D&D 5E Proficiency vs Non-Proficiency

Sabathius42 said:

Furthermore, a DnD characters chance to defeat another character/creature in combat has little to do with the ratio of times they beat them in a straight attack vs. attack roll or set of rolls. Beating someone in an fight usually means KO, which a commoner is never going to achieve versus a 20th level adventurer (even a wizard) because of hit-points and other class abilities gained in getting the 20 levels.

DS

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Very true, but I am not talking about full combat versus each other.

For skills, think of contested rolls, and for attacks, think of how often a nonskilled would likely hit a higher AC than an ultimately proficient person would.

Sabathius42 said:

I think the hang up is that you are equating the 5e rule crumb called (Character Proficiency Bonus) with "skill" or even "training". All the 5e Proficiency Bonus does is provide a way to show that a character is better at something than a baseline. Note that this doesn't mean ULTIMATELY BETTER AT 20TH LEVEL) it just means better than others.

"skill" also includes feat, race, stat, and other bonuses. Getting a +5 bonus to a roll because of your awesome stat bonus is because even if your character never exclusively chose History as something they learned during character creation, they still have read A LOT and have picked up a lot of history along the way. When you just throw out "everything but proficiency bonus" you are throwing out some of the fundamentals that help model the character.

Simply put....a 1st level Wizard who is as Intelligent (indicating book learning and INT +5) as he could possibly be but never showed an interest in History particularly is going to be as likely to know something as Conan, slayer of 1000 dragons, who was raised by a librarian before he headed out to slay beasts, never to read a book again (INT -1, PROF +6). The real "ULTIMATE SKILL" guy in this scenario is the 20th level Wizard who has read and understood everything he could get his hands on (INT +5) AND showed a particular interest in History (PROF +6). Note that just because the first two examples might beat the SUPER HISTORY WIZARD at any given roll (whatever percentage of times) it doesn't matter, because History is not a D20 vs. D20 roll off. Sure, they might know some particular fact the SHW doesn't know, but one fact in an infinite number of facts is inconsequential.

DS

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Proficiency is training and then experience which builds on that training. Ability score bonus is natural talent or inclination towards a skill or attack type, whi. Of course certain features can grant expertise or advantage to making skill checks or attack rolls. Neither of the two people have any of these characteristics.

They have the exact same ability scores. One has no proficiency in a skill, the other has the maximum skill he could possibly have by level 20 (again, their ability scores are the same). In the RAW, this is a comparison of +0 to +6, but I am not concerned with RAW. Your vote indicates what you think the maximum skill via proficiency bonus should be. THAT is what I want to know from the people who are voting.

You can derive whatever you want from your poll data. I'm just once again pointing out to you that the data is biased because of the poor wording used in the poll question.

Rather than dance around the point you are trying to make by having people stumble into it blindly while discussing semantics wouldn't it be better just to state your actual thought and have that discussed?

If you think the scaling Proficiency Bonus should have a greater impact than it does then just say it and debate it.

I personally don't equate the PB to mean the same as you, because a 20th level wizard who threw his dagger away on Day One of his adventures grows to be just as good at it as the fighter who used a dagger every day for 30 years of fighting. This doesn't reflect "skill and practice" it's just a flat bonus to make the math of the game work correctly.

Sabathius42 said:

You can derive whatever you want from your poll data. I'm just once again pointing out to you that the data is biased because of the poor wording used in the poll question.

Rather than dance around the point you are trying to make by having people stumble into it blindly while discussing semantics wouldn't it be better just to state your actual thought and have that discussed?

If you think the scaling Proficiency Bonus should have a greater impact than it does then just say it and debate it.

I personally don't equate the PB to mean the same as you, because a 20th level wizard who threw his dagger away on Day One of his adventures grows to be just as good at it as the fighter who used a dagger every day for 30 years of fighting. This doesn't reflect "skill and practice" it's just a flat bonus to make the math of the game work correctly.

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So far (but I am waiting until more people vote if they do overnight and tomorrow) I am seeing results I expected. Why I don't just state my thoughts and have others discuss it is because instead of a discussion it becomes a defense of 5E and all that is holy about it.

Except in your example it is not the dagger that the Wizard improves with, it is proficiency in attacks. The fact that he has proficiency in dagger allows him to use his knowledge on how to fight effectively with a weapon he knows how to use. Some of the other things about DND is assumptions that are normally made since not every moment of a character's life is played out. New spells are learned, old skills improved, etc. through experience. The XP gained from defeating monsters is a measure to make the math of the game work correctly.

Personally, despite how much I enjoy elements of 5E, it is a step backwards in many ways. Other game systems have better mechanics, albeit not as simplistic. I get that was part of the appeal of 5E was to keep it simple, so I can accept that and still have some fun playing. I won't go into it here since it would derail this thread and take me more time than it's worth since it isn't as though the designers will listen or read this and make any of the changes.

Since you can just do simple math to find your answer, I'm not sure why you'd need a poll.

You want your average answer? Do your own math.

ccs said:

Since you can just do simple math to find your answer, I'm not sure why you'd need a poll.

You want your average answer? Do your own math.

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I've done the math. I am doing the poll to see what the evidence of peoples' opinions say about it.

But otherwise, why did you reply to this thread other than to tell me to do work I've already done?

dnd4vr said:

I've done the math. I am doing the poll to see what the evidence of peoples' opinions say about it.

But otherwise, why did you reply to this thread other than to tell me to do work I've already done?

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It seems like you're just looking for people to agree with your preconceived notions to assuage your ego, rather than having an interest in actual discussion.

Brashnir2 said:

It seems like you're just looking for people to agree with your preconceived notions to assuage your ego, rather than having an interest in actual discussion.

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If I ever have enough votes to reach my conclusion, I will happily talk about it, but to do so beforehand would not have little value to me.

And I haven't asked anyone to agree with anything other than my premise that I want their views on a non-proficient person versus a maximal proficient person. If the votes don't support my assumption, I will gladly admit it and move on. If they do, I'll present the results and my ideas and THEN see what others have to say about it. It is premature to discuss it at this point.

And did you vote?

dnd4vr said:

I've done the math. I am doing the poll to see what the evidence of peoples' opinions say about it.

But otherwise, why did you reply to this thread other than to tell me to do work I've already done?

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But, have you done the right math? I have to ask because your poll doesn't make sense at all given the actual math involved in the question. Not that your options are off, but that they don't even make any sense. If you had asked, "on average, how many times..." that would make sense with your options, but you asked "out of 20 rolls" which does not. This is because "on average" has certain assumptions that make a "number of times" questions make sense, or, at least, more sense (you'd need to change your wording to "assuming averages, how many times out of 20 would..." As it is, though, the math to answer your question is combinatorics and would make more sense as "what are the odds that out of 20 attempts the unskilled would win X times?"


On the math front, [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich[/MENTION] has the chance of losing (ties not counted as loses) for +6 vs +0 as 105/400 or 26.25% chance of losing. It's 30% even if you count ties as losing, and that's an easier number to work with, so let's go with 30% and say being tied by the lesser skilled is as good as a loss. So, the lesser skilled has a 30% chance of winning and the greater skilled has a 70% chance of winning on every try.

However, to address the odds of a given number of wins in a given number of trials, we have to invoke the binomial distribution, which is a means to determine the chance of n successes in k trials given a p probability of success. This will generate a probability density function which, in this case, is pretty much bell shaped with a mean of 6 and a SD of ~2, so the most likely results would be that the lesser skilled competitor wins or ties between 2 and 10 times in 20 tries approx 95% of the trials run. This doesn't line up with your choices very well at all.

With expertise, this changes to be most likely 1-2 wins (better than 50% of the time) and almost always between 0 and 4 wins.


Now, all that said about the math, what is it you're hoping to illustrate with this? That bounded accuracy is bounded?

Poorly expressed poll, but if you are asking "what percent of the time is 1d20 > 1d20 + 11, the answer is about 9%. 11% if it's greater than or equal to. Small difference, but two different answers in your poll.

And really why are you taking a poll? This is a matter of mathematics, not opinion. Or are you testing math literacy?