D&D 5E Reliable Talent. What the what?

[Ovinomancer]

I have no idea what you mean by picking skills with reliable talent. last i checked reliable talent applies to any proficient check. Last i checked, expertise applies to up to four of your skill/tool proficiencies whether they came from race, class, background or whatever - so not all of a rogue's proficiencied checks are going to be expertise.

Absolutely right, my bad, I forgot it applied to all proficient checks. However...

So...

With attribute bonus of 5 and proficiency of +4 at 11th we have the following results:
Moderate/Medium DC15 = automatic with both proficient and expertise.
Hard DC20 = Roll for proficient checks and automatic for expertise checks.
Very hard DC25 = Roll for both proficient checks and expertise checks.

With attribute bonus of +5 and prof bonus +5 at level 13 (same time as 7th level spells unlocked)
lowing results:
Moderate/Medium DC15 = automatic with both proficient and expertise.
Hard DC20 = automatic with both proficient and expertise.
Very Hard DC25 = Roll for proficient checks and automatic for expertise checks.

This is exactly what I said when I countered your claim of only easy checks being bypass earlier, so I'm not sure who you're lecturing here, with my own points....

opposed checks for all cases are against a floating Dc so not as rigid a thing.

As for trivial effort blah blah...

in early DnD editions the idea was not everything had to be shown in a PHB or even books.

But some folks did not think thru.

So you had more than a few games where they had traditional castles as stronghold without magic as high level party objectives and suddenly **OMG** teleport breaks castles etc etc etc.

Rougue or any other 12th level PC decides to go knock over locals for loot, you can choose to handle it as a downtime activity, give them relatively reasonable for their level and time loot **or** you can decide it breaks your game because you put a lot of loot out there with no guards or wards to protect it against foes that would be out to get it. or somewthing in between.

The game rules, the rogue stats, telport, raise dead, open locks, fly, etc etc etc - all those various "not what one might normally see in a non-magic world - stuff do not tell you to in your setting put in "more gold than we are paying for defenses to protect."

if you as Gm cannot build a setting that keeps your characters from breaking your setting, 12th level rogue skill rolls are not going to be on your top ten huge honkin' problems list, IMX. Look at stuff that comes after 12... if lockpicking is your fret point for 12th level.

How about, banks pay for protection wards... so all their locks are "magic locks" and special alarms go off and they have paid some group somewhere to respond when a mage or rogue or other character gets antsy?

Course... if this small town bank has enough gold to make it worth a rogue 12 time AND its basically open season, why hasn't a red dragon flown in, levelled the place and taken the gold? or .... insert any number of bad guys...

But its your game so have fun... i realzied that challenges of type X would become obsolete as campaign progress and the setting de jour, PC objectives and challenges need to address that a decade or so before the "definition of is" was a thing.

As some others have suggested, maybe restart a campaign at 10 if you want those things to be tough.

its up to you

Well, that rambled. And, if you note, one of my major issues isn't that it makes things obsolete, it's that it does so dramatically and suddenly. There's no ramp, it's a cliff of one day things are still a challenge, the next they aren't. A level 11 rogue can't knock over a small town -- odds are they'll fail a check at some point. The level 12 rogue can. It's a strange place to put a major demarcation in expected skill. No one would really have a problem with it if is ramped in, as, say, a 10th level rogue could knock over a town with a very high chance of success and by 12th it's guaranteed.

As for maligning my ability to design a campaign, maybe you missed the fact that I pointed out simply barring doors, instead of expensive locks, mostly defeats the 12th level rogue's ability to wantonly loot. Again, my problem isn't that the challenges shift, it's that it does so suddenly and a read over of the ability doesn't really clearly indicate the level of change that occurs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Stop stop stop.

Now you're treating the game like a world simulator. D&D doesn't support that - not even close.

What a ridiculous statement. I've heard it before, but just because you cannot perfectly simulate a world with D&D doesn't mean you can't simulate some level of a world with it. In fact, anything you do with the ruleset is simulating a world, even if it's only a world of 10' bare rooms, orcs, and pies.

Any time you even *think* about how much gold a town *actually* contains, you're... not doing it wrong per se, but you are certainly on your own.

The rules are NOT meant to simulate the challenge of robbing a town blind, and that a particular talent of a particular class let's you skip all the die rolls is not a bug.

It's not a feature either. It's simply not on the map.

You're probably right that a town would contain significant amounts of coin even for a level 12 party. But if your players want to exploit that, and you actually let them, you're playing a VERY non-standard game.

Hmm, I'd like some actual proof of this, rather than taking your word for it. Do you have some cites? A survey, perhaps? Or is this wind blowing from the south?

Whether they pull this off by murder-hoboing everyone, or by pick-pocketing everybody using Reliable Talent, or by spell, or by persuasion, or simply by murdering the mayor and then asking everyone to dump their wealth on the town square or the mayor's daughter is next to die...

...is of incredibly minor importance.

The thing to remember is that you're using the game outside it's supported parameters - you're on your own.

Which parameters of the game am I outside of, again? I looked in my DMG about worldbuilding, and didn't see anything that supports your view as standard. Pretty sure I'm fully within the guidance of the DMG.

And the game certainly isn't buggy just because it offers yet another way to gain this coin, or that this new way happens to not involve any die rolling.

Good thing I didn't say that it was. I said it was buggy because it makes a huge change in expectations very suddenly. An example of that was the looting a town -- looting the town was never the point. Let us not pretend that it was.

 

[FieserMoep]

A level 12 rogue can steal a village empty. Wow.
A level 12 fighter can kill that entire village and the militia that was send to check what actually happened there.
A level 12 wizard can make that village hand over their entire belongings and still be happy with that.

What is the difference? Yea, fighter and wizard roll and yet are pretty much assuredly successful. The rogue does not roll yet he upgrades the weakest element of gameplay, skill checks, to not fail him at easy tasks. That is what they will always do. Meanwhile the Fighter and Wizard "may" fail, yet they keep in upgrading where the fighter tackles the most insane kind of monster and the wizard literally breaks the world to his will.

 

[Ovinomancer]

A level 12 rogue can steal a village empty. Wow.
A level 12 fighter can kill that entire village and the militia that was send to check what actually happened there.

Maybe. Depends on how many villagers there are and how well they organize. If most flee or hide, sure.

The militia, probably not. A unit of 15 guards stiffened by a few veterans and a knight would put paid to a lone fighter, even of 12th level.

The long and short is that the fighter will still be dealing with bounded accuracy, and that's a bitch with lopsided numbers.

A level 12 wizard can make that village hand over their entire belongings and still be happy with that.

Well, he categorically can't. Doesn't have enough spell slots to even get 40 of them to do so, assuming they all fail their save. And, out of the 37 he can charm, that's probably 10 that make the saving throw. Plus, they'd all know who did it and be able to describe him to authorities in an hour.

What is the difference? Yea, fighter and wizard roll and yet are pretty much assuredly successful. The rogue does not roll yet he upgrades the weakest element of gameplay, skill checks, to not fail him at easy tasks. That is what they will always do. Meanwhile the Fighter and Wizard "may" fail, yet they keep in upgrading where the fighter tackles the most insane kind of monster and the wizard literally breaks the world to his will.

The difference is the rogue can actually do it almost guaranteed, and has spent no resources to do so. The fighter, even after killing the whole village, will be out some hitpoints. If the villagers realize they can grapple and shove, well, it'll be more than just hitpoint loss the fighter suffers.

Again, it's not huge, once you get your head around it, but it's a pretty sudden jump in expectations.

Actually, the rogue class encompasses almost all of my design problems. I hate the way they're faster than everyone but high level monks with the triple dash feature, I dislike how expertise breaks bounded accuracy assumptions, and I hate the way reliable talent comes out of nowhere at 12th and forces a complete redesign of things you use to challenge and spotlight the rogue character. Expertise extends everywhere, and is the cause of my almost.

 

[5ekyu]

Maybe. Depends on how many villagers there are and how well they organize. If most flee or hide, sure.

The militia, probably not. A unit of 15 guards stiffened by a few veterans and a knight would put paid to a lone fighter, even of 12th level.

The long and short is that the fighter will still be dealing with bounded accuracy, and that's a bitch with lopsided numbers.


Well, he categorically can't. Doesn't have enough spell slots to even get 40 of them to do so, assuming they all fail their save. And, out of the 37 he can charm, that's probably 10 that make the saving throw. Plus, they'd all know who did it and be able to describe him to authorities in an hour.


The difference is the rogue can actually do it almost guaranteed, and has spent no resources to do so. The fighter, even after killing the whole village, will be out some hitpoints. If the villagers realize they can grapple and shove, well, it'll be more than just hitpoint loss the fighter suffers.

Again, it's not huge, once you get your head around it, but it's a pretty sudden jump in expectations.

Actually, the rogue class encompasses almost all of my design problems. I hate the way they're faster than everyone but high level monks with the triple dash feature, I dislike how expertise breaks bounded accuracy assumptions, and I hate the way reliable talent comes out of nowhere at 12th and forces a complete redesign of things you use to challenge and spotlight the rogue character. Expertise extends everywhere, and is the cause of my almost.

Color me and likely others as not surprised you have a thing against rogue class itself.

But from my experience, it has not been the rogue that created most of the issues of concern in most any game i ran.

Lack of spells, moderately squishy, etc... Great multipurpose and sometime a good damage dealer or better, but not the headache guy.

But each GM runs different games so... Its all your butter pecan.

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

 

[Stalker0]

Ultimately your right that stealing from a village is trivial for a 12th level rogue.

The counterpoint is that it’s supposed to be. The challenges these characters face is simply greater than lower level counterparts.

This rogue steals from the king, or a grand merchant in the city of brass.

To your question of...where’s the drama? The answer is...the things he is doing are not meant to be dramatic at that point.

If your thief really wants to steal from every village and be an evil douche...ok. Give him his 100 gold or whatever makes sense and then get back to the real adventure. And at some point he’ll be notorious and a high level bounty hunter will be sent to get him...and then there will be actual 12th level drama.

 

[FieserMoep]

The solution killing that militia is using a bow. I know, many fighters frown on that, but just "spamming" arrows will thin the herd substantially.
If knights run around with your militia one might have to use his fighter features actually.
If you just "start" combat with standing in the middle of 15 guys alone - you are doing it wrong on so many levels.

As for the Wizard, Mass Suggestion is the key. And you don't even have to use it on everyone. Just the people that actually have a say in their family is enough more often than not.

And from there they just get better.

 

[Satyrn]

The solution killing that militia is using a bow. I know, many fighters frown on that, but just "spamming" arrows will thin the herd substantially.
If knights run around with your militia one might have to use his fighter features actually.
If you just "start" combat with standing in the middle of 15 guys alone - you are doing it wrong on so many levels.

As for the Wizard, Mass Suggestion is the key. And you don't even have to use it on everyone. Just the people that actually have a say in their family is enough more often than not.

And from there they just get better.

Even just creating an unseen servant inside the house to pass the loot out a window should work a lot of the time. Level 1 ritual.

 

[FieserMoep]

Even just creating an unseen servant inside the house to pass the loot out a window should work a lot of the time. Level 1 ritual.

Yea, magic users pretty much have an insane amount of options to steal a village dry without any real problem.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure it is, right there where it says the DM narrates the result of the check.

And so is taking 10, right next to where it say the DM can ask for a passive Skill check instead of a roll.

3rd Tier? Rogues? One of the most popular and versatile classes? Huh.

No, 3rd tier of the character’s adventuring career. 1st tier is 1st-4th level, 2nd-tier is 5th-10th level, 3rd tier is 11th-15th, and 4th tier is 16th-20th. These are notably the points when classes pick up major game-changing features like extra attacks, and the points where, if you analyze the experience table and the encounter building guidelines, you find significant slowdowns in level progression.

I get what you're saying, but 50/50 isn't reliable -- it's pretty much very far outside the definition of reliable. If your car start only half of the time when you turned the key, you wouldn't call that reliable. What it reliable is what the character can achieve every single time, and that goes from a DC 14 to a DC 23 in one fell swoop.

To put it another way, if you reliably expect a character to succeed at a task, why would you ask for a roll to begin with? Are you telling me that, before the rogue gets reliable talent, you'd assume automatic success at any DC 23 or less for their skills with expertise? I strongly doubt it, which is why this advice is bogus. If you ask for a roll, there needs to be a chance of failure. Designing your adventures with the idea that a 10+ roll is reliable is asking to witness a lot of unexpected failures.

I assume that rolls with a base 50% chance of success will probably be succeeded at, yes. Because players have lots of ways to improve on that base 50%. Bless, Bardic Inspiration, etc. plus 50% chance success rate is the sweet spot for getting the most value out of Advantage. And, again, passive checks are a thing.

I have many fixes, doesn't prevent me from noticing the problems.

You say that like Reliable Talent is a problem for most DMs. Yet, as you pointed out in the opening post, it made it through playtesting to be printed in the book. It never even occurred to me that it might be a problem because during up your chance of success on rolls with 50% or better odds without improving the maximum DC you can succeed at is pretty tame in my opinion, and a good chunk of the tasks that would potentially benefit from it wouldn’t even be rolled for at my table anyway. It seems like this is mostly a You problem, and like you’ve got a you solution, so at this point I’m not sure what we’re even still discussing.