D&D 5E Some thoughts on skills.

[M_Natas]

It has nothing to do with the "standard bonus" at first level because many people/creatures do ability checks that don't have "levels" or proficiency in a skill.

The DC 5 isn't "Very Easy" for 1st level PCs, it is very easy for every living creature.

Even if I agreed with your logic, should a 1st level PC not succeed at "very easy" task even 10% of the time??? IMO, no, certainly not.

A very easy task should only be failed if there is negative modifiers and likely disadvantage. Reducing the DC to 0 accomplishes that.

But that is the trivial part for. If it is trivial, if the PCs have no chance or only a minuscule chance, you don't let them roll at all. The DC Table in the DMG is for Task that have at least a 5% Chance of failure. That's how you need to read that chart. If it can fail, you use one of those DCs. If you think it is a task where the characters shouldn't fail, you don't make them roll for it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

1. Use 3d6 instead of 1d20.

Sure, lots of people have suggested this already, along with using 2d10 for a non-linear distribution with a slightly wider range.

1. Cap starting ability scores to 15 including racial/background modifiers.

For myself, even capping at 15 and allowing racial modifiers to bump it to 17 keeps the bonus at +3, so no +4 or +5 to start. Also, in my games when you get an ASI, you cannot apply +2 to one ability, just a +1. So, if you have a 16, you require 4 ASIs to bump it up to 20, which is at 16th level in most cases.

1. Location based Difficulties

Yeah, as soon as you claim "Lets take a look at the most succesful RPG Game out there: Pokemon" it is really difficult for me to take you seriously... I don't see how "location" should really have anything to do with it other than in-game reasons.

Anyway, sure, DC is always the same for a particular task, regardless of the PC level or ability. A DC 20 lock is very hard for a 1st level PC, but becomes easy for a 20th level PC.

1. Difficulties are tiered

If I am understanding you on this, it is already how most games are run. You gain levels, adventures get harder. However, again, location doesn't really come into consideration other than in-game reasons...

But that is the trivial part for. If it is trivial, if the PCs have no chance or only a minuscule chance, you don't let them roll at all. The DC Table in the DMG is for Task that have at least a 5% Chance of failure. That's how you need to read that chart. If it can fail, you use one of those DCs. If you think it is a task where the characters shouldn't fail, you don't make them roll for it.

Trivial is just a synonym for Very Easy.

Again, you're focused on PCs. The in-game world has lots of other creatures who will attempt to do things other than PCs.

Anyway, you have PCs roll only when there is a significant cost for failure and success is in doubt (they have a chance of succeeding or failing). So, yeah, I know how to read the chart. I just don't agree with the labels corresponding to the DCs and the probabilities they represent.

The funny thing is, if you assume an average of +5 (which you are doing), you're just shifting the success to what I think they should be at +0.

 

[M_Natas]

Sure, lots of people have suggested this already, along with using 2d10 for a non-linear distribution with a slightly wider range.

And it is a fix for the "randomness" of D&D, where the roll of the d20 overshadows most abilities until like level 10 to 12 (without expertise) or maybe level 5 with expertise. But also, for a lot of players, the d20 is more fun, because it is more random. You don't have to build an optimal character to succeed, it is more up to the dice. The Characters are more heroic, because there is the possibility that they could succeed at everything, even if the chance is only 5%.
Both, 3d6/2d10 and 1d20 have its merits and disadvantages.

For myself, even capping at 15 and allowing racial modifiers to bump it to 17 keeps the bonus at +3, so no +4 or +5 to start. Also, in my games when you get an ASI, you cannot apply +2 to one ability, just a +1. So, if you have a 16, you require 4 ASIs to bump it up to 20, which is at 16th level in most cases.

That is fine, too. Your initial starting point is higher for the ability scores, but the rate of improvement is slower, so proficiency catches up and overtakes Abilities by like level 5.

Yeah, as soon as you claim "Lets take a look at the most succesful RPG Game out there: Pokemon" it is really difficult for me to take you seriously... I don't see how "location" should really have anything to do with it other than in-game reasons.

Location is a stand-in for Fixed DCs/CRs for everything in the game world. When I developed that system for the Games I run, it was more a way for the encounters:
In this area of the world, the encounters are more for level 1 characters. If they go to this area, they are more likley to have encounters that are hard for level 4 characters and so on. There can always be exceptions, of course. But in general, this way, I populate my world with areas that are safe or unsafe for certain character levels (and NPCs), the same way Pokemon does. And I know, a lot of people look down on pokemon, but from a game design perspective, they are doing a lot of thins right especially in the way game progression feels. Pokemon Games give you a sense of progression that just works (at least the iterations I played) and that give the players of the game a sense that they have a control over the progression.
This also applies to other challenges. The DC for picking the rusty lock of the old Barn will always be 5 (unless ingame reasons replace the rust lock with a new fancy lock or something), for NPCs, for Player-Characters ect.pp. - the DC for picking the lock of the unbreakable vault will always be 30. So a location in this sense could be the old abandoned farm, where the Encounters are for Level 1, but also the DCs for Checks are generally low (there can always be exceptions), while the other location is the unbreakable Bank, with their unbreakable vault, where a fight would be balanced for a Level 12 party and picking that locks would have high DCs.
A location based difficulty setting can be applied on the macro level (this region is for low level adventures and this region is for higher level adventures) but also on the micro level (don't break into the unbreakable Bank at Level 1 and you will be bored at the abandoned farm at level 12).

Anyway, sure, DC is always the same for a particular task, regardless of the PC level or ability. A DC 20 lock is very hard for a 1st level PC, but becomes easy for a 20th level PC.

Yes, for a specific task the DC should be the same. To pick the lock at the unbreakable vault you need to be a DC 30, to pick the lock at the barn you need to beat DC 5. Thats what you need for a world that feels realistic but also a world in where the characters can grow. This is in contrast to a DM who adjusts the DCs to the player abilities ( my exaggerated example). The Adjuster DM will increase the DC of the Barn Lock to 20, because the party is level 10. He will decrease the DC of the Unbreakable Vault-Lock to 10, because the party is level 1. That's the opposite extreme of my "location based difficulty setting".

If I am understanding you on this, it is already how most games are run. You gain levels, adventures get harder. However, again, location doesn't really come into consideration other than in-game reasons...

No ... the opposite. You reach the minimum level requirement for a region to be able to survive there, you go there (Players can of course choose to go there before there are strong enough, they just then die). The longer they survive in that region, the stronger they become, the easier that region becomes. When it gets too easy, they can go to a new region with harder challenges and it starts anew.
This is of course a simplification of the game process.
Ingame it looks more like this:

"Okay, we destroyed the Orc-Bandit-Camp in the Easywood-Forest, the pitiful rest of orcs that roam this region are no danger to the towns or armed travelers anymore. I think we learned enough and are now strong enough to look at that Undead-Problem in the Hardwood-Forest."
"Couldn't we go the Mountains of Certain Doom to collect the Reward for the ancient Dragon?"
"Only if you want to die ..."

And of course, that are all in-game-reasons. All DCs and Challenge ratings should have ingame-reasons. But when you create your world, your setting, your adventure for the players, you are creating the ingame-reasons.
And the normal way to create an adventure is, if you follow the DMG:
Oh, my level is level 3, so lets put them against an encounter that is a medium encounter for a level 3 party.
Oh, my Players have this und that skills, so I should set the DCs accordingly.

My way is:
This area/location is survivable for Level 1 characters, that for level 3 characters and so on, so I can plan in advance the progress of the game. Its like when you build a megadungeon with 20 Levels and every level is set to challenge a party of the same level. And if the party gains quicker levels, the lower Dungeonlevels get easier and become trivial after a while.
You just build the world as a megadungeon.

Trivial is just a synonym for Very Easy.

Again, you're focused on PCs. The in-game world has lots of other creatures who will attempt to do things other than PCs.

Anyway, you have PCs roll only when there is a significant cost for failure and success is in doubt (they have a chance of succeeding or failing). So, yeah, I know how to read the chart. I just don't agree with the labels corresponding to the DCs and the probabilities they represent.

Then change the label.

The funny thing is, if you assume an average of +5 (which you are doing), you're just shifting the success to what I think they should be at +0.

But only for skilled characters. Skilled characters don't fail at very easy tasks. Only unskilled characters do. Like the guy who can't cook and burned the breakfast ceral.

 

[Minigiant]

But that is the trivial part for. If it is trivial, if the PCs have no chance or only a minuscule chance, you don't let them roll at all. The DC Table in the DMG is for Task that have at least a 5% Chance of failure. That's how you need to read that chart. If it can fail, you use one of those DCs. If you think it is a task where the characters shouldn't fail, you don't make them roll for it.

Personally biases pluss mechanics not matching personal, realistic, and fantastic expectations is the biggest issue with Skill in all RPG.

 

[ph0rk]

What do you mean? It is much easier to get in a short rest than a long rest...

It is also easy for a DM to ignore short rests more or less entirely, or for a short adventuring day to result in one large encounter.

The different rest resources and bizarre encounters per day guidelines just don’t work without a very proactive DM. That’s a system flaw.

 

[tetrasodium]

Easy hard & nearly impossible are relative terms. They only begin to verge into objective terms when you start defining externalities like eho/what is doing the easy hard or nearly impossible task and how they are doing it. The 5e skills ladder do not align with reality there because it's trying to model an objective measure like horsepower torque in pounds C BTU and so on before 5e itself blames the gm if the bad design fails when implemented.

Atevel one a pc is going to range from the lowest of 2d20 -1 to the highest of 2d20+7. Easy is going to be something like 5 because then proficiency an attribute bonus or advantage can make it an easy roll. That works at level one because the PCs are still basically barely competent nobodies dealing with things appropriate for barely competent nobodies.

At level five nine twelve or whatever though PCs are grown past being nuggets into trained seasoned veteran or whatever adventurers and are going around dealing with things appropriate for trained seasoned veteran or whatever adventurers. The floor is still worst of 2d20 - 1 but the ceiling is a much higher valuedemonztrating for the fact that they are no longer dealing with a rusty lock on I flimsy bar door in the way of. Problems that are barely competent at being problems.

 

[billd91]

I found this strange too. @Weiley31, what is the appeal of PF1 over 3.5 here? They combined some skills down, made some class changes to offer more skill points and changed providing extra ranks at level 1 over to providing a +3 bonus to class skills, along with removing the (admittedly obnoxious) cross-class skill penalty, but the guts of the system seem very much the same.

I just wanted to point out that the PF1 changes to the skill system ARE pretty significant improvements even if the basic guts of the system are largely the same. I too would very much prefer the PF1 skills over 3e versions if I were to go back and play a member of the 3e family of D&D games.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One of the issues regarding skills which will always be an issue no matter how the numbers are moved around is the fact that for a large number of players... the numbers are not important. What is important is the drama and narrative of the game and all skills do is potentially change how the drama and narrative resolve.

Some people ask why Level 15 parties should potentially get stuck behind a locked door, and whether locks should become "more difficult" to open as you get higher in levels, or whether all lock DCs should remain static and that means locked doors are just not a thing for Level 15 parties to deal with, etc. etc. etc. To a large number of us... that's missing the point.

If there's a locked door in front of a Level 15 party... what is the reason why they are behind a locked door? What's the drama that this locked door is presenting to the group? What's the story that this group finds themselves in and what does not getting past this blocked passage do for the story? The DM has put this blocked passage in front of the group for a reason-- what IS that reason, and why does it matter the group might not be able to get past it?

That kind of drama and narrative occurs at all levels of play. There is movement, or information, or obstacles that prohibit or re-route forward movement of the party towards their goals. And so the question is WHY does the DM wish to re-route the party away from their goals, what does that change DO for the drama and story the group is playing out, and just how important is it that the group just not accomplish their goals straight away and instead HAVE to get re-routed?

And a big answer to all of these question is "Throw up skill checks that can be failed so that the group cannot just succeed in everything they do, regardless of their level."

Which means that having "set DCs" or "maxing out your skills" are not anything that should be cared about or done... because they run completely counter to drama and story. There is no drama or story in a DM putting a locked door in the path of the Level 15 party with the lock being the same set DC as it's always been, because it's no longer accomplishing anything. The party picks the lock and they move on. Okay. So what was the point of having it? Same with a 5' pit trap in front of the party-- at their level they all can easily step over it with no risk of falling in... so what was the point of putting it there in the first place?

Or if you are a player that tries to "max out Perception"... you basically are telling the DM that you as a player (and thus as a group) have no desire to every experience the drama or narrative of being taken by surprise. Oooooooookay? If that really matters to you... then... fine? But from my perspective, losing that important part of drama and story-- shock-- makes the game a lot less interesting or compelling. Why does avoiding being surprised matter that much that you will do everything you can to make sure it doesn't happen? That's like the party that has to make sure every PC has Darkvision, so they never have to have light sources and thus can see all the creatures out there in the dark. Yeah, it can be done... but why is the removal of that avenue of drama so important to you?

And that's the thing about skills... they really aren't there to make sure you always "win" rolls. They are there to vary up the different story-beats you will experience as part of playing the game. Sometimes you will make Arcana checks and get some info to use... sometimes you won't make Arcana checks and not get that info. Sometimes you will make an Insight check and get a sense of whether this stranger is trying to pull a fast one on you... and sometimes you won't make the Insight check and thus you'll have to make choices based on incomplete information (with all the positives and negatives that drama gives out.)

Long story short... trying to just gamify any skill system so that it's just not anything more than charts of numbers to have and charts of numbers to roll against misses the forest through the trees.

OK, the existence of a PC with a very high Perception, what is that telling you? It is telling you that the player is signaling something. They want to engage successfully in tasks that relate to this skill! In other words "I'm perceptive, I'll max Perception." The upshot is, you should, generally, not fail checks involving this skill, and the GM should not simply jack up the DC such that this is a possibility. I mean, OK, there COULD be a case where the character failing to perceive something adds drama, the Owlbear is so stealthy it even surprised Jorgenson! There might not even BE a perception check involved in that case, it may simply be color used to explain some other mechanical outcome.

So, I agree with your thesis, at least in a sense. The relative levels of potency of various characters in various situations is more a measure of the sort of dramatic outcomes that are being signaled. Its NOT an attempt to simulate something! It is interesting to note that games like Dungeon World don't have DCs either, nor even 'difficulty'. There is an ability bonus, so the wizard sure does better on INT based checks, but what the game does is make sure that everything is basically in that dramatic sweet spot, you may be the greatest maze runner of all time, but there will SOMETHING that will trip you up, and there's no such thing as PCs that never have to make risky checks!

 

[Pedantic]

OK, the existence of a PC with a very high Perception, what is that telling you? It is telling you that the player is signaling something. They want to engage successfully in tasks that relate to this skill! [....] I agree with your thesis, at least in a sense. The relative levels of potency of various characters in various situations is more a measure of the sort of dramatic outcomes that are being signaled. Its NOT an attempt to simulate something!

I largely agree with you, which is unusual for me, right up until that bolded section. I think players are making ludic, not dramatic choices here, bit the difference is pretty small. They aren't suggesting they want Perception to drive conflict, they're suggesting they feel not making perception checks is a significant weakness and that is worth weakness in other areas to succeed at such checks.

A proactive skill like climb might be a better example. Investment there suggests the player expects they'll be able to resolve situations by coming up with solutions that leverage their ability to scuttle up walls. That player will be looking for vantage points to attack from, unguarded side walls to break in through and so on.

But that's a function of the choice of investment, not a question of resolution. Resolution is where that simulation comes in. They've picked which rules they can bring to bear to change situations, and it's only fair therafter to let them use those rules.

 

[CreamCloud0]

OK, the existence of a PC with a very high Perception, what is that telling you? It is telling you that the player is signaling something. They want to engage successfully in tasks that relate to this skill! In other words "I'm perceptive, I'll max Perception." The upshot is, you should, generally, not fail checks involving this skill, and the GM should not simply jack up the DC such that this is a possibility. I mean, OK, there COULD be a case where the character failing to perceive something adds drama, the Owlbear is so stealthy it even surprised Jorgenson! There might not even BE a perception check involved in that case, it may simply be color used to explain some other mechanical outcome.

additionally/alternately you could take the angle of "this is a really stealthy owlbear, only jorgenson with their super-perception abilites gets to roll to possibly detect it", even if it's a super high check, even if they fail the mere fact itself that they're the only one who gets a chance to make the check tells them that their skill investment is paying off: the others didn't even have the chance.