D&D 5E Status of skills/tools and expected changes

[The Crimson Binome]

As I see it, the DC is the arbitrary decision. Who decides what the DC of the lock is? That would be me. Is it a DC 14, 16 or 20-something? Erm. It's fancy, ok? Roll DEX.

I think I get where you're going with this. Instead of the DM going around and detailing an objective world where you have to know the DC of every lock beforehand, you just figure out the broad strokes of whether a lock is easy (anyone with the skill can get past) or hard (not everyone with the skill can get past it). The lock doesn't have an objective DC until you roll.

It's almost like, instead of the lock having a DC and then you roll to see how well you pick it, the character has a static skill rating and the roll is to see if the lock is easy enough for that skill rating to be sufficient. If you go at it like that, then of course there's no way you could get past it unless your bonus improves!

Not my cup of tea, but I see the appeal.

 

[Mistwell]

It's a heck of a lot easier to open a lock with a lock pick set in an hour, than it is to open that same lock in 6 seconds. Take 20 accounts for that "no time pressure at all" factor. Because there is no random luck with a hour to pick a lock, unlike in a 6 second one.

 

[Ruzak]

To my thinking the die roll represents luck beyond the quality of that try. It also includes how well your particular way of approaching this task overlaps with the specifics of the task. Maybe this is a relatively easy lock (low DC) but you are unfamiliar with this type of lock (low roll). Or maybe it is a hard lock, but you just happen to be very familiar with it. These things don't change on subsequent tries, and so are not well modeled by Take20.

 

[Mistwell]

To my thinking the die roll represents luck beyond the quality of that try. It also includes how well your particular way of approaching this task overlaps with the specifics of the task. Maybe this is a relatively easy lock (low DC) but you are unfamiliar with this type of lock (low roll). Or maybe it is a hard lock, but you just happen to be very familiar with it. These things don't change on subsequent tries, and so are not well modeled by Take20.

Do you give a massive circumstance bonus for the hour worth of time versus the 6 seconds?

 

[Li Shenron]

Take 20 is just a tool to prevent the DM from needing to arbitrarily decide whether a task is something that would be reasonable for a given PC

The way I see it, Take20 forces the DM to arbitrarily decide whether the given PC will succeed or will fail at a task.

If the DM chooses the DC but a check is required, it means the DM is arbitrarily deciding the probabilities.

If the DM chooses the DC and the PC can Take20, it means the DM is arbitrarily deciding the outcome itself.

Occasionally, the DM might really want to do that, and that's why some tasks don't require a check at all. But when Take20 is applicable, the DM does not have the option to make the outcome of the task uncertain. That's in a nutshell why I don't like Take20.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The way I see it, Take20 forces the DM to arbitrarily decide whether the given PC will succeed or will fail at a task.

Honestly, if there's no penalty for failure - if there's zero chance of setting off a trap, or jamming the lock, or if it doesn't take four hours for each attempt - then why do you really care whether they succeed or fail? It must be a pretty boring task, whatever it is.

Not that it's arbitrary in any case. Personally, I would just play it honestly - when you go to determine the DC, try to forget what their bonus is to the relevant skill. It's meta-game knowledge anyway; the relative skill of the adventurer is not information that could be possessed by the DM, in the capacity of either "all laws of physics in the universe" or "every NPC in the world".

 

[Li Shenron]

Honestly, if there's no penalty for failure - if there's zero chance of setting off a trap, or jamming the lock, or if it doesn't take four hours for each attempt - then why do you really care whether they succeed or fail? It must be a pretty boring task, whatever it is.

Because "no penalty for failure" does not mean "no benefit for success".

If I put a locked door in a dungeon, it's because succeeding at opening it gives a benefit: you discover a shortcut that spares you some time, you can skip past a dangerous encounter (or a combat that will cost some resource), you find a extra treasure or a useful item, you open a route to a beneficial position (e.g. get behind the enemies), etc.

 

[Ruzak]

Do you give a massive circumstance bonus for the hour worth of time versus the 6 seconds?

Sure. We used to use d8 + d12 for skills, and you could Take8, but still roll the d12. Li Shenron suggested 10+d10 earlier, which is about the same. The point being there is still some randomness involved in or out of combat.

 

[Ruzak]

It doesn't really because "Taking 20" is defined in the rules as attempting something over and over again 20 times.

That last line should say:
DM: "Excellent. You make a pie, then you decide it isn't perfect and throw it in the garbage. Then you bake another one and it isn't perfect either. You throw it in the garbage. After 20 tries, you finally make one you think is perfect."...

The analogous task we actually encounter in games is climbing a wall under ten feet. Sure you can try twenty times, but the idea of falling over and over again (without damage) strikes me as a little silly, even if possibly realistic.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I think I get where you're going with this. Instead of the DM going around and detailing an objective world where you have to know the DC of every lock beforehand, you just figure out the broad strokes of whether a lock is easy (anyone with the skill can get past) or hard (not everyone with the skill can get past it). The lock doesn't have an objective DC until you roll.

I wouldn't say there isn't a DC beforehand as much as there isn't one until moments before the roll, and I tend to stick to a handful of DCs (Easy/Average/Hard) for most things.

I don't write out adventures or run modules, I have at most some notes, a head full of ideas, and perhaps a segment or two of a dungeon nicked from some old module (if I foresee some delving). I can see how Take 20 could feel less arbitrary if you're running an adventure path or a pre-made sandbox, where everything is pre-set and "out of the hands" of the DM, but otherwise it just strikes me like an obfuscation of what is essentially arbitrary DM decisions.

If one is going to be making judgment calls about what the PCs can or can not do, one should own it and not hide behind DCs.

It's almost like, instead of the lock having a DC and then you roll to see how well you pick it, the character has a static skill rating and the roll is to see if the lock is easy enough for that skill rating to be sufficient. If you go at it like that, then of course there's no way you could get past it unless your bonus improves!

Not my cup of tea, but I see the appeal.

I don't think of it like that, but close enough--functionally it's the same. The die roll isn't the randomness of the character, or the action, but the randomness of the universe in which the action takes place.