Why PCs should be competent, or "I got a lot of past in my past"

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but the point is set explicit benchmarks and encourage people to use them. Point based RPGs have been doing it for 40 years. I am not sure why D&D has failed to explain it.

WotC isn't a fan of explanations. From their perspective, every opinion they set down leads to people who don't share it not buying their products. Best to be "mysterious", I guess.

 

[Corinnguard]

Back when Skill Ranks were a thing in RPGs, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition had a sidebar that talked about Skill Benchmarks. Here's what it said:

As a general guideline, 1-4 ranks in a skill is a basic level of training, familiarity with the basics of the skill. A character with 5-8 ranks has a professional level of training, sufficient for someone using the skill in their primary profession. Someone with 9-12 ranks is an expert; the character is recognized and likely known as an expert in the skill, while 13-15 ranks represent virtual mastery of the skill. More than 15 ranks is such an amazing level of skill that the character is recognized as being among the best-trained people in the world!

Is there any way to adapt this for 5e in order for the players to know how competent their characters really are?

 

[Reynard]

Back when Skill Ranks were a thing in RPGs, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition had a sidebar that talked about Skill Benchmarks. Here's what it said:

As a general guideline, 1-4 ranks in a skill is a basic level of training, familiarity with the basics of the skill. A character with 5-8 ranks has a professional level of training, sufficient for someone using the skill in their primary profession. Someone with 9-12 ranks is an expert; the character is recognized and likely known as an expert in the skill, while 13-15 ranks represent virtual mastery of the skill. More than 15 ranks is such an amazing level of skill that the character is recognized as being among the best-trained people in the world!

Is there any way to adapt this for 5e in order for the players to know how competent their characters really are?

it isn't mysterious in 5E, because there isn't much variation in skill bonuses. If we assume prof bonus +3 for everything a character is competent in, they start off with a 50% chance to succeed at "easy" difficulty and end up (at high level) with a 50% chance to succeed at "Hard difficulty" or so. Expertise increases this by a step. But due to 5E's math, few characters will ever be able to breeze through Very Hard or Nigh Impossible tasks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Because it is easy to start characters at higher level/with experience than it is to try and kludge together "0 level" rules. It is more inclusive to people's preferences if the option is already there, as opposed to forcing people to somehow find or create the option.

I'd buy that more if virtually all the build systems didn't have suggested tiers including everyman levels. Just because a game defaults to a higher power level doesn't mean that's all it can handle.

What level based games should do is be explicit that character creation can happen at any level and describe what that means. "Creatinga 1st level character is like creating a college graduate heading out on their first job search; they are trained and competent, but lack real world experience. Creating a 5th level character is like creating a seasoned professional who still has plenty of room to grow." Or something like that.

The problem with the D&D sphere isn't that you can't start with higher level characters; its usually that the expectations are always to a default of 1st level.

(Though the tendency toward exception based design also can make it a large chunk to swallow in terms of all the bits and bobs involved in levelling in a lot of class and level systems give you more to learn out the gate than a first level character).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Back when Skill Ranks were a thing in RPGs, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition had a sidebar that talked about Skill Benchmarks. Here's what it said:

As a general guideline, 1-4 ranks in a skill is a basic level of training, familiarity with the basics of the skill. A character with 5-8 ranks has a professional level of training, sufficient for someone using the skill in their primary profession. Someone with 9-12 ranks is an expert; the character is recognized and likely known as an expert in the skill, while 13-15 ranks represent virtual mastery of the skill. More than 15 ranks is such an amazing level of skill that the character is recognized as being among the best-trained people in the world!

Is there any way to adapt this for 5e in order for the players to know how competent their characters really are?

That worked in M&M because a default PC could have a skill at 13 ranks if they were of a mood. There was capping but in a certain sense starting characters were "tenth level".

 

[Corinnguard]

That worked in M&M because a default PC could have a skill at 13 ranks if they were of a mood. There was capping but in a certain sense starting characters were "tenth level".

Unlike D&D, Mutants and Masterminds uses a point buy system for just about everything in the character creation process (ability scores, attack bonus, defense bonus, saves bonus, skills, feats and powers). The default power level was power level 10, which had a pool of 150 points.

However, if you were playing Green Ronin's equivalent of D&D, Warriors and Wizards, you had a much smaller pool to work from because fantasy characters aren't as powerful as supers. Something along the lines of power level 6 or power level 8 (90 to 120 points respectively). And in addition to buying all of the features I mentioned in the character creation process, you also had to throw in race. Each race in Warriors and Wizards had it's own power point cost.

Lastly, Mutants and Masterminds tended to front load your character from the very start. There was no gradual increase in what you had in terms of abilities, skills, feats and powers.

 

[Reynard]

I'd buy that more if virtually all the build systems didn't have suggested tiers including everyman levels. Just because a game defaults to a higher power level doesn't mean that's all it can handle.



The problem with the D&D sphere isn't that you can't start with higher level characters; its usually that the expectations are always to a default of 1st level.

(Though the tendency toward exception based design also can make it a large chunk to swallow in terms of all the bits and bobs involved in levelling in a lot of class and level systems give you more to learn out the gate than a first level character).

I must not have been clear. I was answering a question about why games should include low levels, not high levels.

 

[Maxperson]

In OSE, and I'm assuming B/X, which it is reorganized from, XP is gained thusly:
"All characters who make it through an adventure alive receive experience points (XP), awarded by the referee. XP is gained from two sources: treasure recovered and monsters defeated."

NPC's, merchants, and farmers don't fit any of those categories, technically. So, yes, one could extrapolate out the 1GP=1XP and apply it to every situation, but no one that I have ever played with has done that. NPC's have levels as necessary for world building or story or from the adventure being used. Only characters gain XP and only when they have returned to "civilization" with that loot. We never played that you go the XP as soon as you found it in the dungeon. For us, it brought up the conundrum of how much we carry with us for XP purposes balanced against being encumbered and thus potentially encountering more random encounters. And our random encounters were never "level adjusted". The plains encounter table had a dragon on it, and it didn't matter what level you were when it came up...

I will echo some of the other posters that the overreliance on making or calling for rolls in games is what causes characters to feel like newbs. The more you roll, the more likely you're going to get a bad result, even on what should be a simple thing to do. We stopped with all rolls except for those with consequences, or those under time pressure. Picking a lock? If you fail, you can try again. But the first attempt took a turn. The next attempt takes a turn. etc. Time wasted. Noise potentially made. More random encounter rolls. Now, we play OSE and adjacent games, so time pressure, random encounters, and managing light sources are a big part of our fun. But we can also go through entire game sessions with few to no rolls being called for, and make amazing progress. YMMV, of course.

NPCs are characters, too. The quote above doesn't specify player characters, so non-player characters like farmer Bob can get experience. Now normally they don't go on adventures, but if farmer Bob insisted on going with the PCs to the orc village to get his daughter back and survived, he'd get experience and possibly gain levels in fighter or something.

 

[Reynard]

NPCs are characters, too. The quote above doesn't specify player characters, so non-player characters like farmer Bob can get experience. Now normally they don't go on adventures, but if farmer Bob insisted on going with the PCs to the orc village to get his daughter back and survived, he'd get experience and possibly gain levels in fighter or something.

I love stuff like these. Bob would not only make a cool.NPC with a history with the party, but would also make a good replacement PC.

 

[Maxperson]

Isn't the 50/50 chance of success the whole point of "bounded accuracy?"

I should say, I hate "bounded accuracy" as a concept precisely because of this 50/50 nonsense.

No, that's not the point of bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy deals with monster design. PCs are not bounded. A CR 10 monster will be X powerful, with Y range of AC and Z abilities, but doesn't consider whether a PC has +1 to hit or +15 to hit. Monster ACs, damage and hit bonuses, etc. are bounded within a certain range based only on the bounded CR design.

5e characters are quite often at higher(often much higher) than a 50% chance of success.