Random DC advice

[Zhorn]

So I'm working on some roll tables to pad out the Random Dungeon tables from the DMG (p290+).
For for traps, locks, and skill checks DCs I'm looking to have a range of values to roll from based on the intended tier of the dungeon, with a range of DCs that would fit within a classification of Easy/Moderate/Difficult, and could do with a second opinion.

Dungeon Tier	Easy	Moderate	Difficult
Tier 1 (Levels 1-4)	1d6+5	1d6+10	1d6+15
Tier 2 (Levels 5-10)	1d8+6	1d8+11	1d8+16
Tier 3 (Levels 11-16)	1d10+7	1d10+12	1d10+17
Tier 4 (Levels 17-20)	1d12+8	1d12+13	1d12+18

Is the high end too high?
low end too low?
the step up between difficulties and tiers too exaggerated, or not nearly enough?

[stoutstien]

I'd be careful with setting DC like this because it can go full treadmill before you know it. If a PCs proficiency bonus goes up and DC matches the increase just because the net results is 0.

As far as the values go I think they are to high. Look at the lowest one. 1d6+5 is high enough to make 40% of ability checks result in failure even with a + 2 stat modifier. Really depends on how you define easy.

[Christew]

Yeah, I'd be careful doing this. If you move the goal posts every time the players get more powerful, they never actually get any more likely to succeed.

A normal padlock should be DC X regardless of who is attempting to unlock it. It shouldn't mysteriously become a more impressive mechanical device because a higher level player approaches it. Similarly, as he/she gains experience, a master rogue should eventually find normal locks little challenge, not continually requiring the same roll throughout their career because the DC has gone up parallel to their proficiency.

I would instead set general difficulty DCs and then move up the scale as context requires. Normal padlocks are easy, fancy locks are moderate, magic locks are difficult, etc.

[Zhorn]

Thankyou for responding.
I should probably clarify a couple of points:

This is for generating random dungeons, not a specific challenge for a specific party. Players could discover a dungeon way over their level and turn back at the first locked door, or could discover a dungeon from an earlier tier and blast through it for some quick beer money.

I understand the concern about leveling up dungeons to meet the level of the party, but that's not what I'm looking at. Most of the time I make random dungeons and plonk them down in the world before I even know what party is doing to come across it and when.
Differences in play styles, so I can understand the natural assumption that this would be directed to an active group rather than just making random dungeons.
Dungeon gets made, DCs are set, and they are not just magically adjusting up or down based on what level the party was when they started pocking at it.

1d6+5 is high enough to make 70% of ability checks result in failure even with a +3 stat modifier.

??? that seems awfully high
at max value, that easy tier 1 DC would be 11. With a +0 modifier, that's a 50% success rate, 65% success rate at +3, or for a rogue/criminal with a 16 (+3) Dex and Thieve's tools proficiency (+2), a DC 11 is succeeded 75% of the time with a d20 roll of 6 or more.

Now at the opposite end of the range, a rogue with 20 (+5) Dex, Expertise with Thieve's tools (+12), and Reliable talent, anything less than a DC 27 is a joke not needing a roll. And even the highest DC this table gets would still only take a d20 roll of 13.

Now granted, not every party is going to have a rogue to do their lock picking, but at the same time not every party is going to look to picking locks if they don't have someone built for the task. A Barbarian with a maul or portable ram can be very effective at busting down doors not kind enough to remain unlocked.

In any case, I tried to cap out the highest value from this set up as 30 with stay within the range of a non-feature supported skill check (so 31 would be possible with tool proficiency at +6 and an attribute modifier of +5 for a +11 total). Then with enough swing in possible values that even the hardest setting could still yield a DC under 20 (just as likely as a DC 30).

In the interest of healthy discussion though, I am interested in what value ranges you'd pick and why.

Next is the binary of success/failure. I understand that is a common view of DC checks.
I don't play by that.
That's on me, it should have been in the opening post. My bad.
I ascribe to the 'fail forwards' or 'degrees of success' models.
Lets use the lock pick example.
Meet or exceed the DC with the skill check? Lock is easily picked in 1d4 rounds without issue.
Miss the DC by less than 5? Lock is picked with some extra effort and time, takes ~10min. What happens in that time? Can they stick at the task for that long without interruption?
Miss the DC by 6-10? Lock is picked, taking a bit longer still, but also leaves signs of tampering. If someone comes across this, they'll know you were here?
Miss the DC by more than 10? If you stick at it long enough, you'll get through, but your tools break, or you make a loud sound that can be heard, alerting someone nearby.

High DCs offer more room for degrees of success or different levels of consequences.

That easy tier 1 lock is a near guaranteed success given enough time, it's just a matter of how cleanly and quickly the PCs can do it.
That difficult tier 4 lock on the other hand could require the players to spend an hour guarding the rogue while they work stealthily, or have them give up after 10 minutes resorting to a brute force approach to be faster, announcing their presence as the beat on that door like a drum. Or their tools break, or they get caught in the process, or a multitude of other events.

Spoiler: Matt Colville has a good take on the topic

Show

His is about multiple fail states, but the concept is mostly the same end result

[stoutstien]

Oh wow. I fat fingered both values at the same time lol. What I get for trying to post via phone. I'll go back and fix that.

It is a good idea to not factor proficiency or expertise in DCs and I'm a big fan of setting challenges across-the-board without factoring in the party's abilities so kudos to that. I do think you overshot the runway a little bit. You only really need one good table for everything and trying to separate three or four different easy DC's can get confusing. A moderately difficult check should stay a moderately difficult check regardless of the other factors. A lot of the time it makes sense to have lower DC's on locks and such if there are other factors. like an example would be a person doesn't need that great of door locks if they have a pack of guard dogs compared to somebody else was relying on those locks to be the primary form of security.

*On the subject of locks I prefer to treat them like all the other tool proficiencies. IMO there's enough diversity in the styles of locks to argue that any single covering ability is insufficient. I just subtract 5 from any lock DC and run a d20+ proficiency role. Basic locks are boring and of little consequence. They make very poor Gates.*

[Zhorn]

Again though; I'd like to know the numbers you'd lock down for that DC range you deem acceptable?
Lower limit X
Upper limit Y
Increments of Z

Basic locks are boring and of little consequence. They make very poor Gates.

This is all down to play style. Like has been noted in a fair few of the recent threads about different game mechanics; anything you put in the game only has as much meaning and purpose as it is given. If you have the DC as an ordinary pass/fail binary with no other consequences, then yes I agree locks are boring. But that same logic holds for every other skill check DC. If you don't impose a consequence for not meeting the DC, a meaningful consequence that the players cannot ignore, then there was no point in having the dice roll at all.

I do think you overshot the runway a little bit. You only really need one good table for everything and trying to separate three or four different easy DC's can get confusing.

If I were using this to roll live at the table, maybe. But this isn't intended to live table application. This is all for my away from table planning. In that regard it is a far less complex setup than making a custom monster would be or calculating CR.

A moderately difficult check should stay a moderately difficult check regardless of the other factors. A lot of the time it makes sense to have lower DC's on locks and such if there are other factors. like an example would be a person doesn't need that great of door locks if they have a pack of guard dogs compared to somebody else was relying on those locks to be the primary form of security.

Or it could be a dungeon with no locks at all and nothing by an ancient red dragon in each chamber
Dungeons could be in any arrangement of creatures, skill challenges, ability checks, puzzles, traps, etc. The existence of one option needn't negate the application of another.

Really depends on how you define easy.

Could just go by what the 'typical DC' labelling in the DMG has
Easy: 10
Moderate: 15
Hard: 20

In my case I'm looking at a rough pattern of
Easy: d20 roll of ~10 should succeed
Moderate: d20 roll of ~15 should succeed
Difficult: d20 roll of ~20 should succeed
with the expected modifiers of those tiers (just attribute + proficiency, not additional features) taken into account.
While the discussion has mostly been about locks, it's not the only think I'm looking to use this for. Most skill check DCs will be based on this, traps, obstacles, knowledge checks, etc.
I can grab a module off my shelf and look up a few high DCs for some checks. Dungeon of the Mad Mage, has about a dozen DC 30 checks in there.

So... what's your preferred DC range?
If you are cutting out attribute modifiers and just going by proficiency, I don't see us having that big of a difference when those different values are accounted for.

[stoutstien]

The published campaigns and DC chart are set way to high IMO. If the check is of any real concern and they have a 50 % of failure then I can't see calling that easy. easy should be closer to 5-7 and the max should be closer to 25.

*This is using checks as is with ablity mods*

[Tanarii]

Don't label the classification as easy/moderate/difficult if you're scaling for difficulty of the dungeon. Those are too close to the DC difficulties that already have a meaning (Easy / Medium / Hard) and those explicitly don't scale in 5e.

If you want to put more difficult challenges in the way of higher level PCs, I'd say the simplest way is to figure out DCs that line up with the Very Easy/Easy/Moderate/Hard/Very Hard/Nearly Impossible DC scale that already exists, then move along that scale as your intended Tier increases.

For example, DC from the table plus d5-3 gives you -2 to +2

Now you've got a chart that goes:
Tier 1 / 5+d5-3 / 10+d5-3 / 15+d5-3
+5 per tier so:
Tier 4 / 20+d5-2 / 25+d5-2 / 30+d5-2

Basically it starts with the lowest being Very Easy in Tier 1 and the most challenging being Nearly Impossible in Tier 4.

[Zhorn]

Don't label the classification as easy/moderate/difficult if you're scaling for difficulty of the dungeon. Those are too close to the DC difficulties that already have a meaning (Easy / Medium / Hard) and those explicitly don't scale in 5e.

eh, a name's just a name. I can swap my table to easy/moderate/hard to align with that standard.

If you want to put more difficult challenges in the way of higher level PCs, I'd say the simplest way is to figure out DCs that line up with the Very Easy/Easy/Moderate/Hard/Very Hard/Nearly Impossible DC scale that already exists, then move along that scale as your intended Tier increases.

For example, DC from the table plus d5-3 gives you -2 to +2

Now you've got a chart that goes:
Tier 1 / 5+d5-3 / 10+d5-3 / 15+d5-3
+5 per tier so:
Tier 4 / 20+d5-2 / 25+d5-2 / 30+d5-2

Basically it starts with the lowest being Very Easy in Tier 1 and the most challenging being Nearly Impossible in Tier 4.

Not having a d5, I'll have to tweak that formula to be something in the standard set of dice (example; start with a lower base number and just only have a plus with a 1d4 or 1d6).
Overall there's a lot less swing in the higher tiers under your proposed method, and the DC ranges that result from it tend towards being higher on average in comparison.
Was the swing I originally aimed for an issue? Just looking to understand your design choice better.

[Tanarii]

A d5 is just a d10

My design choice was that the difficulties have meaning.

No, if you want to have swing up from a minimum difficulty to a maximum you certainly can do something like a range of:

Tier 1 / DC 5 / DC 10 / DC 15
Tier 2 / DC 5-10 / DC 10-15 / DC 15-20
Tier 3 / DC 5-15 / DC 10-20 / DC 15-25
Tier 4 / DC 5-20 / DC 10-25 / DC 15-30

Or if the overlapping bothers you, make them even:
Tier 1 / DC 4-7 / DC 8-12 / DC 13-16
Tier 2 / DC 5-9 / DC 10-15 / DC 16-20
Tier 3 / DC 5-11 / DC 12-17 / DC 18-24
Tier 4 / DC 5-12 / DC 13-21 / DC 22-29

[EggKookoo]

A normal padlock should be DC X regardless of who is attempting to unlock it.

While this is true, the party should be encountering "normal" padlocks less and less as they level, and "complex" padlocks more and more. Or, rather, the DM's decision to call for a check (rather than auto-succeed/fail) will change over the party's level progression. So in the end you still get a treadmill of sorts.

It's no different than ACs/HP going up as the party gains levels and fights tougher monsters.

[MrStabby]

For me here are two features I would look for in a set of DCs in a dungeon.

The first is a storytelling element. Why is that door locked? What were they hoping to do? What is it protecting? What resources did they have available?

If a lock can be picked by someone with fat fingers and no skill in picking locks... just leave it open. From the perspective of whoever installed it, it is a waste of time unless they can use the time taken to pick it to some advantage - say if it triggers an alarm and summons people to the door. If you have a lock designed to protect valuable treasure, then it should be one that even a dedicated thief should have trouble picking.

Furthermore, security tends to come in layers, and locks should reflect conditional probability - i.e. what is the probability that someone would be able to open this, given that they succeeded in getting past the lock before? making sure that different secutity elements at different layers in require different tools and skills represents better security. Building dungeons as a smart builder would just helps create a more consitent world. To be honest, I see this being more about traps than locks - if a lock requires dex to pick put an arcane trap on it that needs int to understand and so on.


The other thing I look for is making peoples investments awesome. If someone has proficiency it should be meaningful and the game should support circumstances where it makes a difference. Have treasure beyond a locked door that the party might not actually be able to reach. If your party rogue having proficiency saves 6 rounds spent picking locks over a non proficient person this equates to getting out of the dungeon about half a minute quicker - not really a great reward for a character choice. On the other hand, you want to reward the fighter for not dumping dex - equally a meaningful investment they made to be less terrible at dex based actiities, you want to have doors where this makes a difference and have some good low numbers.

This then ties into dungeon design. If you have a mechanism for splitting the party in the dungeon, you can lowball the DCs. The party, trying to reconnect will really benefit from people having more diverse abilities so there is more of a meaningful benefit. On the other hand, if the party is all together and the person with the highest bonus is rolling then I would focus on harder checks. Give those who can do things like hand out bardic inspiration or cast guidance something really useful to use it on.

The reason I say this is to explain my perspective when I say that I think the range is too narrow.

For a starting point I would add +1 too all easy check DCs, +2 to medium and +4 to Hard. Sometimes the party won't be able to get to all the rooms, all the treasure and see all the secrets. When they do, the person who invested in the skills to let them do so can really feel awesome. Just make sure that you don't need to pass potentially impassible doors to "complete" a dungeon.

[Christew]

While this is true, the party should be encountering "normal" padlocks less and less as they level, and "complex" padlocks more and more. Or, rather, the DM's decision to call for a check (rather than auto-succeed/fail) will change over the party's level progression. So in the end you still get a treadmill of sorts.

It's no different than ACs/HP going up as the party gains levels and fights tougher monsters.

Agreed, mostly. There is a significant difference between Easy DCs dropping off the "worth rolling for" list and adjusting Easy DCs to be higher as PCs level.

Also, it is somewhat different than AC/HP, if only in that critical success/failure doesn't apply to skill checks. It is always worth rolling to hit because you might miss or crit, not so for overly easy skill DCs.

[Zhorn]

...I think the range is too narrow.

For a starting point I would add +1 too all easy check DCs, +2 to medium and +4 to Hard. Sometimes the party won't be able to get to all the rooms, all the treasure and see all the secrets. When they do, the person who invested in the skills to let them do so can really feel awesome. Just make sure that you don't need to pass potentially impassible doors to "complete" a dungeon.

So am I understanding you right in this is what you mean?

Dungeon Tier	Easy	Moderate	Hard
Tier 1 (Levels 1-4)	1d6+5	1d6+10	1d6+15
Tier 2 (Levels 5-10)	1d8+6	1d8+12	1d8+19
Tier 3 (Levels 11-16)	1d10+7	1d10+14	1d10+23
Tier 4 (Levels 17-20)	1d12+8	1d12+16	1d12+27

Did you have a change in dice sizes also?

Under a 'fail forwards' or 'degrees of success' model it will still work fine, though I am a little hesitant on the Hard DC's scaling up that fast, though a DC of 37 is still possible with expertise, any higher would be impossible to match without additional features/enhancements beyond the normal limits.
Part of why I set my initial top limit at 30 was it didn't need additional skills beyond attribute (+5) and proficiency (+6) to reach, and there were existing DC 30 checks already.