Why is long jump distance so short?

[Aquillion]

The rules for long jumps are as follows:

Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump.

This means that someone with 20 strength - meant to be superhuman - can manage a long jump of 20 feet. That is... a decent number, for a skilled high school athlete? But not exceptional by any means. These are, bluntly, "guy at the gym" numbers, in the sense that you could probably walk into a random gym and find someone who could manage that. FWIW the world record long jump is nearly 30 feet.

For comparison, the high jump:

High Jump. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump.
8 feet is just about the world record (precisely enough that it makes me suspect the rules were set specifically for that.) It's still not superhuman - I'm just not seeing anything in the rules that supports the idea that Athletics is capable of superhuman feats - but it's at least exceptional.

Personally I'd prefer it if the rules did allow superhuman feats at high levels, but it seems odd that, even with heroic level stats, long-jump distance seems to cap out so low.

Another observation is that proficiency in Athletics does not actually help with these feats, so perhaps the answer is for athletics proficiency / expertise to add twice or four times your proficiency bonus to your long jump distance, respectively, and perhaps just add the bonus directly to jump height. That would raise long jump to a bit above the world record and high jump to waaay above it but it's probably fine, since you'd need to be all-in on strength and athletics and be superhuman in multiple ways (high level + superhuman strength.) A rogue with 20 strength + athletics expertise could jump 20 feet in the air like Spring Heeled Jack, but only at very high levels.

[stoutstien]

The jump rules are the *minimal* distances not the max and you are also doing it while wearing/carrying hundreds of pounds of gear.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The jump rules are the *minimal* distances not the max and you are also doing it while wearing/carrying hundreds of pounds of gear.

And without chance of failure (by default) even on uneven ground and with less than pro-grade footwear, and with you landing on your feet and able to keep moving if you have movement left.

In general, comparing adventuring limits to Olympic performance is not apples to apples, because of things like that.

[stoutstien]

And without chance of failure (by default) even on uneven ground and with less than pro-grade footwear, and with you landing on your feet and able to keep moving if you have movement left.

In general, comparing adventuring limits to Olympic performance is not apples to apples, because of things like that.

Aye. Looks firmly within the high fantasy but not quite mystical realm which is about right as the default before adding in other features.

[Aimeryan]

The jump rules are the *minimal* distances not the max and you are also doing it while wearing/carrying hundreds of pounds of gear.

The distances are the max, no? You can jump shorter, but you can't jump longer without further aid (usually magical). The latter point is also kind of irrevelant if its not taken into account, i.e., if you put your gear in a Bag of Holding, or hand to another person, you don't jump further.

Not sure what I would put world record athletes at Str wise, especially since Str is all encompassing in 5e rather that specific muscle groups. Maybe 14? I mean adventurers can start with 16 via racial, but that is for all muscle related activity rather than a very focused one. So an olympic long jumper in 5e that wasn't an adventurer would only jump 14ft, about half the real world equivalent.

Of course, there are other jump mechanic rules that really should be cleared up in 5e in any case - like what happens if you jump at the end of your movement (or last 5ft, etc.). Can you be half way across a gap between turns? That kind of thing.

[stoutstien]

The distances are the max, no? You can jump shorter, but you can't jump longer without further aid (usually magical). The latter point is also kind of irrevelant if its not taken into account, i.e., if you put your gear in a Bag of Holding, or hand to another person, you don't jump further.



Per the rules governing ability checks(strength) <athletics>, you can always attempt to go beyond this baseline. *Dm fiat/rule 0 pending as always but that also applies to making the jump in the 1st place*

[Amnestic]

Per the rules governing ability checks(strength) <athletics>, you can always attempt to go beyond this baseline.

It's weird that High Jumps call out athletics checks to jump higher, but long jumps don't, but then they put it under athletics for long jumps anyway.

Bizarre formatting choice.

[stoutstien]

It's weird that High Jumps call out athletics checks to jump higher, but long jumps don't, but then they put it under athletics for long jumps anyway.

Bizarre formatting choice.

Very but that is WotC in a nutshell.

I think it was a copy paste error from the play test material based on the stuff I have left over from Next because the jumping rules were in the ability section rather than movement for a good portion of it

[Blatant Beast]

FWIW the world record long jump is nearly 30 feet.


Bob Beamon’s Long Jump of 29’ and 2.25 inches was a record that lasted almost 30 years. Mike Powell’s current record of 29’ and 4.25 inches has not been bested in over 30 years.

An acquaintance of mine, was a teammate of Mr. Powell’s in college, and my acquaintance characterized Powell as the most naturally gifted jumper they have ever met.

A 20 STR Champion Fighter with the Remarkable Athlete ability is jumping a minumum of 25 feet, which is close to the World Record Long Jumps recorded from circa 1900-1930.

As Stoutstein points out, this is even before an Athletics check is called for, which can add to the distance.

[diplomancer]

Jumping 20' with a 10' headstart while carrying up to 300 pounds of equipment seems very impressive to me.

[Dr.Samurai]

The rules for long jumps are as follows:


This means that someone with 20 strength - meant to be superhuman - can manage a long jump of 20 feet. That is... a decent number, for a skilled high school athlete? But not exceptional by any means. These are, bluntly, "guy at the gym" numbers, in the sense that you could probably walk into a random gym and find someone who could manage that. FWIW the world record long jump is nearly 30 feet.

For comparison, the high jump:

8 feet is just about the world record (precisely enough that it makes me suspect the rules were set specifically for that.) It's still not superhuman - I'm just not seeing anything in the rules that supports the idea that Athletics is capable of superhuman feats - but it's at least exceptional.

Personally I'd prefer it if the rules did allow superhuman feats at high levels, but it seems odd that, even with heroic level stats, long-jump distance seems to cap out so low.

Another observation is that proficiency in Athletics does not actually help with these feats, so perhaps the answer is for athletics proficiency / expertise to add twice or four times your proficiency bonus to your long jump distance, respectively, and perhaps just add the bonus directly to jump height. That would raise long jump to a bit above the world record and high jump to waaay above it but it's probably fine, since you'd need to be all-in on strength and athletics and be superhuman in multiple ways (high level + superhuman strength.) A rogue with 20 strength + athletics expertise could jump 20 feet in the air like Spring Heeled Jack, but only at very high levels.
As others have pointed out though, D&D adventurers are performing this under less than ideal circumstances. We're not talking about someone that's been training for x months, with the proper athletic wear on, and specially designed mats to run on, etc.

These are adventurers wearing armor and traveling packs, with wounds and injuries, performing these feats at-will, anywhere at anytime, with only a 10ft running start, and auto-succeeding, before even asking the DM "can I jump further?".

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'll say that while I think the current rules are ok (tolerable and not horrible while also not great), I'd not mind some form of suggestions for the DM as to allowing further jumps based on a check and some discussion of options for dealing with the "jump further than movement" issue.

Really, it's the sort of thing that needs to exist DM-side...but should have at least a marker player-side. Which means the split into two different books makes things harder to deal with--since the PHB comes out well before the DMG (or at least did in 5e), you can't just say "see page XYZ for suggestions". If you put it purely player-side, it becomes an entitlement when there are many different avenues that might make sense. If you don't tell players about it at all, they'll rarely think to ask. Which makes the split annoying IMO.

[Dr.Samurai]

What do you guys think of jumping working sort of like an aura around the character? Where you can jump to any space within that aura, up to a certain height? Aura's range and height would be determined by Strength/Athletics.

[shinakuma2]

For comparison, the high jump:

8 feet is just about the world record (precisely enough that it makes me suspect the rules were set specifically for that.) It's still not superhuman - I'm just not seeing anything in the rules that supports the idea that Athletics is capable of superhuman feats - but it's at least exceptional.


fwiw, the world record for high jump is using the "Fosbury Flop" where the person leaps backwards to get the head and shoulders over the bar first. An adventurer's high jump is clearing this distance with the entire body, or in other words, jumping straight up and landing on their feet at the desired height. This is, by any definition, a super-human feat.

[stoutstien]

What do you guys think of jumping working sort of like an aura around the character? Where you can jump to any space within that aura, up to a certain height? Aura's range and height would be determined by Strength/Athletics.

That's kinda what I'm working with in my WIP with zones rather than grids which is just easier to do cool stuff with.

[Zhorn]

...someone with 20 strength - meant to be superhuman...
Can someone tell me where this take comes from?

Generally when I hear someone talking about "such and such d&d is supposed to be superhuman if [x] stat is above [y] value", they start throwing around anime-esque examples, like fighters splitting mountains with single attacks, barbarians leaping over mountains, but not much in the way of actual book references.

Is it an older edition thing?
Did it come from a tweet or external conversation with a dev outside of the books?
Or is this all just a common fan-made assertion?

Because I'm not having much luck finding that as a term drawn from the 5e books. Some help point to where to find it would be appreciated.

because without such a reference actually coming from the text; I can't help but see the 'superhuman' assertion as a misleading yardstick; since it'll mean different values to different people depending on their individual take on fiction in general.

To the other pat of the OP's topic; I'm not against a formula for increased distance; I just don't agree with the 'superhuman' notion; and likewise think characters with dumped strength having equally low jump distances isn't an issue.
What increase there should be should still have a reasonable constraint. ie: a character with 10 STR and +0 Athletics should stay around that 10ft distance, while a character with 20 STR and nothing else getting 20ft is reasonably fair.


I'll say that while I think the current rules are ok (tolerable and not horrible while also not great), I'd not mind some form of suggestions for the DM as to allowing further jumps based on a check and some discussion of options for dealing with the "jump further than movement" issue.
That's a more interesting topic to me also. The UA playtest rule for the jump action was poorly executed to a frustrating level, while BG3 was a bit too much of an over-correction; the base idea of action economy modifying the distance is a good base idea.

Example:
Jump as part of regular movement = flat STR score
Jump as part of taking the dash action = STR score + Athletics modifier
Jump as part of a 'leap' bonus action (martial perk available in a tier 2 level range) = jump distance doesn't count towards movement total, add proficiency dice to distance if athletic proficient (2 dice with expertise)?

A few campaigns back our table used the STR score as a flat baseline, but trying to jump further was an athletics check; where the total was applied the same way a modifier is drawn from a score. ie: roll a 18, that's a +4 to the distance in feet. Pile on the expertise, inspiration, advantage, etc and roll a 32 = that's +11

[PhoenixPhyre]

Can someone tell me where this take comes from?

Generally when I hear someone talking about "such and such d&d is supposed to be superhuman if [x] stat is above [y] value", they start throwing around anime-esque examples, like fighters splitting mountains with single attacks, barbarians leaping over mountains, but not much in the way of actual book references.

Is it an older edition thing?
Did it come from a tweet or external conversation with a dev outside of the books?
Or is this all just a common fan-made assertion?

Because I'm not having much luck finding that as a term drawn from the 5e books. Some help point to where to find it would be appreciated.

because without such a reference actually coming from the text; I can't help but see the 'superhuman' assertion as a misleading yardstick; since it'll mean different values to different people depending on their individual take on fiction in general.

To the other pat of the OP's topic; I'm not against a formula for increased distance; I just don't agree with the 'superhuman' notion; and likewise think characters with dumped strength having equally low jump distances isn't an issue.
What increase there should be should still have a reasonable constraint. ie: a character with 10 STR and +0 Athletics should stay around that 10ft distance, while a character with 20 STR and nothing else getting 20ft is reasonably fair.


Yeah. There are specific things where it says "super powered" and barbarians, specifically, are noted as gaining "superhuman strength" from Rage. But the whole "T4 characters should be demigods" thing isn't a 5e assumption.



That's a more interesting topic to me also. The UA playtest rule for the jump action was poorly executed to a frustrating level, while BG3 was a bit too much of an over-correction; the base idea of action economy modifying the distance is a good base idea.

Example:
Jump as part of regular movement = flat STR score
Jump as part of taking the dash action = STR score + Athletics modifier
Jump as part of a 'leap' bonus action (martial perk available in a tier 2 level range) = jump distance doesn't count towards movement total, add proficiency dice to distance if athletic proficient (2 dice with expertise)?

A few campaigns back our table used the STR score as a flat baseline, but trying to jump further was an athletics check; where the total was applied the same way a modifier is drawn from a score. ie: roll a 18, that's a +4 to the distance in feet. Pile on the expertise, inspiration, advantage, etc and roll a 32 = that's +11

My personal take is:

* The values presented represent the minimums. You can do that without asking.
* You can (no action) make a STR (athletics) check to long jump, DC 10 = +5 feet + 1 foot for every additional you beat the DC by. Failure just means you don't get extra distance.
* High jumping may allow a similar check, but scaled down.
* Dashing just unlocks jumping further.
* Some class features/spells/"feats" (or their equivalent) modify this even further.

[windgate]

It’s not just jumping. Real World athletes frequently often outperform Max Level D&D characters for physical activities.

Deadlifts:
World record: 1100 Pounds:
D&D: 15 * 20 Strength = 300 Pounds

Sprinting (100 Meter Sprint)
100 Meter ~ 330 Feet
Usain Bolt ran 330 Feet in 9.5 Seconds
Conversions:
Usain Bolt: 208 Feet per "round"
Level 20 Wood Elf Monk (Dash): 130 Feet per Round

Long Jump:
Current World Record: 29 Feet
24 Strength Barbarian: 24 Feet

I would concede to the “but the adventurer is carrying equipment” argument if there was any sort of adjustment for that weight. The closest we get to that is a PENALTY under variant encumbrance.

That being said, someone brought up high jumps earlier. That is an exception and its and extreme one. The World record is only 8 feet. Using 3 + Strength mod, A loaded down adventurer is matching that with only 5 strength…….

Spellcasters are summoning Huge Monsters, Asteroid impacts and teleporting across worlds at high levels. Their Barbarian teammate isn't Hercules (or an anime character), it’s a high school wrestler who (at best) has a magic sword.

[JNAProductions]

Sprinting (100 Meter Sprint)
100 Meter ~ 330 Feet
Usain Bolt ran 330 Feet in 9.5 Seconds
Conversions:
Usain Bolt: 208 Feet per “round”
Level 20 Wood Elf Monk (Dash): 130 Feet per Round

Tabaxi Monk 14/Barbarian 5 with Mobile has a move speed of 75'.
They can double their move speed thanks to their racial, for 150' for a round.
They can Dash, twice with a point of Ki, for 450' in one round.

That's a 4.37 second 100 Meter Dash.

[windgate]

Tabaxi Monk 14/Barbarian 5 with Mobile has a move speed of 75'.
They can double their move speed thanks to their racial, for 150' for a round.
They can Dash, twice with a point of Ki, for 450' in one round.

That's a 4.37 second 100 Meter Dash.

Cool. There might be something even faster than this. But to put it into perspective, barring magical enhancements, you have gone all in on a build with results that are only slightly more than double the real world record. Is that superhuman performace in the same narrative ballpark as the 20th level wizard?

For more context, a sonic boom occurs at over 750 Miles per hour (650,000 feet per round). Thats seems to be a common achievement benchmark for fictional characters with superhuman speed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For more context, a sonic boom occurs at over 750 Miles per hour. Thats seems to be a common achievement benchmark for fictional characters with superhuman speed.

Where are you getting the idea that anyone should have superhuman speed? That's certainly not a system expectation.

[stoutstien]

Speed will never make sense as long as you have to translate to grid based combat. That's why you have most creatures that can fly have the speed of a Macy's day parade float.

[Amechra]

Where are you getting the idea that anyone should have superhuman speed? That's certainly not a system expectation.

Some people have this idea that martial characters are supposed to be superheroes. My guess is that this has a lot to do with taking stuff like "tiers of play" at face value.

[windgate]

Where are you getting the idea that anyone should have superhuman speed? That's certainly not a system expectation.

Fair Enough.


My issue is ultimately the relatively insignificant impact of physical attributes in the game. In actual combat, the classes of this game are all able to contribute effectively and in interesting ways. Outside of combat, spells casters gain access to world altering effects.

Martials don't have that and the numerical difference between a -1 and a +5 ability score modifier doesn't have a significant difference once the d20 roll (and proficiency) is factored in.

I'm not really arguing that you should be able to create "the Flash". But I am disappointed in the math of the game leading to a scenario where the DM is hard pressed to create scenarios where the strong or dexterious character can resolve meaningful obstacles using their physical capabilities. It safer to just let a spell do it because the d20 of a skill check has too much variance.

Making a DC high enough that only max stat character can pass it requires a value that even that specialized character is most likely to fail.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Some people have this idea that martial characters are supposed to be superheroes. My guess is that this has a lot to do with taking stuff like "tiers of play" at face value.

"Superhero" covers a huge range. Everywhere from street-level guys all the way up. Deciding that you should be able to break the sound barrier is stealing a huge base.

[stoutstien]

Fair Enough.


My issue is ultimately the relatively insignificant impact of physical attributes in the game. In actual combat, the classes of this game are all able to contribute effectively and in interesting ways. Outside of combat, spells casters gain access to world altering effects.

Martials don't have that and the numerical difference between a -1 and a +5 ability score modifier doesn't have a significant difference once the d20 roll is factored in.

I'm not really arguing that you should be able to create "the Flash". But I am disappointed in the math of the game leading to a scenario where the DM is hard pressed to create scenarios where the strong or dexterious character can resolve meaningful obstacles using their physical capabilities. It safer to just let a spell do it because the d20 of a skill check has too much variance.

Unless you fix spells and spell casting, nothing you change elsewhere will be worth much.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Unless you fix spells and spell casting, nothing you change elsewhere will be worth much.

Agreed. Trying to balance against "does anything and everything" is utterly futile.

[windgate]

Unless you fix spells and spell casting, nothing you change elsewhere will be worth much.


Personally, I would been quite happy if you added your full ability score (instead of the modifier) when making skill and ability checks. The variance between +8 and +20 (or +24 in a barbarians case) is significant largely than then current -1 and +5. As I stated earlier I am comfortable with combat in the game, its relative contribution ability outside of that that irks me.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally, I would been quite happy if you added your full ability score (instead of the modifier) when making skill and ability checks. The variance between +8 and +20 (or +24 in a barbarians case) is significant largely than then current -1 and +5. As I stated earlier I am comfortable with combat in the game, its relative contribution ability outside of that that irks me.

Great. Now casters get even better, especially since they're generally more mono-stat-dependent. You can't fix disparities by hitting both sides equally.

[stoutstien]

Personally, I would been quite happy if you added your full ability score (instead of the modifier) when making skill and ability checks. The variance between +8 and +20 (or +24 in a barbarians case) is significant largely than then current -1 and +5. As I stated earlier I am comfortable with combat in the game, its relative contribution ability outside of that that irks me.

But nothing prevents casters from having the same relevant ability scores so nothing has changed besides number bloat and it's a lot easier to just not treadmill DCs to begin with.

[Spiryt]

It’s not just jumping. Real World athletes frequently often outperform Max Level D&D characters for physical activities.

Deadlifts:
World record: 1100 Pounds:
D&D: 15 * 20 Strength = 300 Pounds


I'm pretty sure that 300 pounds is "carrying capacity" so total amount of weight you can carry without worrying about anything, which is absolutely insane, noone can carry 300 pounds and just don't care about it.

Variant rules require such character to drop his speed by 10ft while carrying more than 100 pounds, which is also very lenient, to say at least.

Now, actual "lift push, drag" maximum seems to be only 600 pounds for such a character, which may seem low, but in the end D&D is not about being simulation.

Still 600 pounds is a weight you can carry pretty much indefinitely, while moving up to 10 feet a round which is very much superhuman.

1100 deadlift was absolute human record, and is about lifting 1100 pounds about 3 feet high, and holding it for like 3 seconds. Only other human who came close to lifting this (Eddie Hall) collapsed, lost consciousness, bled out of his nose and was kind of useless for next few days, due to holding it for like 5 seconds.

Both those lifts were performed by two elite competitors/freak of nature, training and pharmacology who dedicated pretty much their whole adult life for something like this.

It has nothing to do with carrying capacity in rules.

Vast majority of people who we would consider very strong won't even lift 600 pounds of the ground ever. Like, 450 pounds is considered elite for 260 pound man.

So yeah, 20 Strenght D&D character is already kind of superhhuman. Though mainly because D&D, like many games, have pretty much no concept of fatigue, which makes most characters superhuman enough.

[kazaryu]

It’s not just jumping. Real World athletes frequently often outperform Max Level D&D characters for physical activities. you're comparing apples to oranges here.
you're using world records vs non peak athletes...which is the opposite of your assertion that "real world athleates frequently outperform dnd characters. now...this statement isn't wrong..but using world records to prove it doesn't work...because by definition the world records aren't "frequent". further, you're not even always using characters that are optimized for the thing that you're comparing.



Deadlifts:
World record: 1100 Pounds:
D&D: 15 * 20 Strength = 300 Pounds
a dnd character can lift up to 30 times their strength score and still be able to move (speed reduced to 5 feet). potentially significantly more with a successful strength check. combine that with a characters thats literally designed for carryweight and get a 20 str orc/goliath with a lift weight of 1200.



Sprinting (100 Meter Sprint)
100 Meter ~ 330 Feet
Usain Bolt ran 330 Feet in 9.5 Seconds
Conversions:
Usain Bolt: 208 Feet per "round"
Level 20 Wood Elf Monk (Dash): 130 Feet per Round
now throw 2 levels of rogue on the monk and the mobile feet and they get up to 225 feet per round.



Long Jump:
Current World Record: 29 Feet
24 Strength Barbarian: 24 Feet
now this one i'll have to concede, partially. there are very few mundanes ways to affect jumpdistance. in fact, off the top of my head, only one way exists outside of grung and the rabbit-folk(?) neither of which i feel comfortable analogizing with real people like i did orcs/goliaths. while they're certainly humanoid, i don't really consider them human-esque. and that one way is second story work from rogue. but the best that does is get you up to 25 feet if you have both 20 str and 20 dex. so...meh. that said you can get within 4 feet of the world record without needing to try beyond getting a run up. With the rules explicitly allowing you to roll for better. and 4 feet is really not a crazy gap to be able to cover with a fairly easy roll...especially as a high level rogue. i can't cite exact numbers, because the roll itself will depend on the DM. but i don't think its crazy to claim that having a minumum roll of 27 on a jump optimized character would more than cover those 4 feet that you need to break the record. heck, it wouldn't be *that* insane if it was enough to cover the 14 foot gap even from a standing jump.



That being said, someone brought up high jumps earlier. That is an exception and its and extreme one. The World record is only 8 feet. Using 3 + Strength mod, A loaded down adventurer is matching that with only 5 strength……. you mean with...20 strength? strength mod, not score.



Spellcasters are summoning Huge Monsters, Asteroid impacts and teleporting across worlds at high levels. Their Barbarian teammate isn't Hercules (or an anime character), it’s a high school wrestler who (at best) has a magic sword. ah yes, i remember that time a high school wrestler fell from space to not only stand up...but stand up and and then beat the **** out of several other high school wrestlers.

[Spiryt]

now throw 2 levels of rogue on the monk and the mobile feet and they get up to 225 feet per round.


And if they have a Str score of 20, they can do it with 300 pounds motorbike strapped to their back, can't they?

[PhoenixPhyre]

ah yes, i remember that time a high school wrestler fell from space to not only stand up...but stand up and and then beat the **** out of several other high school wrestlers.

Or made 8 aimed heavy crossbow shots at 8 different targets while running 5 ft/s (including possibly jumping) in a span of 6 seconds...and then did it again the next six seconds. All with the low-low price of a single feat they could have at level 1. Heck, they can do that with 10 STR! And a level 1 character with no feats at all can do 1 heavy crossbow shot every 6 seconds, which is...pretty darn fast. And yes, we know it's a separate real-world attack (separate bolt) because it can hit any target. For the record, medieval crossbows averaged 1-3 bolts per minute.

D&D is not a reality simulation. Nor should it expect to be.

[kazaryu]

Or made 8 aimed heavy crossbow shots at 8 different targets while running 5 ft/s (including possibly jumping) in a span of 6 seconds...and then did it again the next six seconds. All with the low-low price of a single feat they could have at level 1. Heck, they can do that with 10 STR! And a level 1 character with no feats at all can do 1 heavy crossbow shot every 6 seconds, which is...pretty darn fast. And yes, we know it's a separate real-world attack (separate bolt) because it can hit any target. For the record, medieval crossbows averaged 1-3 bolts per minute.

D&D is not a reality simulation. Nor should it expect to be. i mean...tbf if you actually read what i was replying to they specifically mentioned a barbarian which wouldn't be able to do 8xbow shots/round. and also they weren't really arguing for any kind of simulationism (in fact neither was I). they were just comparing dnd character to real world athletes as a means of demonstrating the relative bounds that a dnd character is meant to be in. their conclusion being that dnd characters aren't meant to be comparable to superhumans on the level of hercules or like...the hulk.


And if they have a Str score of 20, they can do it with 300 pounds motorbike strapped to their back, can't they?

correct

[Chronos]

Quoth Spiryt:

1100 deadlift was absolute human record, and is about lifting 1100 pounds about 3 feet high, and holding it for like 3 seconds. Only other human who came close to lifting this (Eddie Hall) collapsed, lost consciousness, bled out of his nose and was kind of useless for next few days, due to holding it for like 5 seconds.

Both those lifts were performed by two elite competitors/freak of nature, training and pharmacology who dedicated pretty much their whole adult life for something like this.
OK, so compare it to a D&D elite freak of nature. The absolute highest possible Str score in 5th edition is 30, achievable by a human only with the application of a great deal of magic (either five legendary magic items, or three legendary items and the maximum possible level in the class best-suited for this) and you can get a feature to double how much you can lift. Put all of that together, and you're still only at 900 pounds.

And those real world humans aren't actually all that freakish, as freaks of nature go. Plenty of gorillas, for instance, can easily top 900 pounds on a deadlift. Gorillas, in our world, are stronger than the literal God of Strength in 5e.

[PhoenixPhyre]

OK, so compare it to a D&D elite freak of nature. The absolute highest possible Str score in 5th edition is 30, achievable by a human only with the application of a great deal of magic (either five legendary magic items, or three legendary items and the maximum possible level in the class best-suited for this) and you can get a feature to double how much you can lift. Put all of that together, and you're still only at 900 pounds.

And those real world humans aren't actually all that freakish, as freaks of nature go. Plenty of gorillas, for instance, can easily top 900 pounds on a deadlift. Gorillas, in our world, are stronger than the literal God of Strength in 5e.

But "carrying capacity" =/= "deadlift". Not at all. You can carry 900 lbs and walk around indefinitely. And fight normally (other than the speed reduction). No, your deadlifters don't do that.

[Spiryt]

OK, so compare it to a D&D elite freak of nature. The absolute highest possible Str score in 5th edition is 30, achievable by a human only with the application of a great deal of magic (either five legendary magic items, or three legendary items and the maximum possible level in the class best-suited for this) and you can get a feature to double how much you can lift. Put all of that together, and you're still only at 900 pounds.

And those real world humans aren't actually all that freakish, as freaks of nature go. Plenty of gorillas, for instance, can easily top 900 pounds on a deadlift. Gorillas, in our world, are stronger than the literal God of Strength in 5e.

Again, as above, that 900 pounds is weigh with which one can stroll around at pretty decent speed, and probably still do lots of things, including talking, if not anything else. Guys doing 1000 pound deadlift can't even talk, really, maybe yell at most.

Ultimately, deadlift and all other specific exercises can be resolved by proper Strenght check, up to DMs discretion, it's probably for the best that they didn't try to write rules this specific.

As far as original question goes, the answer seem to be in the rule as well :


Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.

This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesn’t matter, such as a jump across a stream or chasm. At your GM’s option, you must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jump’s distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise, you hit it.

When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone.

You land on your feet, and if you have movement, or any actions left you can continue to do whatever immediately.... You can call it "functional long jump", or whatever.

In actual long jump competition, you kick your legs in the air violently to land on your but even more violently, which requires some soft sands not to get hurt. So, again, apples and oranges.

[stoutstien]

OK, so compare it to a D&D elite freak of nature. The absolute highest possible Str score in 5th edition is 30, achievable by a human only with the application of a great deal of magic (either five legendary magic items, or three legendary items and the maximum possible level in the class best-suited for this) and you can get a feature to double how much you can lift. Put all of that together, and you're still only at 900 pounds.

And those real world humans aren't actually all that freakish, as freaks of nature go. Plenty of gorillas, for instance, can easily top 900 pounds on a deadlift. Gorillas, in our world, are stronger than the literal God of Strength in 5e.

Deadlifts are literally designed around the idea of making the lift anatomically possible to pick up a lot more weight than you would be otherwise. There's no direct comparison in d&d because it's not something you do in the game that often but if it would it would probably be four or five times you're carrying capacity.
For example I'm a fairly strong dude who deadlifts in the high 500s or 600 on a good day. I also like to do natural stone lifting and the idea that I could go pick up a stone that's anywhere close to that way is a fantasy. A 300 stone is heavy. Depending on it's shape and location I might get it past my knees Let alone picking up that rock and then literally sprinting across a field.

(A real life example would be I went and attempted to picked up the father of all stones, Kvíahellen or commonly known as the Húsafell. It clocks in at just over 400 lb and it was probably one of the hardest things I'll ever do in my life. It took me almost an hour to figure out how to pick the thing up let alone walk around the pen. I spent the entire day out there and the furthest I got was about 10 ft. The next day I did nothing but eat and sleep and I'll have permanent scars across my shin from months of training for this one thing. All those guys you're referring to that can deadlift 900 pounds ,only about 10% of them could get that rock off the ground.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Deadlifts are literally designed around the idea of making the lift anatomically possible to pick up a lot more weight than you would be otherwise. There's no direct comparison in d&d because it's not something you do in the game that often but if it would it would probably be four or five times you're carrying capacity.
For example I'm a fairly strong dude who deadlifts in the high 500s or 600 on a good day. I also like to do natural stone lifting and the idea that I could go pick up a stone that's anywhere close to that way is a fantasy. Let alone picking up that rock and then literally sprinting across a field. Your average barbarian would call this Tuesday afternoon and carry it indefinitely and use it as a weapon.

(A real life example would be I went and attempted to picked up the father of all stones, Kvíahellen or commonly known as the Húsafell. It clocks in at just over 400 lb and it was probably one of the hardest things I'll ever do in my life. It took me almost an hour to figure out how to pick the thing up let alone walk around the pen. I spent the entire day out there and the furthest I got was about 10 ft. The next day I did nothing but eat and sleep and I'll have permanent scars across my shin from months of training for this one thing. All those guys you're referring to that can deadlift 900 pounds ,only about 10% of them could get that rock off the ground.)

That's really interesting to hear from someone who actually does that sort of thing. It does help me understand why the strong-man competitions usually involve a bunch of things other than just "standard" gym lifts. Thanks!

[stoutstien]

That's really interesting to hear from someone who actually does that sort of thing. It does help me understand why the strong-man competitions usually involve a bunch of things other than just "standard" gym lifts. Thanks!

Yeah I catch myself occasionally trying to apply my personal experience to the game logic and my screen has a note that says: if Doug McClure was in a Hercules movie could he do it?

Seems to be about right for the general theme of the games I run which is trope heavy but that what I find 5e to be good at.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah I catch myself occasionally trying to apply my personal experience to the game logic and my screen has a note that says: if Doug McClure was in a Hercules movie could he do it?

Seems to be about right for the general theme of the games I run which is trope heavy but that what I find 5e to be good at.
That last paragraph is spot on. 5e works best imo when you lean into the tropes and archetypes and reason from there instead of from reality directly.

[Slipjig]

Can someone tell me where this take comes from?

Generally when I hear someone talking about "such and such d&d is supposed to be superhuman if [x] stat is above [y] value", they start throwing around anime-esque examples, like fighters splitting mountains with single attacks, barbarians leaping over mountains, but not much in the way of actual book references.

Is it an older edition thing?
Did it come from a tweet or external conversation with a dev outside of the books?
Or is this all just a common fan-made assertion?

Because I'm not having much luck finding that as a term drawn from the 5e books. Some help point to where to find it would be appreciated.

because without such a reference actually coming from the text; I can't help but see the 'superhuman' assertion as a misleading yardstick; since it'll mean different values to different people depending on their individual take on fiction in general.

AFAIK, the whole "Superhuman" thing is almost completely unsupported by the text. I know the word appears in the Barbarian Rage entry, but I think that's sloppy verbiage that's clearly intended to mean "more than they could do while not Raging". It's the working backwards logic of players who want to play a superhuman character, who thus assume the top end of the system must therefore represent superhuman capabilities. It doesn't. They should probably be playing systems that were designed to support demigod-level characters. (*Caveat: with the exception of Hercules, pretty much all of the demigods from most mythologies could do what they did in their legends as Tier 1 Martials. Heck, now that I think about it, I can't think of any examples of the ACTUAL GODS in Greco-Roman or Norse Mythology ever demonstrating anything like "break a mountain in half" power. Throwing a lightning bolt is about as badass as they get, and that's something PCs start doing at Level 5.)

A 20 is the peak of human potential. Add in expertise in Athletics and/or Acrobatics, and a PC would be roughly the equivalent of a real-world Olympic Medalist. If a PCs numbers don't match the Olympians, it's because the PCs are doing it in armor, with a shield strapped to their arm and a weapon in hand, on uneven ground (and PCs jump numbers have them landing on their feet, not on their butt (long jump) or their back (high jump)).

Now, before anybody starts yelling, "Guy at the Gym!", martial PCs can ABSOLUTELY do things that real-world people can't do, like loading and (accurately) firing a crossbow four times in six seconds. But those fantasy superhuman capabilities come from their class abilities, not their ability scores.

[Zhorn]

I know the word appears in the Barbarian Rage entry, but I think that's sloppy verbiage that's clearly intended to mean "more than they could do while not Raging".
Cheers for the assist (and cheers to the response from PhoenixPhyre too).
Yep, see it now. Not even in the Rage section, it's in the flavour text for the class in the Primal Instinct section, and has no mechanical implications for what it even means by superhuman. Maybe a simile as opposed to sloppy verbiage; but yeah I agree.

It does seem like the assertions of '20=superhuman' does come more from the player desire to be superheroes and that seems to be a common fan-headcanon.

[Chronos]

But the problem isn't even just the system not supporting super humans. The system doesn't even support normal, mundane animals. Not just no PC, but no anyone, can be as strong in D&D 5e as a real-world gorilla is. A fantasy game is failing pretty horribly if it can't even have anything as strong as a gorilla. And just forget about elephants.

Meanwhile, of course, the system does support superhumans. A ninth-level wizard can lift and carry 1000 pounds, via Telekinesis. Compare that to the real-world freak-of-nature record for how much weight someone can lift with their mind, and... Oh, wait.

[Aimeryan]

But the problem isn't even just the system not supporting super humans. The system doesn't even support normal, mundane animals. Not just no PC, but no anyone, can be as strong in D&D 5e as a real-world gorilla is. A fantasy game is failing pretty horribly if it can't even have anything as strong as a gorilla. And just forget about elephants.

Meanwhile, of course, the system does support superhumans. A ninth-level wizard can lift and carry 1000 pounds, via Telekinesis. Compare that to the real-world freak-of-nature record for how much weight someone can lift with their mind, and... Oh, wait.

Its literal guy at the gym. All these things are bound by what real world humans can do (actually, 5e doesn't even reach that in these things). Until you throw magic in. Magic gets to be better.

[Slipjig]

And I think we can understand where the confusion comes from, because there are several subclasses that are clearly based on specific superheroes. If you are playing a knockoff Marvel Thor, I can see why people think they should be Thor-strong at the end of their development.


But the problem isn't even just the system not supporting super humans. The system doesn't even support normal, mundane animals. Not just no PC, but no anyone, can be as strong in D&D 5e as a real-world gorilla is. A fantasy game is failing pretty horribly if it can't even have anything as strong as a gorilla. And just forget about elephants.

I'm not sure we're working from the same definition of "fantasy". Unless you are trying to model anime or comicbook superhumans, I'm struggling to think of any of the characters who make up classic fantasy or Mythology who could wrestle a gorilla. Maybe Hercules, but he's an outlier.

[georgie_leech]

And I think we can understand where the confusion comes from, because there are several subclasses that are clearly based on specific superheroes. If you are playing a knockoff Marvel Thor, I can see why people think they should be Thor-strong at the end of their development.



I'm not sure we're working from the same definition of "fantasy". Unless you are trying to model anime or comicbook superhumans, I'm struggling to think of any of the characters who make up classic fantasy or Mythology who could wrestle a gorilla. Maybe Hercules, but he's an outlier.

I think the point is more that D&D gorillas are significantly wimpier than real life gorillas, in terms of arm strength.

[Slipjig]

Hmm. By my math a Giant Ape's deadlift capacity works out to 2,760 lbs (23 Str x 30 lbs x 4 for being Huge). That's significantly higher than a real-world silverback's roughly 1,800 lbs. And an elephant can only lift about 700 lbs.

Granted, the Giant Ape is probably closer to King Kong than an actual Silverback, but if we're purely talking about lifting capacity, D&D does clearly model creatures that are stronger than real-world animals.

Also, yes, the Ape statblock gives you lower numbers, but it's representing everything from Bonobos to Gorillas. If you are trying to specifically represent a Silverback, you'd want to beef it up quite a bit, including making it Large.

[stoutstien]

Hmm. By my math a Giant Ape's deadlift capacity works out to 2,760 lbs (23 Str x 30 lbs x 4 for being Huge). That's significantly higher than a real-world silverback's roughly 1,800 lbs. And an elephant can only lift about 700 lbs.

Granted, the Giant Ape is probably closer to King Kong than an actual Silverback, but if we're purely talking about lifting capacity, D&D does clearly model creatures that are stronger than real-world animals.

Also, yes, the Ape statblock gives you lower numbers, but it's representing everything from Bonobos to Gorillas. If you are trying to specifically represent a Silverback, you'd want to beef it up quite a bit, including making it Large.

It is a heck of a lot easier just to realize that the stat blocks is just a cheat sheet for encounters and outside of that you can just say it's a gorilla therefore it does what you think a gorilla should do and that's the end of it.
Trying to get NPCs to map back to the stat block all the times a recipe for disaster regardless of what you are looking at.

[Aquillion]

Yes, but the problem comes when we start talking about players and DMs need to adjudicate what can be done with a skill / ability check.

You have one camp of players who say "skill checks are basically meant to accomplish what real-world humans could do. If you can't picture a typical guy at the gym doing something, you probably can't do it with Athletics."

And you have another camp of players who say "D&D characters are superhuman, so skill checks let you perform superhuman feats!"

The rules are insufficiently precise to really settle this, which is a problem. I think that if you look at the actual examples and rules in the books, they're very sparse, but they lean more towards the former - that is to say, I don't think it's a fallacy; I think that the game's designers intended Athletics to largely give you the capabilities that the guy at the gym would have under peak conditions.

Now, are there exceptions or things that get handwaved? Sure. The game largely abstracts away encumbrance, armor, injuries, and fatigue; D&D characters do have the ability to always output peak performance. But this is mostly just a handwave to make the system flow better - if you remove your armor, are totally unencumbered and in your best possible shape, with time to stretch and prepare for this vital jump that the entire success of the party's quest is riding on... your long-jump distance is still 20 feet. That's guy-at-the-gym numbers.

The game's version of peak performance lines up with real-world athletic numbers in a way that makes it hard to avoid concluding that the developers did a quick google for what real world people could do and then calibrated the examples and mechanics very roughly around that. They pictured the fighter's athletics capabilities as mapping to the guy at the gym - maybe a bit better, maybe an Olympic athlete in some contexts, maybe the DM sometimes has a bit of leeway to allow other stuff if it's really cool, but overall, for the baseline, "guy at the gym" is more accurate than not.

Skill checks aren't really fleshed out enough in 5e. They're meant to give the DM a quick and easy way to adjudicate a player doing something that they should obviously be able to attempt, ie. things the most fit and talented guy at the gym could probably accomplish. And this is fairly annoying because there are entire classes devoted to these checks that could probably benefit from being superhuman at high levels, but it is what it is.

[Zhorn]

And you have another camp of players who say "D&D characters are superhuman, so skill checks let you perform superhuman feats!"
To be honest, those tend to be the same people who do the whole
"I roll to jump to the moon! Hah, Nat 20!"
As others have covered earlier; it is approaching the system with a conclusion not being drawn from the text and working backwards expecting it to be supported.

I was watching the MCDM RPG q&a livestream the other day; and Matt had a good comment. When someone criticises his design direction in a "why isn't your game like this other game" he responded with "go play that other game"
If you want a superhuman system with characters who are superhumans who do superhuman things; play a superhero game system that codifies the thing you want to do, it'll be more fun for the things you want.

Now having criticisms of 5e and pointing out where improvements can be made is valid.
Having more guidance on how much distance a skill check should be able to add to a character's jump is entirely fair an reasonable.
Just slapping the superhuman expectation on it though is less so.

The system as it exists without homebrew already has a range of features and abilities that augment base jump distances
examples (not limited to):
The Jump spell
Monk's Step of the Wind
Champion Fighter's Remarkable Athlete
Thief Rogue's Second Story Work
Beast Barbarian's Bestial Soul
Harengon's Rabbit Hop
Grung's Standing Leap

Of those listed; the Champion and Thief abilities are the most indicative of the type of peak ability a human should expect without relying on supernatural enhancements; both of which are only adding single digit values to jump distances.

[RSP]

The rules are insufficiently precise to really settle this, which is a problem. I think that if you look at the actual examples and rules in the books, they're very sparse, but they lean more towards the former - that is to say, I don't think it's a fallacy; I think that the game's designers intended Athletics to largely give you the capabilities that the guy at the gym would have under peak conditions.


Personally, I believe the “insufficiently precise” nature of the skills is intentional. They wanted the game to cover various styles of how tables are run.

If you want to run a “superhuman” style, cool, it works. If you want to run a style that’s closer to reality, that works too.

I think they were intentionally going with a workable system that can fit different types of stories, rather than the 3.x system of “I don’t care what story you’re running, the rules say I can convince the King to give me his kingdom”.

Again, just my opinion.

[sambojin]

I tend to think superhuman = magic in 5e. Want to do something super-hero'y? You'll need some magic.

A 20Str Firbolg lvl3 druid (you might not like it, but they are peak performance) can wander around with a 600lb load, doing whatever they normally do, which is pretty impressive. Cast Enhance Ability (Bull's Strength) and he/she can do it with 1200lbs. And long jump 20', landing on their feet. They can do this for an hour. They could lift 2400lbs, but only move 5' a turn.

Want to jump further? Cast Jump. Now you can long jump 60', while carrying 1200lbs and high jump 24'. It might not be a tall building, it's only for a minute, but it's still pretty impressive.

So the base definition of superhuman in 5e is "at least a lvl1 spell, maybe a lvl2 one as well, a lvl3 if you want to Fly instead".

That's all there is too it unfortunately. Otherwise you're just an Olympic level athlete, at the gym.
(At least you can reskin magic into mental-prep, or harnessing your inner power, or whatever, fairly easily. You can only do it a certain amount of times per day, but at later levels, that amount is a lot. Just about any spell caster can do this stuff if they want. It kinda seems strange that martial/ physical characters can't. We need a 2 attack Sorc, kinda like a swords bard or hexblade or bladesinger for stuff like this. Fits with the power-within trope pretty well. A Stars Druid fits surprisingly well for a "bolts of energy" style superhero character though, but you'll have to wait a while before you can start flying places).

As a quick-fix, you could consider Advantage on Strength to be like Advantage on Perception for passive perception rolls. Ie: it's worth +5. That means Rage actually does give superhuman performance. High Jump = +5', long jump = +5', when Raging. I'd even throw +10' climb speed on there too. Barbs Rage in combat, but it's also just them being better at physical stuff too (1dnd's "use a BA, extend your Rage" thing works perfectly with this). Sometimes you have to get somewhere, or get away, or do a thing. Other times you have to hit heads.
Makes it simple, and they sorta are passive amounts of a thingy. It does make Enhance Ability even better though. Maybe just make it a Rage thing? Kinda makes it cool and versatile. You'd look at Barbs like athletic extraordinaires if Rage came with that kind of stuff.

[kazaryu]

The rules are insufficiently precise to really settle this, which is a problem. I think that if you look at the actual examples and rules in the books, they're very sparse, but they lean more towards the former - that is to say, I don't think it's a fallacy; I think that the game's designers intended Athletics to largely give you the capabilities that the guy at the gym would have under peak conditions. i disagree. I think the system being flexible is both a design feature, and a good one. its one of the things i like about 5e. i don't have to worry about some player coming up and trying to strongarm me with the rules. and i don't have to worry about a player feeling bad when they do something cool...but only because i allowed an exception to the rules. Now i also get that its not to everyone's taste, but IMO the real problem is when people try to force DnD 5e to be something its not...which is to say when they try to act like it wasn't deliberately designed to allow the DM a lot of leeway. There is no objective answer to what a PC is expected to be able to lift at a maximum...the game gives encumberance as a break point, but then allows that to be exceeded via ability checks. jump distances are minimums and can be exceeded with ability checks. but its up to the DM/table where they draw the line.



Now, are there exceptions or things that get handwaved? Sure. The game largely abstracts away encumbrance, armor, injuries, and fatigue; D&D characters do have the ability to always output peak performance. But this is mostly just a handwave to make the system flow better - if you remove your armor, are totally unencumbered and in your best possible shape, with time to stretch and prepare for this vital jump that the entire success of the party's quest is riding on... your long-jump distance is still 20 feet. That's guy-at-the-gym numbers.
. i do agree with you that generally 5e characters are not meant to be crazy super human. you're not meant to be able to become the flash, or hulk. but i don't think you're meant to be bounded purely by guy at the gym. the numbers seem to put alot of these minimums at around world class athlete performance levels (i.e a PC optimized for jumping will be able to get jump distances around where people are jumping in the olympics.) a person optimized for strength will be roughly comparable to olypmic athletes at a minimum, etc. however, those are all minimums. they're all "this is what you can do without really needing to try". this implies that you're meant to be able to exceed those levels.

so when i say that you're not meant to be crazy super human, i mean like, maybe you're around captain america strength. but the exact line is gonna be different at every table and i like that the game acknowledges that and doesn't try to make a rule that is....just gonna get ignored anyway.

i think

[Aimeryan]

I tend to think superhuman = magic in 5e. Want to do something super-hero'y? You'll need some magic.

That is basically how it plays out, at least by RAW. There is a lot the rules don't cover that you kind of expect it would, so you can at least have DM rulings/houserules that cover more without overriding RAW - which is likely what they were going for. Lazy devs or open sandbox? The eternal question this approach.

I truly believe that the martial/mundane classes could end at 10, with what little above 10 there is just being condensed. Most campaigns end around this anyhow. For higher level campaigns, have wuxia-style martials prestige classes, or multiclass.

In fact, 3.5e did exactly this with Tome of Battle. An excerpt from Wikipedia on it:


Mechanically, the purpose of the book is to increase the viability of melee combatants in the game to be comparable to magic user characters in high-level play. The book accomplishes this via three revised melee classes, each equipped with versatile combat maneuvers and stances that can be expended in the same way that magic users expend spells.

[Hytheter]

For comparison, the high jump:

8 feet is just about the world record (precisely enough that it makes me suspect the rules were set specifically for that.) It's still not superhuman - I'm just not seeing anything in the rules that supports the idea that Athletics is capable of superhuman feats - but it's at least exceptional.

It is actually quite superhuman when you look beyond the raw numbers. A high jump in 5e explicitly allows you to reach 1.5x your height in addition to the jump height, meaning that your body is fully upright even at the peak of your jump - 8ft is your clearance, but your head height is that plus your full height. An olympian could never do this because the technique that allows them such verticality requires them to do a backflip over the bar, so they are instead horizontal-ish at the peak of the jump - their head height does not meaningfully exceed their clearance height. If there were rules in the game for this same maneuver, a dnd character could set a high jump record in the vicinity of 8ft plus their height.

Which of course makes the Long Jump rules seem even more tame by comparison.

[Grod_The_Giant]

AFAIK, the whole "Superhuman" thing is almost completely unsupported by the text.
As an aged veteran of the 3.5e-era "martials vs casters" debates... the idea that high-level martial characters should be capable of superhuman feats grows out of the implicit promise of a level-based systems that two characters of level X should be roughly equal. If a high-level wizard is capable of teleporting across the world and flattening a building with a snap of their fingers, a high-level fighter should, logically, be able to pull off feats of a similar magnitude.

And 5e does do a pretty decent job of that...as long as you're talking purely in terms of combat. A high-level wizard and a high-level fighter are both capable of going head-to-head with dragons, but the fighter doesn't have the same... call it apparent power. Their toolbox is limited to making and withstanding more attacks. They don't have the same sort of ability to reshape the world around them, not without involving the GM in ways that casters don't have to bother with.

Whether they need to have increasingly deep toolboxes is a matter of opinion, but most of the time when people say that high-level martial characters should be superhuman, that's the kind of thing they mean. And why arguments about reliability will never ring true.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As an aged veteran of the 3.5e-era "martials vs casters" debates... the idea that high-level martial characters should be capable of superhuman feats grows out of the implicit promise of a level-based systems that two characters of level X should be roughly equal. If a high-level wizard is capable of teleporting across the world and flattening a building with a snap of their fingers, a high-level fighter should, logically, be able to pull off feats of a similar magnitude.

And 5e does do a pretty decent job of that...as long as you're talking purely in terms of combat. A high-level wizard and a high-level fighter are both capable of going head-to-head with dragons, but the fighter doesn't have the same... call it apparent power. Their toolbox is limited to making and withstanding more attacks. They don't have the same sort of ability to reshape the world around them, not without involving the GM in ways that casters don't have to bother with.

Whether they need to have increasingly deep toolboxes is a matter of opinion, but most of the time when people say that high-level martial characters should be superhuman, that's the kind of thing they mean. And why arguments about reliability will never ring true.

Well, really, a wizard's ability to reshape the world in 5e really depends almost entirely on DMs being super-willing to suspend any kind of world logic when it comes to spells and let them go way outside the printed text. Seriously, you have to assume that the PCs are the only ones who ever thought of this stuff and no one has any kind of countermeasure in place. And then doesn't react at all. Without that, you really only have tactical effects. Earthquake has the biggest effect...and it's area of effect is miniscule.

Basically, PCs, under their own power, are utterly incapable of having any direct effect beyond a mile around them, and for most it's much shorter than that. Heck, they can't even really destroy armies that aren't run by utterly stupid people unaware of magic. And before you get into summon chains...that's exactly the same sort of power people have by the old-fashioned thing called "making friends". No, charm person and the like do not get you there. Mostly, they get you dead as soon as someone realizes you're manipulating someone important.

[Blatant Beast]

Meanwhile, of course, the system does support superhumans. A ninth-level wizard can lift and carry 1000 pounds, via Telekinesis.

This highlights an unusual aspect of the rules. TK is limited to 1,000 pounds for an object, but the spell can lift, move and restrain up to a huge sized creature.

A male African Elephant can weigh up to 4 tons. Luke can move elephants but the X-Wing, is too heavy in 5e.

[TotallyNotEvil]

You know, what gets me on the "but you can do that under suboptimal circunstances" response is that, well...

Is that it? You can somehow defeat the generals of the legions of Hell itself in a bloody brawl, and that's your level of athleticism?

Yeah, the ground is uneven and you are wearing armor, so that's actually impressive... for a normal person.

Not for a dragon-slaying hero that can swordfight a Marilith.

[Aquillion]

Basically, PCs, under their own power, are utterly incapable of having any direct effect beyond a mile around them, and for most it's much shorter than that.
Not really. Teleport, Plane Shift, Transport via Plants , and similar travel spells are the obvious counterexample, but also Sending, Project Image, Dream, and Control Weather.

And even ones that have a 1-mile limit are a lot more impactful than you give them credit for. Mirage Arcane is fairly hard to plan around without a similarly high-level caster, say, especially when cast by an illusionist with Malleable Illusions who can continuously alter the terrain.

But, basically, the rest of your argument is "magic shouldn't allow the PCs to do world-changing things on its own because the DM should anticipate that they'll be able to do it and change the setting to prevent them!" That's... not an argument for magic being weak, that's an argument for it being so absurdly strong that it warps the setting.

It's also not really correct to argue that logic requires that the DM warp the setting this way on account of the "well wouldn't other high-level wizards have done this already?" bit. Many settings have few, if any, high-level casters in them. In Eberron, anyone with access to spell slots above 5th level is exceptionally rare, and someone who reaches level 20 may very well be among the first people to do so in all of history.

Nobody is going to plan their strategy around Control Weather or Mirage Arcane in Eberron because the number of people in the entire history of the world who were capable of casting one of those spells can be counted on one hand.

[Rynjin]

This is one of those weird things where 5e flattened numbers that really didn't need to be flattened. probably unintentionally, since they mostly improved high jumping ability.

In 3.5 jumping 8 feet in the air would be a DC 32 check; so well beyond the capabilities of all but specialists.

But conversely, the long jump was able to reach more significant numbers since it scaled linearly, it was just the result of the Jump check flat. So even with just a +10 Jump (easily achievable at level 1-5) you can reliably jump 20 feet, and got a bonus for getting a running jumpstart.

I'm unsure why they decided to decouple jumping ENTIRELY from a skill. It works perfectly as an addition to Athletics. Being able to jump Feet = to Str score by default and add to that with an Athletics check seems like a no-brainer.

The description of Athletics as a skill technically allows for this possibility but it's frustratingly vague even by 5e check standards.

[Arkhios]

Try jumping 3 meters with a fully packed hiking backpack, and several loose equipment dangling around and tell us how it went.

I can tell you, it's not as easy as you might think.

And for the record. 3 meters is equivalent to 10 feet, which in turn is equivalent to the average strength score of a commoner. For a strong warrior, jumping farther than that is fairly reasonable.

Just saying it's actually quite realistic. EVEN THOUGH the game itself is otherwise far from realistic.

[Segev]

The only issue with the "the strength score is your minimum automatic jumping distance; you can roll strength(athletics) to jump further" point is that the RAW never give even the slightest hint of a guideline as to how much further you should be able to jump based on what DC of strength(athletics) roll. An extra foot per point you roll? Just enough to fill out the square you weren't quite making it across for a DC 10? 15? 30? It's one of those areas they really should have put some codification in. I don't buy the claim they wanted it to vary table to table based on DM whimsy/feel-of-the-game; if that were the case, the minimum jumping distance wouldn't be so hard-coded, either, nor would the jump spell give so precise an increase.


This highlights an unusual aspect of the rules. TK is limited to 1,000 pounds for an object, but the spell can lift, move and restrain up to a huge sized creature.

A male African Elephant can weigh up to 4 tons. Luke can move elephants but the X-Wing, is too heavy in 5e.

So, what you want to do is find the huge or smaller creature who can carry the most stuff, load HIM up, and then TK him.

(But, seriously, yeah, telekinesis is kind-of pathetic for fantasy use when you realize just how little volume 1000 lbs. is. Spheres of Power for 5e is cleverer: you can lift up to [size] objects. Tiny at low level, and getting up to Gargantuan (i.e. "anything") with some effort at high level. But for a large part of your career, Medium and Large are your typical lifting capacities, and that's enough to be quite satisfying. And is often way more than 1000 lbs. A Medium boulder is going to be enormously heavy.

[Blatant Beast]

Many settings have few, if any, high-level casters in them. In Eberron, anyone with access to spell slots above 5th level is exceptionally rare, and someone who reaches level 20 may very well be among the first people to do so in all of history.

That is the company line that Keith Baker peddles, but the reality is different.

The 5e Artificer subclass, the Maverick, that Keith Baker published in Exploring Eberron, grants higher than 5th level spell slots.

Then you have the Arenal Elves, the ancient Titans, the Overlords, the Dragons, the Droam, all of which have big mojo available to use.

Narratively, the Dragonmarked houses are adept enough at developing talent that Magewrights, and Magewrought Magic is common.

Part of the established history of House Lyrandar, was it was a weaker house compared to House Oren, until The Last War, in which House Lyrandar gained strength primarily due to the advantages offered from being able to control the weather.

Eberron lore, contradicts the point you are making about Eberron, I am sorry to say.

A DM can try to throw a governor on the engine of Eberron, but essentially one is stating that only the PCs, (that probably go from 1st to 20th level in a year under 5E’s advancement rules), are special and powerful, which is unrealistic, and belied by the fact that even in Exploring Eberron, more big mojo foes and societies are described.

[Amnestic]

That is the company line that Keith Baker peddles, but the reality is different.

The 5e Artificer subclass, the Maverick, that Keith Baker published in Exploring Eberron, grants higher than 5th level spell slots.

Then you have the Arenal Elves, the ancient Titans, the Overlords, the Dragons, the Droam, all of which have big mojo available to use.

All of these are "exceptional". That they exist doesn't make them not exceptional.

Also the Maverick seems like a massive stretch, since it's just a numerical bump from upcasting, they don't get any actual 6th or 7th level spells.

[stoutstien]

Movement rates are based on keeping encounters on common physical grid map sizes. That's why you have a sharp divide where you can't matrix leap off the table but you move fast enough to shoot a cross box 9 times in a few seconds.
It's also why dragons are comical slow in the air and giants move like they are in a bad claymation stop motion movie.

[Blatant Beast]

All of these are "exceptional". That they exist doesn't make them not exceptional.

Also the Maverick seems like a massive stretch, since it's just a numerical bump from upcasting, they don't get any actual 6th or 7th level spells.

Right, but that supports PhoenixPhyre‘s contention that foes have to become exceptionally magical because the PCs are.

It is like a stretch of highway that is marked as a 65 MPH zone, but that limitation is not enforced, and people routinely go faster. Sure, the idea is ‘on the books’, but in actual practice the foes the PC’s face will need to challenge them, and it is not as if the PCs are the only Adventurers in Eberron. Narratively speaking, the PCs are probably not the only special people in the world kicking ass and looting ancient treasures.

As to your point about the Maverick subclass, this emphasizes that not all higher level spells are automatically and always more powerful than lower level spells.

The Maverick subclass essentially gets to cherry pick their spells, with access to other other classes’ spell list. Being able to Upcast Planar Binding or Conjure Animals is likely a stronger use of Magic than casting a 6th level spell like Wall of Thorns, or the Investiture line of spells from XGE.

Circle of Power is such a sick spell, and only 5th level.

[Rynjin]

Try jumping 3 meters with a fully packed hiking backpack, and several loose equipment dangling around and tell us how it went.

I can tell you, it's not as easy as you might think.

.

Neither is wrestling a creature twice the size and weight of an elephant, but D&D characters do that all the time.

[Chronos]

Certainly there are different styles of play, and some folks prefer muggles to be guys at the gym, and some prefer them to be Hercules. But the vagueness in the rules doesn't serve to enable both styles. Instead, it ends up not being good at either style, because you end up with players, or players and DMs, not agreeing on what the rules are. If they wanted to support both styles, then they should have said "For a heroic game, use this table of DCs. For a more grounded, realistic game, use this other table of DCs". That'd make the difference explicit, and everyone would know that there was an explicit difference, and everyone would decide in Session 0 which style they preferred.

Instead, we just have vagueness like "DC 30 is a nearly impossible task", which leads some people to assume that a DC 30 swimming task is crossing the English Channel, and others to assume that DC 30 is swimming up Niagara Falls. And since they can both clearly see that they're following the rules, nobody bothers to explicitly say that they're assuming that, because the whole point of having rules is that if everyone's following them you don't need to specify all the details. And then it comes up in play, and the player sets up a big plan that culminates with them attempting something that the DM thinks is impossible, and now the players are sore because the DM said no after all their hard work. Or the DM puts the players in a situation that looks impossible to them, and they end up getting their butts kicked, and afterwards the DM asks "Why didn't anyone just do X", and the players all say "Because we knew that would be impossible, of course".

Vague rules don't lead to flexibility. They just lead to arguments and hurt feelings.

[Aimeryan]

Vague rules don't lead to flexibility. They just lead to arguments and hurt feelings.

And forum threads!

[RSP]

Certainly there are different styles of play, and some folks prefer muggles to be guys at the gym, and some prefer them to be Hercules. But the vagueness in the rules doesn't serve to enable both styles. Instead, it ends up not being good at either style, because you end up with players, or players and DMs, not agreeing on what the rules are. If they wanted to support both styles, then they should have said "For a heroic game, use this table of DCs. For a more grounded, realistic game, use this other table of DCs". That'd make the difference explicit, and everyone would know that there was an explicit difference, and everyone would decide in Session 0 which style they preferred.


Disagree. That would only serve to limit the types of games tables can play (“grounded” or “heroic”) while doubling the size of the skills section as each skill now needs interpretation under each of the ways to play.

The design of 5e, as I understand it, specifically wants to empower DMs to have their games be their games and not be beholden to 3.x type charts.

I understand some don’t like this style of DM freeform, but it’s what 5e went for, an intentionally different direction than 3.x.

[tKUUNK]

To me long jump distance feels like it's in the right ballpark. Sometimes in game design a thing is good enough / close enough so don't touch it.

It would be nice for relatively unencumbered characters to get a little edge over those wearing full plate.

I personally give players the option to jump (and some other things which fall into the domain of Athletics by the book) using the Acrobatics skill / dexterity. Rogues, monks, and other dex builds should be able to rely on balance, control, speed, and grace for these things.

[Eldariel]

Try jumping 3 meters with a fully packed hiking backpack, and several loose equipment dangling around and tell us how it went.

I can tell you, it's not as easy as you might think.

And for the record. 3 meters is equivalent to 10 feet, which in turn is equivalent to the average strength score of a commoner. For a strong warrior, jumping farther than that is fairly reasonable.

Just saying it's actually quite realistic. EVEN THOUGH the game itself is otherwise far from realistic.

But you have the same limit with no equipment. This doesn't really say anything but that encumbrance is done poorly.

[Arkhios]

But you have the same limit with no equipment. This doesn't really say anything but that encumbrance is done poorly.

Which is kinda my point, to be honest. On the surface it seems they want it to feel realistic (even when most other parts of the game throw realism out of the window), but the approach is in one word "Lazy".

[Osuniev]

The rules for Long Jump do specify that your GM can have you do a Strength (Athletics) check, IIRC.

In my view, the distances given are the strict minimum a player can feel safe jumping no matter the conditions, without having to check their encumbrance, wounds, exhaustion, and terrain. The distance they can reach are defined by the DM, and while (like everything Ability check related) I wish there was some guidance given, I understand the choice of letting DM decide what they want to do there.

If you like, the rule I use : Athletics check to see how many feet you can cross, (made with advantage if you have more than 15 feet of a running start, are not encumbered, whatever advantage seems relevant in the situation ...)

A lvl4 character with expertise in Athletics and Strength 20 (rolled stats + Strength ASI) can reach the world record (29 feet) about 10% of the time (chances of getting a natural 20 with advantage), which seems realistic to me for the strongest humans who didn't spend their whole life focusing on jumping.

Characters can do much better : at high levels, if Long Jump distance is favored by their build, if they get Bardic Inspiration/Guidance/etc...

[Ignimortis]

Certainly there are different styles of play, and some folks prefer muggles to be guys at the gym, and some prefer them to be Hercules. But the vagueness in the rules doesn't serve to enable both styles. Instead, it ends up not being good at either style, because you end up with players, or players and DMs, not agreeing on what the rules are. If they wanted to support both styles, then they should have said "For a heroic game, use this table of DCs. For a more grounded, realistic game, use this other table of DCs". That'd make the difference explicit, and everyone would know that there was an explicit difference, and everyone would decide in Session 0 which style they preferred.

Instead, we just have vagueness like "DC 30 is a nearly impossible task", which leads some people to assume that a DC 30 swimming task is crossing the English Channel, and others to assume that DC 30 is swimming up Niagara Falls. And since they can both clearly see that they're following the rules, nobody bothers to explicitly say that they're assuming that, because the whole point of having rules is that if everyone's following them you don't need to specify all the details. And then it comes up in play, and the player sets up a big plan that culminates with them attempting something that the DM thinks is impossible, and now the players are sore because the DM said no after all their hard work. Or the DM puts the players in a situation that looks impossible to them, and they end up getting their butts kicked, and afterwards the DM asks "Why didn't anyone just do X", and the players all say "Because we knew that would be impossible, of course".

Vague rules don't lead to flexibility. They just lead to arguments and hurt feelings.

Fully agree on everything here. Over 7 years of playing 5e, I eventually stopped considering any skills that I didn't have least +10 in reliable - and therefore did not use them unless specifically pressed to or if failure would not really mean much. The only time I felt my skills were actually good enough that I could try outrageous stuff and get away with it was the time I played a character with several skills rolled at +15 or more.

[Aimeryan]

Disagree. That would only serve to limit the types of games tables can play (“grounded” or “heroic”) while doubling the size of the skills section as each skill now needs interpretation under each of the ways to play.

The design of 5e, as I understand it, specifically wants to empower DMs to have their games be their games and not be beholden to 3.x type charts.

I understand some don’t like this style of DM freeform, but it’s what 5e went for, an intentionally different direction than 3.x.

Just because something is intentional by a company does not make it a good thing. In fact, many things companies intentionally do tend not to be good things.

The case here is that you can have freeform while also having guides. If you want to fly 30 meters, you can do so - but it helps to know how far 30 meters is, or at least how far 20m and 40m is so you can ballpark it. Nothing stops the DM going with what they want, and the PHB can say as much. The DMG is where this tables should be, as the lack of such info is almost certainly one of the pillars of the current DM crisis.

[Arkhios]

I just came up with an idea (might be an old idea, to be honest, I just don't remember having heard or seen it being used), that I might start using in my own games:

You add your proficiency (and expertise) in Athletics (or possibly Acrobatics) to your jumping distance. It gives you a nice boost to the distance you can travel by jumping without getting ridiculous.

[Chronos]

Quoth RSP:

The design of 5e, as I understand it, specifically wants to empower DMs to have their games be their games and not be beholden to 3.x type charts.

There are game systems that do that. Their "rulebooks" are a free three-page PDF. That's not D&D. If everything in the game is supposed to be "You figure it out for yourself", then what are we paying them $50 a book for?

[Derges]

Another consideration is that movement in combat often only occurs in 5ft increments.

A 5ft jump and a 7ft jump are the same (that's that's 14-18 str) if you're trying to swing at a creature 15ft in the air. Even if you get to make an athletics check there's no guidance for the results beyond the basic so it's unlikely to be much different.

Only max strength Hercules can hit a creature 15ft up.

[diplomancer]

So, what you want to do is find the huge or smaller creature who can carry the most stuff, load HIM up, and then TK him.

(But, seriously, yeah, telekinesis is kind-of pathetic for fantasy use when you realize just how little volume 1000 lbs. is. Spheres of Power for 5e is cleverer: you can lift up to [size] objects. Tiny at low level, and getting up to Gargantuan (i.e. "anything") with some effort at high level. But for a large part of your career, Medium and Large are your typical lifting capacities, and that's enough to be quite satisfying. And is often way more than 1000 lbs. A Medium boulder is going to be enormously heavy.

It should all be based on size, as it makes everything a lot simpler and doesn't require the DM to know a lot about mass, density, and volumes to adjudicate a spell. Even stopping the game to google it is too much of an unnecessary hassle.


Another consideration is that movement in combat often only occurs in 5ft increments.

A 5ft jump and a 7ft jump are the same (that's that's 14-18 str) if you're trying to swing at a creature 15ft in the air. Even if you get to make an athletics check there's no guidance for the results beyond the basic so it's unlikely to be much different.

Only max strength Hercules can hit a creature 15ft up.

I believe this is true only if playing on a grid, which, though probably the most common way 5e is played, is actually a variant rule.

[Derges]

I believe this is true only if playing on a grid, which, though probably the most common way 5e is played, is actually a variant rule.

The often was supposed to be doing this exact heavy lifting.

Off grid that flier could be at 17ft and be safe from Hercules as well.

[kazaryu]

Certainly there are different styles of play, and some folks prefer muggles to be guys at the gym, and some prefer them to be Hercules. But the vagueness in the rules doesn't serve to enable both styles. Instead, it ends up not being good at either style, because you end up with players, or players and DMs, not agreeing on what the rules are. If they wanted to support both styles, then they should have said "For a heroic game, use this table of DCs. For a more grounded, realistic game, use this other table of DCs". That'd make the difference explicit, and everyone would know that there was an explicit difference, and everyone would decide in Session 0 which style they preferred. that doesn't lead to the type of granular flexibility that...at least I was talking about that 5e lends itself toward. Now im not saying that the presentation couldn't have been done better. but just having multiple tables basically defeats the point. its not just about different playstyles, although thats part of it. its about everything that goes into how difficult a task would be. you mention at one point that you're still "limited" to strength score as your jump distance even when you're unencumbered...which is just...so strange. in the first place you're not limed to your strength score...ever. explicitly. thats just what you're guaranteed to be able to do. thats why its called your jump distance. similarly your climb speed is the speed you are certain to be able to achieve while climbing. for most people its half their land speed. But in the case of jumping, the rules explicitly allow you to exceed it. sure they *could* have made an explicit rule that laid out how much of a bonus to give if the characters are unencumbered, or jumping under ideal conditions...but why would they? the whole point was to present a relatively simple set of rules, with room for DM's to fill in all the nitty gritty on their own. because for any given check there are going to be dozens of things that could affect the DC and roll conditions. for example, if a PC removed their armor and such for expressly the purpose of being able to jump better. a DM might decide to give the player advantage on their roll. or they may instead give them a bonus to their jump distance. or simply adjust the DC. the first and the last options being things that are explicitly the DM's role. while the middle one is closer to being an application of rule 0.

Im not saying that the book was written perfectly. nor am i saying that you must agree with that design decision. but it isn't objectively a mistake, nor is it senseless.



Instead, we just have vagueness like "DC 30 is a nearly impossible task", which leads some people to assume that a DC 30 swimming task is crossing the English Channel, and others to assume that DC 30 is swimming up Niagara Falls. And since they can both clearly see that they're following the rules, nobody bothers to explicitly say that they're assuming that, because the whole point of having rules is that if everyone's following them you don't need to specify all the details. And then it comes up in play, and the player sets up a big plan that culminates with them attempting something that the DM thinks is impossible, and now the players are sore because the DM said no after all their hard work. Or the DM puts the players in a situation that looks impossible to them, and they end up getting their butts kicked, and afterwards the DM asks "Why didn't anyone just do X", and the players all say "Because we knew that would be impossible, of course".

Vague rules don't lead to flexibility. They just lead to arguments and hurt feelings.

i....i literally can't sympathize with this. either as a player or as a DM. what are you as the DM doing while your players are making plans? are your players expressly planning behind your back? do your players not feel comfortable planning in front of you? in short, as a DM im constantly listening to my players ideas and if one of the suggests something that is beyond what i believe they could achieve with an ability check...then i chime in and let them know before they hinge their plan on it. I'll even chime in, similarly if they're overestimating how difficult something is, or dismissing it as impossible, i'll also chime in and let them know.

as a player, the only assumptions i make about what my character can do are the things im explicitly allowed to do. If i want to attempt anything beyond the scope of that...i consult the DM to ensure its possible (that is, unless its something thats so obviously within the realm of what a regular person might be able to pull off).

I can only see 2 ways for the type of interaction you're talking about occuring.

1. players are making assumptions about things that are explicitly the DM's purview...and the DM is allowing it to happen, rather than doing their job of managing expectations in which case....thats a player/DM problem, not a rules problem.

2. the players feel that they must make plans in secret from the DM...which could indicate a player v DM attitude.

neither option indicates a problem with the rules, or the design philosophy of 5e

I can understand peoples desire for 5e to have things more spelled out, to be more like 3.5. But its one thing to express those frustrations, its another thing altogether to act like the existing design style and philosophy have no merits. they do. I greatly enjoy, particularly as a DM, the fact that the rules do not have explicit values for things like that. and as a player i don't find the need to ask the DM if something is possible to be all that intrusive.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can understand peoples desire for 5e to have things more spelled out, to be more like 3.5. But its one thing to express those frustrations, its another thing altogether to act like the existing design style and philosophy have no merits. they do. I greatly enjoy, particularly as a DM, the fact that the rules do not have explicit values for things like that. and as a player i don't find the need to ask the DM if something is possible to be all that intrusive.

I very much agree with all of this post and especially this paragraph. But I'm going to try to not get sucked into yet another interminable debate about tables vs no tables...those never go anywhere. Both sides have made their points 100k times and the teams are pretty set in stone at this point. :smallfrown:

[Segev]

Tables or not, when the rules took the time to spell out that you could jump a specific number of feet based on a particular number or set of numbers on your character sheet, and then said you could potentially jump further than this number with a Strength(Athletics) check, they really should have given something to help determine how much further for a given roll. Even something like, "Jumping double your distance is nearly impossible" would help; it would tell us that doubling is a DC 25, and that multiplying the distance is the right way to scale it. Similarly, "Adding an extra five feet is an average difficulty task," would give us a DC for adding five feet, and we would know that adding linear distance (possibly in increments of five) is appropriate. There should be some indication of just how hard it is to extend your jumping distance with such a check, but we get nothing.

[Pex]

You always succeed on jumping ST score. You can try to jump farther than that, but your DM will likely (should) call for an Athletics check. DC is DM make it up, so how easy this is depends on who is DM that day. Good luck in that. I like DC = 10 + 1 per 1 ft farther than your ST score.

[Zhorn]

There should be some indication of just how hard it is to extend your jumping distance with such a check, but we get nothing.
I know I've already mentioned it on page one, but the score-to-modifier conversion being applied to an athletics check is by far the most satisfactory method.*

Multipliers work well for spell effects, as essentially a magical augmentation acting as a power multiplier makes sense there, but just gets into looney-toons territory is it's treated as a baseline.
The oneD&D jump action put too much weight on a d20 roll, making the innate value of a strength score inherently less important.

* a couple of ways to get to the DC of the check; both with the same end result.
- First having already been mentioned in using the same formula for converting scores into modifiers. 10=+0, 12=+1, 14=+2, etc

- The second is just a reverse engineering I saw Ichabod (ikabodo) have set up on one of the foundry discords I'm on
Athletics DC = 10 + ( Target distance - Jump score)*2
say I have a STR of 18 (jump score) and I want to jump 22 feet (target distance)
Athletics DC = 10 + (22-18)*2 = 10+8 = DC 18 Athletics check

What i particularly like about this is how it maintains a sense of consistency between characters with different STR scores
- A barbarian with 20 strength wanting to jump 1 extra foot distance for 21 ft...
- A wizard with 10 strength wanting to jump 1 extra foot distance for 11 ft...
for both that 1 extra foot is the same DC 12

compared with the oneD&D suggestion for a jump check, that +1 extra foot of distance for out barbarian would be a DC 21 and for the wizard a DC 11

[kazaryu]

Tables or not, when the rules took the time to spell out that you could jump a specific number of feet based on a particular number or set of numbers on your character sheet, and then said you could potentially jump further than this number with a Strength(Athletics) check, they really should have given something to help determine how much further for a given roll. Even something like, "Jumping double your distance is nearly impossible" would help; it would tell us that doubling is a DC 25, and that multiplying the distance is the right way to scale it. Similarly, "Adding an extra five feet is an average difficulty task," would give us a DC for adding five feet, and we would know that adding linear distance (possibly in increments of five) is appropriate. There should be some indication of just how hard it is to extend your jumping distance with such a check, but we get nothing. that would literally defeat the purpose of not doing it. DM's having to decide how far they want to let these things scale is a feature, not a bug. the whole point is to not put a limitation so that different tables can all have their own ideas, and none need to be considered wrong. there IS no "right way". thats the point. tables, formulas, whatever are all just methods of codifying it. they chose to not codify it. and i, personally, like that they didn't codify it. I heartily disagree that they "should have".

thats not to say that systems that do spell it out are bad. but i like the fact that ability checks in 5e are so DM dependent. it makes it way easier for me to allow granularity. i can assign DC's based on the task at hand, rather trying to match those tasks to discreet categories of difficulty that the authors came up with. and most importantly, I can do so without having to worry about a reasonable player disagreeing because they thought the task fit into a different category.

yes, it makes it difficult to theory craft the full capabilities of a character, because you don't know how effective an ability check is going to be at a given table. I don't really care about that though. I enjoy theory crafting a character as much as the next guy...but i never do with the expectation that it will fit neatly at any given table. i always assume that if I want to take a theorycrafted character to an actual table that I may need to adjust them to match the setting/group.

[PhoenixPhyre]

that would literally defeat the purpose of not doing it. DM's having to decide how far they want to let these things scale is a feature, not a bug. the whole point is to not put a limitation so that different tables can all have their own ideas, and none need to be considered wrong. there IS no "right way". thats the point. tables, formulas, whatever are all just methods of codifying it. they chose to not codify it. and i, personally, like that they didn't codify it. I heartily disagree that they "should have".

thats not to say that systems that do spell it out are bad. but i like the fact that ability checks in 5e are so DM dependent. it makes it way easier for me to allow granularity. i can assign DC's based on the task at hand, rather trying to match those tasks to discreet categories of difficulty that the authors came up with. and most importantly, I can do so without having to worry about a reasonable player disagreeing because they thought the task fit into a different category.

yes, it makes it difficult to theory craft the full capabilities of a character, because you don't know how effective an ability check is going to be at a given table. I don't really care about that though. I enjoy theory crafting a character as much as the next guy...but i never do with the expectation that it will fit neatly at any given table. i always assume that if I want to take a theorycrafted character to an actual table that I may need to adjust them to match the setting/group.

Amen to this. Especially that last paragraph. The game isn't designed for characters to be made out of the context of a particular table. Or for characters to be portable between tables (by default). AL adds a bunch of fixed rulings to make that possible, but that's a secondary thing.

And that's not a flaw. It's a design choice where either option can be done well or poorly independently, but you have to choose one or the other.

[Pex]

that would literally defeat the purpose of not doing it. DM's having to decide how far they want to let these things scale is a feature, not a bug. the whole point is to not put a limitation so that different tables can all have their own ideas, and none need to be considered wrong. there IS no "right way". thats the point. tables, formulas, whatever are all just methods of codifying it. they chose to not codify it. and i, personally, like that they didn't codify it. I heartily disagree that they "should have".

thats not to say that systems that do spell it out are bad. but i like the fact that ability checks in 5e are so DM dependent. it makes it way easier for me to allow granularity. i can assign DC's based on the task at hand, rather trying to match those tasks to discreet categories of difficulty that the authors came up with. and most importantly, I can do so without having to worry about a reasonable player disagreeing because they thought the task fit into a different category.

yes, it makes it difficult to theory craft the full capabilities of a character, because you don't know how effective an ability check is going to be at a given table. I don't really care about that though. I enjoy theory crafting a character as much as the next guy...but i never do with the expectation that it will fit neatly at any given table. i always assume that if I want to take a theorycrafted character to an actual table that I may need to adjust them to match the setting/group.

That lack of consistency is a bug. It's the difference between my 16 ST fighter can jump the 20 ft wide pit with one DM with an Athletics check DC 15 but now the bard must dimension door my 16 ST cleric over the 20 ft wide pit when another DM sets the DC at 25. Meanwhile, no one has a problem plate mail in both campaigns provide AC 18. Having consistency in D&D rules is not a problem. That already happens but believing it was a mistake in game design that there is no consistency in skill use, that's blasphemy for some people.

Also keep in mind there are Example DC tables for some skills in D&D. The problem is it's not for every skill and are hard to find. DM using Survival for tracking? DMG pg 244, there's a DC table for you. Need to make a Persuasion or Intimidate check? DMG pg 245, there's a DC table for you. The rogue is searching for and disarming traps? DMG pgs 122 & 123 provide example traps with their DCs to give an idea of where to place the numbers when creating your own traps or use the ones right from the book.

[Segev]

that would literally defeat the purpose of not doing it. DM's having to decide how far they want to let these things scale is a feature, not a bug. the whole point is to not put a limitation so that different tables can all have their own ideas, and none need to be considered wrong.

IF that were the purpose, they would not spell out the hard-coded minimum jump distance of "Strength Score." They would instead say "you can jump some distance that your DM will determine, and may need a Strength(Athletics) check if the DM thinks it's not a guaranteed jump."

[Slipjig]

Neither is wrestling a creature twice the size and weight of an elephant, but D&D characters do that all the time.

Umm... not under RAW, at least not without magical effects. You can't use the Grapple action on anything more than one Size category larger than you.

[stoutstien]

Umm... not under RAW, at least not without magical effects. You can't use the Grapple action on anything more than one Size category larger than you.

The size jump between medium and large is easily the widest/craziest. NPCs that are large can run very heavy and also be twice the size of humanoid PCs.

[Slipjig]

The size jump between medium and large is easily the widest/craziest. NPCs that are large can run very heavy and also be twice the size of humanoid PCs.

Sure, wrestling the biggest Large critters is probably outside the capabilities of a real-world human, but PCs are at least allowed to try it under the rules.

The comment I was responding to asserted that D&D PCs routinely wrestle things "twice the size of an elephant" (presumably trying to demonstrate that PCs are intended to be superhuman?). I was pointing out that the rules specifically do NOT allow for that to happen.

[Chronos]

Quoth kazaryu:


as a player, the only assumptions i make about what my character can do are the things im explicitly allowed to do. If i want to attempt anything beyond the scope of that...i consult the DM to ensure its possible (that is, unless its something thats so obviously within the realm of what a regular person might be able to pull off).
Yes, exactly! And with the current rules, the players look at the rules, see that something is explicitly allowed, and try to do it, only to get shut down by the DM, who reads the rules as explicitly not allowing that.

The player goes "I'm going to try that nearly-impossible task. That makes it DC 30. I have a +15 to that check and advantage, so while there's a good chance I'll fail, the rules say there's a good chance I'll succeed, too, and it's worth trying.". In other words, the player is doing something explicitly allowed.

And then the DM goes "What? That's clearly an impossible task! Why are the players assuming they can do impossible tasks? They should have at least asked first!".

In this case, neither the player nor the DM is wrong. Rather, the rules themselves are wrong, because they're so unclear that they can make the player and the DM both think that two completely different things are clear.

[stoutstien]

Yes, exactly! And with the current rules, the players look at the rules, see that something is explicitly allowed, and try to do it, only to get shut down by the DM, who reads the rules as explicitly not allowing that.

The player goes "I'm going to try that nearly-impossible task. That makes it DC 30. I have a +15 to that check and advantage, so while there's a good chance I'll fail, the rules say there's a good chance I'll succeed, too, and it's worth trying.". In other words, the player is doing something explicitly allowed.

And then the DM goes "What? That's clearly an impossible task! Why are the players assuming they can do impossible tasks? They should have at least asked first!".

In this case, neither the player nor the DM is wrong. Rather, the rules themselves are wrong, because they're so unclear that they can make the player and the DM both think that two completely different things are clear.
No the player is wrong here. Players do not declare they are making ability checks regardless of if it did have some form of explicit listed DC = this task presented. Players declare actions and what outcome they are hoping to achieve. The GM calls for ability checks and sets the DC for those checks. full stop.

[Brookshw]

No the player is wrong here. Players do not declare they are making ability checks regardless of if it did have some form of explicit listed DC = this task presented. Players declare actions and what outcome they are hoping to achieve. The GM calls for ability checks and sets the DC for those checks. full stop.

This is the correct answer.

[Pex]

No the player is wrong here. Players do not declare they are making ability checks regardless of if it did have some form of explicit listed DC = this task presented. Players declare actions and what outcome they are hoping to achieve. The GM calls for ability checks and sets the DC for those checks. full stop.

Semantics. The player wants to do something he knows the rules says he can do. The DM denies it because those same rules are telling him it can't be done. The DM's ruling taking precedence is besides the point. The rules themselves are causing the friction.

[stoutstien]

Semantics. The player wants to do something he knows the rules says he can do. The DM denies it because those same rules are telling him it can't be done. The DM's ruling taking precedence is besides the point. The rules themselves are causing the friction.

It's not semantics because they are trying to override the only core mechanic the entire system has. A player declaring that they're making a check prior to the DM asking for is going to cause a ton of issues.
This has nothing to do with DM ruling it's literally the entire game(game in this reference being when players are actually sit down and are doing stuff rather than all the rules that are merely there to facilitate this single concept)
besides for a very basic understanding, the player has no place to dictate what the rules mean nor how they are applied when you're actually playing the game. Gms should definitely try to be consistent so players have a good idea of the particular outcomes of their actions but there's also the reason why DC charge are mostly pointless because the only thing that matters is the ruling in the situation in actual play.
That impossible task might become possible based on the players doing something in-game to change the circumstances around it. That's why having a rule where the GM can dictate that a player can jump further is better than having a chart of a player can jump X if Y. You're not playing the rules you're playing the game and trying to play the rules around the game will never have a satisfying outcome regardless of the changes you make.


You can honestly change a whole lot about 5th edition and it'll be fine but the one thing you can't change is this principle which is why they repeated about 5,000 times the player handbook alone.

[Sindeloke]

I'm always fascinated by how unique D&D players are amongst the gaming community. If a video game developer releases a game where certain character types are simply not able to contribute to the same degree as others in the content, players still play it, but they universally recognize that lack of balance as a bad thing, and pester the devs to fix it. Only in D&D do players say "that's a feature, I want to play an underbaked class." If a video game developer releases a $60 game that's only 60% finished and riddled with bugs because they assume the players will fix it themselves with mods, players will still buy it and they'll even make the mods, but they universally recognize that lack of effort as a bad thing, and mock the devs for their reputation of charging AAA prices for half-finished games. Only in D&D do the players go "that's a feature, I want to homebrew literally half the product that I paid an easy $200 for."

[Brookshw]

I'm always fascinated by how unique D&D players are amongst the gaming community. If a video game developer releases a game where certain character types are simply not able to contribute to the same degree as others in the content, players still play it, but they universally recognize that lack of balance as a bad thing, and pester the devs to fix it. Only in D&D do players say "that's a feature, I want to play an underbaked class." If a video game developer releases a $60 game that's only 60% finished and riddled with bugs because they assume the players will fix it themselves with mods, players will still buy it and they'll even make the mods, but they universally recognize that lack of effort as a bad thing, and mock the devs for their reputation of charging AAA prices for half-finished games. Only in D&D do the players go "that's a feature, I want to homebrew literally half the product that I paid an easy $200 for."

No idea what you're talking about, there are lots of video games where different factions are recognized as having easier or harder play styles, starts, etc., and people are generally fine with it, often seeking out the disadvantaged for challenge, self-imposed balance, etc. Beyond that, people are generally very accepting of mods and the mod community, recognizing tweaks to personal preference are standard and reasonable as you can't expect a publisher or developer to cater to all specific tastes.

[Blatant Beast]

Semantics. The player wants to do something he knows the rules says he can do. The DM denies it because those same rules are telling him it can't be done. The DM's ruling taking precedence is besides the point. The rules themselves are causing the friction.

Beyond what Stoutstein has stated, the PHB pg 175, does not state the player can expect to ask to perform a 40 foot jump, while corkscrewing prone through the air, simultaneously firing a longbow, and be guaranteed a chance to roll dice.

As, always, a DM determines if a die roll is necessary, and if a die roll is called for, then the DM sets the DC. The DMG has a nice list of Task DCs, (DMG pg 238):

Task Difficulty DC
Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30

This is not a problem with the rules, causing consternation, this is a case of people causing the issue by, perhaps, forgetting some bedrock principles.

Jumping Farther than the World Record Long Jump, while spinning through the air, and firing a bow is going to probably be ruled outright impossible in a game based on the real world, and probably going to be a high DC, in a lot of other games because…well it seems to be a hard task, at least.

Now in a Wuxia themed game, maybe that would be a DC 14 task, maybe lower.
The rules are intended to support different styles…otherwise Ravenloft would be a separate RPG game, and not a D&D Campaign setting.

[Brookshw]

This is not a problem with the rules, causing consternation, this is a cause of people causing the issue by, perhaps, forgetting some bedrock principles.



It's also not something unique to D&D, many games leave DCs (however they exist in their system) to the DM to determine, for example, WFRP just tells the DM to assign modifiers based on loosely defined concepts like "challenging", "average", etc., GURPS does some similar, and so on.

[Aquillion]

This is not a problem with the rules, causing consternation, this is a case of people causing the issue by, perhaps, forgetting some bedrock principles.

Jumping Farther than the World Record Long Jump, while spinning through the air, and firing a bow is going to probably be ruled outright impossible in a game based on the real world, and probably going to be a high DC, in a lot of other games because…well it seems to be a hard task, at least.

Now in a Wuxia themed game, maybe that would be a DC 14 task, maybe lower.
The rules are intended to support different styles…otherwise Ravenloft would be a separate RPG game, and not a D&D Campaign setting.
The problem is that there are classes that are heavily based around skill checks, and whose balance, therefore, can change wildly based on those rulings.

There are settings with different degrees of magic, but no core setting changes the way spells fundimentially work - if a DM said "yeah in this setting magic is weaker, so you only learn spells half as fast, eg. a 6th level wizard casts like a 3rd level wizard, and you need to be level 10 to cast 5th level spells", that would be a massive houserule that would probably make most players avoid playing casters; no DM would introduce that houserule without telling people first.

Similarly, if a DM felt that their setting was one with more realistic combat (such that nobody gets bonus attacks, with all such class features being removed with no compensation), few people would play fighters.

Why is it any different to have the value of Athletics (and, by extension, almost every other skill, because the skill system works the same for all of them) potentially differ by a factor of 2 or more based on DM calls? It seems like terrible design to me - if you want Athletics to be purely flavor that can be freely-adjusted by DMs to change the tone of their settings without balance implications, then it needs to be totally divorced from class features, with no classes designed to be good at it as a selling point. That is, currently, not the case. What is someone who wants to play a rogue supposed to do with this?

[stoutstien]

The problem is that there are classes that are heavily based around skill checks, and whose balance, therefore, can change wildly based on those rulings.

There are settings with different degrees of magic, but no core setting changes the way spells fundimentially work - if a DM said "yeah in this setting magic is weaker, so you only learn spells half as fast, eg. a 6th level wizard casts like a 3rd level wizard, and you need to be level 10 to cast 5th level spells", that would be a massive houserule that would probably make most players avoid playing casters; no DM would introduce that houserule without telling people first.

Similarly, if a DM felt that their setting was one with more realistic combat (such that nobody gets bonus attacks, with all such class features being removed with no compensation), few people would play fighters.

Why is it any different to have the value of Athletics (and, by extension, almost every other skill, because the skill system works the same for all of them) potentially differ by a factor of 2 or more based on DM calls? It seems like terrible design to me - if you want Athletics to be purely flavor that can be freely-adjusted by DMs to change the tone of their settings without balance implications, then it needs to be totally divorced from class features, with no classes designed to be good at it as a selling point. That is, currently, not the case. What is someone who wants to play a rogue supposed to do with this?

That's an issue with magic<spells>. Spells doesn't follow the baseline design and are just a pile of explicit features that *only* work if you do exactly what they say. At the same time they are ripe for exploitive reading because it takes away the GMs ability to make situational adjustments.
Ability checks aren't the outlier here.

[Blatant Beast]

The problem is that there are classes that are heavily based around skill checks, and whose balance, therefore, can change wildly based on those rulings.

You actually pointed out a potential solution to the "problem", a DM and Players need to communicate to set expectations. I imagine, it is generally not that difficult for a player to ask: "I'm thinking about playing a High Strength Character with a focus on Athletics...how do you plan to handle feats of athleticism ?"

Casters have their own issues. It is very difficult to be a functioning cleric, by RAW, if someone cuts out your tongue. Similarly, balancing on a narrow ledge, is sufficiently stressful that a DM could call for a Concentration check.

If the reliability of spells, is a balance concern for you,(for the reason's you indicated, which are absolutely valid), an expedient way to counterbalance is to encourage people to describe their actions, and include ad hoc riders based off their description. One can always play to the strength's of open design, which, I would contend is: easy modification.

Spells do what they say they do, but Conan's slicing cut above the brow of the winged Grillion, causes a spurt of blood to blind it for one round. The Player of the Wizard might change the color of the spell effects, but not much else changes.....

[Pex]

Beyond what Stoutstein has stated, the PHB pg 175, does not state the player can expect to ask to perform a 40 foot jump, while corkscrewing prone through the air, simultaneously firing a longbow, and be guaranteed a chance to roll dice.

As, always, a DM determines if a die roll is necessary, and if a die roll is called for, then the DM sets the DC. The DMG has a nice list of Task DCs, (DMG pg 238):

Task Difficulty DC
Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30

This is not a problem with the rules, causing consternation, this is a case of people causing the issue by, perhaps, forgetting some bedrock principles.

Jumping Farther than the World Record Long Jump, while spinning through the air, and firing a bow is going to probably be ruled outright impossible in a game based on the real world, and probably going to be a high DC, in a lot of other games because…well it seems to be a hard task, at least.

Now in a Wuxia themed game, maybe that would be a DC 14 task, maybe lower.
The rules are intended to support different styles…otherwise Ravenloft would be a separate RPG game, and not a D&D Campaign setting.

Yes, a player cannot demand to make a check, but that is irrelevant the point.

Those numbers mean nothing without defining what is easy and what is hard. What is easy for one DM is hard for another, and that is what causes the problems. I am flat out saying it is a design flaw that if I have Athletics +5 with 16 ST I need to roll a 10 or higher to jump a 20 ft pit in one DM's game, a 17 or higher for a second DM's game, a Natural 20 in a third DM's game, and can never ever jump a 20 ft pit in the fourth DMs game because they each have a different opinion on the difficulty of jumping a 20 ft pit when my ST is 16. No one has a problem for all games everywhere the DC of a spell is 8 + spellcaster's relevant modifier + spellcaster's proficiency bonus, all plate mail provides AC 18, a Fireball cast with a 3rd level spell slot does 8d6 damage in a 20 ft radius, and every other rule not involving skill use of the game that are the same for everyone. It's not so far fetched to ask skill use follow that same consistency across all games of all DMs. Let the DC be X for all games everywhere. The diversity people ask for comes in on where and when the individual DM chooses to place that 20 ft pit, what's at the bottom of it, and the player choosing to even bother trying to jump it or do something else. Don't worry, the 10 ST not proficient in Athletics PC will have a harder time jumping it than the 16 ST who is proficient. The 16 ST Fighter will jump it. The 10 ST Wizard will cast Misty Step. If the Wizard is a gnome or halfling he could piggyback on the Fighter instead and the table has a whimsical moment.

[Ignimortis]

I'm always fascinated by how unique D&D players are amongst the gaming community. If a video game developer releases a game where certain character types are simply not able to contribute to the same degree as others in the content, players still play it, but they universally recognize that lack of balance as a bad thing, and pester the devs to fix it. Only in D&D do players say "that's a feature, I want to play an underbaked class." If a video game developer releases a $60 game that's only 60% finished and riddled with bugs because they assume the players will fix it themselves with mods, players will still buy it and they'll even make the mods, but they universally recognize that lack of effort as a bad thing, and mock the devs for their reputation of charging AAA prices for half-finished games. Only in D&D do the players go "that's a feature, I want to homebrew literally half the product that I paid an easy $200 for."
Skyrim, though.

D&D 5e is quite literally the same thing for TTRPGs that Skyrim is for videogame RPGs. The similarities are uncanny and go far beyond what you've just listed.

Re: the rest of the discussion, I won't retread my points from previous times we've been at this juncture, but I support Pex's position. The rules are there so that everyone at the table can make similar assumptions about the game world. 5e skills do not work that way, despite the fact that many other parts of 5e do, in fact, work that way.

[stoutstien]

Yes, a player cannot demand to make a check, but that is irrelevant the point.

Those numbers mean nothing without defining what is easy and what is hard. What is easy for one DM is hard for another, and that is what causes the problems. I am flat out saying it is a design flaw that if I have Athletics +5 with 16 ST I need to roll a 10 or higher to jump a 20 ft pit in one DM's game, a 17 or higher for a second DM's game, a Natural 20 in a third DM's game, and can never ever jump a 20 ft pit in the fourth DMs game because they each have a different opinion on the difficulty of jumping a 20 ft pit when my ST is 16. No one has a problem for all games everywhere the DC of a spell is 8 + spellcaster's relevant modifier + spellcaster's proficiency bonus, all plate mail provides AC 18, a Fireball cast with a 3rd level spell slot does 8d6 damage in a 20 ft radius, and every other rule not involving skill use of the game that are the same for everyone. It's not so far fetched to ask skill use follow that same consistency across all games of all DMs. Let the DC be X for all games everywhere. The diversity people ask for comes in on where and when the individual DM chooses to place that 20 ft pit, what's at the bottom of it, and the player choosing to even bother trying to jump it or do something else. Don't worry, the 10 ST not proficient in Athletics PC will have a harder time jumping it than the 16 ST who is proficient. The 16 ST Fighter will jump it. The 10 ST Wizard will cast Misty Step. If the Wizard is a gnome or halfling he could piggyback on the Fighter instead and the table has a whimsical moment.

No. I don't care about what Jimmy is doing at his table and it's a heck of a lot more difficult to remove crappy DC charts from games then it is for others to add them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No. I don't care about what Jimmy is doing at his table and it's a heck of a lot more difficult to remove crappy DC charts from games then it is for others to add them.

Yeah. DC charts set hard expectations that are hard to break. The reverse is not true.

If specific skill-based actions are core to your character concept, work with the DM ahead of time. If they're not core, you should only care about comparative competence (I'm better at X than at Y), which is given entirely by the value of the modifiers.

[Pex]

No. I don't care about what Jimmy is doing at his table and it's a heck of a lot more difficult to remove crappy DC charts from games then it is for others to add them.

It matters to me when I play at your table then Jimmy's table tomorrow and Bob's table next week. It is harder to make up your own numbers as evidence of different people coming up with their own numbers. That difference is the difference of people having different opinions on the difficulty of a task. It makes my character Tarzan in one game but George of the Jungle in another despite having the same relevant game statistic.

[stoutstien]

It matters to me when I play at your table then Jimmy's table tomorrow and Bob's table next week. It is harder to make up your own numbers as evidence of different people coming up with their own numbers. That difference is the difference of people having different opinions on the difficulty of a task. It makes my character Tarzan in one game but George of the Jungle in another despite having the same relevant game statistic.

You can solve this issue with a 2 minute conversation with each GM and an index card.
Your two characters are *not* compatible unless they are in the same campaign, setting, theme, and honestly same party. Without table level context they are meaningless numbers.

[TaiLiu]

The problem is that there are classes that are heavily based around skill checks, and whose balance, therefore, can change wildly based on those rulings.

The rules are there so that everyone at the table can make similar assumptions about the game world. 5e skills do not work that way, despite the fact that many other parts of 5e do, in fact, work that way.
For sure. The ability check system is core to D&D 5e, so the fact that it's so anemic and can vary so widely kinda sucks.

My first D&D 5e game was one where Stealth could function like invisibility, even if you were carrying a light source. In another game, Stealth broke super easily and had no practical use.


That's an issue with magic<spells>. Spells doesn't follow the baseline design and are just a pile of explicit features that *only* work if you do exactly what they say. At the same time they are ripe for exploitive reading because it takes away the GMs ability to make situational adjustments.
Ability checks aren't the outlier here.
I don't think so. The core combat system in D&D 5e also consists of explicit features. So do many class features: Lay on Hands heals this much. A Fighter can make this many attacks against these DCs. These bonuses come when a Bard inspires you...

Yeah, a DM can make ad hoc adjustments to how class features work, but they can also do the same with spells.

Also, spells take up way more space than ability checks. Some core class competencies, like eldritch blast and find steed, are spells. Spells are not an outlier at all.


The DMG has a nice list of Task DCs, (DMG pg 238):

Task Difficulty DC
Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30
I think the DMG gives bad advice in this instance. The DCs should be lowered by at least 5. DC 10 for an Easy task is way too high.

If you have no proficiency (and no other bonuses) in an ability check, you have a 45% chance to fail an Easy task. If you have proficiency, you have a 35% chance to fail at Tier 1 and a 15% chance to fail at Tier 4.


You actually pointed out a potential solution to the "problem", a DM and Players need to communicate to set expectations. I imagine, it is generally not that difficult for a player to ask: "I'm thinking about playing a High Strength Character with a focus on Athletics...how do you plan to handle feats of athleticism ?"
You're right that players and DMs should work together when it comes to character creation. But I'm not sure how many DMs, especially newer DMs, could usefully answer this question.

Like, as a newer DM, I'd be improvising a lot of these ability check DCs. I'd also be improvising what you can and cannot do with ability checks. Being a DM is hard work. I just dunno how I'm supposed to answer a question like that.


No. I don't care about what Jimmy is doing at his table and it's a heck of a lot more difficult to remove crappy DC charts from games then it is for others to add them.

Yeah. DC charts set hard expectations that are hard to break. The reverse is not true.
I agree that DC tables tend to be awful. But they're not necessary. Set a flat DC for all ability checks that don't otherwise have a DC (e.g. dispel magic has a known DC, but not some arbitrary Religion check). That way everyone knows the odds of succeeding or failing. If something should be harder, roll with disadvantage.

Such a system would be easier for both the DM and the player. No need to check against a shoddy table. No need to worry about wide disparities in skill competence.

[stoutstien]

I mean if you are talking about working outside the natural limitations of DnD then yea there plenty of better options to resolve this stuff but then I wouldn't be DND for better or worse.

[TaiLiu]

I mean if you are talking about working outside the natural limitations of DnD then yea there plenty of better options to resolve this stuff but then I wouldn't be DND for better or worse.
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. What natural limitations would we be working outside of?

[stoutstien]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. What natural limitations would we be working outside of?

As long as you have the ability score and skills (5e went a long way of fixing this by snipping the skill numbers game back out but it's a habit it's hard to break for some) as the "primary" way PCs are meant to generate expected values that are then applied to randomizer (dice roll), you have the issues of needing to shoehorn everything into one group or another and are constantly looking to chase the die off as the biggest factor.

Coupled with the fact that DND still has a pseudo wargame in it (it's not really one because wargames only work if both sides have a reasonable chance of winning and by nature adversarial. Neither of those work with modern TTRPG where you invest in a single PC rather than easily replaceable units) you are severely limited with how you can utilize them. Doesn't matter if you are using a roll over/under mechanic or if you allow swapping out ability used for action like using intelligence to make weapon attacks because you are still just shuffling stuff around.

That's also what makes 5e so good. The DCs being subjective makes it so a GM can work *outside* those limits with reason so they can support players in ways that the math can't. If you codify DC your putting them back in that box.

[Blatant Beast]

Like, as a newer DM, I'd be improvising a lot of these ability check DCs. I'd also be improvising what you can and cannot do with ability checks. Being a DM is hard work. I just dunno how I'm supposed to answer a question like that.

“I don’t know “is a perfectly acceptable initial response. It should not be the only response, but it is fine for a DM to ask to take some time, including not making a decision until next session, to come up with an answer.

Improvisation is a huge part of the game, especially for the DM role.
You actually do have an idea of how you would handle this, TaiLiu, as earlier you said about the chart with typical DC targets:



I think the DMG gives bad advice in this instance. The DCs should be lowered by at least 5. DC 10 for an Easy task is way too high.

As a self described newer DM, you already made a choice regarding the game flavor you want to encourage, and lowering all skill check DCs by 5 will go a long way in allowing people to successfully experiment.

[Pex]

You can solve this issue with a 2 minute conversation with each GM and an index card.
Your two characters are *not* compatible unless they are in the same campaign, setting, theme, and honestly same party. Without table level context they are meaningless numbers.

I do not need to ask every DM I play with how Fireball works, how plate mail works, how long swords work. I should not need to ask every DM how jumping a 20 ft pit works.

[Slipjig]

My first D&D 5e game was one where Stealth could function like invisibility, even if you were carrying a light source.

Yikes. That is some immersion-shattering stuff right there. And I say that as somebody who LIKES stealth characters. Carrying a light source should give you away even with Invisibility.

The proper response to a player saying, "I stealth past the guards" involves the words, "Awesome! How are you doing that?"

[Keltest]

I do not need to ask every DM I play with how Fireball works, how plate mail works, how long swords work. I should not need to ask every DM how jumping a 20 ft pit works.

There are already rules for how to jump a 20 foot pit that work the same way all the time.

[stoutstien]

I do not need to ask every DM I play with how Fireball works, how plate mail works, how long swords work. I should not need to ask every DM how jumping a 20 ft pit works.

The rules are pretty clear. You can clear X with a running leap and maybe extra with a DC depending on situational factors. Don't see how that is any different than asking if you need to have armor fitted or what is considered flammable for fireball in a give situation.

Like a common factor is jumping over a gap to a lower point. That's a pretty straightforward situation factor that would likely allow for a further leap with or without a check of some sort. If you had a formula for this it would quickly turn into math homework rather than a game about shoot magic and swinging swords at ghost dragons.

[TaiLiu]

As long as you have the ability score and skills (5e went a long way of fixing this by snipping the skill numbers game back out but it's a habit it's hard to break for some) as the "primary" way PCs are meant to generate expected values that are then applied to randomizer (dice roll), you have the issues of needing to shoehorn everything into one group or another and are constantly looking to chase the die off as the biggest factor.

Coupled with the fact that DND still has a pseudo wargame in it (it's not really one because wargames only work if both sides have a reasonable chance of winning and by nature adversarial. Neither of those work with modern TTRPG where you invest in a single PC rather than easily replaceable units) you are severely limited with how you can utilize them. Doesn't matter if you are using a roll over/under mechanic or if you allow swapping out ability used for action like using intelligence to make weapon attacks because you are still just shuffling stuff around.

That's also what makes 5e so good. The DCs being subjective makes it so a GM can work *outside* those limits with reason so they can support players in ways that the math can't. If you codify DC your putting them back in that box.
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by your first paragraph. Or what it has to do with natural limitations.


“I don’t know “is a perfectly acceptable initial response. It should not be the only response, but it is fine for a DM to ask to take some time, including not making a decision until next session, to come up with an answer.

Improvisation is a huge part of the game, especially for the DM role.
You actually do have an idea of how you would handle this, TaiLiu, as earlier you said about the chart with typical DC targets:

As a self described newer DM, you already made a choice regarding the game flavor you want to encourage, and lowering all skill check DCs by 5 will go a long way in allowing people to successfully experiment.
See, the problem is that I'm not sure what decision I'd be making at all.

"How do you plan to handle feats of athleticism?"
"With... Athletics checks."

What else am I meant to say? Any specific rulings will be in the moment.

As an aside, instead of lowering DCs, I'd probably handle ability check DCs by setting a single DC for everything, leaving difficulty for the dis/advantage system.


Yikes. That is some immersion-shattering stuff right there. And I say that as somebody who LIKES stealth characters. Carrying a light source should give you away even with Invisibility.

The proper response to a player saying, "I stealth past the guards" involves the words, "Awesome! How are you doing that?"
Yeah, it was kinda ridiculous. I think the DM intended it to be a serious game, but it didn't work out.

The character was a halfling, so he didn't have darkvision. Hence the immersion-breaking light source.

[stoutstien]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by your first paragraph. Or what it has to do with natural limitations.


As long as you have ability scores/mods on a d20 to resolve actions with the 1-20 level range, you can't really fix the issues like you can move supersonic speed but only with attacks or you can stand in lava longer if your older.

The range of results and progression are too broad to work with and that before magic gets in there and really messes it up.

If you wanted to do something really new you'd have to remove something that is so ingrained that it would even make 4e fan doubletake.

[TaiLiu]

As long as you have ability scores/mods on a d20 to resolve actions with the 1-20 level range, you can't really fix the issues like you can move supersonic speed but only with attacks or you can stand in lava longer if your older.

The range of results and progression are too broad to work with and that before magic gets in there and really messes it up.

If you wanted to do something really new you'd have to remove something that is so ingrained that it would even make 4e fan doubletake.
Thank you for explaining. :smallsmile:

I think I understand. You're saying that bounded accuracy doesn't allow for supernatural feats in the same way D&D 3e's epic skills did.

[Aquillion]

There are already rules for how to jump a 20 foot pit that work the same way all the time.
I think they probably meant "25-foot pit."

At that point, unless you've somehow gotten your strength to 25, your only real options are to make puppy-dog eyes at your DM and convince them to allow you to roll to jump further (which isn't in the rules; unlike high jumps, it's technically a houserule. RAW it is flatly impossible to make that jump without the use of magic or special class features.)

This isn't an impossible wuxia jump, it's a plausible jump for a skilled athlete in the real world, without requiring supernatural strength.

And even if your DM does give in and houserules up a rule to let you roll for a longer long jump, they have to completely invent the rules for it whole-cloth themselves.

Note that even the 20-foot-pit has problems. You can't make that as low-level character, fullstop. And since it's a unique rule that sets your jump distance to a flat number, not an ability check, per RAW it is also impossible to use Dexterity for a long jump. Your Rogue with Expertise in Athletics and 20 Dexterity / 8 strength can only long jump 8 feat, ever; unless they have some subclass feature that says otherwise, they can't jump even a 10-foot pit, let alone the 20-foot one. Yes, there are rules for it but they are stupid (something people above implicitly acknowledge when they suggest making puppy-dog eyes at your DM to ask them to houserule an alternative.)

The point of all of this is that mobility for skill-focused martial / non-magical characters is an important part of the game; entire character concepts and archetypes rest on it. It shouldn't rely on this degree of handwaving or houseruling by the DM - the answers above basically amount to "rule zero, rule zero, your DM can just make something up!", but if something central to entire character concepts like this is going to require that, that's clearly a problem with the game.

[stoutstien]

Thank you for explaining. :smallsmile:

I think I understand. You're saying that bounded accuracy doesn't allow for supernatural feats in the same way D&D 3e's epic skills did.

And 3.X run away bonuses also doesn't work for entirely different reasons.
5e wins out by not trying to fight it and just embraces the wonky parts. The math works because they didn't try to dial it in past a coke bottle level and some napkin numbers.

Yea you end up with some odd corner cases but it's also easy to just make a ruling and move on where if you dialed in the math you'll just uncover more wrinkles and lose the ability to make those rulings.

[Pex]

There are already rules for how to jump a 20 foot pit that work the same way all the time.


The rules are pretty clear. You can clear X with a running leap and maybe extra with a DC depending on situational factors. Don't see how that is any different than asking if you need to have armor fitted or what is considered flammable for fireball in a give situation.

Like a common factor is jumping over a gap to a lower point. That's a pretty straightforward situation factor that would likely allow for a further leap with or without a check of some sort. If you had a formula for this it would quickly turn into math homework rather than a game about shoot magic and swinging swords at ghost dragons.

The rule is the DM makes up the DC. That's not a rule; that's passing the buck. The DC changes based on who is DM that day.

The DC of any PC's special ability (class feature, spell, whatever) is 8 + the PC's relevant modifier + the PC's proficiency bonus. Oh look, a formula.

A PC's attack modifier (weapon, spell, etc.) in a Thing he's proficient with is relevant ability score + proficiency bonus. Oh look, a formula.

When using Counterspell or Dispel Magic against a spell of higher level than the slot used to cast those spells, you roll 1d20 + your relevant ability score modifier against a DC of 10 + the targeted spell level. Oh look, a formula.

Yes, there's lots of math in D&D. Always has been.

[Brookshw]

Yes, there's lots of math in D&D. Always has been.

And there's always been a very loosely defined skill system, not that it stops the gripes :smalltongue:

[Pex]

Note that even the 20-foot-pit has problems. You can't make that as low-level character, fullstop. And since it's a unique rule that sets your jump distance to a flat number, not an ability check, per RAW it is also impossible to use Dexterity for a long jump. Your Rogue with Expertise in Athletics and 20 Dexterity / 8 strength can only long jump 8 feat, ever; unless they have some subclass feature that says otherwise, they can't jump even a 10-foot pit, let alone the 20-foot one. Yes, there are rules for it but they are stupid (something people above implicitly acknowledge when they suggest making puppy-dog eyes at your DM to ask them to houserule an alternative.)



Says who? What if we roll for ability scores, I'm lucky to get an 18, put it in ST, then choose a race with +2 ST. Voila! I have 20 ST and can jump 20 ft just because I want to.

You say it can't be done. Another DM says I can at DC X. A third DM says I can at DC Y. That's the problem.

[RSP]

You say it can't be done. Another DM says I can at DC X. A third DM says I can at DC Y. That's the problem.

Not a problem, a feature. 5e wanted to empower the DM to be able to run the game they want at their table.

They didn’t want the game hard coded like 3.x: they wanted DMs to chose what’s possible at their table.

Part of that empowerment was an open skill system.

[Aimeryan]

If you codify DC your putting them back in that box.

So, then open that box and jump out. No one is forcing you to stay in it. However, not having a box DOES force everyone who would prefer - if just to make DMing easier, if for balance, if for extrapolation, whatever the case may be - to be left clutching at thin air.

You can easily remove/ignore something, it is much more difficult and time consuming to create something that looks good - and besides, that is literally WotC's job.

---

Addenum, @stoutstien (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?121205-stoutstien) @PhoenixPhyre (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?136616-PhoenixPhyre)@RSP (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?139908-RSP): Do any of you use the Spell Points variant, DMG pg288? Why not? Does the presence of it not force you to use it? Is it... ignorable?!

[RSP]

@stoutstien (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?121205-stoutstien) @PhoenixPhyre (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?136616-PhoenixPhyre)@RSP (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?139908-RSP): Do any of you use the Spell Points variant, DMG pg288? Why not? Does the presence of it not force you to use it? Is it... ignorable?!

I have. I think it’s a little wonky (a 5th level spell is more powerful than a 4th by more than half a 1st; yet in SPs it’s exactly that).

3.x has the codified tables you’re looking for. It had its own problems.

To empower the DM in 5e, the devs need to actually allow them to have freedom to make rulings.

That’s not a bad thing.

[Pex]

Not a problem, a feature. 5e wanted to empower the DM to be able to run the game they want at their table.

They didn’t want the game hard coded like 3.x: they wanted DMs to chose what’s possible at their table.

Part of that empowerment was an open skill system.

The DM's job is to create the world and everything in it. He has all the power he needs to runthe game he wants. He doesn't need to spend time creating the rules too. That's why the game was bought, to use those rules. That's the game designers' job, and they chose to not do it all. Choosing not to it doesn't make it a right choice; it's just a choice. I find it the wrong choice.

[Aquillion]

To empower the DM in 5e, the devs need to actually allow them to have freedom to make rulings. So, like... why have spells or a magic system at all? Why not just have the Wizard say "hey, I want to use magic to do X", where X can be whatever they want to attempt, and it's up to the DM to decide whether it's possible or not and then to set the Magic Difficulty roll if it is?

Why have rules for attacking in combat? Why not just have the fighter say "This is going nowhere! Enough negotiation, I attack the goblins" and give the DM the freedom to decide which side wins or how combat is resolved?

The problem is that D&D is a mathematically rigid rules-heavy system sometimes, and a floaty game-of-pretend game sometimes, and these are extremely unevenly distributed between the classes and roles, which results in wildly different expectations between players and groups.

There's nothing wrong with floaty game-of-pretend systems - I love several of them - but D&D is not and has never been that sort of system. And if it wants to start doing that it would need a ton more changes than just "delete this section of the rules and tell the DM to figure it out", because systems like that depend heavily on making it clear to everyone what the overarching expectations, genre, and feel of the game will be.

Some people above have said that they like the DM-makes-it-up-on-the-fly skill rules because it lets the DM decide what sort of setting they want when it comes to skills (and, when it comes to PC capabilities, only skills; all other mechanical things are nailed down with mathematical precision and would require sweeping houserules to change.) But that's not a blank check for designers to scrawl "lol make it up yourself :smalltongue:" on a napkin and call it a day - in fact, it requires even more thought and design work, because you have to instruct the players and DM on the options that are available, guide them through discussing and choosing one, and ensure that any rigid mechanics that you do provide work equally well with all the ranges of options you want to support.

D&D does none of that. Not every DM is an experienced player who understands every part of the system; some of them are frantically juggling a bunch of new things already and won't even realize that they need to make eg. a major setting call for how they want athletics to work in their system. This can easily lead them to inconsistent or problematic rulings that effectively gut certain class features or make them too powerful, since the system doesn't really make the implications of the work it's dumping on them clear.

And even highly-experienced players can disagree over this - part of what prompted this thread is that there are a ton of experienced people here who will flatly tell you "no, D&D characters are meant to be superhuman and judging them by the guy-at-the-gym is a fallacy; if you rule like that then you're playing the game wrong or are drastically houseruling things in a way that hamstrings several classes."

I disagree with that to an extent (obviously) but it shows the level of disconnect in terms of simple expectations, which is sometimes catastrophic for the system as a whole.

At the end of the day the purpose of the books - the reason we buy them rather than just playing let's-pretend ourselves - is to make it a bit easier for everyone in the group to get on the same page and agree to a shared reality. This can be done in a bunch of different ways (rigid rules, loose narrative guidance, presenting the players with a range of options or even vague discussions of options that talk them through their choices and the implications of each), but the the current skill system is failing at all of them.

In short, if the entire system was as badly-designed as the skill system, why would anyone buy the (fairly expensive) D&D books in order to play? I don't need someone's useless scrawling on a napkin to give me permission to make up rules myself; I can do that already. What I need from the books is something that will reduce the burden of doing so and get everyone on the same page so I can play with a new group without walking them through my own thousand-page-long set of rulings and interpretations.

[stoutstien]

So, then open that box and jump out. No one is forcing you to stay in it. However, not having a box DOES force everyone who would prefer - if just to make DMing easier, if for balance, if for extrapolation, whatever the case may be - to be left clutching at thin air.

You can easily remove/ignore something, it is much more difficult and time consuming to create something that looks good - and besides, that is literally WotC's job.

---

Addenum, @stoutstien (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?121205-stoutstien) @PhoenixPhyre (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?136616-PhoenixPhyre)@RSP (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?139908-RSP): Do any of you use the Spell Points variant, DMG pg288? Why not? Does the presence of it not force you to use it? Is it... ignorable?!

Not really a comparison because the spell point variant is just an alternative way to handle attrition where ability check DC's are a pass/fail threshold for the 99.9% of the possible actions that a player could take that would fall outside of the rest of the rules.

This is also why comparing it to attack rules is pointless. The reason why you can have a formula for attack rolls is because not only is everybody making them all the time, each individual one isn't all that important if it fails. The formula allows you to quickly compare average outputs because you have enough numbers flying around where the average is important. Ability checks do not work that way. if you're following the rules every single one of them is probably important enough where failure is going to change the state of the game. Averages do not help the GM run a better game nor does it help the player better predict the outcome when it comes to ability checks.

Attack = low risk/low return
Ability checks= high risk/high return.

Having unpublished DCs also allow you to manage tension and near the flow better but based on how you are describing your games those are probably not important elements to begin with.

Nor do I have any confidence that they could actually publish a usable fixed DC chart because the DC chart that do have the DMG is wrong based on what little math system needs to operate. It would basically mean outside of hyper specialized people who circumvent the system, the jump distance listed in the player handbook would probably be the max because no one's going to take the risk.

[GloatingSwine]

The rules are pretty clear. You can clear X with a running leap and maybe extra with a DC depending on situational factors.

Yeah, the thing is that the "maybe extra depending on situational factors" includes factors like "was your DM bullied by their gym teacher at school?" Which is pretty silly.

[stoutstien]

Yeah, the thing is that the "maybe extra depending on situational factors" includes factors like "was your DM bullied by their gym teacher at school?" Which is pretty silly.

Having a DC chart wouldn't change this because they could just slap disadvantage on everything or just say no which is also just as valid. This is a universal truth across the entire genre.

You're not going to avoid bad GMs with rules because the rules are inherently their tools.
This is even true for games like PF2 or 4e where players have a very good idea of the math as GM can still screw the players over for whatever reasons.

[Chronos]

Quoth stoutstein:

This is also why comparing it to attack rules is pointless. The reason why you can have a formula for attack rolls is because not only is everybody making them all the time, each individual one isn't all that important if it fails. The formula allows you to quickly compare average outputs because you have enough numbers flying around where the average is important. Ability checks do not work that way. if you're following the rules every single one of them is probably important enough where failure is going to change the state of the game. Averages do not help the GM run a better game nor does it help the player better predict the outcome when it comes to ability checks.
So it's OK for the skill system to be half-baked in some ways, because it lets the DM fix all the problems caused by it being half-baked in other ways? The fact that skills are so binary is also a failure of game design.

[Blatant Beast]

I do not need to ask every DM I play with how Fireball works, how plate mail works, how long swords work. I should not need to ask every DM how jumping a 20 ft pit works.

Spells have their own sticky issues:
1) Does Conjure Bonfire create Light?
2) Does Spirit Guardians take half of your remaining movement or half of your total movement?

These are spell questions that particular games will have their own, possibly differing answers to.....just like DCs.

5e is clearly not a perfectly formed RPG system. That stated, I have to wonder at someone's time management priorities, if nigh 10 years after the release of a game system they still find it half baked...why continue to post and play the game, if you do not enjoy it?

Also, complaining about the fact that one can easily alter 5e, to suit one's taste, say by coming up with one's own list of static DCs, by stating the system should have exactly what you want, right from the start, with no effort on your end...strikes me as a no win situation.

The static DC rules that were tested in 1D&D received horrible feedback scores if I remember correctly. Consequently, it is not likely the system is going to change to better suit tastes that want lists and lists of inviolable DCs for certain actions, (beyond what the table in the 5e DMG provides).

5e is easily moldable. If that does not appeal to you, perhaps the system simply never will appeal to you.

There is nothing inherently untoward about that, different things appeal to different people.

[stoutstien]

So it's OK for the skill system to be half-baked in some ways, because it lets the DM fix all the problems caused by it being half-baked in other ways? The fact that skills are so binary is also a failure of game design.

Maybe. While I'll agree that binary checks are troublesome they are also *DND* at its core. It's a lot easier for them to provide guidelines that work at 90% of tables that don't dig deeper than what's needed to work for that table than trying to dial in a a ton resolutions mechanic that is dramatic, unpredictable, fair, opportunistic, and fun.

Which is why I pointed out you can't fix that part without moving outside the limitations of the system. Degrees of failures, rerolls, and such might hide this better but it doesn't change much in the end.

[Brookshw]

Nor do I have any confidence that they could actually publish a usable fixed DC chart because the DC chart that do have the DMG is wrong based on what little math system needs to operate. It would basically mean outside of hyper specialized people who circumvent the system, the jump distance listed in the player handbook would probably be the max because no one's going to take the risk.

Leaving aside hyper-specialization, D&Ds history across TSR and WoTC for skill systems have always been highly flexibly and ambiguous, under TSR it was loosely defined with the DM deciding if a thing was possible and assigning modifiers based on how difficult they thought it was (depending on where you were in the origins of skill systems, its varied from 'none' to non-weapon proficiencies through the editions), WoTC's much referenced tables in 3e were full of circumstances and vague references which would easily produce DCs in a wide range, and still left it to the DM to decide what was possible to begin with. D&D has never had a good system for DC tables, we keep talking about jump (and climb is another common focus) in part because its low hanging fruit, but what's the DC (Tools use, I guess) for a Warforged to connect an eversmoking bottle to an exhaust port or attach a regulator to it to affect its area? Is that something that's even possible, or should be possible? Table level issue.


So it's OK for the skill system to be half-baked in some ways, because it lets the DM fix all the problems caused by it being half-baked in other ways? The fact that skills are so binary is also a failure of game design. Its not binary, they have the success at a cost system, people just don't use it often in my experience.

[Pex]

Spells have their own sticky issues:
1) Does Conjure Bonfire create Light?
2) Does Spirit Guardians take half of your remaining movement or half of your total movement?

These are spell questions that particular games will have their own, possibly differing answers to.....just like DCs.

5e is clearly not a perfectly formed RPG system. That stated, I have to wonder at someone's time management priorities, if nigh 10 years after the release of a game system they still find it half baked...why continue to post and play the game, if you do not enjoy it?

Also, complaining about the fact that one can easily alter 5e, to suit one's taste, say by coming up with one's own list of static DCs, by stating the system should have exactly what you want, right from the start, with no effort on your end...strikes me as a no win situation.

The static DC rules that were tested in 1D&D received horrible feedback scores if I remember correctly. Consequently, it is not likely the system is going to change to better suit tastes that want lists and lists of inviolable DCs for certain actions, (beyond what the table in the 5e DMG provides).

5e is easily moldable. If that does not appeal to you, perhaps the system simply never will appeal to you.

There is nothing inherently untoward about that, different things appeal to different people.

Yes, individual spells have their problems. The Conjure spells. DM adjudicating illusions and Suggestion. They get discussed. However, the rules of magic in general are clearly defined and annotated. I want that same precision for skill use.

[Keltest]

Yes, individual spells have their problems. The Conjure spells. DM adjudicating illusions and Suggestion. They get discussed. However, the rules of magic in general are clearly defined and annotated. I want that same precision for skill use.

:smallconfused:

"Magic" has even fewer general rules than the skill system. Thats why all these corner case spell uses get problems.

[Aimeryan]

Not really a comparison because...

It is totally a comparison; rules exist, you either use them or ignore them. If you ignore Spell Points then you have just made the argument that you are completely capable of ignoring Skill Tables too. Are you of the opinion that the Spell Point variant should not exist in the books?

[Brookshw]

It is totally a comparison; rules exist, you either use them or ignore them. If you ignore Spell Points then you have just made the argument that you are completely capable of ignoring Skill Tables too. Are you of the opinion that the Spell Point variant should not exist in the books?

So you want an optional rule set for more detailed skill usage? I don't think anyone's opposed to optional rules.

[Aimeryan]

So you want an optional rule set for more detailed skill usage? I don't think anyone's opposed to optional rules.

All the rules are optional, but yes arguably the DMG rules are easier to class as such. More detailed rules in the DMG is the entire point of the DMG over the PHB. There is likely a reason why such a light DMG and a DM crisis is occuring at the same time.

[stoutstien]

It is totally a comparison; rules exist, you either use them or ignore them. If you ignore Spell Points then you have just made the argument that you are completely capable of ignoring Skill Tables too. Are you of the opinion that the Spell Point variant should not exist in the books?

That's not how the system nor the rules work. You can't take two different things out of context and say they are both variants so they will will have a similar impact on a game. Spell points merely changes the rate recovery for a resource which has very little impact on anything beyond pacing where setting official DC would act like ammunition for players to declare actions to do stuff and if the GM doesn't agree they will run off to a forum like this and whine about how they aren't playing correctly and look for others to soothe their ego.

Need a example? Look into the insanity that is players thinking that the NPC rules for oversized weapons nested 3 levels deep in the DMG customize section is grounds to apply it to PCs. You think a DC chart wouldn't cause this on steroids?

[Aimeryan]

That's not how the system nor the rules work.

That is literally how the system works - Jeremy Crawford is not coming to your house to slap you on the wrist if you decide to play by a different rule set. The books themselves say the DM decides.

[stoutstien]

That is literally how the system works - Jeremy Crawford is not coming to your house to slap you on the wrist if you decide to play by a different rule set. The books themselves say the DM decides.

Ok then decide to make a DC chart?

[Brookshw]

All the rules are optional, but yes arguably the DMG rules are easier to class as such. More detailed rules in the DMG is the entire point of the DMG over the PHB. There is likely a reason why such a light DMG and a DM crisis is occuring at the same time.

There are default rules and rules expressly presented as optional, as I'm sure you're aware; agreed default rules can still be changed. From your response then I think there's no argument and a detailed set of dmg facing optional rules are sufficient.

[Aimeryan]

Ok then decide to make a DC chart?

Which takes knowledge and effort.

This is akin to having a bunch of ingredients and a Betty Crocker* cake mix box. The adventurous veterans of the kitchen can decide to put the Betty Crocker box aside and do their own thing. The newcomers to the mysteries of the pantry can instead follow the instructions on the box and make a fairly delicious cake in a quick and easy manner.

Now same scenario, except stoutstein has decided that there shouldn't be a Betty Crocker cake mix box available. The first type of people are fine - no worse or better off, in fact. The second type of people on the other hand are left only with the options of deciding if they want to plough through with this impending distaster or head to town for something else to wet their appetities.

IF you were forced to use the Betty Crocker cake mix regardless of desire, this would be entirely different. You are not.

---

*I am not affiliated with Betty Crocker, nor is this an endorsement of their product.

[Brookshw]

Which takes knowledge and effort.

This is akin to having a bunch of ingredients and a Betty Crocker* cake mix box. The adventurous veterans of the kitchen can decide to put the Betty Crocker box aside and do their own thing. The newcomers to the mysteries of the pantry can instead follow the instructions on the box and make a fairly delicious cake in a quick and easy manner.

Now same scenario, except stoutstein has decided that there shouldn't be a Betty Crocker cake mix box available. The first type of people are fine - no worse or better off, in fact. The second type of people on the other hand are left only with the options of deciding if they want to plough through with this impending distaster or head to town for something else to wet their appetities.

IF you were forced to use the Betty Crocker cake mix regardless of desire, this would be entirely different. You are not.
The default instructions are provided and very simple, simpler in fact that what your requesting. DM assigns difficulty as they determine the task to be on the very easy to nearly impossible scale, there are no wrong answers. What you're advocating for is more complexity (with all the additional complications and limitations the detailed approach carries), the opposite of simple and easy instructions.
---


*I am not affiliated with Betty Crocker, nor is this an endorsement of their product.
Fine, but they make a damned fine cake mix, I'll endorse them and they should be proud.

[stoutstien]

Which takes knowledge and effort.

This is akin to having a bunch of ingredients and a Betty Crocker* cake mix box. The adventurous veterans of the kitchen can decide to put the Betty Crocker box aside and do their own thing. The newcomers to the mysteries of the pantry can instead follow the instructions on the box and make a fairly delicious cake in a quick and easy manner.

Now same scenario, except stoutstein has decided that there shouldn't be a Betty Crocker cake mix box available. The first type of people are fine - no worse or better off, in fact. The second type of people on the other hand are left only with the options of deciding if they want to plough through with this impending distaster or head to town for something else to wet their appetities.

IF you were forced to use the Betty Crocker cake mix regardless of desire, this would be entirely different. You are not.

---

*I am not affiliated with Betty Crocker, nor is this an endorsement of their product.

What you are talking about is taking out the Bisquick recipes and replacing it with a 400 page recipe book that requires a fully stocked commercial kitchen.
The only way to make this work is only using one fixed DC which can work but again not DND. (Not sure if this angle was shot down in One but I doubt it will see print)

[Pex]

:smallconfused:

"Magic" has even fewer general rules than the skill system. Thats why all these corner case spell uses get problems.

The spells that are a problem are spells that are vague, just like skill use is a problem because it is vague. However, you are told how many spell slots you have, how many spells you prepare, how the DC is calculated, and despite those vague spells the overwhelming majority of spells tell you exactly how they work. There is no equivalence to vagueness as skill use.


So you want an optional rule set for more detailed skill usage? I don't think anyone's opposed to optional rules.

In past threads of this topic yes, people were opposed to such a thing as a compromise. I've even had a huge debate, twice with the same person, just on the validity of my own personal made up house rule of jumping be DC 10 + 1 per 1 ft higher than your ST score because he was vehemently opposed to the idea of skill use DC.


That's not how the system nor the rules work. You can't take two different things out of context and say they are both variants so they will will have a similar impact on a game. Spell points merely changes the rate recovery for a resource which has very little impact on anything beyond pacing where setting official DC would act like ammunition for players to declare actions to do stuff and if the GM doesn't agree they will run off to a forum like this and whine about how they aren't playing correctly and look for others to soothe their ego.

Need a example? Look into the insanity that is players thinking that the NPC rules for oversized weapons nested 3 levels deep in the DMG customize section is grounds to apply it to PCs. You think a DC chart wouldn't cause this on steroids?

The DMG already has DC tables for tracking, NPC reactions, even object hardness. DC tables in the DMG is not so far fetched.

[Brookshw]

In past threads of this topic yes, people were opposed to such a thing as a compromise. I've even had a huge debate, twice with the same person, just on the validity of my own personal made up house rule of jumping be DC 10 + 1 per 1 ft higher than your ST score because he was vehemently opposed to the idea of skill use DC.

Having debated this exact topic for years, often with you no less, no, that does not match the general consensus reached in my experience.

[Pex]

Having debated this exact topic for years, often with you no less, no, that does not match the general consensus reached in my experience.

stoutsien is objecting to it right now.

[RSP]

So, like... why have spells or a magic system at all?

5e is a progression off the D&D family: a bunch of stuff is rolled over, sometimes with an adjustment, sometimes not. Combat, spells, the class system, and other bits, are recognizable parts that 5e kept very similar from past editions.

Having an open skills system seems to be, at least in part, a direct response to 3.x’s skill system where they had their codified skill progression where once you reach certain points, the skills left the realm of “real world possible” and became godly levels of skill.

I think the devs were trying to build a system which allows for “more realistic” skill progressions while also having the room for 3.x people to have those “god-level” skills too.

From these boards, I’ve seen references to a 3.x culture in which Adams apparently had issues dealing with the expectations of players in regards to the skills. Something along the lines of “I convince the king to give me his kingdom with my +50 Persuasion skill”.

The open system still allows that, if that’s how the DM wants to play the campaign; but took the expectation of that being a necessity away.

I personally think that freedom is a good thing.

[stoutstien]

stoutsien is objecting to it right now.

For you to do it for your own games? Not at all.

To make it a standard across the system. Yea it's hard no for me. I wouldn't have even looked at 5e if it had stuff like that. Sounds like a crappy(er) PF2 with worse math.

It hard enough to break players of the habit of smashing *skill* buttons all the time rather than working through the challenge from an in game perspective.

[RSP]

Now same scenario, except stoutstein has decided that there shouldn't be a Betty Crocker cake mix box available. The first type of people are fine - no worse or better off, in fact. The second type of people on the other hand are left only with the options of deciding if they want to plough through with this impending distaster or head to town for something else to wet their appetities.

IF you were forced to use the Betty Crocker cake mix regardless of desire, this would be entirely different. You are not.

So as it is now, DMs are forced to use their best judgement in how to adjudicate skills.

Let’s take a hypothetical and say 5e had actually printed a chart of some sort saying here’s what can be accomplished with long jumping DCs and it’s some form of DC X to jump so far.

But in our hypothetical, let’s assume every DM still just used their best judgement and didn’t follow the long jumping chart.

In that hypothetical, how many posts would we be dealing with that denounce “bad DMs” not using the chart? I’d imagine a bit more than denounce their being no chart.

I think part of what 5e intended with the skills design was not having player expectations causing issues with DMs rulings. As soon as there is a chart, regardless of “optional” or not, it creates an expectation of what the DM should be doing.

I don’t think 5e wanted that as it naturally ties the DMs hands on what they can rule on.

[Christew]

It matters to me when I play at your table then Jimmy's table tomorrow and Bob's table next week ... It makes my character Tarzan in one game but George of the Jungle in another despite having the same relevant game statistic.
An optional DC table would not solve the "problem" you describe here. If Jimmy uses the optional rule at his table and Bob doesn't, you will still have disparate outcomes "despite having the same relevant game statistic."

[noob]

Not a problem, a feature. 5e wanted to empower the DM to be able to run the game they want at their table.

They didn’t want the game hard coded like 3.x: they wanted DMs to chose what’s possible at their table.

Part of that empowerment was an open skill system.

The issue is that the skill system gives less freedom to the gm than a single line with written "the gm can handle skills in any way they want" while providing no predictability at all to the players therefore being of no advantage at all either to the gm nor to the player relatively to the one sentence skill system I made.
If your argument is that the skill system should let the gm free you should blame the current skill system for being anything else than the lone sentence text I described.
That is a common issue with 5e, way too much of the content is vague but overly described in such a way that is neither fully empowering for the gm nor able to make the game predicable for the player or completely and overly specific in a way that removes completely freedom from the gm bar the gm refusing to let the players use characters that have access to the mechanic.
The truth is that 5e is simply poorly designed because they copy pasted haphazardly contents from previous dnds and did not check the rules they wrote were consistent while saying that they are "providing more freedom to the gm" as a coverall excuse for their poor design, if you really wanted a rpg that gave a lot of freedom to the gm, you would not have 50+ pages of rules.

[Brookshw]

stoutsien is objecting to it right now.

I have seen no comments from him that a more detailed optional system should not be allowed to exist.

[stoutstien]

The issue is that the skill system gives less freedom to the gm than a single line with written "the gm can handle skills in any way they want" while providing no predictability at all to the players therefore being of no advantage at all either to the gm nor to the player relatively to the one sentence skill system I made.
If your argument is that the skill system should let the gm free you should blame the current skill system for being anything else than the lone sentence text I described.
That is a common issue with 5e, way too much of the content is vague but overly described in such a way that is neither fully empowering for the gm nor able to make the game predicable for the player or completely and overly specific in a way that removes completely freedom from the gm bar the gm refusing to let the players use characters that have access to the mechanic.

This would be sad if if true so I guess it's a good thing it not.

[noob]

This would be sad if if true so I guess it's a good thing it not.

The total lack of predictability for the skill system is true, the gm can at any moment declare that you have to roll dice for actions your characters takes or say flat out that they can not or that they can without a roll, there is no way for the player to know what will happen when they declare an action until the gm says the result.

[stoutstien]

The total lack of predictability for the skill system is true, the gm can at any moment declare that you have to roll dice for actions your characters takes or say flat out that they can not or that they can without a roll, there is no way for the player to know what will happen when they declare an action until the gm says the result.

Yes but the GM can also just say "you dead" but that doesn't seem to happen often. That would be true regardless of what the ability checks section says.

It's almost like in most cases the GM uses the open ended nature to lean in *favor* of the players not against them.


And posting it again....

TTRPGs need the ideas of open ended outcomes to function and when you have open ended outcomes you need a way to allow players and GMs to quickly judge a situation close enough so they will both have a reasonable idea of the expectancy of outcomes. So no most ppl aren't making lol random calls nor is the lack of set DC causes issues outside a micro fraction of players.

[RSP]

The issue is that the skill system gives less freedom to the gm than a single line with written "the gm can handle skills in any way they want" while providing no predictability at all to the players therefore being of no advantage at all either to the gm nor to the player relatively to the one sentence skill system I made.

I don’t agree with your premise here.



That is a common issue with 5e, way too much of the content is vague but overly described in such a way that is neither fully empowering for the gm nor able to make the game predicable for the player or completely and overly specific in a way that removes completely freedom from the gm bar the gm refusing to let the players use characters that have access to the mechanic.
The truth is that 5e is simply poorly designed because they copy pasted haphazardly contents from previous dnds and did not check the rules they wrote were consistent while saying that they are "providing more freedom to the gm" as a coverall excuse for their poor design, if you really wanted a rpg that gave a lot of freedom to the gm, you would not have 50+ pages of rules.

I’ve not seen this common problem you state.

If the player wants to know whether their character can jump something outside their strength distance, rather than defaulting to “I jump to the other side” they ask “does it look like I could clear the distance?” And the DM provides their thinking like “yeah it’s possible if you roll well” or “no it’s too far for you to jump”.

It’s not a huge burden here for either DM or Player.

[Christew]

The total lack of predictability for the skill system is true, the gm can at any moment declare that you have to roll dice for actions your characters takes or say flat out that they can not or that they can without a roll, there is no way for the player to know what will happen when they declare an action until the gm says the result.
You are kind of just describing the general concept of DM adjudication here. Are you saying that you would prefer a system where the player knows what will happen without a DM?

[Aquillion]

5e is a progression off the D&D family: a bunch of stuff is rolled over, sometimes with an adjustment, sometimes not. Combat, spells, the class system, and other bits, are recognizable parts that 5e kept very similar from past editions.

Having an open skills system seems to be, at least in part, a direct response to 3.x’s skill system where they had their codified skill progression where once you reach certain points, the skills left the realm of “real world possible” and became godly levels of skill.

I think the devs were trying to build a system which allows for “more realistic” skill progressions while also having the room for 3.x people to have those “god-level” skills too.Why do you believe this? It seems to just be something you invented whole-cloth. If they wanted players to be able to make the choice you've invented here between what you personally consider "realistic" skill systems, and the ones you personally have in mind when you say "god-level", they could have easily had a few sentences laying these out and giving guidelines for each.

The fact that those aren't there suggests that you're probably just wrong - every indication, honestly, is that 5e skills are just meant to be roughly "guy at the gym" and nothing else (with a few handwaves for things like encumbrance that would otherwise overly-complicate things; but overall there's no real indication anywhere that you're ever supposed to be able to use 5e skills for superhuman feats.) I think it's more likely that 5e devoted little text to the skill system because its designers didn't think it was important.

In fact, I think that it's the opposite of what you're saying; I think the developers wanted 5e to be more of a rigid wargame and hated mother-may-I effects like skill checks. The fact that the skill system is mostly scrawled on a napkin isn't because they want you to fill in the gaps, it's because they want you to use the skill system as little as possible, and probably would have preferred to cut it completely or reduce it to a handful of rigid AD&D-style thief checks if they could get away with it. You're supposed to use it for a tiny handful of things as required by certain core concepts they couldn't delete, and nothing else. Its sorry state isn't the result of deep thought, it's because it's a grudging legacy thing that they were forced to include and which they gave as little time and focus as possible. If you look at the direction 5.5e is going in, it's generally moving towards the DM making as few calls as possible - it's extremely obvious that the current dev team is overtly hostile to your "DM fills in the blanks" approach.

But more generally, regardless of whether you're writing a rigid system or a more freeform one, the underlying problem (as I said!) is that the core purpose of a rulebook is to help people get on the same page about their setting and the rules used to represent it. That's the whole reason we spend a not-insignificant amount of money on those books. They can give people the choice you've suggested here - again, there are many perfectly good games that do; I have nothing against freeform games. I just think that if you judge D&D as the freeform game that you speculate its skill system was meant to be, it's still an absolutely terrible one. A good one needs to make the choices clear and discuss the options and implications so everyone can end up in the same place, as well as discussing any implications the choices you make for more freeform rules might have when interacting with more rigid ones (eg. the way a weaker interpretation of skills reduces the value of proficencies, expertise, and so on, while increasing the value of magic.)

Instead, they said nothing at all, which results in some players saying "it's obviously intended to be just guy-at-the-gym", other people saying "it's obviously intended to be godlike at high levels, anyone who restrains it to guy-at-the-gym is a fallacy", and then people saying "no, no, you get to choose, see, the GM decides randomly whether something works based on their gut at any given time, you can tell that's how it works because the rulebook doesn't say."

There are actually well-written games that work the way you're speculating D&D 5e was intended to work, made by people who gave the systems thought and care! And they don't just say "roll a die and decide what happens", they talk extensively about choices for the setting and its implications, establishing what is and isn't possible or laying out choices about what might be possible so the group is aware of them and can decide them at the start. If you don't lay those things out properly, you set up games for unfortunate situations where some players assume things obviously work one way ("it's obviously just a guy at the gym") and other players assume things obviously work a different way ("they're obviously superhuman, I'm going to build my character to jump from rooftop to rooftop with ease"), setting up a collision where an already-overburdened DM has to suddenly make seat-of-the-pants calls that define these things mid-session with no warning or indication of the problem in advance.

This isn't some theoretical problem, it's one that players constantly run into when playing 5e - a stark disconnect between what people at the table think skills can do, combined with an overworked DM who has no idea how to adjudicate this and wasn't even aware of it until it brought their game to a screeching halt. 5e's skill system is, frankly, terrible; I'm glad for you that your speculation as to why it has these big gaping holes in it has helped you settle on a set of houserules and personal assumptions that have made it work at your table, but all of that is coming from you, none of it is provided by the game. You had the freedom to make up your own personal setting-rules already! You always had that! 5e didn't grant it to you.

All it did was provide you with a shoddily-made skill system that you were, luckily enough for you, blessed with a perspective and group that happened to be good at papering over. And that's great for you but it doesn't change the fact that your assumptions and houserules and speculations about the system are fixes for something that is deeply flawed in its design; not everyone (as you can tell by this thread) was fortunate enough to land in the same place. Even for highly experienced players, once a game has been brought to a screeching halt by the potholes in 5e's poorly-designed skill system, it isn't easily recovered - of course I can do what you did and essentially invent my own skill system to fill the gaps, it isn't that hard; but I can't do it in the middle of a session when everything suddenly slams to a screeching halt because one player goes "I thought it meant X" and another (or the DM) goes "I thought it meant Y!"

If these were minor things, a random seat-of-the-pants DM call might suffice; but they often aren't. In 5e, we have classes and class features and abilities with fairly rigid designs, whose balance is clearly partially dependent on the effectiveness of skills - things like the Jump spell or Athletics expertise or the entire concept of proficencies and expertise obviously varies wildly in value based on the overarching DM setting calls that you speculate the game wants people to make. The current system can result in a player building a rogue expecting to jump around like they're in the Matrix, then smack headlong into a DM who thinks that if they reach level 20 they might be a particularly skilled guy-at-the-gym; and nothing in the book even hints that this disconnect is possible, so they're not going to realize they have a problem until it suddenly blows up mid game. Or the player slowly, with this sinking sensation in their heart, realizes that that their character concept has been shredded to pieces by a collection of little DM calls, with the DM never realizing what they were doing because both people thought they were just going with straightforward interpretations of the rules and never realized that they needed the session zero "decide whether your game is a Wuxia one or not" discussion that you speculate the devs intended us to have.

Entire character concepts can be validated or invalidated by the seat-of-the-pants DM calls that your speculation on the purpose of the skill system would call for, and nothing in the books even hints at this fact. That's bad design no matter how you cut it.

[Pex]

For you to do it for your own games? Not at all.

To make it a standard across the system. Yea it's hard no for me. I wouldn't have even looked at 5e if it had stuff like that. Sounds like a crappy(er) PF2 with worse math.

It hard enough to break players of the habit of smashing *skill* buttons all the time rather than working through the challenge from an in game perspective.

Creating DC tables for my own games as DM does nothing to solve the problem of skill use inconsistency when playing in games of other DMs. Me saying jump is DC 10 + 1 per 1ft over ST solves absolutely nothing where if I played in another DM's game I couldn't jump 20 ft at all or in a third DM's game where the DC depends on how he feels at the moment wanting to jump happens.

Edited to make it not personal. Sorry.


An optional DC table would not solve the "problem" you describe here. If Jimmy uses the optional rule at his table and Bob doesn't, you will still have disparate outcomes "despite having the same relevant game statistic."

It solves the problem because then Bob is specifically using a house rule. However, not everyone is Bob, so Jimmy will use the rules, Amy will use the rules, Chris will use the rules, and so will all generic DMs not Bob or those specifically choosing not to use the tables. I would know upfront before the game starts Bob is using a house rule and make my character accordingly. I can talk to Bob about it just as I would discuss any house rule a DM has I need clarification if it can adversely affect my character.

When I DM I specifically tell my players of my house rule that I will always ask for an Investigation check when searching for traps despite the rules saying use Perception sometimes. They can make their characters accordingly if it matters. If those same players play in any other DM's game where no such house rule exists, Perception is used as normal hunky dory without needing to ask.

[Brookshw]

Creating DC tables for my own games as DM does nothing to solve the problem of skill use inconsistency when playing in games of other DMs. Me saying jump is DC 10 + 1 per 1ft over ST solves absolutely nothing where if I played in Aquillon's game I couldn't jump 20 ft at all or in your game where the DC depends on how you feel at the moment wanting to jump happens.

Leaving aside whether this is actually a problem vs. a matter of taste, what your objecting to is an 'option' not actually being an option but being the default. As I said, no one objects to options, but that's not what you're proposing as your solution.

[Pex]

I have seen no comments from him that a more detailed optional system should not be allowed to exist.


For you to do it for your own games? Not at all.

To make it a standard across the system. Yea it's hard no for me. I wouldn't have even looked at 5e if it had stuff like that. Sounds like a crappy(er) PF2 with worse math.

It hard enough to break players of the habit of smashing *skill* buttons all the time rather than working through the challenge from an in game perspective.

There it is more clearly.

[stoutstien]

Creating DC tables for my own games as DM does nothing to solve the problem of skill use inconsistency when playing in games of other DMs. Me saying jump is DC 10 + 1 per 1ft over ST solves absolutely nothing where if I played in Aquillon's game I couldn't jump 20 ft at all or in your game where the DC depends on how you feel at the moment wanting to jump happens.

Again not a problem. 2 games means 2 different meaning of what is expected as possible outcomes.

setting a flat jump progression removes the ability to apply situational factors to the the action that is happening. Congratulations you *fixed* it by making ever jump a button to mash rather than a choice in the moment. You remove tension, agency, and the sense of accomplishment in return you get a fix jump value....

There is no generic ability checks which is the entire reason you can't set fixed DCs. It's not a "20 foot jump" it's a "20 foot jump off a tower being reduced to rubble to a floating platform that has the necromancer that killed your half brother".

[Pex]

Leaving aside whether this is actually a problem vs. a matter of taste, what your objecting to is an 'option' not actually being an option but being the default. As I said, no one objects to options, but that's not what you're proposing as your solution.

I would prefer DC tables in the PHB, but the specific idea being discussed here was the concept of being ok with a compromise of DC tables being optional rules in the DMG.

[Brookshw]

There it is more clearly.

That's not a rejection of tables using optional rules or the existence of optional rules :smallconfused:



I would prefer DC tables in the PHB, but the specific idea being discussed here was the concept of being ok with a compromise of DC tables being optional rules in the DMG.

Correct, but you went beyond that to discussing how skills need to be consistent, that's the antithesis of optional. You'll always have inconsistencies as not everyone will adopt an optional rule.

[Pex]

Again not a problem. 2 games means 2 different meaning of what is expected as possible outcomes.

setting a flat jump progression removes the ability to apply situational factors to the the action that is happening. Congratulations you *fixed* it by making ever jump a button to mash rather than a choice in the moment. You remove tension, agency, and the sense of accomplishment in return you get a fix jump value....

There is no generic ability checks which is the entire reason you can't set fixed DCs. It's not a "20 foot jump" it's a "20 foot jump off a tower being reduced to rubble to a floating platform that has the necromancer that killed your half brother".

I fail to see why it's a horrible thing for the DC of skill use to be the same across tables when it's perfectly fine those tables use the same DC for saving throws, AC for armor, and damage die for weapons. It's still up to the DM to place things for players to interact with. The DM still decides when and where the 20 ft pit exists. The player still decides if he wants to jump it with a ST score less than 20. No one loses agency just because the DC is X printed ink on paper. You certainly don't have a problem with the rules saying everyone everywhere can jump their ST score without a roll. My 16 ST character can jump a 10 ft pit for every table everywhere. Make the pit 20 ft, now you have a problem with it. That doesn't make sense to me.


That's not a rejection of tables using optional rules or the existence of optional rules :smallconfused:




Correct, but you went beyond that to discussing how skills need to be consistent, that's the antithesis of optional. You'll always have inconsistencies as not everyone will adopt an optional rule.

Two different discussions happening at the same time - the general topic of skill use and a minor thought idea of what if DC tables were optional in the DMG.

[Brookshw]

Two different discussions happening at the same time - the general topic of skill use and a minor thought idea of what if DC tables were optional in the DMG.

So you don't think people in general, and Stoutstien in particular, completely reject the possible existence of an optional skill system with elaborate dc tables?

[InvisibleBison]

setting a flat jump progression removes the ability to apply situational factors to the the action that is happening. Congratulations you *fixed* it by making ever jump a button to mash rather than a choice in the moment. You remove tension, agency, and the sense of accomplishment in return you get a fix jump value....

How is this reasoning not just a rejection of rules in general? Why does having a rule for how much you can increase your jump distance with an Athletics check "remove tension, agency, and the sense of accomplishment", but having a rule for how much damage a fireball does doesn't?

[Christew]

I would prefer DC tables in the PHB, but the specific idea being discussed here was the concept of being ok with a compromise of DC tables being optional rules in the DMG.
You keep framing that idea as decidedly not optional in application though.

I fail to see why it's a horrible thing for the DC of skill use to be the same across tables when it's perfectly fine those tables use the same DC for saving throws, AC for armor, and damage die for weapons. It's still up to the DM to place things for players to interact with. The DM still decides when and where the 20 ft pit exists. The player still decides if he wants to jump it with a ST score less than 20. No one loses agency just because the DC is X printed ink on paper. You certainly don't have a problem with the rules saying everyone everywhere can jump their ST score without a roll. My 16 ST character can jump a 10 ft pit for every table everywhere. Make the pit 20 ft, now you have a problem with it. That doesn't make sense to me.
The variables that apply to Saves, AC, and damage are finite and known. The variables that could apply to a given application of the skill system are not. Apples and oranges.

[stoutstien]

How is this reasoning not just a rejection of rules in general? Why does having a rule for how much you can increase your jump distance with an Athletics check "remove tension, agency, and the sense of accomplishment", but having a rule for how much damage a fireball does doesn't?

Honestly fireball(and spells in general) does
remove a ton of agency and kills tension as well but like ability scores and such stuff like fireball is just integrating into the DNA of DnD to the point that even discussing changing them means your aren't playing DnD anymore.rhis also means you can't use fireball in real interesting ways because spells do what they say they do rather what a ball of fire would do. They are low cost/low risk/guaranteed effect that hog most of the spotlight. IMO spell casters tend to get bored in games before the "simple" classes because of this.

Once you slap a fixed formula onto something it becomes the de facto norm and warps the game logic to make it fit.

IMO I would be happier if they didn't have any listed jump values but that would make some peoples head explode because if it's not in the book it might as well not exist.

[RSP]

The variables that apply to Saves, AC, and damage are finite and known. The variables that could apply to a given application of the skill system are not. Apples and oranges.

This is a big factor: the “DC chart” for Persuasion it might say “DC 12: you can convince someone to do something in their best interest” and still have an infinite amount of variables in how that sentence can be used.

Player: “The King is in poor health: therefore it’s in his best interest to pass the kingdom to me. This is a DC 12 roll.”

[Blatant Beast]

There is no equivalence to vagueness as skill use..

There is no “vagueness” in play, as Ability checks come into being when a player asks to do something, a particular, specific something or the DM requests an Ability Check for a specific reason.

5e is founded on the principle that a PC interacts with the game largely through the medium of their Ability Scores, either through Ability Checks, (which Skills are a subset of), or through Saving Throws, (which Class Saving Throw Proficiency is a subset of).

If one find this entire framework vague and dissatisfying, then I think it fair to surmise that perhaps 5e is not a good fit for that person, since what I described above is a seminal concept for the game.

[Pex]

So you don't think people in general, and Stoutstien in particular, completely reject the possible existence of an optional skill system with elaborate dc tables?


You keep framing that idea as decidedly not optional in application though.

You're conflating two different discussions. The question of willing to compromise to have DC tables be optional rules in the DMG was asked and answered. I'm fine with that. Others aren't. That's it. No compromise possible because we all don't agree, so I'm back to yes, I want DC tables in the PHB as was my stance all along, different topic.


The variables that apply to Saves, AC, and damage are finite and known. The variables that could apply to a given application of the skill system are not. Apples and oranges.

That's the point. I'd prefer apples and apples for the skill system to be finite and known. I want to jump a pit higher than my ST score. That's it. That's the only variable, my choice to do it because the DM placed it there. Same thing as I want to cast Fireball against the 4 hobgoblins over there. The DM placed the hobgoblins. My choice to cast Fireball. The rules say how that works. Jumping the pit should be as so defined. It's not. I know that. I know it was purposely designed that way. That's the error in judgment I believe the game designers made. Others don't, thinking that decision is hunky dory. That's the argument.


This is a big factor: the “DC chart” for Persuasion it might say “DC 12: you can convince someone to do something in their best interest” and still have an infinite amount of variables in how that sentence can be used.

Player: “The King is in poor health: therefore it’s in his best interest to pass the kingdom to me. This is a DC 12 roll.”

What's the king's relationship with you? Hostile? DC 20 to get help if no risk or sacrifice involved. Handing over the kingdom is a risk or sacrifice, so not going to happen. Indifferent? DC 20 to accept even if a minor risk or sacrifice involved. Handing over the kingdom is not minor, so not going to happen. Friendly? DC 20 to accept significant risk or sacrifice. Now we're getting somewhere. How did the PC get to be on such good terms with the King? By spell like Dominate Person? If it was that simple the evil Vizier would have already done it and is the stereotypical adventure plot point to save the king, so not going to happen. Gameworld years of building a relationship being the Hero and saving the Kingdom time and time again and in game terms you're level 17+, maybe so the king would trust your judgment to temporarily hand you his Crown until he is better. However, there's also the Prince and Heir whom the king would still value above you so may or may not happen, but if it does happen it's been a long campaign's worth of playtime to earn it so it would be appropriate. A king may like you at level 7 because you stopped the marauding orcs, but that's far from being Friendly enough to hand you his kingdom just because you asked when he sneezes.

DC being 20 is in the DMG right now.


There is no “vagueness” in play, as Ability checks come into being when a player asks to do something, a particular, specific something or the DM requests an Ability Check for a specific reason.

5e is founded on the principle that a PC interacts with the game largely through the medium of their Ability Scores, either through Ability Checks, (which Skills are a subset of), or through Saving Throws, (which Class Saving Throw Proficiency is a subset of).

If one find this entire framework vague and dissatisfying, then I think it fair to surmise that perhaps 5e is not a good fit for that person, since what I described above is a seminal concept for the game.

Yes, PCs interact with the game world through their ability scores. That doesn't prevent defined rules on how that interaction works with the game math of DCs. That's what saving throws are doing.

[Telok]

The jump, climb, and swim rules are the reason every pc in the group I play with could fly before 10th level and has a magic item for swim speed or water breathing. The medicine rules are why half the group is magic item immune to poison and disease, and four of seven pcs can cast healing & neutralize poison. We don't bother with charisma checks, a +10 just means you 1-in-6 fail at normal asks, we go straight to zone of truth and dominate or simply dumping a wheelbarrow of gold on people. Use familiars and cantrips to check for traps. Spam the divinations during downtime. And don't bother with stealth, its a waste when there's heavy armor warriors & clerics because you're looking at a bunch of level appropriate fights or just expending another familiar anyways.

We avoid the skill system as much as possible. Its too unreliable for even basic risks, and its pretty straight forward to replace it all with magic if you have your ac+hp sponge slot filled.

[stoutstien]

Players think they prefer intricate systems. perfectly balanced rulesets that provide mathematical formulas for handling every situation, effectively eliminating the need for them to think critically about stuff . If you have a simple guidelines that can be easily remembered and adjusted as needed it fine because that all you need.
once you even hint at adding in hard math, they will push to expand those rules into abstract mechanical constructs that bear no resemblance to the original goal or the characters' experiences within the game world. Eventually you end up where the rules (looking at you spell casting) are the primary thing dictating the game. That's not something I care for what's so ever because what's the point of playing a TTRPG if what you really want is a board or video game?

[Brookshw]

You're conflating two different discussions. The question of willing to compromise to have DC tables be optional rules in the DMG was asked and answered. I'm fine with that. Others aren't. That's it. No compromise possible because we all don't agree, so I'm back to yes, I want DC tables in the PHB as was my stance all along, different topic.


You made the salient points in consecutive sentences of a single post, broadly accused people and a specific individual of rejecting personal usage and continued replying to the same people in the same series of quotes about needing a consistent standard. That's not us conflating your discussions :smalltongue:

[stoutstien]

If you want to add this type of content it needs to be in the setting/module level.

I would have no problem with a section in the Dragon Lance book that outlines expectations for what is normal in that particular world.

[Christew]

That's the point. I'd prefer apples and apples for the skill system to be finite and known. I want to jump a pit higher than my ST score. That's it. That's the only variable, my choice to do it because the DM placed it there. Same thing as I want to cast Fireball against the 4 hobgoblins over there. The DM placed the hobgoblins. My choice to cast Fireball. The rules say how that works. Jumping the pit should be as so defined. It's not. I know that. I know it was purposely designed that way. That's the error in judgment I believe the game designers made. Others don't, thinking that decision is hunky dory. That's the argument.
That would require both a significant limiting of what can be attempted/accomplished with the skill system and significant page count investment to cover the myriad applications of each skill. Hard pass.

[Blatant Beast]

Yes, PCs interact with the game world through their ability scores. That doesn't prevent defined rules on how that interaction works with the game math of DCs. That's what saving throws are doing.

What more needs to be defined? What value would it add?

From my perspective, the DC Chart from the DMG is fairly defined, it lists a number and what that number means in terms of difficulty. The DMG also offers a simplified version of the chart with 10, 15, and 20 being the only DC's used, and the game is designed to run fine with those 3 DCs.

Again, it seems like you want 5e to not be 5e. If you want static DC 15 Tumble checks to always mean the same thing, you can either implement such a modification,(a house rule), and make it so, or you can play 3e or a system designed around lists.

Honestly, I still very unsure what it is you want defined.

[Brookshw]

If you want to add this type of content it needs to be in the setting/module level.

I would have no problem with a section in the Dragon Lance book that outlines expectations for what is normal in that particular world.

That would be an interesting approach and would likely better enable the game to meet the different mode types D&D purports to support (e.g, superhero, wuxia, demigods, w/e).

[Pex]

That would require both a significant limiting of what can be attempted/accomplished with the skill system and significant page count investment to cover the myriad applications of each skill. Hard pass.

No because of inherent obviousness that you cannot accommodate everything possible of everything. What can be done is provide example benchmarks using the more common and likely uses of a skill to give players an idea what can be done and where the numbers are. For jumping a pit personal bias a formula works given different lengths of pits and ST scores of PCs, DC 10 + 1 per 1 ft higher than your ST score, but a flat DC 10 for 5 ft more, DC 15 for 10 ft more, is fine. If a given pit is 7 ft more than your ST score whether one DM says that's DC 12 and another says DC 13 I won't be quibbling about it because I'm not pedantic. It's enough that it's between the example DCs so everyone is on the same page.


What more needs to be defined? What value would it add?

From my perspective, the DC Chart from the DMG is fairly defined, it lists a number and what that number means in terms of difficulty. The DMG also offers a simplified version of the chart with 10, 15, and 20 being the only DC's used, and the game is designed to run fine with those 3 DCs.

Again, it seems like you want 5e to not be 5e. If you want static DC 15 Tumble checks to always mean the same thing, you can either implement such a modification,(a house rule), and make it so, or you can play 3e or a system designed around lists.

Honestly, I still very unsure what it is you want defined.

The problem is different DMs having different opinions on the difficulty of a task. It's fine for all tasks that are easy the rules say use DC 10, but it does not define what is easy. Once another DM insists no, that task is hard, the DC will be higher despite me having the same relevant statistics between my two characters. The game designers need to clarify further the difficulty of common or more likely to be used tasks from which the DM can extrapolate from there.

The given example here is jumping a distance higher than my ST score. I have 16 ST Athletics +5, and I want to jump 20 ft. One DM says roll against DC 10. Another says roll against DC 15. A third DM says 20 ft is too far I can't do it at all. That lack of consistency is the problem. Instead of the rules saying you can jump farther than your ST score with an Athletics check without telling how it instead said you can jump farther than your ST score with a DC of 10 + 1 per 1 ft farther than the DC would be 14 for all three DMs.

[RSP]

What's the king's relationship with you? Hostile? DC 20 to get help if no risk or sacrifice involved. Handing over the kingdom is a risk or sacrifice, so not going to happen. Indifferent? DC 20 to accept even if a minor risk or sacrifice involved. Handing over the kingdom is not minor, so not going to happen. Friendly? DC 20 to accept significant risk or sacrifice. Now we're getting somewhere. How did the PC get to be on such good terms with the King? By spell like Dominate Person? If it was that simple the evil Vizier would have already done it and is the stereotypical adventure plot point to save the king, so not going to happen. Gameworld years of building a relationship being the Hero and saving the Kingdom time and time again and in game terms you're level 17+, maybe so the king would trust your judgment to temporarily hand you his Crown until he is better. However, there's also the Prince and Heir whom the king would still value above you so may or may not happen, but if it does happen it's been a long campaign's worth of playtime to earn it so it would be appropriate. A king may like you at level 7 because you stopped the marauding orcs, but that's far from being Friendly enough to hand you his kingdom just because you asked when he sneezes.

DC being 20 is in the DMG right now.

Seems like a lot of variables you’ve just decided on there that wouldn’t necessarily be true, correct? So for an imaginary situation you decided on, you came up with an answer to THAT SPECIFIC skill DC fairly easily.

Would all those specific factors come into play in every other 5e game? Of course not. So rather than write up that much to answer a question of “whats the DC?” for one of a billion possibilities in 5e play, they decided to leave it open.

(That’s not to mention that other DMs might see some of those nuances differently.)

And so it works: you were able to draw up the DC you were asking for with the open skill system. Problem solved!

Edit: I’ll reask my earlier question a different way: you suggest they should have these charts telling DMs what they should do. But honestly, what would make you more upset: not having the charts (current systems) or playing with DMs who ignore them (which you claim is your solution to DMs who want to run their own games).

I highly doubt there’d be greater happiness in anyone finding out their expectations definitely won’t be met, rather than having the opportunity to discuss such things.

[Christew]

What can be done is provide example benchmarks using the more common and likely uses of a skill to give players an idea what can be done and where the numbers are.
On its face, this proposal would not provide a skill system as finite and known as the spell system.

[stoutstien]

No because of inherent obviousness that you cannot accommodate everything possible of everything. What can be done is provide example benchmarks using the more common and likely uses of a skill to give players an idea what can be done and where the numbers are. For jumping a pit personal bias a formula works given different lengths of pits and ST scores of PCs, DC 10 + 1 per 1 ft higher than your ST score, but a flat DC 10 for 5 ft more, DC 15 for 10 ft more, is fine. If a given pit is 7 ft more than your ST score whether one DM says that's DC 12 and another says DC 13 I won't be quibbling about it because I'm not pedantic. It's enough that it's between the example DCs so everyone is on the same page.



The problem is different DMs having different opinions on the difficulty of a task. It's fine for all tasks that are easy the rules say use DC 10, but it does not define what is easy. Once another DM insists no, that task is hard, the DC will be higher despite me having the same relevant statistics between my two characters. The game designers need to clarify further the difficulty of common or more likely to be used tasks from which the DM can extrapolate from there.

The given example here is jumping a distance higher than my ST score. I have 16 ST Athletics +5, and I want to jump 20 ft. One DM says roll against DC 10. Another says roll against DC 15. A third DM says 20 ft is too far I can't do it at all. That lack of consistency is the problem. Instead of the rules saying you can jump farther than your ST score with an Athletics check without telling how it instead said you can jump farther than your ST score with a DC of 10 + 1 per 1 ft farther than the DC would be 14 for all three DMs.

Again there's no such thing as a "25 jump" outside of the in-game context of a single table that's why you can't have a fixed DC chart. All those circumstantial and situational things that are very often waived off and online discussions are the game. The game is not a button on your piece of paper that says you can jump 25 ft.

This is clearly laid out on page six of the player handbook if you want to reference point. You can disagree with his design but it is integral to the game to function. You can tweak it a little bit one way or the other as far as what is easy or hard but in the end.

Now the rules are not perfect by any means and have multiple places where they fall flat but it's not due to the system itself it's due to the lack of proper explanation and support (no a table of numbers is not support). They could have gone a lot further to try to break the mentality that's brought over other additions that kind of muddle it up. In a perfect world you wouldn't need to worry about this baggage but it exists and there's nothing you can do about it besides be more concise and direct when you're trying to explain how the system you are talking about actually functions.

5e works on in the assumption that the base DC is no DC. If you can't do the thing, no DC it's just impossible. if you can't fail there is no DC, you just do it. For everything else you still might not need to deal with dice or DC because the player still gets to describe their action in such a way that if falls into these categories.

A chart of numbers can't even begin to cover the plethora of oddball approaches to a challenge and of what you want is to turn everything basically into crappy spells which is great for online forum talk but makes for a really crappy game IRL.

[RSP]

Again there's no such thing as a "25 jump" outside of the in-game context of a single table that's why you can't have a fixed DC chart.

Not to mention, basing DC on +1’ increments doesn’t do the task justice.

A Str 20 character jumping 21’ is trying to increase their jump by 5%. A Str 1 character trying to jump 2’ is trying to DOUBLE their jump. Yet under this suggestion, extending your jump 5% is just as difficult as doubling your jump distance, which makes zero sense.

[Aquillion]

If you have a simple guidelines that can be easily remembered and adjusted as needed it fine because that all you need.Yes, that's fine, but as I said above, my problem is that it doesn't actually provide even the most simple guidelines for most applications of skills, hence the disagreement over what can be accomplished with them.

[stoutstien]

Yes, that's fine, but as I said above, my problem is that it doesn't actually provide even the most simple guidelines for most applications of skills, hence the disagreement over what can be accomplished with them.

Have you read chapter 7 in the player handbook? Not skimmed or finger through, I mean read every word verbatim in that chapter.

I meant I disagree with half of the way they do stuff but it definitely provides plenty of framework for a DM to make a judgment call with ability checks.

The real irony is I believe the DMG already has a variant role for what PEX is asking for. It's under automatic success basically which is what he wants for jumping.

[PhoenixPhyre]

How does this sound for a general set of guidelines around jumping further than default in particular (not touching the greater skill system dispute). This is in a sidebar flagged with "suggested resolution for longer/higher jumps" or something like that:



To jump further than you can automatically, the GM may have you make a Strength (Athletics) check. The DC is 5 + the additional distance (beyond your base jump distance) for a long jump or 5 + twice the additional distance for a high jump. On a success, you clear the jump successfully. On a failure, you can either choose to succeed and accept a GM-imposed consequence (such as hanging on for dear life, going prone, dropping some gear, etc), choose to fall short, or choose not to attempt the jump at all.


Additionally, I've added the following line to the long/high jump blocks (green text):



Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. If the total distance jumped exceeds your movement, your next turn's movement is decreased by the extra needed.

[Darth Credence]

How does this sound for a general set of guidelines around jumping further than default in particular (not touching the greater skill system dispute). This is in a sidebar flagged with "suggested resolution for longer/higher jumps" or something like that:



Additionally, I've added the following line to the long/high jump blocks (green text):

The "choose not to attempt the jump at all" would be a massive problem for me, enough so that I would be forced to create a homebrew rules document that had the statement, "Once you roll the dice for any type of check, be it a skill check, saving throw, attack, or anything else, you have committed to that action and must continue with it regardless of the consequences. Abilities that allow one to reroll dice or alter the result are still valid, but deciding not to do something after seeing you will fail will never be allowed, and asking for it more than once will result in our time together coming to an end."

The rest I would ignore. If a 15 strength PC said they wanted to make a long jump over the 25' chasm in the low-ceiling cave and claimed it should only be a DC15 based on that, I would tell them that we are not going with the suggestions in the sidebar. If they think that the same character jumping the same distance, except outside and with the other side being 5' below the side they are on should also be a DC15, I would again tell them that we are not using those suggestions. It would certainly be annoying to have to tell them multiple times, but my players would not likely ask about that multiple times, so such a sidebar (eliminating the last clause) would be fine with me.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The "choose not to attempt the jump at all" would be a massive problem for me, enough so that I would be forced to create a homebrew rules document that had the statement, "Once you roll the dice for any type of check, be it a skill check, saving throw, attack, or anything else, you have committed to that action and must continue with it regardless of the consequences. Abilities that allow one to reroll dice or alter the result are still valid, but deciding not to do something after seeing you will fail will never be allowed, and asking for it more than once will result in our time together coming to an end."

The rest I would ignore. If a 15 strength PC said they wanted to make a long jump over the 25' chasm in the low-ceiling cave and claimed it should only be a DC15 based on that, I would tell them that we are not going with the suggestions in the sidebar. If they think that the same character jumping the same distance, except outside and with the other side being 5' below the side they are on should also be a DC15, I would again tell them that we are not using those suggestions. It would certainly be annoying to have to tell them multiple times, but my players would not likely ask about that multiple times, so such a sidebar (eliminating the last clause) would be fine with me.

That last thing is the "you run up, realize you're not going to make it, and skid to a stop" idea.

DC = 5+extra is a starting guess--is there any other DC formula that might work as a general rule (subject to GM override in specific cases as with all DCs)?

[Slipjig]

This is a big factor: the “DC chart” for Persuasion it might say “DC 12: you can convince someone to do something in their best interest” and still have an infinite amount of variables in how that sentence can be used.

Player: “The King is in poor health: therefore it’s in his best interest to pass the kingdom to me. This is a DC 12 roll.”
That's why DM's set the DCs, not the players. They can also define what success and failure constitutes. Unless there's a reason this actually makes sense (e.g. the character is already the king's heir), success might mean that the King takes it as a joke or a wongheaded but genuinely altruistic offer, while on a failure he finds it insulting or even treasonous.

[stoutstien]

IMO the issue is trying to have rules for movement<combat> and then rules for movement <everything else> that are the same is the issue.

Just like trying to use the attack resolution system outside of combat it just an ugly mismatch.

Easiest solution is to say the jump rules are for combat and then treat jumping outside of combat, and other encounters based on that time scale, like every other ability checks.

*Also having athletics as a skill is stupid as it has an almost 100% overlap with strength. It's sole purpose is to allow adding Prof to strength checks because they messed up trying to steam line skills under semi fixed ability banners.*

[Pex]

Seems like a lot of variables you’ve just decided on there that wouldn’t necessarily be true, correct? So for an imaginary situation you decided on, you came up with an answer to THAT SPECIFIC skill DC fairly easily.

Would all those specific factors come into play in every other 5e game? Of course not. So rather than write up that much to answer a question of “whats the DC?” for one of a billion possibilities in 5e play, they decided to leave it open.

(That’s not to mention that other DMs might see some of those nuances differently.)

And so it works: you were able to draw up the DC you were asking for with the open skill system. Problem solved!

Edit: I’ll reask my earlier question a different way: you suggest they should have these charts telling DMs what they should do. But honestly, what would make you more upset: not having the charts (current systems) or playing with DMs who ignore them (which you claim is your solution to DMs who want to run their own games).

I highly doubt there’d be greater happiness in anyone finding out their expectations definitely won’t be met, rather than having the opportunity to discuss such things.

I shouldn't have had to come up with my own system. That's the point. That was the game designers' job. The point is whatever DC they created that is what would be used in all games, just like saving throw DCs.

If there were DC tables and the DM ignored them, if he said upfront in Session 0 that was what he would do I'm now informed of it and can decide if I want to play or not. I would want to know what he would do instead, and if he answered "whatever I feel like at the time" I decide for myself if that's a game breaker and not play. I've already done that of choosing not to play because I didn't like the DM's house rules. If I only learn about the DM ignoring the DCs after game start when I notice I'm failing more than I should because the DCs are higher or inconsistent I am more likely to leave because how can I play the game if the only way to play is reading the DM's mind? Indeed I once quit a game (3E era) because the DM was making up everything ignoring the rules.

Again there's no such thing as a "25 jump" outside of the in-game context of a single table that's why you can't have a fixed DC chart. All those circumstantial and situational things that are very often waived off and online discussions are the game. The game is not a button on your piece of paper that says you can jump 25 ft.

This is clearly laid out on page six of the player handbook if you want to reference point. You can disagree with his design but it is integral to the game to function. You can tweak it a little bit one way or the other as far as what is easy or hard but in the end.

Now the rules are not perfect by any means and have multiple places where they fall flat but it's not due to the system itself it's due to the lack of proper explanation and support (no a table of numbers is not support). They could have gone a lot further to try to break the mentality that's brought over other additions that kind of muddle it up. In a perfect world you wouldn't need to worry about this baggage but it exists and there's nothing you can do about it besides be more concise and direct when you're trying to explain how the system you are talking about actually functions.

5e works on in the assumption that the base DC is no DC. If you can't do the thing, no DC it's just impossible. if you can't fail there is no DC, you just do it. For everything else you still might not need to deal with dice or DC because the player still gets to describe their action in such a way that if falls into these categories.

A chart of numbers can't even begin to cover the plethora of oddball approaches to a challenge and of what you want is to turn everything basically into crappy spells which is great for online forum talk but makes for a really crappy game IRL.

Saving throws exist at all tables using the same formula. Armor AC ratings. Weapon damage dice. Skill use is no different. The rules even say you can jump farther than your ST score with an Athletics check. They just failed to follow up with a DC number to do it. That failure is the issue.

[JNAProductions]

There's a 25' pit, and a PC has 20 Strength.

If the game assigned an extra 5' for a 20 Strength PC as a DC 15 check, what if there's a storm and the wind is blowing against your jump?
What if the terrain on the side of the pit is shaky, making it harder to leap off of?
What if the ceiling is low, so you can't make a normal arc?
Should it still be DC 15?

[Keltest]

Pex, if you don't want to come up with an adventure yourself, just buy a module.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Pex, if you don't want to come up with an adventure yourself, just buy a module.

It's not (only) his own DMing he's trying to control, it's everyone else's. His stated criteria won't be fully satisfied unless everyone everywhere he could possibly interact with uses exactly and only the same set of DCs for every single possible thing, and they're all written down ahead of time, with no deviation.

To which I say "tough. Ya ain't gonna get that, even if they did provide examples. So either find a different game or deal."

[JNAProductions]

It's not (only) his own DMing he's trying to control, it's everyone else's. His stated criteria won't be fully satisfied unless everyone everywhere he could possibly interact with uses exactly and only the same set of DCs for every single possible thing, and they're all written down ahead of time, with no deviation.

To which I say "tough. Ya ain't gonna get that, even if they did provide examples. So either find a different game or deal."

I disagree with Pex, but don't strawman him.

He wants an expected baseline for DCs for common tasks, and probably some uncommon ones too. (Pex, if I'm mischaracterizing you, please let me know.)

[Christew]

Saving throws exist at all tables using the same formula. Armor AC ratings. Weapon damage dice. Skill use is no different.
How is skill use the same as weapon damage dice?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I disagree with Pex, but don't strawman him.

He wants an expected baseline for DCs for common tasks, and probably some uncommon ones too. (Pex, if I'm mischaracterizing you, please let me know.)

He wants total consistency between tables. To be able to take the same character everywhere and not have to have any changes in check DCs. He wants checks to be exactly like armor. To me, that's "I want everyone to use all the same check DCs for everything, no matter what."

[RSP]

I shouldn't have had to come up with my own system. That's the point. That was the game designers' job. The point is whatever DC they created that is what would be used in all games, just like saving throw DCs.

You didn’t come up with your own system; you adjudicated a player’s desired action resolution. That’s exactly what the DM’s job is.

I think you want 5e to be a video game, where you know pushing X button will have Y effect, regardless of what’s happening in the game world. 5e isn’t meant to be that. It wants nuance at tables and in games to matter.



If there were DC tables and the DM ignored them, if he said upfront in Session 0 that was what he would do I'm now informed of it and can decide if I want to play or not.

How would a DM know that a specific in-game action would or wouldn’t match something specifically stated on the table? Do they need to clear every possible variance of the table with you beforehand? I doubt you’d have time to actually play…



I would want to know what he would do instead, and if he answered "whatever I feel like at the time" I decide for myself if that's a game breaker and not play. I've already done that of choosing not to play because I didn't like the DM's house rules. If I only learn about the DM ignoring the DCs after game start when I notice I'm failing more than I should because the DCs are higher or inconsistent I am more likely to leave because how can I play the game if the only way to play is reading the DM's mind? Indeed I once quit a game (3E era) because the DM was making up everything ignoring the rules.

You want to take the DM’s ability to adjudicate action resolution away, based off these statements. Again, I’d recommend video games as what it seems you’re looking for.

“I’ll adjudicate the action resolution as seems appropriate in the moment” is a fair answer from the DM to your session 0 question, and is exactly what 5e wants.

It doesn’t want players fighting DMs because the player wants to determine the action resolution.

[Pex]

There's a 25' pit, and a PC has 20 Strength.

If the game assigned an extra 5' for a 20 Strength PC as a DC 15 check, what if there's a storm and the wind is blowing against your jump?
What if the terrain on the side of the pit is shaky, making it harder to leap off of?
What if the ceiling is low, so you can't make a normal arc?
Should it still be DC 15?

Roll with Disadvantage. The rules suggest that for adverse conditions.

[JNAProductions]

Roll with Disadvantage. The rules suggest that for adverse conditions.

...
I...
You know, I should've seen that coming, because yes, that's exactly what the book says. Well-played! :P

But yeah, still not in agreement with you, Pex. I do respect your position, however.

[Pex]

It's not (only) his own DMing he's trying to control, it's everyone else's. His stated criteria won't be fully satisfied unless everyone everywhere he could possibly interact with uses exactly and only the same set of DCs for every single possible thing, and they're all written down ahead of time, with no deviation.

To which I say "tough. Ya ain't gonna get that, even if they did provide examples. So either find a different game or deal."

But I already get that for saving throw DC, armor AC, weapon damage dice, equipment prices, class abilities, racial abilities, backgrounds, feats, . . .


How is skill use the same as weapon damage dice?

The point is the game already has rules and game math statistics that apply to every DM everywhere. I want that same standard for skill use.

[Keltest]

But I already get that for saving throw DC, armor AC, weapon damage dice, equipment prices, class abilities, racial abilities, backgrounds, feats, . . .



The point is the game already has rules and game math statistics that apply to every DM everywhere. I want that same standard for skill use.

Skill use isnt a standard situation though, pretty much by definition. You never run into two identical locks, for example.

[JNAProductions]

Skill use isnt a standard situation though, pretty much by definition. You never run into two identical locks, for example.

To play fiend's lawyer here, how many suits of Full Plate are identical?

[InvisibleBison]

Skill use isnt a standard situation though, pretty much by definition. You never run into two identical locks, for example.

Sure, a pair of locks of a given quality might not be completely identical in every respect. But how likely are they to be sufficiently different as to merit a different DC for picking them?

[Pex]

You didn’t come up with your own system; you adjudicated a player’s desired action resolution. That’s exactly what the DM’s job is.

Actually, I did no such thing. I was giving an example of what the effect would be across different campaigns if the rules had standardized rules for skill use as that was the question I was answering. I really don't care if you don't like my specific example of a formula. I debated it with you twice already. I'm not doing it a third time. For the purpose of discussion what a standard skill use DC would look like is irrelevant to the point right now. I'm only caring that a standardization exists for point of discussion, so ranking on my correlation of +1 DC per 1 ft more than ST score is not the own you think it is. It was merely a place holder of example, not definitive of what it must look like.



I think you want 5e to be a video game, where you know pushing X button will have Y effect, regardless of what’s happening in the game world. 5e isn’t meant to be that. It wants nuance at tables and in games to matter.

5E already has that for saving throw DCs, armor AC, weapon damage dice, feats, backgrounds, all sorts of things as written in the PHB and DMG. The DMG even has example DC tables for a few skills. I'm just wanting that for all skills, preferably found in more a convenient physical location printed words on paper in a rule book altogether.




How would a DM know that a specific in-game action would or wouldn’t match something specifically stated on the table? Do they need to clear every possible variance of the table with you beforehand? I doubt you’d have time to actually play…



You want to take the DM’s ability to adjudicate action resolution away, based off these statements. Again, I’d recommend video games as what it seems you’re looking for.

“I’ll adjudicate the action resolution as seems appropriate in the moment” is a fair answer from the DM to your session 0 question, and is exactly what 5e wants.

It doesn’t want players fighting DMs because the player wants to determine the action resolution.

Because DMs are thinking people.

https://i.postimg.cc/h4pg4nnk/extrapolation.jpg


Skill use isnt a standard situation though, pretty much by definition. You never run into two identical locks, for example.

But you have no problem running into two identical plate mails, longs swords, and Fireballs?

[Telok]

Skill use isnt a standard situation though, pretty much by definition. You never run into two identical locks, for example.

Yet the rules say all shields are ac +2 and weight 6. Eight inch steel buckler, five foot by three foot oak pavise, two foot round dried raw cow hide on a stick. All exactly the same. All long bow arrows are exactly the same, with zero difference between flight, bodkin, sheaf, forked, and fire arrows. All shield spells have exactly the same effect, requirements, and action. All thieves tools are exactly the same cost, weight, and function. All imps summoned as wizard familiars are exactly the same. All riding horses are the same. All chariots are the same. All wagons are the same. But no two locks... unless the person buying them is a player character and the DM doesn't want to homebrew locks with a dc higher than 15 and a weight other than 1. Then all the locks are the same.

[stoutstien]

To play fiend's lawyer here, how many suits of Full Plate are identical?

Anything to do with combat is roughly standard because combat is DND's very special boy. Due to the sheer work load involved in it it was easier to give things a number because you are going to use it repeatedly. You don't want to adjudicate 40 different dice rolls because combat is already painfully slow to resolve.

Ability checks are the exact opposite where you only need *that* number once and is super circumstantial so you can't standardize it unless you super sterile everything down to a white room.

*IMO if you strip some crap out of combat you could have more room for situational shifts in stuff like attack rolls and AC besides cover and advantage/disadvantage but trying to get ppl to let go of things, even if it's actively hurting them, is difficult.*

[Christew]

The point is the game already has rules and game math statistics that apply to every DM everywhere. I want that same standard for skill use.
Getting a bit circular here.
1- I want X to be like A, B, & C.
2- But A, B, & C are limited and X is not.
1- My point is that I want X to be like A, B, & C.
2- But to accomplish that you would have to limit X.
1- I don't want to limit X, I just want it to be like A, B, & C.

[Blatant Beast]

The problem is different DMs having different opinions on the difficulty of a task. It's fine for all tasks that are easy the rules say use DC 10, but it does not define what is easy.

Sigh. I absolutely, positively, reject this form of D&D Authoritarianism.
"The problem is people have different opinions"....ohhh please, no, the Humanity!!!!
(Hindenburg burns in the background)

The DC scale is Qualitative, not Quantitative. Why does the system, as a whole, have to change to accommodate the few that do not seem to grok Qualitative Systems?

(asked with seriousness intent , I am curious what case could be made, what benefits would D&D gain as a whole by the change to set hardwired DCs)

[Blatant Beast]

Yet the rules say all shields are ac +2 and weight 6. Eight inch steel buckler, five foot by three foot oak pavise, two foot round dried raw cow hide on a stick. All exactly the same. All long bow arrows are exactly the same, with zero difference between flight, bodkin, sheaf, forked, and fire arrows. All shield spells have exactly the same effect, requirements, and action. All thieves tools are exactly the same cost, weight, and function. All imps summoned as wizard familiars are exactly the same. All riding horses are the same. All chariots are the same. All wagons are the same. But no two locks... unless the person buying them is a player character and the DM doesn't want to homebrew locks with a dc higher than 15 and a weight other than 1. Then all the locks are the same.

The American Legal system has a term: Administrative Convenience.

The game does not mandate that all Shields and Armor have the exact same dimensions, weight or value. People use those values, as a convenient tool....it is one less detail a DM needs to create.

That said, a DM can create items that have different physical properties, a buckler that offers only a +1 to AC, and weighs less than a normal shield, for example. Perhaps, an engraved set of ornamental Plate Mail, made by the greatest smith in the world, costs more than 'bog standard Plate Mail'.

The entire notion of bog standard plate mail, is a gamist convention, unless the fictional world has an institution akin to Innsbruck in the Holy Roman Empire, (Imperial Foundry), that produces so much Plate Mail it becomes a standard model.

The underlying Philosophical question that underpins this thread of conversation, I think boils down to:

Are we Playing a game that attempts to tell a story, and has rules that help keep the story within certain parameters?

or

Are we Playing a game that has rules, and the story bends itself to comply with those rules?

As Obi Wan said, the answer will depend upon one's point of view.

[stoutstien]

Sigh. I absolutely, positively, reject this form of D&D Authoritarianism.
"The problem is people have different opinions"....ohhh please, no, the Humanity!!!!
(Hindenburg burns in the background)

The DC scale is Qualitative, not Quantitative. Why does the system, as a whole, have to change to accommodate the few that do not seem to grok Qualitative Systems?

(asked with seriousness intent , I am curious what case could be made, what benefits would D&D gain as a whole by the change to set hardwired DCs)

Oh when they finally realized that they don't really care about pretending to support GMs and shift over to some Frankenstein VTT/faux TTRPG it will be useful to code it.

You saw him to this in the one play test when they were trying to turn movements into actions and having set DC for those actions. I bailed out of the play test so I don't know how those received but I'm hoping not well.

[Blatant Beast]

I do not believe the set DCs for some actions in the Playtest, were well received, based off the responses I have seen, online.

The DCs in Baldur's Gate 3 go up with Difficulty Level. Foes at Tactician, hit harder, have more Hit Points, often have additional attacks, and may have more difficult Target DCs.

Even a CRPG realized, that the one size fits all solution, was not viable...that people want play options, not a single path.

[Zhorn]

It's one of those areas where you want guidance for that the Athletics check would translate into for jumping, but not as a pass/fail binary.

For example: Beat Barbarian lv6 Beastial Soul. It modifies the jump based on an athletics check. It isn't strictly a table of DCs, but a formula for how a check would modify a jump. For the OP's topic this is the superhuman jump in 5e's scale.

Fundamentally I agree with the gist of what Pex is getting at; there should have been guidance in the book instead of how it was left blank. There is value in some rules being left open for DMs to choose, but still give an example. Say don't have it in the PHB so it's not a core rule, but in the DMG since it's something that is still implied to be left up to the DM, but samples of;
feet added to jump
Athletic excellence: +(check total -10)/2
Wuxuia: +(check total -10)
Superhero: +check total

Sample give the guidance for the potential range of expected values within the math, without having the whole "I have expertise, bardic inspiration, and reliable talent, I can's roll bellow a 23... oh look a nat20, for a total of 41. I do the impossible and jump to the moon!" that comes when no limits are established

[ericgrau]

I agree that the 5e skill system is pretty lazy. And "just leave all the details up to the GM" isn't a good excuse. It's only a way to be intentionally lazy. Besides making it much harder on the GM, it makes it hard for the players to know what to expect. That means if there is any risk involved they are much less likely to try to use skills at all, and more likely to lean on other class features. They do still get used frequently when there is no risk of the unknown, such as for knowledge checks or when there are clear rules (grapple/shove). There is some logic behind it, to avoid complicating the system. But that also means that skills become a smaller part of the system. 3.5e wasn't really any better because, while its skill rules are extremely in depth, it was so over-complicated people that people made fairly limited use of them too. But the 5e method is to basically give up and leave skills as a non-essential small add-on to the game.

A lot of what I did in my signature for making 3.5e rules easier was skills related. Bringing back 3.5e skill rules but in a greatly simplified and easy to look up way could be handy. You'd have to come up with a way to convert the DCs since 5e scales different. Half the amount beyond 10 or some such after analyzing it for a while. And since 5e simplifies proficiency, you might even divide the cheat sheets into cards or sheets that you can hand out, one for each skill. You also might want a sheet for DCs of 20 and lower for non-proficiency checks. You might also tweak 3.5e rules to better fit with 5e style. Jump could scale differently so it still starts at your strength score, etc. But at least you don't have to start from scratch.

[Christew]

We avoid the skill system as much as possible. Its too unreliable for even basic risks, and its pretty straight forward to replace it all with magic if you have your ac+hp sponge slot filled.


Besides making it much harder on the GM, it makes it hard for the players to know what to expect. That means if there is any risk involved they are much less likely to try to use skills at all, and more likely to lean on other class features.
Nothing worse than an adventure featuring risk.

[kazaryu]

I agree that the 5e skill system is pretty lazy. And "just leave all the details up to the GM" isn't a good excuse. It's only a way to be intentionally lazy. this assumes that they're obligated to give you a set list of DC's and all that. just because something is less work, doesn't mean its intentionally lazy. they don't need a "good excuse" they did nothing wrong by leaving it open ended.

Besides making it much harder on the GM, hi. GM here. i've not experienced this "much harder" that you're referring to. in fact i'd find it infinitely more cumbersome to consult some table every time my players had an idea for an ability check. In fact, i think what makes it so "hard" for GM's is that so many people insist that that there must be 1 "right way" and so newer DM's are struggling to find that one way...and 5e just...isn't set up to support that. that's also why im so vehemently against a strict "RaW" interpretation of the rules. for better or worse its not how 5e is written, and no amount of semantics will change that.


it makes it hard for the players to know what to expect. players should...always be encouraged to consult their DM. you don't play in an empty white room.

That means if there is any risk involved they are much less likely to try to use skills at all, and more likely to lean on other class features. They do still get used frequently when there is no risk of the unknown, such as for knowledge checks or when there are clear rules (grapple/shove). There is some logic behind it, to avoid complicating the system. But that also means that skills become a smaller part of the system. 3.5e wasn't really any better because it was so over-complicated people that people only used them a fairly limited portion of the time too. But the 5e method is to basically give up and leave skills as a non-essential small add-on to the game.
.[/QUOTE]
this hasn't really been my experience. my players do still regularly try to do things using ability checks. granted, I try to be pretty open about how difficult the DC is when a player explains the task they want to accomplish and I also frequently don't even have them roll, either because the task is too easy or too hard. but thats simply my experience. i won't pontificate on the general populace. but i do suspect that you may be underestimating how often players engage with the skill system, such as it is.

[PhoenixPhyre]

this assumes that they're obligated to give you a set list of DC's and all that. just because something is less work, doesn't mean its intentionally lazy. they don't need a "good excuse" they did nothing wrong by leaving it open ended.
hi. GM here. i've not experienced this "much harder" that you're referring to. in fact i'd find it infinitely more cumbersome to consult some table every time my players had an idea for an ability check. In fact, i think what makes it so "hard" for GM's is that so many people insist that that there must be 1 "right way" and so newer DM's are struggling to find that one way...and 5e just...isn't set up to support that. that's also why im so vehemently against a strict "RaW" interpretation of the rules. for better or worse its not how 5e is written, and no amount of semantics will change that.

<snip>

this hasn't really been my experience. my players do still regularly try to do things using ability checks. granted, I try to be pretty open about how difficult the DC is when a player explains the task they want to accomplish and I also frequently don't even have them roll, either because the task is too easy or too hard. but thats simply my experience. i won't pontificate on the general populace. but i do suspect that you may be underestimating how often players engage with the skill system, such as it is.

I agree with all of this. And my experience with both lots of new players AND lots of new DMs (both as a mentor and as a player at their tables) is that it's only the people who have significant 3e experience who struggle with this. Or the ones who have been battered into "there is only one right way" thinking by other DMs/players.

I love playing with new players because they're very open to trying crazy things that more experienced (aka jaded) players feel "is too risky" or "isn't worth it." And I can reward them accordingly.

[Pex]

Getting a bit circular here.
1- I want X to be like A, B, & C.
2- But A, B, & C are limited and X is not.
1- My point is that I want X to be like A, B, & C.
2- But to accomplish that you would have to limit X.
1- I don't want to limit X, I just want it to be like A, B, & C.

I want the directions to be the same. Game event possibilities are inherently infinite. It is madness to expect numbers for infinity. It is not outrageous to want numbers for a defined subset from which extrapolation is possible. Even given the rules now, just because the DCs are written as 10, 15, 20, increments of 5 does not prevent a DM from saying a DC is 12, 17, 21 or some other number not a multiple of 5 for a skill use.


Sigh. I absolutely, positively, reject this form of D&D Authoritarianism.
"The problem is people have different opinions"....ohhh please, no, the Humanity!!!!
(Hindenburg burns in the background)

The DC scale is Qualitative, not Quantitative. Why does the system, as a whole, have to change to accommodate the few that do not seem to grok Qualitative Systems?

(asked with seriousness intent , I am curious what case could be made, what benefits would D&D gain as a whole by the change to set hardwired DCs)

Once again, the rules of the game are consistent across all game tables for saving throw DCs, armor AC, weapon damage dice, equipment prices, class abilities, racial abilities, backgrounds, feats. It's not outrageous to want that same level of consistency for skill use.

[stoutstien]

I agree with all of this. And my experience with both lots of new players AND lots of new DMs (both as a mentor and as a player at their tables) is that it's only the people who have significant 3e experience who struggle with this. Or the ones who have been battered into "there is only one right way" thinking by other DMs/players.

I love playing with new players because they're very open to trying crazy things that more experienced (aka jaded) players feel "is too risky" or "isn't worth it." And I can reward them accordingly.

Yea. I've found that a few sessions of deprogramming are needed and some will never give it up.

[Keltest]

I want the directions to be the same. Game event possibilities are inherently infinite. It is madness to expect numbers for infinity. It is not outrageous to want numbers for a defined subset from which extrapolation is possible. Even given the rules now, just because the DCs are written as 10, 15, 20, increments of 5 does not prevent a DM from saying a DC is 12, 17, 21 or some other number not a multiple of 5 for a skill use.



Once again, the rules of the game are consistent across all game tables for saving throw DCs, armor AC, weapon damage dice, equipment prices, class abilities, racial abilities, backgrounds, feats. It's not outrageous to want that same level of consistency for skill use.

The rules are consistent for skill use. Different armor has different AC, and different skills checks have different DCs.

[Brookshw]

Yea. I've found that a few sessions of deprogramming are needed and some will never give it up.

4th'd? Usually I find players who are heavily concerned with mechanics and mechanical approaches have least fun at the table.

[Telok]

Nothing worse than an adventure featuring risk.

What's an acceptable failure rate for risk taking? My experience with 5e is that all the ability/skill checks have a 50% or higher failure rate across all the GMs I've played with. Jumping across at dc=distance means the 18 str +4 prof character makes a 20 foot gap almost half the time and falls into the pit taking the rest of the time, even assuming no disadvantage for carrying a 50 pound backpack while doing it. This is "rulings not rules" where the GM thinks something is "hard" for them to do personally and therefore warrants a dc 20 check. And they're not wrong because thats what the books told them to do.

I see lots of "the system works for me so its a great system" from people with years of GMing and doing or reading about statistical analysis of the system. But I don't play D&D with those people. The ones running D&D where I live don't memorize PC stats, do stats math, and trawl forums or youtube for "get gud noob" d&d advice. They read the core books and expect the game math to make characters action heroes without them having to do analysis or game design theory homework before running an adventure. And that works as long as you're talking about combat with all its nice profesionally designed numbers for everything. It just doesn't work for them and their groups as soon as you get to the "make the numbers up yourself based on if you think its hard or easy" part.

Could I run those D&D games better? Yes, but I have other game systems I want to run more. So if I'm going to be a player rather than a forever GM then I get to deal with D&D making my characters fail half or more of the checks that aren't attacks & saves (which have predetermined dc charts & math) and aren't dependent on the GM knowing statistics and game design theory.

[stoutstien]

What's an acceptable failure rate for risk taking? My experience with 5e is that all the ability/skill checks have a 50% or higher failure rate across all the GMs I've played with. Jumping across at dc=distance means the 18 str +4 prof character makes a 20 foot gap almost half the time and falls into the pit taking the rest of the time, even assuming no disadvantage for carrying a 50 pound backpack while doing it. This is "rulings not rules" where the GM thinks something is "hard" for them to do personally and therefore warrants a dc 20 check. And they're not wrong because thats what the books told them to do.

I see lots of "the system works for me so its a great system" from people with years of GMing and doing or reading about statistical analysis of the system. But I don't play D&D with those people. The ones running D&D where I live don't memorize PC stats, do stats math, and trawl forums or youtube for "get gud noob" d&d advice. They read the core books and expect the game math to make characters action heroes without them having to do analysis or game design theory homework before running an adventure. And that works as long as you're talking about combat with all its nice profesionally designed numbers for everything. It just doesn't work for them and their groups as soon as you get to the "make the numbers up yourself based on if you think its hard or easy" part.

Could I run those D&D games better? Yes, but I have other game systems I want to run more. So if I'm going to be a player rather than a forever GM then I get to deal with D&D making my characters fail half or more of the checks that aren't attacks & saves (which have predetermined dc charts & math) and aren't dependent on the GM knowing statistics and game design theory.

By the math 65-70% chance of success on the majority of rolls is the sweet spot they wanted. the system hits that outside knuckle heads putting DCs in some modules because they just used the 3.x values without adjusting for the edition shift.

[Christew]

It is not outrageous to want numbers for a defined subset from which extrapolation is possible.
So what is your desired "defined subset" -- how many use cases for each of the 18 skills would provide sufficient consistency?

They read the core books and expect the game math to make characters action heroes without them having to do analysis or game design theory homework before running an adventure.
So these DMs of yours understand the core books to say both: (a) the PCs are action heroes; and (b) the difficulty for a PC to perform a physical feat in game should be judged based on your personal real world physical abilities?

[Pex]

I agree that the 5e skill system is pretty lazy. And "just leave all the details up to the GM" isn't a good excuse. It's only a way to be intentionally lazy. Besides making it much harder on the GM, it makes it hard for the players to know what to expect. That means if there is any risk involved they are much less likely to try to use skills at all, and more likely to lean on other class features. They do still get used frequently when there is no risk of the unknown, such as for knowledge checks or when there are clear rules (grapple/shove). There is some logic behind it, to avoid complicating the system. But that also means that skills become a smaller part of the system. 3.5e wasn't really any better because, while its skill rules are extremely in depth, it was so over-complicated people that people made fairly limited use of them too. But the 5e method is to basically give up and leave skills as a non-essential small add-on to the game.

A lot of what I did in my signature for making 3.5e rules easier was skills related. Bringing back 3.5e skill rules but in a greatly simplified and easy to look up way could be handy. You'd have to come up with a way to convert the DCs since 5e scales different. Half the amount beyond 10 or some such after analyzing it for a while. And since 5e simplifies proficiency, you might even divide the cheat sheets into cards or sheets that you can hand out, one for each skill. You also might want a sheet for DCs of 20 and lower for non-proficiency checks. You might also tweak 3.5e rules to better fit with 5e style. Jump could scale differently so it still starts at your strength score, etc. But at least you don't have to start from scratch.

This got me thinking. Why is there a tendency for players wanting the PC with the highest modifier make the check? If the DM specifically tells a player to make a check he'll do so, but when the DM asks for anyone to make the check players compare then choose the highest. A player with only a +1 or +2 will insist he not make the check even if it was his idea that caused the check. The obvious answer is the highest modifier is more likely to succeed, which is true, but that's not the full story

It's also because the DC is DM make it up. Since the DC can be anything they presume it's so high the +1 player doesn't have a chance. You can see it combat. Despite monster statistics being the same across all tables everywhere via the Monster Manual, players don't know the AC to start which is fine because monsters are DM purview. However, you'll hear players sigh when they only roll to hit AC 13 or 14 thinking they missed and be genuinely surprised they actually hit. Doesn't matter how often that happens, each time it happens gets the same sigh and surprise. If players knew the DC for the more common expected skill uses then they would know if they had a decent chance, and the +1 player will give it a try. A DC 10 may only be a 55% chance for them, but that could be enough. Needing to roll a 10 or higher is aesthetically pleasing a chance. If they knew it was DC 15 they still might give it a try because knowing for sure it's DC 15 provides more confidence than thinking maybe it's DC 15 because it could be higher. +1 Players who are risk averse might not take the chance knowing it's DC 15 anyway, but you'll get the +2 players. It's emotion, not logic, but it's significant.

It's a thought. It would be interesting to hear from DMs who tell players the DC of a skill use beforehand how often/eager are players not having the highest modifier willing to try compared to DMs who do not tell the DC beforehand. I have played with DMs who say what the DC is for the saving throw players need to make. I hear a lot less sighing when told the DC is 11 or 12 even when the player has +0 or +1 to their roll. The sighing is there when told the DC is 16 or 17.


The rules are consistent for skill use. Different armor has different AC, and different skills checks have different DCs.

No. We know plate mail is AC 18. We know chain mail is AC 16. We don't know the DC of jumping more than your ST score. We don't know the DC of climbing a tree. (I tried so hard not to bring this up as long as possible.) However, we do know the DC to convince a townsperson you meet for the first time to tell you where the smithy is. (10) We do know the DC to follow the tracks of an orc that's a day old across a grassy field. (20) Some skills have DC tables already. I'd prefer that for all the skills.


So what is your desired "defined subset" -- how many use cases for each of the 18 skills would provide sufficient consistency?



Have WOTC hire me to come up with them, and I'll be glad to do so. That's the game designers' job. I'm not expecting 5.5E to have them. I would be ecstatic surprised if they did, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I could even be happy if they abandoned the universal 5/10/15/20/25/30 model and treated each skill individually with some skills having a formula (my jumping example), others a static table (tracking maybe), and still others saying use opposed rolls (interaction with NPCs, PC rolls Persuasion/Intimidate/Deception vs. NPC rolls Insight or the same skill).

[Christew]

Have WOTC hire me to come up with them, and I'll be glad to do so.
You can't state a number of examples that would satisfy you without being paid by WotC?

[Slipjig]

Nothing worse than an adventure featuring risk.

No kidding. If jumping over a potentially lethal drop isn't at least a LITTLE scary, why is it even there?

I think it's pretty standard for a player to ask the DM for a rough idea of the DC ahead of time. Some DMs request a check (e.g. Insight for "Is this a reasonable offer?"), but I've also seen plenty that will just tell you the DC for something standard like making a jump.

[Pex]

You can't state a number of examples that would satisfy you without being paid by WotC?

I do not need to rewrite the skill rules to make the point. Doesn't matter what I come up with. They won't be used in any game I play with another DM, and I'll have the same issues. WOTC pays me they become official rules standardize across all tables after going through the normal process of creating the game. Coming up with the rules is the game designers' job. Pay me to be the game designer, and I'll do it.


I agree with all of this. And my experience with both lots of new players AND lots of new DMs (both as a mentor and as a player at their tables) is that it's only the people who have significant 3e experience who struggle with this. Or the ones who have been battered into "there is only one right way" thinking by other DMs/players.

I love playing with new players because they're very open to trying crazy things that more experienced (aka jaded) players feel "is too risky" or "isn't worth it." And I can reward them accordingly.

Having skill use rules doesn't prevent new players from trying crazy things. They would help new DMs determine the appropriate DC for those crazy things. I see it often of new DMs struggling to determine an appropriate DC because they have to make it up. The "is too risky" or "isn't worth it" crowd are those who see +1 in their skill use but with the DC being DM make it up don't know how effective their character actually is. If they knew the typical common DCs of tasks like they were used to they can make an informed decision. They want to make informed decisions and are not wrong for it.

[stoutstien]

The reason why the hero who has the best chance to overcome a challenge is the one who attempts it is because it's what the player and system expects. The brute breaks the door down, the sneaky sneak sneaks, the wizard knows stuff about arcane rituals, and so on. Anyone can attempt it but on hero being better is simple niche/ spotlight shifting .

5e has a lot of flexibility on the class/subclass/opportunity cost Approach to do this but you still are following the same paradigm.

The issue isn't the hero with the best assets are making the attempt. It's DM's using the ability check system as a way of making players "earn it" or "roll dice because you are supposed to".

[PhoenixPhyre]

Having skill use rules doesn't prevent new players from trying crazy things. They would help new DMs determine the appropriate DC for those crazy things. I see it often of new DMs struggling to determine an appropriate DC because they have to make it up. The "is too risky" or "isn't worth it" crowd are those who see +1 in their skill use but with the DC being DM make it up don't know how effective their character actually is. If they knew the typical common DCs of tasks like they were used to they can make an informed decision. They want to make informed decisions and are not wrong for it.

This is absolutely not my experience in any way, shape, or form. And I've mostly played with new players and have tutored many new DMs.

I have seen them say "well, yeah, it makes sense you should do that, but the rules say..." even when the rules suggest that as one course of action, which says that new DMs and new players take suggestions as commands. And frankly the failure case of having to make up your own DCs is way more palatable than everyone thinking they're restricted to stock assets only. If I want stock assets, I'll go play a bad knockoff Unreal Engine game. The graphics and gameplay will be better.

[JNAProductions]

Pex, I’m sorry for people being so harsh on you.

A videogame is not a TTRPG.
Having recommended or baseline DCs is not tantamount to making one into the other.

[Ignimortis]

Pex, I’m sorry for people being so harsh on you.

A videogame is not a TTRPG.
Having recommended or baseline DCs is not tantamount to making one into the other.
Yes. This.

Re: expectations and "programming".

It's not about only 3e having been different. It's about the general way the math is off.

The thing here is, a 5e character without expertise feels, for a long time, massively incompetent even compared to theoretically "grittier" systems like Shadowrun or Vampire, because the default difficulty is massively skewed. DC15, marked as "medium", i.e. "average", means that a level 1 character who is both trained and talented at the thing (+2 prof, +3 stat) has a 55% chance of succeeding on it, and a character who has baseline human capabilities (+0 at both) has a 30% chance of succeeding on it. Even a character with expertise has a 65% chance to pass that roll (fails a third of the time). And at level 5 (while increasing your talents, too), you're still dealing with 80% for "excellent", 65% for "good", 30% for "normal". Only by level 13 you start seeing automatic successes on DC15, and only with expertise - by this time you'd been a peak human or slightly above (stronger than an ogre, for instance) for raw ability for 5 levels, and might have quite possibly already bagged a powerful dragon kill (I know I have had characters who had killed dragons somewhere between adult and ancient stat-wise at 12 and 13, for instance).

For SR5, the "average" task would be be something along the lines of "hitting threshold 2" - a character who is both talented (4 in a stat) and decently-but-not-expertly-trained (3 or 4 in a skill) has about a 75% chance of success, and a character who isn't (3 in a stat, 0 in the skill) has a similar 25%. A starting not-really-optimized character, who is a professional at some things, would have their "good" dicepools at circa 14 to 18, giving them 97%+ chances of success on those rolls! You will never be as good at a skill in 5e (barring expertise) as a starting Shadowrun character, and they aren't plane-hopping fantasy heroes who can eventually slaughter dragons by the dozen. Only a rogue with expertise steadily surpasses that level of competence, and only after level 10, when they start to roll a minimum of 10+expertise+stat, which lets them automatically succeed on favoured (stat-wise) Hard checks and eventually on Very Hard ones, too.

Same for Vampire, which prides itself on having critfailures as a core subsystem for extra misery and grittiness, baseline human gets 2 dice to get 1 success at TN6 - 65% to get it (although with a 9% of botching it, like a critfailure). An "okay" skill user gets 5 dice for the same task, 85% to succeed and only 2.5% to botch it. A "great" user gets 8 dice, 92% for success and 0.33% for botch. Again, you are never gonna be as good as a Vampire starting character at average tasks without expertise, not even 15 levels later.

The non-combat progression in 5e is, in general, bad, and part of that is the unclear DCs which either force the GMs to calculate probabilities before assigning the DC every time, or, if they haven't seen through how non-average the "Medium" DC actually is, commonly assigning DCs which make the PCs feel incompetent unless they're specifically crafted to excel at those one or two skills. The other part is the actual number scaling, but those issues work in tandem in this case.

[Telok]

This is absolutely not my experience in any way, shape, or form. And I've mostly played with new players and have tutored many new DMs.

That's because a person who does game design and statistical analysis tutored them. Taught them that dc 15 isn't 'medium' which means average and normal, but is actually hard & risky for anyone but an mid to high level expert. Showed them how to customize adventures to the party they have. Told them not to roll too much and advised them on what 'too much' means. Mentored them on stuff that isn't in the books. And that's a good thing to do, but its not what many other people experience.

That the skill system works fine for you is nice. That you have the time to teach them, that you have players who accept criticisim & advice, that you can get them to listen to you is nice. I'm sure if WotC let you rewrite the DMG that you'd do a much better job than what we have now. But for a number of us the GM asking for a attribute/skill roll is seen as a failure state of in the game because there is no expectation of better than 50/50 chances with any such roll. Other people may not have the time, skills, or receptive audience to be a D&D teacher. We can't fix the game one player at a time. We can only hope for more explict guidance in the next version on how to run the skills system. That might be ten pages of game design analysis and advice, or it might be two pages of example dcs for stuff split into "gritty" and "heroic" categories and a couple examples of how it changes the game.

On a more general note; its weird how the forum has a sort of parallel drum beat of "no examples for skills is good because it empowers the gm and keeps the players from getting too strong" along side a "never let the players do anything creative with magic and interpret spells to stop them doing anything that might disrupt the plot". It really comes across like the old control freak GM horror stories to me.

[Christew]

On a more general note; its weird how the forum has a sort of parallel drum beat of "no examples for skills is good because it empowers the gm and keeps the players from getting too strong" along side a "never let the players do anything creative with magic and interpret spells to stop them doing anything that might disrupt the plot". It really comes across like the old control freak GM horror stories to me.
I don't recall seeing either of those positions being advocated, let alone their being "parallel drum beat[s]" across the forum. Weird.

[RSP]

On a more general note; its weird how the forum has a sort of parallel drum beat of "no examples for skills is good because it empowers the gm and keeps the players from getting too strong" along side a "never let the players do anything creative with magic and interpret spells to stop them doing anything that might disrupt the plot". It really comes across like the old control freak GM horror stories to me.

I’ve not seen this stance at all, nor do I think any of this has been represented in this thread.

The open system allows for players doing more, not less.

A hard-codified system leads to “it’s not in the book, so you can’t do that” much, much more than being permissive.

[Brookshw]

On a more general note; its weird how the forum has a sort of parallel drum beat of "no examples for skills is good because it empowers the gm and keeps the players from getting too strong" along side a "never let the players do anything creative with magic and interpret spells to stop them doing anything that might disrupt the plot". It really comes across like the old control freak GM horror stories to me.

I think if you look back through the comments in the thread you'll find that the primary benefit of non-hardcoded skill sets is so that DCs can be set as appropriate for the many types of games D&D purports to support (e.g., action hero, demigods, etc.), empowering DMs to set things so that players can do more and more amazing things depending on what is appropriate for the type of game is hardly restrictive, the inverse, making it hard coded across the board (and there's zero chance WoTC is going to do different tables for different types of games) breaks setting and game type consistency. Demigod game wanting to wrestle a river to change its trajectory? Absolutely. John Mclane game wanting to to the same? You tell me.

As to spells, that's pretty specifically a PheonixPyre and Stoutstein argument that's not been widely adopted, most people are willing to allow for creative usage (though, let's say 'creative reading' is generally more frowned upon if you catch the meaning). One point in PP & S's favor though, restraining spells helps reduce the opportunity for players to overshadow other players, I certainly hope you aren't advocating that division between players via "haves" and "have nots" should be further empowered.

[stoutstien]

I really don't understand the whole angle about needing DC charts because not everybody has the background in game theory.
That's why they use a D20. It's a single die flat distribution so you don't even have to understand the difference between one number and the other to realize the difference between them is always going to be the same and it's really easy to use "hand" math.
Half of 20 is 10 so you have half a chance of succeeding.(technically it's not quite half because the system is based on if you meet beat rather than any sort of ties but you can disregard this when you're just going off the hip because that 5% is going to fall into the player's favor) Every number off of 10 is going to have the exact same impact of positive or negative outcomes then the number before it. It's also means any bonuses are to the role or just moving that number up and down rather than having to use a second or trinary form of math to judge it. If the DC is 10 but they have a plus 5 to the check that means for them the DC is practically a 5.

The DMG doesn't need a DC chart for every possible ability check, it just needs a chart to show this in two-point reference so they can understand this until they can do it off the hip because it's really intuitive once you figure that out. You can get the point where you can accurately assign DCs to something before they even just finished describing what crazy thing they want to do.

This is the D20 biggest strength and weakness. While it does allow to have somebody who specialize in somebody who hasn't specialized in different degrees still having opportunity to overcome a challenge it also put a lot of weight on the die in order to do so. You can use multiple dice like the classic 2d6 but because now you do not have a flat distribution you actually do need to have a good understanding of probability in order to adjudicate outcomes. Not only are outcomes going to skew towards the middle, bonuses to the outcome have different weights depending on the DC needed. The difference between a dc 6 8 and 10 are not equal nor is a +1 having the same impact. Mathematically dice pools are stronger if you want to support specialization but they are much more difficult to get a grasp of and aren't forgiving whatsoever if you get it wrong.

One thing Pex is correct about is that a lot of people do not have a grasp of basic probability or game theory. This problem is even widespread in the people making the games because it's not uncommon for somebody from WoTC to suggest that you can easily replace the D20 with 2D10 or 3d6 and run it how it's presented. It's doable but that nice easy to understand flat distribution no longer applies so kind of whip out a piece of paper and do some figuring.