D&D 5E Reliable Talent. What the what?

WayOfTheFourElements said:

OK. Let's have some fun.

7th level party decided to spend a number of sessions in a designated "level 1" part of the dungeon: Great. Group A of 7th level characters explores Weak-A** Kolbold lLand. I have noo problem with it. They (practically) wasted their play session fighting kobolds, while the rival groups B and C, who play on different days of the week, gain more experience faster and continue to take all the good treasure before Group A is able to find it.

Would you make adjustments to keep things entertaining? Nope. And It's a non-issue. Me players prefer to take on higher level threats and claim the better treasure so group B and C can't get it to first. That isn't saying can't be good treasure on a low level dungeon or absolutely no treasure in a higher level dungeon, just that higher level dungeons have better treasure because no one's cleared them out yet decades ago.

One of the beauties of an RPG is that it's not a computer game. You don't have to pre-design every room, every creature, every encounter. Actually, I do. To keep any semblance of fairness when DMing for multiple PC adventuring groups in the same world, that world must react the same way no matter which groups enters in a given adventure site, whether they are at 2nd or 19th level.

Does the DM adjust encounters on the fly to maintain an optimal challenge? I say no. Moreover, it's a non-issue. Because I run multiple rival groups in the same world, the primary challenge is not against the monsters, but to stay ahead of the other groups in terms of level, power, and repute (or infamy).

Is the key always in the third place the players look? No.

Or does the DM allow the PCs to struggle, get frustrated and run into unfair encounters? Yes

And if they aren't [having fun]? They can join a different game. Mine isn't meant to satisfy everyone's taste. I've just been lucky to find 19 like-minded players who enjoy the same things I do.

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All reasonable answers! To be clear, this conversation is partially in response to [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s assertion that meta-gaming is antithetical to role-playing and that we should remove all meta-gaming from our RPGs. Some, including me, suggested that the DM, at the very least, would be metagaming to keep things interesting for a table full of players who are "just playing my character, man."

The game you are describing doesn't sound like an example of a game without meta-gaming. It sounds like an example of an in-elastic gameworld. Which is fine! I lean in the direction of an in-elastic gameworld as well. I'm more likely to allow the players to wipe on an unfair encounter because that's the encounter I was planning to run than I am to soften an encounter on the fly, because "things aren't looking too good for our heroes." More to the point, I hate it when I get the sense that the DM is tweaking the difficulty of an encounter on the fly, in either direction. This reminds me of games in elementary school gym class where the teacher would make sure that the score was always neck and neck until 5 minutes before the end.

But it also sounds like your players are making plenty of meta-game considerations in terms of knowing that maximizing risk will maximize reward, not to mention knowing that there is a rival group of players at another table. Which again, is fine! That's not a criticism of the game you are playing. You are making sure that you can be an impartial referee for three different groups running through the same world. It's just a criticism of the suggestion, upthread, that meta-gaming is antithetical to roleplaying games.

cthulhu42 said:

So what I'm asking for here is how other DM's have dealt with this and how it's affected your games. Is it as broken as it appears? Have your players abused it? If so, what did you do about it?

If I do move forward with a nerf, I have a couple of ideas.

1. Implement the natural 1 rule for skills. It doesn't seem out of line that a skill attempt, like an attack, could fail on a 1. Even masters of their crafts sometimes err. In fact, I don't really understand why skill checks are exempt from the natural 1/20 rule in the first place. Furthermore, our rogue has the Luck feat, so his odds of failing a skill check would be pretty darn low. But at least there would be SOME chance of failer that would make his roll mean something.

2. Change the rule to give him advantage on skills checks with prof bonus skills. Again, this gives him a significant boost to those skills (some of which he also has expertise in) so his success rate would be very high, but again, there would be some small chance of blowing it.

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For us it is broken, an example of really bad design.
We gave the Rogue proficiency bonus re-rolls /long rest for skills, and they must be spent before the DM tells the outcome.

WayOfTheFourElements said:

OK. Let's have some fun.

7th level party decided to spend a number of sessions in a designated "level 1" part of the dungeon: Great. Group A of 7th level characters explores Weak-A** Kolbold lLand. I have noo problem with it. They (practically) wasted their play session fighting kobolds, while the rival groups B and C, who play on different days of the week, gain more experience faster and continue to take all the good treasure before Group A is able to find it.
.

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I have to ask, is this a hypothetical or do you actually have 3 different groups of similar level running at the same time and in the same area - all competing with each other?

dco said:

For us it is broken, an example of really bad design.
We gave the Rogue proficiency bonus re-rolls /long rest for skills, and they must be spent before the DM tells the outcome.

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What caused the decision to 1) limit the number of times to proficiency bonus and 2) make it a re-roll as opposed to straight advantage?

Was it just a case of anything more would be too good - powerful?

WayOfTheFourElements said:

I never stated metagaming was abhorrent to the hobby, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone else had. I am merely pointing out that is it not a necessary component of the hobby. One can roleplay in a meaningful way with and without metagaming. It's like zombies. Some tables love them, others hardly use them as all. It all depends on the table, the players, and the DM.

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Actually, I would defy you to actually play a single session of D&D without meta gaming.

Player A decides to act after Player B in initiative order by readying an action "after he attacks". That's meta gaming pure and simple - how could the in world character possibly know about initiative order?

How do your groups know that there are competing groups of "adventurers"? And, even the fact that this adventure location is for level X and that one is for level Y is meta gaming as well. Sure, don't go into that red dragon's lair. But, how does everyone know where those more dangerous monsters are? Signposts outside the dungeon - "Must be this tall to enter"?

Sure, you can spackle over the metagaming, but that doesn't change the nature of what you are doing.

Mort said:

What caused the decision to 1) limit the number of times to proficiency bonus and 2) make it a re-roll as opposed to straight advantage?

Was it just a case of anything more would be too good - powerful?

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1- It's applicable to all skills not the ones with proficiency. We made it more general and a limited resource, two things we prefer, this gives versatility instead of only improving the skills/tools where the Rogue is good (2/6) or very good (4/6). Expertise is already always on and the combination with reliable talent is very powerful specially if you play adventures with a high focus on investigation and roleplay, if this is a limited resource the player has to think when to use it and the disruptive potential is lower.

2- Advantage means 20% for a 9 or less, the rest of time you should get better results (+1 to +5 for the same odds) and we wanted to avoid the auto-success part. A re-roll gives another chance but this roll has the same odds, it also works better with other features like supreme sneak.

Hussar said:

Actually, I would defy you to actually play a single session of D&D without meta gaming.

Player A decides to act after Player B in initiative order by readying an action "after he attacks". That's meta gaming pure and simple - how could the in world character possibly know about initiative order?

How do your groups know that there are competing groups of "adventurers"? And, even the fact that this adventure location is for level X and that one is for level Y is meta gaming as well. Sure, don't go into that red dragon's lair. But, how does everyone know where those more dangerous monsters are? Signposts outside the dungeon - "Must be this tall to enter"?

Sure, you can spackle over the metagaming, but that doesn't change the nature of what you are doing.

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While i am not in the metagaming blah blah camp, i would not at all see a character deciding to pause to follow another chsracter as metagaming... Its perfectly in-character for msny if not all uses.

The fact that a player can describe his action or frsme it in game terms does not mean its metagaming and its jyst as bad for us to grossly ecpend the difinition to show its part of the game as it is for others to do so to try and bash it.

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dco said:

1- It's applicable to all skills not the ones with proficiency. We made it more general and a limited resource, two things we prefer, this gives versatility instead of only improving the skills/tools where the Rogue is good (2/6) or very good (4/6). Expertise is already always on and the combination with reliable talent is very powerful specially if you play adventures with a high focus on investigation and roleplay, if this is a limited resource the player has to think when to use it and the disruptive potential is lower.

2- Advantage means 20% for a 9 or less, the rest of time you should get better results (+1 to +5 for the same odds) and we wanted to avoid the auto-success part. A re-roll gives another chance but this roll has the same odds, it also works better with other features like supreme sneak.

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From what I've read, this sounds like a sort of Gumshoe style mechanic. Characters can spend skill points over the course of the day, making it a resource to be drawn on, but also conserved. Fiddling and piddling over the balance aside, it seems like an interesting and valid houserule. (Not that I think there's anything wrong with letting Reliable Talent work the way it was designed, but I can see how this approach would be appealing as well.)

5ekyu said:

While i am not in the metagaming blah blah camp, i would not at all see a character deciding to pause to follow another chsracter as metagaming... Its perfectly in-character for msny if not all uses.

The fact that a player can describe his action or frsme it in game terms does not mean its metagaming and its jyst as bad for us to grossly ecpend the difinition to show its part of the game as it is for others to do so to try and bash it.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

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How?

Initiative has been rolled and combat is started. There is no "After Bob attacks" because Bob is attacking all the time. We simply abstract that out to a single (or a small number) of attack rolls per round. But, the timing of that attack doesn't actually coincide with any particular action by the PC. There's no way, in game world to know when someone's attack is going to occur during combat. So, it's meta gaming. You are using out of game knowledge (the initiative order) to make in game decisions. How is this not meta gaming?

Mort said:

I have to ask, is this a hypothetical or do you actually have 3 different groups of similar level running at the same time and in the same area - all competing with each other?

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No. That is a real description of the game I'm playing. There really are three competing groups. It's epic.