D&D 5E What do you do when players say "we go north" but their characters don't have the "Keen Mind" Feat or Navigation Equipment?

[schnee]

But, it does bring up a bigger trend I have noticed, DM's requiring skill checks for relatively mundane tasks. Not everything requires a skill check, but some DM's want players to roll for even the most mundane tasks.

Yeah, skill checks should be 'when there are strong immediate consequences to failure that matter in the plot'.

I'm lenient on them most of the time. I'd rather the characters feel like they can rely on them to do awesome stuff than have to check literally every time they do a thing.

 

[Hussar]

In europe, moss grows mostly on northern part of the tree/rocks.

At night you cannot miss the northern star if it is a clear sky.

Tree canopy grows little more to the south in northern hemisphere.

You can track shadow of a stick over 10-20 mins and determine the east-west direction and from that the north.


I would call a DC10 survival or nature check, whatever you have better.

Disadvantage if poor conditions.

The problem with DC 10 is that you have a pretty significant chance of failure. Even trained with a decent stat, you're looking at a 20% fail chance. That's a bit high, IMO, barring actual difficulties. DC 5 seems a lot more reasonable to me.

 

[Saeviomagy]

But, it does bring up a bigger trend I have noticed, DM's requiring skill checks for relatively mundane tasks. Not everything requires a skill check, but some DM's want players to roll for even the most mundane tasks.

It's a flaw of 5e. It has no room in the skill system for "things that are easy if you know what you are doing, but hard if you do not". The difference at 1-5th level between "best of the best (+5)" and "guy who literally knows nothing about this topic and is bad at this(-1)" is 6 sides of a d20. It only matters in 1/3 rolls.

Scenarios where the wilderness-dwelling hermit has troubles accomplishing simple things in the big city while his streetwise companion can pull them off in a snap is a pretty solid trope. But 5e forces the DM to deny the hermit a roll and hand the urchin an auto success to make that work. So why do we have a skill system again?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Scenarios where the wilderness-dwelling hermit has troubles accomplishing simple things in the big city while his streetwise companion can pull them off in a snap is a pretty solid trope. But 5e forces the DM to deny the hermit a roll and hand the urchin an auto success to make that work.

Deny the hermit a roll OR hand the urchin an auto success. You don't have to do both.

But you can if you feel that's what's appropriate.

So why do we have a skill system again?

To put another tool in the DM's toolbox.

If you want to make the tool more flexible, try shrinking the die without changing the modifiers. 1d6 vs 1d6+5 against a DC of 6 works way differently than 1d20 vs 1d20+5 against a DC of 15.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The problem with DC 10 is that you have a pretty significant chance of failure. Even trained with a decent stat, you're looking at a 20% fail chance. That's a bit high, IMO, barring actual difficulties. DC 5 seems a lot more reasonable to me.

Remember that for most such routine tasks there's no irreversible penalty for failure, and you can just try again. So I don't even think of it as "success" and "failure" so much as "you take a variable amount of time to succeed".

 

[Saeviomagy]

Deny the hermit a roll OR hand the urchin an auto success. You don't have to do both.

But you can if you feel that's what's appropriate.

Which is partly where my issue lies. The game is supposed to inform me as to character capabilities, but when it matters, I'm expected to completely ignore the game's mechanisms to make things work.

Like I said - it's a flaw.

To put another tool in the DM's toolbox.

The reason that a poor workman blames his tools is that a good workman doesn't use bad tools.

If you want to make the tool more flexible, try shrinking the die without changing the modifiers. 1d6 vs 1d6+5 against a DC of 6 works way differently than 1d20 vs 1d20+5 against a DC of 15.

Yes. It does. One would expect professional game designers to realize that.

Remember that for most such routine tasks there's no irreversible penalty for failure, and you can just try again. So I don't even think of it as "success" and "failure" so much as "you take a variable amount of time to succeed".

There's routine and there's routine-but-something-bad-happens-if-you-fail. Typically you don't bother to roll unless the latter is the case, such as when you can't afford for something to take longer than normal. In which case it's strange that characters don't reliably succeed at 'easy' tasks until they're level 9.

 

[BoldItalic]

Which is partly where my issue lies. The game is supposed to inform me as to character capabilities, but when it matters, I'm expected to completely ignore the game's mechanisms to make things work.

You are expected to make rulings. That includes deciding whether or not you want a particular player to make a roll at all. First ask yourself: if I call for a roll right now, does it make the game more fun? Does it heighten the tension? Does it reward the player's choice of skills? Is the player itching to roll some dice, because dice? Only call for a roll if there is a reason to.

 

[Horwath]

The problem with DC 10 is that you have a pretty significant chance of failure. Even trained with a decent stat, you're looking at a 20% fail chance. That's a bit high, IMO, barring actual difficulties. DC 5 seems a lot more reasonable to me.

That is why you use passive score for certain things or "taking 10" from older editions.

If there is not any nearby danger or poor conditions there is no reason that average person would not determing north every time in ideal conditions.

Or you could give advantage on the roll in same ideal conditions.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Which is partly where my issue lies. The game is supposed to inform me as to character capabilities, but when it matters, I'm expected to completely ignore the game's mechanisms to make things work.

It's a big ask to expect the game to mechanically inform you of every character capability. "Who is the current king of Eckland? Everybody make Intelligence checks except Sarius, because he's from Eckland and knows automatically." I am not completely ignoring the game's mechanisms, because I'm still asking the non-Ecklish to roll. But I'm not expecting the game to have a special mechanic informing me that a character does or does not auto-succeed checks related to Ecklish politics, because that's absurdly specific and I can make that ruling myself.

But when in doubt, you can use proficiency. Either "you have to be proficient to make this check" or "this is trivial if you're proficient but you have to make the check if you aren't". Doesn't even have to be a skill proficiency. "What's the Elvish word for 'friend'?"

The reason that a poor workman blames his tools is that a good workman doesn't use bad tools.

That is an... idiosyncratic interpretation of the proverb.

There's routine and there's routine-but-something-bad-happens-if-you-fail. Typically you don't bother to roll unless the latter is the case, such as when you can't afford for something to take longer than normal. In which case it's strange that characters don't reliably succeed at 'easy' tasks until they're level 9.

"You have to succeed in three minutes or less, or something bad happens."

 

[Saeviomagy]

It's a big ask to expect the game to mechanically inform you of every character capability.

I'm not asking to be informed of every character capability, and your example is specious. I'm asking to be informed of merely the capabilities that the game already purports to cover, and to have those behave in some way as to reflect common tropes.

What I get is "the worst possible starting character and the best possible starting character at a skill specifically called out and covered by the game can only be distinguished in ability 1/3rd of the time they make a roll"