D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A: 03/14/2014

[Stormonu]

The autosucced seems to be going back to some of the ideas Mearls & Co. Were throwing out that were shot down. A lot seems to be going on "if the character has proficiency/background in this area, he shouldn't have to roll this kind of check". I think Mearls example was a tightrope walker.

Overall, I am in partial agreement. Checks should really only be needed in dramatic situations, and the in that case it makes my life as a DM easier if the gap isn't so large that one person will autopass while the other will fail. However, I would like the skill system to be something more than pass/fail, but to instead perhaps be a gateway to unlock special stunts/tricks/options that a non-proficient person couldn't access. Mayhaps the skilled swimmer could fight in that current with no penalty, rather than having to exclusively focus on getting across. Perhaps the skilled climber could make it to the top in a single round whereas the unskilled climber needs gear and takes ten minutes.

 

[Hussar]

I like the idea of 2d10, it feels it would "stabilize" the chance of success for easy tasks, while make hard tasks even harder. The problem is that the DCs might need some adjustment in some cases.



Yes it's quite a change, and I didn't even notice it... I'm still thinking in 3e terms.



It seems to me that a lot people regard such case as always negative, but IMHO things are more complicated... consider for example these cases:

- a group of 4 have to swim across the rapids: who beats the DC wins, who misses the DC loses
- a group of 4 have to sneak past guards: if they all beats the DC they win, if one misses the DC they lose
- a group of 4 have to notice a trap: if one beats the DC they win, if they all miss the DC they lose

These work very differently, and having someone with automatic success is a small help in the first two but amazing in the third case, while having someone with automatic failure is doom in the first two and almost irrelevant in the third case.

Then you have skills like Open Lock which are mostly intended to be attempted by the specialist only. In that case it doesn't matter much if the non-specialists have automatic failure, but you don't want the specialist to have automatic success (this assumes the DM is properly using such challenge in the game i.e. failure doesn't screw up the whole adventure! If it does, then unfortunately the only option is really granting automatic success).

True, it's isn't always negative. But, in your three examples, you have two automatic failures. The group cannot succeed as a group those two tasks. In the third example, there is no challenge at all because of the auto success. So, basically in all three examples, the wide gap between skill levels leads to bad results. Either the group cannot succeed because the untrained guy automatically fails, or the the group succeeds automatically.

I'd much rather a system where the high skill guy succeeds, say, 80% of the time and the low skill guy succeeds 30%. That at least leads to situations where the group can succeed as a group, rather than skill checks becoming automatic pass/fail situations.

 

[Derren]

True, it's isn't always negative. But, in your three examples, you have two automatic failures. The group cannot succeed as a group those two tasks. In the third example, there is no challenge at all because of the auto success. So, basically in all three examples, the wide gap between skill levels leads to bad results. Either the group cannot succeed because the untrained guy automatically fails, or the the group succeeds automatically.

Which means that the group has to be creative and adapt the way they play to their characters (roleplay!) instead of going "Us heroes. Lets roll and hope"

 

[Li Shenron]

But, in your three examples, you have two automatic failures. The group cannot succeed as a group those two tasks. In the third example, there is no challenge at all because of the auto success. So, basically in all three examples, the wide gap between skill levels leads to bad results. Either the group cannot succeed because the untrained guy automatically fails, or the the group succeeds automatically.

Yes, that's because those are all group challenges, therefore a wide gap doesn't work well.

At the other end there are individual challenges, and here a wide gap might be actually better than a short gap. It depends on how you see it tho... my personal view is that there are things in the story where the game feels better if one character only can attempt, or at least some characters only. The key point is that such things must not be "blockers".

For instance, with relation to my Open Lock example, if failing at opening the door results in a botched adventure, that's bad adventure design (something that after all is practically indipendent on how skills are designed). But if used properly so that success at Open Lock means getting an advantage but failure doesn't totally block progress, then my personal view is that the game feels better when only the Rogue can try, and the others just watch. Don't get too pick on "only the Rogue", it doesn't matter who exactly in each group, some groups may have more than one, some others may have none... the actual concept is "not everybody can try" (either because of the gap, or because the system requires proficiency to even try). It is debatable of course, but in my personal experience, one of the most tedious situations is when everybody can try, the best PC fails, then everybody does start trying, most fail until someone's lucky... it leaves you the feeling that we just wasted 5 minutes and we could have just let the group succeed anyway.

The whole thing is complicated because higher DC cover harder and more heroic tasks. With a d20 roll, the possible outcome covers a lot of ground... even if unlikely, it might still happen that a beginner climber achieves something extraordinary while (at the same level) a maxed-out alpinist expert fails at climbing a tree. That's because the range of 20 covers too wildly different challenges.

 

[fuindordm]

Personally, I don't think the d20 works well as a "one-size fits all" randomizer.

For combat, saving throws, and individual efforts where you want everyone to have a non-trivial chance of success or failure, it's fine.

For contested rolls, it is really terrible. You need to have a very wide gap between skill modifiers before the better side reliably wins the contest. So I prefer to use 2d10 for things like stealth vs perception, disarm rolls, and so forth. It would also make sense for archery contests where people take their best shot but without combat stress.

For extended contests, even 2d10 is too swingy. You could use 3d6 or a series of rolls like the 4E skill challenge mechanic to stabilize the result.

And finally, you do have a lot of situations where the character should just succeed. But rather than taking 10 I prefer to hand-wave and say that characters with ranks in the skill auto-succeed.

I've never found adjusting high DCs for these different distributions to be worth the fuss. Certainly the half-point difference between the means is negligible. When a character attempts something so difficult that they need lots of ranks to have a hope of succeeding, the d20 roll is just fine. But it's very helpful to keep other dice rolls in the toolbox for skill resolution.

I do the same thing when I run AD&D, BTW: roll d20 <= attribute for "normal" tasks, 4d6 <= attribute for "difficult tasks", and d100 under bend bars/lift gates for extraordinary tasks where being average is just not enough.

 

[Hussar]

Which means that the group has to be creative and adapt the way they play to their characters (roleplay!) instead of going "Us heroes. Lets roll and hope"

So the solution is freestyle system less play? Or did you mean something more concrete?

 

[Derren]

So the solution is freestyle system less play? Or did you mean something more concrete?

No, the solution is to not throw railroads which demands to use skill X at the players and can only continue when the succeed, but to let them build and specialize their characters however they want and let them decide how to tackle a problem.

 

[Hussar]

No, the solution is to not throw railroads which demands to use skill X at the players and can only continue when the succeed, but to let them build and specialize their characters however they want and let them decide how to tackle a problem.

But there are all sorts of examples where a single skill makes sense. How many different skills can let you climb a cliff or out (or into) a pit trap? What creative skills let you swim when your ship sinks?

 

[Derren]

But there are all sorts of examples where a single skill makes sense. How many different skills can let you climb a cliff or out (or into) a pit trap? What creative skills let you swim when your ship sinks?

When no one can climb, why did the PCs chose to travel over a mountain? When no one can swim, why did they board a ship without taking precautions like potions or having air tight barrels to hold onto around?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

When no one can climb, why did the PCs chose to travel over a mountain? When no one can swim, why did they board a ship without taking precautions like potions or having air tight barrels to hold onto around?

A lot of the time the PCs are reacting to a situation rather than planning it. They can't choose everything that happens to them or every obstacle in their way.

Also, if everyone who couldn't swim never got on board a ship, then there would be a LOT of people who couldn't get anywhere. I think it's the same reason that people who can't fly get on planes. No one expects to need to.