Does 5e get better at higher levels? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Vortling

2016-11-22, 06:46 PM

DrDinocrusher

2016-11-22, 07:21 PM

It sounds like your frustrations are pretty much with bounded accuracy rather than with the edition as a whole. Given that I don't know if there's anything folks can say to convince you to stick with 5E but I'll at least give my perspective.

Lack of Player agency:

I disagree here that there's a lack of agency. It mostly sounds like you're frustrated with bad dice rolls rather than not being able to do anything. I don't think the system really hurts your agency at all since, for example, that mage is not going to be nearly as effective as your barbarian at shield bashing if they wanted to give it a shot. And while you might lose on an arcana role once in awhile, overall, you're the one who should be tackling those as a wizard even if the barbarian can get lucky in awhile. If anything, the ability to at least attempt checks even when not proficient gives people MORE agency by at least allowing you to try.

Combat is boring:

"I hit the thing" has pretty much always been a staple of D&D. If you want cantrips and stuff that provide you more options, repelling blast eldritch blast, vicious mockery, and the battlemaster fighter sound like they might appeal to you. As for advantage/disadvantage while this is largely true there are still plenty of creative ways to use even those powers. As an example, enlarge/reduce might seem like it just adds some size and damage, but you can use to do things like shrink down doors so your allies can move through them. Shocking grasp allows your teammates to leave an enemy's reach safely, blindness not only grants disadvantage but also prevents an enemy spell caster from casting spells. Suggestion has a million uses, illusions can do anything you dream up etc.

Competence attrition:

That's the catch to playing a sorcerer/wizard. In exchange for getting abilities that can change the entire adventure with a single casting, your spells recharge on a long rest. However it's true that they need more time to get rolling since they start with so few spell slots. But at higher levels, you're doing stuff like out damaging the barbarian with flying caltrops, removing an enemy from combat (no save) with a snap of your finger, turning into a dragon forever, turning your fighter into a T-rex, and so on. If you want short rest resources, you should look into a warlock, circle of the moon druid, or battlemaster fighter.

Low levels are always a grind. Personally, I feel that there are two big break points for low level D&D: 3rd, when your class starts to actually feel fun, and 6th when they start to distinguish between each other a lot more.

MrStabby

2016-11-22, 07:34 PM

i was going to begin with saying that if you hate 5th this much it probably won't change but when I got into the detail you pretty much picked up all the important things that will change.

Proficiency grows as you go up levels. This means that you pull away more and more from others if you are proficient in a skill and they are not. Yes luck still plays a role and the game is set up so that for much of it it isn't a complete waste of time to try something.

Secondly options grow. Not just more spell slots but more spells known and the choices become more complex. Saves also use proficiency so both you and the enemies are trying to pick out weak saves and keep the most flexible array of slots open. For martial characters it is a bit more limited. Monks get a lot of tactical choices as they level up with some limited spellcasting and other Ki abilities but the others end up doing a lot of the same stuff in combat. Paladins and rangers, as half casters are a bit in the middle. Where martials get more fun is in being reactive. Complexity of encounters isn't just on the PCs side but what they have to respond to. Staying close to protect others or avoiding are of effect spells by spreading out and so on...

As for rest based abilities - they kind of change a bit. Casters at high levels do get a few more, but it never completely goes away.

For what its worth I think the best levels are between 7 and 11.

Spellbreaker26

2016-11-22, 07:39 PM

Some background on this question. I started playing with the IRL group I'm with back in the middle of 4e's run. When 5e was released we decided to finish up our current 4e campaign and then give 5e a try. We started playing 5e in Jan 2015. Over the course of the next year we played a few different campaigns which resulted in me playing a barbarian, a wizard, and a sorcerer (favored soul variant) each up to level 4. After trying 5e across these characters and that time frame my frustrations with the system reached a breaking point. I decided to leave the group until they decided to play a different game. This was not a decision made lightly both due to the length of time I have been playing with this group and due to how much I enjoyed roleplaying with them. We compromised on me running 3.5 which I have been running since the beginning of this year. However talk has started up again about what will happen once my campaign finishes. The regular DM of the group is really itching to run 5e again and is asking me to consider playing 5e again.

Thus I'm asking anyone who has experience playing at levels higher than 4 in 5e if my frustrations with 5e as a system are addressed or mitigated in higher level play. My frustrations are as follows.

Lack of player agency
Over the year we played I can count on one hand the number of times I felt my decisions as a player made more of a difference than what I rolled on the dice. This was driven home most on my barbarian. As a variant human I picked up the shield master feat and frequently tried to shove enemies. In one particular combat I got in the face of the enemy caster, who I was later informed had no proficiency in athletics or acrobatics and strength and dexterity scores of 10, and proceeded to fail to knock them prone for 3 of the 4 combat rounds with the first being taken up starting up rage. In a later combat where the party was fighting an Ogre and I had no rages available I said to myself "why not?" and tried to shove the Ogre prone. I succeeded. Instead of this being a moment of joy it simply served to further my frustration as it was clear the decision to rage or not rage made no difference to whether or not I was able to shove enemies prone. For my wizard the frustration to the form of arcane checks. The rogue matching or beating my arcane checks, that's fine. She's going into arcane trickster and has intelligence equal to mine (15) and proficiency in arcane. It's when the fighter, monk, and ranger who all had 10 or less intelligence and no proficiency in arcane got in on the "beat the wizard at arcane checks on a regular basis" game that I threw my hands up in disgust.

Combat is boring/Minimal options
Don't get me wrong, combat in 5e is fast. Turns are frequently over in a minute or less. But the speed seems to come at the expense of options. I would estimate that 90% or more of the combat turns in our sessions were "I use my sword/bow/cantrip to damage this enemy". This was despite my efforts to play my wizard in a control focused manner and trying to play my sorcerer in a help the team focused manner. I admit when I first started reading 5e I was interested as it appeared they had brought back many of the options that had left in the 3.5-> 4e transition, however my interest was short lived once I drilled down to the effects and found that pretty much every combat option was either "do damage", "grant advantage", or "impose disadvantage". Which wouldn't have been so bad by itself except for the reductiveness of the advantage/disadvantage system not allowing for anything but the most basic of overlap. It's disappointing when your control focused wizard yet again rolls poorly on initiative and there's only a goblin or two left after 5 or more other players go before you. This left me plinking with firebolt more often than not as either it wouldn't be worth the spell slot to "impose disadvantage" or someone else had already beat me to it. (We have a large group and don't ever see less than 5 PC characters, sometimes as many as 9)

Competence Attrition
I dislike it when my ability to do my chosen role, be it in combat or out, relies entirely on rest based abilities. This was most frustrating on my sorcerer and wizard. 2-6 spell slots for my role and then I'm back to plinking with cantrips like a crappy archer. Bleh When you're expecting 6-8 encounters of various types over the course of a day that's severely underwhelming. Overall it seems like 5e doesn't want you to be able to do anything other than damage at-will, at least at the levels I played. Perhaps at higher levels you eventually get enough slots to spend one on every round of every combat for the whole day.

Please relate to me your experiences of playing 5e at higher levels and if these frustrations are alleviated. I want to know if I should give it another try or push back harder for the next DM to continue running 3.5

Higher level play does get a bit more interesting, you get some more abilities to play around with. Let me have a look at the problems you're having:

Lack of Agency
Getting beaten on skills you know can be annoying. My GM has a policy where we usually need a skill to roll unless it's in a position where we're being tested. So for example, you need religion/history to even think about analysing that bas-relief column, you're simply not able to take a check if you're not trained. Whereas if you're in a room being asked questions as you pretend to be a priest and you need to make a religion check, then you can do it untrained because you're getting forced into the position. Basically, don't allow people without certain skills to even attempt the checks because their characters wouldn't resort to it unless they had no other choice. Try asking if you can do that.

Combat is Boring
This seems more like boring scenario design than anything else. Remember, doing some prep work can get you some advantages on rolls (finding out a monster's mom's name and insulting it in combat) or doing fancy footwork. The advantage/disadvantage allows for a lot of creativity if you put some effort into it, but this again requires a GM to get stuck in as well.

Competence attrition
Doing five to six encounters per in-game day is a lot. 3 to five is the usual number I see, much of the time less. A lot of playing a 5e caster is resource management but it just seems like you're playing a few too many battles per day for how the system is balanced.

My advice would be to talk to the GM about these particular quibbles rather than give up on 5e entirely. It's entirely possible that it's just not for you, but if you want to give it another shot you should ask about untrained checks, advantage/disadvantage and encounters per day because it seems that this is where your problems are coming from. If you still don't like it though, there's no reason to keep playing a game that you're not finding fun, and you should suggest going back to 3.5e.

Rysto

2016-11-22, 07:50 PM

For my wizard the frustration to the form of arcane checks. The rogue matching or beating my arcane checks, that's fine. She's going into arcane trickster and has intelligence equal to mine (15) and proficiency in arcane. It's when the fighter, monk, and ranger who all had 10 or less intelligence and no proficiency in arcane got in on the "beat the wizard at arcane checks on a regular basis" game that I threw my hands up in disgust.

This is the DM's fault, although to be fair the official advice on the subject is wrong. If the DM calls for every party member to roll for something, the laws of probability practically guarantee that at least one party member is going to roll big (and at least one will roll really poorly). This most often is an issue for knowledge checks of all kinds, perception checks, investigation checks and stealth checks. There's nothing in the rules that can deal with the problem other than the DM not allowing everybody to roll a knowledge check (perception, investigation and stealth are harder. There's some guidance on group checks in the DMG but I'm not convinced it handles everything well)

IMO, only arcane casters or PCs proficient should be rolling arcana checks, or at least should face a lower DC. I'd put similar restrictions on the other knowledge checks.

Mrglee

2016-11-22, 07:54 PM

Lack of player agency is definitely a low level problem. At the start of the game, your bonus from a stat is capped at a +3 if you don't roll, and your prof bonus is a +2. By 20, you can get this up to a +5 and +6 respectively, which makes rolls d20+11 versus as low as a d20-2(if using some of the races in volo's guide). It isn't impossible for the latter to win, but incredibly unlikely.

Options being minimal is still a thing in higher level 5e, though spell casters have the most by far. By 20th level, a wizard has 22 spells per day, and ways to recharge them, and can cast one first level spell(might also be second level, am afb right now) at will.

If you want more at will stuff, I suggest the warlock, most invocations are on all the time and offer a ton of cool utility stuff.

Sigreid

2016-11-22, 08:36 PM

Honestly, it sounds to me like 5e may not be your game. I say that because the game is pretty much set up from the ground up to give everyone at least a small chance to succeed. So, the wizard has a small chance of beating the barb in a wrestling match, though at higher levels not much. I don't know about 4e but this is very different than 3.x where you can pump a particular skill to the point where there is no chance for the other guy.

The up side is it applies to you too. Also, if there's something you really want an overwhelming edge in, that's the rogue and bard's wheel house.

Where 5e is strong is it runs a lot smoother due to them having opted for things like advantage instead of tallying a million +x numbers.

ad_hoc

2016-11-22, 08:40 PM

It sounds like you haven't been playing the game as it was intended.

1. Levels 1-4 are supposed to go by very quickly. 1 session each for levels 1 and 2. 2, maybe 3 sessions each for 3 and 4. Levels 5-10 are supposed to make up the majority of the game.

2. The game is designed around 3 pillars: Combat, Social Interaction, Exploration. If combat is what you spend most of your time doing then the game probably isn't for you. I'm not saying this is what you're doing but in my experience it is where a lot of frustration comes from.

3. Skill checks are only supposed to occur when there is a consequence for failure. This is because the game is much more concerned about telling a compelling story than being a simulation. This is a much different way to approach it than 3.x. In other words, if the whole party is going to roll for an Arcana check then there is no point because someone is going to make it. Those checks shouldn't have been made in the first place.

4. I actually have the opposite experience with player agency. The rules are all built around allowing you to attempt to do anything you want. Compared to 3.x there are no more stiff movement rules, feat requirements for doing anything not already spelled out, etc. The game actually works very well without feats at all.

As for the Shield Master example, this sounds like a matter of misunderstanding probability. You had a much higher chance to succeed with advantage against a weak enemy than without against a stronger one. That doesn't mean you have a 100% chance to succeed. It's also not what I would use as an example of player agency. In 5e you have much more agency to solve encounters through the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars than some previous editions. In combat you can also attempt maneauvers and have a reasonable chance of success that are not written on your character sheet. That says to me that player agency is an integral part of the edition.

Spore

2016-11-22, 08:56 PM

We haven't started our campaign and you make me already uneasy about it. But first things first: I feel D&D 5 needs a competent and empathic DM like no other edition previously. Why should a Fighter even be allowed to ROLL on an Arcana check AT ALL?! There is no reason to steal the spotlight. I know it is an intelligence check and everyone would be allowed to make one. But don't the books always tell you that the DM chooses how is allowed to make one?

Other than that, having a 30% difference in shoving something from a muscle bound barbarian (Str 18, prof +2 in Athletics) to a wizard (10 Strength, no prof) is a bit weird, I'll give you that. But again, Strength 10 is not bad, it is what I would call fit (10 in all physical stats is fit for me, movement with no impeding elements). But let is say Str 10 is weak for the sake of the argument. Yeah, well you can always explain differences with surroundings. Bounded accuracy is made to keep the number in an area where you can keep them under control.

Of course, after playing things like the extremely high fantasy 3.5 (I am not only a Barbarian, with the right class combination I can literally throw rocks as big as houses onehanded; I am not only a Wizard, but also a Druid, and I do not bend reality to my will, reality is the slave in my basement SM dungeon) which is only reinforced by recent high magic settings (games like Skyrim have you be Dragon Jesus, series like the Witcher follow tristalt Fighter/Mage/Lover Geralt in his absurdly overpowered steps) so stepping back into: "You are a barbarian, you combine axe and head to make a dead man, and not much more." certainly feels different.

I had a break from fantasy RPGs before starting to write up my character for 5e. And even I felt the dialing back of power. My new ranger is not defined by his abilities but by his backstory. After getting kicked out of his (rich) family he could have picked up literally ANY class.

Addaran

2016-11-22, 09:58 PM

Lack of player agency
Seems you just had very bad luck then great luck. 3.5 had the same problem, at least at lower levels. If you kept rolling under 10, you'd never touch the guard in chainshirt with a shield. If you kept rolling 15+ most characters would have been able to hit even someone in full plate.
With time and more combats, you should notice that Wizards do fail against your trips a lot more often then Ogre. Incidentally, even Ogres have at most +5, so your lvl one tripper is on equal ground with them. That's cause most monsters don't have skill proficiency.

Competence Attrition
It was still true in 3.5 especially for spellcasters. Even barbarian had a limit on the number of rage and healing by rest was way longer. For spellcasters, after they had used their spells, they couldn't do their "role". It was worst though, cause you didn't have at-will cantrips. In older editions, the spellcaster had to use his crossbow or sling when out of spell. Now he still feels like a mage. Minor Illusion and to some extend Create Bonfire are nice cantrips for control/utility.

Armored Walrus

2016-11-22, 10:36 PM

Herobizkit

2016-11-22, 10:43 PM

It's generally assumed that level 1-3 are the "beginner" levels. Assuming your DM allows Feats, you get a feat or an ASI at 4. At 5, practically every class gets their first REAL boost in ability.

It seems like most of your issues could be solved by going back and trying to play a 4e game and making a judgment based on actual play. One major disadvantage of 4e, however, is its lack of focus on anything but Combat. Some DMs may need to try very hard to make 4e seems like a "typical" fantasy world. IMO, it's the closest to a 4e Superhero game there is (other than 4e's Gamma World), except 4e doesn't like the Z-Axis / third dimension / flying at all.

Vortling

2016-11-22, 11:09 PM

It sounds like your frustrations are pretty much with bounded accuracy rather than with the edition as a whole. Given that I don't know if there's anything folks can say to convince you to stick with 5E but I'll at least give my perspective.

Lack of Player agency:

I disagree here that there's a lack of agency. It mostly sounds like you're frustrated with bad dice rolls rather than not being able to do anything. I don't think the system really hurts your agency at all since, for example, that mage is not going to be nearly as effective as your barbarian at shield bashing if they wanted to give it a shot. And while you might lose on an arcana role once in awhile, overall, you're the one who should be tackling those as a wizard even if the barbarian can get lucky in awhile. If anything, the ability to at least attempt checks even when not proficient gives people MORE agency by at least allowing you to try.

I'm not intending to pick on you specifically, but a lot of people are saying similar things to what you've said. I feel I should clarify that in 5e as compared to 3.5 or 4e when I get bad rolls it feels there is less I can do about them which is why I say less agency.

Combat is boring:

"I hit the thing" has pretty much always been a staple of D&D. If you want cantrips and stuff that provide you more options, repelling blast eldritch blast, vicious mockery, and the battlemaster fighter sound like they might appeal to you. As for advantage/disadvantage while this is largely true there are still plenty of creative ways to use even those powers. As an example, enlarge/reduce might seem like it just adds some size and damage, but you can use to do things like shrink down doors so your allies can move through them. Shocking grasp allows your teammates to leave an enemy's reach safely, blindness not only grants disadvantage but also prevents an enemy spell caster from casting spells. Suggestion has a million uses, illusions can do anything you dream up etc.

From your play experience how much of the creative ways to use 5e spells/powers/etc is DM reliant? I enjoy playing under the other DMs in our group but they can run on the old school side.

Competence attrition:

That's the catch to playing a sorcerer/wizard. In exchange for getting abilities that can change the entire adventure with a single casting, your spells recharge on a long rest. However it's true that they need more time to get rolling since they start with so few spell slots. But at higher levels, you're doing stuff like out damaging the barbarian with flying caltrops, removing an enemy from combat (no save) with a snap of your finger, turning into a dragon forever, turning your fighter into a T-rex, and so on. If you want short rest resources, you should look into a warlock, circle of the moon druid, or battlemaster fighter.

Could you give more specific examples of the adventure changing spells from high levels? Compared to when I played a cleric in 3.5 the spells in 5e seem less game changing.

Low levels are always a grind. Personally, I feel that there are two big break points for low level D&D: 3rd, when your class starts to actually feel fun, and 6th when they start to distinguish between each other a lot more.

I think this is the most important part of your specific post. The only edition of D&D I've played where I enjoyed the first few levels was 4e. When I played 3.5 we played 1-3 once and never did that again. Given this part of your post I'm thinking about giving 5e another shot with the caveat of starting at 3 or higher.

Armored Walrus

2016-11-22, 11:28 PM

I think starting at level 3 or even 5 will do a lot for your opinion of the system. At least it will give you a fairer basis for comparison.

Vortling

2016-11-22, 11:29 PM

Just to address OP's last point, you are comparing to 3.5e? Wizard in 3.5e gets 3 first and 2 second level spell slots at level 4, in 5e he gets 4 first and 3 second. Looks like in 3.5e they could also cast 4 cantrips a day? So you had not only fewer spell slots, but also didn't have the at-will damage? Maybe your impression, at least on this point, is simple confirmation bias.

This post made me realize I need to provide clarification on my points of comparison. In my case I'm comparing to both 3.5 and 4e. For 4e the at-wills for each class provided them with role specific options that were at least a good fallback once you ran out of rest based resources (other than healing surges).

For 3.5 I agree that at low levels were pretty rough on spell slots, however two counter points. First bonus spells. A wizard who specialized and had a 16 in intelligence could be looking at 5 1st level spells and 4 2nd level spells at character level 4. From what I can tell 3.5 is a bit freer with the stat bonuses and more generous on the point buy than 5e which made getting those bonus slots fairly trival. Second by the time I started playing 3.5 there were a whole host of options for starting with interesting at-will or nearly at-will abilities so you weren't locked into playing a spell slot caster. Ex: Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, Incarnate, Totemist, Swordsage, Warblade, Crusader, Binder and that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more. 5e seems to be a little short on these sorts of classes (mostly the Warlock and maybe the battlemaster fighter) and doesn't appear to be getting them anytime soon based of what I'm reading about its release schedule.

Armored Walrus

2016-11-22, 11:37 PM

Ah, yeah, the only 3.5 resource I have is the basic PHB. In any event, I would still say give it another shot with this group, with the caveat that you'd prefer to start at higher level. Maybe that will be the charm ;)

DrDinocrusher

2016-11-22, 11:53 PM

I'm not intending to pick on you specifically, but a lot of people are saying similar things to what you've said. I feel I should clarify that in 5e as compared to 3.5 or 4e when I get bad rolls it feels there is less I can do about them which is why I say less agency.

I haven't played 3.5 in a long time but I never really felt that way - once your skill bloat hit a certain threshold you were basically useless at skills that you hadn't been pursuing in. However you may like playing a bard, who can use their bardic inspiration to counteract that. The Lucky feat also sounds right up your ally, allowing you to reroll dice 3/day.

Also I'm fine with you discussing this stuff with me it's no sweat!

From your play experience how much of the creative ways to use 5e spells/powers/etc is DM reliant? I enjoy playing under the other DMs in our group but they can run on the old school side.

Well I think it depends with all things in D&D but at least the strategies I mentioned are pretty much by the rules and don't require any finagling or careful interpretation. Blindness nerfing casters, for example, is just how vision and targeting works. While they get disadvantage on attack rolls of course, they cant' cast spells at things they can't see. You might like Bard in 5E since their bardic inspiration lets you change rolls to a degree. How abusable spells like suggestion or Silent Image are is up to your DM. But even very restrictive interpretations of those spells leave them quite powerful. "I SUGGGEST you spend the next 6 hours going for a light jog to the north"

Could you give more specific examples of the adventure changing spells from high levels? Compared to when I played a cleric in 3.5 the spells in 5e seem less game changing.

Sure. At the very highest levels we of course have spells like Wish, or True Polymorph. True polymorph in particular lets you change your entire party into dragons forever. Of course the higher your caster level the more you can break the game. Copy your team maters with Simulacrum, become immortal with Clone, instantly remove the BBEG from the fight with force cage, or remove a dragon from the fight with Plane Shift.

At lower levels, spells aren't quite as game breaking of course. Suggestion I've talked about already, silence turns enemy casters into wet noodles. Dispel magic and remove curse can let you side step traps and curses, and remove curse has the ability to instantly turn a lycanthrope into a normal humanoid humorously enough. Polymorph doubles as a super powerful debuff (and now the bad guy is a newt) or an equally powerful buff (And now the barbarian is a T-rex). Misty step lets you avoid traps, move through doors, and so on. Speak with dead can instantly solve a mystery. Specific silly interactions depend on the wizard school you've chosen to pursue and the benefits you get from that (e.g. infinite shape shifting as a transmutation wizard).

The examples above are some of the 'highest impact' uses of spells in and out of combat, but most spells offer you very powerful choices in combat or out. For a run down of all the spells from the perspective of playing a 'god wizard' check here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHzEjiHvtDItZE2ixfoYwqi7brTO-ag8uBJndE5saro/edit

I think this is the most important part of your specific post. The only edition of D&D I've played where I enjoyed the first few levels was 4e. When I played 3.5 we played 1-3 once and never did that again. Given this part of your post I'm thinking about giving 5e another shot with the caveat of starting at 3 or higher.

Hopefully you find it enjoyable! But yes, levels 1-3 are by far the worst part of 5E and everyone feels very samey. Once you start hitting around level 8, things like saving throw proficiency and the accumulation of class features start to have much larger effects on defining the various classes against each other.

Pex

2016-11-22, 11:56 PM

Thus I'm asking anyone who has experience playing at levels higher than 4 in 5e if my frustrations with 5e as a system are addressed or mitigated in higher level play. My frustrations are as follows.

Lack of player agency
Over the year we played I can count on one hand the number of times I felt my decisions as a player made more of a difference than what I rolled on the dice. This was driven home most on my barbarian. As a variant human I picked up the shield master feat and frequently tried to shove enemies. In one particular combat I got in the face of the enemy caster, who I was later informed had no proficiency in athletics or acrobatics and strength and dexterity scores of 10, and proceeded to fail to knock them prone for 3 of the 4 combat rounds with the first being taken up starting up rage. In a later combat where the party was fighting an Ogre and I had no rages available I said to myself "why not?" and tried to shove the Ogre prone. I succeeded. Instead of this being a moment of joy it simply served to further my frustration as it was clear the decision to rage or not rage made no difference to whether or not I was able to shove enemies prone. For my wizard the frustration to the form of arcane checks. The rogue matching or beating my arcane checks, that's fine. She's going into arcane trickster and has intelligence equal to mine (15) and proficiency in arcane. It's when the fighter, monk, and ranger who all had 10 or less intelligence and no proficiency in arcane got in on the "beat the wizard at arcane checks on a regular basis" game that I threw my hands up in disgust.

I'm with you on this. One of my major gripes of the game is a lack of a defined skill system. The rules say what DC to give if something is easy, hard, etc., but it doesn't define what makes something easy or hard. It also does not differentiate between proficient and non-proficient characters. The designers are perfectly happy with an Int 8 non-Knowledge Arcana proficient character succeeding on a DC 15 check with a lucky roll. They justify it by saying in the long run it won't happen a lot. The DM has to decide only proficient characters may even attempt to roll for a particular check. You can never guarantee that circumstance, so as I like to facetiously say, you have to relearn how to play the game depending on who is DM.

Combat is boring/Minimal options
Don't get me wrong, combat in 5e is fast. Turns are frequently over in a minute or less. But the speed seems to come at the expense of options. I would estimate that 90% or more of the combat turns in our sessions were "I use my sword/bow/cantrip to damage this enemy". This was despite my efforts to play my wizard in a control focused manner and trying to play my sorcerer in a help the team focused manner. I admit when I first started reading 5e I was interested as it appeared they had brought back many of the options that had left in the 3.5-> 4e transition, however my interest was short lived once I drilled down to the effects and found that pretty much every combat option was either "do damage", "grant advantage", or "impose disadvantage". Which wouldn't have been so bad by itself except for the reductiveness of the advantage/disadvantage system not allowing for anything but the most basic of overlap. It's disappointing when your control focused wizard yet again rolls poorly on initiative and there's only a goblin or two left after 5 or more other players go before you. This left me plinking with firebolt more often than not as either it wouldn't be worth the spell slot to "impose disadvantage" or someone else had already beat me to it. (We have a large group and don't ever see less than 5 PC characters, sometimes as many as 9)

Competence Attrition
I dislike it when my ability to do my chosen role, be it in combat or out, relies entirely on rest based abilities. This was most frustrating on my sorcerer and wizard. 2-6 spell slots for my role and then I'm back to plinking with cantrips like a crappy archer. Bleh When you're expecting 6-8 encounters of various types over the course of a day that's severely underwhelming. Overall it seems like 5e doesn't want you to be able to do anything other than damage at-will, at least at the levels I played. Perhaps at higher levels you eventually get enough slots to spend one on every round of every combat for the whole day.

Please relate to me your experiences of playing 5e at higher levels and if these frustrations are alleviated. I want to know if I should give it another try or push back harder for the next DM to continue running 3.5

Here it gets better for spellcasters. You do have the spell slots to do interesting things. As for Cantrips, it's a point of view thing. I find it a feature I can use them to still contribute that round in a meaningful way to conserve my spell slots. What matters here is the DM pacing the ratio of the number of encounters you get and how often you can rest. While certainly it is terrible for the game for a party to long rest or even short rest after every fight, some DMs unfortunately take the extreme view of stopping that by making it very hard for PCs to rest at all, forbidding the players from resting when they want to because they need to because it's his game or even when the party does rest, even long rest, the DM will surprise the players with a combat interrupting and ruining the rest as punishment for the audacity of resting. Hopefully your DM isn't so tyrannical, but it is a good idea to review how often the party is able to rest compared to the number of encounters faced. It may need adjusting.

Veldrenor

2016-11-23, 12:18 AM

For 3.5 I agree that at low levels were pretty rough on spell slots, however two counter points. First bonus spells. A wizard who specialized and had a 16 in intelligence could be looking at 5 1st level spells and 4 2nd level spells at character level 4. From what I can tell 3.5 is a bit freer with the stat bonuses and more generous on the point buy than 5e which made getting those bonus slots fairly trival.

To be fair, if we compare a 5e wizard to your example 3.5 wizard then either:
1) the 5e wizard has 1 less 1st-level spell than the 3.5 wizard
2) the 5e wizard has 1 more 1st-level spell and 1 less 2nd-level spell than the 3.5 wizard
So 5e wizards aren't that far behind 3.5 wizards in terms of spell slots, at least at 4th level.

It also does not differentiate between proficient and non-proficient characters. The designers are perfectly happy with an Int 8 non-Knowledge Arcana proficient character succeeding on a DC 15 check with a lucky roll.

Yeah, this is a little silly for something like tool use but it makes perfect sense for knowledge checks: people soak up all kinds of random trivia. For example, I have absolutely no training or interest in music history, but I know that Neil Young had a hearse named Mortimer.

EDIT: 5e does get better at higher levels. Different players have different preferences, but 3rd level or 5th level seem to be the two major break points where stuff starts getting good.

MrFahrenheit

2016-11-23, 03:11 AM

To the OP: what kind of character are you looking to play?

Sounds like expertise in a few skills may smooth over the 5e transition for you. Rogues get such expertise at levels one and six.

My advice in general would be as follows: either play a thief (cunning action and fast hands will greatly expand your combat options as soon as you hit levels two and three, respectively), or at least take a one-three level dip in rogue from whatever other class you're playing for expertise, cunning action, and fast hands.

And if you do go thief, a follow up bit of advice: dip either three levels in lore bard (one extra skill at level one, half proficiency in all non-proficient skills at level two, then at level three, three more skills and two more expertise), and/or one to two levels in knowledge cleric (one gets you two more skill proficiencies/expertise, two gets you a once-per-long-rest channel divinity permitting proficiency in any one skill for ten minutes).

A half-elf rogue 3/lore bard 3 is an early-level extreme skill monkey: 12 skill proficiencies (that's two thirds of the list - with the last third at half proficiency - when you're not including tools), and expertise in half of those!

mephnick

2016-11-23, 07:29 AM

Vortling

2016-11-23, 09:48 AM

I'm with you on this. One of my major gripes of the game is a lack of a defined skill system. The rules say what DC to give if something is easy, hard, etc., but it doesn't define what makes something easy or hard. It also does not differentiate between proficient and non-proficient characters. The designers are perfectly happy with an Int 8 non-Knowledge Arcana proficient character succeeding on a DC 15 check with a lucky roll. They justify it by saying in the long run it won't happen a lot. The DM has to decide only proficient characters may even attempt to roll for a particular check. You can never guarantee that circumstance, so as I like to facetiously say, you have to relearn how to play the game depending on who is DM.

I believe that the 5e skill system and I will never see eye to eye as I'm not a fan of the everyone could succeed with a lucky roll. I suspect this has a lot to do with our group size which tends to result in at least one or two people who have no talent or proficiency beating the talented and proficient characters on every rolled task.

Hopefully you find it enjoyable! But yes, levels 1-3 are by far the worst part of 5E and everyone feels very samey. Once you start hitting around level 8, things like saving throw proficiency and the accumulation of class features start to have much larger effects on defining the various classes against each other.

I think starting at level 3 or even 5 will do a lot for your opinion of the system. At least it will give you a fairer basis for comparison.

5e does get better at higher levels. Different players have different preferences, but 3rd level or 5th level seem to be the two major break points where stuff starts getting good.

I hope so too, I'd prefer to keep playing with this group. Definitely seems to be a consensus that the early levels are causing the issues I'm seeing rather than the system as a whole. I'm going to have a chat with the person who will be DMing next to see if they'll have us start at level 3 or 5.

To the OP: what kind of character are you looking to play?

Sounds like expertise in a few skills may smooth over the 5e transition for you. Rogues get such expertise at levels one and six.

My advice in general would be as follows: either play a thief (cunning action and fast hands will greatly expand your combat options as soon as you hit levels two and three, respectively), or at least take a one-three level dip in rogue from whatever other class you're playing for expertise, cunning action, and fast hands.

And if you do go thief, a follow up bit of advice: dip either three levels in lore bard (one extra skill at level one, half proficiency in all non-proficient skills at level two, then at level three, three more skills and two more expertise), and/or one to two levels in knowledge cleric (one gets you two more skill proficiencies/expertise, two gets you a once-per-long-rest channel divinity permitting proficiency in any one skill for ten minutes).

A half-elf rogue 3/lore bard 3 is an early-level extreme skill monkey: 12 skill proficiencies (that's two thirds of the list - with the last third at half proficiency - when you're not including tools), and expertise in half of those!

Generally speaking when I play D&D I'm look to play a character that has an interesting mechanical niche that won't be duplicated or overlapped by other characters in the party and I tend towards characters that are team players with their abilities. Usually this means I make my character last in our group so that I don't play the same class as someone else and frequently am playing classes with buffs for other characters or debuffs for the enemy. It's not so much the skills themselves as the differentiation from the other characters in the party. I should mention I have a pet peeve (due to some bad past experiences) about characters being allowed to participate and succeed in challenges when they have no mechanical investment in the relevant abilities/skills/powers/etc.

dickerson76

2016-11-23, 09:50 AM

Lack of player agency
Over the year we played I can count on one hand the number of times I felt my decisions as a player made more of a difference than what I rolled on the dice.
When I hear things like that, it makes me think the DM is calling for too many rolls. If your bonuses in other systems are so high as to overcome the roll, why bother rolling? But, I am a big fan of bounded accuracy. Have you ever tripped when there was nothing at all in your way? Ever drop food on the floor? Or your phone? People fail all the time at things they should be able to do, even when no one is trying to contest the outcome.

This was driven home most on my barbarian. As a variant human I picked up the shield master feat and frequently tried to shove enemies. In one particular combat I got in the face of the enemy caster, who I was later informed had no proficiency in athletics or acrobatics and strength and dexterity scores of 10, and proceeded to fail to knock them prone for 3 of the 4 combat rounds with the first being taken up starting up rage.

A couple of things in here make me think you may not be applying the rules correctly. It doesn't come close to addressing all of your concerns, but unfamiliarity with 5e rules could lead to a misrepresentation of the system as a whole. In this instance, while raging, a barbarian has advantage on Strength checks. Shoving is a contested Strength check, so you should have been rolling Strength (Athletics) with advantage.

It's still possible for the barbarian to fail, even if done correctly, but less likely. It's up to the DM as a story-teller to put it all together and explain how what the dice decided played out.

tieren

2016-11-23, 09:52 AM

For knowledge checks I allow anyone to roll, but non-proficient characters will only recall basic knowledge (name of monster, popular legend, vague lessons in history) while proficient characters will get specific, true and rare knowledge if they roll high enough.

I like this system. IMO a proficient character that fails the roll should still recall about as much as a non-proficient character that succeeds.

Arial Black

2016-11-23, 10:13 AM

As a guy who is still playing both 3.5E and 5E, the problems with low level 5E that you highlight are not solved by 3E, because those exact same problems exist in 3E too!

In both, the result of the d20 roll is usually far, far more important than whatever bonuses a 1st to 5th level PC has. This is true in both editions.

Being good at something doesn't mean it will always succeed, and being poor at something doesn't mean it will always fail. This is equally true in both editions.

In both editions, what do warriors do in combat? Hit things! What do casters do? Cast spells! Going back to 3E won't 'solve' that. Indeed, it would make it worse; in 3E you don't get unlimited cantrips, and those cantrips don't deal more than 1d3 damage, so when the 3E casters run out of spells they either use a crossbow or eat popcorn. In 5E their cantrips are useful, damaging and never run out.

In both editions, you can run out of slots and have to rest before you regain them. At least in 5E there are ways of regaining slots with just an hour's rest.

In 5E barbarians get 2 Rages per day at 1st. Will going back to 3E solve this? Their barbarians get just 1 Rage per day at 1st.

Your frustrations about low level play are valid, but are not solved by going back to 3E, because those exact same frustrations exist in 3E too. The solution is to hit 5th level!

I find low level play frustrating and boring in both editions! Typically, when we start a 3E campaign we start at 4th; this allows interesting abilities and/or multiclass concepts to be there from the get-go, and we also have some interesting gear without the magic items dominating (a mithral shirt is cool, but you can't afford a +2 or better weapon).

In 3E, the XPs you need to level up are: 1000 for 2nd and 3000 for 3rd.

In 5E, the XPs you need to level up are: 300 for 2nd and 900 for 3rd.

After that, the XPs needed to advance start to become equivalent. In 5E you are not meant to stay in 1st or 2nd level for more than a session or two, 'solving' the problem of playing at those levels. If the 'problem' is low level play, then 5E 'solves' that problem far more quickly than 3E.

Another reason for your dislike of 5E is that you have only played 5E to 4th level, then get kicked down to 1st level again with a new PC. This would be just as frustrating in 3E!

ad_hoc

2016-11-23, 10:14 AM

Sigreid

2016-11-23, 10:29 AM

Generally speaking when I play D&D I'm look to play a character that has an interesting mechanical niche that won't be duplicated or overlapped by other characters in the party and I tend towards characters that are team players with their abilities. Usually this means I make my character last in our group so that I don't play the same class as someone else and frequently am playing classes with buffs for other characters or debuffs for the enemy. It's not so much the skills themselves as the differentiation from the other characters in the party. I should mention I have a pet peeve (due to some bad past experiences) about characters being allowed to participate and succeed in challenges when they have no mechanical investment in the relevant abilities/skills/powers/etc.

This in particular sounds like 4e is more for you, based on what I've heard about it. I think ultimately it'll come down to if the game is tolerable for you as a vehicle for having fun with your friends. Perhaps you guys need to alternate playing each's favored edition in turn.

MinotaurWarrior

2016-11-23, 10:35 AM

I believe that the 5e skill system and I will never see eye to eye as I'm not a fan of the everyone could succeed with a lucky roll. I suspect this has a lot to do with our group size which tends to result in at least one or two people who have no talent or proficiency beating the talented and proficient characters on every rolled task.

The PHB says "The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure." With the key word being chance. Sometimes, characters should be guaranteed failure. In 3.5 this worked by being 20 ranks below the DC (which didn't happen at low levels) or by the skill being marked as "trained only". The former only happens extremely rarely in 5e, and the latter isn't made explicit, but the DM should know when to use it. An intelligence 8 street urchin fighter has no chance of knowing a devil's vulnerabilities, and shouldn't get a check.

I hope so too, I'd prefer to keep playing with this group. Definitely seems to be a consensus that the early levels are causing the issues I'm seeing rather than the system as a whole. I'm going to have a chat with the person who will be DMing next to see if they'll have us start at level 3 or 5.

Generally speaking when I play D&D I'm look to play a character that has an interesting mechanical niche that won't be duplicated or overlapped by other characters in the party and I tend towards characters that are team players with their abilities. Usually this means I make my character last in our group so that I don't play the same class as someone else and frequently am playing classes with buffs for other characters or debuffs for the enemy. It's not so much the skills themselves as the differentiation from the other characters in the party. I should mention I have a pet peeve (due to some bad past experiences) about characters being allowed to participate and succeed in challenges when they have no mechanical investment in the relevant abilities/skills/powers/etc.

Some recommendations:

Abjurer wizard: your ward just works

Monk: nobody matches your speed, which is a hard number subject to no d20's

Valor Bard grappler: At level four you have +10 to grapple checks with advantage (enhance ability). So, you pretty much always win. (there are other MC options, like Rogue / Barbarian, that also work here)

Rogue / Druid 3 or Shadow Monk 3: Pass Without Trace + expertise usually means you just win on stealth checks.

LordVonDerp

2016-11-23, 12:38 PM

Lack of player agency

Over the year we played I can count on one hand the number of times I felt my decisions as a player made more of a difference than what I rolled on the dice. sounds more like a DM problem.

This was driven home most on my barbarian. As a variant human I picked up the shield master feat and frequently tried to shove enemies. In one particular combat I got in the face of the enemy caster, who I was later informed had no proficiency in athletics or acrobatics and strength and dexterity scores of 10, and proceeded to fail to knock them prone for 3 of the 4 combat rounds with the first being taken up starting up rage. that's a bit suspicious. Did you remember to apply advantage from rage?

For my wizard the frustration to the form of arcane checks. The rogue matching or beating my arcane checks, that's fine. She's going into arcane trickster and has intelligence equal to mine (15) and proficiency in arcane. It's when the fighter, monk, and ranger who all had 10 or less intelligence and no proficiency in arcane got in on the "beat the wizard at arcane checks on a regular basis" game that I threw my hands up in disgust.

Well, three reasonably competent people ought to have a good shot at knowing stuff. Don't forget that even a DC 15 check represents something that over 25% of the adult population would be expected to know.

Combat is boring/Minimal options
Don't get me wrong, combat in 5e is fast. Turns are frequently over in a minute or less. But the speed seems to come at the expense of options. I would estimate that 90% or more of the combat turns in our sessions were "I use my sword/bow/cantrip to damage this enemy".
Again, this is a DM issue.

It's disappointing when your control focused wizard yet again rolls poorly on initiative and there's only a goblin or two left after 5 or more other players go before you.
Is it a problem that someone else got a chance to shine?

Competence Attrition
I dislike it when my ability to do my chosen role, be it in combat or out, relies entirely on rest based abilities. This was most frustrating on my sorcerer and wizard. 2-6 spell slots for my role and then I'm back to plinking with cantrips like a crappy archer. Bleh When you're expecting 6-8 encounters of various types over the course of a day that's severely underwhelming.
Let other players have their time to shine.

gfishfunk

2016-11-23, 01:31 PM

There are a lot of player - myself included - that view levels 1-4 as the introduction to the game. A lot of games begin at level 4 or 5 once people are comfortable with their classes.

Zorku

2016-11-23, 02:07 PM

Instead of my usual rant-through-every-issue, I'm just going to propose one tweak that I highly suggest for your group: don't have every single player roll for a skill check.

In addition to stealing the spotlight from the character that ought to actually be good at a skill, this also reduces the possibility of failure to nearly zero, and if you can't fail then the DM shouldn't have been asking for dice rolls in the first place.

Now, mechanically, you're a little better off than having to live with just one person's roll, thanks to the help action. If two people are proficient in the relevant check then you can actually work together to roll the dice twice (as in, you get to use that advantage mechanic in yet another circumstance.) If you happen to have a cleric or bard this takes the guidance spell/bardic inspiration from meaningless to holy 'effin shiz that's good.

If you've got any familiarity with dice math and statistics it should be clear that these things wouldn't have any reason to be in the game when you're flinging at least 6d20s around, and don't make much sense with the default party size of 4 either. It really should just be one check and then it's done.
If you need to sweeten the pot to get DM buy in on this, there's a a particular line that tells them to not ask for rolls if the success of an action is guaranteed, like trying to find a book in a slightly cluttered room by spending 10 minutes going over every square inch of it carefully.

If you cannot get your group to switch to this way of doing ability checks, then I'm sorry, but they have decided that no single character should be an expert at anything because they'd rather let loose a barrage of dice for almost guaranteed success, and that was silly even back when you have a big fat multiplier to stack on the dice rolls you were supposed to be good at, even if you didn't see it at the time.

e: One variation I've heard that I liked was that if you succeed at any kind of knowledge or specialized skill roll (as in, the ones that mean success for the whole party, not so much everyone trying to jump over a trapped floor tile,) you have to explain why your character would have had any kind of background to know about that subject. The way it was pitched to me, even greedy players run out of narrative room in their background pretty quick, so maybe the fighter knew a wizard or their rival in training went to work for somebody that was interested in an item, but they don't have endless connections to every single magical item they come across. By making these things part of fleshing out their character they start to see that maybe they don't want to be the guy that succeeds at something that's unrelated to what their character is supposed to be.

I haven't actually play tested this in any of my own games yet, so I don't know how well or how naturally that shakes out, but at the very least it sounds interesting.

lperkins2

2016-11-23, 05:59 PM

Not really... It changes, but the low level annoyances are simply replaced by other ones at higher levels.

That said, the low level problems tend to be fairly minor, if you get out of the mindset of previous editions. This manifests in a couple of ways. First, even level 1 adventurers are reasonably competent at most things. They've pretty much all grown up hearing bards tales of various beasties, so will generally recognize them on sight, and often know what they resist or are immune to. They know how far they can reliably jump, they can climb ropes in normal circumstances without risk of falling. They usually pass easy checks. At low levels, most checks are easy or moderate difficulty, which means most characters will pass them. Especially in commercial modules, the authors don't know if your party has a wizard, so checks that only a wizard can pass are rare, and often unimportant. (No one likes to miss large sections of an adventure because their party composition is weird). This ties into the second common holdover issue from previous versions. DCs are very low. In previous versions, DCs less than 10 were pretty darn rare, and 10 was considered an easy check (1d20+5 at first level for saves was pretty common). Now, DC 5 is an easy check, so even if you are rolling at a -1, you have a 75% chance to pass it.

For more concrete advice, here are the guidelines I use when I'm running a 5e game.

Only bother with checks when failure is interesting.

If failing the check excludes content (they miss an adventure hook), you're just making more work for yourself (have to provide alternate content, or the game stalls). Rather than using a check to find out if the party discovers something, use the check to figure out who finds it and how long it takes.

Remember to use passive scores properly. Passive scores can be used when dealing with repeated actions. I also use them as a minimum in non-stressful situations. When you can use a passive score, it avoids the time required for rolling dice. It also removes the chance of PC failure and helps the story move along.

Remember to give out advantage and disadvantage where appropriate. The wizard making an arcana check relating to spells should have advantage on the check (+5 passive too). The barbarian making the same check should have disadvantage (-5 passive too). Remember to account for background when deciding if a PC should have advantage on a check (e.g. a blacksmith might get advantage on investigation to determine where a weapon shipment originated). This largely eliminates the specialist being regularly outshone due to random chance. It also often speeds up gameplay when the passive score on the specialist is just high enough to skip the roll.

The biggest area where low levels are swingy is in combat. This is the area that sorta gets better later on, and sorta gets worse. Yeah combat options are fairly limited, since the goal is generally the destruction of the opposing force. Low level characters aren't really well trained in combat, so are fairly unpredictable in who will win and how long the fight will last. This can be somewhat mitigated by the DM having the adversaries act reasonably. Most of the encounters in a day don't have to end with the complete destruction of one side or the other. Intelligent adversaries are likely to run when the fight doesn't quickly go their way. This avoids the tedium of mopping up the last few enemies when the dice just won't cooperate.

On the other hand, combat is where 5e sorta gets worse at higher levels. You run into more monsters that are just a large bag of HP, or encounters where the DM includes more enemies to balance the PCs (especially in a large party). Often the PCs' abilities to deal large amounts of damage don't scale quickly enough to keep combat fast. The odds tip in favour of the PCs, since they can't be dropped by a single lucky crit, and it gets easier to predict how many rounds it will take to kill something, but it also turns almost into an arcade game, where you just stand around trading hits.

The sweet spot seems to be around level 5, where the PCs have gotten all their major power jumps, and are fairly differentiated from each other in terms of abilities, but the BoHP monsters are still fairly rare. That lasts until level 7 or 9 or thereabouts, depending on the campaign, after which you generally rely on having a wizard or similar to trivialize the otherwise more tedious encounters.

djreynolds

2016-11-24, 06:08 AM

Start players at 5th level.

Start play at 11th level.

I often award extra skills or backgrounds to the group as a whole.

Vortling

2016-11-24, 01:41 PM

I really think you should go back and read it again.

The 5e skill system is not what you think it is.

I've gone back and read it again. Once the DM asks for a roll it appears to me to be in line with what I said. Could you explain further on what you think I'm missing?

This in particular sounds like 4e is more for you, based on what I've heard about it. I think ultimately it'll come down to if the game is tolerable for you as a vehicle for having fun with your friends. Perhaps you guys need to alternate playing each's favored edition in turn.

Definitely. 4e is currently my favorite edition of D&D, followed closely by 3.5. However several other people in the group (specifically the other people who would DM) say they are burned out on it so I am attempting to be accommodating.

the problems with low level 5E that you highlight are not solved by 3E, because those exact same problems exist in 3E too!

I agree they're problems in 3.5 as well. I'll be pushing harder to start at a higher level next time we play 5e.

Did you remember to apply advantage from rage?

A couple of people have mentioned this and yes I did. Hence my feeling that decisions didn't matter as the choice to rage or not rage didn't seem to impact my success with the shoves in a tangible fashion.

Is it a problem that someone else got a chance to shine?

Let other players have their time to shine.

I don't have a problem with other players getting a chance to shine. However over the entire time we played 5e I only felt like I got a chance to shine once in one round of one combat. The rest of the time I felt like my characters were playing 5th or 6th fiddle to everyone else.

don't have every single player roll for a skill check.

Only bother with checks when failure is interesting.

A few people have brought these up. I won't have a lot of input on this as I'll be playing and not running the game but I'll see about reminding the DMs who do run to do this for skill checks.

Our group meets every two weeks and this is the off week so it will be over a week before I can make the start at higher level to the person who would be DMing. This discussion has left me mostly optimistic that my issues are more due to low level play rather then 5e itself.

Roderick_BR

2016-11-24, 02:54 PM

All the problems you said are the same that 3.x had, but in 5e you actually gets more options.

Bad rolls will be bad rolls, no matter the system. If you tried to shove someone in 3.5 and failed the roll by a large ammount, no matter how much Rage gave you. (unless you go for broke builds to get a +19 at 2nd level)

Look over the combat section on what actions and environment can do. It's true you can't buff you with 200 effects anymore, but that was on purpose to dont make caster overpowered.
A low initiative will hurt you anyway too, In 3.5 we had "rocket-tag" as in, first to act wins. In 5e things are less likely to end in only 1 round.

Few spells? You ever played low-level in 3.5? At least now you have infinite cantrips (limited in 3.5), and many classes have options to recharge furing the day.

I really dont see how 5e can be worse than 3.x

MrFahrenheit

2016-11-24, 03:43 PM

Thief 6-8/knowledge cleric 2-4/lore bard 10-12. That's a ton of expertise, lightning arrow + sneak attack, and pickpocketing in combat. If you're looking for something unique, that's not as MAD as it initially seems (but only because you want decent wisdom and charisma anyhow), this'll be what the doctor ordered. Go half elf or vuman + skilled feat.

ad_hoc

2016-11-24, 05:39 PM

I've gone back and read it again. Once the DM asks for a roll it appears to me to be in line with what I said. Could you explain further on what you think I'm missing?

Let me start by saying that it sounds like you have a lot of players in your game. My upper limit is 5. There is only so much spotlight to go around, everything takes much longer to do, and it becomes harder and harder to balance.

3.x had a simulationist approach to skills and such. There was a set in stone DC for various things you could do. You meet that DC or you don't.

5e has a much different approach. It basically asks "is this interesting?" and if the answer is no you don't spend any game time on it.

In 3.x it was common to hear a player say "I make X check/I use Y skill" but in 5e the player will instead describe what their character does. There is a huge difference.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the options available to the DM:

- Determine no consequence for failure/chance of failure and award an automatic success. This also applies to a consequence that is not interesting for the story.
- Determine no chance of success and describe the failure.
- Use passive scores to determine character's success. For example: A sneaky creature rolls stealth and is contested by each party member's passive perception scores. This can apply to any skill.
- Use a group check.
- Ask specific character(s) to make check(s) using various criteria to determine who should be making the checks.

Asking an entire group to roll a d20 looking for only 1 success is a waste of everyone's time. There is no take 10/take 20 mechanic in 5e because the DM is supposed to determine whether it is a waste of time and adjudicate accordingly.

Darkholme

2016-11-26, 08:13 PM

A couple of people have mentioned this and yes I did [apply advantage while raging]. Hence my feeling that decisions didn't matter as the choice to rage or not rage didn't seem to impact my success with the shoves in a tangible fashion.
Advantage is an unreliable ~+3.3. Think of how 1d8-1 could play out, and how you can't count on it like you could a solid +3.5. Advantage is similar, but without altering the upper and lower bound numbers, simply messing with their likelihood.

MeeposFire

2016-11-26, 08:27 PM

One thing that officially the designers did not plan for but the rules allow for and I think can help is using the difficulty system to your advantage.

For instance there is a tradition of climbing this one wall in town. the wall is difficult to climb in general. Now for the locals who have climbed it every year as part of a festival tradition have become quite adept at climbing this wall due to experience with it even when their general skill at climbing might be at best considered being a novice. For people from this town climbing the wall is easy. This would allow a character who has supposedly been from this town and participated in this tradition to climb this difficult wall whereas the other characters will have a harder time but can also overcome it by using their potentially better acquired skill in climbing (represented by their training in athletics). Advantage is also still useful here as we can now dole that out for using specialized equipment (maybe a local character uses some climbing claws to cheat) whereas if we only used advantage then our options in this regard are fairly limited and sometimes too binary (being too easy to get eliminate).

Now the trick is that most of the time you do things as normal and have every character roll against he same DC but whenever it makes sense use this to your advantage.

As an another example an NPC brings up an arcane topic that in order to understand requires a very difficult knowledge check but the one character has been a student of a wizard that studied that very topic and so it cna be really easy or even automatic for him.

This can be used to reward people for working with the DM to create detailed back grounds or coming up with little ideas for the world. It can also let the DM give out little details for the characters that can make them feel special...just remember to do it fairly as nobody likes favoritism real or perceived.

Darkholme

2016-11-26, 08:54 PM

I can't help but feel this idea would be better if represented mechanically as much more specific skill specializations. (either limited circumstances where you count as proficient, or limited circumstances where you're getting advantage or a bonus on the roll, or all of the above)

GraakosGraakos

2016-11-27, 07:39 AM

Play 13th age. Super neat, lots of agency during character creation, and lots of mechanical fun. Balanced ish classes too.

RaynorReynolds

2016-11-27, 11:34 AM

A lot of your problems are easily solved/answered:

1. Player Agency: Just because you are proficient in something or have a certain feat, does not mean you will always be successful. Mathmatically, having advantage does give you a big bonus. So you had some good rolls and some bad rolls. If the good rolls were against the wizard and the bad against the ogre, would you still be bothered? Everyone is average at everything. Proficiency is where you excel. Think of athletes. Do they always have great days and are always performing at their best? No, of course not. The same is true for D&D. The better you get, the less likely it is you will have a bad day. You will still roll that natural 1 (in real life and in D&D).

I do not allow players that do not have proficiency to make some skill checks. In your example, the fighter should not be allowed to make an arcana check or the DC should be very high (20-25). The depth of information someone can gain from a check should vary character to character. The wizard will be able to tell a lot more ("this arcane sigil is part of a teleportation circle") from a successful check than the fighter ("it is magical"). Bit of a gross oversimplification, but you get the idea.

2. Combat is boring: You really dont have to do much to goblins besides hit them with a firebolt or two to take them down... If you want higher initiative, put your ASIs into Dex instead of Int. Another idea, instead of saying "I attack with my sword", describe the attack. "I parry his blow with my shield and then strike at his exposed stomach". A lot of this is on the DM to put together interesting encounters. D&D is as fun as you (and the DM) make it.

3. Competence Attrition: This is on your DM. You should be seeing an average of 3-4 (maybe 5) encounters a day. Wizards are not suppose to be casting high level spells all day long. That just doesn't make sense mehanically or otherwise. Yes, at higher levels, you will have plenty of spell slots. Though at that point, casting a level 1 or 2 spell might feel like you are casting cantrips.

To summarize, you will never be successful at something 100% of the time. Don't let a few bad rolls get you down. Talk to your DM about your concerns.

Socratov

2016-11-27, 11:53 AM

Some background on this question. I started playing with the IRL group I'm with back in the middle of 4e's run. When 5e was released we decided to finish up our current 4e campaign and then give 5e a try. We started playing 5e in Jan 2015. Over the course of the next year we played a few different campaigns which resulted in me playing a barbarian, a wizard, and a sorcerer (favored soul variant) each up to level 4. After trying 5e across these characters and that time frame my frustrations with the system reached a breaking point. I decided to leave the group until they decided to play a different game. This was not a decision made lightly both due to the length of time I have been playing with this group and due to how much I enjoyed roleplaying with them. We compromised on me running 3.5 which I have been running since the beginning of this year. However talk has started up again about what will happen once my campaign finishes. The regular DM of the group is really itching to run 5e again and is asking me to consider playing 5e again.

Thus I'm asking anyone who has experience playing at levels higher than 4 in 5e if my frustrations with 5e as a system are addressed or mitigated in higher level play. My frustrations are as follows.

Lack of player agency
Over the year we played I can count on one hand the number of times I felt my decisions as a player made more of a difference than what I rolled on the dice. This was driven home most on my barbarian. As a variant human I picked up the shield master feat and frequently tried to shove enemies. In one particular combat I got in the face of the enemy caster, who I was later informed had no proficiency in athletics or acrobatics and strength and dexterity scores of 10, and proceeded to fail to knock them prone for 3 of the 4 combat rounds with the first being taken up starting up rage. In a later combat where the party was fighting an Ogre and I had no rages available I said to myself "why not?" and tried to shove the Ogre prone. I succeeded. Instead of this being a moment of joy it simply served to further my frustration as it was clear the decision to rage or not rage made no difference to whether or not I was able to shove enemies prone. For my wizard the frustration to the form of arcane checks. The rogue matching or beating my arcane checks, that's fine. She's going into arcane trickster and has intelligence equal to mine (15) and proficiency in arcane. It's when the fighter, monk, and ranger who all had 10 or less intelligence and no proficiency in arcane got in on the "beat the wizard at arcane checks on a regular basis" game that I threw my hands up in disgust.

Combat is boring/Minimal options
Don't get me wrong, combat in 5e is fast. Turns are frequently over in a minute or less. But the speed seems to come at the expense of options. I would estimate that 90% or more of the combat turns in our sessions were "I use my sword/bow/cantrip to damage this enemy". This was despite my efforts to play my wizard in a control focused manner and trying to play my sorcerer in a help the team focused manner. I admit when I first started reading 5e I was interested as it appeared they had brought back many of the options that had left in the 3.5-> 4e transition, however my interest was short lived once I drilled down to the effects and found that pretty much every combat option was either "do damage", "grant advantage", or "impose disadvantage". Which wouldn't have been so bad by itself except for the reductiveness of the advantage/disadvantage system not allowing for anything but the most basic of overlap. It's disappointing when your control focused wizard yet again rolls poorly on initiative and there's only a goblin or two left after 5 or more other players go before you. This left me plinking with firebolt more often than not as either it wouldn't be worth the spell slot to "impose disadvantage" or someone else had already beat me to it. (We have a large group and don't ever see less than 5 PC characters, sometimes as many as 9)

Competence Attrition
I dislike it when my ability to do my chosen role, be it in combat or out, relies entirely on rest based abilities. This was most frustrating on my sorcerer and wizard. 2-6 spell slots for my role and then I'm back to plinking with cantrips like a crappy archer. Bleh When you're expecting 6-8 encounters of various types over the course of a day that's severely underwhelming. Overall it seems like 5e doesn't want you to be able to do anything other than damage at-will, at least at the levels I played. Perhaps at higher levels you eventually get enough slots to spend one on every round of every combat for the whole day.

Please relate to me your experiences of playing 5e at higher levels and if these frustrations are alleviated. I want to know if I should give it another try or push back harder for the next DM to continue running 3.5

It sounds like your frustrations are pretty much with bounded accuracy rather than with the edition as a whole. Given that I don't know if there's anything folks can say to convince you to stick with 5E but I'll at least give my perspective.

Lack of Player agency:

I disagree here that there's a lack of agency. It mostly sounds like you're frustrated with bad dice rolls rather than not being able to do anything. I don't think the system really hurts your agency at all since, for example, that mage is not going to be nearly as effective as your barbarian at shield bashing if they wanted to give it a shot. And while you might lose on an arcana role once in awhile, overall, you're the one who should be tackling those as a wizard even if the barbarian can get lucky in awhile. If anything, the ability to at least attempt checks even when not proficient gives people MORE agency by at least allowing you to try.

Combat is boring:

"I hit the thing" has pretty much always been a staple of D&D. If you want cantrips and stuff that provide you more options, repelling blast eldritch blast, vicious mockery, and the battlemaster fighter sound like they might appeal to you. As for advantage/disadvantage while this is largely true there are still plenty of creative ways to use even those powers. As an example, enlarge/reduce might seem like it just adds some size and damage, but you can use to do things like shrink down doors so your allies can move through them. Shocking grasp allows your teammates to leave an enemy's reach safely, blindness not only grants disadvantage but also prevents an enemy spell caster from casting spells. Suggestion has a million uses, illusions can do anything you dream up etc.

Competence attrition:

That's the catch to playing a sorcerer/wizard. In exchange for getting abilities that can change the entire adventure with a single casting, your spells recharge on a long rest. However it's true that they need more time to get rolling since they start with so few spell slots. But at higher levels, you're doing stuff like out damaging the barbarian with flying caltrops, removing an enemy from combat (no save) with a snap of your finger, turning into a dragon forever, turning your fighter into a T-rex, and so on. If you want short rest resources, you should look into a warlock, circle of the moon druid, or battlemaster fighter.

Low levels are always a grind. Personally, I feel that there are two big break points for low level D&D: 3rd, when your class starts to actually feel fun, and 6th when they start to distinguish between each other a lot more.

To me the points have basically been made: your gripes are not necessarily with the system itself, but with the lower end of bounded accuracy.
Especially on the lower end luck is a huge factor. It deflates a smidgen later on, but that's it: luck is, and will continue to play a dominant role in play. Compared to 3.5 the difference is as follows: in 3.5 you rolled to see how good your day was. At first the d20 dictates about 5/6 of the result, at the upper echelons of play it quickly goes to 4/10, or in the case of heavy optimisation even to 2/10. How competent you were as character at something definitely counted for a lot. With 5e, things have reversed a bit: Luck stays a big part of actions from 4/5 at lvl 1 (best case counting point buy) to 2/3 at lvl 20 (unless expertise then it goes to 55%-ish). it starts as the dominant part of a roll, and continues to be so even if the dominance lessens somewhat...

does it get better at higher levels? For sure. Higher levels means more spells, bigger numbers (to throw off that luck factor of the d20) and more tools. However, I think 5e is the edition where the DM is back behind the wheel after 3e, 3.5 and 4th: the book literally talks about how the DM is supposed to be make rulings over unclear things, accompanied by a PHB/DMG combo that leaves a lot open to discussion.

I am not saying that is bad or good, but it is very circumstantial and dependant on DM. Good DMs can really make this game work wonders and are definitely an improvement over 3.5 (imo). Bad DM's though, can ruin this edition in 2 seconds flat.

As for me, I am lucky enough to have a reasonable DM and another one who is like the fanboyest of Matt Mercer fanboys. If I can tell the latter to not employ voice acting Im good. the edition itself is fun, it's simpeler and quicker then 3.5 (less material combined with simpeler calculations) to set up a character and to start playing. In play I find the process smoothed over (apart form the hiccups of unclear rules but that's pretty much edition independent). Sure, 5e loses some of the details and a couple of things that made 3.5 an absolute blast to play, but overall I think it's an improvement.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2016-11-27, 05:19 PM

I really don't get the distinction between Bounded Accuracy and "the system as a whole." The bounded d20 system is the entire conflict resolution mechanic. If you don't like the mechanic, because it's way too swingy in a d20 system for instance, then you're not going to like 5e.

It's also completely true that an increased emphasis on randomness in the outcome reduces player agency. There are three determinants of how the story goes: The DM, the Players, and the Dice. It's zero sum. If the DM gets more agency, and the dice also get more agency, guess who has less agency? Side note: The fact that the DM may surrender some agency either from himself or the dice with good rulings/house rules (i.e., a proficient PC can auto-succeed certain checks) doesn't negate this basic fact.

The lack of granularity is also a huge part of the system. If you don't like the fact that everything boils down to advantage/disadvantage, and prefer fiddly bonuses/penalties, the system won't be for you.

Of course, it is true that the swinginess, lack of granularity, and overall lack of player agency can be mitigated both by being higher level (it's not like low-level 4e PCs are immune to the d20) and through clever DMing. But it takes some work on both sides.

Side notes from the thread not worth emphasizing:-Casters in 3e and 4e had much more staying power and, at least at the equivalent point in 4e's run, options. To argue that a level 5 3e wizard was just as limited as a level 5 wizard in this edition is far off from the realities of 3e. Of course, limiting casters is a selling point of 5e; I'm not sure why 5e fans are pretending like one of the edition's main features isn't actually there.
- Just speaking about 3e, the d20 had a far more limited role due to the lack of BA, even at low levels. If you wanted to invest all your character resources into one skill, for instance, you essentially could with race, feat, and skill rank allocation. Anyone could have the equivalent of expertise just by investing full skill ranks in something. Again, this is a design decision by 5e to emphasize ability scores; if you don't amplify those bonuses, and you're married to the d20, it's necessarily the case that you must de-emphasize skill/proficiency and emphasize randomness.
- I sense some No True Scotsman in this thread regarding 3e's capabilities. Imagine you make a character who is so good at knowing arcane things (Spellcraft/Knowledge Arcana in 3e, just Arcana in 5e), that by mid-low levels she basically doesn't have to roll. It's definitely possible in 3e. That's not really broken, or even cheesy. It's a character decision, that generally comes with a steep cost. So no, avoiding the d20 isn't necessarily munchkin behavior, unless you're immune to it entirely; it's just a facet of a system without unbounded accuracy.

Tanarii

2016-11-27, 05:36 PM

It's also completely true that an increased emphasis on randomness in the outcome reduces player agency. There are three determinants of how the story goes: The DM, the Players, and the Dice. It's zero sum. If the DM gets more agency, and the dice also get more agency, guess who has less agency? Side note: The fact that the DM may surrender some agency either from himself or the dice with good rulings/house rules (i.e., a proficient PC can auto-succeed certain checks) doesn't negate this basic fact.
Wait, what? How on earth is this zero sum? You seem to be confused as to what player agency is. Player agency is the ability to make meaningful choices for their characters. This is not increased or decreased by DM agency (the ability to make meaningful choices about how the world reacts to the players actions) or use of dice (totally unrelated to either).

What lessens player agency is the DM taking away the ability from the players to decide on what actions their characters will take in the first place, instead of applying resolution (either decide or rolled) and consequences to a declared action.

For an example of a loss of player agency, intentionally built into the system, look to domination, fear and hold type magics. For non-system loss of agency, it'd be extreme railroading. Or forced 'that's out of character you can't do that' rulings.

Edit: another example is AL's "no evil alignments" rule, which causes a loss of player agency. That's a good example of why not all loss of player agency is a bad thing. It's a very good loss of player agency rule in the case of official play.

Saeviomage

2016-11-27, 05:53 PM

Tanarii

2016-11-27, 06:01 PM

Fundamentally, the 5e skill system makes a starting character play like a comedy act without serious DM intervention.
The DMG tells the DM how to use the skill system, I'm guessing in a way you'd call 'serious intervention'. For starters, you're not supposed to roll for every little thing.

For example and in my judgement, most of the examples you gave for things you can fail at an extreme rate should not be a roll in the first place, especially not as DC 10 tasks. Maybe the forgery at the gate thing, depending on how closely the guards are supposed to be on the lookout for people faking things. Ie if they were on high alert.

ad_hoc

2016-11-27, 06:43 PM

I feel like the skill system is missing some sort of penalty for being non proficient, as well as pitching 'easy' too high. I much prefer 3.5's DC of 5 for easy skills.

The problem here is that you are using the 3.x approach.

5e is a different game. 3.x is simulationist in its approach. NPCs are supposed to be built to the same rules as the PCs. How powerful the NPCs are is a measure of how large a town is, their resources, etc. Every task is given a DC and there is a roll (or a take 10/20) on every thing anyone does.

5e cares more about the narrative. It asks the question, is this interesting? If it isn't interesting it is skipped.

It is an entirely different approach. Trying to use 3.x's approach to skill checks in 5e is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's no wonder you are not having success with it.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2016-11-27, 06:45 PM

Wait, what? How on earth is this zero sum? You seem to be confused as to what player agency is. Player agency is the ability to make meaningful choices for their characters. This is not increased or decreased by DM agency (the ability to make meaningful choices about how the world reacts to the players actions) or use of dice (totally unrelated to either).

What lessens player agency is the DM taking away the ability from the players to decide on what actions their characters will take in the first place, instead of applying resolution (either decide or rolled) and consequences to a declared action.It's not confusion so much as diametrically opposed views of agency and how a choice is meaningful. To me, agency isn't just about a character's intent. It's about a player's ability to make meaningful choices in the game world. If a PC's actions have no actual bearing on what occurs in the narrative (i.e., the consequences to a declared action), the supposed choice is vacuous, and without a meaningful choice there is no agency. The character may not realize it, but the player likely does.

A classic example of railroading is a GM who may allow the players to attempt a variety of actions but will only allow his one pet solution to actually work. Technically, no one has been denied the ability to pursue a particular course of action, but the players are denied a chance to have that action move the narrative forward. It's the DM taking narrative control from both the PCs and the dice, which at least for me denies the agency of the players at the table.

Tanarii

2016-11-27, 07:21 PM

Pcs actions have resolutions and consequences, and bearing on the narrative, whether they succeed or fail. That's different from players getting to decide the resolution of their actions.

The DM only allowing certain courses of action to succeed isn't railroading. It's judgement on what possible courses of action can possibly succeed in a given situation. Players may be forced to certain courses of action if they wish to progress in that situation, but if they have the option to walk away from the situation entirely they've still got agency. They can still make a meaningful choice. Agency doesn't mean unlimited options, nor does it mean the ability to decide the results of their actions.

By your standard, a player is lacking agency when they make an attack roll because they can't decide if it hits or misses. By my standard, they've got agency because they can choose if they want to attack with one of their available options, dodge, or even run away.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2016-11-27, 10:27 PM

Agency being zero sum doesn't mean players should have all of the agency (i.e., they say something and it happens, full stop). It also doesn't mean that having a probability of failure necessarily means the players lack agency - they only lack 100% agency. It means that, as the distribution of the RNG gets wider relative to the other numbers at hand, player actions become less and less correlated with particular narrative outcomes. In other words, the ability for a player's choice to alter an outcome (in expectation) is reduced.

To be clear: It's generally a good thing for dice to have some narrative control. Randomness creates tension and a lack of predictability. It can simply go too far.

Minor point: The railroading example referred to horror stories where reasonable actions were denied. It simply was meant to convey the point that the ability to attempt something was insufficient to grant agency.

ad_hoc

2016-11-27, 11:02 PM

People are really bad at understanding probability.

I have a poker background. In studying the game I have read countless threads posted by people who don't understand that their actions count, whether or not they won. And this is on forums where people are actually attempting to study the game, most of the people just think they understand and don't even ask the questions.

This kind of thinking leads to all sorts of errors that cost people a lot of money, and consequently, allow the game to be profitable. Many people actually want their opponents to fold when the opponents are behind because that removes any chance of the opponents winning.

There is a ton of luck in poker and also a ton of skill/strategy/tactics. The two are not in opposition.

Richard Garfield gave the example of a game of chess where you roll a d6 once someone is checkmated. If the result is a 1 then the person who was checkmated is declared the winner. The lesson: There is exactly the same amount of strategy/skill involved the modified game as the regular one. There is just more luck as well.

There is more player agency in 5e than in any previous edition of D&D.

Vortling

2016-11-27, 11:41 PM

Let me start by saying that it sounds like you have a lot of players in your game. My upper limit is 5. There is only so much spotlight to go around, everything takes much longer to do, and it becomes harder and harder to balance.

3.x had a simulationist approach to skills and such. There was a set in stone DC for various things you could do. You meet that DC or you don't.

5e has a much different approach. It basically asks "is this interesting?" and if the answer is no you don't spend any game time on it.

In 3.x it was common to hear a player say "I make X check/I use Y skill" but in 5e the player will instead describe what their character does. There is a huge difference.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the options available to the DM:

- Determine no consequence for failure/chance of failure and award an automatic success. This also applies to a consequence that is not interesting for the story.
- Determine no chance of success and describe the failure.
- Use passive scores to determine character's success. For example: A sneaky creature rolls stealth and is contested by each party member's passive perception scores. This can apply to any skill.
- Use a group check.
- Ask specific character(s) to make check(s) using various criteria to determine who should be making the checks.

Asking an entire group to roll a d20 looking for only 1 success is a waste of everyone's time. There is no take 10/take 20 mechanic in 5e because the DM is supposed to determine whether it is a waste of time and adjudicate accordingly.

Interesting. The behavior you are attributing to 5e is something that I see as disassociated from system. Which is to say I've seen 3.5 run the way you say 5e is supposed to be run, and seen 5e run the way you say 3.5 is supposed to be run. If I was the one running I'd certainly look into the DM options you provided. As it is I can only request them and hope the DMs I have won't run 5e the way you see 3.5 being run.

Play 13th age. Super neat, lots of agency during character creation, and lots of mechanical fun. Balanced ish classes too.

I'd love to give it a try but the only way this group does anything other than the latest version of D&D is when I GM.

The play agency discussion is informative. The different definitions has my brain gears turning.

There is more player agency in 5e than in any previous edition of D&D.

Could you elaborate on this? That seems like a very broad and sweeping statement.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2016-11-27, 11:53 PM

Substantive tactics and strategy are sufficient but not necessary to ensure some degree of player agency. A completely narrative free form game can have meaningful choices without an ounce of tactics involved in play. Also, let's take that Chess example, but push it further. What if instead of winning 5 out of 6, the winner wins 50.0001% of the time? There's the same tactics and strategy involved, and yet somehow, those tactics are cheapened by the structure of the game. Playing novice moves is no longer a significant drawback, because the RNG has too much control over the outcome.

This is why the poker analogy doesn't work. A significant portion of the uncertainty is asymmetric, which leads to endless depth in strategic thinking. The built-in "actions" always have the possibility of significant impact, and retreat/folding is far more viable than in D&D.

I also find it odd that people keep claiming 5e has more tactical depth than previous editions when its very selling point is the opposite. Like player agency, more tactical depth isn't necessarily a good thing, because with it comes a learning curve and system mastery and all that stuff we didn't like from before.

Yakk

2016-11-27, 11:58 PM

Pex

2016-11-28, 12:07 AM

The DMG tells the DM how to use the skill system, I'm guessing in a way you'd call 'serious intervention'. For starters, you're not supposed to roll for every little thing.

For example and in my judgement, most of the examples you gave for things you can fail at an extreme rate should not be a roll in the first place, especially not as DC 10 tasks. Maybe the forgery at the gate thing, depending on how closely the guards are supposed to be on the lookout for people faking things. Ie if they were on high alert.

The problem is there is no guide as to what doesn't need a roll but for the DM to use his own judgment. What is no roll needed for one DM requires a roll for another DM at DC 10, a DC 15 roll for another DM, only non-proficient characters must roll for a fourth DM, and only proficient characters may attempt a roll for a fifth DM. If a player doesn't think he needs to roll, he either has to convince his DM otherwise or lump it and be miserable about it or the DM convinces him he does need to roll.

You're doing it right here saying you don't need to roll but maybe you do for the forgery, and even then depending on the guards. So do I need to roll or not? What's the DC? Watt's on second. I don't know. Third base.

2D8HP

2016-11-28, 12:10 AM

Does 5e get better at higher levels?

Yes.

Second level is AWESOME!

Third level is good too.

Malifice

2016-11-28, 12:14 AM

I've gone back and read it again. Once the DM asks for a roll it appears to me to be in line with what I said. Could you explain further on what you think I'm missing?

The DM should only be asking for checks from PCs that have a change of success. I dont let Grok the Barbarian attempt an intelligence (arcana) check to decypher the runes in a magical textbook (for example). His Wizard buddy who is proficient in Arcana, can make the check.

If Grok the Str 18 Barbarian cant kick down the door with a Strength (athletics) check, then Bozzle the Str 8 Wizard dosnt get to even roll.

And so on.

A couple of people have mentioned this and yes I did. Hence my feeling that decisions didn't matter as the choice to rage or not rage didn't seem to impact my success with the shoves in a tangible fashion.

Which is obviously wrong. Youre suffering from perception bias.

Assuming your Barbarian has a Str of 16, a Prof bonus of even just +2, and is proficient in (athletics) you get +5 to your attempts to knock someone prone. Youre also rolling with advantage (itself worth around another +5).

I'm not a numbers guru, but [(roll a d20 twice, take the highest result) then add 5] is much better than [(roll a single d20) then add nothing].

As a betting man, I know where my money is going in a wrestling match between the two.

Its not a guarantee of success mind you, but the odds are clearly and strongly in your favor.

Malifice

2016-11-28, 12:23 AM

Fundamentally, the 5e skill system makes a starting character play like a comedy act without serious DM intervention. Starting skill check bonus for someone who is exceptionally suited to a task is +5 by the book (+2 from proficiency, +3 from stat). An easy DC is 10.

That gives you a 20% failure rate on easy DCs in your character's chosen profession, even if they're naturally good at it.

That charlatan? Any time they walk into a room, at least one person sees through his disguise. And then when they start talking, someone else fails to be fooled. Their forgeries get looked at by a couple of guards? They're caught. And that's assuming your DM lets you take 10, or otherwise fixes half the opposed roll. Otherwise you've got a 5% chance of deciding that drawing a pair of glasses on is a sufficient disguise.

That blacksmith? Wastes 20% of his materials and time turning out basic goods.

Your sage? Fails to know 'easy' facts 20% of the time. Assuming he even has the right skill to roll.

And remember, an 'easy' roll is something that someone succeeds at half the time with no training and no natural aptitude.

I feel like the skill system is missing some sort of penalty for being non proficient, as well as pitching 'easy' too high. I much prefer 3.5's DC of 5 for easy skills.

Derp. Why on earth would a Blacksmith be rolling a skill check to make basic goods, or a Sage be rolling to know basic facts?

Why is the DM assigning a 20 percent failure to tasks that both dudes could do blindfolded? (i.e. the DC should be 'dont bother rolling').

The DM assigns DC's remember and determines if a roll is even needed. I certainly wouldnt have a blacksmith rolling to make basic gear. If he wanted to try his hand at something he's never made before, then maybe I might.

You know what the difficulty to climb a tree or a rope is? Nothing. You just do it. Unless the DM decides that there is some other complicating factor that requires a roll like you're encumbered, or being chased and hurrying or you're in a storm or similar.

The DM sets task difficulties. Step one is asking yourself 'does this task in this situation even require a roll for this PC?'

ad_hoc

2016-11-28, 12:49 AM

Interesting. The behavior you are attributing to 5e is something that I see as disassociated from system. Which is to say I've seen 3.5 run the way you say 5e is supposed to be run, and seen 5e run the way you say 3.5 is supposed to be run. If I was the one running I'd certainly look into the DM options you provided. As it is I can only request them and hope the DMs I have won't run 5e the way you see 3.5 being run.

How are they separate from the system? They are written right into each of their respective rulebooks.

Could you elaborate on this? That seems like a very broad and sweeping statement.

That is a very long post which I may or may not write at some point.

This is why the poker analogy doesn't work. A significant portion of the uncertainty is asymmetric, which leads to endless depth in strategic thinking. The built-in "actions" always have the possibility of significant impact, and retreat/folding is far more viable than in D&D.

You've missed the point entirely. In poker you can correctly guess another player's hand and still lose. You can play amazingly for months at a time and keep losing. Yet, your actions still matter. It's still important to be making those good decisions. People lose money because they think they don't have agency - We are pattern seeking creatures. No one is 'unlucky.' But people change their play based on the patterns they see after losing and they start actually having -EV.

Here is an exercise:

Let's say you are $10,000 under your expected value after 100,000 hands.

After another 100,000 hands how much under or over expected value are you likely to be?

The answer, of course, is -$10,000. This concept both in poker and broader is something that people really struggle with.

Sneak Dog

2016-11-28, 02:40 AM

...
The DM sets task difficulties. Step one is asking yourself 'does this task in this situation even require a roll for this PC?'

Say, one is bound in manacles. Breaking manacles is a DC 20 strength check. Now, either you're pressed for time and want to dramatically break free this very round, perhaps the next, or you've plenty of time.

If a strong hulking barbarian/fighter/bladelock with 20 strength is low on time, he has only a 30% chance of breaking free. Doesn't matter whether your barbarian is level 5 or 15.

If you've plenty of time, anyone with strength 10 or higher could break free.

The moment the DM says you are supposed to roll, your odds are already bad. You've about a 15% chance of failure of an easy DC with a +6 on the roll. 40% of a medium DC 15. This only improves a tiny slight bit over level. You get about a +2 from your proficiency.
Meanwhile, someone who isn't expecting to succeed at all, but can roll anyway, still has a 30% chance of success on a DC 15.

So if you've a roll-happy DM, PC's are just comically inept unless they use spells, which dictate what happens rather than having to roll.

Darkholme

2016-11-28, 05:57 AM

advantage (itself worth around another +5)
Wanted to correct this.
http://anydice.com/program/2829
13.82-10.5=+3.32 It's not nothing, but it's not even close to equivalent to +5.

The DM should only be asking for checks from PCs that have a change of success. I dont let Grok the Barbarian attempt an intelligence (arcana) check to decypher the runes in a magical textbook (for example). His Wizard buddy who is proficient in Arcana, can make the check.

If Grok the Str 18 Barbarian cant kick down the door with a Strength (athletics) check, then Bozzle the Str 8 Wizard dosnt get to even roll.

And so on.
Grok the barbarian does have a chance at success at that intelligence (arcana) check, so long as the DC is <=(20+Grok's Int Mod).
If Grok failed to kick down the door even with his +10, Bozzle (+0) can still potentially succeed so long as Grok rolled <=9.

That's simply how DCs work in the confines of the game as written, as evidenced in the adventures.

Now, if you're rolling 1d10+5+Bonuses instead of 1d20+B, or straight up 1d10+B because houserules? Then Bozzle straight up cannot succeed a DC20 Str Check.

Derp. Why on earth would a Blacksmith be rolling a skill check to make basic goods, or a Sage be rolling to know basic facts? The DM sets task difficulties. Step one is asking yourself 'does this task in this situation even require a roll for this PC?'In fact, from your posts, it seems your opinion would involve setting different DCs and different tasks for which characters need to roll or not roll, for different characters attempting the same task, and well, that's explicitly not how DCs work. In terms target numbers 1 task, 1 DC. The person attempting the task is irrelevant (as evidenced by adventures). If you're going to reduce DCs based on skill ranks possessed, you may as well simply stop fudging the numbers and give out bigger skill ranks. In terms of "when to roll" and "what number to assign to a task"? Well, as Pex mentioned:

There is no guide as to what doesn't need a roll but for the DM to use his own judgment. What is no roll needed for one DM requires a roll for another DM at DC 10, a DC 15 roll for another DM, only non-proficient characters must roll for a fourth DM, and only proficient characters may attempt a roll for a fifth DM.

Without more explicit skill DC guidelines, the skill system is so unpredictable as to be of minimal use to any player. Can my level 20 ranger track a rabbit through fresh snow? The answer *SHOULD* be yes, but instead the answer is *depends on if the DM decides to make you roll, and how high a number he sets for the roll* Same question, but now it's a level 1 wizard with +0. Again the answer should be yes, but it isn't, and is instead "no idea, ask your DM." And if this is how it works in the most clear-cut of cases, imagine how poorly it works out without firm guidelines for less clear-cut cases.

In an ideal world, there should be an example at every second DC of each skill, from like, 0 to 80 (a list of 40 tasks for each skill). In addition to that, a good explanation of when you should and should not call for those rolls considering DC, Skill Bonus, and other circumstances like consequences for failure and time available and whatnot.

It would also be helpful, in circumstances where success is inevitable, to be able to roll to determine "how long", because sometimes that's also important.

But there's not, so you end up with people being made to roll for tasks they shouldn't be rolling for, being denied a roll at tasks at which they can succeed, and being told they have to meet target numbers which are unreasonable for the task at hand. That's the cost of added "GM agency" actually meaning "no useful guidelines for consistent difficulties".

Knaight

2016-11-28, 07:52 AM

When I hear things like that, it makes me think the DM is calling for too many rolls. If your bonuses in other systems are so high as to overcome the roll, why bother rolling? But, I am a big fan of bounded accuracy. Have you ever tripped when there was nothing at all in your way? Ever drop food on the floor? Or your phone? People fail all the time at things they should be able to do, even when no one is trying to contest the outcome.
It's not a matter of whether or not you overcome the roll, it's the matter of the particular probabilities that show up for a number of different situations. Particular cases of interest are novices succeeding on hard tasks, experts failing easy tasks, experts failing easy tasks novices succeed at, novices succeeding at hard tasks experts fail at, and novices beating experts in opposed rolls. Then there's the combat side, where the round to round is generally less important than the case as a whole and probability calculations get a lot more complicated. This post will mostly be aimed at the skill side, both because the math is much simpler and because it's skills in particular people (including me) tend to have a problem with.

First, lets look at the hypothetical range of interest. Novices presumably usually fail at hard tasks - they have a feasible success range of 0-50% before the whole concept gets sketchy. Experts presumably usually succeed at easy tasks - they have a feasible failure range of 0-50% before the whole concept gets sketchy. Experts failing easy tasks novices succeed at is a bit more complex, but if we look at the one expert one novice case the feasible range there is 25%, as the expert has at worst a 50% feasible success rate and the novice is no better than the expert. The same applies to novices succeeding at hard tasks, and that 50% probability comes up again for novices beating experts. These extremely generous ranges should fit any game, and the particulars within them matter.

The first two cases (novices succeeding on hard tasks and experts failing easy tasks) are easy enough to calibrate, and are very much a design decision. While easy and hard don't map too neatly to existing DCs (or more accurately there are complications in a more than 2 value system being modeled as two values) there is a 10-20 range for DCs most of the time. Call a novice a +1 modifier (+0 Prof, +1 Attrribute) and an expert a +7 (+3 Prof, +4 Attribute), and use 13 and 18 as the DC values for easy and hard tasks (going between easy-moderate and moderate-hard). The novice succeeds at the hard task 20% of the time, the expert fails at the easy task 30% of the time. These values are in accordance with the design goals of 5e, and they absolutely work for certain people. For other people, at least one of them is off, whether it's novices having too high a chance at succeeding at hard tasks or experts failing at the easy task more often. This is also very game dependent - I personally have no issue with the novice succeeding 20% of the time in a D&D like game, but in something like a down to earth hard sci-fi game? That number could stand to drop a little. The expert failing rate is irritatingly high for my taste though; I'd be fine with a 5% or so but 30% is just really high. It's a conflict between personal taste and design goals that doesn't exist for some other games where the roll still matters, but has a different probability distribution.

Then there's the matter of novices showing up experts or experts under performing while novices do fine. Looking at the first of these the expert succeeds at the hard task only 50% of the time, so a whole 10% of the time both go for it the novice succeeds and the expert fails. That number slowly climbs towards 50% of the time as more novices are added with at least one succeeding while the expert fails. In a 5 person party it's at 29.5%. That comes across as really high. On the other hand, 0% comes across as really low. This high rate in particular is one of the things that makes 5e feel like it has skills which just don't matter outside of extreme conditions (e.g. Rogue/Bard Expertise at higher levels). For the failure case the novice succeeds 45% of the time, so the chance that the expert fails the easy task while the novice succeeds is at 13.5%, which slowly climbs towards 45% as more experts are added. In a 5 person party it's at 34.2%. Again, that comes across as really high. Then there's direct competition - the novice has a 22.8% chance of beating the expert. Again, this is pretty high, and again a 0% chance is low.

Only calling for rolls sometimes doesn't particularly help with this, as that either causes the guaranteed case with all of its pitfalls or goes into the rolling case with the particular numbers attached. It's these numbers that people find objectionable.

Of course, the model I provided above is simplified. The game as a whole doesn't have just two points of skill, there are more than two difficulties, there's the advantage/disadvantage system and everything it does, etc. The numbers above are examples that show a part of the routine range in which 5e operates.

Bad rolls will be bad rolls, no matter the system. If you tried to shove someone in 3.5 and failed the roll by a large ammount, no matter how much Rage gave you. (unless you go for broke builds to get a +19 at 2nd level)
...
I really dont see how 5e can be worse than 3.x
Again, the specific probabilities matter here and in the specific context of the skill system there are a lot more bad rolls in 5e than 3.5. That's without getting into the broader picture, where a 1dX+Y mechanic is on the swingier end of things as a whole. Binomial probability distributions show up all over the place in games, and in those it's really common for experts at a skill to need some pretty spectacularly low rolls to fail easy things. I'm not talking about something like a 5% minimum either - the chance of getting at least 1 success on 8 dice with a 50% success rate is a whopping 99.6%. Bad rolls can still happen, but they're much rarer.

I really don't get the distinction between Bounded Accuracy and "the system as a whole." The bounded d20 system is the entire conflict resolution mechanic. If you don't like the mechanic, because it's way too swingy in a d20 system for instance, then you're not going to like 5e.
There's tons to the system outside of bounded accuracy. For instance, there's the whole combat and magic subsystems in which bounded accuracy shows up in specific places but is totally absent in a bunch of others (e.g. the way damage works, the way movement works, what spells there are, most of the ways spells work, spell access for caster classes, etc.). There's the way characters are built, the particular classes there are, etc. If everything about 5e was kept the same except for a d10 was used instead of a d20 and various static targets (DCs, defenses) were reduced by 5 it would still be a very similar system despite bounded accuracy being thrown out the window pretty dramatically.

Then there's the matter of how bounded accuracy as a design goal looks different in the context of skills and combat. Combats generally involve a lot more than one roll per person, particularly when you consider that rolls aimed at characters also affect them. The more rolls involved the less the swinginess of an individual roll affects the swinginess of the result as a whole, and this would be seen even if combat was something like opposed fighting skill rolls until one reached the best 4 out of 7 or something (that 22.8% chance of a novice victory above is now down to a whole 5.16%). The HP system, damage system, and multiple attack system takes that reduced swinginess and adds the weaker party needing more rolls to win, the stronger party needing fewer rolls to win, and the stronger party getting to make more than one roll per roll the weaker party makes, and the swinginess plummets.

In simpler terms, a level 1 fighter has a decent chance of beating a level 20 fighter at an opposed roll (a whole 2% case even in the extreme -1 minimum against +11 maximum). The chance of them beating them in a fight is negligible. Sure, it's hypothetically possible that the high level fighter will miss four times a round while any hit would probably do the low level fighter in while the low level fighter eventually lands a couple dozen hits, but it's not likely to ever show up in play. That's not to say the round to round doesn't matter, just that its effect is mitigated and even on the round to round scale enough rolls pile up that differences in character capability are felt in a way that they aren't in the skill system.

Malifice

2016-11-28, 07:55 AM

Grok the barbarian does have a chance at success at that intelligence (arcana) check, so long as the DC is <=(20+Grok's Int Mod).
If Grok failed to kick down the door even with his +10, Bozzle (+0) can still potentially succeed so long as Grok rolled <=9.

That's simply how DCs work in the confines of the game as written, as evidenced in the adventures.

Nah bro. The DM assigns difficulties and determines who gets to roll.

The variation is [auto succed] - [DC] - [auto fail]. There is nothing in the DMG that tells me that I have to set the difficulty objectively. I can assign it subjectively if I want.

If I brought a Television back into 8th century Europe and asked the smartest man alive 'what is this thing, and what does it do?' he couldn't answer the question. If I asked the same question to an Intelligence 5 dude from our times then he answers it correctly every single time.

As DM I apply the same logic. If my player is playing 'Grok the Int 8 Barbarian, Outlander from the frozen North', he doesnt get to make an Arcana check to identify strange magical phenomena (or much else for that matter). He does get to look incredulous a lot and utter 'Crom' whenever weird **** happens though.

Same deal with breaking manacles, bending steel bars and pushing over statues. If Strength 18 athlete Grok cant do it, neither can Gorbo the Str 8 Wizard.

In fact, from your posts, it seems your opinion would involve setting different DCs and different tasks for which characters need to roll or not roll, for different characters attempting the same task, and well, that's explicitly not how DCs work.

Can you find me the source that explicitly tells me (as DM) that DCs are objective, and everyone always rolls against the same number?

When I read the DMG, the rules seem clear that I (as DM) get to set the DCs as I see fit. If the task is impossible (If Grok cant bend that iron bar, Gorbo certainly cant, and Grok cant read, let alone understand the intricacies of in depth arcane gobbledygook akin to high level Quantum physics) then you dont even get to roll.

Knaight

2016-11-28, 08:07 AM

As DM I apply the same logic. If my player is playing 'Grok the Int 8 Barbarian, Outlander from the frozen North', he doesnt get to make an Arcana check to identify strange magical phenomena (or much else for that matter). He does get to look incredulous a lot and utter 'Crom' whenever weird **** happens though.

Same deal with breaking manacles, bending steel bars and pushing over statues. If Strength 18 athlete Grok cant do it, neither can Gorbo the Str 8 Wizard.

Can you find me the source that explicitly tells me (as DM) that DCs are objective, and everyone always rolls against the same number?

When I read the DMG, the rules seem clear that I (as DM) get to set the DCs as I see fit. If the task is impossible (If Grok cant bend that iron bar, Gorbo certainly cant, and Grok cant read, let alone understand the intricacies of in depth arcane gobbledygook akin to high level Quantum physics) then you dont even get to roll.

The problem with this is that doing this takes a fair bit of control of the identity of a PC from the players - Grok and Gorbo as built by the players suddenly matter a lot less than Grok and Gorbo as envisioned by the GM, in a way that just doesn't happen if they go up against the same DCs but with different modifiers. Assigning different DCs to different characters is a messy patch with a whole bunch of problems that is only needed in the first place because the existing bounded accuracy system has serious problems representing skilled characters that aren't rogues or bards in non combat situations. Whether this is because the class system was deliberately designed for skills to be rogues or bards things rather than something accessible to all characters, because it was designed for combat (where it works beautifully) and directly ported in a messy fashion to skills, or whether those high rates from my previous post are just supposed to happen and it's a matter of player-game fit is unknown, but it's a genuine problem for a lot of people and this technique is not adequate to fix it.

This isn't just a 3.x grognard thing either. You've seen enough of me around the forums to know that I hold that edition in open contempt, and to know that I'm totally on board with GMs setting DCs and the introduction of the easy to hard word scale (if not the DCs attached so much). The problem here is an entirely isolated one to the combination of the flat probability distribution of the d20, the small range of proficiency, and the choice to have skills be a single d20+Bonus vs. DC check.

mgshamster

2016-11-28, 08:09 AM

Nah bro. The DM assigns difficulties and determines who gets to roll.

The variation is [auto succed] - [DC] - [auto fail]. There is nothing in the DMG that tells me that I have to set the difficulty objectively. I can assign it subjectively if I want.

If I brought a Television back into 8th century Europe and asked the smartest man alive 'what is this thing, and what does it do?' he couldn't answer the question. If I asked the same question to an Intelligence 5 dude from our times then he answers it correctly every single time.

As DM I apply the same logic. If my player is playing 'Grok the Int 8 Barbarian, Outlander from the frozen North', he doesnt get to make an Arcana check to identify strange magical phenomena (or much else for that matter). He does get to look incredulous a lot and utter 'Crom' whenever weird **** happens though.

Same deal with breaking manacles, bending steel bars and pushing over statues. If Strength 18 athlete Grok cant do it, neither can Gorbo the Str 8 Wizard.

Can you find me the source that explicitly tells me (as DM) that DCs are objective, and everyone always rolls against the same number?

When I read the DMG, the rules seem clear that I (as DM) get to set the DCs as I see fit. If the task is impossible (If Grok cant bend that iron bar, Gorbo certainly cant, and Grok cant read, let alone understand the intricacies of in depth arcane gobbledygook akin to high level Quantum physics) then you dont even get to roll.

I try to find a balance between that and player agency. I often give out knowledge that not every character can even roll on, but I let the players decide if their character has a chance.

For example, I'll do something like this: "DC 13 Arcana check, if your character has ever spent time studying the Arcana world. Those who can actively cast arcane spells get advantage." Or, "DC 18 Arcana check, if your character is from the Planes or has ever spent time studying the Planes. If you've lived in or studied Mechanus specifically, you have advantage." Stuff like that.

This sets it up so PCs have that variability where Grok the 8 Int Barbarian may not get a roll at all, but if the Player wanted to enrich his PCs background and tell a story about how Grok actually did spend some time trying to study Arcana magic, then he gets to roll and the game in enhanced for everyone (we all got a cool story from Grok's player and understood more about who Grok is as a person).

While some people may try to game this system (as I've seen people on the threads complain), I find that most don't and actuslly use the system as intended. A lot of my players are true to their character concept and would rather skip a roll than squeeze in what they feel is yet another contrived story just to make a roll (as the more stories you have to tell, the more your PC strays away from the concept you want).

Zalabim

2016-11-28, 09:00 AM

@Knaight:
It's not a matter of whether or not you overcome the roll, it's the matter of the particular probabilities that show up for a number of different situations.
It is also a matter of how much you overcome the roll, or by how much you fail to overcome the roll. Degrees of success aren't mentioned much, but the DMG does talk about different results for getting close to the DC, and there are a lot of examples of more dramatic failures when you aren't even close to hitting the DC.

When the expert has a 20% chance to fail the easy task (really +5 vs DC 10 and level 1 PCs are not experts), that expert has a 0% chance for a major failure, like falling while climbing, or triggering a trap when trying to disarm it.

Also, you can have a 99.75% chance to succeed when you roll just two dice with a 5% chance to fail. The flat d20+bonuses scale has a certain combination of granularity and transparency that's tough to match with a dice pool or binomial distribution. Your issues with success and failure rates are definitely down to player-preference. What you call high, I call normal. What you call acceptable, I call why even bother? A 1 is not an automatic failure on ability checks and I prefer it this way.

Wanted to correct this.
http://anydice.com/program/2829
13.82-10.5=+3.32 It's not nothing, but it's not even close to equivalent to +5.

If your normal roll succeeds in an 11 (50% chance) then with advantage you succeed 75% of the time. That's like getting +5 to your roll.

If your normal roll succeeds on a 16 (25% chance) then with advatnage you succeed 43.75% of the time. That's like getting +3.75 to your roll.

It is when your normal roll is success on a 17 (20% chance) that advantage is worth only +3.2. So unless you're attempting a very easy or very hard task for you, advantage is worth close to +5.

It is worth +3.32 in cases where the exact result of the roll is the important factor, such as opposed rolls.

Without more explicit skill DC guidelines, the skill system is so unpredictable as to be of minimal use to any player. Can my level 20 ranger track a rabbit through fresh snow? The answer *SHOULD* be yes, but instead the answer is *depends on if the DM decides to make you roll, and how high a number he sets for the roll* Same question, but now it's a level 1 wizard with +0. Again the answer should be yes, but it isn't, and is instead "no idea, ask your DM." And if this is how it works in the most clear-cut of cases, imagine how poorly it works out without firm guidelines for less clear-cut cases.

In an ideal world, there should be an example at every second DC of each skill, from like, 0 to 80 (a list of 40 tasks for each skill). In addition to that, a good explanation of when you should and should not call for those rolls considering DC, Skill Bonus, and other circumstances like consequences for failure and time available and whatnot.

It would also be helpful, in circumstances where success is inevitable, to be able to roll to determine "how long", because sometimes that's also important.

But there's not, so you end up with people being made to roll for tasks they shouldn't be rolling for, being denied a roll at tasks at which they can succeed, and being told they have to meet target numbers which are unreasonable for the task at hand. That's the cost of added "GM agency" actually meaning "no useful guidelines for consistent difficulties".
The DMG has further advice, rules, and variant rules for how to handle skills, ability checks, and the role of dice in the game. It's not very useful from the player side of the table, but it's valuable information for a DM to consider, if they haven't thought about it before. I'm not saying you'll like all of the book's answers to these questions, but it does already have an answer to most of these questions.

And DCs range from 0 to 30. That's kind of an important detail to know about 5E's default assumptions.

Tanarii

2016-11-28, 01:36 PM

The problem is there is no guide as to what doesn't need a roll but for the DM to use his own judgment. What is no roll needed for one DM requires a roll for another DM at DC 10, a DC 15 roll for another DM, only non-proficient characters must roll for a fourth DM, and only proficient characters may attempt a roll for a fifth DM. If a player doesn't think he needs to roll, he either has to convince his DM otherwise or lump it and be miserable about it or the DM convinces him he does need to roll.

You're doing it right here saying you don't need to roll but maybe you do for the forgery, and even then depending on the guards. So do I need to roll or not? What's the DC? Watt's on second. I don't know. Third base.
I acknowledge there is potential for problems:
DM that doesn't understand basic probabilities and overly uses the dice, or refuses to use them at all.

DM that doesn't communicate the difficulty for a task in advance in any way, giving the player no meaningful data to base their decision on if to take an action.

Being a player that wants to know in advance the *exact* probability you will face for a given specific tasks without DM rulings on the probability, as opposed to being satisfied knowing your chances vs DC 10, DC 15, and DC 20 tasks will be when they come up.

DM and Player that disagree on if a task is impossible or possible, and the difficulty is should be.

DM and Player disagree on if checks should be allowed or disallowed based on class, background, experiences, or proficiency.

DM that always assumes proficiency will apply, thus either setting DCs too high to counter, or making many checks easier than they should be. (This is a minor issue relatively speaking.)

Edit: Also, table variation.

Vortling

2016-11-28, 02:36 PM

Raging. 18 str, +2 prof. So a +6, and you roll 2d20 and take the best.

On the other hand, naked d20. I think defender wins?

If so, you have an 87% chance of knocking prone. Doing so only 1/4 rounds or worse is .13^4 + .13^3*.87 * (4 choose 3) = 0.00028561 + 0.00764556 = 0.00793117, or 0.8% chance.

Possible, but reasonably unlikely. More likely you had disadvantage, or your target had advantage, or there was something else involved, or your narration does not reflect what happened, or my model is wrong, or the like.

It was actually 16 Str as we hadn't hit 4th level at the time this combat took place. I specifically asked the DM at the end of the session if there was anything else going on in that combat that made it hard to shove the mage prone and the DM said there wasn't. In fact he found it rather funny that the mage managed to resist given how little chance the mage would appear to have had against being shoved prone.

The DM should only be asking for checks from PCs that have a change of success. I dont let Grok the Barbarian attempt an intelligence (arcana) check to decypher the runes in a magical textbook (for example). His Wizard buddy who is proficient in Arcana, can make the check.

If Grok the Str 18 Barbarian cant kick down the door with a Strength (athletics) check, then Bozzle the Str 8 Wizard dosnt get to even roll.

And so on.

As I've mentioned this really isn't my call to make but I'll try to request it. I admit I expect to not get very far with this request as both of the other DMs for our group find it highly amusing when the guy who shouldn't have a chance at all beats out the guy who should easily complete the task.

How are they separate from the system? They are written right into each of their respective rulebooks.

What I've seen from both the group I'm playing with right now and other groups is that it doesn't matter what's written in the rulebook. It matters how the DM runs their game. I've seen this across editions of D&D and throughout all the other games I've played. Amusingly, with the group I'm in now the only edition that has been run the way you say 5e should be run is 4e. When we played 4e all our DMs would skip pointless rolls and only ask for checks when there was interesting failure to be had. Since the switch to 5e, that's gone out the window and we're rolling for a bunch of random things even when failure doesn't affect anything. This is why I say it is separate from system.

Tanarii

2016-11-28, 02:52 PM

What I've seen from both the group I'm playing with right now and other groups is that it doesn't matter what's written in the rulebook. It matters how the DM runs their game. I've seen this across editions of D&D and throughout all the other games I've played. Amusingly, with the group I'm in now the only edition that has been run the way you say 5e should be run is 4e. When we played 4e all our DMs would skip pointless rolls and only ask for checks when there was interesting failure to be had. Since the switch to 5e, that's gone out the window and we're rolling for a bunch of random things even when failure doesn't affect anything. This is why I say it is separate from system.The DMG is contradictory, which is understandable given the entire goal of the edition is to give DMs freedom to run their game how they see fit. That said, it strongly leans in the direction of not rolling for stuff where it's pointless to roll.

DMG p236:
Dice are neutral arbiters. They can determine the outcome of an action without assigning any motivation to the DM and without playing favorites. The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you.

It then goes into detail about the advantages and disadvantages of rolling for everything, not rolling for anything, and running the game somewhere in between. For example, under rolling all the time: "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."

That said, on DMG p237, it explicitly tells you not to use them unless there is a meaningful consequence for failure.
USING ABILITY SCORES
When a player wants to do something, it's often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character's ability scores. For
example, a character doesn't normally need to make a Dexterity check to walk across an empty room or a Charisma check to order a mug of ale. Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure.
When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate. The following sections provide guidance on determining whether to call for an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw; how to assign DCs; when to use advantage and disadvantage; and other related topics.

Darkholme

2016-11-28, 09:22 PM

Nah bro. The DM assigns difficulties and determines who gets to roll. The variation is [auto succed] - [DC] - [auto fail]. There is nothing in the DMG that tells me that I have to set the difficulty objectively. I can assign it subjectively if I want. Can you find me the source that explicitly tells me (as DM) that DCs are objective, and everyone always rolls against the same number?Not off the top of my head (I'll see if I can find a quote), but I can point to the fact that EVERY published task has a fixed objective difficulty.

If I brought a Television back into 8th century Europe and asked the smartest man alive 'what is this thing, and what does it do?' he couldn't answer the question. If I asked the same question to an Intelligence 5 dude from our times then he answers it correctly every single time.See, now I can see the reasoning behind this statement. You're effectively claiming Knowledge(Technology) is a trained-only skill (albeit one almost everybody has ranks in), which requires you specialize in the appropriate era. And that's great. I'm cool with that. But 5e doesn't have any actual guidelines for that. Just wishy washy "we're not going to cover this section of rules, GM will have to make something up". And in my 16 years of gaming, any time they say "GM will have to make something up" you get wildly different results from every GM, and often (unfortunately) wildly different results and no consistency from the SAME GM one encounter to the next.

When I read the DMG, the rules seem clear that I (as DM) get to set the DCs as I see fit. If the task is impossible (If Grok cant bend that iron bar, Gorbo certainly cant, and Grok cant read, let alone understand the intricacies of in depth arcane gobbledygook akin to high level Quantum physics) then you dont even get to roll.

What specific rules or guidelines are there to tell you when the PC does and does not get to roll? Because from my reading of the DMG, there are conflicting vague guidelines, and that's it. For additional "****ty clarity leads to unfair/inconsistent GMing", You'd deny Grok the chance to roll arcana, even if he actually would have a good shot at the task numerically, based on your own subjective feelings about Grok's capabilities. Whereas I (short of any explicit and /fair/ guidelines to the contrary, would allow Grok his roll so long as he can succeed on a 20, with "GMing fairly and consistently" as the reason behind that). Having played under GMs who ran DCs the way you're describing, the inability to have any idea what my own capabilities were outside combat put a major damper on the campaign for me, and any time someone else got an easier DC than me for the same or a more difficult task (especially for skills where I had the higher skill total) I would (and still do) view it as unfair favoritism on the part of the GM.

If in addition to judgments on "Who gets to Roll" and "Who doesn't get to roll", you think "Different PCs should also face different target numbers" then I would say thre should be firm guidelines for that as well, and once again mention that contradicts every published example, and point out that if gaining ranks both increases your bonus and decreases DCs, but only when you're the one rolling, well, you may as well simply grant bigger skill bonuses, you'd accomplish the same thing without the obfuscation to confuse your players about their characters' capabilities.

If your normal roll succeeds in an 11 (50% chance) then with advantage you succeed 75% of the time. That's like getting +5 to your roll.
It's a +5 in the most optimal use case of advantage. If you average the difference over the full 1-20 range of "what do I need to roll to succeed without advantage" it's +3.32.

The DMG has further advice, rules, and variant rules for how to handle skills, ability checks, and the role of dice in the game. It's not very useful from the player side of the table, but it's valuable information for a DM to consider, if they haven't thought about it before. I'm not saying you'll like all of the book's answers to these questions, but it does already have an answer to most of these questions.It has several, conflicting, vague, wishy washy answers. Nothing in the way of explicit guidelines or actually useful rules.

And DCs range from 0 to 30. That's kind of an important detail to know about 5E's default assumptions.Sure, those are the typical DCs as per the PHB, I suppose. I'd like to see DC guidelines that surpass that, for the people who have higher skill ratings (Bards and Rogues and people with Magic Items that buff their skill for instance) who can drastically surpass that +11 most people can get to without magic items, so you have some idea what things they can accomplish that nobody else can even attempt. I would like to have examples for each skill, at every attainable DC, and those extend significantly beyond 30.

stanprollyright

2016-11-29, 02:02 AM

I admit I expect to not get very far with this request as both of the other DMs for our group find it highly amusing when the guy who shouldn't have a chance at all beats out the guy who should easily complete the task.

3.5 player here: some of the best, most memorable, surprising, and fun moments of multiple campaigns have been when a character that has no business even attempting whatever check they're making rolls a 20, and when the expert rolls a 1. But again, all of these moments were in 3.5 or Pathfinder, where that kind of result is rare. That's part of what makes it so memorable when Grog the Barbarian, who knows nothing about arcane creatures, totally heard a riddle once that applies to this scenario, while Zappy the Wizard knows everything about both Hippogriffs and a Chimaeras, but still gets the names mixed up sometimes. As a DM I wouldn't want to never have those moments, or else why are we rolling dice in the first place?

If that kind of thing happened all the time, though, I could see how it would devalue the logic the world and make players feel their choices don't matter.

I'd suggest a subtler approach to your DM: let the proficient character(s) roll first, see if it succeeds, then let everyone else roll (if you feel they should - I'm all for certain skills and applications being "trained only"). So Grog only gets to roll his +0 Int check if Zappy has already failed (maybe something Zappy says triggers Grog's memory?). This cuts down on the number of scenarios where the novice can surpass the expert, while not making it impossible. The sequential thing also makes it easier on the story logic because the second character can learn from the first's mistakes.

Sneak Dog

2016-11-29, 02:29 AM

Can you find me the source that explicitly tells me (as DM) that DCs are objective, and everyone always rolls against the same number?

When I read the DMG, the rules seem clear that I (as DM) get to set the DCs as I see fit. If the task is impossible (If Grok cant bend that iron bar, Gorbo certainly cant, and Grok cant read, let alone understand the intricacies of in depth arcane gobbledygook akin to high level Quantum physics) then you dont even get to roll.

There's problems with this. What you are effectively doing is always giving players an inconsistent +X or -X to their skills based on your perception of their character. This means:

1. Inconsistency. By applying small numerical changes on the fly, the players will never know how hard it is to do a specific thing.

2. Redundancy. There already is a skill system. It's ability score + proficiency. Why mess with it more?

3. Stereotyping. I played a barbarian with high charisma and social skills once. I'd really have to convince you that that is what I'm playing, whereas with set DC's I can just show it.

4. Player agency. The players no longer decide what their characters can and cannot do. You decide. Also see 3.

Now, as for the DC thing. The game tells you. Manacles are a DC 20 strength check to break. A fireball has a DC 8 + casting ability + proficiency.
A barbarian doesn't get to break the manacles because he is a barbarian and so he should be able to. No, if he has 16 strength and the rogue got himself 18 strength, the rogue will have a slightly easier time. Neither of them will have an easy time regardless.

Spellbreaker26

2016-11-29, 06:38 AM

3. Stereotyping. I played a barbarian with high charisma and social skills once. I'd really have to convince you that that is what I'm playing, whereas with set DC's I can just show it.

4. Player agency. The players no longer decide what their characters can and cannot do. You decide. Also see 3.
.

Does your barbarian have any proficiency in charisma based skills?

Sneak Dog

2016-11-29, 11:51 AM

Does your barbarian have any proficiency in charisma based skills?

Some. It was 4e, but that doesn't really matter for the discussion. Had trained intimidate and a lot of streetwise. I wasn't playing the classic illiterate brute.

I'd have to explain that really clearly to the DM ahead of the game though, rather than being able to show it through play, for otherwise with dynamic DC's he'd just be shoved into a classic barbarian role.

mgshamster

2016-11-29, 12:19 PM

Some. It was 4e, but that doesn't really matter for the discussion. Had trained intimidate and a lot of streetwise. I wasn't playing the classic illiterate brute.

I'd have to explain that really clearly to the DM ahead of the game though, rather than being able to show it through play, for otherwise with dynamic DC's he'd just be shoved into a classic barbarian role.

So in other words, it's bad because it requires open and honest communication with the DM.

Tanarii

2016-11-29, 12:59 PM

So in other words, it's bad because it requires open and honest communication with the DM.
Not all games allow, or even want, the DM to have detailed information about the player's character including exact proficiency selected. In fact, I've ran many pick-up official play games where detailed information about the character's personality & background, which is what you'd need to rule this way.

I could probably do it in my home game despite there being so many players, and even more so characters, rotating through that it's impossible to keep track of the ones that aren't true standout survivors that have already developed a strong personality and background during play.

Not that it matters, since I don't generally rule only a sub-set of characters can make a check. In fact, if multiple possibly can make a check at the same time for the entire group, usually that indicates there's no consequence for failure anyway and it should be an automatic success. Or that it should be a group check where the better ones pick up the slack for the worse ones. For example, those rare times when I call for a "do players recall information about X" style Int / Lore checks, it's usually a group check. If more fail than succeed, they're not believing the ones who know or arguing that they're wrong even though they're right. (Basically just like what happens in real life when a bunch of people try to remember relevant info simultaneously then start discussing what's correct.)

mgshamster

2016-11-29, 01:07 PM

Knaight

2016-11-29, 01:56 PM

So in other words, it's bad because it requires open and honest communication with the DM.

It also requires the DM to keep one more thing in mind when setting difficulties. Instead of just thinking about how hard the task is and setting a difficulty that fits they have to remember the particulars of every character's backstory to determine whether or not they should get a hidden bonus of some sort. It's clunky.

Spellbreaker26

2016-11-29, 05:02 PM

It also requires the DM to keep one more thing in mind when setting difficulties. Instead of just thinking about how hard the task is and setting a difficulty that fits they have to remember the particulars of every character's backstory to determine whether or not they should get a hidden bonus of some sort. It's clunky.

First of all, all the DM has to do is say "If you have X, you can roll." This doesn't generally apply to charisma skills, it's true, but it saves on book keeping. So when they enter a room and say they want to check it for magic stuff, all the DM has to do is say "Anyone who has Arcana can roll". It makes every member of the party useful because you need all your bases covered but at the same time one more pair of eyes can still make a difference.

Knaight

2016-11-29, 05:11 PM

First of all, all the DM has to do is say "If you have X, you can roll." This doesn't generally apply to charisma skills, it's true, but it saves on book keeping. So when they enter a room and say they want to check it for magic stuff, all the DM has to do is say "Anyone who has Arcana can roll". It makes every member of the party useful because you need all your bases covered but at the same time one more pair of eyes can still make a difference.

Using a trained only system does that. Using general situational bonuses (which is what has been recommended) doesn't.

Sneak Dog

2016-11-29, 05:50 PM

So in other words, it's bad because it requires open and honest communication with the DM.

It's also bad because:

It increases the burden on the DM. Less guidelines means more DMing freedom means more power means more responsibility. On top of, of course, having to keep an accurate image of everyones character in your head. Small note: There are a lot of DMs being amazed or bothered by how their PCs miss this 'obvious solution' they came up with.

It reduces the players' ability to rely on the mechanics to tell them what they can and cannot do. (Basically the reason why roleplaying systems exist, rather than everyone sitting around a table creating a story without any rulebooks and mechanics. Or you could just make all checks a "roll 1d20, on a 10+ you succeed.")

It puts the character up-front. No more on-the-go filling-in of details. (Well, unless you get away with it, then all the on the fly gaining of random bonuses on skill checks.)

What is the gain?
You are better at skills you're good at and worse at those you're bad at.

I could've designed that mechanically. Or I could refer you to 3.5s skill system.

Darkholme

2016-11-29, 08:32 PM

What is the gain?
You are better at skills you're good at and worse at those you're bad at.

I could've designed that mechanically. Or I could refer you to 3.5s skill system.

If I'm going to issue character specific barriers on who is allowed to roll? I want clear-cut, straightforward rules for that, for two reasons:
1. Ensure consistency and fairness in my own rulings.
2. Guidelines to ensure I'm running the same system as other GMs, and if I'm differing from those guidelines, it should be explicit and deliberate, rather than random chance caused by the LACK of guidelines.

Different DCs for different characters? I would not do that, it's clunky and awkward. I'd rather accomplish the goal of stratifying the differences between skilled and unskilled by controlling the bonuses the PCs have, and keep the DC fixed. Same end benefit, without jerking the players around by drastically reducing their agency and immersion - as they have no idea what tasks they can consistently perform, and what tasks they can only rarely succeed at.

Malifice

2016-11-29, 08:58 PM

Not all games allow, or even want, the DM to have detailed information about the player's character including exact proficiency selected. In fact, I've ran many pick-up official play games where detailed information about the character's personality & background, which is what you'd need to rule this way.

I always obtain backgrounds for my PCs which I weave into the plot. I view the game as a collaborative story telling effort.

I have no issue with a player that wants to play something like 'Grok the Barbarian, Int 14 failed wizard apprentice (with the relevant background to match, and proficiency in Arcana).' This Grok would certainly get a chance to make arcana checks to determine magical phenomena etc that 'Grok the Int 8 outlander' would not.

There is a level of collaboration and trust in 5E. Including a social contract between not only the players, but also between the players and the DM.

My players have no issue with 'Billy the Str 8 wizard' not being allowed an athletics check to attempt to kick in a door that 'Grok the Str 18 barbarian' could not kick open after a failed check. They wouldnt even ask for a roll (and I wouldnt let them in any event, explaining that if 6'4" muscle clad raging Grok cant kick the thing open, the 5' tall nerdy Billy has no chance).

If I need someone in the group to hit a certain DC (nature, religion, arcana, athletics) I'll generally only let the best in the party (or the most appropriate PC by virtue of proficiency, background or class) roll for that skill.

It affords a level of 'niche protection' and a level of verisimilitude.

As a recent example my PCs were wandering through an underdark fungus cavern, when they hit a Death Spore (those things that look like beholders and explode). The Swashbuckler had spent his whole life in urban city settings, and wasnt proficient in any 'knowledge' type skills (he's the party face), and the Dwarf Cleric was the go-to guy for religion checks who had been born and raised in a city as well.

Only the druid was proficient in nature, so I let him (and only him) roll the DC 15 Nature check to ID it.

Ive never seen any rule that states I have to let every PC roll for every skill DC in the game. I (as DM) get to set the DC for a task (or determine if a roll is even possible, and even by whom).

Its like everything with roleplaying in general. With a good DM and a good relationship (and trust) among the groups players and DM, it works out fine. With a poor DM or a poor relationship between the DM and the players, it breaks down.

Malifice

2016-11-29, 09:06 PM

If I'm going to issue character specific barriers on who is allowed to roll? I want clear-cut, straightforward rules for that, for two reasons:

1. Ensure consistency and fairness in my own rulings.
2. Guidelines to ensure I'm running the same system as other GMs, and if I'm differing from those guidelines, it should be explicit and deliberate, rather than random chance caused by the LACK of guidelines.

Different DCs for different characters? I would not do that, it's clunky and awkward. I'd rather accomplish the goal of stratifying the differences between skilled and unskilled by controlling the bonuses the PCs have, and keep the DC fixed. Same end benefit, without jerking the players around by drastically reducing their agency and immersion - as they have no idea what tasks they can consistently perform, and what tasks they can only rarely succeed at.

How is only allowing the best or most relevant PC (or PCs) in the group a roll to do or know something as 'breaking immersion and reducing agency'.

I see it as doing the exact opposite. It protects agency (and niche protection), and increases immersion.

If my PCs come to a door that needs kicking in, Grok the barbarian steps up to the plate. If they need an arcane mystery solved, Billy the Wizard is the go-to guy. If Grok cant kick in the door, or Billy doesnt know what the strange glowing rune means, then no-one does.

For mine, that's all about agency and immersion.

Its not a universal rule either. Sometimes I'll call for group checks. Sometimes I'll let everyone roll to attempt a task. Sometimes it'll be some PCs and not others.

Its an art and not a science. I dont need formulaic rules for skill checks that result in things like 3.X's 'Diplomancer' and similar. Just the rules as written, and a dose of common sense and a feel for the game is all that I need.

Darkholme

2016-11-29, 09:15 PM

How is only allowing the best or most relevant PC (or PCs) in the group a roll to do or know something as 'breaking immersion and reducing agency'.

That's not what I was referring to. Reread the sentence that's in.

*Different DCs for different characters attempting the same task*.
If the DCs are subjectively set, it becomes incredibly difficult for the player to have any grasp on what their capabilities are, and it's very difficult for these "secret bonuses" to be seen as fair, rather than favoritism.

Having one roll for the group, for group activities is a different subject, and in some instances makes a lot of sense.

Allowing one roll (by the most competent) with the other characters with a bonus being able to provide "assistance bonuses" works out great in instances where the group accomplishes a task as a whole and succeeds or fails as a group.

Tanarii

2016-11-29, 09:51 PM

I always obtain backgrounds for my PCs which I weave into the plot. I view the game as a collaborative story telling effort.I don't. I don't see story at all in roleplaying. I see a bunch of (imaginary) people interacting with the world. Their job is to be an imaginary persona and interact with the world, my job is to present the world and adjudicate the results of their actions.

But that's really neither here nor there when it comes to the topic at hand, how to adjudicate skill checks. Your way is valid. I don't have a complain when I play with DMs that choose to adjudicate that way, especially since it's most common in small group with one character per player for the campaign, where the DM has plenty of mental space to memorize character's details, as well as time to get to know the developing character as they change and grow.

Finieous

2016-11-29, 10:21 PM

How is only allowing the best or most relevant PC (or PCs) in the group a roll to do or know something as 'breaking immersion and reducing agency'.

I see it as doing the exact opposite. It protects agency (and niche protection), and increases immersion.

If my PCs come to a door that needs kicking in, Grok the barbarian steps up to the plate. If they need an arcane mystery solved, Billy the Wizard is the go-to guy. If Grok cant kick in the door, or Billy doesnt know what the strange glowing rune means, then no-one does.

For mine, that's all about agency and immersion.

Its not a universal rule either. Sometimes I'll call for group checks. Sometimes I'll let everyone roll to attempt a task. Sometimes it'll be some PCs and not others.

Its an art and not a science. I dont need formulaic rules for skill checks that result in things like 3.X's 'Diplomancer' and similar. Just the rules as written, and a dose of common sense and a feel for the game is all that I need.

Bravo. I'd add that in the good ol' days, before universal task resolution mechanics and even before skill systems, you could have a perfectly good game with plenty of player agency without even knowing what dice or mechanic the DM would use to resolve an uncertain task, let alone knowing a fixed difficulty or probability. Maybe he'd call for an attribute check. Maybe he'd roll 1d6. Maybe he'd make a reaction roll. Didn't matter. In a good game, you could tell the DM what you wanted to be good at, even without a formal system for defining "what I'm good at," and the DM would make sure you were good at those things in the game.

These days, I prefer having a universal task resolution mechanic (I can still do without skills, especially when we have race, class and background to define what we're good at). But I strongly prefer guidelines the DM can apply with a high degree of flexibility, rather than rigid and codified rules. With a good DM, it just makes a much better game, and I don't play with bad DMs.

Tanarii

2016-11-29, 11:13 PM

The DMG even has among its skill variants "background proficiency". That variant doesn't work by allowing checks for only people with an appropriate background, but rather by giving proficiency bonus for the appropriate background, as opposed to for specific skills (which are eliminated). But it's still a variant leaning in that direction.

Malifice

2016-11-29, 11:41 PM

That's not what I was referring to. Reread the sentence that's in.

*Different DCs for different characters attempting the same task*.
If the DCs are subjectively set, it becomes incredibly difficult for the player to have any grasp on what their capabilities are, and it's very difficult for these "secret bonuses" to be seen as fair, rather than favoritism.

My DCs are often subjectively set. In that I often dont even let some players roll.

DM: 'Righteo fellas; you open the dungeon door and notice a strange pentagram inscribed on the floor, and a pattern of glowing arcane runes swirling in the centre of the pentagram, about 5' off the floor. Who is proficient in arcana?'
(Players 1 and 2 respond with: Yes. DM notes the pentagram is a demonic summoning circle - he also notes that Player 1 hails from lands where demonic summoning is popular and common, and is himself a Warlock devoted to a demon lord. Player 3 is also from the same lands as he Demon Warlock, but is not proficient in arcana, and is a fighter bodyguard)
DM: 'Right, players 1 and 2 can both make an arcana check. Player 1; you may do so at advantage. Player 3, you can also roll, using just your Int. Players 4 and 5 - you guys have no chance'

Also:

DM: You stand outside a stout oaken door, banded with iron.
Player 1: My mighty barbarian Grok strides forward and kicks down the door! (rolls a 2).
DM: With a loud thud, the heavy oaken door shudders but does not give in.
Player 2: My Strength 8 Wizard also tries!
DM: Dont bother rolling Player 2; if Grok isnt strong enough, neither are you.

Darkholme

2016-11-29, 11:41 PM

With a good DM, it just makes a much better game, and I don't play with bad DMs.An excellent DM can make it passable. A bad DM will absolutely ruin it. A normally pretty good DM will typically do a worse job with it than if they had something better designed.

For another game with poorly defined skill rules which lead to inconsistent (sometimes terrible) game quality simply due to how GMs can set up skill tasks with minimal guidelines: oWoD.

I'll run 5e just fine (and in the future will likely come up with more fleshed out skill guidelines for use in my games), but I would be quite hesitant to play in one (perhaps if they were running an adventure out of a book, maybe I wouldn't care), unless I was very confident in the GM, and I'd still ask them how they intend to handle skills before I joined, and voice my concerns over the poorly spelled out skill guidelines and bad past experiences with many other GMs.

MeeposFire

2016-11-29, 11:50 PM

An excellent DM can make it passable. A bad DM will absolutely ruin it. A normally pretty good DM will typically do a worse job with it than if they had something better designed.

For another game with poorly defined skill rules which lead to inconsistent (sometimes terrible) game quality simply due to how GMs can set up skill tasks with minimal guidelines: oWoD.

I'll run 5e just fine (and in the future will likely come up with more fleshed out skill guidelines for use in my games), but I would be quite hesitant to play in one, unless I was very confident in the GM, and I'd still ask them how they intend to handle skills before I joined, and voice my concerns over the poorly spelled out skill guidelines and bad past experiences with many other GMs.

The bolded is true in every version of D&D ever, even the ones with rules for almost everything. No rules system holds up to a bad DM.

Malifice

2016-11-29, 11:52 PM

An excellent DM can make it passable. A bad DM will absolutely ruin it. A normally pretty good DM will typically do a worse job with it than if they had something better designed.

For another game with poorly defined skill rules which lead to inconsistent (sometimes terrible) game quality simply due to how GMs can set up skill tasks with minimal guidelines: oWoD.

Yet plenty of people ran and played OSR DnD with no skill rules at all just fine for decades.

Even 'non weapon proficiencies' were kind of tacked on to DnD late, were optional in any event, and were very much similar to 5Es method, with a page or two for the whole list, and just very broad descriptions and a lot of DM fiat.

I'll run 5e just fine, but I would be quite hesitant to play in one, unless I was very confident in the GM, and I'd ask them how they intend to handle skills before I joined, and voice my concerns over the poorly spelled out skill guidelines.

I'd shrug and tell you 'If you want to be good at a skill, be proficient in it, and aim to have a decent ability behind it. Better yet, be a Rogue. Its not rocket science.'

MeeposFire

2016-11-29, 11:55 PM

Yet plenty of people ran and played OSR DnD with no skill rules at all just fine for decades.

Even 'non weapon proficiencies' were kind of tacked on to DnD late, were optional in any event, and were very much similar to 5Es method, with a page or two for the whole list, and just very broad descriptions and a lot of DM fiat.

I'd shrug and tell you 'If you want to be good at a skill, be proficient in it, and aim to have a decent ability behind it. Better yet, be a Rogue. Its not rocket science.'

Even with the NWP generally social skills as we know them did not exist and so adjudication was left to the DM. Even the initial reaction adjustment on cha did not really help since that only told you how they saw you at first and not really how they react to what you are saying.

I know a lot of people that like it that way. I get stuck in the middle. I like the player creativity it fosters and the fact it really pulls people into roleplaying via acting and description but at the same time it can get difficult to be sure you are playing your character and not using your own skill instead.

Darkholme

2016-11-29, 11:58 PM

The bolded is true in every version of D&D ever, even the ones with rules for almost everything. No rules system holds up to a bad DM.

Pathfinder holds up pretty well in a group with a bad/amateur GM and an experienced playerbase, assuming they're running a published campaign or they get some direction on what stuff is actually worth preparing.

And these days my pathfinder sheets often includes the many published example DCs, and the things I can take 10, take 20, or autosucceed on, are clearly marked. When attempting a task, I roll my skill, (if the DC isn't one of the published examples) tell them what that roll explicitly allows me to accomplish, then tell them my number, then ask if I succeed. As a result, I usually know if I succeed or fail a skillcheck before I even tell the GM my number. I also have a very concrete idea of when I take 10 rather than rolling.

It's made playing the game far better than most other games I've played.

And yes, I know, for the guy who doesn't think knowing what youre capable of influences player agency, I'm sure this method of being a player or GM is blasphemous. But BadWrongFun or no, it's made my games WAY better since I started doing it.

I don't need a separate skill system. Ability checks are fine. But I do consider it important to be able to gauge my character's abilities and have a good idea what tasks I can do with my eyes closed, and what tasks I'll succeed at 5, 25, 50, 75, and 100% of the time.

For 5e? I suspect I'll probably use the list of published DCs, and assemble them into lists/tables sorted by skill, expand the list as more adventures get published, and give that to my friends to use when they GM, use it myself when I GM, and put it with my sheet when I'm a player. It may not help me know when I will and will not be allowed the chance to roll (I'll likely codify something for that myself when I GM), but when I do roll as a player, I'll gradually have a better idea of what I can do as more adventures come out.

MeeposFire

2016-11-30, 12:08 AM

Pathfinder holds up pretty well in a group with a bad/amateur GM and an experienced playerbase, assuming they're running a published campaign or they get some direction on what stuff is actually worth preparing.

Absolutely positively disagree with the statement in the strongest terms. One of my worst experiences in a D&D style game was a Pathfinder game with a bad DM. It was horrendously painful made even worse by the fact they could not keep track of all the rules that make the game work. That is close to 20 years of playing with a bunch of people with DMs of various skill levels for me and I can say that in my experience PF or 3e have had as many (or really more for me but I will chalk that up as being possibly due to circumstances so I am going to go with only as much rather than more) problems as when I played with people in AD&D and 5e.

Another area that no game system can save is a group of people who are real jerks. If people want the game to go down poorly it will happen and the system cannot save it. Only the people involved can. The system can help depending on how it fits you and the people you play with (or the style you want) but it cannot do the work for you and I have found that having rules rather than rulings do not make it better with every group I have been with.

Once again this is my experience yours can certainly be different but it is why I would dispute the idea.

Darkholme

2016-11-30, 12:14 AM

Once again this is my experience yours can certainly be different but it is why I would dispute the idea.Fair enough. As with all things experience related, YMMV.

Absolutely positively disagree with the statement in the strongest terms. One of my worst experiences in a D&D style game was a Pathfinder game with a bad DM. It was horrendously painful made even worse by the fact they could not keep track of all the rules that make the game work. That is close to 20 years of playing with a bunch of people with DMs of various skill levels for me and I can say that in my experience PF or 3e have had as many (or really more for me but I will chalk that up as being possibly due to circumstances so I am going to go with only as much rather than more) problems as when I played with people in AD&D and 5e.Oh, mine couldn't keep track of all the rules either. I mentioned experienced players as a factor, because when he couldn't keep up, the rest of us simply stepped up. He would play the NPCs and assemble the encounters and scenarios, and the rest of us more or less adjudicated all the rules for him, and when something was ambiguous we'd simply tell him the closest comparisons we had and leave him as more or less the tiebreaker. It worked out really well.

And that's with like, ~18 years of experience gaming and playing D&D? Started in 1999ish. So yeah, YMMV for both perspectives.

MeeposFire

2016-11-30, 12:16 AM

Fair enough. As with all things experience related, YMMV.

Oh, mine couldn't keep track of all the rules either. I mentioned experienced players as a factor, because when he couldn't keep up, the rest of us simply stepped up. He would play the NPCs and assemble the encounters and scenarios, and the rest of us more or less adjudicated all the rules for him, and when something was ambiguous we'd simply tell him the closest comparisons we had and leave him as more or less the tiebreaker. It worked out really well.

And that's with like, ~18 years of experience gaming and playing D&D? Started in 1999ish. So yeah, YMMV for both perspectives.

Sounds more new than bad. Think if the DM would not accept your help or would spend time arguing instead. Then we are getting into actual bad DM territory.

DeAnno

2016-11-30, 03:20 AM

I think a lot of this gets back to bounded accuracy. I think it's a fine thing for combat, but for skills it tends to feel a bit ... wrong, especially at lower levels. Part of the issue is that combat is usually a long series of rolls and checks, and that skills can be binary assessments based on a single check; there's a lot more room for the single check to be wonky and random.

One solution could be longer, more involved "skill challenges" with # of failure thresholds, or elsewise something like rolling 3d6 instead of 1d20 for skills outside of combat.

Darkholme

2016-11-30, 04:15 AM

Sounds more new than bad. Think if the DM would not accept your help or would spend time arguing instead. Then we are getting into actual bad DM territory.
He'd been playing for ~3 years, and never learned the actual rules. He didn't know the game, or how to GM. It would have been a whole different level of bad if he had ALSO been an obnoxious ass.

Tanarii

2016-11-30, 10:22 AM

Pathfinder holds up pretty well in a group with a bad/amateur GM and an experienced playerbase, assuming they're running a published campaign or they get some direction on what stuff is actually worth preparing.IMX neither pathfinder nor 3e hold up well with a bad or inexperienced DM. They're one of the *worst* editions for it, especially if the players are experienced. The amount of rules the DM needs to know, combined with inflexibility on the part of the rules for DM adjudication, leads to DMing coming to a crawl. Even more so with 'experienced' players, because that just leads to more rules arguments and time spent by the DM looking up and confirming rules.

Your statement is so counter to my experience that it's actually baffling. Like you gamed in some kind of bizarro world.

Edit: I should add I'm not just talking about a single experience here. I played 3e and variants for almost ten years. I've never seen an inexperienced DM run a good game of it unless they started throwing out rules and winging it. Which kind of defeats the point in those systems, where rules are complex on purpose. (Which is fine and I like them that way. They're just not newbie friendly, for players or DMs.)

Also scratching "bad DM" from this. I don't really like that term, usually it just means DMs that don't do things the way the poster likes.

mgshamster

2016-11-30, 11:00 AM

IMX neither pathfinder nor 3e hold up well with a bad or inexperienced DM. They're one of the *worst* editions for it, especially if the players are experienced. The amount of rules the DM needs to know, combined with inflexibility on the part of the rules for DM adjudication, leads to DMing coming to a crawl. Even more so with 'experienced' players, because that just leads to more rules arguments and time spent by the DM looking up and confirming rules.

Your statement is so counter to my experience that it's actually baffling. Like you gamed in some kind of bizarro world.

Edit: I should add I'm not just talking about a single experience here. I played 3e and variants for almost ten years. I've never seen an inexperienced DM run a good game of it unless they started throwing out rules and winging it. Which kind of defeats the point in those systems, where rules are complex on purpose. (Which is fine and I like them that way. They're just not newbie friendly, for players or DMs.)

Also scratching "bad DM" from this. I don't really like that term, usually it just means DMs that don't do things the way the poster likes.

That's been my experience, as well. One of the worst PF games I ever played was with a DM who firmly believes the go by strict raw, so much so that he refused to allow anything that wasn't raw. He tried to run an AP, and wouldn't let us do anything that wasn't written down in the adventure or written in the rules. It really hampered creativity and made for a bad playing experience. That game ended after two months.

Conversely, the same DM doesn't feel like he has to adhere to raw in 5e, because the system actively encouraged flexibility and doing things on the fly. He's been doing pretty good in 5e and feels much less constrained.

That same DM is also a player in one of my games, and he feels like in PF, he had to looked up the rules in order to game the system as best he could, so he wouldn't suck. Whereas in 5e, he feels free to pretty much ignore the system and play a character and a personality. He's no longer worried about having a bad character that he just relaxes and has fun. No need to try and game the system. The other players in my games feel the same way.

Finieous

2016-11-30, 11:17 AM

A normally pretty good DM will typically do a worse job with it than if they had something better designed.

Fair enough, but I completely disagree. The best thing tabletop RPGs have going for them compared to other platforms is that players can engage their imaginations and GMs can use their judgment to resolve literally anything that a character might want to try. That's why I strongly prefer guidelines that players and GMs can engage with a high degree of flexibility to match any situation that comes up as opposed to rigid, codified rules to which players and GMs must adhere. This isn't limited to task resolution -- illusions are for more compelling (and fun) with creative players and good DMs than magic missile or fireball. The requirement (and payoff) for player creativity and DM judgment is a feature, not a bug.

Your statement is so counter to my experience that it's actually baffling. Like you gamed in some kind of bizarro world.

Yup.

Socratov

2016-11-30, 11:33 AM

IMX neither pathfinder nor 3e hold up well with a bad or inexperienced DM. They're one of the *worst* editions for it, especially if the players are experienced. The amount of rules the DM needs to know, combined with inflexibility on the part of the rules for DM adjudication, leads to DMing coming to a crawl. Even more so with 'experienced' players, because that just leads to more rules arguments and time spent by the DM looking up and confirming rules.

Your statement is so counter to my experience that it's actually baffling. Like you gamed in some kind of bizarro world.

Edit: I should add I'm not just talking about a single experience here. I played 3e and variants for almost ten years. I've never seen an inexperienced DM run a good game of it unless they started throwing out rules and winging it. Which kind of defeats the point in those systems, where rules are complex on purpose. (Which is fine and I like them that way. They're just not newbie friendly, for players or DMs.)

Also scratching "bad DM" from this. I don't really like that term, usually it just means DMs that don't do things the way the poster likes.

Yes and no. (Yeah, real helpful, I know).

You see, I see 3.X and 5e as extremes (well, for recent DnD editions at least): 5e is an edition where the rules are left behind in favour of rulings and 3X is an edition where the rules are almost absolute and written down in detail. I think that while both have their merits and trappings, that 5e could benefit from a little bit of rules specification. I read quite a bit on these forums and other social media outlets specific to DnD I see a lot of lamentation on the subject of vague skill DC's and a lack of rules clarity. this is something 3.5 had: it had a table with equivalents of what a certain DC meant for the game. While 3.5 suffered form having painted itself into a corner where lots of rules were contradictory and allowed for some funny business (drown healing, for one). I hope that people will realise that the rules heaviness is not a switch, but a sliding gauge. I like 5e's lighter approach to rules and leaving more room for tables to work out their preferences, but I think the designers have gone a bit too far in leaving things open.

Spellbreaker26

2016-11-30, 11:41 AM

Yes and no. (Yeah, real helpful, I know).

You see, I see 3.X and 5e as extremes (well, for recent DnD editions at least): 5e is an edition where the rules are left behind in favour of rulings and 3X is an edition where the rules are almost absolute and written down in detail. I think that while both have their merits and trappings, that 5e could benefit from a little bit of rules specification. I read quite a bit on these forums and other social media outlets specific to DnD I see a lot of lamentation on the subject of vague skill DC's and a lack of rules clarity. this is something 3.5 had: it had a table with equivalents of what a certain DC meant for the game. While 3.5 suffered form having painted itself into a corner where lots of rules were contradictory and allowed for some funny business (drown healing, for one). I hope that people will realise that the rules heaviness is not a switch, but a sliding gauge. I like 5e's lighter approach to rules and leaving more room for tables to work out their preferences, but I think the designers have gone a bit too far in leaving things open.

The problem I think is that it gets a bit too constraining. Should an iron door be DC 20 to break down? What if it's made of poor quality iron? What if the hinges are good but the door is weak, or the door is strong but the hinges are weak? A DC table is not going to be able to provide coverage for even a fraction of the situations DM's have to oversee, so I think it's better to always be improvising those kind of rolls based on the situation rather than trying to decide where something falls on a table.

Socratov

2016-11-30, 12:06 PM

The problem I think is that it gets a bit too constraining. Should an iron door be DC 20 to break down? What if it's made of poor quality iron? What if the hinges are good but the door is weak, or the door is strong but the hinges are weak? A DC table is not going to be able to provide coverage for even a fraction of the situations DM's have to oversee, so I think it's better to always be improvising those kind of rolls based on the situation rather than trying to decide where something falls on a table.

well, if the table says that an iron door is generally a DC20 to break and the DM wants to make it poor quality, he can just substract 2 from the DC for DC 18.

A table indicating some DC's makes for a great starting point. It is easier to adjust existing guidelines then to think them up form scratch. Especially considering that people are really bad at match, specifically statistics and probability.

Tanarii

2016-11-30, 01:07 PM

Yes and no. (Yeah, real helpful, I know).Hahaha nah pointing out that things aren't black and white is good. :smallwink:

You see, I see 3.X and 5e as extremes (well, for recent DnD editions at least): 5e is an edition where the rules are left behind in favour of rulings and 3X is an edition where the rules are almost absolute and written down in detail. I think that while both have their merits and trappings, that 5e could benefit from a little bit of rules specification. I read quite a bit on these forums and other social media outlets specific to DnD I see a lot of lamentation on the subject of vague skill DC's and a lack of rules clarity. this is something 3.5 had: it had a table with equivalents of what a certain DC meant for the game. While 3.5 suffered form having painted itself into a corner where lots of rules were contradictory and allowed for some funny business (drown healing, for one). I hope that people will realise that the rules heaviness is not a switch, but a sliding gauge. I like 5e's lighter approach to rules and leaving more room for tables to work out their preferences, but I think the designers have gone a bit too far in leaving things open.Oh, I agree rules heaviness is a sliding gauge. And neither direction is universally better. I mean, the original D&D rules and even BE portion of BECMI were very rules light, especially if you ignored the later introduced Gazateer / RC skills. Meanwhile AD&D 1e was fairly rules complex by the time you included the DMG rules, survival guide rules, Unearthed Arcana, and Oriental Adventures stuff you spliced into the main game.

But even compared to 3e, there are more complex systems, almost all of them skill based. GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest are all far more complex rules. That doesn't make them bad. Just not newbie friendly, especially to run as a GM.

Knaight

2016-11-30, 01:42 PM

You see, I see 3.X and 5e as extremes (well, for recent DnD editions at least): 5e is an edition where the rules are left behind in favour of rulings and 3X is an edition where the rules are almost absolute and written down in detail. I think that while both have their merits and trappings, that 5e could benefit from a little bit of rules specification. I read quite a bit on these forums and other social media outlets specific to DnD I see a lot of lamentation on the subject of vague skill DC's and a lack of rules clarity. this is something 3.5 had: it had a table with equivalents of what a certain DC meant for the game. While 3.5 suffered form having painted itself into a corner where lots of rules were contradictory and allowed for some funny business (drown healing, for one). I hope that people will realise that the rules heaviness is not a switch, but a sliding gauge. I like 5e's lighter approach to rules and leaving more room for tables to work out their preferences, but I think the designers have gone a bit too far in leaving things open.

That recent D&D editions bit is a major caveat. Yes, by recent D&D edition standards 5e is pretty open and ruling heavy. By the standards of the industry as a whole, not even slightly.

But even compared to 3e, there are more complex systems, almost all of them skill based. GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest are all far more complex rules. That doesn't make them bad. Just not newbie friendly, especially to run as a GM.
I think there's a tendency for this forum to drastically underestimate how complicated 3e really is, because we're all pretty familiar with it. I'd argue that it's heavier than GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest, and roughly on par with Rolemaster.

Socratov

2016-11-30, 02:33 PM

Hahaha nah pointing out that things aren't black and white is good. :smallwink:

Oh, I agree rules heaviness is a sliding gauge. And neither direction is universally better. I mean, the original D&D rules and even BE portion of BECMI were very rules light, especially if you ignored the later introduced Gazateer / RC skills. Meanwhile AD&D 1e was fairly rules complex by the time you included the DMG rules, survival guide rules, Unearthed Arcana, and Oriental Adventures stuff you spliced into the main game.

But even compared to 3e, there are more complex systems, almost all of them skill based. GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest are all far more complex rules. That doesn't make them bad. Just not newbie friendly, especially to run as a GM.
I tried getting into Shadowrun by studying the rules. But I did not get very far. I understood the rules (or at least I thought I did), but I lacked the feeling of making something useful. So now I just wait until meet a coup;le of people who are willing to lead me through (and when I have the time etc.).

That recent D&D editions bit is a major caveat. Yes, by recent D&D edition standards 5e is pretty open and ruling heavy. By the standards of the industry as a whole, not even slightly.

I think there's a tendency for this forum to drastically underestimate how complicated 3e really is, because we're all pretty familiar with it. I'd argue that it's heavier than GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest, and roughly on par with Rolemaster.
I'm not overly familiar with GURPS (at least not beyond Fallout 3) and the other systems I haven't seen even. Asfor 3.5's complexity, if you count all subsystems and splats, yes it's huge and very complicated. However, the most you will use is in Core+Completes with the odd Races of X mixed in or some other splat (like Fiendish Codex 2). If you cross out Psionics, Incarnum, Tome of Magic and UA you can cut down on the complexity a lot.

Tanarii

2016-11-30, 03:20 PM

I think there's a tendency for this forum to drastically underestimate how complicated 3e really is, because we're all pretty familiar with it. I'd argue that it's heavier than GURPS, WRFP, Shadowrun, and Runequest, and roughly on par with Rolemaster.You can argue that, but having played all of them long enough to be familiar with them, and more importantly how easily newcomers pick them up, my position is that 3e is the easiest of them all for newcomers to pick up.

(Except rolemaster, I'm not familiar with it.)

Knaight

2016-11-30, 03:27 PM

I'm not overly familiar with GURPS (at least not beyond Fallout 3) and the other systems I haven't seen even. Asfor 3.5's complexity, if you count all subsystems and splats, yes it's huge and very complicated. However, the most you will use is in Core+Completes with the odd Races of X mixed in or some other splat (like Fiendish Codex 2). If you cross out Psionics, Incarnum, Tome of Magic and UA you can cut down on the complexity a lot.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The complexity of the system with everything in is treated as high, but the Core+Completes+Another Book set in its 1800ish pages? Nah, that's really nothing compared to GURPS or similar, even if it's way longer. Just look at stat blocks: Here's (http://justroll3d6.com/writing-clearer-stat-blocks/) a complete GURPS stat block for a starter PC, shown in two ways. I'll directly copy one of them.

INVESTIGATOR (100 POINTS)

Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 12 [40]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 11 [10].

Secondary Characteristics: Dmg 1d-2/1d; BL 20 lbs.; HP 11 [2]; Will 12 [0]; Per 13 [5]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 5.75 [0]; Basic Move 5 [0].

Advantages: Charisma 1 [5]; Legal Enforcement Powers [5]; Security Clearance [5]

Disadvantages: Curious (12) [-5]; Greed (12) [-15]; Sense of Duty (Comrades) [-5]; Stubbornness [-5].

Skills: Criminology (A) IQ+1 [4]-13; Fast-Talk (A) IQ [2]-12; Guns (Pistol) (E) DX+1 [2]-13; Search (A) Per+1 [4]-14; Stealth (A) DX+1 [4]-13; Streetwise (A) IQ [2]-12.

Here's D&D 3.5e (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hobgoblin.htm), where I use a 1st level Hobgoblin warrior as an example of the system at it's simplest.

Hobgoblin, 1st-Level Warrior
Size/Type: Medium Humanoid (Goblinoid)
Hit Dice: 1d8+2 (6 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+1 Dex, +3 studded leather, +1 light shield), touch 11, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+2
Attack: Longsword +2 melee (1d8+1/19-20) or javelin +2 ranged (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Longsword +2 melee (1d8+1/19-20) or javelin +2 ranged (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft.
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +1, Will -1
Abilities: Str 13, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8
Skills: Hide +3, Listen +2, Move Silently +3, Spot +2
Feats: Alertness
Environment: Warm hills
Organization: Gang (4-9), band (10-100 plus 50% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults and 1 leader of 4th-6th level), warband (10-24), or tribe (30-300 plus 50% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults, 1 or 2 lieutenants of 4th or 5th level, 1 leader of 6th-8th level, 2-4 dire wolves, and 1-4 ogres or 1-2 trolls)
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually lawful evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +1

It's vastly more convoluted, and the difference just grows. Yet because it's so familiar it gets treated as if it isn't - we know what the various acronyms are, whereas BL and FP in GURPS are likely to give us trouble for a while, so they come across as more difficult. They aren't.

You can argue that, but having played all of them long enough to be familiar with them, and more importantly how easily newcomers pick them up, my position is that 3e is the easiest of them all for newcomers to pick up.
I've played every game listed there too, so if we're just throwing personal experience around I've seen the opposite, and I've definitely seen 3e being by far the hardest to GM. I'd also argue that the difficulties caused by some of them aren't due to rules complexity as much as questionable editing; Shadowrun is pretty convoluted but it would be faster to learn if the chapter organization was handled in any of numerous better ways.

Spellbreaker26

2016-11-30, 03:30 PM

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The complexity of the system with everything in is treated as high, but the Core+Completes+Another Book set in its 1800ish pages? Nah, that's really nothing compared to GURPS or similar, even if it's way longer. Just look at stat blocks: Here's (http://justroll3d6.com/writing-clearer-stat-blocks/) a complete GURPS stat block for a starter PC, shown in two ways. I'll directly copy one of them.

Here's D&D 3.5e (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hobgoblin.htm), where I use a 1st level Hobgoblin warrior as an example of the system at it's simplest.

It's vastly more convoluted, and the difference just grows. Yet because it's so familiar it gets treated as if it isn't - we know what the various acronyms are, whereas BL and FP in GURPS are likely to give us trouble for a while, so they come across as more difficult. They aren't.

I wouldn't even know how to begin introducing people to either system. Whereas for 5e, I can take people who've never played a tabletop RPG in their lives and give them a good time.

DKing9114

2016-11-30, 03:32 PM

The problem I think is that it gets a bit too constraining. Should an iron door be DC 20 to break down? What if it's made of poor quality iron? What if the hinges are good but the door is weak, or the door is strong but the hinges are weak? A DC table is not going to be able to provide coverage for even a fraction of the situations DM's have to oversee, so I think it's better to always be improvising those kind of rolls based on the situation rather than trying to decide where something falls on a table.

I actually feel that DMs should borrow a little from the cover mechanic when setting DCs. If you decide that a check should be a little tougher for a character, but not enough to incur disadvantage, flick the DC up by two.

Darkholme

2016-11-30, 04:54 PM

The amount of rules the DM needs to know, combined with inflexibility on the part of the rules for DM adjudication, leads to DMing coming to a crawl. Even more so with 'experienced' players, because that just leads to more rules arguments and time spent by the DM looking up and confirming rules. Your statement is so counter to my experience that it's actually baffling. Like you gamed in some kind of bizarro world. I should add I'm not just talking about a single experience here. I played 3e and variants for almost ten years.Yeah, I've been playing some form of 3.x since the release of the three 3.0 corebooks, and everybody at the table has had a copy of the rules in their laps (either in laptop or hardcopy form) of every game we've played, since 2009.

arguments and time spent by the DM looking up and confirming rules.There's the big difference. He didn't look up and confirm anything, he acknowledged we knew the game well and he did not and we would simply and quickly tell him how it worked and he'd continue GMing, and there was no more rules arguments than usual (which is to say, fairly minimal, and when someone would disagree, it would always be with the page open and the relevant rules passage being recited. (We game with laptops allowed but getting distracted discouraged and everyone at the table (except the one guy without a laptop) has the major PDFs and PDFs of anything else they are using, in addition to two or three hardcopies floating around the table (That one guy usually has the hardcopies).) If the rest of the group couldn't consensus on what the rules meant in some cornercase, we'd explain both rules interpretations and he'd serve as the tiebreaker. I expect that part of what makes this so civil is we have a group policy where if you're going to dispute how a rule is being played, you are not allowed to make an argument without citing the book. So in the case of an argument, someone says "Hold Up, I'm pretty sure that's incorrect!" and then either through the index or the magic of CTRL+F, read the rules passage relevant to their argument a second later. The GM never has to look up the rules.

I've never seen an inexperienced DM run a good game of it unless they started throwing out rules and winging it. Which kind of defeats the point in those systems, where rules are complex on purpose. (Which is fine and I like them that way. They're just not newbie friendly, for players or DMs.)Certainly not the most newbie friendly systems, I agree. But rather than just throwing out the rules and winging it, using your players (who know the game very well) to serve as rulebook, in my experience, works quite well.

well, if the table says that an iron door is generally a DC20 to break and the DM wants to make it poor quality, he can just substract 2 from the DC for DC 18.

A table indicating some DC's makes for a great starting point. It is easier to adjust existing guidelines then to think them up form scratch. Especially considering that people are really bad at match, specifically statistics and probability.This, 100%.

I'm not going to insist that every iron door should have a Break DC of 20.I don't think anyone is advocating that. But I want to know that a *TYPICAL* Iron door has a break DC of 20, and if this one is easier or tougher, that should be deliberate, with a reason other than "I couldn't be bothered to know the DCs of common tasks or keep a task DC table with common examples on my DM's Screen".

I wouldn't even know how to begin introducing people to either system. Whereas for 5e, I can take people who've never played a tabletop RPG in their lives and give them a good time. It's not too hard to introduce newbies to the rules-heavy games. You explain in broad strokes how the system works (In 3.x that's the core mechanics, the basic process of character creation, and how class-tiers work and why people use them, and that many things unfortunately have prerequisites that need to be planned for in advance in order to take them so you need to plan several levels ahead, at least to some degree), and build their character for them with their input, showing them how and why you're choosing the character options you're choosing.
In 3.x you can shortcut this by asking them roughly what sorts of things they want to be able to do in game, and then walking them through an online class-guide which spells out which options are good or bad and why.
I'd then also make them a list of expected skill DCs, and explain to them to basic math of when to take 10 or when to take 20, an how to know what their character's skills make them capable of.

Takes a couple hours, the first time around (Odds are they wouldn't be starting at L1 in our group, more likely L6-L8).

The major rules they will simply learn in play by having them pointed out as the situation comes up or seeing other people use them, and they are of course welcome to read the rulebooks on their own time. If they don't actually learn the rules, they can continue to rely on class guides and the like to get by with a minimal amount of time invested at the expense of less flexibility for outlandish builds.

---

[Edit] That's not to say that 5e isn't easier to introduce to newbies. It definitely is. It's biggest advantage is the smaller learning curve on the player side.

Zorku

2016-12-01, 04:59 PM

Took awhile to get caught up on this thread.

Richard Garfield gave the example of a game of chess where you roll a d6 once someone is checkmated. If the result is a 1 then the person who was checkmated is declared the winner. The lesson: There is exactly the same amount of strategy/skill involved the modified game as the regular one. There is just more luck as well.
Looks like strategy and skill are about 1/6th less meaningful here and therefore 1/6th less relevant.

This isn't quite as relevant to establishing what is or isn't zero sum, but if the results 1, 2, or 3 made the checkmated player the winner would strategy and skill still matter? If all results other than a 6 granted victory to the checkmated player (and there was a suitable expansion of the stalemate rule in order to force the game forward,) wouldn't that be a radically different game?

If this element of luck had been part of the equation from the start then maybe chess would never have pushed the skill ceiling up so high (I personally find it unlikely that a 1 in 6 probability would sabotage the game, but not impossibly so.) It's almost nonsensical to impose an arbitrary rule on top of a long (LONG) established system and then say that it hasn't changed anything overnight. We're talking game design so there are reasons for rules to be in place and we watch their impact on the game play out in real time.

So if you want t argue that there's not a zero sum equation here then you need to show that is still the case if the magnitude of the dice element is greater than the skill and strategy, and that it is still the case when all components are equal.

*Where you're talking poker, I'd have expected a set of dice so that you could do opposed rolls, something like draw 2 dice at the start and use the smaller if you lose. You'd got a d10 and d8 so there's one possible draw your opponent could have that would ruin your day but a strong probability that he's at a disadvantage all around.

Not off the top of my head (I'll see if I can find a quote), but I can point to the fact that EVERY published task has a fixed objective difficulty.
Published tasks? Those conflict with each other wildly. At times you've got difficult looking situations that are all but guaranteed success, and indistinguishable tasks set at wildly different difficulties.

What specific rules or guidelines are there to tell you when the PC does and does not get to roll?

I can't tell if you're talking about this in terms of 7 people at a table all rolling on a check, or if you just mean if they could ever succeed at a task.

Whether you think there are strictly defined values or not, the time it takes to accomplish something is entirely up in the air. Any time a DM manages to keep time relevant you're still going to have these arbitrary elements running amok where you don't seem to want them.

It also requires the DM to keep one more thing in mind when setting difficulties. Instead of just thinking about how hard the task is and setting a difficulty that fits they have to remember the particulars of every character's backstory to determine whether or not they should get a hidden bonus of some sort. It's clunky.
Or instead, they can utter the simple phrase, "Is there any reason your character should know about this?" I'm very much for teaching my players to request use of other skill checks if they think there's any good reason (where it's possible to teach style things like this.) I'm definitely not going to remember the little traits list the way it stands though, so I'm really keen on finding other reasons to reference it and bring any of those things up.

An excellent DM can make it passable. A bad DM will absolutely ruin it. A normally pretty good DM will typically do a worse job with it than if they had something better designed.

Growing pains aside, perhaps this way creates more good DMs over time?
Guess we'll have to wait awhile longer to assess that though.

snip statblocks
That hobgoblin was the way it's usually written, but if you write it with the same kinds of abbreviations as the GURPS block is using you'd get

Hobgoblin War 1, CR 1/2, LE
Med Humanoid (goblinoid)

Attributes: S[13] D[13] C[14] I[10] W[9] Ch[8] HP[6](1d8+2)

Characteristics: speed 30, AC15 (T11, FF14)[studded leather, shield) Dark Vis 60'

Skills: Hide +3, Listen +2, Move Silently +3, Spot +2, Feats(Alertness,) Level Adjustment +1

Attack: base +1/+2, Longsword +2 MWep (1d8+1/19-20) , Javelin RWep (1d6+1)

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +1, Wil -1

Or in other words, a lot of that is space heavy formatting/grouping, and I don't think it's entirely fair to include the monster habitat and typical encounter info when comparing character info.

It's definitely a pity that edition used such a bad format for every creature reference though.

Certainly not the most newbie friendly systems, I agree. But rather than just throwing out the rules and winging it, using your players (who know the game very well) to serve as rulebook, in my experience, works quite well.

My instinct is to nod along with this, as I knew the rules better than almost every DM I sat down in front of right from the first game I played, but that's not everybody, and thinking about a few of the people I communicate with, that's outright incompatible with the mood of game they want to run.

If you're in Vortling's position then you definitely want to tip the scale that way, as hard as you can, but at tables with a more decisive DM, doing essentially the same thing can quickly become disruptive. Those people never seem to do the rotating DM thing though, so that probably sorts itself out faster.

I'm not going to insist that every iron door should have a Break DC of 20.I don't think anyone is advocating that.
I don't think anybody is saying that anybody is advocating that. I think they are saying that advocates for a official table of stock DCs for every test don't seem to have thought this through. "Every iron door is a DC 20" is the most natural way that a list of DCs would be used, and every time someone says "It's just a baseline. Of course you're gonna adjust it up or down a little. Gimme a break here!" I don't see suggested adjustments that actually change that outcome, and I don't see evidence that the person proposing this has bothered to think through the problem for long enough to see where the other side is coming from in the first place.

For your convenience, I'll offer a very short and direct route for proving my impression wrong: Talk for just a bit about who would read an official list of DCs in this way that we both seem to understand would be awful, why they would read it that way, and the kind of language it would take to dissuade them from reading it in that way. For bonus points, explain what kinds of steps an author would want to take, to avoid sending novice DMs off into the game with an impression that, as the party levels up, they should work through tiers of materials in order to create a difficulty treadmill, or to keep it difficult to "lift the gate." For participation credit, convince me that you know why I quoted that phrase.

If you can't do any of that (or make an alternate argument that is structured to convince me of the same sorts of things,) then I'm going to keep thinking that this "official list of DCs" request is naive and misguided, and a lot of other people you talk with probably will too.

Darkholme

2016-12-01, 07:06 PM

Sure! These are valid concerns I hadn't actually thought considered or thought would need addressing, but I'll take a stab at how to avoid them.

Who would read an official list of DCs in this way that we both seem to understand would be awful
This would IMO typically the same people who try to run their entire games using an autistically literal "Rules As Written", and treat the rules of D&D the same way they treat the rules of MTG. Possibly also the occasional Newbie DM.

Why they would read it that wayIn an effort of fairness, assuming the rules are designed in such a way as to provide such fairness. And of course, it would depend how such difficulty benchmarks are presented.

For participation credit, convince me that you know why I quoted that phrase.
Nope, I do not follow your reference. Seems to be referring to the pitfalls of autoscaling enemies in games like Skyrim though.

For bonus points, explain what kinds of steps an author would want to take, to avoid sending novice DMs off into the game with an impression that, as the party levels up, they should work through tiers of materials in order to create a difficulty treadmill, or to keep it difficult to "lift the gate."Explain that there should be a wide variety of difficulties faced by the party, and that designing your dungeons such that every task has the same difficult DC will make the game monotonous. Point out that, if you're expecting your party to be able to surpass a skill DC through actual skill rolls, you should however keep in mind the maximum difficulty for the level of 20+4+Proficiency, as going beyond that will mean your party can't succeed on the check, and will have to find another alternative to accomplishing the task. On the other hand, as PCs level up, they're supposed to become more competent, and the gameplay should reflect that. While kicking down a door might be difficult for the level 1 barbarian, the level 11 barbarian should (typically) not even have to roll for such a task, as by that point, your party has grown beyond their initial limits, and to keep the game interesting, the challenges you provide need to scale not only in numbers, but by the changing of type. To do otherwise will make the game monotonous, and is poor DMing.

Or something comparable. It's not impossible (or even that difficult) a thing to explain.

the kind of language it would take to dissuade them from reading it in that way.
"These DCs are benchmarks, to keep your skill DCs calibrated fairly. They also represent the most typical, average scenario. So while a wooden door with Iron hinges and supports might have a DC of X to break down, one that is designed to be difficult to kick down, perhaps through sturdier hinges and supports, might have a DC of X+2, and one with a wooden bolt to keep the door shut might have a DC of X+5, and one with an iron bolt X+6 (or whatever the reasonable calibrated numbers are). One with rusted old neglected hinges or one that's got weaker wood because it's not been waterproofed and has been in a damp climate for years might have a DC of X-2 for one of them, or X-5 for both. While the average "Wooden Door With Iron Hinges and Supports" would have a DC of X, When assigning a task, if the task matches an example, you know your starting point for calibrating the DC. Then ask the simple question: "Is this a typical case, or is it unusual in some way that would make it easier or harder? Would that unusualness make the task easier or harder? Should this case at it's reasonable expected DC lie outside the abilities of my players, and do I want to alter it to be easier for them to be able to accomplish this through the rolling of skills for expediency, or do I want to leave it as-is so they're forced to come up with a different solution to the problem?" For tasks which don't directly match up to an example (which will happen quite frequently, so don't be concerned when it comes up), look at typical examples, and ask yourself: should what they're attempting be easier than this example? Harder? The same difficulty? And go through the list making such a comparison until you find a DC that seems fair in the list for the situation at hand. For consistent GMing, you might want to keep a log of the tasks you have assigned difficulties, any mitigating factors they had, and what you settled on as your DC, and in the future, also consider your own DCs when making that easy/hard comparison. It will typically be easier to make such a comparison if you go through the list of things that can be done using the same skill, as opposed to a different skill, but in some edge cases may be hard to decide using the list from your skill, in which case, consider other DC lists to help you set the DC.

Then, in the DC table for each skill, you wouldn't attempt to cover every task (an impossible endeavor) but instead, every, or every 2nd DC within the attainable range of PCs, taking into consideration what level of character can accomplish the task, at what frequency, and the general guidelines in the PHB. Go well beyond the maximum in the PHB. Everything beyond that maximum maybe impossible for most most characters even at level 20, but a character with magical assistance or supernatural degrees of skill would have a chance at achieving them, and this allows you to have a benchmark of what can be achieved by characters with such supernatural degrees of skill.

You could also include a scaling minimum DC in comparison to your bonus on the roll that you can auto-succeed on except in a list of difficult situations, and a carefully considered fixed maximum DC beyond which you need to be trained in the skill (or have magical assistance) in order to attempt the task.

You might also want to specify that the DCs assume you're attempting a task in 1 action, and that any task which would be easier if you're not being rushed would have a lower DC.

If you can't... then I'm going to keep thinking that this "official list of DCs" request is naive and misguided, and a lot of other people you talk with probably will too.
That address your concerns?

I see no reason such a table/series of tables could not be provided, with a simple attached explanation of how it is meant to be used.

Tanarii

2016-12-01, 10:17 PM

The DMG actually has DC tables and examples for a lot of standard adventuring tasks and obstacles: weather, wilderness hazards, foraging, getting lost, sample traps, tracking, social interaction, sample diseases & poisons.

Darkholme

2016-12-02, 01:15 AM

Knaight

2016-12-02, 01:51 AM

Oh, sure. There are some example DCs listed.

Nothing like a "This is what a DC 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30||32,34,36 ,38,40,42,44,46,48,50 arcana/investigation/whatever check can accomplish" though.
(I'm not sure if there's any way to go past 50, but I've seen bards and rogues with magic items at level 20 that can come pretty close to DC50)

That's 25 examples per skill, and that's without getting into other uses. There are 18 skills. This means that a DM either needs to memorize or have quick access to a table of 450 items, and if it's a case of access it also involves using it quickly. This is on top of whatever other memorization the DM needs to do or paper the DM is working with. It's completely excessive for a great many people.

Darkholme

2016-12-02, 02:05 AM

That's 25 examples per skill, and that's without getting into other uses. There are 18 skills. This means that a DM either needs to memorize or have quick access to a table of 450 items, and if it's a case of access it also involves using it quickly. This is on top of whatever other memorization the DM needs to do or paper the DM is working with. It's completely excessive for a great many people.

I'm not suggesting any memorization. I'm suggesting a 25x18 table, on-hand, which both the GMs and PCs would have easy access to. And you could make an abridged 10x18 or 13x18 version of the table for quicker reference. (I will likely make such a table for my own games, but it would be nice to have something official to ensure my benchmarks are the same as other GM's benchmarks).

I'd suggest using both shading (for rows) and tinting (for columns) to have quick lookup capabilities.

that's without getting into other uses.Other uses? I'm only really suggesting the 25x18; not sure what else you're talking about adding in.

Knaight

2016-12-02, 02:32 AM

Other uses? I'm only really suggesting the 25x18; not sure what else you're talking about adding in.

Take Athletics - there's existing formulas for stuff like jump height that would go along with the 26x18 table (the extra bit is just to list the skills). Even without that you're talking about a fairly large table with a lot of text on it for the examples, and that's a big enough table to cause a significant usage delay even if you're dealing with the sort of table where you start with a set of coordinates and go to them instead of searching the table for the relevant task. It also still won't cover the vast majority of tasks, and all in all works out to something actively detrimental to the game for a great many DMs.

ad_hoc

2016-12-02, 02:49 AM

I'm not suggesting any memorization. I'm suggesting a 25x18 table, on-hand, which both the GMs and PCs would have easy access to. And you could make an abridged 10x18 or 13x18 version of the table for quicker reference. (I will likely make such a table for my own games, but it would be nice to have something official to ensure my benchmarks are the same as other GM's benchmarks).

I'd suggest using both shading (for rows) and tinting (for columns) to have quick lookup capabilities.

Other uses? I'm only really suggesting the 25x18; not sure what else you're talking about adding in.

If 5e was designed this way I think I would have just given up on D&D entirely and found a different game.

Taejang

2016-12-02, 04:03 AM

I have not read all the replies and some of this may already have been said, but here's my take.

5e low levels are kinda boring. You are very squishy, so the variability of enemy abilities is low. You have few options no matter what your class is. You don't have any interesting items yet. Your encounters won't be as complicated in the premade campaigns, since new players can't handle complication and more experienced players are still learning how to pilot their new characters. The reasons are many, but my group typically skips level 1 and starts at 2, and then we level up quickly. Things really start to pick up at levels 4 and 5 when you get a player or two picking feats, martial characters start getting multiple attacks, casters get 3rd-level spell slots, etc. That's about when the premade campaigns start getting a little more open with magic items as loot, and if you are running homemade campaigns, you will hopefully be seeing at least a few magic items by then. I've never played anything beyond level 15, but my control wizard/cleric at level 8 had tons of options. Level 4 is just too low to judge the edition on.

I don't mean to knock the DM, but if combat ends in the first round (you mention all the goblins dying before your turn, for example), that's simply a weak encounter. If that's how all encounters go, the DM needs practice building encounters that last longer. To the DM's credit, building encounters for 9 players can be challenging, and very difficult if the number of players frequently fluctuates. Sometimes it's as easy as reducing or increasing the number of goblins, but it won't always be that simple. Regardless, one round combats do not sound appealing to me at all, but that's a DM issue, not the edition.

My group also struggled with players doing well with rolls when their characters don't know jack about the topic. We settled on a proficient or not system: some checks, anyone can make. Others, only characters proficient in the appropriate skill could even attempt. This is a home rule, so take it or leave it. As you level up, the checks will become harder and those who aren't proficient in it will be much less likely to succeed, while those who are proficient will find their bonuses increasing.

If your wizard was only plinking with cantrips, you weren't playing a control wizard. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, and it may not be your fault (if combat ends in the first round, you're right, there's no reason to do anything but firebolt away). But there are powerful control-type cantrips available to you. Minor Illusion comes to mind, Prestidigitation can be used for control purposes, Mage Hand, etc. Additionally, make good use of ritual spells which don't require a spell slot to use. Find Familiar is a great example.

That's the bulk of my thoughts. Hopefully there's at least something that hasn't been mentioned already.

Knaight

2016-12-02, 04:13 AM

If 5e was designed this way I think I would have just given up on D&D entirely and found a different game.

I more or less did that years ago (I never did the whole settling on one other game thing and favor switching up systems routinely, but that doesn't mean there aren't some that see a lot more play than others), but D&D is still in the mix, if rarely. Had 5e been designed like that it would quickly drop from the best case scenario if D&D is what's being played to third or so. Had the rest of the game featured a similar design principle it would plummet yet further.

Tanarii

2016-12-02, 08:11 AM

If 5e was designed this way I think I would have just given up on D&D entirely and found a different game.
No kidding. I *might* have been able to live with DC 10, 15 and 20 short list of examples in the DMG for a few skills. But I think setting by common adventuring tasks as they did makes far more sense.

D&D is a game of wilderness and dungeon exploration & adventures, with a touch of social interactions. (As opposed to always kill or be killed ... In a high lethality game that becomes critical). So they focused the rules on doing those things, and for the critical and most common parts of that not already covered by the PHB, they expanded on it in the DMG.

For everything else they effectively said: use your judgement, don't call for rolls unless there is a meaningful chance of & consequences for failure, but DC 10 to DC 20 is generally appropriate.

Edit: I did find it a little strange at first that they left out example DCs for stuck, concealed, and secret doors, and picking locks. Then I realized ... that's THE most important part to leave up to table DM or adventure judgement to set. Because they need to be able to set it to whatever they think is appropriate without having to be constrained to 'this is an adamantium lock / door'.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-02, 08:16 AM

Socratov

2016-12-02, 09:43 AM

No kidding. I *might* have been able to live with DC 10, 15 and 20 short list of examples in the DMG for a few skills. But I think setting by common adventuring tasks as they did makes far more sense.

D&D is a game of wilderness and dungeon exploration & adventures, with a touch of social interactions. (As opposed to always kill or be killed ... In a high lethality game that becomes critical). So they focused the rules on doing those things, and for the critical and most common parts of that not already covered by the PHB, they expanded on it in the DMG.

For everything else they effectively said: use your judgement, don't call for rolls unless there is a meaningful chance of & consequences for failure, but DC 10 to DC 20 is generally appropriate.

Edit: I did find it a little strange at first that they left out example DCs for stuck, concealed, and secret doors, and picking locks. Then I realized ... that's THE most important part to leave up to table DM or adventure judgement to set. Because they need to be able to set it to whatever they think is appropriate without having to be constrained to 'this is an adamantium lock / door'.

Exactly. There's no way to build an even half-satisfactory chart for negotiations, for example. (is the other guy a goblin or a hobgoblin? How many of his men have you killed? Do you have anything to offer?)

A DM's gotta wing it by ear at least 75% of the time anyway. Better to have the expectation of having to come up with DC's on the spot than lure DMs into a false sense of security by building the expectation of charts.

I agree that a DC chart with a resolution of 2 is not a great idea. 5e is a success because it places a heavy emphasis on freedom (or more cynically: figure it out yourself). And I agree with Tanarii that a resolution of 5 is going to be better.

That said, currently we are pretty much flying blind one some skills and tools. You can hope that if you are a DEX exemplar (as in leading up to 20 Dex) with proficiency in Thieves Tools that you damn better well be one of the best lockpickers in the bleeding country. But what if you want to be sort of competent? Not the best, mind you, but where does competence start and where will you tread into excellency?

So for players this creates an all-or-nothing approach: either you are going to be the damn best freaking burglar! or you are not going to burglar at all. Wth DM's winging it and feeling pressured into always making a skill challenge engaging, they turn the game into an exercise of High Jump where as the players level every lock they encounter will be one of the bar or on a raised even higher bar.

Setting a guideline will not only create an anchor for the DM in creating challenges on the fly, but also create an expectation. The players will know the limits to their abilities, the DM can create a "Must be this lvl to proceed" wall. This can create pacing and the joy of expectation. AS the player's skills improve the PC's can go "hey, I feel confident that I could get into that building we couldn't enter before. Wanna see in there?". And after that it's not just pick lock to continue, but passing a really high skillcheck as something epic. it's the difference between "you thought that lock was hard, well here is an even harder lock" and "this lock seems to be beyond the realm of simple or even normal craft. This lock is definitely crafted by a master and possibly even using magic. You recognise the handiwork as only [insert name here] would use these uniquely shaped tumblers. " it shows the players when they go above the normal into the superhuman or legendary.

Right now there is no way of knowing where that line lies. it varies between DMs and in some cases even between sessions.

Malifice

2016-12-02, 09:56 AM

I'm suggesting a 25x18 table, on-hand, which both the GMs and PCs would have easy access to.

Its all the more hilarious that youre serious.

Tanarii

2016-12-02, 10:59 AM

That said, currently we are pretty much flying blind one some skills and tools. You can hope that if you are a DEX exemplar (as in leading up to 20 Dex) with proficiency in Thieves Tools that you damn better well be one of the best lockpickers in the bleeding country. But what if you want to be sort of competent? Not the best, mind you, but where does competence start and where will you tread into excellency?Well, you know what your bonus is, and you know what your chances of passing a DC 10 to DC 20 check are.

How you define 'competence' and 'excellency' are going to vary dramatically from player to player anyway in terms of what % then require. But if you know what your chances are of passing the most common DCs being set, you can decide that for yourself.

Socratov

2016-12-02, 11:15 AM

Well, you know what your bonus is, and you know what your chances of passing a DC 10 to DC 20 check are.

How you define 'competence' and 'excellency' are going to vary dramatically from player to player anyway in terms of what % then require. But if you know what your chances are of passing the most common DCs being set, you can decide that for yourself.

Well, with no reference of what a DC10 and DC20 check gives you that is entirely useless. If the DM is under the allusion that he needs to challenge the best in the party he will let the DC grow with the best int eh party then the next best int eh party will have a useless skill. if at lvl 1 all the locks are DC 15 and by lvl 5 they are all DC 18 then that's not going to last long. This edition encourages a 'Design by challenge' philosophy over a 'Design by object'.

If you have a table that says DC10|15|20|25 is comparable with locks with intricacy W|X|Y|Z, then the player can say he I'd like to pick such locks (maybe restrict oneself to cuffs to escape the guard). Currently it's out there. No way to expect what counts for what.

Tanarii

2016-12-02, 11:21 AM

Well, with no reference of what a DC10 and DC20 check gives you that is entirely useless. If the DM is under the allusion that he needs to challenge the best in the party he will let the DC grow with the best int eh party then the next best int eh party will have a useless skill. if at lvl 1 all the locks are DC 15 and by lvl 5 they are all DC 18 then that's not going to last long. This edition encourages a 'Design by challenge' philosophy over a 'Design by object'.If the DM is scaling stuff to your level then he's not read the DMG. This isn't 4e.

The DMG tells you to set tasks that should fail 50% of the time for an untrained individual at DC 10. So that's your baseline expectation. Yes, that's going to vary based from DM to DM and from adventure to adventure, because it allows him to say "I want a challenge that untrained person would fail 50% of the time at this point in my adventure" and set it to DC 10. Or DC 15. Or DC 20.

Meanwhile you know how good you are compared to an untrained person, what your actual rate of success and failure is. So when you come across a Easy, Medium or Hard task, you can make an informed decision before choosing your action. You might have decide differently based on how often your DM is setting those tasks, but your decision is still informed.

Unless the DM isn't communicating difficulty until AFTER the check has been made. If he's doing that, then he's screwing up the system just as badly as he is if he's scaling DCs by level a la 5e or if he's regularly setting DCs outside of the DC 10 to DC 20 range.

Pex

2016-12-02, 01:34 PM

Exactly. There's no way to build an even half-satisfactory chart for negotiations, for example. (is the other guy a goblin or a hobgoblin? How many of his men have you killed? Do you have anything to offer?)

A DM's gotta wing it by ear at least 75% of the time anyway. Better to have the expectation of having to come up with DC's on the spot than lure DMs into a false sense of security by building the expectation of charts.

It was an error on 3E's part to have defined DCs for social skills. It became difficult to teach players that Diplomacy is not You're Now My Female Dog. However, there is room for guidelines using opposed rolls. NPC uses Insight. Then explain what that means if it's higher or lower than the particular skill the PC uses - Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidate. Perhaps the NPC can use Insight or the same skill the PC uses akin to how you can use Athletics or Acrobatics to escape a grapple. Can also give examples of when Advantage/Disadvantage would apply.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-02, 01:38 PM

It was an error on 3E's part to have defined DCs for social skills. It became difficult to teach players that Diplomacy is not You're Now My Female Dog. However, there is room for guidelines using opposed rolls. NPC uses Insight. Then explain what that means if it's higher or lower than the particular skill the PC uses - Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidate. Perhaps the NPC can use Insight or the same skill the PC uses akin to how you can use Athletics or Acrobatics to escape a grapple. Can also give examples of when Advantage/Disadvantage would apply.

Agreed, but it varies from situation to situation. Opposed rolls are the bread and butter of haggling, for example.

Pex

2016-12-02, 06:34 PM

Agreed, but it varies from situation to situation. Opposed rolls are the bread and butter of haggling, for example.

Nothing changes. PC rolls Persuasion. Shopkeeper rolls Insight or Persuasion. PC can also roll Insight to determine if shopkeeper is using Deception on item validity or just another angle to use on Persuasion, i.e. get Advantage. PC couldn't roll an opposed Deception because that metagame influences player's perception even if the shopkeeper is Honest True.

Darkholme

2016-12-03, 03:11 AM

Take Athletics - there's existing formulas for stuff like jump height that would go along with the 26x18 table (the extra bit is just to list the skills).Oh, I see, you're talking about the DCs that *ARE* well defined. yeah, fair enough. They could add to the list (or perhaps they could be some of the examples, just a thought.)

It also still won't cover the vast majority of tasksNo, you're right, it wouldn't and attempting to do so would be so large a task with so unwieldly a result that it would be unfeasible to do so. But it gives you a good, solid number of anchor points for you to use to calibrate your DCs fairly.

significant usage delay How so? I can't see it taking more than 5 seconds (the first time) to assign a DC using such a table.
Find Skill (Column)
Slide your finger down the column until you see a task that sounds like the same difficulty.
Slide finger to lefthand side to see the DC #
And that's ignoring the potential that the player could easily do the work for you.
Roll and add modifier, get a total.
Slide finger down left hand side to find your total.
Slide finger across to relevant skill.
Tell GM what relevant task mentioned is.
GM simply decides on the spot if task in question is harder than that example. He theoretically doesn't even need to set a number, or pay any attention to what the PCs number was.

works out to something actively detrimental to the game for a great many DMs.Pathfinder more or less has a slightly smaller list of this in the core book under each skill (without a handy reference table I might add); and I have never, in the 7 years pathfinder's been a thing, seen a GM complain about this aspect of the game being too difficult or slow.

Knaight

2016-12-03, 03:40 AM

How so? I can't see it taking more than 5 seconds (the first time) to assign a DC using such a table.
That five second figure would better fit a standard search if you already know which skill is applicable, have the table in a convenient place, and are doing something that directly corresponds to the table. If there's paper shuffling involved, an unclear skill match, or an imprecise case it could easily take more. On top of that five seconds is enough to be an unacceptable delay for a lot of people.

Pathfinder more or less has a slightly smaller list of this in the core book under each skill (without a handy reference table I might add); and I have never, in the 7 years pathfinder's been a thing, seen a GM complain about this aspect of the game being too difficult or slow.
Meanwhile, on these very forums you can find plenty of people who consider it a downside. We just generally don't play Pathfinder. Heck, in this thread four people have already recoiled from the idea of this table in fairly strong terms.

Darkholme

2016-12-03, 04:38 AM

That five second figure would better fit a standard search if you already know which skill is applicable, have the table in a convenient place, and are doing something that directly corresponds to the table. If there's paper shuffling involved, an unclear skill match, or an imprecise case it could easily take more. I suppose. Usually it's the case of "either skill could do this", not "I dont know what skill could do this", and usually the GM will simply list the relevant skill, and it's up to you to mention if you have another skill you think would cover it.

On top of that five seconds is enough to be an unacceptable delay for a lot of people.Fair enough. To me, it's small enough that I'd consider it well worth the delay; and far more acceptable than waiting for a player to decide what he's going to do on his turn when he's had a whole round to figure it out. And that 5 seconds would get faster with every subsequent use. Much like the Unisystem Success Levels, M&M scale table, or the M&M Damage chart, or Rolemaster Criticals. They get quite fast, quite quickly.

Meanwhile, on these very forums you can find plenty of people who consider it a downside. We just generally don't play Pathfinder. Heck, in this thread four people have already recoiled from the idea of this table in fairly strong terms.Fair enough. There are PF GMs who don't use it (it's also not exactly presented in a quick reference manner in pathfinder, either), and they simply state that they'd rather wing their DCs than consult guidelines, or say nothing but will respond with that if you ask them. It's an easy enough thing for a DM to not use if he doesn't want to, it's less easy to "invent a table consistent across groups that use a table" when an official one does not exist. I'd rather have that content and the choice to ignore it than lack the content entirely.

Tanarii

2016-12-03, 10:29 AM

How so? I can't see it taking more than 5 seconds (the first time) to assign a DC using such a table.
That you would so grossly underestimate the amount of time involved in referencing charts and tables indicates pretty clearly this is merely a white room exercise on your part.

mgshamster

2016-12-03, 10:59 AM

Pathfinder more or less has a slightly smaller list of this in the core book under each skill (without a handy reference table I might add); and I have never, in the 7 years pathfinder's been a thing, seen a GM complain about this aspect of the game being too difficult or slow.

The entirety of constant rules lookups significantly slowed down game, including skill DCs. In the 6 years I played pathfinder, my group did not finish a single AP once, because it took so long to get through games. Combats often took up the majority of that game, and at least 20-30% of each session was spent discussing or looking up rules to ensure we were doing it right.

Playing 5e for about a year now, almost finished with OotA. Since my group got together, 6 years ago, this is the highest level our characters have ever been. Perviously, we kept getting to book 2 or 3 (would take about a year of weekly gaming), and then would quit for the next AP to be released. Gameplay simply took too long because of all the rules.

Tanarii

2016-12-03, 11:39 AM

The entirety of constant rules lookups significantly slowed down game, including skill DCs. In the 6 years I played pathfinder, my group did not finish a single AP once, because it took so long to get through games. Combats often took up the majority of that game, and at least 20-30% of each session was spent discussing or looking up rules to ensure we were doing it right.

Playing 5e for about a year now, almost finished with OotA. Since my group got together, 6 years ago, this is the highest level our characters have ever been. Perviously, we kept getting to book 2 or 3 (would take about a year of weekly gaming), and then would quit for the next AP to be released. Gameplay simply took too long because of all the rules.Exactly my experience with 3e (edit: and 1e and 4e for that matter) and more so with the more complicated systems like GURPS, WfRp, and rune quest.

After thirty years of RPG experience, including many a love affair with complicated rules with a myriad of sub systems, and being a serious rules lawyer, I've come to the conclusion that complicated rules sets are basically RPG Nerd Porn. Fun to read, fun to create characters for, amazingly fun to argue about online minutia of rules interactions ... and a royal pain in the ass to play.

SpawnOfMorbo

2016-12-03, 04:54 PM

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-03, 05:03 PM

Sadly, 5e doesn't change at all when you get to high levels. The same issues rise, a lot even more so, and the only real difference is what you can expect to take on... But the everything plays the same way as it did at lower levels. So while you may do more HP damage or can cast new spells, every battle becomes the same as before since the objective of the game stays the same.

If the game had a more diverse base and could support a more diverse play style other than what it does... You might find higher levels better, but don't count on it.

I'm going to have to completely disagree. Levels 1-4 play totally differently than level 5 for almost every class I can think of. Either you're adding extra attack or you've got access to 3rd level spells. Both completely change how fights work (3rd level spells include game-changer iconic spells like Spirit Guardians and Fireball). Since at level 4 you've got access to feats by level five your options should have started to really open up.

SpawnOfMorbo

2016-12-03, 05:10 PM

I'm going to have to completely disagree. Levels 1-4 play totally differently than level 5 for almost every class I can think of. Either you're adding extra attack or you've got access to 3rd level spells. Both completely change how fights work (3rd level spells include game-changer iconic spells like Spirit Guardians and Fireball). Since at level 4 you've got access to feats by level five your options should have started to really open up.

Not really.

The goal is the same at any level, the actions you take are the same, and the outcomes of a majority of those actions are the same.

At first level someone may be casting bless to boost their allies, while at 5th level someone may be casting haste. Same thing.

Having more attacks doesn't change the fact that the martial is moving and hitting.

Nothing really changes as you go up in level, you sometimes get new features that others can't do, but they all revolve around the same things. Scorching ray is really no different from firebolt. It's just the same thing recycled and slightly altered BUT how and why you are using it doesn't change.

All it is, is a false sense of progression.

Changing the name of the BBEG doesn't mean you are fighting a new BBEG. A fireball by any other name is still a fireball.

Tanarii

2016-12-03, 05:19 PM

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-03, 05:25 PM

Not really.

The goal is the same at any level, the actions you take are the same, and the outcomes of a majority of those actions are the same.

At first level someone may be casting bless to boost their allies, while at 5th level someone may be casting haste. Same thing.

Having more attacks doesn't change the fact that the martial is moving and hitting.

Nothing really changes as you go up in level, you sometimes get new features that others can't do, but they all revolve around the same things. Scorching ray is really no different from firebolt. It's just the same thing recycled and slightly altered BUT how and why you are using it doesn't change.

All it is, is a false sense of progression.

Changing the name of the BBEG doesn't mean you are fighting a new BBEG. A fireball by any other name is still a fireball.

That's an incredibly reductionist attitude to take. Firstly, unless you've got a terrible GM bounded accuracy means that you will feel yourself getting better at your chosen skills - a level 10 rogue feels a lot more experienced than a level 1 rogue because he'll have a much higher success chance rather than the same success chance but with higher numbers.

Secondly just because some damaging spells have similar usages doesn't mean that unlocking a new spell level doesn't provide different options. When I got to level 5 Spirit Guardians completely changed my cleric's role in the group dynamic. He now has a panic button - if things look tricky he can cast SG and give the party some space, but he can only do it a couple of times. The concentration mechanic means that a Wizard would have to choose between bless and haste - does this look like a tricky fight? Will he have to buff offense or improve saves. (seriously, the basic mechanics of 5e have stuff built in to combat the very stuff you're complaining about.)

Most martial classes will have a lot more strategies. Action surge is hugely more powerful because of it's multiplicative potential. Subclasses will really start kicking in about 6th level as well.

Socratov

2016-12-04, 04:48 AM

That's an incredibly reductionist attitude to take. Firstly, unless you've got a terrible GM bounded accuracy means that you will feel yourself getting better at your chosen skills - a level 10 rogue feels a lot more experienced than a level 1 rogue because he'll have a much higher success chance rather than the same success chance but with higher numbers.

Secondly just because some damaging spells have similar usages doesn't mean that unlocking a new spell level doesn't provide different options. When I got to level 5 Spirit Guardians completely changed my cleric's role in the group dynamic. He now has a panic button - if things look tricky he can cast SG and give the party some space, but he can only do it a couple of times. The concentration mechanic means that a Wizard would have to choose between bless and haste - does this look like a tricky fight? Will he have to buff offense or improve saves. (seriously, the basic mechanics of 5e have stuff built in to combat the very stuff you're complaining about.)

Most martial classes will have a lot more strategies. Action surge is hugely more powerful because of it's multiplicative potential. Subclasses will really start kicking in about 6th level as well.
I agree, once my Moon Druid got past lvl 4 to lvl 5 I hardly wildshaped and was more of a spellslinger.

Sabeta

2016-12-04, 05:11 AM

I have a small chart of all my player's proficiencies, and decide who is allowed to do what from that. To an extent.

Basic skills, like Perception, Investigation, et cetera are all standard rolls that the party can freely make. A lot of times I'll just take a passive check for those things, or give it away for free if there's no risk involved. (If I have reason to believe my players will "take 10", I just assume they would and give them the result).

Here's an example: My party's monk is trained in neither Perception nor Medicine. In the setting, Zombies look and act just like normal people; except undead. They even have memories and can hold a conversation. She approached one such Zombie, and couldn't tell that the poor bloke had his throat slashed and couldn't talk to her even if he wanted to (He was making an effort to hide the scar, but there was some faded blood and pale skin that would have been a giveaway to someone with a trained eye).

The Ranger is proficient in both of those, but he's a Loner and was just going to let that scene play out however it did with minimal involvement. I gave him both a Perception and a Medicine check, which he made easily. He was able to recognize that the fellow had his throat cut, and was able to quickly realize from there that all of his friends were probably dead too. (and then one of them runs and I end the session. Gotta love a good cliffhanger!)

TLDR: Everyone handles player agency differently. I, having been a player for most of my 5E experience don't really enjoy that everyone can take a throw at any check and most likely make it. There's not much point in being good at something if someone less skilled can just out-roll you.

Tanarii

2016-12-04, 12:41 PM

The only problem I have with allowing 'proficiency only'* checks it it robs someone who has invested points in a ability score of some of their character's intended mechanical power.

For example, my EK & AT players would probably be pissed off if I denied them a chance to use their high Int bonus on lore or investigation checks. These characters are inherently all-rounders who know a bit more of everything, due to having a high Int bonus. In many cases they are just as good or better as those who are proficient but regular Int: Religion as the Cleric or Paladin, at Nature as the Barbarian or Ranger (not in his terrain), and just as good at Arcana as the Sorcerer or Warlock. This is a great thing and IMO working as intended.

(Of course, if I made it clear at the beginning of the campaign that's what was going to regularly happen, they could have planned accordingly, so YMMV.)

It also runs directly against the 5e philosophy that there are no skill checks. Only ability checks, which you can then apply a proficiency bonus to as determined by the specific rule or DM judgement.

*edit: note that proficient does not mean 'trained'. It means competent or skilled.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-04, 01:38 PM

The only problem I have with allowing 'proficiency only'* checks it it robs someone who has invested points in a ability score of some of their character's intended mechanical power.

For example, my EK & AT players would probably be pissed off if I denied them a chance to use their high Int bonus on lore or investigation checks. These characters are inherently all-rounders who know a bit more of everything, due to having a high Int bonus. In many cases they are just as good or better as those who are proficient but regular Int: Religion as the Cleric or Paladin, at Nature as the Barbarian or Ranger (not in his terrain), and just as good at Arcana as the Sorcerer or Warlock. This is a great thing and IMO working as intended.

(Of course, if I made it clear at the beginning of the campaign that's what was going to regularly happen, they could have planned accordingly, so YMMV.)

It also runs directly against the 5e philosophy that there are no skill checks. Only ability checks, which you can then apply a proficiency bonus to as determined by the specific rule or DM judgement.

*edit: note that proficient does not mean 'trained'. It means competent or skilled.

I ran a game like this at first and you start to hit roadblocks fairly early on. Investigation is a big one - allowing five people to make investigation checks is basically a guaranteed success even if they all suck at it. Same with insight. This nearly completely derailed my court intrigue plot when they were able to get consistent above 20's on investigation and nearly discovered my BBEG straight out.

I prefer to think that some checks you have to know proficiency for and others you don't. I would never force a person to have proficiency in stealth or perception to make a stealth or perception check simply because taking those skills is a massive boon anyway. Whereas for History I would require it for something that only a student of history would be able to do (so answering history trivia would be an intelligence check that anyone could take, whereas decoding ancient bas-reliefs would need proficiency). Investigation and Insight would usually require proficiency, etc.

The best thing to do is have multiple proficiency options be a possibility. The party encounters a demon! The check could be either History (this species of demon fought Emperor Aurelian at the battle of the Clornot Bridge) Religion (this demon hails from the 44th circle of hell, as described in the Liturgy of Galen) Arcana (this demon has been studied by summoners of the Ebony Tower) or even Nature (This demon eats unicorns). Each party member would have the chance to contribute, and each skill might provide a different slice of information.

Tehnar

2016-12-04, 01:52 PM

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-04, 02:20 PM

That seems like a excessive amount of work for the DM, and instead of diversifying their skills it just encourages players to roll only their best skills.

Not really. It's all about personal judgement and improvisation. Just say "DC 18 check, you can roll if you have Religion or History." *roll roll* "Ok, people who got an 18 in history, you know that it's armour is very good but it's weapons are poor quality. Religion, you know that it's afraid of water." That isn't that difficult.

But yes, players should be mainly rolling their best skills. A barbarian can have a great grasp of magic if he has Arcana as a skill, but if a player isn't willing to invest in that on their character sheet why should they get to act like they have? If they have good intelligence they have good general knowledge, but for some things you need at least a decent grasp of the specialization. Otherwise everybody feels like they're playing the same character, that's the original problem that the OP had.

2D8HP

2016-12-04, 05:17 PM

The best thing to do is have multiple proficiency options be a possibility. The party encounters a demon! The check could be either History (this species of demon fought Emperor Aurelian at the battle of the Clornot Bridge) Religion (this demon hails from the 44th circle of hell, as described in the Liturgy of Galen) Arcana (this demon has been studied by summoners of the Ebony Tower) or even Nature (This demon eats unicorns). Each party member would have the chance to contribute, and each skill might provide a different slice of information.

That seems like a excessive amount of work for the DM, and instead of diversifying their skills it just encourages players to roll only their best skills.True and while I'm usually against increased complexity, Spellbreaker26's idea does seem to hit closer to real life.
At my job I'm the plumber on the crew, and the boiler engineers, the electrician, and the laborer all have different ideas and memories of how to solve problems.
Maybe different skills would have different DC's to solve a problem, I could also imagine problems requiring multiple skills to solve

Coffee_Dragon

2016-12-04, 07:31 PM

The only problem I have with allowing 'proficiency only'* checks it it robs someone who has invested points in a ability score of some of their character's intended mechanical power.

It also runs directly against the 5e philosophy that there are no skill checks. Only ability checks, which you can then apply a proficiency bonus to as determined by the specific rule or DM judgement.

There are various currents in this thread, but one of the most prominent is that a lot of people (on both sides of the tabulated DCs debate) are overlooking or rejecting a central mechanical implication of the 5E system. Instead they're importing either assumptions based on previous editions or notions of fluff-crunch correspondence propriety and applying them on top of the skill system as a stated or unstated house rule or layer of DM fiat.

Exactly as you say, in 5E there is no trained or untrained. Someone who has proficiency has a knack, a talent, more experience. They lit more campfires, read more books. It doesn't mean they're educated and everyone else is not. Someone who has expertise has a double knack. It doesn't mean they're experts and everyone else is not. It's not supposed to mean anything that's incompatible with what the mechanical difference reflects.

Neither classes nor backgrounds are college degrees or the absence thereof. Everyone is an adventurer. It is not assumed the barbarian has read no penny dreadfuls, heard no legends, seen no weird symbols or idols in their days. It is not assumed the wizard has had access to, read and absorbed every book on magical lore parallel with the process of learning first-level spells. 5E doesn't have niche protection for specific skills except that it's easier for some classes to get hold of some proficiencies.

Yet under the banner of such protection the skills are apportioned to the characters whose classes are deemed the best fit. If the cleric hasn't heard rumours of some hermetic cult, then why should the fighter? If someone beats the bard at Perform, why aren't they out there barding it themselves? If the group succeeds at an Arcana group check, better ascribe the success to the wizard, because why should anyone know if they don't? And that guy who dumped a stat (from 10 to 8!), what business do they have attempting any tricky feat, don't you know events with a 10% chance of happening anecdotally happen as often as 15% of the time? What if they make it, that's weird and awkward! A good system would probably make events with a 10% chance of happening happen only about 5% of the time, if that!

Requiring proficiency for certain attempts or funnelling freak successes to those who "deserve" them aren't necessarily wrong ways to play. My DM does this to an extent and I haven't felt any need to complain. (And yes, it was annoying when my cat burglar rogue with a background of years as an Iriaebor spire walker failed twice to climb up the DC 10 chimney in the LMoP goblin lair and the fighter had to skip up and throw down a rope, why are you even reminding me about this where's my trigger warning aaaaaahhh) And specific narrative circumstances can of course constrain the possibilities of success: maybe a certain fact could literally only have been learned from the insular community Bob grew up in (though in those cases most DMs would probably not bother to roll for it, because what is the point of failure).

But these kinds of across the board recalibrations of the system aren't just simple house rules to harmonize outcomes with expectations, they represent a dismissal of a central part of the 5E system design and a tangible redistribution of the legitimate potential for various perceived character types to accomplish various feats. And I can't help but suspect they typically achieve this redistribution in a way that is not honest - not by stating up front what mechanical weight has now effectively been added to or subtracted from which perceived character professions with their corresponding supposed education paths, but by adding a subtle filter to the system as written comprised of the DM's personal inclinations.

Saeviomage

2016-12-04, 07:32 PM

Derp. Why on earth would a Blacksmith be rolling a skill check to make basic goods, or a Sage be rolling to know basic facts?

Why is the DM assigning a 20 percent failure to tasks that both dudes could do blindfolded? (i.e. the DC should be 'dont bother rolling').

The DM assigns DC's remember and determines if a roll is even needed. I certainly wouldnt have a blacksmith rolling to make basic gear. If he wanted to try his hand at something he's never made before, then maybe I might.

You know what the difficulty to climb a tree or a rope is? Nothing. You just do it. Unless the DM decides that there is some other complicating factor that requires a roll like you're encumbered, or being chased and hurrying or you're in a storm or similar.

The DM sets task difficulties. Step one is asking yourself 'does this task in this situation even require a roll for this PC?'

So your argument appears to be "the existing rules are irrelevant because even on tasks with significant chances to fail and penalties for failure, I will allow automatic success"?

That seems to be your argument overall - that you simply don't use the presented skill mechanics, and are effectively making narrative calls. You might as well write down a few proficiencies for each character and then eyeball a d20 roll for players who have the right ones without worrying about modifiers at all. Which is fine, but it fits my argument of "the skill mechanics are ****house and need the DM to overrule them".

The problem with them is that a new DM will use them as written, and will often get players to roll for most important activities, at which point your game turns into a clown show. They're basically worse than having no rules at all.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-04, 07:40 PM

There are various currents in this thread, but one of the most prominent is that a lot of people (on both sides of the tabulated DCs debate) are overlooking or rejecting a central mechanical implication of the 5E system. Instead they're importing either assumptions based on previous editions or notions of fluff-crunch correspondence propriety and applying them on top of the skill system as a stated or unstated house rule or layer of DM fiat.

Exactly as you say, in 5E there is no trained or untrained. Someone who has proficiency has a knack, a talent, more experience. They lit more campfires, read more books. It doesn't mean they're educated and everyone else is not. Someone who has expertise has a double knack. It doesn't mean they're experts and everyone else is not. It's not supposed to mean anything that's incompatible with what the mechanical difference reflects.

Neither classes nor backgrounds are college degrees or the absence thereof. Everyone is an adventurer. It is not assumed the barbarian has read no penny dreadfuls, heard no legends, seen no weird symbols or idols in their days. It is not assumed the wizard has had access to, read and absorbed every book on magical lore parallel with the process of learning first-level spells. 5E doesn't have niche protection for specific skills except that it's easier for some classes to get hold of some proficiencies.

Yet under the banner of such protection the skills are apportioned to the characters whose classes are deemed the best fit. If the cleric hasn't heard rumours of some hermetic cult, then why should the fighter? If someone beats the bard at Perform, why aren't they out there barding it themselves? If the group succeeds at an Arcana group check, better ascribe the success to the wizard, because why should anyone know if they don't? And that guy who dumped a stat (from 10 to 8!), what business do they have attempting any tricky feat, don't you know events with a 10% chance of happening anecdotally happen as often as 15% of the time? What if they make it, that's weird and awkward! A good system would probably make events with a 10% chance of happening happen only about 5% of the time, if that!

Requiring proficiency for certain attempts or funnelling freak successes to those who "deserve" them aren't necessarily wrong ways to play. My DM does this to an extent and I haven't felt any need to complain. (And yes, it was annoying when my cat burglar rogue with a background of years as an Iriaebor spire walker failed twice to climb up the DC 10 chimney in the LMoP goblin lair and the fighter had to skip up and throw down a rope, why are you even reminding me about this where's my trigger warning aaaaaahhh) And specific narrative circumstances can of course constrain the possibilities of success: maybe a certain fact could literally only have been learned from the insular community Bob grew up in (though in those cases most DMs would probably not bother to roll for it, because what is the point of failure).

But these kinds of across the board recalibrations of the system aren't just simple house rules to harmonize outcomes with expectations, they represent a dismissal of a central part of the 5E system design and a tangible redistribution of the legitimate potential for various perceived character types to accomplish various feats. And I can't help but suspect they typically achieve this redistribution in a way that is not honest - not by stating up front what mechanical weight has now effectively been added to or subtracted from which perceived character professions with their corresponding supposed education paths, but by adding a subtle filter to the system as written comprised of the DM's personal inclinations.

Because of bounded accuracy. A fantastic mechanic in many respects, but it makes more people trying something more important than a single person being good at it. In some situations that makes sense. In others it really, really doesn't. That's why I like multiple skill approaches - someone with slight of hand can pick a lock, a guy with high strength and/or athletics could break it down. They can achieve the same goal but have to do it in their personal ways.

There are loads of ways to defy character stereotype, but the most prominent is background. Your barbarian can have great arcane knowledge - but you have to be a sage. Your mage can do cardio - but he has to have been a soldier or sailor or what not. If you want a quirky niche you have to plan it out. Just letting everybody roll is grounds for chaos and makes it a game of pure luck not a game of characters. If 20 guards are the best problem solving team in the world because everybody gets a d20 why have adventurers?

mgshamster

2016-12-04, 08:04 PM

Because of bounded accuracy. A fantastic mechanic in many respects, but it makes more people trying something more important than a single person being good at it. In some situations that makes sense. In others it really, really doesn't. That's why I like multiple skill approaches - someone with slight of hand can pick a lock, a guy with high strength and/or athletics could break it down. They can achieve the same goal but have to do it in their personal ways.

There are loads of ways to defy character stereotype, but the most prominent is background. Your barbarian can have great arcane knowledge - but you have to be a sage. Your mage can do cardio - but he has to have been a soldier or sailor or what not. If you want a quirky niche you have to plan it out. Just letting everybody roll is grounds for chaos and makes it a game of pure luck not a game of characters. If 20 guards are the best problem solving team in the world because everybody gets a d20 why have adventurers?

I've found that 5e represents experts best by features rather than skills.

Someone is an expert on lore and knowledge? They'll have class and background features that represent it. A medical doctor isn't someone who has proficiency or even expertise in medicine, they're someone who has a class and background dedicated to it.

Skills aren't meant to show that you're an expert in your field. Features are meant to show that.

Pex

2016-12-04, 08:07 PM

Coffee_Dragon

2016-12-04, 08:11 PM

There are loads of ways to defy character stereotype, but the most prominent is background. Your barbarian can have great arcane knowledge - but you have to be a sage.

That's fine if you in your house rule handout include the fact that in order to expect much use out of Arcana you should have proficiency from Skilled, be a Sage, or maybe belong to a list of spellcasting classes the DM considers lore-steeped, unlocking the skill from, say, a useless +2 to a useful +4. I don't think the gap between those numbers much reflects that threshold, though.

Just letting everybody roll is grounds for chaos and makes it a game of pure luck not a game of characters.

Everyone just has to repeat to themselves, "I am not my die rolls. I am not my skill set. I am not my hit points. I am not my double crit chance."

If 20 guards are the best problem solving team in the world because everybody gets a d20 why have adventurers?

There are various ways that question could be answered, including but not limited to:

* What says a group of 20 guards shouldn't be better than 4 adventurers at some things?
* Random guards aren't entitled to skill checks except mostly when reacting to PC actions. The PCs occupy a mechanically privileged position in the world, the question is how they should additionally be privileged with respect to one another.
* Some silly outcomes should be avoidable by disallowing sequential skill checks on a group behaviour level as opposed to an individual capability level, i.e. in many cases it won't be natural behaviour for a group to spill into a room and say, "OK, here's the well-defined focus of our next skill challenge, everybody line up to tackle it because that always works out somehow."
* Most often it seems to me when a skill roll comes up everyone at the table would rather it just end in success, because otherwise you have to go without info (why?) or think of a more or less contrived alternative angle of attack (eats up time). That's not really an argument for anything, but still. :smalltongue:

Coffee_Dragon

2016-12-04, 08:29 PM

Exactly. It is a rejection of the 5E paradigm.

Not everyone is so frank about it!

Players and DM are wanting characters who have more investment in a skill be able to do more with it than those who don't.

I think the system does proportionally reward investment in the form of initial stats, proficiencies, expertise and ASIs, even if this increase starts from a general baseline of "no one is utterly clueless about this adventuring deal". It also makes me slightly wary when this kind of protection is invoked selectively based (again) on personal perception of what skills represent: how many here would disallow untrained "vanilla" skills like Athletics, Perception or Persuasion, or deny a non-martial character a swipe at a monster because the fighter, who certainly seems to have invested in fightering, missed earlier in the round?

Rysto

2016-12-04, 09:08 PM

But these kinds of across the board recalibrations of the system aren't just simple house rules to harmonize outcomes with expectations, they represent a dismissal of a central part of the 5E system design and a tangible redistribution of the legitimate potential for various perceived character types to accomplish various feats.

No, it represents an understanding of 5E system design and the mathematical basis of the system. Allowing every party member to roll a check where you're looking for a single success breaks the underlying assumptions of the systems. There's a reason why advantage (and disadvantage) doesn't stack: because it throws the probabilities out of whack.

Here's a simple example. Imagine a party of 6 level 8 PCs. Five of them have a 0 in arcana, and the last (a wizard) has proficiency, with a total bonus of +7. By my math, it's about a 50/50 chance whether the wizard outdoes the rest of the party on an arcana check. The rest of the party is effectively rolling with super-advantage the way that you believe skill checks should be done.

Now suppose these PCs attempt, as a group, to use stealth. There's a 47% chance that at least one of them will roll a 2 or worse, and a 82% chance of a 5 or worse. Stealth is basically not an option for a party under almost all circumstances if everybody rolls for stealth, other than somebody having Pass without Trace. Note that this calculation is assuming that nobody has disadvantage from wearing armour, which isn't realistic. The math just gets worse if they do.

There's a reason why the PHB has called out special rules for group checks. There's no reason why they shouldn't apply to skill checks that are looking for successes as well as failures.

Coffee_Dragon

2016-12-04, 10:18 PM

No, it represents an understanding of 5E system design and the mathematical basis of the system.

No? Clearly there are those who'd say yes, and I see no reason to think that's mutually exclusive with understanding the mathematics.

Here's a simple example. Imagine a party of 6 level 8 PCs. Five of them have a 0 in arcana, and the last (a wizard) has proficiency, with a total bonus of +7. By my math, it's about a 50/50 chance whether the wizard outdoes the rest of the party on an arcana check. The rest of the party is effectively rolling with super-advantage the way that you believe skill checks should be done.

So five reasonably experienced adventurers can together call to mind about as many arcane tidbits as the one wizard guy. Is this a problem? It seems pretty clear to me who's the go-to Arcana guy in this party, he just isn't a scholar who makes it his business to have read all the books and know all the trivia, because a premise of the system is that he spends most of his time adventuring with his pals, and the real specialists are likely to be NPCs not governed by this system. Would it be necessary for all the others to not be able to Arcana their way out of a puzzle box in order for this guy's Arcana investment to feel justified? If so, imagine the party where no one has Arcana proficiency, and everyone is entirely clueless about the subject in deference to a potential party member they never had.

Now suppose these PCs attempt, as a group, to use stealth. There's a 47% chance that at least one of them will roll a 2 or worse, and a 82% chance of a 5 or worse. Stealth is basically not an option for a party under almost all circumstances if everybody rolls for stealth, other than somebody having Pass without Trace. Note that this calculation is assuming that nobody has disadvantage from wearing armour, which isn't realistic. The math just gets worse if they do.

There's a reason why the PHB has called out special rules for group checks. There's no reason why they shouldn't apply to skill checks that are looking for successes as well as failures.

I'm not sure there's much contention around what should happen if you start to add a succession of jangly guys to a stealth attempt, or group checks in general. What I'm saying about group checks is that there's no logic in the game saying that success should be auto-ascribed to whoever in the party has proficiency or the best stereotypical character concept fit. Here as for individual checks there's a case to be made that no one should be robbed of their however slim potential to do well and be credited with doing well.

Tanarii

2016-12-05, 12:30 AM

I ran a game like this at first and you start to hit roadblocks fairly early on. Investigation is a big one - allowing five people to make investigation checks is basically a guaranteed success even if they all suck at it. Same with insight. This nearly completely derailed my court intrigue plot when they were able to get consistent above 20's on investigation and nearly discovered my BBEG straight out.
This indicates you have a fundamental misunderstanding of when checks should be called for. If the entire party can roll on something, you've got one of the following situations:
A) the better can help the worse, and it's a group effort. This is a group check.
B) meaningful consequences for failure. In this case those with low bonuses can harm the party if they chose to roll.
C) no meaningful consequences for failure. You shouldn't be rolling this in the first place.

If you're having problems because everyone is making investigation or perception or lore checks, you're probably calling for them when there's no meaningful consequences for failure.

Regulas

2016-12-05, 01:03 AM

MeeposFire

2016-12-05, 01:21 AM

The short answer to this thread is that 5e is more DM dependant. Espeically compared to 3.5 which has a "rule for every situation" so the DM's fiat is more situational.

The simplest answer for knowledge based checks is this: A character cannot remember what they don't know.

Enemy appears to vanish. Barbarian(untrained in arcana magic) rolls arcana to see if he teleported went invisible or whatever else. Rolls a 20

What you DO NOT tell the barbarian: He cast the 4th level conjuration spell dimension door, and you know he must be within 500 Feet.

What you do tell the barbarian: Something about the distortion of the effect and the way the air in the room seemed to shift tells you that the enemy appears to have teleported away somehow (as opposed to invisibility/illusion etc.).

If a Barbarian doesn't know magic, then he can't ever know what a specific details of a spell are because he doesn't know them.

Also makes me think that sometimes it makes sense to have a proficient skill check to be an easier check than a straight ability check. In this case knowing that about the spells might be a fairly easy check since perhaps this is common knowledge but if you don't know anything about arcana then you are only relying on possibly randomly hearing this somewhere and remembering it. That is not an easy check. Now you might say doesn't the skill indicate the difficulty? I would say yes and no. The skill certainly makes it easier but I don't think it accurately confers the sheer difficulty difference in this. For instance the sort of details we are talking should be based more on knowledge rather than just your sheer intelligence divorced from knowledge. That barb with arcana proficiency would have learned these concepts and so the situation is easier to start with than the other character that only has high intelligence. His skill training part shows his continuing improvement in recalling this information due to more experience in using this information. The other character could be smarter and thus be better at sheer memorization but will have to rely on having received this information (which they may or may not have which we can represent by the increased DC) and remembering it. That is a harder thing to do before even applying their training I think.

Not the typical way of doing things but it kind of fits how the checks are used in theory just using that in a different way.

Tanarii

2016-12-05, 01:52 AM

The short answer to this thread is that 5e is more DM dependant. Espeically compared to 3.5 which has a "rule for every situation" so the DM's fiat is more situational.

The simplest answer for knowledge based checks is this: A character cannot remember what they don't know.I actually agree with both of these points, despite some methods appearing (to me) to break some of the basic assumptions of the system, I acknowledge they're still valid interpretations. For example ...

Enemy appears to vanish. Barbarian(untrained in arcana magic) rolls arcana to see if he teleported went invisible or whatever else. Rolls a 20 What is trained?

Do you mean proficient? Because to me, those are not required to be the same thing. 5e doesn't have 'trained' and 'untrained', it just has 'proficient'. I mean, a DM can rule they are the same thing. But it doesn't appear to be built in to the system unless a DM chooses to rules that's what it means.

If you don't mean that, how do you determine it? Player description of the player background certainly can be one way.

Either way, the DMG (paraphrased) says that the DM should:
determine that a DM should determine if a task is possible or not possible or requires a random outcome;
set the DC if a random outcome is needed for a task with chance of meaningful failure;
Determine appropriate outcomes, possibly including degrees of failure.

That's why despite my personal opinion that generally any character should be entitled to try an appropriate ability check regardless of an applicable proficiency, I acknowledge that it's certainly valid for a DM to determine only certain characters can attempt a check or set a vRying DC. For any reason: proficiency (or lack), background appropriate to the task, class, or in-game circumstances.

I don't just like the idea that it's being regularly or globally done based on 'trained', when I don't believe that's explicitly what proficiency represents.

Knaight

2016-12-05, 02:03 AM

Everyone just has to repeat to themselves, "I am not my die rolls. I am not my skill set. I am not my hit points. I am not my double crit chance."

What a character can do is often a fairly significant part of who they are. A Sherlock Holmes who can't investigate isn't Sherlock Holmes; a Conan who can't kick butt isn't a Conan. 5e supports this in certain cases, where a great warrior or great mage really does have the mechanical backing making them a lot better than others at their chosen profession. The warrior has extra attacks, damage increase, a big pool of HP, and a set of class features above and beyond the proficiency bonus and attribute gap that a novice character has. A great mage is sitting on a giant pile of spells per day, most of them at a higher level than the best spells that a novice caster has. In both cases there's cases where the expert can routinely do things the novice can't even attempt, and where there's a big gap in capability.

If what the character should be good at is a skill though, that's much harder to come by. This is a deliberate design decision, and it has big implications. It's going to attract a number of people to the game, and it's good that it does so. It's also going to be a sticking point a lot of people dislike, and chanting some mantra isn't going to help there because it's a legitimate clash between system and tastes.

djreynolds

2016-12-05, 02:26 AM

5E gets better at higher levels, yes.

I haven't played an edition of D&D where it isn't tough at lower levels and you do not have the feel of your concept yet.

5th level seems to be the big growth spurt, till then its about survival.

I played CoS recently, lots of fun and we leaned heavily on the ranger. At lower levels with his stats, his bow was very dependable. But as we leveled up the game changed. Spells became more potent.

You can start at any level, I like low levels because it gives you time to figure out where you are needed for the party to excel.

Sometimes all I could do as the cleric was rush up front, cast bless and hope the ranger did his job and I didn't die or worse... lose concentration.

I find it is best when starting up a campaign that everyone tries to fill a party need.... but its lots of fun when everyone chooses similar classes as well. Nothing like a barbarian and fighter trying to deceive to the town guard or persuade the dragon they should live or failing arcana checks.

Have fun, create good back stories. And enjoy the players at the table, pros and cons. And get out of your comfort zone... "you know I wanted to play a paladin... but we need a rogue... I don't like to play rogues..." play one, you may enjoy it

A lot of it is also DM dependent and I have grown as a DM, just asking advice. Find out what the players want combat, talking, exploring and shift the game accordingly.

The forum members are really cool, when they are not arguing and have lots of very good tips. Just recently I was sold on a build, a warlock... I don't particularly like warlocks... but I'm going to try one now.

Zalabim

2016-12-05, 05:32 AM

I ran a game like this at first and you start to hit roadblocks fairly early on. Investigation is a big one - allowing five people to make investigation checks is basically a guaranteed success even if they all suck at it. Same with insight. This nearly completely derailed my court intrigue plot when they were able to get consistent above 20's on investigation and nearly discovered my BBEG straight out.
And what happened when they also got consistent below 10's on investigation and the BBEG discovered them straight out? Or they tracked down a red herring? Followed up a planted lead? If there's no cost for failing, spectacularly at that, then success is guaranteed, as the book suggests.

Comparing 4 with +0 to 1 with +7, vs DC 15: http://anydice.com/program/9fe5
The sage passes 65% of the time and fails by 5 or more 15% of the time.
The bunglers pass 76% of the time but fail by 5 or more 93.75% of the time.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-05, 08:16 AM

And what happened when they also got consistent below 10's on investigation and the BBEG discovered them straight out? Or they tracked down a red herring? Followed up a planted lead? If there's no cost for failing, spectacularly at that, then success is guaranteed, as the book suggests.

Comparing 4 with +0 to 1 with +7, vs DC 15: http://anydice.com/program/9fe5
The sage passes 65% of the time and fails by 5 or more 15% of the time.
The bunglers pass 76% of the time but fail by 5 or more 93.75% of the time.

Say you have an insight check. If one person passes it doesn't matter if everyone else rolled ones. I can't think of any consequences to badly failed insight checks other than not knowing if the person is lying to you or not. Even if the other four are all convinced that the person is telling the truth all it takes is one guy poking at a hole in the story for the check to be a success, really.

Investigation was a bit different (since they could have been discovered snooping). But really, there weren't a lot of consequences I could just dump on the people who rolled badly as long as one person rolled well and found the dozens of jars of poisons. If they get found by the guards, all they have to do is point out "here's all the evidence we just found" and that check was basically still a success. It's a bit different to climbing a ladder, or trying to charm someone. There are no real penalties for failure apart from "didn't work" and no real way to introduce penalties without forcing my players to ignore metagame knowledge or bringing in something that feels really artificial.

Finally, they've usually got both - 4 amateurs and 1 person with +3 or 4. So the chance is usually that much higher.

MinotaurWarrior

2016-12-05, 09:42 AM

* Most often it seems to me when a skill roll comes up everyone at the table would rather it just end in success, because otherwise you have to go without info (why?) or think of a more or less contrived alternative angle of attack (eats up time). That's not really an argument for anything, but still. :smalltongue:

This is the real crux of the issue, imo.

Most DMs, in my experience, are very unsure of how to use the risk of skill failure to increase dramatic tension. I'll cop to probably being particularly bad at this. But a locked door is usually either meant to be unlocked, or meant to be impossible to pick.

What I think a lot of people want is for the rules to tell them who gets to pick the lock. They want the bragging rights to be pinned down. I'm the best thief, therefore locked doors are my designated time in the spotlight. Of course we were never in serious risk of being impeded by the door, but it served to validate my build choices. And oh, if you'd let me die in that fight back there when I was at 5hp, we'd be in trouble. This works really well in 3.X, and is fun.

What 5e wants is for there to be serious consequences for failing to pick the lock. This is why there's no take 20, and only rogues can take 10. That's why you're only supposed to roll sometimes.

The other thing that's missing is proactive skill use. I played an Alchemist Businessman in PF, and no challenges were ever set up for those skills to solve, because quite frankly my DM didn't care about that part of my character, but I was able to use those skills to essentially play solitaire with a table and circle back with my DM to tell him what the rules said my abilities helped accomplish. I had a ton of fun with this, and I know I'm not the only one who likes that style of play, because PF has decided it's worth publishing a lot of material to support it. "OK, the tables on animal handling say what now? Those are the tricks you teach your mammoth?"

The problem is that these goals conflict a lot. That sort of solitaire minigame thing really doesn't work with a chance of failure, or with the checks themselves being the source of drama. Nobody wants to be on the edge of their seat watching me roll to haggle for reagents, produce poisons, haggle to sell poisons, negotiate labor contracts, oversea daily business operations, maintain correspondence with my regional managers, et cetera. The large number of checks in sequence throws off probabilities of a screw up somewhere along the way, and, well, the process just isn't that interesting. Much better that I just plug take 10s into an Excel formula.

And to a lesser extent, the conflict is also there with validation doors. If there's always a chance of failure, and consequences for it, then sometimes I'm gonna screw up when the spotlight is on me.

So, skill checks can't really serve that purpose. Sure, you can throw DC =< Bonus+1 obstacles, but even at level 20 with expertise that's only DC 18, which is low enough that literally any character has a chance of succeeding.

Rather, they all have to be for something the characters really want, but not something they need to advance the story, and they can't be the source of a character's awesomeness... with one exception. The high level rogue, who is guaranteed 23's or above after getting reliable talent. They can go around automatically succeeding at tasks others could never hope to achieve.

But for everyone else, skill checks are supposed to be more about the risk of failure than the validation of success.

Tanarii

2016-12-05, 10:17 AM

Say you have an insight check. If one person passes it doesn't matter if everyone else rolled ones. I can't think of any consequences to badly failed insight checks other than not knowing if the person is lying to you or not. Even if the other four are all convinced that the person is telling the truth all it takes is one guy poking at a hole in the story for the check to be a success, really.Why? Now you've got one person who thinks they're lying, and the other four looking at him like he's a mad man. That's either a group check which ends up as a failure, with one person pissed at the other four for not seeing what's clearly an obvious lie. Or five separate checks, with four individuals believing the person, and one person not believing them, and all five acting accordingly. If you're always making things 'one success to rule them all' checks, no wonder you're struggling with the system.

Even perception doesn't work this way. Take surprise. Each individual creature needs to pass its own passive perception check, or it is surprised itself. It's not a group check or a one success check.

There are definitely time when one success should Be sufficient to pass the party. And in those cases, absolutely you should let everyone roll. Because if the entire party can contribute individually, there is no consequence for failure other than 'I don't know / notice /figure it out', if one person knowing or noticing or figuring it out is sufficient to inform the whole party, if no one can possibly know the wrong answer or fail to notice/figure it out in a way that can backfire ... then why the hell shouldn't it be very easy and likely that one person happens to know and can Share for the entire group. Those are exactly the situations where a larger group is better.

Of course, many times you can just skip the check in those situations. First of all, it's incredibly likely to be passed, so you're wasting time rolling. Second of all, many times when you encounter those situations it's a secret check or something being done repeatedly anyway, so you use passive. You can skip the rolls, because you know if it's successful or not right off the bat, and can go straight to the success or failure outcome. I've noticed people tend to underuse passive, which is also wasting time on these checks.

Edit: I also didn't even cover that not everything is a check situation, because it's been harped on a lot already. But it's worth re-iterating that not every person lying to another, nor every interaction while disguised, an Insight check situation. Nor is every sentence or even entire conversation a cha check situation.

Edit2:
Rather, they all have to be for something the characters really want, but not something they need to advance the story, and they can't be the source of a character's awesomeness... with one exception. The high level rogue, who is guaranteed 23's or above after getting reliable talent. They can go around automatically succeeding at tasks others could never hope to achieve.Its worth noting that in effect, take 20 sorta kinda still exists, although it only takes ten times as long. If you can do something, and there is no meaningful consequences for failure, then you automatically succeed. That means anyone without a penalty can succeed on DC 20 tasks, +5 succeeds on DC 25, and +10 on DC 30. But DCs aren't set as 'Very Hard' or 'Nearly Impossible' based on automatic success .. they're set on something that has one chance of success or failure, and meaningful consequences for failure.

Also any time you need to determine success of failure at a particular point in time for something that was being done repeatedly, that's what passive checks are for. And reliable talent doesn't help a rogue then.

A rogue's reliable talent is for rolled checks only, which is when only one action is being done once, and success or failure matters right now. It's very good, but in many ways it's more niche than people think it is.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-05, 12:58 PM

Why? Now you've got one person who thinks they're lying, and the other four looking at him like he's a mad man. That's either a group check which ends up as a failure, with one person pissed at the other four for not seeing what's clearly an obvious lie. Or five separate checks, with four individuals believing the person, and one person not believing them, and all five acting accordingly. If you're always making things 'one success to rule them all' checks, no wonder you're struggling with the system.

Even perception doesn't work this way. Take surprise. Each individual creature needs to pass its own passive perception check, or it is surprised itself. It's not a group check or a one success check.

There are definitely time when one success should Be sufficient to pass the party. And in those cases, absolutely you should let everyone roll. Because if the entire party can contribute individually, there is no consequence for failure other than 'I don't know / notice /figure it out', if one person knowing or noticing or figuring it out is sufficient to inform the whole party, if no one can possibly know the wrong answer or fail to notice/figure it out in a way that can backfire ... then why the hell shouldn't it be very easy and likely that one person happens to know and can Share for the entire group. Those are exactly the situations where a larger group is better.

Of course, many times you can just skip the check in those situations. First of all, it's incredibly likely to be passed, so you're wasting time rolling. Second of all, many times when you encounter those situations it's a secret check or something being done repeatedly anyway, so you use passive. You can skip the rolls, because you know if it's successful or not right off the bat, and can go straight to the success or failure outcome. I've noticed people tend to underuse passive, which is also wasting time on these checks.

Edit: I also didn't even cover that not everything is a check situation, because it's been harped on a lot already. But it's worth re-iterating that not every person lying to another, nor every interaction while disguised, an Insight check situation. Nor is every sentence or even entire conversation a cha check situation.

When people ask to check I have to let them. The team leader was hyper-paranoid (rightly) about a couple of things and always made sure he had his bases covered.

Secondly when people roll insight and I tell the guy who rolled highest that he knows the other guy's lying - there's almost no way to not metagame that.

I don't use passive checks for PCs mainly because I prefer contested their perception vs. opposing stealth. In a camp situation there's usually only one or two people on guard.

But when insight comes into play, if they're just talking to a dude and I start rolling it's immediately clear he's rolling deception or something. Which is why you can't use passive insight.

As for letting the entire party roll - have you had to have an intrigue plot where the party are making insight checks on nearly everything? Investigation checks on everything? It's madness and means that either you put stupidly high DCs on everything, let the party easily find out everything, or think of something clever and hope they fall for it (a false flag attack by the villain on himself, as it happens, that mostly worked).

Tanarii

2016-12-05, 01:17 PM

When people ask to check I have to let them. The team leader was hyper-paranoid (rightly) about a couple of things and always made sure he had his bases covered.You don't. I mean, you can play like that if you want to, but you don't have to, nor is it the recommended way. The recommended way is for them to tell you what their character is doing, and for you to decide if that is automatically a success or failure, or requires random resolution. (Edit: in other words, the player doesn't ask for a check. You tell them if they need to make a check.)

Secondly when people roll insight and I tell the guy who rolled highest that he knows the other guy's lying - there's almost no way to not metagame that.That's not metagaming, that's roleplaying. Each player decides what his character is doing based on the in-world knowledge the DM has provided him, and if necessary ignore out of game or in-world knowledge his character couldn't possibly have.

Metagaming is when you use rules knowledge or in-world knowledge your character could not possibly know to make a decision. ie the exact opposite of what you just said.

(Edit2: if you mean it's hard to ignore in-game knowledge given to the entire group that only one character could know, the solution to that is not to give the information to the entire group. That's why notes to players are an old-school tactic. Including when the notes don't actually say anything significant.)

I don't use passive checks for PCs mainly because I prefer contested their perception vs. opposing stealth. In a camp situation there's usually only one or two people on guard.Okay. But in this particular case (Perception vs Stealth for a hiding creature) you're ignoring what the rules explicitly tell you to do. However, yes, in general, it's supposed to be a DM call on when it's appropriate to use passive checks. But it's a rule that's there for a reason. And that reason is either:
A) it's a secret check that the player can't know is happening
B) it's a check where the character is doing something repeatedly over time, and you need to the specific success/failure on a single given round.

(IMO that's why most perception checks are explicitly passive perception. It generally meets both circumstances.)

But when insight comes into play, if they're just talking to a dude and I start rolling it's immediately clear he's rolling deception or something. Which is why you can't use passive insight.lol I agree there's certainly part of that, but this is why many DMs roll for no reason even when someone isn't using deception. Player paranoia is a beautiful thing to instill.

As for letting the entire party roll - have you had to have an intrigue plot where the party are making insight checks on nearly everything? Investigation checks on everything? It's madness and means that either you put stupidly high DCs on everything, let the party easily find out everything, or think of something clever and hope they fall for it (a false flag attack by the villain on himself, as it happens, that mostly worked).No. Because:
1) player's don't request checks in my games, they tell me what they are doing and I determine if a check is needed;
2) I only call for checks when there is a meaningful consequence for failure for the entire task / event, or they need to succeed within a specific time frame (often one check for this specific round of combat).
3) I make extensive use of group checks when appropriate, including Lore and Insight checks where the party confers among themselves and might disagree on who is right about something.
4) I use passive perception whenever appropriate, ie for Insight or Investigation checks being done on everything

(As a general rule, I write down all players passive Investigation, Perception and Insight checks. Sometimes Lore checks if I know I'm going to need it during the adventure.)

(Edit3 because I might as well make this wall of text more wall-y. This is a great link on how to adjudicate actions well. I highly recommend reading it:
http://angrydm.com/2013/04/adjudicate-actions-like-a-boss/ )

Finieous

2016-12-05, 01:24 PM

So five reasonably experienced adventurers can together call to mind about as many arcane tidbits as the one wizard guy. Is this a problem?

It depends. The DM should use his judgment to determine when to call for checks from multiple characters or just one, when to allow only proficient characters to make checks or anyone to make them, when to call for checks at all based on the player's description of his character's action, etc.. The insistence that there MUST be a single, codified rule to govern all situations -- one way or the other -- is why these arguments are interminable.

The provided guidelines and mechanics work great when players are willing and able to apply creativity to game situations, and DMs are willing and able to apply judgment to them. They probably work less well in cases where those faculties are absent.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-05, 01:44 PM

You don't. I mean, you can play like that if you want to, but you don't have to, nor is it the recommended way. The recommended way is for them to tell you what their character is doing, and for you to decide if that is automatically a success or failure, or requires random resolution. (Edit: in other words, the player doesn't ask for a check. You tell them if they need to make a check.)

That's not metagaming, that's roleplaying. Each player decides what his character is doing based on the in-world knowledge the DM has provided him, and if necessary ignore out of game or in-world knowledge his character couldn't possibly have.

Metagaming is when you use rules knowledge or in-world knowledge your character could not possibly know to make a decision. ie the exact opposite of what you just said.

(Edit2: if you mean it's hard to ignore in-game knowledge given to the entire group that only one character could know, the solution to that is not to give the information to the entire group. That's why notes to players are an old-school tactic. Including when the notes don't actually say anything significant.)

Okay. But in this particular case (Perception vs Stealth for a hiding creature) you're ignoring what the rules explicitly tell you to do. However, yes, in general, it's supposed to be a DM call on when it's appropriate to use passive checks. But it's a rule that's there for a reason. And that reason is either:
A) it's a secret check that the player can't know is happening
B) it's a check where the character is doing something repeatedly over time, and you need to the specific success/failure on a single given round.

(IMO that's why most perception checks are explicitly passive perception. It generally meets both circumstances.)

lol I agree there's certainly part of that, but this is why many DMs roll for no reason even when someone isn't using deception. Player paranoia is a beautiful thing to instill.

No. Because:
1) player's don't request checks in my games, they tell me what they are doing and I determine if a check is needed;
2) I only call for checks when there is a meaningful consequence for failure for the entire task / event, or they need to succeed within a specific time frame (often one check for this specific round of combat).
3) I make extensive use of group checks when appropriate, including Lore and Insight checks where the party confers among themselves and might disagree on who is right about something.
4) I use passive perception whenever appropriate, ie for Insight or Investigation checks being done on everything

(As a general rule, I write down all players passive Investigation, Perception and Insight checks. Sometimes Lore checks if I know I'm going to need it during the adventure.)

(Edit3 because I might as well make this wall of text more wall-y. This is a great link on how to adjudicate actions well. I highly recommend reading it:
http://angrydm.com/2013/04/adjudicate-actions-like-a-boss/ )

I've gone to that website before... and I don't really like his DMing style. It's not what I want to use. (Not to mention his irrational hatred of bards)

If I say an insight check is needed, then they immediately assume the other person is lying. I can't always roll dice just to make people paranoid, I can't always be writing notes, I can't always just randomly ask for insight checks that people didn't declare.

Insight is what you use when you suspect a person is lying. It isn't passive. You suspect they're lying, you pay extra attention to their tells and whatnot.

I guess this just comes down to a difference in DMing style. I guess for a lot of checks I just don't let people roll if they don't have proficiency. I'm not sure if one's better or worse, I just prefer to use what I've already got.

Pex

2016-12-05, 01:54 PM

ad_hoc

2016-12-05, 01:55 PM

Insight is what you use when you suspect a person is lying. It isn't passive. You suspect they're lying, you pay extra attention to their tells and whatnot.

Passive/Active checks refer to what the player is doing, not what the character is doing.

A Passive check literally just means the player doesn't do anything.

Insight is also used more than just for lying. Most often I use it like this: "I try to get a read on whether the NPC seems to be ready for action." It can be used to try to guess what their next move will be.

Tanarii

2016-12-05, 01:58 PM

I've gone to that website before... and I don't really like his DMing style. It's not what I want to use. (Not to mention his irrational hatred of bards)Angry DM isn't for everyone.

If I say an insight check is needed, then they immediately assume the other person is lying. I can't always roll dice just to make people paranoid, I can't always be writing notes, I can't always just randomly ask for insight checks that people didn't declare.That's exactly what passive checks are for. Checks when you want to not ask for an insight check, to keep it secret, or not make a roll over and over again.

Insight is what you use when you suspect a person is lying. It isn't passive. You suspect they're lying, you pay extra attention to their tells and whatnot.Passive checks are not about if the character is doing something passively or not (although it certainly CAN overlap with that, a la Perception). They're for when you don't want the player to roll a check, but still need to decide an outcome based on an ability check:
either you don't want the player to roll over and over and then use the 7th roll that actually applies, ie when someone is actually lying instead of telling the truth;
or you don't want to tip them off someone is actually lying to them.

In other words, it's totally appropriate to use when someone is suspiciously paying attention to everyone, and maybe you don't want to give away that an Insight check is being made.

I guess this just comes down to a difference in DMing style. I guess for a lot of checks I just don't let people roll if they don't have proficiency. I'm not sure if one's better or worse, I just prefer to use what I've already got.Yes. From what I can tell, you're running in a DM style that became popular as a result of 3e's introduction of skills: players get to decide when they roll; roll for everything.
I've run games that way. Then during 4e and 5e, I paid attention to the problems it causes, and slowly modified my DM style to work with the recommendations of each edition. Skill challenges in 4e, and DM adjudication on when checks are even necessary in 5e, along with extensive use of group checks and passive checks). I'm really enjoying the 5e method.

(On proficiency-only checks, yeah, that's definitely a stylistic difference. I prefer not to use it because I don't think proficiency = trained, but I agree it's appropriate if the DM thinks it's appropriate for a given check.)

Zorku

2016-12-05, 01:58 PM

This would IMO typically the same people who try to run their entire games using an autistically literal "Rules As Written", and treat the rules of D&D the same way they treat the rules of MTG. Possibly also the occasional Newbie DM.I think the problematic group is much broader than this, but the answer is at least spiritually on the right track.

In an effort of fairness, assuming the rules are designed in such a way as to provide such fairness. And of course, it would depend how such difficulty benchmarks are presented.That's not quite "getting it."

Nope, I do not follow your reference. Seems to be referring to the pitfalls of autoscaling enemies in games like Skyrim though.
Nah, nothing to do with Skyrim, and maybe even older than Oblivion.

At risk of explaining in too much detail...
In older editions the level 4 PCs want to get into a fort to deal with some bandits. The strong one wants to just lift the gate so they can go in through the easy entrance, and the DM decides that that's reasonable, if a bit difficult. It's mostly made from wood anyway. Ok, now they're level 10 and they want to get into the fort with the corrupt duke. There's another gate and they want to lift it. This is reasonable, but it's a better fort now, approximately 6 levels worth better. So ok, they can lift it on a slightly high roll, since this gate is made of heavy iron. Same thing at a higher level but it's a demon's fort with with a blood iron gate, then adamantium, and just whatever order of materials you think are heavier and harder to force your way through.

This is "fair," but it's not interesting, and it's really tedious to look up what material you need to use to give a 20% chance of the strong guy being able to lift it. Game design folks recognized that this whole ordeal slowed things down quite a bit, and that being able to do the same thing despite tougher fantasy materials standing in your way didn't actually feel that rewarding to the players anyway. It was a grind just to be able to do the same thing you could do at earlier levels, except this one is arbitrarily more difficult. Worse, because these locations have to be custom tailored to the party, if they decide to stick around somewhere with low level materials for a little too long, you have to force them to go to higher level areas or convert the low level area into a higher level one, and that starts to strain the verisimilitude of your world pretty quick.

So this whole "oak is this hard" simulation idea has been thrown out. If it's a heavy gate that takes multiple people tugging on rope to open or close then you're probably just not going to Ashikaga your way past it, unless the DM is telling that kind of story. This is all done by DM fiat because we've had plenty of time to look at ways of not doing it by DM fiat, but those ways don't really prevent such except by making the DM reference a chart and maybe your character sheet in order to make things as difficult as they want them to be.

Explain that there should be a wide variety of difficulties faced by the party, and that designing your dungeons such that every task has the same difficult DC will make the game monotonous. Point out that, if you're expecting your party to be able to surpass a skill DC through actual skill rolls, you should however keep in mind the maximum difficulty for the level of 20+4+Proficiency, as going beyond that will mean your party can't succeed on the check, and will have to find another alternative to accomplishing the task. On the other hand, as PCs level up, they're supposed to become more competent, and the gameplay should reflect that. While kicking down a door might be difficult for the level 1 barbarian, the level 11 barbarian should (typically) not even have to roll for such a task, as by that point, your party has grown beyond their initial limits, and to keep the game interesting, the challenges you provide need to scale not only in numbers, but by the changing of type. To do otherwise will make the game monotonous, and is poor DMing.

Or something comparable. It's not impossible (or even that difficult) a thing to explain.Seems like you get some of the reasons that we don't want an official chart, but not some of their implications.

"These DCs are benchmarks, to keep your skill DCs calibrated fairly. They also represent the most typical, average scenario. So while a wooden door with Iron hinges and supports might have a DC of X to break down, one that is designed to be difficult to kick down, perhaps through sturdier hinges and supports, might have a DC of X+2, and one with a wooden bolt to keep the door shut might have a DC of X+5, and one with an iron bolt X+6 (or whatever the reasonable calibrated numbers are). One with rusted old neglected hinges or one that's got weaker wood because it's not been waterproofed and has been in a damp climate for years might have a DC of X-2 for one of them, or X-5 for both. While the average "Wooden Door With Iron Hinges and Supports" would have a DC of X, When assigning a task, if the task matches an example, you know your starting point for calibrating the DC. Seems like a waste of time to reference that, and the features you described that matter the most aren't visible to the party anyway, so if they fail the check they're just going to see a wooden door that was harder to kick down than the last one. If they do kick it down they probably aren't going to care that they kicked through an iron bar as well, and there's a good chance that the room contains something much more attention grabbing anyway.

If you put all of that there but never describe it to the party, wasn't this whole exercise a bit mastubatory?

Then ask the simple question: "Is this a typical case, or is it unusual in some way that would make it easier or harder?
Quick peek behind the curtain here: for my world building there is no typical case. There's just things that I've thought about and things I haven't put much thought into. If my party ever ran into a typical door in the system you're proposing that would be because I wasn't interested enough to put any thought into the entire building they're in.

Would that unusualness make the task easier or harder? Should this case at it's reasonable expected DC lie outside the abilities of my players, and do I want to alter it to be easier for them to be able to accomplish this through the rolling of skills for expediency, or do I want to leave it as-is so they're forced to come up with a different solution to the problem?" For tasks which don't directly match up to an example (which will happen quite frequently, so don't be concerned when it comes up), look at typical examples, and ask yourself: should what they're attempting be easier than this example? Harder? The same difficulty? And go through the list making such a comparison until you find a DC that seems fair in the list for the situation at hand. For consistent GMing, you might want to keep a log of the tasks you have assigned difficulties, any mitigating factors they had, and what you settled on as your DC, and in the future, also consider your own DCs when making that easy/hard comparison. It will typically be easier to make such a comparison if you go through the list of things that can be done using the same skill, as opposed to a different skill, but in some edge cases may be hard to decide using the list from your skill, in which case, consider other DC lists to help you set the DC.You get that the world isn't one size fits all, right? Are you going to keep track of how far apart the hinges for the door are, how thick the reinforcing bar is, how skilled the carpenter that made the door was, how rich the iron mine was, and how many knots are visible in the wood grain?

Seems like I could waste a lot less time by just deciding that it's a DC 15 check to bust the door and backfilling details after the fact.

Then, in the DC table for each skill, you wouldn't attempt to cover every task (an impossible endeavor) but instead, every, or every 2nd DC within the attainable range of PCs, taking into consideration what level of character can accomplish the task, at what frequency, and the general guidelines in the PHB. Go well beyond the maximum in the PHB. Everything beyond that maximum maybe impossible for most most characters even at level 20, but a character with magical assistance or supernatural degrees of skill would have a chance at achieving them, and this allows you to have a benchmark of what can be achieved by characters with such supernatural degrees of skill.

You could also include a scaling minimum DC in comparison to your bonus on the roll that you can auto-succeed on except in a list of difficult situations, and a carefully considered fixed maximum DC beyond which you need to be trained in the skill (or have magical assistance) in order to attempt the task.

You might also want to specify that the DCs assume you're attempting a task in 1 action, and that any task which would be easier if you're not being rushed would have a lower DC. Some of the things you are suggesting are already things the books say without need for a chart, and others look like a horrendous waste of space that bogs down play. Are you just suggesting these as things that you think are good, or as things that you think should be mandatory for every single DM?

That address your concerns?

I see no reason such a table/series of tables could not be provided, with a simple attached explanation of how it is meant to be used.
The way you presented it just for forcing your way through a wooden door already looks like it would take up two pages, and actively works against several of the design goals that went into 5e.

I'm suggesting a 25x18 table, on-hand, which both the GMs and PCs would have easy access to.
With hundreds of examples for what kinds of things would increase or lower the difficult by 2-6 points.

And you could make an abridged 10x18 or 13x18 version of the table for quicker reference.
I'll do you one better and abridge the skills right out of it. Very Easy: 5, Easy: 10, Medium:15, Hard: 20, Very Hard: 25, Nearly Impossible: 30

How about actually writing up an example of that table though?

It's an easy enough thing for a DM to not use if he doesn't want to,In another thread I was listening to someone recount a player arguing that by the table they should have had a much lower DC on a check. This sort of thing is presumed official if it's put in the book, and it would be weird to devote two pages and a hideous table to some optional rule, given the format of the PHB as it stands.

Not really.

The goal is the same at any level, the actions you take are the same, and the outcomes of a majority of those actions are the same.

At first level someone may be casting bless to boost their allies, while at 5th level someone may be casting haste. Same thing.

Having more attacks doesn't change the fact that the martial is moving and hitting.

snip

Can you give me some examples of editions or other games that do change at higher levels?

I ran a game like this at first and you start to hit roadblocks fairly early on. Investigation is a big one - allowing five people to make investigation checks is basically a guaranteed success even if they all suck at it. Same with insight. This nearly completely derailed my court intrigue plot when they were able to get consistent above 20's on investigation and nearly discovered my BBEG straight out.

I made a suggestion early in this thread that bears repeating:

The help action allows you to grant somebody advantage on an ability check. This, and other buffs to rolls, as well as some understanding of probability, make a solid case for not having everybody throw their dice for a check that should have even a moderate chance of failure. One person in the group takes the lead on the action, and if they can't pull it off then that's a failure for the whole party.

You need to use this same logic in the party's favor sometimes too. If some charlatan wanted to fool a crowd but every individual in the crowd was rolling a d20 then the charlatan would always fail. Yet from real life we know that some simple parlor tricks can handily fool hundreds of people all at once, so if you think that kind of thing should be possible in your world, you don't roll a whole bag of dice to determine the outcome.

If you still want to do crowd rolls, you should consider averaging out the results. If you still like the idea of crits come up with some system where a nat 20 lets you count it twice and kick out the worst die in the pool, or something, but for the love of god, stop being surprised that your 5 person party has a 67% chance of rolling a 16 or better (with a third of those times resulting in a crit,) if each person lobs their own dice on every check.

I'm not sure there's much contention around what should happen if you start to add a succession of jangly guys to a stealth attempt, or group checks in general. What I'm saying about group checks is that there's no logic in the game saying that success should be auto-ascribed to whoever in the party has proficiency or the best stereotypical character concept fit. Here as for individual checks there's a case to be made that no one should be robbed of their however slim potential to do well and be credited with doing well.
Except that with bounded accuracy it's not a slim chance so much as a broad one.

I would posit that there's no good way to assign even a soft majority of the spotlight, for a particular skill or character development decision, to the specialist in a group, when lots of people are rolling dice that are about twice as big as the modifiers usually get. Ideally everyone gets to showcase their abilities, and when they fail sometimes the short rural bumpkin that's along for the ride had some little trick that came in handy, but this particular configuration of dice does not fall very close to that target.

Finieous

2016-12-05, 01:58 PM

Different DMs will have different answers.

That's the problem.

In Adventurers League or something? I guess I can see that, when you have a new DM every week. On the other hand, based on my limited exposure to AL, that would be so far down the list of issues affecting my experience that it probably wouldn't make it on the page.

Knaight

2016-12-05, 02:55 PM

You get that the world isn't one size fits all, right? Are you going to keep track of how far apart the hinges for the door are, how thick the reinforcing bar is, how skilled the carpenter that made the door was, how rich the iron mine was, and how many knots are visible in the wood grain?

Seems like I could waste a lot less time by just deciding that it's a DC 15 check to bust the door and backfilling details after the fact.

Absent that, you could also just decide that it's probably hard to break down this particular door because of the general security of the building, then check the one difficulty table and call it a day - and unlike the 26*18 table, this one can probably be memorized in a reasonable time frame.

Coffee_Dragon

2016-12-06, 01:20 AM

Also makes me think that sometimes it makes sense to have a proficient skill check to be an easier check than a straight ability check.

There should be variant skill systems posted around here based on adding double proficiency bonus for proficiency, which seems like a reasonably simple and transparent way to achieve that goal.

In this case knowing that about the spells might be a fairly easy check since perhaps this is common knowledge but if you don't know anything about arcana then you are only relying on possibly randomly hearing this somewhere and remembering it. That is not an easy check.

Just remember that in the system as designed Arcana proficiency is not a prerequisite for "knowing anything about arcana". Your Arcana bonus reflects your general chance of knowing something arcana-related; equal bonuses mean effectively equal knowledge regardless of what contributed to those levels. Nothing says proficiency equals "training" or access to hermetic knowledge any more than any other source.

What a character can do is often a fairly significant part of who they are. A Sherlock Holmes who can't investigate isn't Sherlock Holmes; a Conan who can't kick butt isn't a Conan.

It's funny you should mention Sherlock Holmes, as I almost brought him up as an example of a sometimes-quoted package of extreme characteristics and capabilities that simply isn't within the scope of the game as people would want it to work, let alone at early levels, and while anyone could want any game they play to accommodate and simulate a super-smart, super-observant, super-informed character that the other characters with their own specialities simply can never keep up with, it shouldn't be terribly controversial that a sword and sorcery-oriented fantasy RPG ultimately doesn't. A budding Sherlock Holmes in 5E terms can improve their related bonuses and be the main investigator of the party, they just can't expect to "take off" and leave everyone else floundering in the dust like they could in other games with other premises for abstraction and simulation.

Now would be a great time for the next season of Sherlock, by the way.

If what the character should be good at is a skill though, that's much harder to come by. This is a deliberate design decision, and it has big implications.

I agree very much in general about the plight of skill users when compared to melee and magic experts, but I think this is because of common (and debatable) play styles almost as much as mechanical aspects. A few months back there was one of these "a character unlocks all my doors and finds all my traps, what do" threads, which partly turned into a "let's neuter the skill user and give all his spotlight to spellcasters" workshop. I very nearly posted a rant there about how combat- and spell-oriented characters have all these highly formalized options that are never questioned or invalidated, but skill monkeys are subjected to layers of DM fiat and players are expected to navigate hoops and gotchas to justify and exercise the nominal capabilities of their characters.

I think there's a tangent between that and the current topic: instead of beating down the true expert character who's inconveniencing the DM, we're now beating down the unwashed villagers who threaten to outshine the budding pseudo-expert through luck-o'-the-dice alone. Hence the suggestions for (or people declaring they already use) bonus thresholds to roll, "trained" use only, different DCs for different characters, the DM allowing or disallowing rolls based on personal view of character concept, or narratively reassigning successes to the "right" characters. And house rules to fix problems with actual play are fine, but I can't convince myself all of these DMs haven't partially manufactured the problem in the first place by substituting their own views of what skills and proficiency signify in 5E, or that they've fully considered the consequences for those who are made to not shine through these added filters - for instance, how it encourages frustrated stat dumping because now that 10 or 12 in a tertiary or quaternary stat has been robbed even of its marginal mechanical impact. (That's of course if the DM even tells the players what filters are being applied.) For instance, I'm fairly certain there are many DMs, including people posting on this board, who have never reflected on their assumption that proficient means trained, and who strongly feel that +2 proficient counts for more than +3 non-proficient, because the proficient guy knows stuff, dammit.

One might perhaps think that based on my desire to champion skill monkeys I would be in favour of formalized DCs and access barriers for skills, but I think there are good arguments against as well as for the former (such as the gist of what Zorku wrote above), and I accept that the latter simply isn't part of the 5E design.

But for everyone else, skill checks are supposed to be more about the risk of failure than the validation of success.

This all makes sense to me. Does anyone know whether the DCs and skill challenges in official adventures reflect such a philosophy or lack of it among in-house and out-house designers?

Tehnar

2016-12-06, 03:22 AM

Taejang

2016-12-06, 04:32 AM

Since skills issues in 5e have been done to death in other threads, I won't be commenting on them now. I do have some other issues with high(ish) level DnD.

Combat is more boring for martials. While things have never been great, now its even more linear. With more and more huge monsters a lot of non attack options martials had are no longer valid.
Casters rule. There are enough spellslots to cast control spells every single encounter, and while monster saves increase slowly compared to caster DC's and save affecting abilities. A single hypnotic pattern is usually more then enough to lock down a entire encounter, the rest is just cleanup.
Combat is too videogamey. Getting knocked down to 0 hp does not matter with the amount of heals in general and ranged heals makes being dropped to 0 hp trivial, and characters keep bouncing to and from 0 hp during the encounter multiple times.
Advantage/disadvantage stacking (or lack of therof). At lower levels there were few sources of A/D to be found, so stacking issues were rare. Now, in my experience, every other encounter has multiple sources of A/D, and frankly its getting silly. Archers deciding to go prone to grant D to other ranged attackers because the dragon they are attacking has faerie fire on, and they are already poisoned and restrained really breaks immersion for me.

Either you're not talking about 5e, or your experience is very different from mine. You should have your DM come up with better encounters. It sounds like your enemies are always few in number and quite stupid. Now I don't want to put down you or your DM, but your experience and mine couldn't be farther apart.

Martials should have multiple attack options. From fighter maneuvers to magic items to paladin spells, martial characters should have plenty of options. Sure, you can be boring and just slash with your sword, or you can try to hamstring an opponent, leap off a rock and land behind the enemy warrior, tackle him to the ground so your buddy can dispatch him, or do any number of useful things, none of which are even 5e dependent. If using the Attack action is always the best option available, then your DM should either give the character more options (describe the environment more, reward them with a wand of Polymorph only the fighter can use, etc), or reduce the viability of attack (monster immunities, flying/hovering, etc).
One encounter a day is boring. Many spellcasters recover little or nothing on a short rest, and short rests shouldn't be taken after every fight. If they are, the DM isn't pushing you hard enough. If you only fight once a day, your DM needs to break out a dungeon crawl. Those spell slots will dry up if used recklessly.
Your opponents must be idiots. Smart opponents zero in on healers. Smart opponents use Disintegrate and Power Word: Kill. Smart opponents ignore your HP and charm your big burly fighter to fight against you. Or use Maze. Or Banish. Or any number of other powerful spells and abilities. Smart enemies don't behave like video game mooks in ARPGs. Your DM should employ smart enemies, or at least enemies directed by smart leaders.
Your opponents must be idiots. After all, they can stack advantage, too. As a DM, when my players get too gamey on me, I don't hesitate to employ the same tactics against them. Skeletons lying prone, shooting arrows while skeletons above them hold a shield wall for protection as a trio of necromancers calmly counterspells all PC fireballs and uses Feeblemind, Forcecage, Hold Person, Grease, Hellish Rebuke, etc. Let's see the PC wizard concentrate on Faerie Fire while standing in a Wall of Fire.

A final thought: your DM should include more enemies. A "level appropriate" encounter with only one or two foes is worthless at higher levels. Players can burst down a single opponent so fast it's crazy. Even a single monster much higher CR than the party becomes killable in one or two rounds (provided the PCs actually are high level themselves). A dozen or more opponents helps absorb PC burst damage and opens up much more interesting tactics for the enemy. Like shield walls, phalanxes, arrow bombardments, fighting retreats, scouts which observe the party in action and report on the PCs, etc.

Knaight

2016-12-06, 04:54 AM

It's funny you should mention Sherlock Holmes, as I almost brought him up as an example of a sometimes-quoted package of extreme characteristics and capabilities that simply isn't within the scope of the game as people would want it to work, let alone at early levels, and while anyone could want any game they play to accommodate and simulate a super-smart, super-observant, super-informed character that the other characters with their own specialities simply can never keep up with, it shouldn't be terribly controversial that a sword and sorcery-oriented fantasy RPG ultimately doesn't. A budding Sherlock Holmes in 5E terms can improve their related bonuses and be the main investigator of the party, they just can't expect to "take off" and leave everyone else floundering in the dust like they could in other games with other premises for abstraction and simulation.

I don't disagree. However, Sherlock Holmes was picked because he's a character that is reasonably well known and clearly heavily dependant on a particular skill being highly developed. He's an obvious example case for the broader trend of what characters can do being part of who they are. 5e's choice to provide fairly miniscule skill bonuses changes what characters are available. It opens up jacks of all trade in a big way, if only because a total novice is reasonably competitive with an expert and thus every character comes across as a competent adventurer. However the way it did this also excludes characters who are really good at a skill, outside of a pretty tiny niche.

Either you're not talking about 5e, or your experience is very different from mine. You should have your DM come up with better encounters. It sounds like your enemies are always few in number and quite stupid. Now I don't want to put down you or your DM, but your experience and mine couldn't be farther apart.
Ah, the old "you're failing the system, the system isn't failing you" deflection.

Martials should have multiple attack options. From fighter maneuvers to magic items to paladin spells, martial characters should have plenty of options. Sure, you can be boring and just slash with your sword, or you can try to hamstring an opponent, leap off a rock and land behind the enemy warrior, tackle him to the ground so your buddy can dispatch him, or do any number of useful things, none of which are even 5e dependent. If using the Attack action is always the best option available, then your DM should either give the character more options (describe the environment more, reward them with a wand of Polymorph only the fighter can use, etc), or reduce the viability of attack (monster immunities, flying/hovering, etc).
One encounter a day is boring. Many spellcasters recover little or nothing on a short rest, and short rests shouldn't be taken after every fight. If they are, the DM isn't pushing you hard enough. If you only fight once a day, your DM needs to break out a dungeon crawl. Those spell slots will dry up if used recklessly.
Your opponents must be idiots. Smart opponents zero in on healers. Smart opponents use Disintegrate and Power Word: Kill. Smart opponents ignore your HP and charm your big burly fighter to fight against you. Or use Maze. Or Banish. Or any number of other powerful spells and abilities. Smart enemies don't behave like video game mooks in ARPGs. Your DM should employ smart enemies, or at least enemies directed by smart leaders.
Your opponents must be idiots. After all, they can stack advantage, too. As a DM, when my players get too gamey on me, I don't hesitate to employ the same tactics against them. Skeletons lying prone, shooting arrows while skeletons above them hold a shield wall for protection as a trio of necromancers calmly counterspells all PC fireballs and uses Feeblemind, Forcecage, Hold Person, Grease, Hellish Rebuke, etc. Let's see the PC wizard concentrate on Faerie Fire while standing in a Wall of Fire.

A final thought: your DM should include more enemies. A "level appropriate" encounter with only one or two foes is worthless at higher levels. Players can burst down a single opponent so fast it's crazy. Even a single monster much higher CR than the party becomes killable in one or two rounds (provided the PCs actually are high level themselves). A dozen or more opponents helps absorb PC burst damage and opens up much more interesting tactics for the enemy. Like shield walls, phalanxes, arrow bombardments, fighting retreats, scouts which observe the party in action and report on the PCs, etc.
Just about any system can make a complex encounter with a variety of enemies using a variety of tactics interesting. However, that's not necessarily all the game calls for. Sometimes in setting it makes sense for the PCs to run into things that are more mundane in places that are more mundane, and if the game is explicitly designed to be combat heavy (which it is), those should also be interesting. So points 3 and 4 are pretty irrelevant. As for the first point, the attack option represents using a highly effective killing tool in its intended manner. That it is frequently the most effective option is again something that makes sense from a setting perspective, and having to work around it is not a good thing. There goes point 1.

Point 2 is the one that really stands out here though. The way 5e is designed mandates a particular in setting fight rate, and this is downright irritating. It's also something that's been in D&D from day 1, so there's not really a good way around it while staying within the identity of the game.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-06, 06:25 AM

I think there's a tangent between that and the current topic: instead of beating down the true expert character who's inconveniencing the DM, we're now beating down the unwashed villagers who threaten to outshine the budding pseudo-expert through luck-o'-the-dice alone. Hence the suggestions for (or people declaring they already use) bonus thresholds to roll, "trained" use only, different DCs for different characters, the DM allowing or disallowing rolls based on personal view of character concept, or narratively reassigning successes to the "right" characters. And house rules to fix problems with actual play are fine, but I can't convince myself all of these DMs haven't partially manufactured the problem in the first place by substituting their own views of what skills and proficiency signify in 5E, or that they've fully considered the consequences for those who are made to not shine through these added filters - for instance, how it encourages frustrated stat dumping because now that 10 or 12 in a tertiary or quaternary stat has been robbed even of its marginal mechanical impact. (That's of course if the DM even tells the players what filters are being applied.) For instance, I'm fairly certain there are many DMs, including people posting on this board, who have never reflected on their assumption that proficient means trained, and who strongly feel that +2 proficient counts for more than +3 non-proficient, because the proficient guy knows stuff, dammit.

One might perhaps think that based on my desire to champion skill monkeys I would be in favour of formalized DCs and access barriers for skills, but I think there are good arguments against as well as for the former (such as the gist of what Zorku wrote above), and I accept that the latter simply isn't part of the 5E design.

This all makes sense to me. Does anyone know whether the DCs and skill challenges in official adventures reflect such a philosophy or lack of it among in-house and out-house designers?

I do assume that proficient means trained. To me, of course it means trained. I could have an IQ of 200 but if I've never cracked open a chemistry book in my life then I'm going to know less about chemistry than the average college student majoring in chemistry. But, if you're right that it only means "familiar with the subject" then that means it's even more vital - because then intelligence doesn't cover even the very basic knowledge of the topics in question. That means that someone without any skill in arcana doesn't even know the very basics of how wizards cast magic - so of course if the wizard can't work it out, he can't either. That'd be like having a chance of a random janitor knowing more about physics then a physics professor.

Secondly, lore skills like history and religion are already weak enough that they don't need to be made totally obsolete. By allowing people who take them access to specialist knowledge we replicate how a person's real life profession and beliefs impact how they see the world. A philosopher is going to see a situation in a totally different way to a scientist; a person with the religion skill if he succeeds his roll is going to know how a demon works based on religious significance whereas a arcana check is going to define it in terms of "a magical summoned creature, Type VI".
Allowing just anyone to roll crushes the individuality of characters, and also the world. A realistic world has many different perspectives and paradigms on how it operates.

Thirdly, if you want your barbarian to have a intellectual skill, pick up an intellectual background. It's not that hard; that's what they're there for. If you want him to be someone who starts off like Conan the barbarian but who gradually gains specialist knowledge, you can ask if you can take a skill through training in the same way that you learn with tools. But DnD is a team exercise; you're not going to be able to contribute to every single situation. If a person isn't willing to put a minimum of character investment into why Groggo the Headsmasher knows complex magic runes, then Groggo's going to have to let the wizard - who has probably spent his entire life learning such - have a go.

Finally, you're right that taking high intelligence without the accompanying skill basically confers no advantage beyond certain feats and spell save DC. Well, I honestly don't care, really. A game doesn't have to provide for character builds that are inherently bad. If I have a wizard, and put 8 in intelligence and 14 in strength and complain that everyone I fight is passing their spell saves - that's my fault, not the game's. So if I build a barbarian with high intelligence but don't take any skills, that's a bad build.

Taejang

2016-12-06, 07:51 AM

Ah, the old "you're failing the system, the system isn't failing you" deflection.
I'm not trying to deflect, his experience is genuinely very different than mine. Perhaps his group does things differently and in other games those differences work out just fine, but playing different games the same way is bound to net different results. That doesn't mean 5e is better, only that (as with anything in life), maximizing its utility requires customizing your approach.

Just about any system can make a complex encounter with a variety of enemies using a variety of tactics interesting. However, that's not necessarily all the game calls for. Sometimes in setting it makes sense for the PCs to run into things that are more mundane in places that are more mundane, and if the game is explicitly designed to be combat heavy (which it is), those should also be interesting. So points 3 and 4 are pretty irrelevant.
I fail to see how mundane equals stupidity. Be they Guards, Veterans, or a highly-trained order of monks and wizards, any band of mercs can use intelligent tactics. Or bandits. Or whatever. Beasts, not so much, and there are plenty of enemies that wouldn't use tactics, this is true. Not all situations will call for General Lee on the field, but failure to ever employ tactics against a party that does will naturally result in boredom. Consider any game where the AI is stupid and the player can run rings around them; are they fun? Nope.

Furthermore, we are talking about high-level games. Mundane isn't what high-level characters in DnD 5e get involved with. If you have your level 18 PCs out hunting generic bandits, you are most certainly "failing the system" as you put it. That isn't to say your high level characters should never get involved in mundane fights, but when it happens it'll probably be pretty simplistic.

As for the first point, the attack option represents using a highly effective killing tool in its intended manner. That it is frequently the most effective option is again something that makes sense from a setting perspective, and having to work around it is not a good thing. There goes point 1.
Perhaps this is so. I prefer a little more variety, but I will concede this point as a difference of preference and not a valid argument on my side.

Point 2 is the one that really stands out here though. The way 5e is designed mandates a particular in setting fight rate, and this is downright irritating. It's also something that's been in D&D from day 1, so there's not really a good way around it while staying within the identity of the game.
It is Dungeons and Dragons. If you don't ever fight in dungeons or similar locales, it should feel off. D&D was never designed to be everything for everyone. No game is. If your DM doesn't have you fighting in dungeons, he can build encounters differently to let the martials shine anyway, but it will take adjustments.

Tanarii

2016-12-06, 08:13 AM

Point 2 is the one that really stands out here though. The way 5e is designed mandates a particular in setting fight rate, and this is downright irritating. It's also something that's been in D&D from day 1, so there's not really a good way around it while staying within the identity of the game.
Yep. It's optimized for hostile wilderness and dungeon and other adventure site exploration. OTOH this edition is optimized for as little as 3 dangerous encounters per in-game day without any variant rules, and as little as 3 dangerous encounters per in-game week with variant rules. As well as non-combat encounters that potentially require resources counting as encounters, or course.

(of course, you can easily house-rule rests to be a metagame construct that just regenerate after X combats, regardless of in-game days. But I assume we're really concerned with non-house-rule things here.)

Tehnar

2016-12-06, 11:28 AM

Either you're not talking about 5e, or your experience is very different from mine. You should have your DM come up with better encounters. It sounds like your enemies are always few in number and quite stupid. Now I don't want to put down you or your DM, but your experience and mine couldn't be farther apart.

Martials should have multiple attack options. From fighter maneuvers to magic items to paladin spells, martial characters should have plenty of options. Sure, you can be boring and just slash with your sword, or you can try to hamstring an opponent, leap off a rock and land behind the enemy warrior, tackle him to the ground so your buddy can dispatch him, or do any number of useful things, none of which are even 5e dependent. If using the Attack action is always the best option available, then your DM should either give the character more options (describe the environment more, reward them with a wand of Polymorph only the fighter can use, etc), or reduce the viability of attack (monster immunities, flying/hovering, etc).
One encounter a day is boring. Many spellcasters recover little or nothing on a short rest, and short rests shouldn't be taken after every fight. If they are, the DM isn't pushing you hard enough. If you only fight once a day, your DM needs to break out a dungeon crawl. Those spell slots will dry up if used recklessly.
Your opponents must be idiots. Smart opponents zero in on healers. Smart opponents use Disintegrate and Power Word: Kill. Smart opponents ignore your HP and charm your big burly fighter to fight against you. Or use Maze. Or Banish. Or any number of other powerful spells and abilities. Smart enemies don't behave like video game mooks in ARPGs. Your DM should employ smart enemies, or at least enemies directed by smart leaders.
Your opponents must be idiots. After all, they can stack advantage, too. As a DM, when my players get too gamey on me, I don't hesitate to employ the same tactics against them. Skeletons lying prone, shooting arrows while skeletons above them hold a shield wall for protection as a trio of necromancers calmly counterspells all PC fireballs and uses Feeblemind, Forcecage, Hold Person, Grease, Hellish Rebuke, etc. Let's see the PC wizard concentrate on Faerie Fire while standing in a Wall of Fire.

A final thought: your DM should include more enemies. A "level appropriate" encounter with only one or two foes is worthless at higher levels. Players can burst down a single opponent so fast it's crazy. Even a single monster much higher CR than the party becomes killable in one or two rounds (provided the PCs actually are high level themselves). A dozen or more opponents helps absorb PC burst damage and opens up much more interesting tactics for the enemy. Like shield walls, phalanxes, arrow bombardments, fighting retreats, scouts which observe the party in action and report on the PCs, etc.

My point was that martials get less real options at higher levels then they have at the lower ones, simple because more enemies will be huge or bigger, and thus the shove action does not work against such foes. There is other mandated increase in options, at least not what 5e provides. Houseruling works, but that speaks against the system if I have to houserule to make it work.
I was talking about multiple encounters per day, and said so right in the post you quoted. At mid high levels (9-13) you have more then enough spell slots to cast a control spell in every encounter. In fact the more encounters you have, by definition each encounter has to be composed of lower challenge level foes which are even more susceptible to failing their saves. I had encounters end with one casting of Hypnotic pattern, 80% failing their saves and the rest being easily dispatched by the rest of the party.
Most monsters don't have such abilities that leave no corpse, nor do they have time or resources to focus on AC 20+, spirit guardians up, taking the dodge action cleric. Nor is he the only healer in the party. When you look at the monster manual most of the monsters are just big dumb brutes that have no interesting abilities apart from hits you really hard. Even if you can go around it by intentionally targeting the healer, but that is like saying you have a problem with fireballs and then giving everyone fire resistance or immunity.
It doesn't matter who abuses A/D stacking, the fact is it exists and breaks versimilitude for me.

Pex

2016-12-06, 01:28 PM

Sneak Dog

2016-12-06, 01:59 PM

I'm thinking the designers misunderstood complaints. In 3E people complained fighters couldn't do anything outside of combat with skills. They get too few points, too few class skills, and too hard to improve anything. Pathfinder helped by combining skills, getting rid of cross-class expenses, and made it easier to make a skill a class skill via traits, but people still complained fighter gets too few skill points and ignore the improvements.

The 5E designers decided the solution was to allow anyone to do any skill no matter what. Proficiency just means you have a higher chance of success but anyone can succeed through luck and not so high DCs. That wasn't the complaint. Fighters didn't have to be able to do everything, just be able to do some things. Give them more skill points in Pathfinder and people would be happy. Players were always ok with only those who invested in a particular skill be able to accomplish things using that skill. They just wanted fighter to have more investment opportunities. 5E's solution is no one needs to invest in anything; it just helps if you do.

Wholeheartedly disagree. I think the designers decided to just iterate on 3.5, without fixing this issue at all. That's what 4e did. (4e has its own issues. Just not this one.)

My problem with fighters is, shortly put, as follows. In D&D 5e you have about three generic options to solve your non-combat problems: Your gear, your skills and your attributes. You might also get a class ability that helps. A caster has all these, and spells.

1. Options
If you're a wizard/warlock/bard/paladin/sorcerer/whatever caster, you have equal access to all those options. On top of that you might just have the perfect spell solving the entire problem in one go.

2. Reliability
Consider that skills are bounded.

If I'm proficient in a skill, that's about a +3. So when the time comes to wrestle a friend to the ground in a friendly sparring match, I have a +3 over him for being a wrestler. Maybe +6 for being stronger. I've a 73.75% chance of failing to out-wrestle my non-proficient average-strength friend.
You might reasonably say I just win, no roll. I will then get very confused when my friend turns out to be evil the following day and when we wrestle for control and I have a 73.75% chance of not rolling higher. That's inconsistent.

By casting a spell, you can dictate the spell to the DM and that happens.

3. Predictability
All skills are governed by your DM. He will tell you what you can and cannot do. He will tell you how awesome you are.
Once again, by dictating your spell you can tell the DM what happens. You've a reliable baseline of awesomeness. On top of that you, naturally, still get to be awesome with skills.

Conclusion
The whole system just feels unbalanced. If you are not a caster, you are worse at non-combat situations. I do not find it acceptable that there's just the effect of being bad at about one-half of the game because I want to play a fighter relying on his skill, rather than magic.

Tanarii

2016-12-06, 02:32 PM

That wasn't the complaint. Fighters didn't have to be able to do everything, just be able to do some things. Give them more skill points in Pathfinder and people would be happy. Players were always ok with only those who invested in a particular skill be able to accomplish things using that skill.I wouldn't. Most of my players wouldn't. We're VERY happy to have a universal "most people can do most things" system back in place. It's like having AD&D back again. Except with a bit better formalized system for resolution than NWPs were. It's a huge improvement over what 3e became, although I loved that system when DMs ran it correctly as opposed to poorly.

3e "trained only", the habit of scaling difficulty with level (requiring maximizing your skill points), and DMs requiring checks to wipe your ass without falling over, all led to many people making the same mistake people used to make with AD&D thief skills, and people want to re-introduce with proficiency only checks. They're thinking you can't do anything without a skill check, and that only people with 'training' should be able to make those checks. But in 5e, it's like AD&D done right: just as anyone used to be able to hide or more quietly, only thieves could do it with almost supernatural skill. Except now everyone gets to pick a few things they're a bit more focused at, and get a bonus to them. It's not just pure ability scores.

Vortling

2016-12-06, 03:28 PM

Based off where the thread has gone with the explanation of the skill system in 5e, I believe I'm best off avoiding skills entirely and writing that part of 5e off as a total loss. Which means I'll be looking more at the spellcasting systems for engagement. This helps as I can narrow my focus on seeing what may work for me as far as spellcasting characters go.

Long explanation in spoiler for anyone who wants to read it.

For me it's about mechanical investment and character focus. To me D&D is, among other things, about playing specialist characters. If another player builds their character, drops a 10 in a particular stat, and invests no skill points/training/proficiency in related skills to me that's a choice they've made to not specialize in that area. If I drop a 16 in a particular stat, invest skill points/training/proficiency in related skills to me that's a choice to specialize. If that first character gets to succeed despite a continual lack of mechanical investment in that specialization as they level up, I feel straight up robbed because they're getting the effects of mechanical investment without making the mechanical investment. They're getting spotlight time as a complete freebie when I paid for it with mechanical investment

I much prefer how 3.5 and 4e ran their skills. Specifically, I liked how around 5th level a trained and talented character succeeds around 50% of the time on checks that the untrained and untalented individual simply can't accomplish at all. And the disparity only goes up from there. To some people that's a horrible bug, but to me that's awesome. I know some others in the thread have asked "where's the fun in rolling if your bonus is so high you don't have to roll?" but for me that's when my character starts feeling like an expert. When they're good enough that random chance doesn't factor into their success at all. They're just that badass that they've removed the failure chance entirely.

I feel that the players have choices to make and those choices should reflect in the game. If someone dumps a skill and the related stat, I feel it's completely fine if their character becomes increasingly irrelevant to those skill checks. To me keeping those characters relevant is like the high level wizard who has zero mechanical investment in archery related pursuits being just as good at shooting a bow as the high level ranger who spent all their character options on archery.

Hopefully that clarifies.

90sMusic

2016-12-06, 04:16 PM

It sounds like your issue with 5e is mostly issues with your DM and/or bad rolls?

Failing to knock someone prone with your shield sounds like rolls working against you, but as a long-time pathfinder player I love 5e's way it handles things like grappling and knocking people prone and the like as it is a simple (and beatable!) roll you can make. In pathfinder, just calculating the modifiers for and against took a while and the defensive aspect scaled out of control at higher levels. It's nice to be able to actually succeed in grappling people, knocking them down, or whatever else you want to do instead of it even attempting such a thing being utterly foolish (in pathfinder) unless you are very specialized in it and if you ARE very specialized in it you are going to suck at higher levels anyway.

When it comes to having rest-based abilities... This... isn't new. Barbarian rage also had limits in older editions. In pathfinder I believe it was something like 4 + your con modifier per day. There were always limitations and those limitations need to be there because managing your available resources is part of the challenge and strategic element of the game. Barbarian rage in 5e is also a very strong ability, giving you resistance to physical damage (or nearly all damage if you're bear totem) which is HUGE. Having limitations is a good thing, because without them every fight ends up being the same with no variation or difference. You just rage at the start, attack every round, etc. But having those limitations forces you to ask yourself if you SHOULD rage. Is it worth it to rage to kill these 4 lizardmen quickly or is there a few ogres around the corner that it would be more beneficial to use against?

Combat in 5e is fast, which is good, and yes at higher levels you get more options which helps a lot. If you only ever played up to 4th level, i'd have quit the game too honestly. I can't speak for everyone, I know some people love being level 5 heroes, but to me I like climbing up the levels and getting stronger and stronger all the time. I love having a big diverse spell list to use or big bonuses on my skills. Low level gameplay is horrific to me, I can't stand it. As far as it being boring... I mean, in other editions it's basically the same. If you're a weapon-user, of course you're going to use your weapons every round. If you're a caster, you're gonna be flinging spells. It's up to the DM to make the encounter more exciting. Fighting on a narrow bridge over lava (or a deep, swift river) can add some tactical options and fun stuff to do. Having pillars or walls to hide behind, stairs and ladders you have to use to reach your enemies or vice versa, traps, and so on can all add to the fun.

As far as the skill/rolling problem, that is again a DM issue. If the fighter is proficient in arcana, he should be able to roll and if he rolls higher, more power to him. But if he is not proficient in arcana, why would he even be allowed to roll on an arcana check? The only way i'd allow something like a fighter to make an arcana roll (unless he was an eldritch knight) was if it was very, very common knowledge type stuff he might've heard. If it was something deeper or more complicated, only people proficient in it should be able to roll on such things. It's one thing to allow players to attempt to do something skill-related, like trying to sneak or lie to someone when they have had no training/experience. Their fate is up to the dice in those cases. But something knowledge related... Sometimes it's just straight up impossible for some fighter with no experience or background with magic to know some obscure fact, be able to identify some rare item, or what have you. Common sense has to be involved in such cases. You can attempt skills untrained, but you can't just "know" something that you couldn't possibly have known.

I love playing an arcane trickster rogue and playing as a half-elf. You get 8 skills in total, 4 of which you can get expertise in, and at level 11 any skill check roll below a 10 is automatically a 10 instead. So for stealth for instance, right at level 11, assuming 20 dex, you can't ever get below a 23 on a stealth roll. I usually pick (and expertise) social skills like persuasion and deception and operate as the party face. Though my charisma wouldn't be as good as say, a bard, even with 12 charisma thats a minimum 19 on either check at level 11.

I find this style of play to be really fun because as a rogue you can sneak around to spy on people or check things out, which is always fun, you can pick locks and steal things, which is also fun stuff to do, you can have really good social skills to be valuable in conversations and help your party get things that they want or get out of trouble, and then in combat you have stealth fun, sneak attack for damage, and a lot of maneuverability on the battlefield. You also get evasion which is great whether you pass or fail those dex saves, your uncanny dodge can help you drastically mitigate when you get hit, and as an arcane trickster you also have magic you can use to protect yourself and make yourself harder to hit. Shield, Blur, etc. You can get charm person which also helps those out of combat conversations, infiltration, and interrogation, etc.

I just find Arcane Trickster rogue lets you do all kinds of fun stuff and I never get tired of it. :)

ad_hoc

2016-12-06, 04:31 PM

Sneak Dog

2016-12-06, 04:50 PM

Looks like you are continuing to misunderstand the point of the system.

A high level elven wizard has the same proficiency bonus with a bow that a ranger does.

They can both fire at a target and have a good chance to hit. The ranger will hit a bit more often than the wizard.

Sounds like you also need to throw out attack rolls along with ability checks. Don't forget about saving throws as well. Everyone has a chance to succeed on saving throws. Get rid of those too.

The point is, in a high pressure situation where it is very important to succeed, the character with a high attribute, proficiency, and expertise will have a much better chance to succeed.

If the result doesn't matter the game shouldn't be wasting its time with it. This is something to hand wave away. 5e doesn't model the skills of blacksmiths or sages. It cares about playing the actual game.

Ah, good. High pressure situation, important to succeed. Level 12 barbarian wishes to break free of his manacles and save his friend! Surely the high-level barbarian is the perfect man for such a heroic act!
DC 20 strength check. He has a 30% chance of success. Good job barbarian. (His friend has 5%. He is a lot better at it than his str 10 friend...)
But wait, how about you spend a rage? 51%! You might also lose the rage afterwards rather swiflty, having spent your action.
Just do not mind the caster casting Knock, breaking free with a level 2 spell. (Only if he doesn't have the perfect tool for the job prepared does he have to rely on a strength check.)

There's a disconnect of mechanics between skills and spells. A couple, really.
Spells don't make you miss out on any non-combat things, state exactly what you can do and give you the option to shine when you want to.
Skills are random, affected by bounded accuracy and up to GM interpretation.

You can't rely on skills to define your character unless you are a rogue or bard. Your allies will be only mildly worse, because bounded accuracy. And when the result doesn't matter anyways, you still aren't rewarded for investing in the skill. Yet despite this, it's basically all the fighter/barbarian have as non-combat options. Even the rogue only has expertise until really high levels. That seems like bad design to me.

Longer version:

snip

Another good post I saw relevant to the argument:

snip

Tanarii

2016-12-06, 06:48 PM

You can't rely on skills to define your character unless you are a rogue or bard. Your allies will be only mildly worse, because bounded accuracy. And when the result doesn't matter anyways, you still aren't rewarded for investing in the skill. Yet despite this, it's basically all the fighter/barbarian have as non-combat options. Even the rogue only has expertise until really high levels. That seems like bad design to me.Sounds like you'd be happier playing Runequest or Warhammer to me. Or maybe GURPS. You know, the games where they're basically entirely about skills, and doing anything takes an hour to look up the rules to figure out how they work and interact.

That's what makes me happiest about the 5e system. As a DM I have a almost universal method for resolution of actions, and it's simple, easy, and fun to use if done right. As a player any character I can build can, to one degree or another, do adventuring things. And it's easy to roleplay, ie make in character decisions, as long as the DM tells me the approximate difficulty of the task before I do it.

Pex

2016-12-06, 07:29 PM

I wouldn't. Most of my players wouldn't. We're VERY happy to have a universal "most people can do most things" system back in place. It's like having AD&D back again. Except with a bit better formalized system for resolution than NWPs were. It's a huge improvement over what 3e became, although I loved that system when DMs ran it correctly as opposed to poorly.

3e "trained only", the habit of scaling difficulty with level (requiring maximizing your skill points), and DMs requiring checks to wipe your ass without falling over, all led to many people making the same mistake people used to make with AD&D thief skills, and people want to re-introduce with proficiency only checks. They're thinking you can't do anything without a skill check, and that only people with 'training' should be able to make those checks. But in 5e, it's like AD&D done right: just as anyone used to be able to hide or more quietly, only thieves could do it with almost supernatural skill. Except now everyone gets to pick a few things they're a bit more focused at, and get a bonus to them. It's not just pure ability scores.

That's a matter of playstyle. 5E obviously caters to you in this, but others want only those who invested in a skill to use it in a much better way than those who don't. Since 5E fails at this that's why there's this complaint about it, and it's not D&D treasonous to say so.

Tanarii

2016-12-06, 08:56 PM

That's a matter of playstyle. 5E obviously caters to you in this, but others want only those who invested in a skill to use it in a much better way than those who don't. Since 5E fails at this that's why there's this complaint about it, and it's not D&D treasonous to say so.
It's not treasonous to say 5e fails at what you personally want on the skills front. I'm disagreeing that the devs had a misunderstanding of what people were complaining about, or failed to give players what we wanted.

My point was, your global statements are not global.

Taejang

2016-12-06, 10:46 PM

My point was that martials get less real options at higher levels then they have at the lower ones, simple because more enemies will be huge or bigger, and thus the shove action does not work against such foes. There is other mandated increase in options, at least not what 5e provides. Houseruling works, but that speaks against the system if I have to houserule to make it work.
I was talking about multiple encounters per day, and said so right in the post you quoted. At mid high levels (9-13) you have more then enough spell slots to cast a control spell in every encounter. In fact the more encounters you have, by definition each encounter has to be composed of lower challenge level foes which are even more susceptible to failing their saves. I had encounters end with one casting of Hypnotic pattern, 80% failing their saves and the rest being easily dispatched by the rest of the party.
Most monsters don't have such abilities that leave no corpse, nor do they have time or resources to focus on AC 20+, spirit guardians up, taking the dodge action cleric. Nor is he the only healer in the party. When you look at the monster manual most of the monsters are just big dumb brutes that have no interesting abilities apart from hits you really hard. Even if you can go around it by intentionally targeting the healer, but that is like saying you have a problem with fireballs and then giving everyone fire resistance or immunity.
It doesn't matter who abuses A/D stacking, the fact is it exists and breaks versimilitude for me.

That is a good point if you're only fighting monsters and never humanoids. More on that for #3.
I think we have a different opinion of "high levels". 9-13 is decidedly mid-level in my book. I'm talking about 16-20. That quibble aside, I suppose I see no problem with a single spell dictating a battle every now and then. If it was often, it would be a problem. Sounds like it is/was often for you. Surprise rounds, enemies resistant to spells (or to charming), enemies that are more spread out so one spell can't hit them all, counterspell, antimagic field, lots of ways to keep that from happening. Just because there are multiple encounters doesn't mean each should be weak; pile on that difficulty if the players are smashing the weaker encounters. After all, if nobody is challenged and no resources are meaningfully consumed, it is boring, and should be described instead of wasting table time playing it out (imo).
Indeed, most of the monsters are big dumb brutes. And they will never tactically challenge a competent party that's at least close to the right level. Encounters with intelligent enemies are much more interesting. Including a monster as a slave, or having one join the middle of an already-in-progress battle, or otherwise not making the monster the only opponent is a better use for them. For less savvy parties, the monsters can be used directly, but with a tactical party... yeah, nope.
I agree, it is gamey and that breaks immersion. If the DM wishes, he can outright ban that or impose house rules (example: firing a bow while prone always gives disadvantage regardless of anything else going on, because it doesn't matter if your target can't dodge or is lit up, you physically have trouble manipulating the bow). My group doesn't do this kind of junk, so it hasn't affected us.

ad_hoc

2016-12-06, 10:58 PM

It's not treasonous to say 5e fails at what you personally want on the skills front. I'm disagreeing that the devs had a misunderstanding of what people were complaining about, or failed to give players what we wanted.

My point was, your global statements are not global.

I agree.

I like the 5e skill system. I have minor quibbles, like Medicine shouldn't be a skill. I could see room for modules like a detailed skill challenge system too.

Overall it does the job it was designed to do. As has been said, for most characters skills are a small part of their abilities. I like the expertise mechanic as minor abilities for some characters.

I like that there is a divide between adventurers and skilled NPCs. I didn't like that adventurers in 3.x were also the most skilled people in the world, or that to be a good blacksmith (or whatever) you needed a bunch of levels. I felt that the 3.x system was overly complicated without a lot of benefit to the actual game.

Darkholme

2016-12-06, 11:01 PM

Seems like a waste of time to reference that, and the features you described that matter the most aren't visible to the party anyway, so if they fail the check they're just going to see a wooden door that was harder to kick down than the last one. If they do kick it down they probably aren't going to care that they kicked through an iron bar as well, and there's a good chance that the room contains something much more attention grabbing anyway.

If you put all of that there but never describe it to the party, wasn't this whole exercise a bit mastubatory?You're only go the extra mile when you intend to make a big deal out of it. The rest of the time (see below)

Quick peek behind the curtain here: for my world building there is no typical case. There's just things that I've thought about and things I haven't put much thought into. If my party ever ran into a typical door in the system you're proposing that would be because I wasn't interested enough to put any thought into the entire building they're in.
Ah. for me, there very much is a typical case. I tend to run sandboxy games rather than anything that even *HAS* rails. This means that I need to have content without knowing which content to prepare. As a result, a great deal of the content I make for my games is custom tailored randomizers and reusable assets like building maps to help me fill in encounters etc when the PCs go to many many places I hadn't considered likely enough destinations tp have hand-built them.

You get that the world isn't one size fits all, right? Are you going to keep track of how far apart the hinges for the door are, how thick the reinforcing bar is, how skilled the carpenter that made the door was, how rich the iron mine was, and how many knots are visible in the wood grain?

Seems like I could waste a lot less time by just deciding that it's a DC 15 check to bust the door and backfilling details after the fact.The door was simply an example. I am not going to decide for every door, but I am likely to decide whether the typical doors in a castle are the standard kind, or more heavy reinforced doors, or heavy steel doors; and a particularly important room (or a broom closet) might differ from the default.

Some of the things you are suggesting are already things the books say without need for a chart, and others look like a horrendous waste of space that bogs down play. Are you just suggesting these as things that you think are good, or as things that you think should be mandatory for every single DM?I'm suggesting some of those examples are good, but there are not enough examples.

The way you presented it just for forcing your way through a wooden door already looks like it would take up two pages, and actively works against several of the design goals that went into 5e.That was the most detailed way I could rationally present the idea. By no means is that the only way to have guidelines better than "no useful guidelines at all".

With hundreds of examples for what kinds of things would increase or lower the difficult by 2-6 points.Likely no modifiers. Maybe a handful. Only thing worth mentioning was the process by which a DM might come up with their own reasonable modifiers. Most of the time they'd just compare it to the other numbers on the list.

I'll do you one better and abridge the skills right out of it. Very Easy: 5, Easy: 10, Medium:15, Hard: 20, Very Hard: 25, Nearly Impossible: 30This is the kind of ****ty difficulty chart found in old white wolf games. You end up with **** like hacking the FBI databases without getting caught being easier than driving in a snowstorm, because there's nothing calibrating the expectations of individual skills in any meaningful way and GMs have no ****ing idea what is a reasonable DC for many tasks being attempted. It's easy to compare like against like, but when the task in question is outside the GM's area of knowledge, and unrelated to the task examples they DO have, they're clueless.

How about actually writing up an example of that table though?I do not have the time to design such a table tonight, but I will endeavor to do so when I have a chance, and upload it here when it's done.

In another thread I was listening to someone recount a player arguing that by the table they should have had a much lower DC on a check. This sort of thing is presumed official if it's put in the book, and it would be weird to devote two pages and a hideous table to some optional rule, given the format of the PHB as it stands.The point is to have one that's official, yes; and if a DM is going to ignore the official table to wing it, he can simply declare so. But that way, if someone wants to DM using an *official* standard to calibrate their DCs, one exists. As for the argument? Well, I've seen arguments over DCs with unreasonable target numbers in systems that have little guidelines "Really? I lose 5 dice to figure out how to check my email and get the relevant mission information at the library in the 40 minutes before the target arrives?"

Vortling

2016-12-06, 11:14 PM

ad_hoc

2016-12-07, 02:51 AM

Looks like my example needs specification. When our level 20 Dex 10 human wizard pulls out their longbow they fire off one attack at +0 and if they hit do 1d8 damage. Compare with our level 20 Dex 20 human ranger pulling out their longbow to fire off two attacks at +13, doing 1d8+5 each, not counting any other features from the ranger class which could increase the damage (say colossus slayer or volley). For the wizard it generally isn't worth their time to be taking this action and that's how it should be. Even including the example of the elven wizard, it's still generally not worth the time for a Dex 10 elven wizard to be firing a bow as they have their own area of specialization that is a more worthwhile use of their actions.

How is this any different from skills or saving throws?

Mrglee

2016-12-07, 04:46 AM

How is this any different from skills or saving throws?

Additional abilities really. But ultimately it isn't.
Case and point, only 11 creatures in the MM have more than 20 AC, and most of them are dragons.

Zorku

2016-12-07, 11:52 AM

Just do not mind the caster casting Knock, breaking free with a level 2 spell. (Only if he doesn't have the perfect tool for the job prepared does he have to rely on a strength check.)
As long as the caster isn't a sorcerer or warlock or druid or paly or ranger or cleric...

*A sorcerer can learn knock, but doesn't have enough known spells to do so without handicapping themselves most of the time.
So the wizard can get out, sure, if he knew he was going to need to do this today. Better chance a bard has the spell ready though.

Based off where the thread has gone with the explanation of the skill system in 5e, I believe I'm best off avoiding skills entirely and writing that part of 5e off as a total loss. Which means I'll be looking more at the spellcasting systems for engagement. This helps as I can narrow my focus on seeing what may work for me as far as spellcasting characters go.

I apparently haven't made my voice loud enough or direct enough, so here:
Page 175 of the PHB has an entry called Group Checks. This is what your DMs are doing for every single check, but they resolve it in a way that breaks the rules. If you're not doing something as a group, stop having everyone roll for it and start having the best person roll, usually with assistance from the second best person. If you are doing it as a group use the rules for group checks.

Sneak Dog

2016-12-07, 12:16 PM

As long as the caster isn't a sorcerer or warlock or druid or paly or ranger or cleric...

*A sorcerer can learn knock, but doesn't have enough known spells to do so without handicapping themselves most of the time.
So the wizard can get out, sure, if he knew he was going to need to do this today. Better chance a bard has the spell ready though.

As a barbarian, this would be your time to shine. Breaking stuff is kind of a stereotypical barbarian thing. I'd expect a barbarian to be unrivalled.
Instead it's the caster preparing knock that is. You're... adequate.

I can't really imagine a more perfect generic, iconic, non-combat thing a barbarian would do. Casters however, don't need to have picked the right attribute/skill at level 1 for this situation, but the right spell at the previous level-up or start of the day. Then they'll be just as good, if not better due to the lack of failure chance at the cost of a, possibly trivial, spell slot. On top of that they'll be good at whatever skills/attributes they're good at, not needing to spend a spell slot when confronted with those situations.

Zorku

2016-12-07, 02:24 PM

As a barbarian, this would be your time to shine. Breaking stuff is kind of a stereotypical barbarian thing. I'd expect a barbarian to be unrivalled.
Instead it's the caster preparing knock that is. You're... adequate.

I can't really imagine a more perfect generic, iconic, non-combat thing a barbarian would do. Casters however, don't need to have picked the right attribute/skill at level 1 for this situation, but the right spell at the previous level-up or start of the day. Then they'll be just as good, if not better due to the lack of failure chance at the cost of a, possibly trivial, spell slot. On top of that they'll be good at whatever skills/attributes they're good at, not needing to spend a spell slot when confronted with those situations.

Except that knock doesn't break anything and only a third of casters even have that on their spell list. By the time casters have enough level 2 spell slots that they don't have any reason to think about conserving them you can't expect to lock up any PC for very long. Personally I don't so much picture barbarians smashing all that many locks before I picture them beating someone to death with an improvised club, and as far as spells go only sheleighleigh gives them much competition there, for equally class stereotypical reasons. At the very least, knock seems like a strange spell to be your number one example.

Tanarii

2016-12-07, 02:33 PM

At the very least, knock seems like a strange spell to be your number one example.Knock has been the go-to example spell for "spells invalidate skills / class features" for white-room theory-crafters since 1e.

mgshamster

2016-12-07, 02:39 PM

Knock has been the go-to example spell for "spells invalidate skills / class features" for white-room theory-crafters since 1e.

I've only seen Knock cast once since I started playing 5e; and it was due to a misunderstanding.

The paladin is playing a homebrew archetype based on freedom, and he thought knock was on his special "always prepared" list. The next session we discovered it wasn't. Oh well.

Other than that, I've never seen a single person prepare that spell since 2nd Edition. The amount it gets talked about is way out of proportion to the amount it gets used.

Vortling

2016-12-07, 03:18 PM

How is this any different from skills or saving throws?

As you said

If the result doesn't matter the game shouldn't be wasting its time with it.

I've yet to run into an attack roll or saving throw roll where the result didn't have some consequence as they both have failure and success states built in by the system. In my experience, DMs don't go around asking for pointless attack or saving throw rolls. Skill rolls are a completely different story as failure or success states are completely created by the DM and I've seen plenty of DMs have players make pointless skill rolls.

Hopefully this clears up where I'm coming from.

I apparently haven't made my voice loud enough or direct enough, so here:
Page 175 of the PHB has an entry called Group Checks. This is what your DMs are doing for every single check, but they resolve it in a way that breaks the rules. If you're not doing something as a group, stop having everyone roll for it and start having the best person roll, usually with assistance from the second best person. If you are doing it as a group use the rules for group checks.

As I've mentioned I'm just a player. I can try to push for this but the DMs I have tend to see much more value in the amusing result of the specialist being incompetent while the non-specialist amazes everyone with their stunning random display of competence than the specialist getting a chance to shine in their area.

Knaight

2016-12-07, 03:28 PM

Sounds like you'd be happier playing Runequest or Warhammer to me. Or maybe GURPS. You know, the games where they're basically entirely about skills, and doing anything takes an hour to look up the rules to figure out how they work and interact.

There are skill based systems that don't involve extensive lookup. I use Fudge heavily, and it's a skill based system that works beautifully; while I realize that using that as a baseline for skill quality is probably unfair it's also inevitable.

ad_hoc

2016-12-07, 03:49 PM

As you said

I've yet to run into an attack roll or saving throw roll where the result didn't have some consequence as they both have failure and success states built in by the system. In my experience, DMs don't go around asking for pointless attack or saving throw rolls. Skill rolls are a completely different story as failure or success states are completely created by the DM and I've seen plenty of DMs have players make pointless skill rolls.

Hopefully this clears up where I'm coming from.

The game is clear that they shouldn't be doing this.

You are only supposed to roll if there are meaningful consequences. This is part of the system.

It's not the game's fault if people deviate from this and it doesn't work out.

Sneak Dog

2016-12-07, 04:02 PM

Except that knock doesn't break anything and only a third of casters even have that on their spell list. By the time casters have enough level 2 spell slots that they don't have any reason to think about conserving them you can't expect to lock up any PC for very long. Personally I don't so much picture barbarians smashing all that many locks before I picture them beating someone to death with an improvised club, and as far as spells go only sheleighleigh gives them much competition there, for equally class stereotypical reasons. At the very least, knock seems like a strange spell to be your number one example.

The example was to have a signature non-combat challenge in which the barbarian would (should) be the right class for the job. Classic barbarian breaking free of his manacles to do something time sensitive scene. Seemed rather appropriate to me.

The point is that the one non-combat thing the barbarian might just be perfect for cinematically speaking, he has a 30% chance of success for, whereas a caster has a guaranteed success if he has the right spell. Perhaps there's even more appropriate spells for this situation.
Then if he doesn't have any such spell or chooses to conserve resources, then he'll attempt it with a strength check with his 5%~30% chance of success.

Don't take these posts without their context. It results in confusion like yours. As I mentioned before, I think that if the game tells me that this entire class is just blatantly bad at half the game, non-combat encounters, then the game is designed badly. Your post seems ignore this, if not reinforce this by you immediately jumping back to an example of a barbarian in combat.

(And now don't quote this post, quote the lengthier, earlier one which has the proper explanation and reasoning.)

comk59

2016-12-07, 07:29 PM

In regards to knock, it would be fairly easy for any intelligent creature to stop a manacled spellcasting from casting Knock to free himself.

A: Gag the spellcaster.

B: Secure hands behind spellcaster's back. Pretty much
all targeted spells require you to see the target, including knock.

C: Use rope.

D: Any combination of the above.

Meanwhile, to prevent the barbarian from escaping you would have to

A: Use stronger manacles.

B: Uh.... hope he's out of rages for the day?

Pex

2016-12-07, 08:44 PM

The example was to have a signature non-combat challenge in which the barbarian would (should) be the right class for the job. Classic barbarian breaking free of his manacles to do something time sensitive scene. Seemed rather appropriate to me.

The point is that the one non-combat thing the barbarian might just be perfect for cinematically speaking, he has a 30% chance of success for, whereas a caster has a guaranteed success if he has the right spell. Perhaps there's even more appropriate spells for this situation.
Then if he doesn't have any such spell or chooses to conserve resources, then he'll attempt it with a strength check with his 5%~30% chance of success.

Don't take these posts without their context. It results in confusion like yours. As I mentioned before, I think that if the game tells me that this entire class is just blatantly bad at half the game, non-combat encounters, then the game is designed badly. Your post seems ignore this, if not reinforce this by you immediately jumping back to an example of a barbarian in combat.

(And now don't quote this post, quote the lengthier, earlier one which has the proper explanation and reasoning.)

For the same spell slot level there is a spell a spellcaster is more likely to have, even Sorcerers would want to have it as a spell known, and works just as effectively in getting out of manacles.

Misty Step

Zalabim

2016-12-07, 08:50 PM

It is not clear if teleporting frees you from your bonds, particularly bonds you're wearing. I could see someone teleporting in handcuffs still having the handcuffs on. Now if you're shackled to the wall, you're probably free-er than you were before, but you might only have gotten the shackles loose from the wall.

But Misty Step is definitely a much more popular spell.

Zorku

2016-12-08, 02:58 PM

As I've mentioned I'm just a player. I can try to push for this but the DMs I have tend to see much more value in the amusing result of the specialist being incompetent while the non-specialist amazes everyone with their stunning random display of competence than the specialist getting a chance to shine in their area.And I just gave you an explicit "this is breaking the rules" argument. If they want to homebrew in a bad system you might have to just refuse to play under those rules.

The example was to have a signature non-combat challenge in which the barbarian would (should) be the right class for the job. Classic barbarian breaking free of his manacles to do something time sensitive scene. Seemed rather appropriate to me.
Who exactly do you expect to not be able to get out of manacles?

The point is that the one non-combat thing the barbarian might just be perfect for cinematically speaking, he has a 30% chance of success for, whereas a caster has a guaranteed success if he has the right spell.Well no, he has a 100% chance if the DM is giving him 10 minutes to attempt it, RAW, and he doesn't exhaust any of his resources in doing it. The caster just gets out faster if he was already prepared, much like a thief that smuggled a key for the manacles into the prison.

I can agree with you all day that a lot of DMs run this situation wrong, but the rules in the book handle it well enough.

Perhaps there's even more appropriate spells for this situation.
Then if he doesn't have any such spell or chooses to conserve resources, then he'll attempt it with a strength check with his 5%~30% chance of success.What does that wizard look like if he's got the same % chance as the barbarian?

Don't take these posts without their context. It results in confusion like yours. As I mentioned before, I think that if the game tells me that this entire class is just blatantly bad at half the game, non-combat encounters, then the game is designed badly. Your post seems ignore this, if not reinforce this by you immediately jumping back to an example of a barbarian in combat.No, a third of the game. Exploration isn't the same thing as interacting with the environment you're already in.

But hey, let's just have me say that unlocking crap without breaking a sweat is the most stereotypically wizard thing imaginable. Now what?

(And now don't quote this post, quote the lengthier, earlier one which has the proper explanation and reasoning.)
That's petulant, but ok.

Wholeheartedly disagree. I think the designers decided to just iterate on 3.5, without fixing this issue at all. That's what 4e did. (4e has its own issues. Just not this one.)

My problem with fighters is, shortly put, as follows. In D&D 5e you have about three generic options to solve your non-combat problems: Your gear, your skills and your attributes. You might also get a class ability that helps. A caster has all these, and spells.Casters got gear skills and attributes.

If you want to say that spellcasting isn't a skill then fine, fighters have spellcasting too.

1. Options
If you're a wizard/warlock/bard/paladin/sorcerer/whatever caster, you have equal access to all those options. On top of that you might just have the perfect spell solving the entire problem in one go.We're being repetitive and childish so I'll repeat: fighters, rogues, rangers, and barbarians might have the perfect spell for the situation.

Druid, Cleric, Monk. There, caught 'em all.

2. Reliability
Consider that skills are bounded. Consider that a wizard doesn't always have the right spell prepared.

If I'm proficient in a skill, that's about a +3.
What are you smoking? I thought this was supposed to be the long post where you explained things instead of making me guess that you think all campaigns end shortly after 12th level and you just averaged it.

Anyway, since you like stereotypes, a stereotypical wizard has 8 str, and since the +3 bonus lasts through level 8 the stereotypical barbarian has 20 str, resulting in a +8.

So when the time comes to wrestle a friend to the ground in a friendly sparring match, I have a +3 over him for being a wrestler. Maybe +6 for being stronger. I've a 73.75% chance of failing to out-wrestle my non-proficient average-strength friend.
You might reasonably say I just win, no roll. I will then get very confused when my friend turns out to be evil the following day and when we wrestle for control and I have a 73.75% chance of not rolling higher. That's inconsistent.You haven't explained your math for this, so looking at flat 2d20 A fails to outroll B 55% of the time (tie goes to the person trying to not be wrassled,) and every point you beat them by gives you a 5% advantage. With a +3 over the wizard you fail 40% of the time, and with a +6 over them you fail 25% of the time. For a time sensitive action that gives him the advantage of getting to rely on his dex (where the stereotypical wizard is an elf and as such has a bonus there,) +6 or +5 is pretty reasonable for maximum stereotyping.

By casting a spell, you can dictate the spell to the DM and that happens.If it does anything like grappling a creature then the spell relies on roughly the same rules, generally bloating spell text quite a bit in order to specify that you can in fact wrestle you way out of magical vines, if they even caught you in the first place.

Casters do much better at beating objects that cannot resist them. much like a rogue can beat manacles better than a barbarian by already having the key that opens them.

3. Predictability
All skills are governed by your DM. He will tell you what you can and cannot do. He will tell you how awesome you are.
Once again, by dictating your spell you can tell the DM what happens.Except for all the times that the DM decides the spell doesn't work that way. You've either had pushover DMs or you've always been jealous of casters without having actually played one. Maybe you're bad at coming up with actions that a DM decides don't even require a roll because that just obviously works.

You've a reliable baseline of awesomeness. On top of that you, naturally, still get to be awesome with skills.Except you suck at most of them because you dumped that stat and the DM decides that everyone knows it's your fault every time a little forest burns down.

Conclusion
The whole system just feels unbalanced. If you are not a caster, you are worse at non-combat situations. I do not find it acceptable that there's just the effect of being bad at about one-half of the game because I want to play a fighter relying on his skill, rather than magic.
Conclusion: Babarnars are overpowered because a Sorcerer doesn't automatically get danger sense, they get movespeed bonuses, saucerors don't get to add their main attribute to their damage, and there's no spell called Rage. Obviously casters are useless in combat.

e: edited spoiler tag for more accurate description of where I'm throwing shade.

Darkholme

2016-12-09, 05:03 AM

Plenty of DMs have players make pointless skill rolls...
[AND] the DMs I have tend to see much more value in the amusing result of the specialist being incompetent while the non-specialist amazes everyone with their stunning random display of competence than the specialist getting a chance to shine in their area.
Sadly, this is not a problem with the game, but your DMs.

No game rule is going to protect you from widesweeping but ill-conceived houserules or from GMs who simply ignore the rules to instead just make something up that they find amusing.

Pex

2016-12-09, 01:55 PM

Sadly, this is not a problem with the game, but your DMs.

No game rule is going to protect you from widesweeping but ill-conceived houserules or from GMs who simply ignore the rules to instead just make something up that they find amusing.

Since the rules are vague on defined DCs for tasks and what constitutes not needing to roll leaving it all to DM judgment it is the rules' fault the DM has to make everything up.

Knaight

2016-12-09, 02:34 PM

Since the rules are vague on defined DCs for tasks and what constitutes not needing to roll leaving it all to DM judgment it is the rules' fault the DM has to make everything up.

The lack of definition for DCs and the lack of definition for when to roll are two entirely different things. I consider the Easy-Hard scale fine personally; with that said 5e (and D&D in general, and honestly most task resolution games that aren't Burning Wheel) could really stand to add something like the Let it Ride rules from Burning Wheel.

Malifice

2016-12-09, 03:07 PM

So your argument appears to be "the existing rules are irrelevant because even on tasks with significant chances to fail and penalties for failure, I will allow automatic success"?

That seems to be your argument overall - that you simply don't use the presented skill mechanics, and are effectively making narrative calls. You might as well write down a few proficiencies for each character and then eyeball a d20 roll for players who have the right ones without worrying about modifiers at all. Which is fine, but it fits my argument of "the skill mechanics are ****house and need the DM to overrule them".

The problem with them is that a new DM will use them as written, and will often get players to roll for most important activities, at which point your game turns into a clown show. They're basically worse than having no rules at all.

No man, the existing rules are the DM sets task difficulties.

There is a level below easy, and that's 'don't bother rolling, you succeed'. A competent blacksmith doing his daily job doesn't need to make a skill check to do it, any more than your average person needs to make an Athletics skill check to climb a tree or a rope.

Now if you're trying to climb that tree in a thunderstorm while being chased by wolves, or your blacksmith is trying to make something of great craftsmanship that he has never made before, we can talk about a roll being necessary.

The DM determines when a roll is called for or not or even if a roll is possible. If he determines the task is possible but there is an appreciable prospect of failure he sets for DC, Skill and attribute to be used, determines if advantage or disadvantage applies to the check and so forth.

A sage specialised in say quantum physics, doesn't need to make a check to explain Planks constant, Heisenberg uncertainty principle, wave particle duality, or what an electron or a quark is.

Sneak Dog

2016-12-09, 04:39 PM

That's petulant, but ok.

I literally asked you to not quote and break down that shortened and incomplete post and you do exactly that and make wrong assumptions which would've been clarified in the longer post?
I'll just... respond to the spoilered post. Yes.

Casters got gear skills and attributes.

If you want to say that spellcasting isn't a skill then fine, fighters have spellcasting too.

I admit to great confusion. What I was saying is that a fighter has:
Gear, skills, attributes.

A caster has:
Gear, skills, attributes, spells.

Their list is one longer. The rest of the list is equal. Now I might've missed some things, but those're pretty much equal between a fighter and a caster.

Consider that a wizard doesn't always have the right spell prepared.

I have. It's the part where the non-caster isn't always a hulking barbarian. Characters all have their own strengths. The post is to propose that out of combat, the barbarians strengths can all be replicated by a caster, who can do yet more on top.

You haven't explained your math for this, so looking at flat 2d20 A fails to outroll B 55% of the time (tie goes to the person trying to not be wrassled,) and every point you beat them by gives you a 5% advantage. With a +3 over the wizard you fail 40% of the time, and with a +6 over them you fail 25% of the time. For a time sensitive action that gives him the advantage of getting to rely on his dex (where the stereotypical wizard is an elf and as such has a bonus there,) +6 or +5 is pretty reasonable for maximum stereotyping.

The chance that 1d20 >= 1d20+6, according to anydice (http://anydice.com/), is 26.25%. I was figuring a ~5th level barbarian with 20 strength and proficiency against a city-born commoner with 10 strength. You could also up the level a bit and put the barbarian against a dwarf or a farmer, who will likely have 12 strength.

Except for all the times that the DM decides the spell doesn't work that way. You've either had pushover DMs or you've always been jealous of casters without having actually played one. Maybe you're bad at coming up with actions that a DM decides don't even require a roll because that just obviously works.

Ad hominem.
I would go as far as to say that if a DM tells me my class feature doesn't do what it states it does, then he is stepping out of bounds. The mechanics of the game are to bring structure to the experience and if the GM breaks that structure without good reason, why have it at all? Why not just tell a story without using a ruleset, rolling some dice when we feel the need for uncertainty.

I admit to having a roll-happy DM. He loves just asking for a roll for that action. He is not blatantly wrong though. It's subjective. Which is one of the issues I have with 5e that I am bringing up: You do not know what your skill does, it depends solely on the DM.

I did play a wizard in the very same campaign for a while though and I legitimately noticed I had extra options available to me. I could climb the wall, or I could fly up. I could attempt to investigate the magical item, or cast identify. I could translate the weird language, or cast... Ok, I had no translation spells. I rolled for that one.

Except you suck at most of them because you dumped that stat and the DM decides that everyone knows it's your fault every time a little forest burns down.

Valor bard. 20 strength. What can he not do that a barbarian can, out of combat?

For the same spell slot level there is a spell a spellcaster is more likely to have, even Sorcerers would want to have it as a spell known, and works just as effectively in getting out of manacles.

Misty Step

It's a bit shifty how'd it work, so I didn't mention it.
As for gagging and what-not. Subtle spell sorcerer. Also might force the DC into 25, which is nigh impossible for a barbarian.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-09, 05:03 PM

I have. It's the part where the non-caster isn't always a hulking barbarian. Characters all have their own strengths. The post is to propose that out of combat, the barbarians strengths can all be replicated by a caster, who can do yet more on top.

I did play a wizard in the very same campaign for a while though and I legitimately noticed I had extra options available to me. I could climb the wall, or I could fly up. I could attempt to investigate the magical item, or cast identify. I could translate the weird language, or cast... Ok, I had no translation spells. I rolled for that one.

Valor bard. 20 strength. What can he not do that a barbarian can, out of combat?

A caster can replicate some of the things other classes can do but that requires them to prepare the spells. A rogue can unlock a door and still be able to fight at full strength. A barbarian can smash the door down and still be ready for action. A wizard can unlock the door... and be down a spell slot. By the time said spell slots are more available, the rogue and barbarian are going to almost certainly never need the help for most doors. And remember, you not only have to anticipate the door but also devote spell preparation to it. The comparative advantage for rogues and barbarians are much better than for wizards in this matter.

You're asking why someone of 20 strength who plays the lute should be weaker than someone with 20 strength who doesn't? Apart from the fact that 20 Strength bards are probably not common, I as a GM might very well give advantage on intimidation checks to a barbarian acting in a specific manner that I wouldn't give to a bard. Speaking purely in mechanical terms, bards have special out-of-combat utility as one of their features; barbarians are more focused on pure fighting ability. Not every class has to be equal outside of combat.

Darkholme

2016-12-09, 07:05 PM

Not every class has to be equal outside of combat.
A contentious declaration in the context of D&D, if ever I heard one.

Nearly two decades of people have been arguing the very opposite statement since at least since 3e came out. People in Pathfinder choose "Tier Limiting" in part to decrease that out of combat disparity (also to ensure that all the classes have multiple viable actions on their turn in combat, rather than "full attack or bust").

Many people, (I'm on the fence) would say that classes should be balanced againt eachother in combat, as well as out of combat; otherwise they're not balanced.

Pex

2016-12-09, 07:22 PM

The lack of definition for DCs and the lack of definition for when to roll are two entirely different things. I consider the Easy-Hard scale fine personally; with that said 5e (and D&D in general, and honestly most task resolution games that aren't Burning Wheel) could really stand to add something like the Let it Ride rules from Burning Wheel.

No man, the existing rules are the DM sets task difficulties.

There is a level below easy, and that's 'don't bother rolling, you succeed'. A competent blacksmith doing his daily job doesn't need to make a skill check to do it, any more than your average person needs to make an Athletics skill check to climb a tree or a rope.

Now if you're trying to climb that tree in a thunderstorm while being chased by wolves, or your blacksmith is trying to make something of great craftsmanship that he has never made before, we can talk about a roll being necessary.

The DM determines when a roll is called for or not or even if a roll is possible. If he determines the task is possible but there is an appreciable prospect of failure he sets for DC, Skill and attribute to be used, determines if advantage or disadvantage applies to the check and so forth.

A sage specialised in say quantum physics, doesn't need to make a check to explain Planks constant, Heisenberg uncertainty principle, wave particle duality, or what an electron or a quark is.

But when someone says they aren't liking how skills work and saying why people respond they shouldn't have been rolling in the first place. Some people say you needn't had rolled. Other people say you do roll. That's the problem. You as the player have no control of what you can do in terms of skills. That's the game's on purpose design, and that is what is being criticized.

Sneak Dog

2016-12-09, 07:30 PM

A caster can replicate some of the things other classes can do but that requires them to prepare the spells. A rogue can unlock a door and still be able to fight at full strength. A barbarian can smash the door down and still be ready for action. A wizard can unlock the door... and be down a spell slot. By the time said spell slots are more available, the rogue and barbarian are going to almost certainly never need the help for most doors. And remember, you not only have to anticipate the door but also devote spell preparation to it. The comparative advantage for rogues and barbarians are much better than for wizards in this matter.

Well, the wizard can also smash the door down and still be ready for action. The sorcerer can also unlock the door. They don't need to use spells, they've the exact same access to skills, attributes and gear as non-casters do.
They just have spells on top of that.

Also, at higher levels, due to the nature of bounded accuracy, the rogue and barbarian will need the help. Until the rogue gets reliable talent at level 11, or the barbarian gets Indomitable might at a nearly unreachable level 18.

You're asking why someone of 20 strength who plays the lute should be weaker than someone with 20 strength who doesn't? Apart from the fact that 20 Strength bards are probably not common, I as a GM might very well give advantage on intimidation checks to a barbarian acting in a specific manner that I wouldn't give to a bard. Speaking purely in mechanical terms, bards have special out-of-combat utility as one of their features; barbarians are more focused on pure fighting ability.

I could be playing a half-orc war skald something. Basically a musical barbarian. I'd be roughly as effective in combat as a barbarian, though in a different role, and far superior to a barbarian out of combat since I'd always have the option to spend a spell if I have an appropriate one available, rather than roll a chance.

Not every class has to be equal outside of combat.

My first gut response to this is: unacceptable. Ridiculous notion. Inconsistent, old-fashioned, baseless.

Ahem. I need reasoning for that.

I do think every class has to be able to meaningfully interact with all pillars a system is designed for. D&D 5e is designed with the pillars of combat, exploration and roleplay/interaction.

I think there is significant inequality outside of the combat pillar:
Spell slots contribute to each of these three pillars and can even be customized so that one day, you spend more into one pillar and the other more into the other pillar. Some casters can even per-day specialize in a certain pillar.
A barbarian gets barely any non-combat features and most of them are awfully specific and only fine in quality of effect compared to spells.

A fighter might as well not have a class as far as roleplay/interaction is concerned. Contrast this to the bard who has a whole host of social spells. The difference is just staggering. The fighter player might as well take a break when a social encounter pops up, for he won't be able to do anything the bard won't already as far as the mechanics are concerned. (Now a DM can make up for this and put in some extra effort to involve him in the scene, but that means the mechanics failed.)

They're not better in the exploration pillar either, that's where spells truely shine by using teleportation, scrying, 'enduring' the elements in a pocket dimension and summoning food and water out of thin air. Sure, casters're sapping their efficiency from the combat pillar, but if they don't want to, they still aren't any worse at the survival checks.

Unacceptable
I think this is a silly notion. I understand some inequality between pillars is healthy. However, the level it is at in 5e is ridiculous for me.

Do the fighter or barbarian get anything back in return? If they're this relatively bad at roleplay/interaction and exploration, then are they amazing in combat? Well, no. For D&D 5e is finely balanced to allow any class to meaningfully aid in combat while not having a single class outshine all others. (Yes, there's unbalance in the combat pillar too, but everyone is able to contribute meaningfully and nobody is twice as effective as someone else if they both picked a different class and build/play it efficiently.)

No, I think D&D 5e does only one pillar right, whereas it sets out to give mechanics for three.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-09, 08:00 PM

Well, the wizard can also smash the door down and still be ready for action. The sorcerer can also unlock the door. They don't need to use spells, they've the exact same access to skills, attributes and gear as non-casters do.
They just have spells on top of that.

How are you building these? Who on earth builds a wizard with strength above 12? You need multiclassing for equal access to gear, and that means that you're giving up a level of wizard, and being a level behind on spells and whatnot.

Backgrounds allow for barbarians with decent out of combat utility. (One of my friends does very well with the Urchin background). Decent dex for unarmoured defense translates well to stealth and such like, for example. It's just not as intuitive as bard because bard is specifically designed as a utility class like Rogue.

I'm going to go out on a limb and straight out say that assuming any class makes out-of-combat utility impossible is just not being imaginative enough. Even a basic champ fighter with a soldier background can potentially be a good intimidator. Backgrounds are the main gateway to such skills. Battlemaster Fighter has tool proficiencies as well.

Convincing your party to stop for eight hours so you can change your skills to fit a new challenge is actually really hard. I can't even convince my party to stop for ten minutes to cast Prayer of Healing. You're likely not going to know what's coming up so you have to generalize. The times where you are able to get a sense of what's coming up - that's a rare privilege. No Wizard is just going to lug around knock for a week in the off chance that the rogue isn't going to pick the lock.

Sneak Dog

2016-12-09, 08:22 PM

How are you building these? Who on earth builds a wizard with strength above 12? You need multiclassing for equal access to gear, and that means that you're giving up a level of wizard, and being a level behind on spells and whatnot.

Bladelock. Valor bard. Paladin. Eldritch knight. Being behind two levels of wizard in exchange for heavy armour, defence style, constitution save proficiency and, most importantly, action surge.

I'm going to go out on a limb and straight out say that assuming any class makes out-of-combat utility impossible is just not being imaginative enough. Even a basic champ fighter with a soldier background can potentially be a good intimidator. Backgrounds are the main gateway to such skills. Battlemaster Fighter has tool proficiencies as well.

Backgrounds have been included in my arguments. They're just a couple of extra starting skills. Nothing game-changing and something everyone gets equally.

If I have to use my imagination to try and work around the mechanics for two-thirds of the game, then something feels wrong.

Look. I'll just make it simple with a concrete example:
A person wishes to jump 30ft. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507823-Athletics-DC-and-jumping) This is 10ft. more than his 20 strength allows him to jump without check.

The rules state something about being allowed an athletics check to extend your jump. What DC is this? What if he wishes to jump 40 feet? 60?

A level 1 spell will allow him to jump 60ft. no check required. A level 3 spell allows him to just fly over. This is orders of magnitude greater than what you can manage with your risky athletics check.

There. Inequality exemplified by a single situation.

DKing9114

2016-12-09, 08:35 PM

The chance that 1d20 >= 1d20+6, according to anydice (http://anydice.com/), is 73.75%. I was figuring a ~5th level barbarian with 20 strength and proficiency against a city-born commoner with 10 strength. You could also up the level a bit and put the barbarian against a dwarf or a farmer, who will likely have 12 strength.

You should probably check your math, because right now you are saying a +6 to your die roll makes you significantly less likely to succeed in a task than having no modifier (according to a quick calculator check, you reversed the percentages). On top of that, a level 5th barbarian with 20 strength and proficiency in athletics has a +8 to his roll; the barbarian has an 80.5% chance of succeeding in a grapple contest against an untrained, 10 strength opponent, 96.2% if he rages for the advantage.

Malifice

2016-12-09, 10:15 PM

Darkholme

2016-12-09, 10:20 PM

You should probably check your math, because right now you are saying a +6 to your die roll makes you significantly less likely to succeed in a task than having no modifier (according to a quick calculator check, you reversed the percentages). On top of that, a level 5th barbarian with 20 strength and proficiency in athletics has a +8 to his roll; the barbarian has an 80.5% chance of succeeding in a grapple contest against an untrained, 10 strength opponent, 96.2% if he rages for the advantage.
I think he's stating that there's enough overlap in range between a +6 and +0, such that, a significant percentage of the time, the guy with no bonus can roll higher than the guy who is trained; and he'd rather see a much lower base level competency, or a much higher skilled level competency.

Pex

2016-12-10, 12:25 AM

When I compare 5E to something like like Star Wars saga edition (which has incredibly convoluted and complex skill rules) I find the simplicity to be a breath of fresh air. All that extra crunch doesn't really give you much, and it creates as many problems as it fixes (See things like the diplomancer or omnificer, both specific builds that rely on fixed skill DCs to work).

While 5Es skill system is very DM dependent in order to work, I would argue so is every role playing game ever made, ever.

A complex skill system with a bad DM is just as bad as a simple skill system with a bad DM.

Since the common denominator is a bad DM take it out of the equation. Then all that matters is the complexity or simplicity of the skill system. 5E was purposely designed to be simple. It is that simplicity that is causing problems for some people. However, having that problem does not mean the alternative is a monstrosity (my word) of a complex system, but yes, something more involved, or "complex" if you will, is desired. For some people the simplicity is a deal breaker and won't play 5E*. For others it is to be lumped, hoped the Powers That Be will do something about it, and be patient waiting for the eventual 6E that just might be an improvement.

*It's not a deal breaker for me, just a major gripe. By coincidence one of my 5E DMs is trying out a game system he designed. It is even simpler than 5E in many things, way too simple for my tastes I find it truly "Mother May I" with dice in all but name that I'm not trying it. It fails to get me to the table.

Sigreid

2016-12-10, 12:31 AM

Malifice

2016-12-10, 12:38 AM

Since the common denominator is a bad DM take it out of the equation. Then all that matters is the complexity or simplicity of the skill system. 5E was purposely designed to be simple. It is that simplicity that is causing problems for some people. However, having that problem does not mean the alternative is a monstrosity (my word) of a complex system, but yes, something more involved, or "complex" if you will, is desired. For some people the simplicity is a deal breaker and won't play 5E*. For others it is to be lumped, hoped the Powers That Be will do something about it, and be patient waiting for the eventual 6E that just might be an improvement.

*It's not a deal breaker for me, just a major gripe. By coincidence one of my 5E DMs is trying out a game system he designed. It is even simpler than 5E in many things, way too simple for my tastes I find it truly "Mother May I" with dice in all but name that I'm not trying it. It fails to get me to the table.

Yes but I don't see the point of extra complexity just for the sake of extra complexity. I can achieve the same thing with a simple skill system that I can with the system featuring thousands of prescribed DCs, exceptions to those DCs, and charts.

All skill systems across pretty much all role-playing games effectively amount to [roll your dice add your bonus] vs the number assigned by the DM. I don't really see any value adding more complexity than that. Even to the point that every time you layer another level of complexity over-the-top, you actually take something away.

There is a lot to be said for a system that is both simple and flexible.

Darkholme

2016-12-10, 04:35 AM

"Mother May I" with dice
This is more or less how I feel about 5e's skill system, where the setting of DCs is involved.

For some people the simplicity is a deal breaker and won't play 5E*.
Fortunately, for 7/8 of my group, 5e hasn't caught on with them, and there won't be many preconceived notions on how the game should run.

When I run it for them (probably about a year from now after I move back to that side of the country), I will be doing so with a table full of sample DCs on my GM Screen; and this table will be passed out to the PCs. I'll tinker with it a bit to get the speed up; and when one of them eventually runs it, It'll be easy to get them to continue to use the more detailed skill system they'll already be used to such that I will have options in the system I'm willing to play besides full-casters.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-10, 04:47 AM

The DC's are far from Mother May I; they just allow the world to be more flexible.

Charts will never be able to touch on even a fraction of the DC's you'll need; especially with negotiations but really, for any ability.

Giving them to players is even worse, because it means that they'll be arguments when situations don't fit in the charts. Not if, when. It'll be the DM's decision sooner or later, better to be prepared to make split-second judgments on what the DC should be than think you can handle it all with a chart.

To be totally honest, I'm really glad WotC has gone the direction they have with 5e; the system is not only built for good DMs, it also helps train good DMs.

Zalabim

2016-12-10, 05:56 AM

I think he's stating that there's enough overlap in range between a +6 and +0, such that, a significant percentage of the time, the guy with no bonus can roll higher than the guy who is trained; and he'd rather see a much lower base level competency, or a much higher skilled level competency.
No, he clearly correctly calculated the chance that 1d20+6 is greater than 1d20, since that's required to win the contest, and then reversed it, reporting the successes as failures.

Well, the wizard can also smash the door down and still be ready for action. The sorcerer can also unlock the door. They don't need to use spells, they've the exact same access to skills, attributes and gear as non-casters do.
They just have spells on top of that.
Just as an example, Wizards absolutely do not have the same access to skills, attributes, and gear as rogues. Rogues have more skill proficiencies, greater proficiency in some skills, proficiency in more equipment, more starting wealth, less drain on earned wealth, and eventually even get an extra ASI compared to wizards. Wizards have spells instead of that.

I do think every classcharacter has to be able to meaningfully interact with all pillars a system is designed for. D&D 5e is designed with the pillars of combat, exploration and roleplay/interaction.
Bounded accuracy and a fair baseline of skill proficiency and attributes is what allows everyone to interact with all the pillars of the system. Nobody has to have more than that.

I think there is significant inequality outside of the combat pillar:
Spell slots contribute to each of these three pillars and can even be customized so that one day, you spend more into one pillar and the other more into the other pillar. Some casters can even per-day specialize in a certain pillar.
This is the big benefit for spellcasters. Modular features. Spell slots can be used on any of these pillars. Not each of these pillars, usually. Once it's spent, it's gone for the day.

Sure, casters're sapping their efficiency from the combat pillar, but if they don't want to, they still aren't any worse at the survival checks.

Do the fighter or barbarian get anything back in return? If they're this relatively bad at roleplay/interaction and exploration, then are they amazing in combat? Well, no. For D&D 5e is finely balanced to allow any class to meaningfully aid in combat while not having a single class outshine all others. (Yes, there's unbalance in the combat pillar too, but everyone is able to contribute meaningfully and nobody is twice as effective as someone else if they both picked a different class and build/play it efficiently.)

No, I think D&D 5e does only one pillar right, whereas it sets out to give mechanics for three.
You're completely glossing over how spending your spell slots, spells prepared, and spells known outside of combat effects how well you can contribute in combat. Fighters and barbarians actually are that amazing in combat. Comparing the wizard to the barbarian at level 8, the wizard has ~20 spells in their book, up to 13 spells prepared, 13 spells per day (counting arcane recovery), a handful of cantrips, 34 Max HP just from level, up to 28 HP healing just from spending hit dice, no armor, and a handful of weapon proficiencies. The barbarian has 4 Rages per day (+2 damage), Reckless Attacks, Danger Sense, Extra Attack, Fast Movement, Feral Instinct, 61 Max HP just from level, up to 52 HP healing just from spending hit dice, medium armor or unarmored defense, and martial weapons. They have the same access to attributes, and each has their first and second subpath features. How many spells is this wizard going to spend to match the combat-oriented benefits the barbarian always has?

Spellcasters are more modular, but you have to compare what a character actually can do and not what every remotely similar character could do. The fighter isn't competing with every spell in existence, just the spells that one character can actually cast. 3.x actually had spellcaster builds that completely outclassed martial characters. Every time someone tries to do that in 5E it falls short.

Tanarii

2016-12-10, 10:08 AM

Eh, personally I take games for what they are. I can play something like GURPS or traveller that can get incredibly complex very quickly, and a game like Star Frontiers where the entire rule set is about 100 pages and have a blast with either. In the full spectrum I just take the games for what they are instead of expecting them to be something else.I've played games where the rules were a jumbled inconsistent mess (Robotech, ninjas & superspies, heroes unlimited ... any palladium game really), complex rules (GURPS, Shadowrun), moderately complex (Runequest, warhammer RPG, 1e/3e/4e with supplements) and blindingly simple (mostly D&D basic). They all have their charms.

But I've noticed the biggest draw of complex game rules is that they are nerd porn for players that like to create characters more than they like to play the game.

And complex rule sets, in my experience, always slow down game play. This is a given. That's fine as long as you get more out of the game rules than you lose from slower game play. But it presents a constant danger of draining the game of any tension.

Most importantly, complex rules games are almost always house-ruled and hand waved during play to make game play flow as the pace of the game requires. I saw this all the damn time in 1e combat rules, and 3e in general. Although neither of them as bad as GURPS or Shadowrun in this regard. Designers of simple TRPG rule sets like understand that the rules get swept aside during gameplay so the game can proceed anyway, and try to make it work for them. Of course, it's possibile to go overboard, but 5e has done good job of building in DM flexibility exactly it's is needed anyway, including putting setting DCs in the DM's hands and giving him advice on how to set them.

(Technically 4e also did this with skill DCs, but it was often executed completely wrong because so many people failed to understand how the system was designed to work. And of course the initial recommended table didn't work with skill systems, which was actually a system problem.)

To be totally honest, I'm really glad WotC has gone the direction they have with 5e; the system is not only built for good DMs, it also helps train good DMs.Me too. It shows the designers really understand game design philosophy. They haven't designed a game that's a nerd's wet dream to design and read and make characters in, but hard to run well. They've designed one that's pretty boring to read, especially since you can't play it by yourself (in your head) because there are no target numbers without a DM. But fantastically effective during actual play with a group of actual human beings.

it works great for a flexible DM that understands the role of dice and the 5e system and has actually read the DMG. It's okay for one coming from 4e in regards to skill (but not combat), who had a good understanding of skill challenges and DC setting. But it works poorly for one still embedded in a 3e mindset.

For new DMs however, I don't think it's really going to teach them anything better or worse that a different system. I cut my DMing teeth on BECMI and AD&D 1e starting at 10 y.o., and later in my teens moved to palladium and 2e. I made so many cliche mistakes for years, regardless of game. System style didn't make a difference to me (sorta kinda) learning how to DM. Experience did that. Lots and lots of it.

Pex

2016-12-10, 12:13 PM

Yes but I don't see the point of extra complexity just for the sake of extra complexity. I can achieve the same thing with a simple skill system that I can with the system featuring thousands of prescribed DCs, exceptions to those DCs, and charts.

All skill systems across pretty much all role-playing games effectively amount to [roll your dice add your bonus] vs the number assigned by the DM. I don't really see any value adding more complexity than that. Even to the point that every time you layer another level of complexity over-the-top, you actually take something away.

There is a lot to be said for a system that is both simple and flexible.

Again you're presuming not being simple means "thousands" of complexities. It's not so extreme.

It's to allow the player more control or knowledge of what his character can do with skills. It's his character. It shouldn't have to be up to the DM's mood that day. Too much can be tiring as you're doing calculus instead of playing, but it doesn't have to go that far.

From the DM's perspective, he just needs to run the game instead of having to do his own mini-game design. Admittedly I am more of a player than a DM, but I have DMed 5E and by the end of one session I was exhausted from constantly having to come up with DCs for everything. Was it easy? Was it hard? Was a roll necessary? Should there be advantage/disadvantage? It got to the point sometimes I never bothered with a DC. If the player rolled high, he succeeded. If he rolled low, he failed. If it was in the middle, spontaneous emotional reaction. Just because I know the game, if it was Pathfinder I wouldn't have to think so hard about it. I couldn't possibly have memorized all the DC tables for all the skills. For some people that is a deal breaker, as too complex. For me I'm happy enough just having the rulebook open to the skill section and look up the tables myself when needed. Formulas used a lot I can memorize, like Spellcraft to identify a spell is DC 15 + spell level.

In comparison a game I do consider too complex to play is Rolemaster, a chart for everything even in combat where you have to look up a table to determine how much damage you do rolling percentile dice compared to the armor class of whom you attack.

Darkholme

2016-12-11, 12:20 AM

Charts will never be able to touch on even a fraction of the DC's you'll need; especially with negotiations but really, for any ability.I don't need or want them to try to exhaustively cover all situations, I simply want a decent (like for like) example to compare to at every couple DC points for comparison sake.

Giving them to players is even worse, because it means that they'll be arguments when situations don't fit in the charts. Not if, when. It'll be the DM's decision sooner or later, better to be prepared to make split-second judgments on what the DC should be than think you can handle it all with a chart.It'll be the DM's decision from roll 1. This just simply lets me be more consistent about it. I could even (without losing consistency) get away with not setting a DC before the roll at all, and simply tell the players "Don't just give me your number, give me the two toughest example tasks you can beat with that number", and then all I have to decide is "harder or easier". Hell, if your players are reasonable, you could even have a houserule wherein all players but the guy making the roll simply raise their hand if they think the task being attempted is equal to oreasier than the examples, and you simply go with the majority vote. Quick, and everyone in the group learns to calibrate their own expectations of DCs; not just the GM.

it also helps train good DMs.This claim, seems more than laughable to me.

The DC Guidelines are sufficiently vague, that an inexperienced GM is going to give many ridiculous target numbers because he has no idea how hard to make a task; or they'll default to a "all tasks are DC 15 unless otherwise noted" type of deal, which is equally terrible. The only way this will "train them to be good DMs" is through disgruntled players criticizing their bad GMing or leaving their games because they're not interested in shooting at schroedinger's teleporting targets every time they attempt a task.

The skills are also sufficiently unreliable (both due to the degree of swinginess and the wildly unpredictable nature of ill-quantified DCs) that (as mentioned by someone else upthread), your goal is basically to find a non-skill solution to every problem so you can actually depend on your character's abilities to be able to do what you're designed to be able to do.

The reason I personally go towards wanting more explicit DC guidelines is not because I struggle to be consistent as a DM, but because, having played other games with this kind of vaguely defined DC system (they were slightly better defined, but nowhere near enough) you get GMs telling you you failed tasks that there's no way your roll should have been low enough to fail; and them later allowing ridiculous things (like hacking the FBI database) far too easily because they set the DCs too low. Both of them, when severe enough, can kill any enjoyment you were having in the session. And I've encountered this several times, with several different GMs, across a few different systems, at this point.

So, as a GM, I want sufficiently explicit rules to help ensure I don't subject my players to that infuriating BS (enough so, that I will make those rules myself if I have to), and as a player I do not want to be subjected to that infuriating crap again (one of the reasons I will no longer play oWoD under any circumstances).

Tanarii

2016-12-11, 06:01 AM

I could even (without losing consistency) get away with not setting a DC before the roll at all, and simply tell the players "Don't just give me your number, give me the two toughest example tasks you can beat with that number", and then all I have to decide is "harder or easier". Hell, if your players are reasonable, you could even have a houserule wherein all players but the guy making the roll simply raise their hand if they think the task being attempted is equal to oreasier than the examples, and you simply go with the majority vote. Quick, and everyone in the group learns to calibrate their own expectations of DCs; not just the GM.You have the most bizarre ideas regarding what will be quick. Neither asking players to read off two examples, nor holding a vote on if it's easier or harder than a comparative task, will be anything but glacial compared to referencing a table yourself. And that alone will be (potentially much) slower than making up the DC on the spot within the guidelines.

Setting pre-defined target numbers for tables of sample task resolution potentially gives the advantage of consistency on the player side. Although in many cases the lack of flexibility for the DM to set reasonable variations because no two things are ever really the same ends up totally negates that advantage by ruining verisimilitude. But the trade-off for that potential advantage is speed of resolution drops.

Darkholme

2016-12-11, 09:00 AM

You have the most bizarre ideas regarding what will be quick. Neither asking players to read off two examples, nor holding a vote on if it's easier or harder than a comparative task, will be anything but glacialMy group tends to get pretty efficient at games fairly quick. It would be slow for the first session or so, but then it would ramp up. Maybe not quite to the same speed as me just picking a number out of the air and telling them what to roll over, but quick enough that I don't expect it would be a major factor slowing down play. A vote could be pretty quick if there's no discussion allowed before voting and it's simply an immediate show of hands.I would probably go the other route, but I'd be open to trying this for a session to see if we like it.

In many cases the lack of flexibility for the DM to set reasonable variations because no two things are ever really the same ends up totally negates that advantage by ruining verisimilitude.I do not follow this line of reasoning. Can you explain why having a table of examples would remove all flexibility to set reasonable variations? I would think it would simply ensure that those variations are reasonable, as you would have something specific to compare them against.

But the trade-off for that potential advantage is speed of resolution drops.The question there, is "just how much slower is it once everyone gets used to it?". Given that we're discussing skills (which are very fast) and not combat (which is slower), I strongly suspect it wouldn't have a significant impact on the game in terms of time, by the third session.

Spellbreaker26

2016-12-11, 10:44 AM

Tanarii

2016-12-11, 12:53 PM

My group tends to get pretty efficient at games fairly quick. It would be slow for the first session or so, but then it would ramp up. Maybe not quite to the same speed as me just picking a number out of the air and telling them what to roll over, but quick enough that I don't expect it would be a major factor slowing down play. A vote could be pretty quick if there's no discussion allowed before voting and it's simply an immediate show of hands.I would probably go the other route, but I'd be open to trying this for a session to see if we like it.

&

The question there, is "just how much slower is it once everyone gets used to it?". Given that we're discussing skills (which are very fast) and not combat (which is slower), I strongly suspect it wouldn't have a significant impact on the game in terms of time, by the third session.... :smallconfused:

Do you even game bruh? :smallamused: :smalltongue:

I do not follow this line of reasoning. Can you explain why having a table of examples would remove all flexibility to set reasonable variations? I would think it would simply ensure that those variations are reasonable, as you would have something specific to compare them against.Thats certainly true to a degree. When it comes to matching the abstract rules to the in-game world, how (and how much) the rules try to simulate the in game world varies.

But the more you simulate, the more rules you have to add to prevent clear mismatches between the rules and how you envision things working within the in game world.
Why does cliff A always have exactly the same climb chance as cliff B? Well, now we need rules for describing different cliff types.
Why is sea A harder to swim and sea B easy? Now we need weather rules, and tides rules, and getting tired rules.
Why is steel-bound door A just as hard to kick down as steel-bound door B when it's twice as tall but 1/10th as thick? Hope you have size, thickness, weight, and even aging for doors rules.
Why is concealed door A the same find DC as concealed door B, uh oh, better add modifiers for B being built by a master dwarf craftsman and then enchanted by an elvish wizard for two decades so that it's twice as hard!

Or you can let the DM have the flexibility to set most DCs as he sees fit, based on what fits the adventure and the in-game world. That has its disadvantages, like a danger of a lack of consistency, possibly even at the same table. But it has advantages, like being incredibly faster to run, and far more flexibile in fitting the abstract rules to the in-game world's 'reality'.

Now obviously it's a sliding scale. 5e gives DC charts and tables for several activities. It could easy have included more examples / tables. And 3e, the first D&D to use the current skill system, gave room for DM judgement. The difference is that 3e left the impression that DCs were predefined and relatively immutable things (ie that all cliffs were the same), even though they were generally intended as examples, not hard coded things. 5e discards that so as not to cause confusion and give the DM the flexibility to just outright fit the resolution to his world, but still provides guidelines so the DM knows how to work within the game math. And the other difference is that as a result, 3e takes longer to adjudicate during actually game play.

But still not as long as AD&D 1e combat with full ADDICT rules in play.
/shudder :smallbiggrin:

Tanarii

2016-12-11, 12:58 PM

This only works if your group is all on the same page. If that's how you guys roll then great but it's not a way of doing things that can be easily used for other DnD groups.
Differences in opinion (This lock should be DC15! No it should be DC18, etc.) will inevitably arise and either all but one person in the group agree, leaving that person highly disgruntled, or there's a 50/50 split, which filibusters the game. This system can't be used except with very well oiled gaming groups; the group I'm in have been playing for nearly a year straight and we often have different ideas on many aspects of gameplay.
Lets be fair here. He's a proponent of pre-defined examples & tables. Those should, in theory at least, actually cut down on disagreements during play. Although my experience is people are going to disagree with how things are resolved are going to disagree no matter what. Either with the pre-defined rules, or with the DM's judgement call.

I realize you're talking specifically about in-game voting, but he's still talking about compared to a pre-defined thing. It should still be less disagreement with someone that's, just like, the DM's opinion, man!

Knaight

2016-12-11, 07:44 PM

But when someone says they aren't liking how skills work and saying why people respond they shouldn't have been rolling in the first place. Some people say you needn't had rolled. Other people say you do roll. That's the problem. You as the player have no control of what you can do in terms of skills. That's the game's on purpose design, and that is what is being criticized.
Hence my comment on Let it Ride rules. It's about two paragraphs on when to roll skills, which mostly covers letting one check do multiple things, the probability math behind the odds of failing one check as a bunch are thrown together to make one thing happen (and this is in Burning Wheel, where characters who are good at a skill are much more likely to perform well against easy tasks because of the binomial distribution)

When I compare 5E to something like like Star Wars saga edition (which has incredibly convoluted and complex skill rules) I find the simplicity to be a breath of fresh air. All that extra crunch doesn't really give you much, and it creates as many problems as it fixes (See things like the diplomancer or omnificer, both specific builds that rely on fixed skill DCs to work).

While 5Es skill system is very DM dependent in order to work, I would argue so is every role playing game ever made, ever.

A complex skill system with a bad DM is just as bad as a simple skill system with a bad DM.
It's not just about simplicity versus complexity. I can think of several skill systems that generally work better than the 5e system and are also simpler - Fudge and Fate (there's multiple skill levels, but there's no attribute attachment mechanic. You have your skill level, you roll it against the difficulty level, done), Savage Worlds (similar deal, but attributes are relevant for skill costs in character generation and advancement), Cortex, etc. A lot of the problems with 5e's skill systems have nothing to do with complexity, or even the general overview of the system. Instead they have to do with the specific numbers used, and how workarounds created for those specific numbers actually cause it to become surprisingly convoluted (although still not to the 3e or Saga level. Cross class skill ranks? Needlessly convoluted maximum rank calculations? Disconnect from every other numerical scale in the game? Seriously?).

There's a GM dependance there, and there inevitably is in RPGs with a traditional GM/players structure. The question is, what particular things is the DM being asked to do, and why are they being asked to do them? In 5e as you present it the DM has to pick a difficulty off a single easy-hard table, then decide who gets to roll at all, then decide who gets hidden bonuses from character concept as expressed. In a lot of other systems with rules light skill systems* the GM just has to pick a difficulty off a table. If there's something like a bonuses from character concept mechanic it's often carefully built in - Aspects are an example of this, and I've actually used something similar in a homebrew where you give your character an explicit description and there are explicit bonuses for the extent to which the description is relevant - and the math behind the system generally prevents having to be careful about who gets to roll.

Each of these three things is individually contentious. Pex doesn't like that part of the DM role is use of a single easy-hard table, and would favor a return to a table per skill. Upthread a bit there was also a preference expressed towards having a single massive 26x18 table for all skills. I suspect you strongly dislike all of these; I can confirm that my reaction to learning about the switch during the playtest was "good riddance" to the old system. It's the two adjustment steps I'm not on board with, and in that regard I'm pretty sure Pex is also not a fan. They represent added complexity that didn't need to be here; I'd argue they're downright sloppy.

*I would just say rules light systems, but I'd argue that 5e as a whole is absolutely not a rules light system.

Since the common denominator is a bad DM take it out of the equation. Then all that matters is the complexity or simplicity of the skill system. 5E was purposely designed to be simple. It is that simplicity that is causing problems for some people. However, having that problem does not mean the alternative is a monstrosity (my word) of a complex system, but yes, something more involved, or "complex" if you will, is desired. For some people the simplicity is a deal breaker and won't play 5E*. For others it is to be lumped, hoped the Powers That Be will do something about it, and be patient waiting for the eventual 6E that just might be an improvement.
Yeah, no. Making things more complicated is a cost of making a system be able to do more, and it's not always paid evenly. There are plenty of games that manage to add a huge amount of complexity through lousy mechanics that add basically nothing, and there are fairly simple games that introduce elegant mechanics that add relatively little complexity and manage to do a great deal with it. To use a non-skill example, take ORE versus Rolemaster in terms of their wound mechanics. The ORE system managed to figure out a way to quickly and elegantly handle hit location, damage, and initiative in one roll. That mechanic is then expanded in a lot of fairly natural ways to cover a wide variety of things, and it's a beautiful example of a game masterfully using relatively few elegant mechanics to pay for a lot of functionality. Rolemaster paid for basically the same functionality with multiple non-table rolls, a whole bunch of tables, multiple table rolls, and in some cases tables that are rolled on to determine which table you then roll on in the future.

This isn't even a game design thing - it's just a design thing. In games, as in many things which are designed there are designs made for particular goals. There are generally lots of different ways to design things for these same goals, and some of those designs are just vastly worse at the same goal than others.

Zorku

2016-12-12, 03:50 PM

I literally asked you to not quote and break down that shortened and incomplete post and you do exactly that and make wrong assumptions which would've been clarified in the longer post?I made no false assumptions, and your detailed post didn't resolve any of my complaints.

I'll just... respond to the spoilered post. Yes.No, respond to my best points, not the trash I didn't think was worth soiling the thread with.

I admit to great confusion. What I was saying is that a fighter has:
Gear, skills, attributes.

A caster has:
Gear, skills, attributes, spells.

Their list is one longer. The rest of the list is equal. Now I might've missed some things, but those're pretty much equal between a fighter and a caster.
No, their list is equal. Gear, skills, abilities.
Other than a few saves, attributes are part of the same thing as skill proficiency, and it's ridiculous to treat them as separate while ignoring class abilities altogether. The entire way you've written this up reeks of motivated reasoning, and doesn't bear a good semblance to the game even if you're not just succumbing to your bias.

I have. It's the part where the non-caster isn't always a hulking barbarian. Characters all have their own strengths. The post is to propose that out of combat, the barbarians strengths can all be replicated by a caster, who can do yet more on top.This is wrong from top to bottom, and you've chosen the most fragile point out of many to respond to, while managing to do so out of context at the same time.

Nobody knows knock, there's nothing in the game that only one class can do, and I'm sorry you've had such awful DMs.

The chance that 1d20 >= 1d20+6, according to anydice (http://anydice.com/), is 26.25%. I was figuring a ~5th level barbarian with 20 strength and proficiency against a city-born commoner with 10 strength. You could also up the level a bit and put the barbarian against a dwarf or a farmer, who will likely have 12 strength.
You said the barbarian was more likely to fail in the original, and you need to show me what you're typing into anydice before I'm going to be confident that you haven't done the math wrong.

Ad hominem.You seem to be committing the fallacy fallacy.
It's barely even an insult, but since you can't seem to see past that to catch the point, I'll use nice formal language to restate it:
Improvised actions are more powerful that spells, and the casting of spells, which all classes have some form of in this edition, comes with limitations and drawbacks.

I would go as far as to say that if a DM tells me my class feature doesn't do what it states it does, then he is stepping out of bounds. The mechanics of the game are to bring structure to the experience and if the GM breaks that structure without good reason, why have it at all? Why not just tell a story without using a ruleset, rolling some dice when we feel the need for uncertainty.This appears to have no connection to what I said. At it's most charitable, you seem to want to roll for every action, but only fail at mundane tasks on a critical failure. 5% seems like ludicrously high rate for that to me, but if you want that there are plenty of DMs that run their game that way. I think this takes away from character design, but so be it.

I admit to having a roll-happy DM. He loves just asking for a roll for that action. He is not blatantly wrong though. It's subjective. Which is one of the issues I have with 5e that I am bringing up: You do not know what your skill does, it depends solely on the DM.The same is true of almost every illusion spell, you need to know the DM before you know if evocation is going to burn down every forest you set foot in, and the list goes on. THIS reinforces my prior claim of your unfamiliarity with spellcasting, so insult or no, it appears I was right.

I did play a wizard in the very same campaign for a while though and I legitimately noticed I had extra options available to me.And this reinforces my assessment that you don't apply much creativity in the use of your tools.

I could climb the wall, or I could fly up. I could attempt to investigate the magical item, or cast identify.Go find the rule for how you identify the properties of a magical item without magic. I know what it is and what kind of language is used for it, but you apparently have no idea it exists, and have thus assumed that it does not. The same seems to be true for an awful lot of how you play the game sans spells, and there's probably some argument to be made for bad game design in the fact that you don't know there are ways to do things without magic, but that's not what we're talking about here.

I could translate the weird language, or cast... Ok, I had no translation spells. I rolled for that one.Or you could have chosen the language during character creation. Besides, every DM does languages different anyway.

Valor bard. 20 strength. What can he not do that a barbarian can, out of combat?Outrun the barbarian. Take 20(24) on strength rolls. He's got a lower carry capacity, can't see objects clearly a mile away without expending resources, cast beast sense or commune with nature rituals.

But hey, I'll throw you a bone: The stereotypical barbarian makes all of their problems into combat, so that's where all their strengths lie. You can't rely on different DMs to give you a reliable experience outside of combat, just like everyone else. Hope your campaign setting makes you relevant.

Bladelock. Valor bard. Paladin. Eldritch knight. Being behind two levels of wizard in exchange for heavy armour, defence style, constitution save proficiency and, most importantly, action surge.
Nothing you listed has the knock spell.