D&D 5E Abilities....Which check would you use?

DMMike said:

Interesting point: if the player's score is lower than the character's score, asking for a specific approach borders on unfair.

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Yah. If a 15 year old city kid decides to play a ranger, you shouldn't expect the *player* to know proper approaches to how to acquire food or shelter, or follow tracks. The game very explicitly works to help you play characters who know and do things you, the player, cannot. Expecting player understanding of the character's domains of knowledge is not fair.

While I wouldn't accept "I'm rolling Survival to find out more about the tracks," I would accept "I look at the tracks to get more information."

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People are so... unforgiving. Really.

Take that 15 year old kid. How is it *really* different to say, "My sheet says I know about Survival, and I'd like to use that knowledge to acquire shelter in these woods," and "I'd like to roll Survival to find out more about the tracks"?

I mean, yeah, asking for a skill check is more metagamey. We can encourage description of in-game approach, sure. But to outright not accept a basic, relevant request seems... a bit dogmatic, doesn't it?

DMMike said:

Interesting point: if the player's score is lower than the character's score, asking for a specific approach borders on unfair.

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This is an age-old disagreement, and not one likely to be settled here and now, but very likely to lead to over a hundred pages of argument if we continue to pursue it.

DMMike said:

While I wouldn't accept "I'm rolling Survival to find out more about the tracks," I would accept "I look at the tracks to get more information."

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Agreed.

DMMike said:

I was thinking that it's clearly an Intelligence check to use tracking training to learn about tracks, and then I saw the discussion about what actions are involved. So I'm picturing two characters looking at the same tracks:

The Genius gathers all the data he can about the tracks, with actions, before making an educated guess - Intelligence.

The Wise Woman uses some folk tales to guess what local creatures meet the general appearance of the tracks, more glancing around than acting, and probably notices something not available through induction, due to sheer - Wisdom.

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So, this analysis seems to be based on interpreting the abilities by the English meanings of their names. However, if we look at what D&D 5e has to say about what the abilities are each used for, we might come to different conclusions about which check to call for to resolve which approach.

Under “Using Each Ability,” the PHB says this about Intelligence:

dndbeyond said:

Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason. (...) An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.

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And this about Wisdom:

dndbeyond said:

Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents perceptiveness and intuition. (...) A Wisdom check might reflect an effort to read body language, understand someone’s feelings, notice things about The Environment, or care for an injured person.

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I would say that gathering data about the tracks would fall under “noticing things about the environment”, and comparing the tracks to your memory of folk tales would fall under “accuracy of recall.” So, personally, I would adjudicate these two approaches the exact opposite way you would.

Umbran said:

Yah. If a 15 year old city kid decides to play a ranger, you shouldn't expect the *player* to know proper approaches to how to acquire food or shelter, or follow tracks. The game very explicitly works to help you play characters who know and do things you, the player, cannot. Expecting player understanding of the character's domains of knowledge is not fair.



People are so... unforgiving. Really.

Take that 15 year old kid. How is it *really* different to say, "My sheet says I know about Survival, and I'd like to use that knowledge to acquire shelter in these woods," and "I'd like to roll Survival to find out more about the tracks"?

I mean, yeah, asking for a skill check is more metagamey. We can encourage description of in-game approach, sure. But to outright not accept a basic, relevant request seems... a bit dogmatic, doesn't it?

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The post wherein [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] decides to continue to rely on his assumptions rather than what people actually say about hiw they play.

I play with people that have no idea how to do many of the things their characters do, and yet we don't have your fears as problems when coming up with approaches. Maybe you should actually think it through trying to see how it could work well rarher than assume you know it sucks?

robus said:

The action is the character recalling their knowledge and experience for help in interpreting the tracks. Yes, they're not moving their body, but that doesn't mean they're not doing something. And by describing their examination in such terms, connecting their characters experience to the task at hand, it clearly communicates to the DM that their character knows what they're doing and should either get the information they need, or at least get some boost to any check that might be called.

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Thanks. I have 5ekyu on ignore, so I can't respond. You got it in one.

Ovinomancer said:

The post wherein [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] decides to continue to rely on his assumptions rather than what people actually say about hiw they play.

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Um, no.

I was responding directly to what DM Mike said. In the first bit we are agreeing (and I am merely elucidating with an example). In the second, I am directly responding to how he says he plays.

So, really, you are 100% dead wrong - I am having a discussion with someone that seems to me 100% grounded in our play experiences.

Please don't come to me 100% dead wrong, proclaiming I am making assumptions when I'm not. It is... really rude.

dnd4vr said:

If you want to stick to "actual rules", then only the Ranger class has any mention of being able to do anything remotely like what the OP wants. No one else could even do it, even with the Survival skill since that only allows a character to track in the PHB. Of course, anything else the DM wants a skill to do is entirely up to the DM, but that makes it a house-ruling either way, not an "actual rule."

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This kind of position generally irritates me. 5e is designed to facilitate rulings rather than fuss too much about RAW vs house rules. That may make for a lot of table variation, but that's fine as far as I'm concerned. As long as the DM isn't giving away a benefit that's reliably better than the ranger's, everything should be fine.

For the OP, I'd rely on a Wisdom (Survival) check for most of it. If multiple PCs are looking into it and have complimentary skills here - such as one with a good Wisdom (Survival) and one with good Intelligence (Nature), I'd have them make a check for both. I'd be setting the DCs based on the type of creature, how common it is, how big it is, what kind of injury, and what sort of numbers are involved. If it's reasonably common, type will be Easy, bleeding or significant mobility injury Moderate, number of creatures (if more than just 1 or 2) Hard. The ranger - he's going to auto-succeed at most of that in his home terrain type.

Umbran said:

People are so... unforgiving. Really.

Take that 15 year old kid. How is it *really* different to say, "My sheet says I know about Survival, and I'd like to use that knowledge to acquire shelter in these woods," and "I'd like to roll Survival to find out more about the tracks"?

I mean, yeah, asking for a skill check is more metagamey. We can encourage description of in-game approach, sure. But to outright not accept a basic, relevant request seems... a bit dogmatic, doesn't it?

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I would accept either, but I would encourage a new player in particular to not talk about the sheet and talk about their character instead. So instead of, "My sheet says..." I'd encourage them to say "I've got decent survival skills, and I'd like to use those to acquire shelter..."

But yeah, different people play with different levels of comfort in their role personification. And none of that is going to disqualify them from doing stuff.

Umbran said:

Um, no.

I was responding directly to what DM Mike said. In the first bit we are agreeing (and I am merely elucidating with an example). In the second, I am directly responding to how he says he plays.

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Sorry, but how is this a defense against mischaracterizing a playstyle? I mean, if this is generally applicable, all manner of things can be said to other people while avoiding the actual content being dismissive if others (and incorrect).
[Quite]
So, really, you are 100% dead wrong - I am having a discussion with someone that seems to me 100% grounded in our play experiences. [/quote]
I don't doubt you have play experiences. You don't have play experiences using goal and approach constructively, though, yet you're making claims against that method. I can say thus because there are criticisms you can make, but they aren't the one your naking. You've subbed in bad DMs, pixel bitching, and degenerate play and are criticizing that but calling it goal and approach. If anyone is wrong here, it's your assumptions. Which have been directly refuted already in this thread. Those refutations getting no response until you found another poster to let you reiterate your refuted statements and claim it's a different conversation.

Please don't come to me 100% dead wrong, proclaiming I am making assumptions when I'm not. It is... really rude.

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Is it as rude as you blatant mischaracterizations of my playstyle? Your specific assumptions have already been addressed by more than me, yet you repeated them. Now you're setting up using the mod hat to shut down conversation because I point out your bad assumptions again. Seen it before.

Here's the your core oroblem assumption:

That you need to have any expertuse in the subject to properly form an approach.

This is false because the ask is for what your character does in the fiction, not a real procedure. "I recall my training" is usually sufficient for the OP, although what training would be relevant.

The reality is I don't know what I would call for until I'm in the moment, but here is my thought process on reading about it right now.

Multiple checks to determine multiple things.

If the player states something like "I examine the tracks and try to determine type of creature made them" that to me implies that the character is comparing the tracks to some learned knowledge so Intelligence (Nature) check.

I examine the tracks and try to determine how many there are: This seems to me comparing them to each other in the moment looking for differences rather than recalling info so Wisdom (Survival). Though determining type of creature like the above example could give this role advantage by knowing something like the average herd size for the known creature.

I examine the tracks and try to determine if any are injured: This seems like a basic survival skill. Knowing which is injured is hugely important to being successful in primitive hunting (though less so in modern hunting). Wisdom (Survival) I might let medicine apply, and would probably grant advantage again, if creature type was determined like in the first example.

BookBarbarian said:

The reality is I don't know what I would call for until I'm in the moment, but here is my thought process on reading about it right now.

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Honestly this is my answer. There isn't enough information for me to know what I would do.

For example - is this a "clue" that the adventure needs the players to have in order to keep moving? Will the game grind to a dead stop if someone doesn't figure this out? Then they're going to figure it out and we'll need to work out a justification for it. (My usual tactic on this would be to find out what the "investigating" PC has for proficiencies, have them roll the most applicable one that they're proficient in, and on a failure they just get the minimum amount of info needed to keep the game going. On a success they get some extra info on top of that, more or less depending on how much they had to stretch to find a relevant proficiency - and yeah, I will let them pull a "hey Bob, come over here and look at these tracks" to pull in a character with a more relevant proficiency instead of making the roll themselves if that's how they want to play it.)

On the flip side - is this something that makes no difference at all to the adventure and the player is just scrounging for clues? Then I'll let them roll either Survival or Nature (whichever they think benefits them more) and give them some info on a success and nothing on a failure. (Typically I know which players at my table play the "amazing detective" archetype regardless of what game we play and are going to want to search every single nook and cranny and/or investigate every bit of color I throw into a scene, so I'll throw some things in to make sure they get their fun out of Batmanning up the scene because it makes it fun for them).

In between - if it's information that it doesn't matter if they know it or not but that will put them in some kind of better strategic or tactical position or potentially open up a new avenue for investigation if they know it, then I'll make a judgment call on the skill check based on how the narrative is going at the time. In this case it would probably be one of Survival, Nature or Investigate, but a lot will depend on the context leading up to the check and the background of the character making the ask. A character with a background as an wilderness type is going to maybe get to choose which one would be best for them to use, while a character who has always been played as a city-kid who only knows about the wilderness from the books they've read is probably going to get a strict Survival check to figure it out, maybe with disadvantage.