Wuxia/Action Movie inspired DCs

[Yakk]

A comment in another thread made me think of this. If I want a Wuxia/Action movie level of competence in my PCs, can I do it with just setting DCs?

Acrobatics:
DC 10: Running on a tight rope.
DC 15: Wall-running, ending move on solid ground
DC 20: Wall running without ending a turn on solid ground
DC 25: Walking on leaves or rain drops
DC 30: ???

Plus: while moving under an Acrobatics check, reaction based attacks must beat your Acrobatics skill roll to (possibly) hit.

Athletics:
DC 10: Jumping up a 1 story building (grabbing the edge), or over a modest moat. Bashing through a wooden wall without slowing down.
DC 15: Moving x2 speed. Jumping up a castle wall, or over a chasm; line or simple arc, must end your turn on ground. Bashing through a stone wall without slowing down.
DC 20: Moving x3 speed. Flight jumping, end turn on ground (but can turn corners etc). Bashing through solid steel without slowing down.
DC 25: Moving x4 speed. Line of sight jumping; do not have to end turn on ground, but strait line (or modest gravity arc). Bashing through magical force without slowing down.
DC 30: ???

I could imagine similar for other skills. My point is that we reframe it so that DC 10 starts out at or slightly above the limits of what real life humans can do. And we go up from there.

On your turn, you get to make a single such skill check for free. If you want to do two, they are both at disadvantage, or require an action.

The goal of this level of Wuxia is to increase the value of skills.

For Stealth:
DC 10: Gain the hidden condition when invisible, in darkness, heavy concealment or 3/4 cover.
DC 15: Gain the hidden condition when lightly concealed or in 1/2 cover.
DC 20: Gain the hidden condition in dim light
DC 25: Gain the hidden condition in plain view
DC 30: ???

Much like the above, this isn't an action. You get a skill check on your turn on top of your action.

[Sigreid]

I'd probably give some abilities akin to the epic boons.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Going totally crazy mythic level I'd say...


DC 30 acrobatics? Running on a trail of smoke or motes of dust caught in a sunbeam

DC 30 athletics? Grabbing the earth with both hands and tearing open a crevasse

DC 30 stealth? Hide in a person's shadow, letting you stealth with them in a broom closet

[Tanarii]

Are these going to be class restricted or open to all classes? Are they only for PCs and select bad-ass monsters/NPCs?

It's definitely a pretty wuxia game when the Str 8 characters have a 50% chance of jumping a 1 story building. I like the way you're thinking so far. :smallamused:

[Psyren]

I'll first say that the only measure of "am I doing this right" that ultimately matters is "are all the players, including me as the DM, having fun?" If the answer is yes, you've won D&D.

Now, with that said:



I could imagine similar for other skills. My point is that we reframe it so that DC 10 starts out at or slightly above the limits of what real life humans can do. And we go up from there.

On your turn, you get to make a single such skill check for free. If you want to do two, they are both at disadvantage, or require an action.

The goal of this level of Wuxia is to increase the value of skills.

Given your goal I think you're on the right track - i.e. pegging DC 10 as "peak human" will certainly allow DC 20-30 to hit demigod levels. That also means of course that the vast majority of standard fantasy feats should be low DC or automatic in your games too. I wouldn't expect a game where DC 10 is peak human to still have regular manacles be DC 20 for instance.

An alternate option, if you want rolling for standard and wuxia fantasy alike to still be a thing, is to break bounded accuracy. Allow the players to top their stats out at 30 instead of 20, give them much higher point buy to start, accelerate proficiency bonus and set DCs for the wuxia stuff in the 30s and 40s.

[LtPowers]

The 3.x Epic Level Handbook included many unrealistic actions with associated supernumerary DCs. Obviously the DCs won't port directly over, but you could use the lists for inspiration. You can find them in the SRD even, so you don't even need the book: https://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicSkills.htm


Powers &8^]

[animorte]

An alternate option, if you want rolling for standard and wuxia fantasy alike to still be a thing, is to break bounded accuracy. Allow the players to top their stats out at 30 instead of 20, give them much higher point buy to start, accelerate proficiency bonus and set DCs for the wuxia stuff in the 30s and 40s.
Funny you should say this. I've actually just recently had the base idea for a different proficiency system that falls right about in that range.
Proficiency: Half character level rounded down (5 points at level 10, 10 points at level 20).
Ability Scores: Each point above 10 is +1 and each point below is -1.
d20 Test: Roll d20 as normal. Add proficiency bonus and ability scores where relevant.
New standard: If the total of your proficiency + ability score = DC, automatic success.
Max Score: At level 20 with a maxed stat and proficiency, base is 20. Roll d20 for maximum of 40.

Still untested! :smalltongue: I'll let you know...

Those stealth DCs made me think of a large cartoon character hiding behind the most slender of lampposts. :smallbiggrin:

A couple other DC images that came to mind:
Mario style double jump.
Flyby attack (except with a jump).
Landing and balancing on your opponent's weapon.

[Yakk]

Are these going to be class restricted or open to all classes? Are they only for PCs and select bad-ass monsters/NPCs?

It's definitely a pretty wuxia game when the Str 8 characters have a 50% chance of jumping a 1 story building. I like the way you're thinking so far. :smallamused:
Probably just PCs and heroics.

And not class restricted at all. The point is to make skills better, not make spellcasters worse.

I do want to make it far wider than just these 3 skills.

One thing I might be tempted to have is like "if you fail your target skill check, your other actions are at a disadvantage, but you still get the lesser effects". Not sure.

It is also very combat-centeric, when a wasted turn has a cost. Making it work out of combat reasonably is challenging, without failure being extremely punishing. Like, when you try a line-of-sight jump over the grand canyon and fail the check, what happens?

A character jumping and falling to their death isn't really wuxia. But if there is no consequence of failure, then someone with +5 athletics can try it repeatedly until they do succeed.

I could have a system where, if you are 10 under the DC, disaster happens. Then you can _safely_ try anything for which your modifier +10 is enough to succeed at, and anything else you risk doom. How does this work with reliable talent? I guess L 11 rogues might just be awesome. I am sort of ok with that.

So someone with +5 athletics who rolls a 20 gets to line-of-sight jump. But if they roll a 9 or under, they jump off the cliff and die.

Maybe 5 off is the threshold needed. Then someone with +4 athletics can safely do DC 10 jumps, someone with +9 can safely do DC 15, someone with +14 can safely do DC 20, and it requires +19 to safely do DC 25.

Or maybe "if you miss by more than your modifier". This has the nice property of making it very unsafe for the 8 strength character, but once you have high modifiers failing is less than a problem.

So a L 5 expertise acrobatics dex 18 PC with +10 modifier can try a DC 25 stunt.
1-4: Disaster
5-14: Failure, try again
15+: success

At L 9 with 20 dex (+13):

1-11: failure, try again
12+: success

that looks like it works. You can work out if something risks disaster (twice modifier plus 1) pretty quickly, and it (again) makes skill check modifiers stronger.

With reliable talent trying a DC 25 check, if you have a +8 modifier your min roll is 18. So you can't have a disaster.


I'll first say that the only measure of "am I doing this right" that ultimately matters is "are all the players, including me as the DM, having fun?" If the answer is yes, you've won D&D.

Now, with that said:

Given your goal I think you're on the right track - i.e. pegging DC 10 as "peak human" will certainly allow DC 20-30 to hit demigod levels. That also means of course that the vast majority of standard fantasy feats should be low DC or automatic in your games too. I wouldn't expect a game where DC 10 is peak human to still have regular manacles be DC 20 for instance.
Sure, other DCs are going to have to change.

To work out where, this kind of effort is needed to calibrate it.

However, using raw muscle power to shatter steel manacles was already a pretty superhuman feat if you think about it. They'd have to be pretty poorly made for it to be possible.

An alternate option, if you want rolling for standard and wuxia fantasy alike to still be a thing, is to break bounded accuracy. Allow the players to top their stats out at 30 instead of 20, give them much higher point buy to start, accelerate proficiency bonus and set DCs for the wuxia stuff in the 30s and 40s.
Sure, but I'm trying not to break bounded accuracy.

Combat capabilities in 5e is sufficiently Wuxia/Action movie for me -- a level 11 fighter can defeat dozens of guards at once without breaking a sweat.

I'm just talking about the things besides "cast a spell" and "hit it with a weapon".

[Psyren]

Sure, other DCs are going to have to change.

To work out where, this kind of effort is needed to calibrate it.

However, using raw muscle power to shatter steel manacles was already a pretty superhuman feat if you think about it. They'd have to be pretty poorly made for it to be possible.

I agree, for heroic fantasy that would be pretty hard to do (needing both substantial talent and training) - hence the DC 20.

But in a wuxia/mythic game I'd expect strong characters to be ripping chains out of walls before smashing their way out etc - so if your plan is to maintain bounded accuracy as you say, I would shift the "window" on the printed DCs we have downward a step or two.

[Yakk]

So, what about other skills

Book Learning
Arcana
History
Religion
Nature

Being able to discern a weakness in a foe is pretty trope-ish. Spewing Lore is key here I think; you can share your knowledge for others to use, moreso than yourself?

Imagine being able to make a pre-assist? Or an divination-like prophesy die? But instead of "use this d20", it is "use my knowledge check for your attack roll".

Social Skills
Persuasion
Intimidation
Deception

DC 10 is a check that "anything a trained human could do".

Like, DC 10 deception means someone believes your lie unless they are hostile or have strong evidence you are wrong. Higher DCs deal with hostile audiences or ones with strong evidence you are spewing nonsense, like Dr Who convincing someone they are an official inspector of whatever.

DC 10 persuasion gets someone to do anything that isn't risky or against their interests. Higher DCs start making people decide to put away their self interests for a greater moral cause.

DC 10 intimidation makes you as scary as a PC actually is. Higher DC let you pull off stuff like Princess Bride "I'm paralyzed and made someone surrender".

Sherlock Set:
Perception
Insight
Investigation

If you've seen the recent Sherlock movies, the trick where time stops and Sherlock sees something, then acts on it in slow motion?

Both Perception and Insight work there. Investigation is trickier to see in an action scenario. But there is the entire "ah, the dirt on its boots comes from river bend" thing. Like, extract plot points from the DM?

The Ranger triple:
Medicine
Animal Handling
Survival

Medicine could create potions.

Animal Handling it is hard to split from Ranger Beastmaster feature. It could start with bypassing the mounted combat rules and permit your mount to act independently. Heck, it could be used like a prophesy die, where your check replaces the mount's ability.

Survival is also tricky. There is foraging. But how is that distinct from Medicine?


Thief:
Slight of Hand

The old "hidden dagger has advantage" maybe?

Already handled:
Stealth
Acrobatics
Athletics

[Skrum]

I don't love this dynamic, TBH. I definitely think these types of feats should be possible for martials (especially as they get to higher level), but I don't think skill checks are the way. There's a 10-page thread right now about how screwy the outcomes of skill checks are, and yeah, TLDR, they're right. Skill checks don't make a lot of sense. If someone has some extreme dexterity-acrobatics thing going on, and they can walk on freshly fallen snow without leaving footprints, they should be able to do that with a pretty high degree of predictability. Not they might or might not, who knows until they try. That's just really frustrating for character continuity.

If they can't do it with enough predictability for them to be able to count on it, it's not really very valuable. Going for the extraordinary feat in a moment of crisis becomes a Hail Mary, not a feat of heroism, if that makes sense.

[Martin Greywolf]

A comment in another thread made me think of this. If I want a Wuxia/Action movie level of competence in my PCs, can I do it with just setting DCs?

Not really, no.

While attacks and damage can be explained away by saying they are also scaled to cultivators/impossible martial arts and normal mortals get immediately destroyed, the problem is movement.

Wuxia and xianxia have a big theme of being able to pull of a lot of movement in a single scene while fighting, and that doesn't play very well with DnD battle maps and 30 feet of move speed. You could add a zero to that move speed or something, but that would result in having to make massive maps.

So my answer is no, DCs aren't enough, you also need to think of something to solve the battle movement problem - seeking cover alone is pretty important thing to do for ranged characters, which is to say nothing of AoE abilities and hazards on the ground (which a wuxia martial artist could almost entirely ignore by jumping over them if you just change DCs - how does a difficult terrain work when you have lightness skills anyway?)

You may still be able to do it, but it will take more than just the DCs.

Also, Die Hard is an action movie and no one does anything that impossible in it. What specific baselines are we looking for here?

[Psyren]

You don't need 300ft. movement to feel xianxia. Just call for an Athletics or Acrobatics check to jump 2x or 3x your move or something, and you have wire-fu.

[Bobthewizard]

A comment in another thread made me think of this. If I want a Wuxia/Action movie level of competence in my PCs, can I do it with just setting DCs?

Acrobatics:
DC 10: Running on a tight rope.
DC 15: Wall-running, ending move on solid ground
DC 20: Wall running without ending a turn on solid ground
DC 25: Walking on leaves or rain drops
DC 30: ???

Plus: while moving under an Acrobatics check, reaction based attacks must beat your Acrobatics skill roll to (possibly) hit.

Athletics:
DC 10: Jumping up a 1 story building (grabbing the edge), or over a modest moat. Bashing through a wooden wall without slowing down.
DC 15: Moving x2 speed. Jumping up a castle wall, or over a chasm; line or simple arc, must end your turn on ground. Bashing through a stone wall without slowing down.
DC 20: Moving x3 speed. Flight jumping, end turn on ground (but can turn corners etc). Bashing through solid steel without slowing down.
DC 25: Moving x4 speed. Line of sight jumping; do not have to end turn on ground, but strait line (or modest gravity arc). Bashing through magical force without slowing down.
DC 30: ???

I could imagine similar for other skills. My point is that we reframe it so that DC 10 starts out at or slightly above the limits of what real life humans can do. And we go up from there.

On your turn, you get to make a single such skill check for free. If you want to do two, they are both at disadvantage, or require an action.

The goal of this level of Wuxia is to increase the value of skills.

For Stealth:
DC 10: Gain the hidden condition when invisible, in darkness, heavy concealment or 3/4 cover.
DC 15: Gain the hidden condition when lightly concealed or in 1/2 cover.
DC 20: Gain the hidden condition in dim light
DC 25: Gain the hidden condition in plain view
DC 30: ???

Much like the above, this isn't an action. You get a skill check on your turn on top of your action.

I love this! I love the idea of PCs doing this stuff without casting spells. For these three at least, I wouldn't tie it to a d20 roll though. I would just give them the ability if their passive score exceeds the DC above. So if your Athletics bonus is +10, you could meet the DC20 and move 3x your speed and line jump.

I would also give every martial class one expertise in one of the above at class level 12. I don't think you need to extend this to other skills, but you could if you wanted to. It gets tricky with contested skills.

[Yakk]

So the idea is you ro at the start of your turn naming your DC and saying your goal.

If you pass, you get it.
If you fail *less than your mod* you get a lesser effect.
If you fail by *more than your mod* then you fail in some "disasterous" way.

So +10 against DC 20 would have a DC 10 as its worst case (1-4), sometimes DC 15 (5-9). Trying DC 25 risks disaster on a roll of 1-4.

This means that DC 10 is "not dangerous" if you have a +5 mod.
DC 15 is you have a +7 mod
DC 20 if you have a +10 mod
DC 25 if you have a +12 mod
DC 30 if you have a +15 mod

It is true with a +15 mod, some turns you can only do DC 15 stunts (on a bad roll). But you'll never try to jump to the moon and trip over your shoelace (or whatever).

I'm trying to keep some uncertainty in play, so some turns are more awesome than others.