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

[The Crimson Binome]

This makes no sense. If the rogue doesn't want the door opened, why would s/he open it?

Why would the rogue not open the door, unless it's because they didn't want to go through?

This doesn't make sense either. The players have game pieces, called PCs, which are able to interact with the gameworld in some ways but not others (eg their combat abilities are exquisitely detailed; their abilities in music and pastry making not so much).

The players have characters, which they play as, who have different ability sets that describe their capacity to interact with their world. The point of playing an RPG is to see what those characters do, and what happens to them as a result of their choices within the world.

If the game is going to proceed, the GM needs to present ingame situations that engage those capacities of the PCs. This happens every time the GM says "roll initiative!" I don't see how that has any beariing on whether the players succeed or fail.

If the game is going to proceed, then the GM needs to play the world as a real place, such that the choices of the players and their characters have meaning. If the GM decides that there should be more powerful monsters in order to challenge a strong fighter, or particularly complicated locks in order to challenge the expert thief, then the fact that the fighter is strong or the thief is skilled would be meaningless, because the GM already decided that they will have (for example) an 80% chance of success.

If the GM is going to contrive obstacles based on the capacity of the PCs to overcome those obstacles, then there's no point in the fighter being the best fighter that they can be, because that causally increases the power of their opposition. There's no reason for them to hit the gym and raise their Strength, or find the best magical sword they can, because being competent may well decrease their chance of success. Which is ridiculous, of course, but if that's the way their world actually works - if there really is some malevolent Power conspiring to make their life interesting - then they would be insane to believe otherwise.

Most people don't want to roleplay in a world that actually works that way, though. They don't want to play a lazy fighter who throws away every magical sword they come across because they know that all magical swords attract strong monsters. And they don't want to pretend the world doesn't work the way that it does, because that would necessitate a perpetual cognitive bias on top of the standard roleplaying bias! Most people don't want to ask what their character would do, if their character wasn't under a massive delusion about the futility of their actions! Most people want to roleplay in a world where the gods aren't specifically out to mess with them, and where they can make choices with reasonable certainty about how those choices will affect their success later on!

When you suggest contriving opposition based on the capability of the party, you damage the integrity of GMs everywhere. Players shouldn't have to worry that the DM is arbitrarily changing the DC of a check based on how they build their character, such that every choice they make is pointless. But if they come here and read this thread, then they will see you saying that a good GM should act this way, and then they'll grow distrustful of every GM they ever play with!

 

[pemerton]

Why would the rogue not open the door, unless it's because they didn't want to go through?

But once the door is opened, the rogue might change his/her mind. I see this sort of thing happen all the time in my RPGing, and I read reports of it also.

The most common version it seems to take online is this: player A would prefer to talk to NPC X rather than attack; but player B declares that his/her PC attacks X; at which point player A, however reluctantly, joins in the fight.

The same thing can happen when the fighter opens a door (by picking it's lock) which the rogue would rather keep shut.

The general principle is that, at least in my experience, the direction that play takes is a relatively unpredictable result of complex interactions between what players have their PCs do, or suggest that their PCs might do. One factor in those interactions is the judgement of other players as to how seriously to take some of those suggestions. Another is the success of actual attempts.

A fighter PC having a +19 bonus to pick locks is relevant to both of the factors just mentioned. It gives the player of that character a capacity to influence the direction of play in ways that otherwise s/he would not enjoy.

(Personally, picking locks is rarely part of my D&D games; and in my Burning Wheel game, where it has been surpringly significant, only one PC has the ability; and so this particular example hasn't come up. I'm extrapolating from other abilities, such as the ability to manipulate magical effects, to persuade people, etc, which have demonstrated this same dynamic in my games: the fact that one player is clearly the best doesn't make the abilities of others irrelevant, because they are able to use those abilities to shape the direction of play by expanding the range of feasible action for their PCs.)

 

[pemerton]

The players have characters, which they play as, who have different ability sets that describe their capacity to interact with their world. The point of playing an RPG is to see what those characters do, and what happens to them as a result of their choices within the world.

If the game is going to proceed, then the GM needs to play the world as a real place, such that the choices of the players and their characters have meaning. If the GM decides that there should be more powerful monsters in order to challenge a strong fighter, or particularly complicated locks in order to challenge the expert thief, then the fact that the fighter is strong or the thief is skilled would be meaningless, because the GM already decided that they will have (for example) an 80% chance of success.

If the GM is going to contrive obstacles based on the capacity of the PCs to overcome those obstacles, then there's no point in the fighter being the best fighter that they can be, because that causally increases the power of their opposition.

This seems a very shallow conception of what it means to engage the fiction of the game.

I will illustrate with examples from my two 4e campaigns.

In one, the PCs are demigods (or the equivalent thereof) who are fighting (both figuratively and literally) to show that the Dusk War is not at hand, and that the demands of the Primordials and the Gods can both be answered without the need for a conflict that would destroy the mortal world.

In the other, the PCs are rather insignificant actors (some gladiators, some envoys from The Land Within the Wind, a thri-kreen) in the immediate aftermath of the revolution in Tyr.

Because of the way the system works, and the way I use the system as a GM in framing the situations in which the PCs find themselves, in both games the typical chance of success for an attempted action is between 50% and 75%. But that hardly means there is no significance in these fictional differences. It doesn't mean that it was meaningless for the first set of PCs to grow from local heroes to cosmically powerful beings. These events in the fiction have meaning. The mechanics aren't the source of that meaning; they're just a device for determining what happens when the players make choices about how their PCs engage the fictional situations with which they are confronted.

Most people don't want to roleplay in a world that actually works that way, though. They don't want to play a lazy fighter who throws away every magical sword they come across because they know that all magical swords attract strong monsters.

<snip>

Most people want to roleplay in a world where the gods aren't specifically out to mess with them, and where they can make choices with reasonable certainty about how those choices will affect their success later on!

Every D&D player knows that gaining levels means fighting tougher monsters. It says so right on the tin!

Eg AD&D PHB, p 7: "As players build the experience level of their characters and go forth seeking ever greater challenges, they must face stronger monsters and more difficult problems of other sorts". And 5e Basic PDF, p 10:

The shading in the Character Advancement table shows the four tiers of play. The tiers don’t have any rules associated
with them; they are a general description of how the play experience changes as characters gain levels.

In the first tier (levels 1–4), characters are effectively apprentice adventurers. . . . The threats they face are relatively minor, usually posing a danger to local farmsteads or villages.

In the second tier (levels 5–10), characters come into their own. . . . These characters have become important, facing dangers that
threaten cities and kingdoms. . . .

In the third tier (levels 11–16), characters have reached a level of power that sets them high above the ordinary populace and makes them special even among adventurers. . . . These mighty adventurers often confront threats to whole regions and continents. . . .

At the fourth tier (levels 17–20), characters achieve the pinnacle of their class features, becoming heroic (or villainous) archetypes in their own right. The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures.​

This makes it pretty clear that gaining levels means more and/or bigger kobolds. Doing the same if players build tougher-than-default PCs at a given level isn't changing anything about these fundamental dynamics of play.

When you suggest contriving opposition based on the capability of the party, you damage the integrity of GMs everywhere. Players shouldn't have to worry that the DM is arbitrarily changing the DC of a check based on how they build their character

I haven't suggested doing anything arbitrary or unpredictable.

And as far as the integrity of GMs is concerned, they're pretty resilient. I'm not going to corrupt them, I don't think.

 

[Mort]

This seems a very shallow conception of what it means to engage the fiction of the game.

I will illustrate with examples from my two 4e campaigns.

In one, the PCs are demigods (or the equivalent thereof) who are fighting (both figuratively and literally) to show that the Dusk War is not at hand, and that the demands of the Primordials and the Gods can both be answered without the need for a conflict that would destroy the mortal world.

In the other, the PCs are rather insignificant actors (some gladiators, some envoys from The Land Within the Wind, a thri-kreen) in the immediate aftermath of the revolution in Tyr.

Because of the way the system works, and the way I use the system as a GM in framing the situations in which the PCs find themselves, in both games the typical chance of success for an attempted action is between 50% and 75%. But that hardly means there is no significance in these fictional differences. It doesn't mean that it was meaningless for the first set of PCs to grow from local heroes to cosmically powerful beings...

Maybe not from a narrative /story perspective, but from a game perspective that is exactly what it means. If a character needs a 8-11 to succeed at most tasks at level one and the same 8-11 to succeed at most tasks at level 20, then mechanically how much have things actually changed?

Many adventure paths are designed exactly like this, with the PCs on a DC treadmill - and it annoys me to no end. A level 20 PC should not be as challenged by most tasks as a level 1 PC. Most tasks should succeed in a much lower roll, or be auto successes. It makes the rolls where the PC has to roll average or high actually meaningful (not every lock a high level pc faces should be a specially designed multiphasic adamantium lock).



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[schnee]

All of that is true, but it's the sort of reply that makes me think you didn't understand what I was saying....

Verisimilitude was exactly what I was advocating when I wrote, "When a DM doesn't have a consistent picture of how his world works..."

Yeah, it looks like we completely agree, and I misread something.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fair enough, but you shouldn't only be encountering monsters that are exactly equal to your level, any more than you should only encounter locks that are designed for a rogue of your level. For as long as you want to tie skill ranks to character level or hit dice, a moderately-stealthy character will be able to sneak past a low-level monster but not a high-level one, and that's something.

Yeah, but then you're left wondering why you bothered sneaking past a monster that isn't actually a threat to you, or why the bad guys bother using weak monsters as watchdogs when they can't see or hear for doughnuts.

You could also divorce skill ratings from level and hit dice entirely, of course. You could let that eyeball monster have Passive Perception 25 regardless of how well it fights, and let it auto-spot anyone with less than +5 to Stealth while anyone with Stealth +35 can ignore it entirely, and have level 1 characters with Stealth bonuses between +0 and +40. That's potentially workable, even if D&D has never gone that route in the past. Setting your skill ratings would be an important part of character generation, and you'd probably want a complicated point-buy system to encourage moderate scores, but you could do it.

Sure, if you want to go to that sort of length. That's a whole other level of complexity though, both in writing the system and then running the game.
Just unhooking monster skills from combat ability, and letting individuals focus on different skills is sufficient to get variation, while avoiding scenarios where the fireball that barely touches the guy who boosted combat stats obliterates the rest of the party, punishing them for being good at social skills.

But if you have the super rogue with +39 to the check, then what's the point of having the fighter with +17? The fighter will never get a chance to even attempt those DC 20 locks, because the rogue is there.

Is the rogue there? What makes you certain that the rogue is there? The rogue is somewhere else. The rogue is unconscious. The rogue is charmed. The rogue is poisoned. The rogue is already picking another lock or disarming a trap.
Most of my home games spend at least part of their time with the party split two or three ways, with each group getting into their own mischief and eventually re-uniting. The trick is to bend time so you're covering the 'interesting' bits all at the same time and you're switching between groups rapidly.

If you have a bunch of DC 20 locks, and one that's DC 40, then that's a good reason to bring a fighter who has +17 if you don't already have a rogue with +39.

It means that the party can move within the area easily... as long as the rogue is with them and free to do the job. It means that the rogue is leading the party. It means that if a high level monster jumps the party from behind, or the complex starts collapsing, then escape options might be limited. It means that people with lower skills can lock doors, and only monsters (and characters) with keys or skills are going to be able to get through. It means you can jam the locks. It means that the party's rate of movement is limited by how many lock pickers they have. Sure - if the rogue is there, those DC20 locks become handwaves, but only if he's there, and only from the point of view of 'the party proceed slowly through the complex'.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe not from a narrative /story perspective, but from a game perspective that is exactly what it means. If a character needs a 8-11 to succeed at most tasks at level one and the same 8-11 to succeed at most tasks at level 20, then mechanically how much have things actually changed?

Even from a game perspective what you say isn't true.

When I started playing 500, I had an even chance to beat another newbie and little chance to beat a good player unless the cards were very lucky. When I got better, I have a good chance to beat anothe newbie (only lose if the cards are very unlucky) and and even chance to beat another good player. Who did I prefer to play against? Other good players - because the game is more interesting.

Professional gameplayers, for whom the game is purely instrumental (eg a means to winning money) want games to be easy. The easier, the better. But for a hobby player, who plays the game as an end in itself (or perhaps as a sideshow to a social gathering) then interesting play is more important than easy play.

If you picked up the 30th level 4e PC sheets and tried to play them in our 4e game, I think your chance of success would be less than 50%, because you would not have the acquired skill to do it. This has been a feature of D&D going back to the original game - levelling leads to confronting tougher challenges, and puts more demands on players to beat them, but players develop the skills to meet those challenges through their experience of playing the game. To quote from p 7 of the AD&D PHB:

By successfully meeting the challenges posed, [the adventurers] gain experience and move upwards in power, just as actual playing experience really increases playing skill. Imagination, intelligence, problem solving ability, and memory are all continually exercised by participants in the game. . . .

As players build the experience level of their characters and go forth seeking ever greater challenges, they must face stronger monsters and more difficult problems of other sorts . . .​

The plauyer-side mechanics that ensure that constant chance of success in 4e play include increasing complex combinations of buffs and other mechanical-manipulation effects, plus a greater skill and familiarity with the increasingly high-stakes fiction. Getting better at that is a real feature in playing the game.

A level 20 PC should not be as challenged by most tasks as a level 1 PC.

That seems obvious. But the challenge of the tasks we bother talking about around the roleplaying table might be comparable.

I'm not going to waste time seeing if Hercules can beat a single hoplite. But I might spend time at the table finding out what happens when he meets a whole phalanx of them; and his chance of beating that phalanx, or turning them to become his loyal followers, might be comparable to the chance of a 1st level fighter beating a single hoplite, or persuading that single hoplite to stand down.

I don't play adventure paths and haven't read many adventure path scenarios, but to the extent that they don't escalate the fictional stakes in ways that make sense, that would be yet anohter reason that justifies the lack of attention I pay to them!

 

[Mort]

Even from a game perspective what you say isn't true

OK, but I don't see anything on the following paragraphs that supports such a definitive statement.

When I started playing 500, I had an even chance to beat another newbie and little chance to beat a good player unless the cards were very lucky. When I got better, I have a good chance to beat anothe newbie (only lose if the cards are very unlucky) and and even chance to beat another good player. Who did I prefer to play against? Other good players - because the game is more interesting.

What you seem to be getting at is the cards don't change, the player skill changes. That's of course true, but incomplete. In the type of card game you're referencing, chance (the cards), is only one element of the game play. The trick, is mastering the other elements so as to minimize the chance element.

In gaming, too many adventures (and people writing adventures, professionally or at home) just simply ramp up the numbers (thereby keeping the chance element constant) based on level of play, without sufficiently changing the other elements of the challenge. They change the locations, the names, maybe even the monsters but not enough to change the skill level needed to succeed. It is essentially the same game of cards played over with the cards in near identical order AND an opponent who does not change in skill or strategy.

Note, I'm in no way saying your adventures play out like that in any way. I'm saying published adventure paths seem to encourage this type of play. And the DC treadmill is part of that problem.

If you picked up the 30th level 4e PC sheets and tried to play them in our 4e game, I think your chance of success would be less than 50%, because you would not have the acquired skill to do it.

Is that a general "you" or me personally? I've played from low to high level in most versions of D&D, including 4e. I generally DM now, but hope my player skills haven't atrophied to the point of having less than a 50% shot.

This has been a feature of D&D going back to the original game - levelling leads to confronting tougher challenges, and puts more demands on players to beat them, but players develop the skills to meet those challenges through their experience of playing the game. To quote from p 7 of the AD&D PHB:

By successfully meeting the challenges posed, [the adventurers] gain experience and move upwards in power, just as actual playing experience really increases playing skill. Imagination, intelligence, problem solving ability, and memory are all continually exercised by participants in the game. . . .

As players build the experience level of their characters and go forth seeking ever greater challenges, they must face stronger monsters and more difficult problems of other sorts . . .​

The plauyer-side mechanics that ensure that constant chance of success in 4e play include increasing complex combinations of buffs and other mechanical-manipulation effects, plus a greater skill and familiarity with the increasingly high-stakes fiction. Getting better at that is a real feature in playing the game.

All true, but my whole point is simply ramping up DCs is far from enough to qualify for this. You need to change other elements of the game play to challenge the players. I don't think you disagree here, I actually think the point is a bit too basic for the level of discussion your addressing.

I'm not going to waste time seeing if Hercules can beat a single hoplite. But I might spend time at the table finding out what happens when he meets a whole phalanx of them; and his chance of beating that phalanx, or turning them to become his loyal followers, might be comparable to the chance of a 1st level fighter beating a single hoplite, or persuading that single hoplite to stand down.

That right there is the point. If the only difference between 1st, 10th and 30th level is the number of hoplites and if even circumstance needed to overcome them remains the same (roll 11 on a d20 for example) then the challenges are too similar and there's precious little point in even going up in level. For the level change to be meaningful, the scope and even nature of the challenge needs to change. There must be other elements to challenge players as they progress.



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[Psikerlord#]

I think to be fair the game starts to break around level 11.

Probably a good time for a restart.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION], thanks for the reply. I don't think we disagree as much as our back-and-forth might suggest, and so in this post I'm going to try and hone in on where I think the action is in our exchange.

Is that a general "you" or me personally? I've played from low to high level in most versions of D&D, including 4e. I generally DM now, but hope my player skills haven't atrophied to the point of having less than a 50% shot.

A bit of both. I think anyone coming to one of our game's high level PCs, who hasn't practised playing that character, would have trouble. (In include myself in that, and each of the players vis-a-vis the other's PCs. It can be as simple as having a good intuitive sense of the ranger's off-turn attacks, which is a matter of familiarity; or as complex as managing a very complex polearm fighter build with a range of AoE and forced movement options, plus various off-turn actions, and who switches between two weapons to trade off reach and damage. If one player is away and another player tries to play the missing player's PC from the sheet, that PC inevitably functions far below optimality. Especially that fighter, who is the most comp

In gaming, too many adventures (and people writing adventures, professionally or at home) just simply ramp up the numbers (thereby keeping the chance element constant) based on level of play, without sufficiently changing the other elements of the challenge.

<snip>

Note, I'm in no way saying your adventures play out like that in any way. I'm saying published adventure paths seem to encourage this type of play. And the DC treadmill is part of that problem.

<snip>

You need to change other elements of the game play to challenge the players.

<snip>

If the only difference between 1st, 10th and 30th level is the number of hoplites and if even circumstance needed to overcome them remains the same (roll 11 on a d20 for example) then the challenges are too similar and there's precious little point in even going up in level. For the level change to be meaningful, the scope and even nature of the challenge needs to change. There must be other elements to challenge players as they progress.

I don't think scaling up DCs is itself a part of a problem. Nor is it a solution to a problem. Obviously if DCs are higher, but bonuses are higher by the same amount, then resolution hasn't changed in mathematical terms. But that doesn't mean that scaling DCs is pointless. For instance, it can be a device for signalling challenge level - only PCs with a +7 rather than a +1 bonus have a real chance of success against the foes whose DC-to-defeat is (say) 20 rather than 14. This is one function of the scaling defences in 4e (5e tends to do it through scaling hit points and damage rather than scaling ACs, but I don't think that's very important at the level of abstraction we're working with).

If DCs aren't scaled - so that, as fiction escalates numbers don't - then you get a situation where at the start of the campaign you rolled with a +1 bonus to try and defeat the kobold, and at the end of the campaign you roll with a +1 bonus to try and defeat Tiamat - the maths haven't changed, but everyone knows that the meaning of the maths in the fiction has changed.

I don't know of any RPG that works quite like that (even HeroQuest revised, which of systems I'm familiar with comes closest to it, has some bonus and DC scaling) but there's no reason in principle that it couldn't work.

But anyway, one reason that play gets harder at higher levels in 4e or in AD&D is because the mechanical choices become more complex to make and manage. In AD&D this is mostly around spell load-outs and magic item use. In 4e this is the number, complexity and interaction of PC capabilities.

Another reason that play gets harder over the course of a campaign, though, is independent of numerical scaling or increases mechanical complexity. And this applies to Hercules vs a phalanx rather than a single hoplite. Engaging the fiction when what you are trying to do is recruit a phalanx, rather than just persuade a single hoplite to stand down, is harder. The situation is conceptually and narratively more complex.

In a system like Classic Traveller, where PC mechanics are largely static, this sort of increase in fictional complexity - the plots get more intricate, the stakes higher, the consequences of choices harder to predict and more dramatic when they occur - is the main way in which player skill improves and is manifested over the course of a campaign. (And this difference between Traveller and D&D was regularly noted in commentary back in the late 70s/early 80s.)

But this sort of increase in fictional complexity can accompany numerical scaling (this is how HeroQuest revised works) and/or increases in mechanical complexity (this is how AD&D works, and 4e has this as well as scaling). And it makes gaining levels matter, without any sense that one is being cheated because the game doesn't get easier to win at.