The Fundamental Flaw with the Revised DCs

[Reaper Steve]

I think I have found it:
The game designers appear to be ignoring their own words when it comes to skill checks (and by association, skill challenges):

'All DCs assume acting in situations that are far from mundane; the DM should call for checks only in dramatic situations.' (PHB, p.178)
(underline for emphasis)

IMO. the new DCs make success too easy given that they should only be tested in dramatic situations that are far from mundane.

As a starting point (has not been tested), I think that an average (applicable stat mod = +0), untrained character should have a 50% chance of succeeding at a easy DC of his level.

This character should only have a 25% chance of success at a moderate DC. Effectively, this means a trained character has the same chance of success at a moderate DC that an untrained one has at an easy DC.

This character should only have a 10% of success at a hard DC. Plain and simple, he needs to be lucky to succeed. Therefore, trained would give him a 35% chance. That seems reasonable... a trained character know it'll be tough, but he has a chance... with a high enough stat bonus, better than 50/50!

Obviously, one can expect better slightly success rates all around due to stat/race bonuses and possibly skill training.

But the point is: if skill checks are supposed to be used only in dramatic situations that are far from mundane, the DCs need to be high enough to make success difficult unless one is trained and has a high stat, and even then success shouldn't be guaranteed.

If I gonked my numbers right (which I probably didn't) that means
DCs of:
Level 1: 10/15/18
Level 4: 12/17/19
Level 10: 15/20/23
Level 20: 20/25/28
Level 30: 25/30/33

Interestingly, those numbers are almost exactly the halfway point between the original table as published and the recently errated table.

Of course, that will have implications on the skill challenge system... but that needs work anyway. (I endorse Stalker0's Obsidian system, FWIW).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Seems all a bit "my untested opinion is!" to me Steve.

I don't know if I agree with your base numbers, and if I don't agree with those, then I don't agree with the final numbers. Also, you're quoting the PHB on a DM issue. Whilst it's to be assumed the DM has at least read the PHB, I wonder what sort of guidance it gives regarding skill DCs and when to check them there. Further, skill challenges and pg. 42 (not to be forgotten) insistently call for skill checks even where they might be considered some "mundane" depending on your perspective. Further some of the skill example DCs from the skills chapter are for doing relatively mundane things, or things that might be considered routine to a trained person with that skill, undermining the wording you quote.

In short, it seems like an awful lot to base on one sentence in the PHB. One sentence that it seems presumptive to assume the people at WotC have never read.

You also say:

But the point is: if skill checks are supposed to be used only in dramatic situations that are far from mundane, the DCs need to be high enough to make success difficult unless one is trained and has a high stat, and even then success shouldn't be guaranteed.

Why?

You seem to have no basis for this apart from "It's my opinion that..." which is nice and all, but not very significant. If you want to make that argument as if it were patently obvious, then you need to support it better. Any easy skill check should be easy, surely? Why are you using "trained skill + high stat" as the baseline? Why not trained skill alone (happens fairly frequently, Clerics with Arcana or History, for example)? Or why not untrained? Why shouldn't easy be easy?

To me what you're quoting really just reflects the need to avoid skill checks constantly for nothing, or most particularly in situations where there is no consequence for failure. It don't see how you leap from there to "This means an "Easy" skill check should only be easy for someone with a trained skill and a high stat!".

 

[eamon]

These DC's don't have meaning in a vacuum. What is an easy task, exactly? What's an easy task that's far from mundane?

Better to look at characters and their skills, and choose DC's such that tasks which are achievable to them have DC which make the skill checks achievable. Impossible tasks should have impossible DC's etc. With enough sample characters across a spread of levels, you can hope to find an optimum - never anything perfect, because DC's are intrinsically an extreme simplification.

And, for comparison, even a failure on just a 1 or a 2 is a risky endeavor. I'm not about to jump over a pit with a 10% chance of falling to my death. D&D characters may be heroic, but they aren't insane (usually). An achievable DC may well be one which grants success even on a die roll of significantly less than 11.

Which is to say, some abstract feeling isn't enough to base an argument about the skill system on.

 

[Stalker0]

While I don't know if Steve is right about WOTC's intention, I do agree that somewhere there needs to be clarification about what easy/medium/and hard DCs "represent".

Is hard supposed to be hard for well trained people or the low end of the heroic totem pole? The new DCs seem to indicate that "hard" refers to your low end skill people, that for a well trained person hard is actually pretty easy.

I'm fine with that, because then as a DM I can create "insane" DCs, which well impossible for the lowly guy, are perfectly in bounds for the well trained guy. So if that's WOTC's intent, that's fine, just give us that insane DC table, and we will be good to go. If not, then the DCs do need to be readjusted.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm fine with that, because then as a DM I can create "insane" DCs, which well impossible for the lowly guy, are perfectly in bounds for the well trained guy. So if that's WOTC's intent, that's fine, just give us that insane DC table, and we will be good to go. If not, then the DCs do need to be readjusted.

See, Stalker0, I'm really, genuinely unsure what the point of such "insane" DCs is. How do they improve the game? Are they just there to give the impression that random peasant couldn't do it, even if he tried a really large number of times? In general it seems like excessively high DCs don't help the game at all.

 

[ValhallaGH]

When success or failure is entirely up to the result of a (probably) random die roll, how does that show that your character is special?

Take savingthrows as an example. 55% chance of success. So, how many rounds have you had a character stand around stunned because they failed to save? I've had my Paladin stand around for 7 rounds, and watched other characters be affected for up to 6 rounds. This sort of ridiculousness seems to happen about 1/3 of the time for me and the people I play with.

So, how would adding "insane" DCs make the game better? How does requiring my Human Wizard (with a +11 to all Int-based knowledges) to roll better than a 4 on a knowledge (which he's done three times in his whole four level career) make the encounter more heroic? How would it make encounters better?

I am genuinely curious. I don't understand but I would like to. Please share any insights you can.

 

[Stalker0]

See, Stalker0, I'm really, genuinely unsure what the point of such "insane" DCs is. How do they improve the game? Are they just there to give the impression that random peasant couldn't do it, even if he tried a really large number of times? In general it seems like excessively high DCs don't help the game at all.

"Insane DCs" aren't meant for most players, they are for those players who say "Dm, I'm a 1st level character with a +15 to my skill....so what can I do?"

Basically these would be for events that most characters just can't do, but for that uber specialist...you can.

In other words, DMs should not be forcing their players to make insane DCs, its a way for the DM to say yes to a player...with a caveat.

Another example, a player is bound with adamantium chains that have no lock, they are magically bound. Oh, and the player's arms and legs are broken. For most characters, you are just stuck unless you have a teleport or something, but for the guy with a +40 to his acrobatics, getting out of those is just another day at the office.

3e did this with a the -20 "practically impossible" caveat. That was teh guideline, if something was practically impossible, you added 20 to the DC. This would that equivalent in 4e.

 

[Paul Strack]

While I don't know if Steve is right about WOTC's intention, I do agree that somewhere there needs to be clarification about what easy/medium/and hard DCs "represent".

After the errata, it seems like easy/medium/hard are relative to a completely unskilled individual.

I am of the opinion that easy/medium/hard should refer to skilled but not maxed out character. In particular, one that is trained in the skill and has a decent ability bonus but not a huge number of additional bonuses. For a 1st level character, I figure that represents a value of about +8.

Easy should mean "succeeds most of the time", moderate should mean "usually succeeds" and hard should mean "usually fails". For a character with a skill of +8, DCs 10/15/20 should work for Easy/Medium/Hard.

This means that for an unskilled character with a bonus of say +2, Easy is "usually succeeds", moderate is "usually fails" and hard means "fails most of the time". I am OK with that. For a one-off skill check, it will be the trained party member making the check any way. Your rogue will be picking your locks, not your fighter.

Assuming the errata chart gets the scaling per level right (and I think it close if you factor in powers and bonuses from equipment), you can add +5 to its DCs across the board and end up with the result that I want.

I am still working on how to fold it into workable skill challenges, though.

 

[Jhaelen]

Assuming the errata chart gets the scaling per level right (and I think it close if you factor in powers and bonuses from equipment), you can add +5 to its DCs across the board and end up with the result that I want.

I am still working on how to fold it into workable skill challenges, though.

And that's what the fundamental flaw is for me:

It's not possible to use the same DCs for both single skill checks and skill challenges. If the DCs are low, they'll be too easy for single skill checks, if they're too high skill challenges become impossible to win.

It would be nice if they'd share their intent behind the changes. Currently, I can only guess what they really mean with easy/medium/hard. After the errata it seems, the categories are indeed from the viewpoint of an untrained character.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Ouch.
I feel like I got a little bashing for what I thought was a decently explained rationale that I did clearly state was my opinion and not tested.

I readily admit that my numbers are almost certainly not perfect, but I think my reasoning is sound.
1) IMO, the original DCs were too high. It appears that WotC feels this as well because they lowered them.
2) IMO, the new DCs are too low. Other than agreeing with the people that have run the math on the boards and my own personal feel for it, I have no proof that they are too low.
3) The question I asked myself--and others have mentioned in this thread--is: how should easy/moderate/hard be defined? Is that relative to an unskilled person or a highly skilled hero? I took the passage from p.178 of the PHB (skill checks should only occur in dramatic situations that are far from mundane) as my indirect answer. From that statement, I made my baseline assumption: the chance of success should only be high only if one has both high natural aptitude (i.e., stat) and training in the skill, and even then it should not be guaranteed. That is my assumption... if one does not agree with that, then the rest becomes moot.
4) From my assumption, I made my baseline hypothesis: an average untrained character should have a 50% chance of succeeding at an easy check of his level. The rest of the DCs scaled from there in an attempt to give a trained character a 50/50 shot of accomplishing a moderate DC while making hard DCs truly hard but possible. Again, these are just numbers to start testing from.
5) After I looked at those numbers I was suuprised to see how they fell in between the old DCs and the new DCs. That somewhat validated my premise... unless WotC really wants players to have high, almost guaranteed, chances of success at skill checks of their level, then the new DCs are too low. It also somewhat validated that the original DCs were too high.

But really, it comes down to: what is the baseline assumption? (And it would be nice for them to tell us.)