D&D 5E A case where the 'can try everything' dogma could be a problem

Finally, we got to play the real 5e game also on tabletop (before last week it has been only PbP or tabletop with playtest packets). I was the DM and we had both experienced and beginners players at the table.

With relation to skill proficiencies, I made sure everybody knew that in 5e you don't need to be proficient in order to do or use something. Rather, it is convenient for you to use/do what you're proficient at, instead of using/doing things you are not. The simplest obvious example is with weapons: with an emergency or a specific circumstance you might pick up and swing a weapon you're unproficient, but on the long term (i.e. normally) you'd better use weapons you are proficient.

So far so good... but not with skills!

The players spontaneously gravitated towards using skills they were proficient at. The Rogue had Stealth and Thieves' Tools so naturally she went scouting and searching for traps, while the others waited and watched. This felt just right!

But the players also spontaneously did the same for Knowledge skills, and here is the crux of the matter... I was very happy that they did this on their own volition, but I dread what would have happened if they exploited the system. Because in theory, all of them could have rolled knowledge checks each time it was potentially useful.

So what they did was simply, the Cleric (and only he) rolled Religion & History checks, while the Wizard (and only she) rolled Arcana checks. Whenever they needed a clue, players asked "is it worth rolling an X knowledge check here?" and they everybody looked with hope at the player rolling the check. In other words, (s)he got the spotlight, and it felt great when succeeded, and hilarious when failed (I admit that was in part thanks to me making up ridiculous results on a failure instead of just saying "you don't know").

What would have happened if the players decided to claim their rights to all try a roll of any knowledge each time?

1) With four characters, they would have succeeded almost always. Unless I artificially increased the DC.

2) The proficient character would only marginally succeed more often than the others, at least at low level when the proficiency bonus is only +2.

3) Some unproficient PC (the Rogue) had a much higher Int than the Cleric. So the Cleric player would be actually penalized by choosing the Religion skill, rather than just stick to Wis-based skills.

4) Not much spotlight effect. Probably more common for multiple characters to succeed rather than one.

5) Game slowed down a little bit.

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Once again, I am very happy that my players did not reason in terms of what is more convenient numerically but immediately got the idea of what was more convenient in terms of fun (for our tastes, obviously!).

Nevertheless I wanted to share this, because IMHO it is something to be aware about.

I also want to point out that this is a problem only with skills that benefit the party as a whole + have no penalty for failure + have no better effects if more PC do the same. Knowledge skills are the main case, but also Thieves' Tools and Investigation are others, and some charisma skills might also be (but it depends how you adjudicate a simultaneous success by someone and failure by someone else).

BTW I am not suggesting that necessarily our spontaneous 'solution' of basically ignoring the skill if unproficient is the best one.

Other ideas could involve:

- improving the results based on how many PC beat the DC
- using secondary characters roll to only grant advantage to the proficient character, who still gets to make the final roll
- using the 'group rolls' rule i.e. at least half of the group must succeed

Then a separate issue is what to do when nobody is proficient. For example, it might have come up to need a Nature check, and we had no one proficient.

Well, it sounds like you don't have an actual problem (just a theoretical one), so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

However, if it does become an issue, I would be inclined to suggest the following:

- If one character is proficient and no others are, then have the check be done by the proficient character - they're assumed to be the best-placed to answer the question (having been trained), so they make the check.

- If two characters are proficient, have the one with the lower bonus make a roll to provide advantage, and then have the one with the higher bonus make the 'final' roll. Effectively, one character aids the other with the task.

- If more than two characters are proficient, have them each make an individual roll. They'll almost certainly succeed... but then they are a collective of experts, so that's not really a problem.

- If none of the characters are proficient, have the one with the best bonus (only) make the check untrained. This doesn't give them a very good chance of success, but that's about right anyway.

Naturally, none of that is supported by the rules. But as a table convention, it seems pretty good - and it gives the one proficient character spotlight protection while not making a task outright impossible if nobody is proficient.

There's another way to deal with this, though I completely agree that it's a problem with the rules as written (as any "no real failure penalty" check would). Technically this solution only helps with "Knowledge-like" checks, but that seems like the more common issue anyway.

If more than one person wants to make a Knowledge-type roll (Arcana, Religion, Nature, etc.) to answer the same question/recall the same fact, roll them yourself, secretly. Perhaps even start rolling ALL Knowledge-type skill uses secretly. This allows you to manufacture a failure penalty: if someone misses by a little, they just don't know, or have conflicting ideas (some or all of which are wrong or flawed). If someone misses by a lot, they think they know the right answer, but it's dead wrong--they're blowing hot air.

There is a similar problem in Dungeon World with fails on Spout Lore (all "Knowledge" checks) and Discern Realities (equivalent to Perception/Search). The only obvious/universal fail condition for both of them is "you wasted time," which is super soft by DW standards. One of my fellow players exploited this mercilessly--he dumped Wisdom, thus having a -1 to Discern Realities rolls, which meant he failed most of the time, and thus got 1 XP for each fail...but those failures did essentially nothing to harm him. The DM eventually learned how to spring unexpected Discern Realities checks that the character really wanted to succeed on, and began feeding us partially useful information on a failure (but which left out an important fact or detail we COULD have discovered).

If it becomes an issue, I'd go with something very similar to delericho except when there are 2+ PCs with proficiency. It seems to me that there would be a lot of overlap in knowledge between PCs with the same knowledge proficiencies, so I'd say just do one roll by the character with the biggest bonus, and give +1 for each additional proficient character in the party.

If I have to choose between only attempting things my PC is skilled in, ala 3e, or having everybody able to try everything - I prefer everyone be able to try everything. Even if that means sometimes everyone gets an Int knowledge roll.

In any event, the DM can make rulings along the lines of, only those with the skill have any chance of remembering the really important bits.

To me, it's not really a problem, because the PC with proficiency on average will almost always try first, and if they fail, the others wind up stepping in in my experience. I've seen cinematic or literary precedent where wisdom will occasionally come from the mouths of babes, and I'm OK with it. At my table if the proficient person fails, i establish a DC, everyone rolls at once, and voices or hands go up if someone else passes it.

Or, handle it like [MENTION=6790260]EzekielRaiden[/MENTION] and make the roll in secret - it never hurts to have your PCs' vitals on a 3x5 anyway.

Li Shenron said:

What would have happened if the players decided to claim their rights to all try a roll of any knowledge each time?

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First off, congrats on finally playing a 5e game at the table Sounds like you all had a fun time! Also good that your players embraced the archetypes they choose to play and naturally avoided pile-on checks.

The issue of pile-on checks is addressed in 2 different ways in the RAW 5e rules:

1. The DM can use a passive skill score (e.g. passive Perception). Passive knowledge scores could replace active knowledge checks in most situations of "what do I know about ____?" or "what can I recall about ____?" You could reserve active knowledge checks for when a player asks a specific question that shows they are engaged and references the fiction; in other words, for those times that don't represent an average result of a repetitive task. Thus, any times when a player says "Oh, I make a ____ Knowledge check too!" you would simply check their corresponding passive skill score.

[SBLOCK=Excerpt on passive skills from Basic D&D]A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn’t involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.[/SBLOCK]

2. The DM can call for a group skill check, representing a situation where the PCs are pooling their minds and going over the lore together, which fits many pile-on knowledge check scenarios. If half or more succeed the DC, then they learn what they wanted. Whereas if less than half succeed, they don't learn what they wanted.

2a. An option that requires a bit more DM adjudication is situations where one PC Helps another PC on the knowledge check.

So those are your official options under the rules. What follows below is house-ruled DM trickery...

A trick that I personally use to make Knowledge checks more meaningful and pertinent (and curtail pile-on checks) is to include in my answer a bit about how, where, or from whom the PC acquired the knowledge. Low knowledge checks might present uncertain rumors, reiterate knowledge the group already knows, or even present misinformation as truth (on a really bad result); however, low knowledge checks also have negative connotation for how that particular PC came by their knowledge.

For example, a PC wanted to make an Intelligence (criminal lore) check to recall information on a smuggler that might give the PCs a foot up in a deal. I let the player know in advance that a low roll would have added complications. They rolled really low, IIRC a natural 1. I presented a very succinct synopsis of the NPC, not giving away any secrets, but then I also introduced a twist: that the PC was indebted to the NPC smuggler after losing a card game (I totally ad-libbed this).

I've found giving Knowledge checks consequences on low rolls (like most other skill checks) is a terrific way to discourage pile-on skill checks, but even more than that it adds an extra layer of depth to the game and improvisation to the game that's all around fun

delericho said:

Well, it sounds like you don't have an actual problem (just a theoretical one), so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

However, if it does become an issue, I would be inclined to suggest the following:

- If one character is proficient and no others are, then have the check be done by the proficient character - they're assumed to be the best-placed to answer the question (having been trained), so they make the check.

- If two characters are proficient, have the one with the lower bonus make a roll to provide advantage, and then have the one with the higher bonus make the 'final' roll. Effectively, one character aids the other with the task.

- If more than two characters are proficient, have them each make an individual roll. They'll almost certainly succeed... but then they are a collective of experts, so that's not really a problem.

- If none of the characters are proficient, have the one with the best bonus (only) make the check untrained. This doesn't give them a very good chance of success, but that's about right anyway.

Naturally, none of that is supported by the rules. But as a table convention, it seems pretty good - and it gives the one proficient character spotlight protection while not making a task outright impossible if nobody is proficient.

Click to expand...

That's kinda how I do it.

In my game, there are 3 "roles" in checks.

ROLLER: Rollers roll the number to be the DC.

HELPER: Helpers roll to provide advantage to the check. Helpers must be proficient in the skill or tool.

DROPPERS: Droppers roll another skill to lower the DC of the check Droppers must be proficient in both skills or 11+ Intelligence and proficiency in the second skill.

IE:

Group Rolls Religion

Rollers roll vs the DC.
A helper with Religion helps for advantage
The dropper with Religion and Nature rolls to drop the DC by 5.

Group checks with half succeeding meaning success are a bit wonky - in those situations, the more skilled character has a better chance without help.

In cases of, say, climbing or sneaking, that works fine. The skilled characters are helping the non-skilled ones, and the non-skilled ones might still give them away or fail to climb something. In knowledge checks, though, it's not quite as elegant; I guess it could mean that the expert becomes confused by the nonsense his friends are speaking.