where I want to change things. I guess the swinginess itself isn't what bothers me, it's more that an expert at something is only slightly better than a novice, most particularly at low levels.

I totally agree.

That is a very true statement. A barbarian with a high intelligence can possibly beat a wizard at an arcana check as the proficiency bonus isn't much, and that can be unbearable for some. And a wizard can succeed a high athletics check and haul up a plate armored fighter.

Now obviously we are adventurers and that barbarian has been exposed to magic and spells and traps so has some experience and some luck as well. And the wizard isn't just rolling out of bed either, he's been adventuring and hiding and climbing, etc.

But because of the simplicity of the proficiency bonus system, the ease of just adding in said skill proficiency to said ability, there really are no masters of things unless you multiclass and grab expertise.

A rogue could get expertise in arcana with an 8 in intelligence and match the arcana skill level of a wizard.

I would rather have skills and proficiency in them would just double or triple, in the case of expertise, the ability attached to them. So at least then the rogue would have to increase his intelligence to be really proficient at an arcana check.

This would help out with the swingyness of ability checks at least

[hymer]

@ djreynolds: Just for clarity, that's not entirely what I meant. I don't mind that someone a little slow who studied Arcana intensively can beat someone who didn't study it, but is also quite smart.
What bothers me is that if the wizard studied Arcana, he's likely to have +5 in it at the first three levels. The barbarian has, say, -1. The barbarian still gets a better check than the wizard 22.75% of the time. Even at level 20, the barbarian (of any level) has a 7% chance to beat the wizard at his own skill (+11 vs. -1). Or you could say that there's only an 91% chance that the wizard will do better than the barbarian.

[Lollerabe]

Yeah me and my brother discussed the excact same thing. Swinginess in combat? Cool, even a seasoned fighter can miss blows when the battle is hectic and there are many moving parts.

A 16 INT char without prof. Knowledge religion, being better than the 10 INT char that studied religion his entire life at that very subject ? Yeah not so much.

When it comes to making certain 'experts' actually seem like experts the proficiency system dosent really support it. I guess a generous amount of DMs fiat solves it, but it still feels clunky (from a game design perspective).

I'm echoing Hymer here, but yup the die feels to important regardless of your modifier and/or proficiency.
We tend to hand wave a lot of things that might require a skill check if you pass a certain +x threshold

[Firechanter]

Yeah, just a couple of sessions ago we found a portal and tried to activate it. It wasn't supposed to be that difficult, just DC15. The Wizard couldn't figure it out, but the Barbarian did just by way of lucky dice.

RNG aside, I also don't like the BA artefact that, just by numbers, a Cleric who never set foot outside his cloister very often has a better Survival check than the Barbarian who has lived out of doors his entire life. At this point of the argument, usually the apologists chime in going on about how in such cases the Cleric shouldn't even be allowed a check whereas the Barbarian might auto-succeed, but this is beside the point. If I have to use rulings to fix problems with the rules, that rather proves to show how messed up those rules are. As it stands, there are no "Trained Only" skills in 5E.

BA does have its benefits, though. By and large I'm quite happy with the system, after an initial phase of transitioning pains.

Saving the biggest beef for last:
The one thing that I find _really_ problematic with the swinginess of 5E is the damage output of monsters / enemies. Not being subjected to the same rules as PCs, very many of them dish out really troublesome amounts of damage. A lot of them have a lot of weapon dice and/or boatloads of bonus dice.
I prefered the AD&D style where monsters generally had relatively low damage, so at higher levels characters at least had some staying power.

[Lollerabe]

Sorry if im going off topic:

Fire chanter the monsters manual have an avg damg value for every single monster to counter that, I'd highly recommend using it if the dice determine to much at your table.
Fx I think the goblins just have a 3 damg when they hit.

[djreynolds]

@ djreynolds: Just for clarity, that's not entirely what I meant. I don't mind that someone a little slow who studied Arcana intensively can beat someone who didn't study it, but is also quite smart.
What bothers me is that if the wizard studied Arcana, he's likely to have +5 in it at the first three levels. The barbarian has, say, -1. The barbarian still gets a better check than the wizard 22.75% of the time. Even at level 20, the barbarian (of any level) has a 7% chance to beat the wizard at his own skill (+11 vs. -1). Or you could say that there's only an 91% chance that the wizard will do better than the barbarian.

But if I may humbly say, its in the subtext. At earlier levels or even at higher levels, a wizard should always beat a barbarian at an arcana check. I can take dragons flying over head, but skills checks, for some reason its like pulling the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps it just me and its merely psychological, but it un-grounds the game for me. Perhaps I just need help.

I can take people firing a crossbow as fast as a machine gun, or wizard wishing me into female goblin. But if he beats my barbarian in arm wrestling, seriously, my whole world unravels. If the cleric disarms a trap over the rogue, it becomes silly.

I have tried to implement my skill version and it seems to work.

You double your ability modifier in skills your proficient in, and triple it for expertise. So for the barbarian to at least stand a chance at an arcana check he will have had to invest something in intelligence, at least a 12.

It still allows blind luck, but that's it.

[Lollerabe]

I feel you Reynolds, that's where we hand wave - 'I try to arm wrestle the barbarian' you fail horribly. 'I start looking for traps as well' you wouldn't know what a trap is until you triggered it.

That and my dm simply asking 'who has prof. Religion?' Okay Peter and Mikael make a roll. So if you don't got the required prof. you simply don't roll. I don't know if everybody would like that, but I surely do.

[djreynolds]

I feel you Reynolds, that's where we hand wave - 'I try to arm wrestle the barbarian' you fail horribly. 'I start looking for traps as well' you wouldn't know what a trap is until you triggered it.

That and my dm simply asking 'who has prof. Religion?' Okay Peter and Mikael make a roll. So if you don't got the required prof. you simply don't roll. I don't know if everybody would like that, but I surely do.

That is a very good solution. And it promotes team work. Like hey fighter, you better have a skill in insight because otherwise we cannot cover it.

Too many people focus on the big stealth, perception, athletics, etc... Your solution forces every character to take a social skill to help cover all skills being used.

I mean if a barbarian is alone, yeah roll an arcana check.

[Lollerabe]

Yup, and it feels very organic in practice. Don't think there's a single player that dosent have a knowledge prof of some sort. My fighter (granted he's an EK) is rocking prof in: arcana,investigation,history, athletics(that being a bit meta-y, but it's seems silly if he didn't have it)

[djreynolds]

Every fighter should select history. I mean you begin with all armor and weapon proficiencies, someone had to teach you all of that, etc.

While you were waiting to become a fighter you probably had gate guard, so having insight/perception might have been a good skill to have to foil the rogue and his fake documents.

Your solution helps out with OP's swingyness, at least for the skills portion.

[Kurald Galain]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

Yep. Imo the skill system requires houseruling to be playable (not that it's hard to houserule, mind you).

[Spiritchaser]

It bothers me a bit. Our DM also has us roll initiative every round (with a few other rules to suit) which makes things even more swings (dodge can do weird things)

It's still fun though... It tends to make HP king king of survival... Resistances too I guess though we haven't seen that yet.

Many people find baseball entertaining, and 5e seems less random than that.

And women's pole vault is definitely entertaining, and it too is quite variable.

[Mjolnirbear]

I am currently testing some houserules.

Active skill checks are the same as current rules. Anyone can try to climb (athletics) or gut a fish (nature/survival) or deactivate the rune trap (arcana).

Knowledge is different. I've made them all passive. You either know it, or you don't, such as what a triple luxe flip is (acrobatics) or that demons and devils are constantly at war (religion) or that a horse an be trained to take several kinds of commands via bridle and bit, neck and knee, or voice commands (handle animal).

It means anyone can try an active task and have a chance to succeed. It's always fun to see the dour dwarf manage to seduce the elf sage, or the barbarian work through a logic puzzle out of all expectation. But the passive checks make it les frustrating when the human that's never been so much as spoken to by a priest can tell us about the War of the Vestments in 1254 during Shieldmeet but the priest in the group can't.

One last tweak. Sometimes I decide a check or a roll requires training. The devil/demon war is common knowledge: anyone with a passive religion, Arcana or history check of 10 can succeed. But knowing about the War of the Vestments requires training. Training means your class, races, backgrounds or proficiencies. A dwarf can tell you who the Delzoun are, but a human needs proficiency in History, or the Sage background.

It is working out well for my group. So far anyways.

[Firechanter]

Personally, as a player, I hold off on rolling nonproficient skill checks as much as possible. At the very least I wait for any proficient characters to make their attempt first. If they fail, I try my luck. So I think that's an acceptable compromise between not stealing anyone's spotlight and not ruining the party's overall chances (by refusing to roll altogether).

[JackPhoenix]

At first, I was a little surprised by it, compared to PF. Not just the rolls, but also how wast HP went down and back up during the adventure compared to PF (even at 4th level, paladin was pretty much unhittable in PF, in 5e, she's got her ass kicked by basic zombies). However, I'm not bothered by it. It's more random, true, but it won't make the dice roll irrelevant at high (or even not so high, sorcerer with +17 Bluff at level 4, I'm looking at you) levels compared to the stat bonus.

[smcmike]

Yeah, some of it comes down to the player's responsibility. If the task is something that I don't think my character would be any good at, I'll let someone else handle it.

Some other thoughts - it is not a good test to directly compare rolls between two players. Perhaps a barbarian does have a 7% chance of rolling better than an archwizard - but that won't help him beat a DC 20 check, which he has a 0% chance at, while the wizard is more likely than not to succeed.

As for ability v. proficiency, well, abilities matter. A blah guy who has studied persuasion isn't necessarily going to out persuade a naturally charismatic person who takes it for granted.

Perhaps an expertise feat would help though.

[NewDM]

I haven't noticed the swinginess of it at all. Mostly because I use the book's recommendation to only use the dice when the results are uncertain.

Most of the time, my players are simply able to accomplish what they try to do. Occasionally, there's something they absolutey cannot accomplish - and some extreme situations may make typically easy or challenging tasks more likely to be a default fail. The rest of the time, the dice determine the result.

So you've never seen an 8 Strength wizard beat the 18 strength barbarian at an arm wrestling contest, or had the fighter fail to lift up the portcullis, but the weak rogue manages to do it?


I feel you Reynolds, that's where we hand wave - 'I try to arm wrestle the barbarian' you fail horribly. 'I start looking for traps as well' you wouldn't know what a trap is until you triggered it.

That and my dm simply asking 'who has prof. Religion?' Okay Peter and Mikael make a roll. So if you don't got the required prof. you simply don't roll. I don't know if everybody would like that, but I surely do.

I use that house rule too. It works quite well. It is still a house rule. Maybe next year when they republish the 5E PHB, DMG, and MM they will throw that in there as a rule.


But if I may humbly say, its in the subtext. At earlier levels or even at higher levels, a wizard should always beat a barbarian at an arcana check. I can take dragons flying over head, but skills checks, for some reason its like pulling the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps it just me and its merely psychological, but it un-grounds the game for me. Perhaps I just need help.

I can take people firing a crossbow as fast as a machine gun, or wizard wishing me into female goblin. But if he beats my barbarian in arm wrestling, seriously, my whole world unravels. If the cleric disarms a trap over the rogue, it becomes silly.

I have tried to implement my skill version and it seems to work.

You double your ability modifier in skills your proficient in, and triple it for expertise. So for the barbarian to at least stand a chance at an arcana check he will have had to invest something in intelligence, at least a 12.

It still allows blind luck, but that's it.

I like your house rule.

very easy 5
easy 10
moderate 15
hard 20
very hard 25
nearly impossible 30


It might work.

So a character with a +6 proficiency, and proficient in a skill will roll between 13 and 33 meaning they can rarely do the nearly impossible, but most of the time they can at least accomplish very hard. A character with expertise would roll between 19 and 38 meaning they can do nearly impossible tasks often they can do very hard reliably, and take a 1 on moderate or below skill checks. So if they are climbing an easy cliff face with lots of hand holds they can do it without really trying.

[Kurald Galain]

Some other thoughts - it is not a good test to directly compare rolls between two players. Perhaps a barbarian does have a 7% chance of rolling better than an archwizard - but that won't help him beat a DC 20 check, which he has a 0% chance at, while the wizard is more likely than not to succeed.
But your math is wrong.

For example, at level six, the average barbarian has +0 whereas the average archwizard has +7 (because you need to pick real examples, not cherrypicked corner cases). This means that the barbarian has a 20% (not 7%) chance of rolling better than the archwizard, and a 5% chance to succeed at DC 20 (which means that he can do it pretty quickly if retries are allowed), and the wizard has a 45% chance of success (which is not "more likely than not" to succeed).

Barbarian beats wizard one time out of five, wizard fails over half the time at his first attempt, and given a minute or two the barbarian's success rate goes up to 36%.

Don't make up numbers, just do the math. It's not that hard.

[smcmike]

@ djreynolds: Just for clarity, that's not entirely what I meant. I don't mind that someone a little slow who studied Arcana intensively can beat someone who didn't study it, but is also quite smart.
What bothers me is that if the wizard studied Arcana, he's likely to have +5 in it at the first three levels. The barbarian has, say, -1. The barbarian still gets a better check than the wizard 22.75% of the time. Even at level 20, the barbarian (of any level) has a 7% chance to beat the wizard at his own skill (+11 vs. -1). Or you could say that there's only an 91% chance that the wizard will do better than the barbarian.


But your math is wrong.

For example, at level six, the average barbarian has +0 whereas the average archwizard has +7 (because you need to pick real examples, not cherrypicked corner cases). This means that the barbarian has a 20% (not 7%) chance of rolling better than the archwizard, and a 5% chance to succeed at DC 20 (which means that he can do it pretty quickly if retries are allowed), and the wizard has a 45% chance of success (which is not "more likely than not" to succeed).

Barbarian beats wizard one time out of five, wizard fails over half the time at his first attempt, and given a minute or two the barbarian's success rate goes up to 36%.

Don't make up numbers, just do the math. It's not that hard.

I wasn't making up numbers. I was quoting numbers used earlier in the thread to critique the argument. If you don't like the numbers, you don't have to get snippy with me.

My point is simply that "Barbarian beats wizard" is a meaningless phrase, unless they are actually directly head to head on something. You either succeed on the check or you don't. In a case where the barbarian has a -1, he will never succeed on a 20 DC check.

[Zman]

It bothers me a bit on skill checks, I solve it with a bit of Adam fiat. For certain skills, especially Where training makes sense like Arcana, the results for certain DCs. A Wizard proficient in Arcana knows more with a DC15 success than a nonproficient Barbarian would. Basically being proficient in certain skills means you play by a different set of rules. For other things, i.e. Arm wrestling you can apply disadvantage for the lower strength character or outright declare the higher strength competitor the winner using checks only for tied strength scores. Trying to force that door? Declare they must have a minimum strength to try. Sorry Str 8 Wizard, that door requires a 15 Strength to force. Oh, you are using your staff as a lever, sure now you can try the check and have Advantage etc.

I don't think the answer is just giving bigger numbers to proficient characters to reduce stinginess, but making checks make sense and IMO DM discretion is the better option.

[mgshamster]

So you've never seen an 8 Strength wizard beat the 18 strength barbarian at an arm wrestling contest, or had the fighter fail to lift up the portcullis, but the weak rogue manages to do it?

Nope. Unless the situation is abnormal, such as during combat or some other extenuating circumstance, the rules allow me to simply claim that the barbarian wins the contest and the fighter lifts the portcullis. No rolling required. That's what "only roll when the outcome is uncertain" means. It's listed twice in the PHB, in the first paragraph of the section covering d20 rolls and in the first paragraph on the section about ability checks.

Someone who is allowing a strength 8 wizard beat a strength 18 barbarian in a arm wrestling contest under normal circumstances (no threat of danger, no exhaustion, no magic, no cheating by the characters, etc...) is ignoring the rules of the game.

I'm not even sure I can remember things like that happening in pathfinder; the last time I recall things like that happening on a regular basis was 2e.

[Zman]

Nope. Unless the situation is abnormal, such as during combat or some other extenuating circumstance, the rules allow me to simply claim that the barbarian wins the contest and the fighter lifts the portcullis. No rolling required. That's what "only roll when the outcome is uncertain" means. It's listed twice in the PHB, in the first paragraph of the section covering d20 rolls and in the first paragraph on the section about ability checks.

Someone who is allowing a strength 8 wizard beat a strength 18 barbarian in a arm wrestling contest under normal circumstances (no threat of danger, no exhaustion, no magic, no cheating by the characters, etc...) is ignoring the rules of the game.

I'm not even sure I can remember things like that happening in pathfinder; the last time I recall things like that happening on a regular basis was 2e.

I agree, it is very similar to what I just said as well. The DM has discre ion to make checks and their results make sense.

[Kurald Galain]

I agree, it is very similar to what I just said as well. The DM has discre ion to make checks and their results make sense.
As he does in every other RPG ever; that's nothing new.

However, doing so creates more work for the DM, and may get annoying if the DM makes a mistake. The point of rules is to create tools that you can use, not to give you a license to do whatever you want - because you can already do whatever you want anyway.

[fishyfishyfishy]

I don't think it's any more swingy than any other ttrpg I've played, and I'm not bothered by it. I think that part of the problem is that people forget that DC's are intended to be a lot lower than previous editions, and unless you're in a stressful situation you can take 20 on most checks. (Afb, and it may very well be a houserule, but taking 10 is also a thing.) These combined together allow you to skip a lot of unnecessary dice rolls.

There's no reason to ask the Wizard to roll an Intelligence (Arcana) check on anything lower than 20+their bonus unless it's in a moment of tension in which it is dramatically appropriate for them to have a momentary lapse of memory on this specific subject. Just like there's no reason to ask the Ranger woodsman to bother rolling Athletics to climb a rock face unless they're being attacked or the DC is astronomically high for some reason.

[Douche]

I haven't noticed the swinginess of it at all. Mostly because I use the book's recommendation to only use the dice when the results are uncertain.

Most of the time, my players are simply able to accomplish what they try to do. Occasionally, there's something they absolutey cannot accomplish - and some extreme situations may make typically easy or challenging tasks more likely to be a default fail. The rest of the time, the dice determine the result.

A lot of times one of my DMs makes us roll an investigation check to find, like, a tavern. It would be a specific tavern (not just like any tavern) but it seems silly to me.

You either find it or it doesn't exist. Ask for directions, then you go there. If they misled you, ask for directions again. I thought that was the purpose of "take 20".

[mgshamster]

A lot of times one of my DMs makes us roll an investigation check to find, like, a tavern. It would be a specific tavern (not just like any tavern) but it seems silly to me.

You either find it or it doesn't exist. Ask for directions, then you go there. If they misled you, ask for directions again. I thought that was the purpose of "take 20".

Yeah. That's... Kind of silly.

The only time I've done something similar was when a player was asking for the *best* blacksmith in town, so I had him roll an investigation in order to parse the conflicting opinions of who was the best.

From there, how well he rolled determined which die he would use to determine how many days it would take to get what he wanted crafted. This represented the skill and availability of the "best" blacksmith he found. If his investigation roll beat DC 5, he'd roll 2d20 to determine the number of days to craft his item (garunteed; I think he had a +6); if he beat DC 10, he'd roll 2d10; DC 15 = 2d6; DC 20 = 2d4; DC 25 = 1d4. His bonuses to the roll couldn't get him to DC 30.

It ended up taking 5 days for him to get his custom item.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I guess my use of the skill system would be considered houseruled, but generally, like some have mentioned, I just limit who rolls, when and how often and things work out well. Only those with appropriate backgrounds and proficiencies get to roll most of the knowledge checks. If someone comes up with an idea, they roll for it, and no one else gets an attempt. No skill-roll conga lines until someone succeeds. At most, another player might help to grant advantage.
Also asking yourself why you are rolling is important. Am I asking for check because there is time pressure? Then multiple attempts would be appropriate while the clock ticks forward, or marginal failures might mean success but it took awhile.
Other times I don't know if the character has the ability to overcome the challenge. Failed the check to break down the door? The dice have decided that this is a particularly well secured door and you simply don't have the power to break it. No more STR checks, make a new plan for getting past it.

I generally do not allow my players to tell me what they want to roll either (Suggestions are welcome though if I didn't think of it in a particular light), only what their desired results are and what their plan is for achieving those results, and then I ask for a specific roll while deciding a DC. Basically I want my player thought process to be grounded in more real-world terms, not "X is my best skill, so I will use it to solve my problems".

[hymer]

My point is simply that "Barbarian beats wizard" is not a meaningless phrase, unless they are actually directly head to head on something. You either succeed on the check or you don't. In a case where the barbarian has a -1, he will never succeed on a 20 DC check.

I'm assuming DC 15 for this one, for two reasons: I've used/seen a heck of a lot more of DC 15 than DC 20 in games so far. And for the purposes of what feels wrong, it shouldn't matter, anyway. If any DC feels wrong, it feels wrong.

The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +5 have:
33.75% of both failing
41.25% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
11.25% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
13.75% they both make it

The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +11 have:
11.25% of both failing
63.75% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
3.75% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
21.25% they both make it

Both come up with a counterintuitive result 25% of the time, and there is 11.25% to 3.75% chance of it being utterly ridiculous. The latter isn't so bad, though quite bad enough for being the best end of the scale.

[huttj509]

I'm assuming DC 15 for this one, for two reasons: I've used/seen a heck of a lot more of DC 15 than DC 20 in games so far. And for the purposes of what feels wrong, it shouldn't matter, anyway. If any DC feels wrong, it feels wrong.

The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +5 have:
33.75% of both failing
41.25% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
11.25% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
13.75% they both make it


The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +11 have:
11.25% of both failing
63.75% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
3.75% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
21.25% they both make it

Both come up with a counterintuitive result 25% of the time, and there is 13.75% to 3.75% chance of it being utterly ridiculous. The latter isn't so bad, though quite bad enough for being the best end of the scale.

Them both making a check that an untrained peasant could make 25% of the time is counterintuitive?

"Wait, you know those rune names?"
"Yeah, they're in the chorus to The Ballad of John McLane, the bards loved that one when I was growing up, though I'm surprised I still remember."

[Psyren]

Nope. Unless the situation is abnormal, such as during combat or some other extenuating circumstance, the rules allow me to simply claim that the barbarian wins the contest and the fighter lifts the portcullis. No rolling required. That's what "only roll when the outcome is uncertain" means. It's listed twice in the PHB, in the first paragraph of the section covering d20 rolls and in the first paragraph on the section about ability checks.

Someone who is allowing a strength 8 wizard beat a strength 18 barbarian in a arm wrestling contest under normal circumstances (no threat of danger, no exhaustion, no magic, no cheating by the characters, etc...) is ignoring the rules of the game.

I'm not even sure I can remember things like that happening in pathfinder; the last time I recall things like that happening on a regular basis was 2e.

8 vs. 18 is easy adjudicate in this way, but what about 10 vs. 16? 18 vs. 12? 18 vs. 14? At what point do you allow that roll, and at what point would you be okay with the non-barbarian winning it?

[hymer]

Them both making a check that an untrained peasant could make 25% of the time is counterintuitive?

"Wait, you know those rune names?"
"Yeah, they're in the chorus to The Ballad of John McLane, the bards loved that one when I was growing up, though I'm surprised I still remember."

If you want to put it like that it gets worse. Because there's no way every one in four people in the kingdom knows something about magic that the trained, clever wizard doesn't know. It would be coming up more than one in ten cases.

Edit: To put it like this, what you need to succeed is to get as many dice into play as possible. You don't need a university with professors and scholars with specialties, so you can find the one person who you know will have the answer with 90% certainty. You just need to walk down to the marketplace and ask twenty or thirty people.

[Kurald Galain]

Them both making a check that an untrained peasant could make 25% of the time is counterintuitive?
The trained wizard failing half the time at a check that an untrained peasant could make 25% of the time is intuitive?
:smallcool:

[NewDM]

It bothers me a bit on skill checks, I solve it with a bit of Adam fiat. For certain skills, especially Where training makes sense like Arcana, the results for certain DCs. A Wizard proficient in Arcana knows more with a DC15 success than a nonproficient Barbarian would. Basically being proficient in certain skills means you play by a different set of rules. For other things, i.e. Arm wrestling you can apply disadvantage for the lower strength character or outright declare the higher strength competitor the winner using checks only for tied strength scores. Trying to force that door? Declare they must have a minimum strength to try. Sorry Str 8 Wizard, that door requires a 15 Strength to force. Oh, you are using your staff as a lever, sure now you can try the check and have Advantage etc.

I don't think the answer is just giving bigger numbers to proficient characters to reduce stinginess, but making checks make sense and IMO DM discretion is the better option.

Those are some interesting house rules, however the books lay out that every character is playing by the same rules, which is the point of bounded accuracy. To make it where all players have a chance to succeed on checks whether they are proficient or not. In fact the only optional rule about this in the books is the one where a character doesn't have to roll for a check whose DC is below their ability score.


Nope. Unless the situation is abnormal, such as during combat or some other extenuating circumstance, the rules allow me to simply claim that the barbarian wins the contest and the fighter lifts the portcullis. No rolling required. That's what "only roll when the outcome is uncertain" means. It's listed twice in the PHB, in the first paragraph of the section covering d20 rolls and in the first paragraph on the section about ability checks.

Someone who is allowing a strength 8 wizard beat a strength 18 barbarian in a arm wrestling contest under normal circumstances (no threat of danger, no exhaustion, no magic, no cheating by the characters, etc...) is ignoring the rules of the game.

I'm not even sure I can remember things like that happening in pathfinder; the last time I recall things like that happening on a regular basis was 2e.

Actually according to the rules with an 8 strength a character can lift 240 lbs. (30x str score) a barbarian with a strength score of 18 can lift 540 lbs. (30x str score). A 12 ft. x 12 ft. Portcullis's weighs around 18,000 lbs. So according to the rules, neither can lift it. If you were to give them some kind of strength check to attempt it, the DC would be set at nearly impossible (DC 30) unless you were in some kind mythic campaign where characters are equivalent to Hercules then it might be a very hard check (DC 25). So the wizard would have no chance while the Barbarian of at least 17th level with a +6 proficiency bonus and +5 strength bonus would have a 57% chance at DC 25 and a 19% chance at DC 30.

Now an arm wrestling contest can be won by a weak person against a strong person as demonstrated on that life hack show by simple positioning and wrist turning. So its not a given that the weak wizard fails, their intelligence might let them win. In that case you might let an Athletics(Intelligence) check grant advantage to the wizard on their Athletics(Strength) check. This could be enough to turn the tides and allow them to win.

Of course none of this matters because DM and player expectations are completely different, especially if the wizard player knows all about how to win an arm wrestling contest and the DM does not. Or maybe the DM doesn't realize how heavy a portcullis is. Then of course there is the dice rolls which count for more than the proficiency and ability mod combined.


A lot of times one of my DMs makes us roll an investigation check to find, like, a tavern. It would be a specific tavern (not just like any tavern) but it seems silly to me.

You either find it or it doesn't exist. Ask for directions, then you go there. If they misled you, ask for directions again. I thought that was the purpose of "take 20".

This goes back to DMs and players having different expectations of how the world works and is a major cause of unfun.

[MadBear]

1. I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E.

I disagree. While any particular roll might be swingy, the overall feel is fairly consistent over time.

2. Does this bother you?

I disagree with the premise, but even if I agreed to it, I prefer non determined outcomes (within limit).

3. Do you like it?

see #2

4. Do you wish is was less swingy?

no.

[smcmike]

I'm assuming DC 15 for this one, for two reasons: I've used/seen a heck of a lot more of DC 15 than DC 20 in games so far. And for the purposes of what feels wrong, it shouldn't matter, anyway. If any DC feels wrong, it feels wrong.

The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +5 have:
33.75% of both failing
41.25% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
11.25% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
13.75% they both make it

The barbarian at -1 and the wizard at +11 have:
11.25% of both failing
63.75% of wizard making it and barbarian failing
3.75% chance of the wizard failing and the barbarian making it
21.25% they both make it

Both come up with a counterintuitive result 25% of the time, and there is 11.25% to 3.75% chance of it being utterly ridiculous. The latter isn't so bad, though quite bad enough for being the best end of the scale.

Use higher DCs, then. If it's a 15, then it's something that basically anyone has a pretty reasonable chance at, the equivalent of your standard bar trivia question. DC 20 is a hard trivia question.

And even smart, educated people miss trivia questions, so barbarians getting it while the wizard misses it, occasionally, is fine with me.

One thing this system doesn't represent well is deep knowledge or expertise in a specific subject. If I'm a cleric of Gruumsh who has studied Gruumsh my whole life, I shouldn't have to roll on any Gruumsh-related questions, though questions about other gods might leave me scratching my head.

Some of the swinginess also can be dropped out in tasks requiring repeated rolls (not that rolling over and over is necessarily much fun).

[hymer]

One thing this system doesn't represent well is deep knowledge or expertise in a specific subject.

I'll agree to that. It seems the rest isn't going to move forward in this conversation.

[Warwick]

One of the advantages of a linear RNG is that it's easy to calculate probabilities and the impact of bonuses/penalties is fairly constant. The downside of a linear RNG is that its results are all over the place. So if you don't want trained experts to fumble simple tasks or you don't want untrained peasants to have a nontrivial chance to outperform said experts, you pretty much need to calibrate bonuses so their range of possible outcomes don't overlap.

The swingy results of 5e bother me a bit, but it's not terribly different from previous editions. If you want more consistent results without resorting to OMG bonuses that obviate the RNG, you need a system with a probability curve that isn't flat.

[Orion3T]

But if I may humbly say, its in the subtext. At earlier levels or even at higher levels, a wizard should always beat a barbarian at an arcana check.

I totally disagree with this as a premise. The fact I am an engineer by trade and have a degree in Maths & Physics does not mean I know everything some random guy on the street knows about Engineering, Maths or Physics. Sure, I know more than him and on average am more likely to know the answer to a particular question or be able to work it out. On the other hand, maybe he read a book on the exact subject in question, and I haven't, then he will know something I don't. And even if we were to assume there's nothing he knows that I don't, when put on the spot there's always a chance I won't be able to remember something he happens to know and does remember.

Heck, my wife hates maths but there are still times, usually with the simplest of problems, where the answer jumps out at her before I can even start thinking about it. Often, I'm over thinking it and my 'skill' is working against me to some extent.

So when the barbarian identifies that glyph on the wall it's not because he knows more about Arcana. It's because he happened to come across it before. Or he just read a book on it. While the Wizard just happened to have not seen that glyph before, or has had a brain fart.


I can take dragons flying over head, but skills checks, for some reason its like pulling the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps it just me and its merely psychological, but it un-grounds the game for me. Perhaps I just need help.

Well for at least some situations I hope the way of thinking I describe above will help you with this 'problem'. :smallsmile:


I can take people firing a crossbow as fast as a machine gun, or wizard wishing me into female goblin. But if he beats my barbarian in arm wrestling, seriously, my whole world unravels. If the cleric disarms a trap over the rogue, it becomes silly.

With such a simple task which is so directly reliant on sheer physical strength, I am much more inclined to agree. For some tasks, checks makes far more sense than in others. In this case, the DM simply shouldn't be calling for a strength check. In fact I find the entire strength check idea a bit odd - excluding significant outside factors (perhaps illness or serious injury) people's physical strength varies much less from one moment to the next than 'brain skills' such as recalling a piece of information, solve a puzzle, recognising someone or something, or spotting a hidden footprint. There's a bit of room for technique, a bit of strategy, a bit of mental skill to build up adrenaline, and a maybe even some 'mind games' Derren Brown style. But really a d20 is far too much variance to represent those variables between contestants of vastly different strength.

For such a simple task with a direct physical contest, as a DM I would be inclined to ignore the standard rules and do something more realistic. Maybe the checks only get to add 1d4 because there are so few random or 'hidden' factors. Or perhaps no roll at all in the simplest of cases. Or perhaps each stage of the arm wrestle needs to be resolved - maybe it takes 1 win to get someone 1/3 of the way down. So to win you must be the first to have 3 more wins than the opponent does. So the Str 8 wizard might be able to get a good start and push the warrior back in the first half a second, and maybe, just maybe, he caught the 20 Str fighter completely off-guard and pushes him down before he can react. But the longer it goes on, the lower his chances are. In this case if you must use a d20, one roll is simply not enough.

For a real life example of where this makes sense, I can talk about squash. I play squash well - by most people's standards I'd be an expert, playing in the top half of a decent team in the district leagues. I will hammer beginners with ease and often they won't even get a point, maybe not even win a rally (score on serve only).

Does that mean if someone I know is a beginner challenges me and says they are better and will prove it by winning 1 rally, that they will fail their challenge? No way. I'm not betting my life that I won't serve out, or they won't jam me on the serve or hit the nick (where wall and floor meet and the ball won't bounce). But if they did the same with a 'first to 11 points' I'd take the bet every time.

Skill checks in this system only make sense if the number of random factors are significant enough that someone might do really well or really badly on a particular attempt. If there are very few hidden or random factors, then in order to stick with the d20 system the activity should be broken down into more sections, which will naturally swing the advantage more heavily to the more skilled contestant.


Well... that's my thoughts anyhow. I need a rest. :smallbiggrin:

[MadBear]

Use higher DCs, then. If it's a 15, then it's something that basically anyone has a pretty reasonable chance at, the equivalent of your standard bar trivia question. DC 20 is a hard trivia question.

And even smart, educated people miss trivia questions, so barbarians getting it while the wizard misses it, occasionally, is fine with me.

One thing this system doesn't represent well is deep knowledge or expertise in a specific subject. If I'm a cleric of Gruumsh who has studied Gruumsh my whole life, I shouldn't have to roll on any Gruumsh-related questions, though questions about other gods might leave me scratching my head.

Some of the swinginess also can be dropped out in tasks requiring repeated rolls (not that rolling over and over is necessarily much fun).

Maybe it's just my group, but we play it so that you only roll if there is a question of doubt. In the case of your cleric, you wouldn't roll for any Gruumsh related question, unless they were so hidden that you there is a chance that you hadn't heard of it.

The same is true of most any scenario. Climbing a rope is trivially easy for a atheletically trained character, so no roll, as there is no real chance of failure. Climbing a rope in full plate armor is a bit harder, but not much so maybe DC 5 if they're proficient in armor. Climbing a rope in full plate that you've never worn before is going to be harder still so DC 10. Climbing a greased rope in armor while being shot at by goblins in full plate armor that you'r not used to with a strength of 8, during an exhausting day of adventuring with a tentacle monster pulling at your ankles will probably be a DC 30.

but that's just my group.

[Hrugner]

Yeah, just a couple of sessions ago we found a portal and tried to activate it. It wasn't supposed to be that difficult, just DC15. The Wizard couldn't figure it out, but the Barbarian did just by way of lucky dice.


This is sort of what the help action is meant to prevent. Rather than have your barbarian make a **** check, he should using his attempt to boost the Wizard's chances even higher offering up what little he does know to the party. DM calls for a roll on a knowledge the wizard gives what little he understands from his low check, the barbarian chimes in with some memory or small insight that he has giving the wizard a second roll. You can sidestep the advantage/disadvantage system and make the results silly instead, but that's no fault of the game.

[pwykersotz]

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet by anyone else, my players don't all roll for Arcana (or insert different skill here). Instead, someone uses the Help action to aid the person with the highest modifier, giving Advantage. If more than two people are relevant, I call for a group check.

[Orion3T]

Then of course there is the dice rolls which count for more than the proficiency and ability mod combined.

OK so I have a bit more to say, because I do also agree with this. :smallbiggrin:

Maybe the DM called for a strength check DC 20 on breaking that chain because he's not sure how hard it really is to break a chain. It seems to me it would be virtually impossible, but then there are people who can bend iron, utilise a bit of leverage and twisting, maybe the hain has a weak link that breaks or maybe it doesn't.

Similarly for the arm wrestle, if the wizard wins it's not because he is actually stronger. Maybe the barbarian inhaled a fly just as the judge shouted 'Go!'. Or maybe someone sneezed and the barb didn't hear the shout.

Arguments about the wizard using technique don't really work so well I think, because if he really did have such a good technique then he would be able to win reliably, and that's not what repeating the contest in the same way would show. The rolling needs to reflect possible random factors in my view - whether those random factors are within the brain of the character (trying to recall information etc) or due to outside influences (needing the wind to not gust when trying to throw a rope to someone) doesn't really matter.

If there are no possible random factors, then a skill check seems inappropriate.

Food for thought, anyhow.

[AnAardvark]

Yeah me and my brother discussed the excact same thing. Swinginess in combat? Cool, even a seasoned fighter can miss blows when the battle is hectic and there are many moving parts.

A 16 INT char without prof. Knowledge religion, being better than the 10 INT char that studied religion his entire life at that very subject ? Yeah not so much.

When it comes to making certain 'experts' actually seem like experts the proficiency system dosent really support it. I guess a generous amount of DMs fiat solves it, but it still feels clunky (from a game design perspective).

I'm echoing Hymer here, but yup the die feels to important regardless of your modifier and/or proficiency.
We tend to hand wave a lot of things that might require a skill check if you pass a certain +x threshold

I think the swinginess is bad for knowledge checks. I mitigate this somewhat by the information I hand out. In the example of the Barbarian and Wizard making arcana checks:
1. If both fail, well, neither knows what that wodget is.
2. If the Wizard (only) succeeds, well, he knows pretty much everything appropriate, including perhaps who might have made it, what it does, what it's presence means.
3. If the Barbarian succeeds, I'll tell him that someone in his tribe once had one of those wodgets, and he got it from so-and-so, and people said that it did whatever.
4. If both succeed, I'll tell the wizard what I said in #2, and confirm that the Barbarian knows pretty much the same things, but because of someone in his tribe having once had one of those wodgets.
Similarly when the trained druid fails on a Nature check to an untrained Bard. The bard read about this plant in an exciting novel.

The swinginess is really good though on checks like stealth, perception, and the social skills. In 3e particularly, by high levels, it was often impossible for one character to fail on a check and another to succeed. This tended to trivialize many challenges, because, as a GM, I either had situations where only one or two characters mattered.

[mgshamster]

A 12 ft. x 12 ft. Portcullis's weighs around 18,000 lbs. So according to the rules, neither can lift it.

Dear gods, man, what is your portcullis made of? Pure iron? And how are you calculating weight based off an area?

I mean, for most sturdy woods, you'd need a good 3-4' thickness to get that kind of weight! And a solid slab!

[Orion3T]

I think the swinginess is bad for knowledge checks. I mitigate this somewhat by the information I hand out. In the example of the Barbarian and Wizard making arcana checks:
1. If both fail, well, neither knows what that wodget is.
2. If the Wizard (only) succeeds, well, he knows pretty much everything appropriate, including perhaps who might have made it, what it does, what it's presence means.
3. If the Barbarian succeeds, I'll tell him that someone in his tribe once had one of those wodgets, and he got it from so-and-so, and people said that it did whatever.
4. If both succeed, I'll tell the wizard what I said in #2, and confirm that the Barbarian knows pretty much the same things, but because of someone in his tribe having once had one of those wodgets.
Similarly when the trained druid fails on a Nature check to an untrained Bard. The bard read about this plant in an exciting novel.

Basically this is just describing various tiers of success. I don't really see why the result should be different for a barbarian than it is for the wizard if they ended up with the same number.

For example:

DC 15 to recognise the wodget and know what it does.
DC 20 to know how to use it
DC 25 to understand how the wodget works, and perhaps even craft your own wodget in the future by copying this one

So the barb has a reasonable chance to know what it does, a slim chance to know how to use it, and no chance of understanding how it works. But as mentioned, it probably makes more sense for the barbarian to help the wizard try and work it out (giving him advantage) rather than checking individually.

I think this is a reasonable way to do it. A DC represents the difficulty of accomplishign the task to an average standard. Passing particularly well or only just failing might yield better or worse results. Seems to me (from watching videos of sessions etc) that this is what many DMs tend to do anyway, rather than a binary pass/fail. At least with these sorts of checks.

The same thing can be done with the rope climb - the result represents how far you can climb, not just a pass or fail. The DC represents how easy it is to climb 10 feet of rope. If that's DC 5 and you roll a 20, maybe you get twice the distance.

[Serket]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

It's probably the most random system I've ever played.
(there was a time gap there while I compared it with a larp that used a card draw system, and yes, 5th is more random)

No, I don't like it. I think I understand the design reasons, but I don't like it at all. It's the thing I dislike the most about 5th.

[NewDM]

Dear gods, man, what is your portcullis made of? Pure iron? And how are you calculating weight based off an area?

I mean, for most sturdy woods, you'd need a good 3-4' thickness to get that kind of weight! And a solid slab!

How do you think?, I used the http://www.startpage.com search engine (which is a google proxy) to look it up and someone gave the weight of steel rebar which is close to iron and gave the calculations. If it were made of wood it might be significantly lighter, but then a few chops of a great axe by a strong character would cut right through it according to the rules. Even then, the weight of it would be well over both characters lifting capacity according to the rules.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Basically this is just describing various tiers of success. I don't really see why the result should be different for a barbarian than it is for the wizard if they ended up with the same number.

I don't see any particular reason why the result should be the same. Context is everything. Without context, there is no real way to interpret the numbers. And that's all the results are, a qualitative interpretation of an abstract, quantitative number.
Even facing the exact same problem using the exact same skill check, two characters will have different techniques and approaches to the problem, necessitating variation in the results.

[KorvinStarmast]

Some of you folks are both overly obsessed with skill checks, and I think miss the point about DC's being determined.

DC 15 to recognise the wodget and know what it does.
DC 20 to know how to use it
DC 25 to understand how the wodget works, and perhaps even craft your own wodget in the future by copying this one
Where did you get these DC's from? I see, you made them up, and I would like to remind people that DC's are not required to be in multiples of 5. That's just an example given by the books to point out a rough equivalence between a narrative "hard easy" description into a value you can use on the dice.

DC based on spell casting don't get an arbitrary rounding to 5. See also passive checks.

Secondly, swinginess in combat can have a profound influence on early encounters (see the bugbear ambush in LMoP as a fine example) that can snowball an encounter rapidly with as little as one critical hit coming in early.

Swinginess is a feature of the game. It comes with rolling d20. One of the best mitigations to swinginess is the Help action, and any other means by which one gains advantage (such as the Guidance cantrip).

And it's team effort. I say again, D&D is designed and balanced to be played by a team of adventurers. To get an idea of how deep that concept goes, I offer this recollection from an early DM named Tim Kask.
From this conversation ... (http://dyverscampaign.blogspot.com/2014/01/tim-kask-on-problems-with-dave-arneson.html)

That is a result of one of the truly beautiful aspects of role-playing: the synergy of the group. Every player brings something different to the table and collectively that mega-mind that the players create is awesome in its thinking capacities. Someone in the group is bound to see straight to the heart of something you felt was obscure and obtuse and bound to give the PC’s fits; Every time.


Much has been said about the social and therapeutic values of the collective socialization and cooperation that goes on in RPGs. Much should be said, for it is a most remarkable byproduct. Never was it more apparent in my first campaign, or in every tournament we put on as TSR afterwards that did not allow a whole pre-formed group to sign up. It is true that we all bring a slightly different set of skills to the party. I found that with my first group, someone ALWAYS stumbled onto, or even immediately perceived a solution to a problem I posed them. One might see what the dilemma was, and another intuit immediately how it might be best solved.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

How do you think?, I used the http://www.startpage.com search engine (which is a google proxy) to look it up and someone gave the weight of steel rebar which is close to iron and gave the calculations. If it were made of wood it might be significantly lighter, but then a few chops of a great axe by a strong character would cut right through it according to the rules. Even then, the weight of it would be well over both characters lifting capacity according to the rules.

Assuming a weave of rebar with 1 foot between each bar means you need 24 12' long bars to cover the space. If you use 3/4 inch thick bars (1.5 pounds per foot) you get a total weight of 432 pounds.

If you double the amount of bars for 1/2 foot gaps, and use some extremely heavy 2 and 1/4" thick bars (13 pounds per foot) you get a total weight of ~7500 lbs.

So there's some variation depending on how heavy-duty the thing is, but still below the original estimate.

[mgshamster]

How do you think?, I used the http://www.startpage.com search engine (which is a google proxy) to look it up and someone gave the weight of steel rebar which is close to iron and gave the calculations. If it were made of wood it might be significantly lighter, but then a few chops of a great axe by a strong character would cut right through it according to the rules. Even then, the weight of it would be well over both characters lifting capacity according to the rules.

I honestly have no idea how you calculated weight from an area and not from a volume.

[JoeJ]

8 vs. 18 is easy adjudicate in this way, but what about 10 vs. 16? 18 vs. 12? 18 vs. 14? At what point do you allow that roll, and at what point would you be okay with the non-barbarian winning it?

If an arm wrestling match is at all important, I wouldn't let it be resolved with a single roll. I'd have the players keep rolling contests until one of them wins twice in a row. That way, if they're evenly matched, it could potentially go on quite a while, like real arm wrestling contests sometimes do. And if they're not, that will quickly become evident.

For other tasks, remember that when there's nothing stopping the character from trying again, they can automatically succeed (assuming it's possible for them to succeed at all) by taking 10 times as long. So that 10th level wizard with 18 Intelligence and proficiency in Arcana just has to stand there for a minute stroking his chin, and he'll recall whatever arcane lore a DC 28 gets him in that situation.

[Casualoblivion]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

Yes, yes, no and yes

[Serket]

Dear gods, man, what is your portcullis made of? Pure iron? And how are you calculating weight based off an area?

For pure iron that seems low. I just did a calculation based on 5cm square iron bars, 25*25 thereof, and got about three tons. But this is ridiculous. I mean, nobody makes portcullises out of pure iron.

Using the same calculation but for oak, and with a 1cm thick front coating of iron (to stop it being hacked apart so easily), I get about 860kg (nearly 1900lb). But the iron is most of the weight there, and 1cm is still pretty thick. Trimming it down to half a centimetre brings the weight down to about 1250lb. Which I think means a strong Goliath could lift it.

Of course, if one is not a simulationist, none of this matters. The question is whether it's appropriate to game style for it to be unliftable, liftable, or lifted. :smallsmile:

[NewDM]

For pure iron that seems low. I just did a calculation based on 5cm square iron bars, 25*25 thereof, and got about three tons. But this is ridiculous. I mean, nobody makes portcullises out of pure iron.

Using the same calculation but for oak, and with a 1cm thick front coating of iron (to stop it being hacked apart so easily), I get about 860kg (nearly 1900lb). But the iron is most of the weight there, and 1cm is still pretty thick. Trimming it down to half a centimetre brings the weight down to about 1250lb. Which I think means a strong Goliath could lift it.

Of course, if one is not a simulationist, none of this matters. The question is whether it's appropriate to game style for it to be unliftable, liftable, or lifted. :smallsmile:

Yeah, the takeaway should be that a metal portcullis is outside the range of even a strong normal person to lift. It should however be liftable by a mythically strong person.

[Sigreid]

@ djreynolds: Just for clarity, that's not entirely what I meant. I don't mind that someone a little slow who studied Arcana intensively can beat someone who didn't study it, but is also quite smart.
What bothers me is that if the wizard studied Arcana, he's likely to have +5 in it at the first three levels. The barbarian has, say, -1. The barbarian still gets a better check than the wizard 22.75% of the time. Even at level 20, the barbarian (of any level) has a 7% chance to beat the wizard at his own skill (+11 vs. -1). Or you could say that there's only an 91% chance that the wizard will do better than the barbarian.

You've never had the experience of someone with only a passing interest in something just happening to know some obscure fact that the recognized expert didn't recall? I see it quite a bit. Very few people approach all encompassing knowledge.

[Sigreid]

Personally, as a player, I hold off on rolling nonproficient skill checks as much as possible. At the very least I wait for any proficient characters to make their attempt first. If they fail, I try my luck. So I think that's an acceptable compromise between not stealing anyone's spotlight and not ruining the party's overall chances (by refusing to roll altogether).

Meh, with the group trying to all puzzle it out and give the the highest prof one Advantage. Perfectly within RAW.

[mgshamster]

So you've never seen an 8 Strength wizard beat the 18 strength barbarian at an arm wrestling contest, or had the fighter fail to lift up the portcullis, but the weak rogue manages to do it?


the rules allow me to simply claim that the barbarian wins the contest and the fighter lifts the portcullis.


Actually according to the rules with an 8 strength a character can lift 240 lbs. (30x str score) a barbarian with a strength score of 18 can lift 540 lbs. (30x str score). A 12 ft. x 12 ft. Portcullis's weighs around 18,000 lbs. So according to the rules, neither can lift it.


the takeaway should be that a metal portcullis is outside the range of even a strong normal person to lift. It should however be liftable by a mythically strong person.

From this exchange, you're claiming that the conclusion to the observation that a strong fighter fails to lift a portcullis while a weak rogue can lift it is that a normal portcullis can only be lifted by mythically strong characters. So... Weak rogues are mythically strong, apparently.

[jas61292]

You've never had the experience of someone with only a passing interest in something just happening to know some obscure fact that the recognized expert didn't recall? I see it quite a bit. Very few people approach all encompassing knowledge.

This is very true. Even experts can occasionally not know something an average person does. That said, I think the issue with this is that there is no control for what those things are. It ends up just being random. Sure, you can explain it away as that person having a reason to know it, but often times, that reason might not make sense for that character.

I think one of the biggest issues with the "knowledge" type skills in general, or rather, one of the biggest issues with the way people use them, is the insistence on DCs in isolation. DCs are the difficulty of a task, but difficulty simply does not exist in isolation. There is no such thing as something that is just harder to know. If I ask someone here what the four common races of D&D 5e are, I bet I would get an accurate answer. The person I ask might not actually be smart, but they have been exposed to the relevant information so much that it is an easy thing for them to remember. Now, if I ask the same question to someone who is one of the smartest people in the world, but who has never even heard of D&D before, they are far less likely to get it right. This is not an easy task for them. They might be able to use clues from the name of the game to work out that it is fantasy, and make some correct guesses based on it, but then, at the same time, they might not even know what is being referred to by "race" and guess something like "Caucasian." It might not be impossible, but it is a very hard question, most certainly.

While this is especially true of the "knowledge" type checks, I personally believe this applies to all ability checks, and I think everything about 5th edition runs much smoother and less randomly when you take into account that difficulty is based on many things, and does not exist in isolation. And, as has been mentioned by others, simply having the people who should be good at something succeed when the outcome should be fairly certain instead of forcing them and other to roll will further eliminate discrepancies and undesirable effects of randomness.

[JumboWheat01]

From this exchange, you're claiming that the conclusion to the observation that a strong fighter fails to lift a portcullis while a weak rogue can lift it is that a normal portcullis can only be lifted by mythically strong characters. So... Weak rogues are mythically strong, apparently.

Clearly the rogue is cheating somehow. I mean... they're a rogue! Obviously the rogue is cheating!

[NewDM]

From this exchange, you're claiming that the conclusion to the observation that a strong fighter fails to lift a portcullis while a weak rogue can lift it is that a normal portcullis can only be lifted by mythically strong characters. So... Weak rogues are mythically strong, apparently.

Or I can mean that the 5E skill system is not representative of a solid skill system that is understood and agreed upon by all.

It works if the DM and players have the same expectation of how it works and what DCs should be, but it doesn't work if players and DMs don't have the same expectations of how it works and what DCs should be.

My original point was that there should be things that most untrained and untalented characters should not be able to do. In the case of the portcullis either no one can do it or everyone has a chance, which just doesn't reflect reality (or mythic fantasy) of any kind. The swingyness of the dice add to this by keeping highly skilled characters from accomplishing difficult tasks while at the same time allowing extremely unskilled characters to do the hard.

My personal expectation is that rogues and wizards with 10 or less strength should not be able to lift 12k lbs. portcullises and it should be a very hard to a nearly impossible check for highly skilled and/or strong characters. If I make a character that is proficient in athletics and has a 20 strength, then I expect to be able to have a chance to life a 12k lbs. portcullis.

The DM I'm playing with on any given day might have a different expectation, and might allow low strength characters to roll and get a 20 and be able to pull off a moon gravity portcullis lift, while my character rolls a 2 and is unable to lift it.

[NewDM]

Clearly the rogue is cheating somehow. I mean... they're a rogue! Obviously the rogue is cheating!

Well at level 20 they can basically cheat physics when the DM says they've failed, they can just say no I didn't, I have a 20. So you know.

[mgshamster]

Or I can mean that the 5E skill system is not representative of a solid skill system that is understood and agreed upon by all.

It works if the DM and players have the same expectation of how it works and what DCs should be, but it doesn't work if players and DMs don't have the same expectations of how it works and what DCs should be.

My original point was that there should be things that most untrained and untalented characters should not be able to do. In the case of the portcullis either no one can do it or everyone has a chance, which just doesn't reflect reality (or mythic fantasy) of any kind. The swingyness of the dice add to this by keeping highly skilled characters from accomplishing difficult tasks while at the same time allowing extremely unskilled characters to do the hard.

My personal expectation is that rogues and wizards with 10 or less strength should not be able to lift 12k lbs. portcullises and it should be a very hard to a nearly impossible check for highly skilled and/or strong characters. If I make a character that is proficient in athletics and has a 20 strength, then I expect to be able to have a chance to life a 12k lbs. portcullis.

The DM I'm playing with on any given day might have a different expectation, and might allow low strength characters to roll and get a 20 and be able to pull off a moon gravity portcullis lift, while my character rolls a 2 and is unable to lift it.

Surely that can't be your point, otherwise you wouldn't have stated that the weak rogue could lift it while the strong fighter couldn't.

Your original complaint was about swinginess. When I said that the GM can just claim that the rogue can't do it, you changed the argument to nether the rogue or the fighter could do it (too heavy). When we talked about portcullis weights, you changed the argument to be about mythic abilities. When I brought us back to the original argument, you changed it again to be about things that a weak character just can't do - which is exactly what I said in my original counter argument.

You're losing track of your own arguments, man.

[smcmike]

DCs are the difficulty of a task, but difficulty simply does not exist in isolation. There is no such thing as something that is just harder to know.

This doesn't ring true to me. Some things ARE harder to know, because some concepts are more complicated than a name or a simple piece of trivia, and even some trivia is harder to know than other trivia. It is easier to memorize 3 digits of pi than 300, and the average person is probably more likely to be able to memorize 300 digits than to understand string theory.

Besides which, there is nothing wrong with using the DC to represent the rarity of knowledge, rather than its inherent difficulty. Let's say for the sake of argument that pi to the 26th digit is equally hard to learn as the ABCs. My 3 year old knows her ABCs. The DC is very low because everyone knows it.


My original point was that there should be things that most untrained and untalented characters should not be able to do.

Literally any DC above 20.

[mgshamster]

This doesn't ring true to me. Some things ARE harder to know, because some concepts are more complicated than a name or a simple piece of trivia, and even some trivia is harder to know than other trivia. It is easier to memorize 3 digits of pi than 300, and the average person is probably more likely to be able to memorize 300 digits than to understand string theory.

Besides which, there is nothing wrong with using the DC to represent the rarity of knowledge, rather than its inherent difficulty. Let's say for the sake of argument that pi to the 26th digit is equally hard to learn as the ABCs. My 3 year old knows her ABCs. The DC is very low because everyone knows it.

That's kind of how my science classes back in college were.

I remember thinking that my freshman year of chemistry was the hardest subject I've ever studied when I was taking the course. By the time I got to grad level chem courses, I was lamenting how easy my freshman chem classes were.

There's definitely higher level knowledge that's built upon lower level knowledge, and it's a rare thing for someone to know and comprehend the higher level without understanding the lower. Like a person whipping out calc equations but unable to comprehend algebra.

[JoeJ]

Something just occurred to me about the knowledge-type proficiencies: In 3.5, you can't reroll a failed check with any of the Knowledge skills. I think a lot of people are assuming that's the case in 5e too, but it isn't. Nowhere does it say you can't keep trying over and over again until you get it. That being the case, knowledge skills should be the poster children for taking ten times as long to get an auto success, as described on p. 237 of the DMG. They should very rarely be rolled for at all, which pretty much eliminates the problem of the barbarian randomly knowing more about magic than the wizard does.

[mgshamster]

Something just occurred to me about the knowledge-type proficiencies: In 3.5, you can't reroll a failed check with any of the Knowledge skills. I think a lot of people are assuming that's the case in 5e too, but it isn't. Nowhere does it say you can't keep trying over and over again until you get it. That being the case, knowledge skills should be the poster children for taking ten times as long to get an auto success, as described on p. 237 of the DMG. They should very rarely be rolled for at all, which pretty much eliminates the problem of the barbarian randomly knowing more about magic than the wizard does.

That makes sense to me. The only time you wouldn't be able to get it is if you're time constrained. Like being unable to come up with the answer right at the moment you need it, but remembering it a few hours later.

[Orion3T]

I don't see any particular reason why the result should be the same. Context is everything. Without context, there is no real way to interpret the numbers. And that's all the results are, a qualitative interpretation of an abstract, quantitative number.
Even facing the exact same problem using the exact same skill check, two characters will have different techniques and approaches to the problem, necessitating variation in the results.

I agree the details needn't be the same - for example how they happen to know what they know, or figure out whatever they figure out. No disagreement there - maybe the wizard has studied it in his books while the barbarian (who can't read) had an elder who showed him how to use one.

But the degree of success should be the same. If you decide a 22 means the wizard knows how to use it, then a barbarian who somehow ends up with a 22 should also know how to use it. Otherwise you're basically predetermining the results, in which case what's the point in making them both do the check?

Of course the players might also be able to make arguments to support their case - maybe the barbarian actually had in his background that his village elder specialised in wodgets (+2/advantage to the check?). Maybe the mage already stated in his background that he specialised in wodget books (+2/advantage?) but tended to neglect widgets (-2/disadvantage?).

I don't think there's a right and wrong answer here, it's all up to the DM how they interpret the rules. But to me it's unfair to completely exclude a character from being able to make a check purely because of their class and background, even if they have enough skill to make the DC I want the wizard to meet. But never say never - perhaps in some situations it might make sense to me. I can't think of any right now though.

[Orion3T]

Some of you folks are both overly obsessed with skill checks, and I think miss the point about DC's being determined.

Where did you get these DC's from? I see, you made them up, and I would like to remind people that DC's are not required to be in multiples of 5. That's just an example given by the books to point out a rough equivalence between a narrative "hard easy" description into a value you can use on the dice.

DC based on spell casting don't get an arbitrary rounding to 5. See also passive checks.

Erm... yes, I understand that. But intervals of 5 are the obvious choice when I was coming up with an example off the top of my head, and I wasn't going to list an outcome for every possible result. The DCs could have been 10,12,14,16.

The point was most DMs I have seen do this all the time. If the stealth check is trying to beat a perception of 12 and they roll a 12 they manage to sneak by. If they get an 11, they make a slight noise and the kobolds hear it and investigate. With a 7 they snap a twig and the kobolds prepare for a fight. With a 1 they almost trip, the kobolds see them and attack immediately.

The main DC is often just a guide for how good or bad a particular result will be, and the DM makes a judgement based on how big the difference is, with hitting the DC being just successful while beating it easily might yield a bonus and missing it by a larger amount produces proportionately worse results.

[djreynolds]

We just had dealings with demons and devil and dragons and mind flayers. Ok.

My cleric in full plate sneaking past the guards, while the rouge fails, this blows my mind.

In a world full of craziness, skills are there to ground us in reality.

My idea of not using the proficiency score, but using the perhaps the class level multiplied or halved somehow or the ability score doubled or triples seems as easy and fairer.

A rogue who dumps strength can have an 11 in athletics at level 17, same as fighter with 20 strength.
A rogue who dumps wisdom can have a perception score of 11 with expertise, same as the monk with a 20 wisdom.

I even do not mind the idea of not getting a roll if you are not proficient in a skill, makes team work big. Though it could cause trouble

But perhaps basing bonus not on character level but class level could be fairer.

For example, here I try halving the class level as the modifier--- a 10th level wizard /10th level fighter could have say +5 in athletic, +5 in arcana, but +10 in history as it is a skill akin to both classes and then just add in the ability modifier.

Or proficient skills you get double the ability modifier and expertise would triple it.

I do not want to ruin creativity or throw out luck, but for me, IMO, skills are what ground the game in reality.

[Zalabim]

There's no way someone with less talent, or less experience, or less education could possibly know anything useful to me about this subject. I see a lot of similarities to guy-at-gym with this general complaint.

Anyway, the rules already say that you don't have to roll on anything, but caution that it can lead to the DM introducing some bias in the game. The rules also say you can roll for everything, but caution that you should be prepared to handle some unexpected results. The rules also say that you can use a mix and just use your best judgment in things, which has aspects of either side. There's a lot of good advice in the DMG, if only people would actually read it.


My original point was that there should be things that most untrained and untalented characters should not be able to do. In the case of the portcullis either no one can do it or everyone has a chance, which just doesn't reflect reality (or mythic fantasy) of any kind. The swingyness of the dice add to this by keeping highly skilled characters from accomplishing difficult tasks while at the same time allowing extremely unskilled characters to do the hard.

My personal expectation is that rogues and wizards with 10 or less strength should not be able to lift 12k lbs. portcullises and it should be a very hard to a nearly impossible check for highly skilled and/or strong characters. If I make a character that is proficient in athletics and has a 20 strength, then I expect to be able to have a chance to life a 12k lbs. portcullis.

The DM I'm playing with on any given day might have a different expectation, and might allow low strength characters to roll and get a 20 and be able to pull off a moon gravity portcullis lift, while my character rolls a 2 and is unable to lift it.

I don't see any reason to assign the same DC to "lift 20 times my normal limit" and "lift 50 times my normal limit". Because it's the same object? It's not the same challenge.

[Laurefindel]

I like the way 5e skills works

Bounded accuracy makes that DCs have a relatively narrow range; no more DC 35 checks or something. Proficiency bonus makes that few roll are auto-win check given the narrow DC range. The RNG of the d20 makes that everyone has a chance to succeed low to mid DCs.

As others have said before, the trick is not to have everyone roll for everything all the time; only roll when there is doubt about the success or when the quality of the roll is relevant.


My cleric in full plate sneaking past the guards, while the rouge fails, this blows my mind.

If there was no chances that the cleric in full plate succeeds the stealth checks, no roll should have been allowed. If there was no chances that the rogue should fail, again there shouldn't have been any roll for that. If we accept the possibility that the cleric can succeed and that the rogue can fail, we shouldn't dismiss the possibility of this result.

[NewDM]

There's no way someone with less talent, or less experience, or less education could possibly know anything useful to me about this subject. I see a lot of similarities to guy-at-gym with this general complaint.

Anyway, the rules already say that you don't have to roll on anything, but caution that it can lead to the DM introducing some bias in the game. The rules also say you can roll for everything, but caution that you should be prepared to handle some unexpected results. The rules also say that you can use a mix and just use your best judgment in things, which has aspects of either side. There's a lot of good advice in the DMG, if only people would actually read it.

I don't see any reason to assign the same DC to "lift 20 times my normal limit" and "lift 50 times my normal limit". Because it's the same object? It's not the same challenge.

Nope. The DC's assume a normal average person attempting the task as I showed in the other thread (or possibly this one, I don't remember). DC 30 (nearly impossible) means that it is nearly impossible for an average person to accomplish. Here is the relevant quote "Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure." A DC 5 task is easy. Therefore an easy task should be accomplished by most people with little chance of failure. No where do the rules indicate you are to set DC categories based on individuals who attempt to try.

Of course you can house rule your game however you want.

The idea of a DC 30 is meant to be nearly impossible because even the most skilled characters have about a 50/50 chance of failure. +17 fails on a DC 30 60% of the time. That's a rogue or bard with expertise and proficiency and a +5 ability score.


I like the way 5e skills works

Bounded accuracy makes that DCs have a relatively narrow range; no more DC 35 checks or something. Proficiency bonus makes that few roll are auto-win check given the narrow DC range. The RNG of the d20 makes that everyone has a chance to succeed low to mid DCs.

As others have said before, the trick is not to have everyone roll for everything all the time; only roll when there is doubt about the success or when the quality of the roll is relevant.

If there was no chances that the cleric in full plate succeeds the stealth checks, no roll should have been allowed. If there was no chances that the rogue should fail, again there shouldn't have been any roll for that. If we accept the possibility that the cleric can succeed and that the rogue can fail, we shouldn't dismiss the possibility of this result.

The problem is most rogues and bards will auto-succeed on low to middling checks.

The other problem is that the cleric in full plate can actually succeed. Even with a Dexterity of 10 and being untrained that cleric can roll as high as 20 about 0.25% of the time. They can get a 15 about 9% of the time. A lot of creatures passive perception is as low as 10 which that cleric has 30% chance of succeeding on.

Stealth is one of those skills that is clearly defined. You oppose your stealth check with the enemies passive perception, unless they are actively looking for you. Then you oppose their perception roll. The DM can grant advantage or disadvantage, but they would be house ruling if they didn't allow a roll.

[smcmike]

The problem is most rogues and bards will auto-succeed on low to middling checks.

The other problem is that the cleric in full plate can actually succeed. Even with a Dexterity of 10 and being untrained that cleric can roll as high as 20 about 0.25% of the time. They can get a 15 about 9% of the time. A lot of creatures passive perception is as low as 10 which that cleric has 30% chance of succeeding on.

Stealth is one of those skills that is clearly defined. You oppose your stealth check with the enemies passive perception, unless they are actively looking for you. Then you oppose their perception roll. The DM can grant advantage or disadvantage, but they would be house ruling if they didn't allow a roll.

I don't see how this is a problem. Stealth is something that you don't even attempt without a reasons chance of success, if you have any choice. A 9% chance is terrible, and the cleric is a moron for trying to sneak - 9 times out of 10 he will fail, and his failure to will most likely cause a problem for him.

[NewDM]

I don't see how this is a problem. Stealth is something that you don't even attempt without a reasons chance of success, if you have any choice. A 9% chance is terrible, and the cleric is a moron for trying to sneak - 9 times out of 10 he will fail, and his failure to will most likely cause a problem for him.

That depends, if his buddy the rogue is assisting him, he can gain advantage to offset the disadvantage increasing his chances to 55% for DC 10.

Also many players don't do probability math at the table and bet their characters lives on rolling a nat 20. They should be given the chance, with maybe a warning from the DM "You know that your loud clanking armor will make it extremely difficult to sneak past the guards."

[KorvinStarmast]

Erm... yes, I understand that. /snip/We appear to be in violent agreement. :smallbiggrin:

[jas61292]

This doesn't ring true to me. Some things ARE harder to know, because some concepts are more complicated than a name or a simple piece of trivia, and even some trivia is harder to know than other trivia. It is easier to memorize 3 digits of pi than 300, and the average person is probably more likely to be able to memorize 300 digits than to understand string theory.

Besides which, there is nothing wrong with using the DC to represent the rarity of knowledge, rather than its inherent difficulty. Let's say for the sake of argument that pi to the 26th digit is equally hard to learn as the ABCs. My 3 year old knows her ABCs. The DC is very low because everyone knows it.

I don't think this contradicts my point.

What I was saying is that the difficulty of a task, especially for knowing things, does not exist in isolation, and the actual difficulty varies depending on many factors.

What you are saying is basically that the difficulty of a task does exist in relation to the difficulty of other tasks.

Your point is absolutely correct. But task A being easier than task B doesn't assign an actual difficulty to task A. It just means that, whatever the difficulty of task A is, it is easier than that of task B. To use your ABCs example, that is an easy task... for someone who grew up speaking English. People learn things like that far easier when they are younger. For an adult who has never been exposed to this before, it will not be nearly as easy.

Ultimately, I do agree with you that some stuff is simply harder to know than other stuff. Relative difficulty of similar tasks can absolutely exist. But absolute difficulty simply cannot exist in a vacuum, and trying to make it do so, is, in my opinion, to the detriment of a skill system.


Something just occurred to me about the knowledge-type proficiencies: In 3.5, you can't reroll a failed check with any of the Knowledge skills. I think a lot of people are assuming that's the case in 5e too, but it isn't. Nowhere does it say you can't keep trying over and over again until you get it. That being the case, knowledge skills should be the poster children for taking ten times as long to get an auto success, as described on p. 237 of the DMG. They should very rarely be rolled for at all, which pretty much eliminates the problem of the barbarian randomly knowing more about magic than the wizard does.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the rules say anything anywhere about re-trying a failed check. I've always thought that being able to re-try at all was the accidental 3.5 holdover. The way I play in my group, a single check is not an attempt. It represents your ability to complete the task. If you fail, you simply cannot do it, unless the situation changes to be more favorable to your chances of success. Really though, if you are in a situation where you would be able to try over and over, and there is any chance of success, you shouldn't be making any checks to begin with, and forcing you to do so is usually the sign of a bad, or more likely inexperienced, DM.

[NewDM]

I don't think this contradicts my point.

What I was saying is that the difficulty of a task, especially for knowing things, does not exist in isolation, and the actual difficulty varies depending on many factors.

What you are saying is basically that the difficulty of a task does exist in relation to the difficulty of other tasks.

Your point is absolutely correct. But task A being easier than task B doesn't assign an actual difficulty to task A. It just means that, whatever the difficulty of task A is, it is easier than that of task B. To use your ABCs example, that is an easy task... for someone who grew up speaking English. People learn things like that far easier when they are younger. For an adult who has never been exposed to this before, it will not be nearly as easy.

Ultimately, I do agree with you that some stuff is simply harder to know than other stuff. Relative difficulty of similar tasks can absolutely exist. But absolute difficulty simply cannot exist in a vacuum, and trying to make it do so, is, in my opinion, to the detriment of a skill system.

Yes, but how does swingyness affect it?

[jas61292]

Yes, but how does swingyness affect it?

My view is that the system is not nearly as swingy as is implied, because difficulties (and thus DCs) are not something that exists in isolation. To fall back on the knowledge examples I have used, while yes, there is a chance that the dumb barbarian could know something that the smart wizard does not, this will never happen on anything the Wizard "should" know and the barbarian "shouldn't" know. If you are trying to recall a fact about a complex magical topic that the wizard studied in his past, it might not be a given, but his history makes it a fairly simple fact for him. Maybe DC 10. On the other hand, the barbarian has no experience with this topic ever, and has never even heard half the words involved. Its practically impossible that he would know it. That's a DC getting close to 30. The Wizard may not always remember this piece of information, but never will the barbarian know it and the wizard not know it.

Now, what my last post was getting at is that, yes, things can have relative difficulty. The basics of a topic are going to be easier to know than the complex details. And as such, it may be possible to say "X is always harder to know than Y, regardless of the other details of the situation." But the DC for a piece of information simply cannot exist in isolation, so while that relative comparison may tell us that X will always have a higher DC than Y, it tells us nothing about the overall difficulty, and thus the specific DCs in question.

I know not everyone likes the idea of shifting DCs, and many people want everything codified such that shifting DCs simply would not be compatible. But my personal reading of the rules on how a DM should be setting DCs leads me to believe that shifting DCs based on the situation (or, in other words, shifting all the various modifiers that 3.5 used from the skill check to the skill DC) is how the game is meant to be played.

[JoeJ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the rules say anything anywhere about re-trying a failed check. I've always thought that being able to re-try at all was the accidental 3.5 holdover. The way I play in my group, a single check is not an attempt. It represents your ability to complete the task. If you fail, you simply cannot do it, unless the situation changes to be more favorable to your chances of success. Really though, if you are in a situation where you would be able to try over and over, and there is any chance of success, you shouldn't be making any checks to begin with, and forcing you to do so is usually the sign of a bad, or more likely inexperienced, DM.

The section on retrying is on p. 237 of the DMG.

[NewDM]

My view is that the system is not nearly as swingy as is implied, because difficulties (and thus DCs) are not something that exists in isolation. To fall back on the knowledge examples I have used, while yes, there is a chance that the dumb barbarian could know something that the smart wizard does not, this will never happen on anything the Wizard "should" know and the barbarian "shouldn't" know. If you are trying to recall a fact about a complex magical topic that the wizard studied in his past, it might not be a given, but his history makes it a fairly simple fact for him. Maybe DC 10. On the other hand, the barbarian has no experience with this topic ever, and has never even heard half the words involved. Its practically impossible that he would know it. That's a DC getting close to 30. The Wizard may not always remember this piece of information, but never will the barbarian know it and the wizard not know it.

Now, what my last post was getting at is that, yes, things can have relative difficulty. The basics of a topic are going to be easier to know than the complex details. And as such, it may be possible to say "X is always harder to know than Y, regardless of the other details of the situation." But the DC for a piece of information simply cannot exist in isolation, so while that relative comparison may tell us that X will always have a higher DC than Y, it tells us nothing about the overall difficulty, and thus the specific DCs in question.

I know not everyone likes the idea of shifting DCs, and many people want everything codified such that shifting DCs simply would not be compatible. But my personal reading of the rules on how a DM should be setting DCs leads me to believe that shifting DCs based on the situation (or, in other words, shifting all the various modifiers that 3.5 used from the skill check to the skill DC) is how the game is meant to be played.

I just made a long post in the "Next Previous" thread that clearly indicates that DCs are meant to be static for all players, but chosen by the DM. So if a Barbarian tries to lift a gate, and a Wizard tries to lift the same gate, they have the same DC. However one DM might set that DC at 10 and the other might set it at DC 30. An easy way to remember it is a DC is the environmental factors and the proficiency and ability bonus and whether they have advantage or disadvantage on the check comes from the players. A 'strong' character has that already built in with a strength bonus of +5 to the check and a weak character has a -2 to the check already built into their roll.

[Zman]

I just made a long post in the "Next Previous" thread that clearly indicates that DCs are meant to be static for all players, but chosen by the DM. So if a Barbarian tries to lift a gate, and a Wizard tries to lift the same gate, they have the same DC. However one DM might set that DC at 10 and the other might set it at DC 30. An easy way to remember it is a DC is the environmental factors and the proficiency and ability bonus and whether they have advantage or disadvantage on the check comes from the players. A 'strong' character has that already built in with a strength bonus of +5 to the check and a weak character has a -2 to the check already built into their roll.

But, you only roll when there is a chance of success or failure. A perfectly valid scenario is setting the DC at 15, but declaring that any character with a Strength less that 15 doesn't get to roll. The DC remains constant, but the Wizard simply doesn't get to try as his raw strength is just too low while the barbarian gets to check. The Wizard is simply too weak to ever succeed while ththe Barbarian possesses the requisite strength. In a scenario where they have all the time in the world neither has to check, the Wizard automatically fails and the Barbarian automatically succeeds.

The same justifications can be used for almost all contentious checks to vastly improve immersion and reduce illogical swingy moments that arguably shouldn't happen.

[Kurald Galain]

yes, there is a chance that the dumb barbarian could know something that the smart wizard does not, this will never happen on anything the Wizard "should" know and the barbarian "shouldn't" know.

Well, one "solution" to the skill issue is indeed to have skill checks that aren't "DC 15" but that are "DC 10, but DC 20 for dwarves, but rangers automatically succeed, but city-raised characters cannot attempt the check". That's not an exaggeration, by the way; such things are a reasonably common suggestion in the forums.

However, this is inelegant, slows down gameplay, and makes more work for the GM.

[pwykersotz]

I just made a long post in the "Next Previous" thread that clearly indicates that DCs are meant to be static for all players, but chosen by the DM. So if a Barbarian tries to lift a gate, and a Wizard tries to lift the same gate, they have the same DC. However one DM might set that DC at 10 and the other might set it at DC 30. An easy way to remember it is a DC is the environmental factors and the proficiency and ability bonus and whether they have advantage or disadvantage on the check comes from the players. A 'strong' character has that already built in with a strength bonus of +5 to the check and a weak character has a -2 to the check already built into their roll.

While I think your overall point is a fine one, you have given nothing but implication and supposition and then claimed it's RAW. It's not. RAW is silent on this issue, unless it is someplace you haven't quoted. You can't use implication to claim a rule as written, nor can you use a single instance of a static DC to extrapolate. You can do so for running a game, and it even makes sense. But you can't expect to be considered correct. Only agreed with or disagreed with.

[jas61292]

Well, one "solution" to the skill issue is indeed to have skill checks that aren't "DC 15" but that are "DC 10, but DC 20 for dwarves, but rangers automatically succeed, but city-raised characters cannot attempt the check". That's not an exaggeration, by the way; such things are a reasonably common suggestion in the forums.

However, this is inelegant, slows down gameplay, and makes more work for the GM.

This is exactly how I play with my group. And I never find it slows things down at all. It takes absolutely no extra work on my part to think "this should be harder for X than for Y," as to me that is thinking logically, instead of trying to come up with some arbitrary measure of difficulty in a vacuum, which I find far more challenging. I can only imagine it slowing down gameplay if the players are not on board with this method, and argue it all the time. But if that is the case, you have group dynamic and expectation problems. Not rules problems.

[Solusek]

Well, one "solution" to the skill issue is indeed to have skill checks that aren't "DC 15" but that are "DC 10, but DC 20 for dwarves, but rangers automatically succeed, but city-raised characters cannot attempt the check". That's not an exaggeration, by the way; such things are a reasonably common suggestion in the forums.

However, this is inelegant, slows down gameplay, and makes more work for the GM.

I really don't like that approach because I feel like it's giving control over to the GM in situations that you really don't need to. The whole point of having character stats and codified game systems is so that your players have ways of interacting with the world through a known impartial method that can give them their own agency and control of the story and the world through these systems.

When you turn it into "mother may I" territory by ignoring the impartial game systems and just asking for DM fiat to tell you which characters can do something and which can't, the players lose out and the cooperative storytelling aspect of D&D diminishes a little bit because of it.

[Zman]

I really don't like that approach because I feel like it's giving control over to the GM in situations that you really don't need to. The whole point of having character stats and codified game systems is so that your players have ways of interacting with the world through a known impartial method that can give them their own agency and control of the story and the world through these systems.

When you turn it into "mother may I" territory by ignoring the impartial game systems and just asking for DM fiat to tell you which characters can do something and which can't, the players lose out and the cooperative storytelling aspect of D&D diminishes a little bit because of it.

Lose out... It's a cost weighed against immersion and vermisilitude...

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I really don't like that approach because I feel like it's giving control over to the GM in situations that you really don't need to. The whole point of having character stats and codified game systems is so that your players have ways of interacting with the world through a known impartial method that can give them their own agency and control of the story and the world through these systems.

When you turn it into "mother may I" territory by ignoring the impartial game systems and just asking for DM fiat to tell you which characters can do something and which can't, the players lose out and the cooperative storytelling aspect of D&D diminishes a little bit because of it.

I understand this argument, but every time I see it my first thought is that the GM sets the DCs, and determines the results of the check. There's no leaving 'mother-may-I' land, it's all-encompassing.

[NewDM]

While I think your overall point is a fine one, you have given nothing but implication and supposition and then claimed it's RAW. It's not. RAW is silent on this issue, unless it is someplace you haven't quoted. You can't use implication to claim a rule as written, nor can you use a single instance of a static DC to extrapolate. You can do so for running a game, and it even makes sense. But you can't expect to be considered correct. Only agreed with or disagreed with.

Its everywhere a DC is quoted. No where does it indicate the DC is altered by who is doing the check. Its pretty clear cut. There is no evidence whatsoever for sliding DCs based on who is doing the act. Like I said, great house rule. Use it all you want, even tell everyone about it, but don't try to tell new players that this is the rules.


I really don't like that approach because I feel like it's giving control over to the GM in situations that you really don't need to. The whole point of having character stats and codified game systems is so that your players have ways of interacting with the world through a known impartial method that can give them their own agency and control of the story and the world through these systems.

When you turn it into "mother may I" territory by ignoring the impartial game systems and just asking for DM fiat to tell you which characters can do something and which can't, the players lose out and the cooperative storytelling aspect of D&D diminishes a little bit because of it.

I agree. Its pretty clear cut that if you feel a character should have some kind of easier time you are supposed to grant advantage and if they aren't you either don't let them do it at all or you grant disadvantage. Otherwise you are falling into "Mother May I?" as a house rule to balance the swingyness of the game.

[NewDM]

Lose out... It's a cost weighed against immersion and vermisilitude...

If everyone at the table have solid rules and knows what the DCs are, then no immersion or verisimilitude is lost. Unless someone at the table disagrees with the DCs, then you end up with the same thing as when players and DMs don't have the same expectations.

In other words the problem exists in both cases.

[Solusek]

Lose out... It's a cost weighed against immersion and vermisilitude...

It's just a shame that 5E pretty much forces a choice between "This doesn't make much sense at all" and "DM fiat" when it comes to how you should deal with skills. I would prefer it to be a better designed system to begin with.

[NewDM]

It's just a shame that 5E pretty much forces a choice between "This doesn't make much sense at all" and "DM fiat" when it comes to how you should deal with skills. I would prefer it to be a better designed system to begin with.

I agree completely.

[Zman]

If everyone at the table have solid rules and knows what the DCs are, then no immersion or verisimilitude is lost. Unless someone at the table disagrees with the DCs, then you end up with the same thing as when players and DMs don't have the same expectations.

In other words the problem exists in both cases.

No, when things that happen that make no sense, i.e. The Barbarian knowing something about magic the Wizard doesn't or the Wizard beats the barbarian in an arm wrestling contest, that breaks immersion and vermilistuse. The DM is already deciding the DC and what can be rolled anyways, it isn't terribly difficult to say who is allowed to check and or that the results make sense.


It's just a shame that 5E pretty much forces a choice between "This doesn't make much sense at all" and "DM fiat" when it comes to how you should deal with skills. I would prefer it to be a better designed system to begin with.

I've never seen the perfect system we are all looking for, IMO 5e with relatively light DM fiat does a workable job and is a vast improvement over previous editions.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've never seen the perfect system we are all looking for, IMO 5e with relatively light DM fiat does a workable job and is a vast improvement over previous editions.
5e's skill numbers work pretty well IF you give everyone Expertise (and presumably give the Rogue and Bard a replacement jacement ability. The more I think about Expertise the weirder it gets; 5e is so much about controlled numbers and then two classes just get to blow everyone else out of the water).

Otherwise, I have to agree that "DC 10 for Barbarians, 12 for Dwarves, 15 for Wizards" is goofy and clumsy. It's taking the time-honored tradition of circumstance bonuses and hiding it for no good purpose. As was mentioned before, just give out Advantage, or a +5, or whatever standard bonus you like to those making checks they should be extra capable at.

[pwykersotz]

Its everywhere a DC is quoted. No where does it indicate the DC is altered by who is doing the check. Its pretty clear cut. There is no evidence whatsoever for sliding DCs based on who is doing the act. Like I said, great house rule. Use it all you want, even tell everyone about it, but don't try to tell new players that this is the rules.

:smallsigh: You are the only one creating rules that don't exist. You're taking a very reasonable implication and trying to make it ironclad. This completely fails because there is no text written either way about this subject.

What's more, you have the gall to tell me that I should do exactly what I did (tell everyone about it) and not do exactly what I did not do (claim that variable DC's were RAW).

[NewDM]

:smallsigh: You are the only one creating rules that don't exist. You're taking a very reasonable implication and trying to make it ironclad. This completely fails because there is no text written either way about this subject.

What's more, you have the gall to tell me that I should do exactly what I did (tell everyone about it) and not do exactly what I did not do (claim that variable DC's were RAW).

Its pretty clear. All mentions indicate same DC's for all characters. There are no mentions of Different DC's for different characters. Its clearly one way, though the developers probably assumed they didn't need to spell it out.

[pwykersotz]

Its pretty clear. All mentions indicate same DC's for all characters. There are no mentions of Different DC's for different characters. Its clearly one way, though the developers probably assumed they didn't need to spell it out.

Dredge up one of the old threads about Stealth if you have the time, there's a lot of relevance in how that was discussed. A subject being clear to one person is not the same as that person being right, nor an indication that it is clear for others.

Many people have made claims on this forum that the rules clearly implied something, and then had to eat their words (or say "that's dumb!") when the devs released sage advice or errata that stated the opposite. You shouldn't bludgeon people with the "them's the rules!" bat and say everything else is houserules unless you can actually quote a rule.

[Pex]

I understand this argument, but every time I see it my first thought is that the GM sets the DCs, and determines the results of the check. There's no leaving 'mother-may-I' land, it's all-encompassing.

Great! What's the DC when the same or similar situation comes up when playing with a different DM? That's the problem.

[JoeJ]

Great! What's the DC when the same or similar situation comes up when playing with a different DM? That's the problem.

The DC is whatever that DM decides it is, just like 3.5. The only difference is that in 3.5 the rules give the DM a set of descriptors they're supposed to use. So instead of just deciding that it's a DC 15 to climb some particular cliff, they'd decide that it's a "very rough natural rock surface." Either way, creating that cliff is entirely DM fiat and a different DM would likely set a different difficulty.

[Zalabim]

The Role of Dice: Excerpts, if I may.

Rolling With It
"...When a character attempts a task, the DM calls for a check and picks a DC. ... You must be ready to improvise and react to a changing situation."
"... gives the players the sense that anything is possible. Sure, it might seem unlikely that the party's halfling can leap on the ogre's back, pull a sack over its head, and then dive to safety, but with a lucky enough roll it just might work."
"A drawback of this approach is that roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success."

Ignoring the Dice
"With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors."
"A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. ... This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one 'correct' action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle."

The Middle Path
"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."

It's like this thread's discussion has already happened before. I really have to give a solid recommendation to this book.

[NewDM]

The Role of Dice: Excerpts, if I may.

Rolling With It
"...When a character attempts a task, the DM calls for a check and picks a DC. ... You must be ready to improvise and react to a changing situation."
"... gives the players the sense that anything is possible. Sure, it might seem unlikely that the party's halfling can leap on the ogre's back, pull a sack over its head, and then dive to safety, but with a lucky enough roll it just might work."
"A drawback of this approach is that roleplaying can diminish if players feel that their die rolls, rather than their decisions and characterizations, always determine success."

Ignoring the Dice
"With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors."
"A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. ... This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one 'correct' action that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle."

The Middle Path
"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."

It's like this thread's discussion has already happened before. I really have to give a solid recommendation to this book.

Those are from the DMG. I particularly like how the middle path describes granting advantage/auto-success or disadvantage/impossibility instead of adjusting the DC, which further backs up my point.

The main problem with the skill system if you are following the rules is that the swingyness of the dice override any bonuses and penalties you have. In my estimation an expert at something should only fail a moderate check about 5%-10% of the time. An unskilled and untrained individual should fail at hard or harder 80%-90% of the time. Instead the numbers are more like 30%-40% for the expert and 60%-70% for the untrained.

This causes all kinds of false expectations and many people disagree with it to the point of coming up with some pretty big house rules (sliding DCs, and double proficiency bonus).
If proficiency checks used a 1d10 roll and had double the value, then a lot of the problems would disappear that come from swingyness.

[Zalabim]

Those are from the DMG. I particularly like how the middle path describes granting advantage/auto-success or disadvantage/impossibility instead of adjusting the DC, which further backs up my point.

If I may cut in with the next, obvious, response: Setting the DC is already covered in Rolling With It, where the DM picks a DC when a character attempts a task. Thus it could be interpreted that the DC is only set when there's both a task and an actor. It's pure speculation that a different character attempting the same task should have the same DC.

[Casualoblivion]

To contrast with 4E, a 1st level character with 18 in the stat and trained in a skill had a +9, before racial/background bonuses. An untrained character with 10 in the stat had +0. +9 vs +0 tended to be more significant than the d20 roll, in my experience playing 4E and you could really establish what you were good at.

In contrast, a 5E character trained in a skill with 16 in the stat has only +5 on the roll and there aren't any racial/background bonuses. +5 vs +0 doesn't really give you as strong of an advantage on overcoming the dice.

Also, given 5E's small bonuses, I think it's ludicrous most people talk about skill checks being DC 15. If your bonus maxes out at +5, those DCs should mostly be 10s.

[NewDM]

If I may cut in with the next, obvious, response: Setting the DC is already covered in Rolling With It, where the DM picks a DC when a character attempts a task. Thus it could be interpreted that the DC is only set when there's both a task and an actor. It's pure speculation that a different character attempting the same task should have the same DC.

Actually, there is a sentence in there that says "Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure" and "Keep in mind that a character with a 10 in the associated ability and no proficiency will succeed at an easy task around 50 percent of the time. A moderate task requires a higher score or proficiency for success, whereas a hard task typically requires both." Its pretty clear that each character has the same DC. Not only that but all throughout the books you never see a mention of setting a different DC for a different character, and you always see setting the same DC for all characters. The only thing you that comes close is that if a character should be especially good at something you grant advantage and if they are especially bad you grant disadvantage.

Sliding DCs are simply people trying to read between the lines of what the developers thought was an open and shut case not worth mentioning, in order to fix a system that does not meet their expectations.

Someone really needs to pester Sage Advice with this question to settle it.

[mgshamster]

Actually, there is a sentence in there that says "Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure" and "Keep in mind that a character with a 10 in the associated ability and no proficiency will succeed at an easy task around 50 percent of the time. A moderate task requires a higher score or proficiency for success, whereas a hard task typically requires both." Its pretty clear that each character has the same DC. Not only that but all throughout the books you never see a mention of setting a different DC for a different character, and you always see setting the same DC for all characters. The only thing you that comes close is that if a character should be especially good at something you grant advantage and if they are especially bad you grant disadvantage.

Sliding DCs are simply people trying to read between the lines of what the developers thought was an open and shut case not worth mentioning, in order to fix a system that does not meet their expectations.

Someone really needs to pester Sage Advice with this question to settle it.

From one side of your mouth you're claiming to know the developers intentions, and from the other side you're saying that we have to ask the developers in order to figure out their intent.

That's quite disingenuous.

[Roughishguy86]

I have a few thoughts on this.
1. In no game i have ever played would the dc for an 8 str wiz arm wrestiling an 18 str barb be a fifteen. The dc for the wizard would be more like a 25. however for the barb to beat the wiz im thinking like a 5. The different dcs representing the difference between 18 and 8 str. And anyone that says that makes no sense has never arm wrestled someone much stronger than them.
2. For the arcana checks if both the wiz and barb beat the dc 15 maybe the barbarian knows that someone in his tribe touched a glyph that looked like that once and it blew their arm off so he knows not to touch it. However the wizard knows that its an exploding rune and can accurately gauge the power of the wiz who cast it. Thus illustrating the difference in their experiences with this form of magic.
3. In the case of the portcullis id have the dc set high enough that none of the lower str characters ever had a chance at making it. whereas the fighter might have a 20% chance of making it. I do not think that all tasks should be attempted by the whole party that ruins certain characters chances at shining at certain moments.

And with any of these tasks i wouldn't be having every player roll for the arcana maybe the wizard has never seen this particular ruin but hes seen many like it and the barbarian knows that it blew his buddy carls arm off therefore he uses the help action and the figure it out together. And the same goes for the portcullis maybe the fighter cant do it alone but with the rogues help maybe he can. You know because this game is meant to be played by a group not a one man adventuring party. The "swingyness" so to speak of does not bother me at all because it not a problem at my table each member of the group has things they do well and things they dont. and the dm is really good at adjusting dcs to reflect the situation.

[NewDM]

I had my friend twitter Sage Advice for the answer, since I don't use Twitter. Maybe we'll get a response.

[NewDM]

From one side of your mouth you're claiming to know the developers intentions, and from the other side you're saying that we have to ask the developers in order to figure out their intent.

That's quite disingenuous.

From my view its open and shut. That's my opinion.

It keeps getting brought up as if it weren't a house rule, so we should ask the developers to confirm it one way or the other. No need to get snippy. Everyone should tweet @JeremyECrawford with the question to get an answer.

Edit: I'm looking at it from all points of view, despite my point of view being that it is open and shut.

[mgshamster]

From my view its open and shut. That's my opinion.

It keeps getting brought up as if it weren't a house rule, so we should ask the developers to confirm it one way or the other. No need to get snippy. Everyone should tweet @JeremyECrawford with the question to get an answer.

Edit: I'm looking at it from all points of view, despite my point of view being that it is open and shut.

It's not being snippy to call you out when you make a double standard post.

Stop making double standard posts, stop drastically changing your points when someone makes a counter argument, and stop being disingenuous.

It's really difficult to have a conversation with someone when they do this. It's like you're not interested in having a conversation, but more interested in proving yourself right.

Like when you claimed that a strength 8 could lift a portcullis while a strength 18 could not, AND that neither could lift it - both according to the rules. But those both can't be true. It's inherently contradictory. You're posting contradictory arguments so that no matter what someone says in repsonse, you'll be right and they'll be wrong.

I don't mind if I'm actually wrong and you're actually right. I can admit my errors. But you've been making contradictory posts and moving goal posts all throughout this thread and others, and no one but you could possibly ever be correct in that kind of situation.

It's inherently disingenuous. Please stop.

[NewDM]

It's not being snippy to call you out when you make a double standard post.

Stop making double standard posts, stop drastically changing your points when someone makes a counter argument, and stop being disingenuous.

It's really difficult to have a conversation with someone when they do this. It's like you're not interested in having a conversation, but more interested in proving yourself right.

Like when you claimed that a strength 8 could lift a portcullis while a strength 18 could not, AND that neither could lift it - both according to the rules. But those both can't be true. It's inherently contradictory. You're posting contradictory arguments so that no matter what someone says in repsonse, you'll be right and they'll be wrong.

I don't mind if I'm actually wrong and you're actually right. I can admit my errors. But you've been making contradictory posts and moving goal posts all throughout this thread and others, and no one but you could possibly ever be correct in that kind of situation.

It's inherently disingenuous. Please stop.

lol, its not a double standard. Its the ability to set aside your own viewpoint and look at the situation critically. I've done that. To me its pretty clear what the answer is. To others it is not. There is controversy. When there is controversy you go to Sage Advice and find out what they say about it. Standard procedure pretty much.

If anyone is being disingenuous its you. Instead of addressing my points, you try to find some kind of imaginary inconsistency to pick out and focus on.

When you see what looks like a double standard. Its simply me looking at something through different viewpoints. The portcullis example is correct because by the rules neither could lift the thing normally. There is an out though in that the DM can call for a skill check for things that fall well outside what is automatic. From that viewpoint a DM could call for a check. Once that happens you have to go with whatever the DM feels is appropriate: easy, moderate, hard, very hard, and nearly impossible. Which falls into DM fiat, and is affected by the swingyness of the roll. If the DC the DM sets is possible for the weak Wizard, then the swingyness allows the wizard to succeed where the Barbarian doesn't.

TL;DR: Nope. Just displaying multiple viewpoints.

[mgshamster]

I had my friend twitter Sage Advice for the answer, since I don't use Twitter. Maybe we'll get a response.

FYI, Jeremy has said that if he doesn't respond within a month or so, please retweet the question.

His queue has a limit, and Twitter doesn't show him any tweets once that limit has been reached, so he could miss the question.

[NewDM]

FYI, Jeremy has said that if he doesn't respond within a month or so, please retweet the question.

His queue has a limit, and Twitter doesn't show him any tweets once that limit has been reached, so he could miss the question.

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind. Does he check his email regularly?

[mgshamster]

Thank you, I'll keep that in mind. Does he check his email regularly?

Yes. He tries to respond to tweets often. Last time asked a question, it took about a month.

[Pex]

The DC is whatever that DM decides it is, just like 3.5. The only difference is that in 3.5 the rules give the DM a set of descriptors they're supposed to use. So instead of just deciding that it's a DC 15 to climb some particular cliff, they'd decide that it's a "very rough natural rock surface." Either way, creating that cliff is entirely DM fiat and a different DM would likely set a different difficulty.

That's the problem. I have to relearn the game depending on who is DM. See other thread.
:smallwink:

[JoeJ]

That's the problem. I have to relearn the game depending on who is DM. See other thread.
:smallwink:

I would say you don't have to relearn the game (apart from whatever house rules are in play, obviously), you have to learn the new DM's world.

The DCs for most tasks aren't part of the game rules in 5e; they're part of the adventure.

[Pex]

I would say you don't have to relearn the game (apart from whatever house rules are in play, obviously), you have to learn the new DM's world.

The DCs for most tasks aren't part of the game rules in 5e; they're part of the adventure.

I still disagree on interpretation but a nice counterargument. :smalltongue:

[Grayfigure]

[QUOTE=NewDM;20611705]So you've never seen an 8 Strength wizard beat the 18 strength barbarian at an arm wrestling contest, or had the fighter fail to lift up the portcullis, but the weak rogue manages to do it?/QUOTE]

I think that in this case, the system is there to get the result, but you're free to implement the why. In the case of the arm wrestle upset, it could be that the barbarian sneezed at the wrong moment, or he saw something that robbed him of his concentration

In the porticullis situation, the fighter may not have noticed the puddle of water he put his foot into to brace, or may have aggravated a muscle in his back that he slightly pulled in the last fight.

The system is there to help parse through rulings, but it's part of the story to entertain the players with WHY the parsing is so comical.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?

I think based on the responses we don't all agree.


RNG aside, I also don't like the BA artefact that, just by numbers, a Cleric who never set foot outside his cloister very often has a better Survival check than the Barbarian who has lived out of doors his entire life. At this point of the argument, usually the apologists chime in going on about how in such cases the Cleric shouldn't even be allowed a check whereas the Barbarian might auto-succeed, but this is beside the point. If I have to use rulings to fix problems with the rules, that rather proves to show how messed up those rules are. As it stands, there are no "Trained Only" skills in 5E.

I would say it's emblematic of the Cleric having a better intuition, and potentially having read up on the appropriate subjects during all their time in the cloister. Or you could play it off as their deity providing a nudge in the right direction when they succeed.

All the same, just because someone's a Barbarian doesn't necessitate that they know anything at all about Survival, maybe they were a smith, or they were good at bringing down game or at rowing for the boat, while someone else did the fishing or tracking.

[NewDM]

Just an update on the sliding DC questions:


Differences in ability between characters is represented by their stats and things like advantage/disadvantage.
Jeremy Crawford

answer to the following question:


@JeremyECrawford When a skill check is easier for one character instead of another do you adjust the DC? Different DCs for different chars?

We got an answer and the ability of characters is represented by bonuses, penalties, advantage, and disadvantage, not the DC.

[2D8HP]

I think we can all agree that rolling the dice can cause a very swingy experience in 5E. Does this bother you? Do you like it? Do you wish is was less swingy?
Thems the breaks. Tried "Realism" "back in the day" with Chivalry and Sorcery (and Rolemaster etc.). The dice are there for a reason. Suspense! Surprises! Fun!
When I want to play a game with more structured probabilities, there's always chess.

[NewDM]

Thems the breaks. Tried "Realism" "back in the day" with Chivalry and Sorcery (and Rolemaster etc.). The dice are there for a reason. Suspense! Surprises! Fun!
When I want to play a game with more structured probabilities, there's always chess.

Or you can play 3.x where the modifiers outpace the dice roll by mid level, or any number of games that do that.

Or we can continue to complain about the dice being swingy so that WotC (who apparently looks at these forums for ideas) will realize that a lot of people don't like their 'bounded accuracy' system, and possibly change it for the 5.5 update.

[pwykersotz]

Or you can play 3.x where the modifiers outpace the dice roll by mid level, or any number of games that do that.

Or we can continue to complain about the dice being swingy so that WotC (who apparently looks at these forums for ideas) will realize that a lot of people don't like their 'bounded accuracy' system, and possibly change it for the 5.5 update.

That's an...odd and circuitous motivation for creating a forum thread.

As far as I'm aware, bounded accuracy has been a massive triumph of game design. Not for everyone perhaps, but a great way to make a game. I don't think an iterative update to 5e would do away with that. It's pretty fundamental.

[NewDM]

That's an...odd and circuitous motivation for creating a forum thread.

As far as I'm aware, bounded accuracy has been a massive triumph of game design. Not for everyone perhaps, but a great way to make a game. I don't think an iterative update to 5e would do away with that. It's pretty fundamental.

Well at the current rate of shorter and shorter editions 5.5 is a month away and 6E is not far behind. So maybe 6e will actually be modular so that some can play with bounded accuracy and others can play with less swingy dice systems.

[R.Shackleford]

My 2 cp on the OP's question. I haven't read every reply since then.

I haven't seen much swingyness when it comes to battle. An average roll of 10 along with your prof+modifier (+/- advantage/disadvantage) typically allows you to hit your target numbers. Monsters for the most part have pathetic defenses and saving throws are typically a joke.

This isn't a good or bad thing. Compared to PCs, who are special, random monsters shouldn't be on the same level.

My issue with swingyness comes from the use of ability checks to use skills. Because they aren't used as much the swingyness is felt a lot more. Of course this doesn't get help from the fact a lot of DMs will use skills as an "all or nothing" when they should be a "fall forward" sort of system.

[Kurald Galain]

Or we can continue to complain about the dice being swingy so that WotC (who apparently looks at these forums for ideas) will realize that a lot of people don't like their 'bounded accuracy' system, and possibly change it for the 5.5 update.

Huh.

Or, you know, we can tell GMs or players who are bothered by this that it's okay to use houserules, and how to effectively fix it.

[mgshamster]

Huh.

Or, you know, we can tell GMs or players who are bothered by this that it's okay to use houserules, and how to effectively fix it.

No. That's not acceptable. Every game must play by "RAW" (no variants, even though those are also rules as written), and the entire game must be republished to match the game he wants.

Except, you know, when you call him on it, then his tune changes so that you're still wrong. And changes right back as soon as you drop it.

[NewDM]

No. That's not acceptable. Every game must play by "RAW" (no variants, even though those are also rules as written), and the entire game must be republished to match the game he wants.

Except, you know, when you call him on it, then his tune changes so that you're still wrong. And changes right back as soon as you drop it.

If you have a problem with my posts report me. If you do not then just stop because you are treading on insult territory here.

The reason RAW is important is because most groups abide by it and when they don't, they don't universally use the same house rules.

So when talking in generalities of the game, I always assume RAW. When talking specifics I assume whatever house rules are mentioned.

Just because you don't agree with me or know my underlying motivations, doesn't mean I'm being hypocritical.

[mgshamster]

If you have a problem with my posts report me. If you do not then just stop because you are treading on insult territory here.

The reason RAW is important is because most groups abide by it and when they don't, they don't universally use the same house rules.

So when talking in generalities of the game, I always assume RAW. When talking specifics I assume whatever house rules are mentioned.

Just because you don't agree with me or know my underlying motivations, doesn't mean I'm being hypocritical.

That may have been true in 3.X, where RAW was an obsession. 5e is all about customization for creating the game you want. Dismissing and handwaving away variant rules and house rules simply because they're not raw goes against the entire design philosophy of the game - and really, it doesn't help anyone with any problems they may have with the game.

[NewDM]

That may have been true in 3.X, where RAW was an obsession. 5e is all about customization for creating the game you want. Dismissing and handwaving away variant rules and house rules simply because they're not raw goes against the entire design philosophy of the game - and really, it doesn't help anyone with any problems they may have with the game.

It doesn't matter. The RAW is the only common factor among different tables and groups. We don't know which variants everyone uses or which house rules. We should assume RAW unless we are talking about specific instances.

[Firechanter]

That cannot work, simply for the reason that, as opposed to 3.X, 5E does not have rules for a lot of things. Very often the DM must make a ruling.
Arguing RAW is perfectly fine to make a point what you _can_ do. Such as a GWFer rerolling all _damage_ dice, not just weapon dice. Arguing RAW quickly becomes asinine when you try to prove "they don't say I can't".

[Orion3T]

RAW is important for players who trust the game designers more than their own judgements and interpretations. They want to play RAI, and RAW are the obvious starting place when determining RAI. So unless something is unclear RAW is what most inexperienced players (like myself) will try to abide by.

Discussing house rules is all well and good but it's only really of interest to those who understand both RAW and RAI, and simply disagree with them. It doesn't really help those who want to play RAW but don't entirely understand them.

Sure, 5E leaves room for DM interpretation in many areas, which is fine. But it's not always entirely obvious whether something is being deliberately left for DM interpretation, or if there's a disconnect between RAW and RAI. That's where discussions about the rules come in.

Anyway, in this case it's now clear that, whatever interpretation we have of RAW, RAI is that DCs are set according to the nature of the task and are completely independent of the character attempting it. Jeremy's tweet makes that explicitly clear I think:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/717117263485095936

[jas61292]

Anyway, in this case it's now clear that, whatever interpretation we have of RAW, RAI is that DCs are set according to the nature of the task and are completely independent of the character attempting it. Jeremy's tweet makes that explicitly clear I think:

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/717117263485095936

I think that tweet does clear some things up, but not everything. It says that differences in ability are not represented by different DCs, but it does not say anything about what constitutes the nature of the task for setting a DC. I mean, sure, two people, with the same stuff on them, both trying to swim across a dangerous channel will both have the same DC, even if one has Str 18 and Athletics proficiency and the other has Str 8 and no proficiency. However, what makes that situation different? While I don't know the logistics of swimming with armor in real life, I know that older D&D editions had armor effect your ability to swim. Personally, the way the rules are written, I always believed in such a situation that, because the situations are different for different characters based on what they are wearing, the DC would be different. On a similar note, with relation to things like Arcana checks to recall lore, the nature of the task is dramatically different for a person trying to remember what they read, vs a person trying to figure things out without any prior knowledge.

Ultimately, it is my view that while what Jeremy Crawford said does explicitly mean that things like lifting the portcullis, which is going to be the exact same thing for different people, would always have a constant DC, many, many situations have the nature of their task vary by character and thus effect their DC. And I do not believe that treating it that way at all contradicts what Crawford said. Its all about determining what a task is, and not just assuming that there is only one factor determining everything.

[Telok]

RAW is important for players who trust the game designers more than their own judgements and interpretations. They want to play RAI, and RAW are the obvious starting place when determining RAI. So unless something is unclear RAW is what most inexperienced players (like myself) will try to abide by.

Notably this is a big deal for people who are new to DMing or to a new system. They may have been gaming for years, but with this new thing they will try to stick with the printed rules untill they have an understanding of them and how they work.

Negative experiences, which can include runs of good/bad die rolls that cause unskilled characters to beat "expert" characters at "expert" level tasks several sessions in a row, can cause people to abandon DMing or even an entire game system.