D&D 5E Status of skills/tools and expected changes

[Li Shenron]

Honestly, this sounds rather sensible to me. When I call a locksmith IRL, I expect that he will have the expertise and the tools necessary to ensure that he can open a lock - I hardly expect him to fail.

Under pressure, in a combat situation? It makes more sense to roll in that case. But with no pressure, ample time, and favorable conditions? Sure, if the individual has the ability, why not just make it an auto-success?

If take 20 is in play, this makes sense to me, for certain skills. Either you know how to pick a lock well enough, or you don't. Tools and circumstance may make a bit of difference either way, but that doesn't change the fact that a lock is definitely a binary scenario: either you can pick it, or you can't.

I am not at all convinced. Do you like the game to feel like watching a locksmith just doing his job? "Either you can pick it, or you can't" may or may not make sense in reality, but what I'm trying to say is that it just sucks in D&D. There's a locked door, we either can or can't open it, we ask the DM, she tells us... what a thrill

Maybe my preference is too old-fashioned, and I like randomness too much. I can't argue that more randomness is better. But I really like to roll the dice to see if we manage to open that lock or do whatever! After all, that's why we roll dice in combat too, because if it was too much a matter of can/cannot, it would be too boring.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sometimes, the skilled fail at even basic tasks. This happens because of inattention, exhaustion, not having done that particular task for some time, stress...a host of reasons.

It's not even just that. My point is really that if everything is either a basic task or impossible, we're throwing out of the game what is actually at least a little bit exciting, i.e. what is uncertain. Or we have to force the basic task into stressful situation every time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are some sorta, you can find them under Multiple Ability Checks in DM Guidelines pg. 04;

The guidelines for multiple checks are literally the same rules as Take 20 from 3E, just worded more vaguely.

• You can keep trying, and eventually you'll succeed if the task is possible.
• You can't succeed at an impossible task (i.e. one where you would need to roll higher than 20 on the die).
• You can't try again if there's a penalty for failure that prevents you from trying again.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's not even just that. My point is really that if everything is either a basic task or impossible, we're throwing out of the game what is actually at least a little bit exciting, i.e. what is uncertain. Or we have to force the basic task into stressful situation every time.

There's also a lot of room to play with tasks that have a penalty for failure. Climbing, jumping, balancing, lockpicking... can all hurt you when you fail. If your chance of success is low, you might be better off giving up before you get lucky.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Sometimes, the skilled fail at even basic tasks. This happens because of inattention, exhaustion, not having done that particular task for some time, stress...a host of reasons.

Situational modifiers, all. I would rather those be handled through modifiers to results than use the dice to represent these concepts.

I am not at all convinced. Do you like the game to feel like watching a locksmith just doing his job? "Either you can pick it, or you can't" may or may not make sense in reality, but what I'm trying to say is that it just sucks in D&D. There's a locked door, we either can or can't open it, we ask the DM, she tells us... what a thrill

A binary situation, like a lock, is only going to give you one of two answers - you succeed in picking it, or you don't. Even your concept of "well there's a chance you might, and a chance you might not" still reduces down to one of those two responses.

I disagree with the implied premise here that there should always be a chance of failure in everything you do. I do not find that reflective of my experiences in life - someone with X level of skill will tend to produce results within some level of deviation from X. Failure at something one has trained in seems to be an unusual occurrence and usually attributable to some outside factor - which would be best modeled, IMO, by a modifier to the roll or DC.

Maybe my preference is too old-fashioned, and I like randomness too much. I can't argue that more randomness is better. But I really like to roll the dice to see if we manage to open that lock or do whatever! After all, that's why we roll dice in combat too, because if it was too much a matter of can/cannot, it would be too boring.

And I would much rather play a game where I can say, with confidence, "my character can reliably perform X tasks with Y level of success." Excessive randomness - such as found in d20 - is not conducive to such statements.

 

[Li Shenron]

I disagree with the implied premise here that there should always be a chance of failure in everything you do.

I disagree as well with that, but I also disagree with the opposite i.e. that there should be an area of the game where you have no chance of failure/success. This is the problem of a rule such as Take20. Without such rule, the DM can still put a locked door and simply tell you "you succeed, you're a good enough Rogue", put another locked door and tell you "you fail, you're not yet good enough", then put a third door and make you roll the dice. Take20 takes the third option away, or force the DM to have a battle or a storm around to justify the call for a check.

You say you don't like randomness, and that's totally legitimate. But just as you can say it's irrelevant to roll because anyway the result is binary, I could say that you might as well be required to roll because anyway the result is binary, and the DM's pre-made decision of your success/failure is not less arbitrary as the dice. (In fact, sometimes I think IMHO that Gygax's love for randomness also had something to do with lessening the DM's responsibility for player's success or failure)

The problem with Take20 for something as blunt, description-less and binary as Open Lock, is that it makes me feel like my DM's work about that is wasted. If I know that the party's Rogue is always going to open every lock with DC up to 20 and never going to open any lock with DC of 21 or more, why am I even putting those locked door in the adventure? I might as well put only open doors and walls.

Other challenges do not suffer from this because at least you can make the player matter. For example, pretty much all interaction skills require the players to choose what to say before asking for a check: then the DM can decide if the talking was so bad that it's an autofailure, so good that it's an autosuccess, or uncertain and let the dice decide (eventually using bonuses/penalties to steer the probabilities a bit). I know this is not very relevant for Take20 since normally you just can't retry interaction skills, it's just an example about skills where description matters a lot. Open Lock unfortunately doesn't typically benefit much from description (I suppose you can sometimes find a puzzle to represent a lock, although you probably also want to make the PC's own skill score matter) and that's what makes it so dull. IMHO at least some uncertainty of the outcome makes it a little bit more interesting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I disagree with the implied premise here that there should always be a chance of failure in everything you do.

In the context of a game system in which the world's most proficient warrior will fail to hit a drunken, half-blind, one-legged toddler 5% to the time...

 

[Mistwell]

In the context of a game system in which the world's most proficient warrior will fail to hit a drunken, half-blind, one-legged toddler 5% to the time...

As someone with a toddler...toddlers are damn hard to catch. You're underestimating drunken half-blind one-legged todderls. Those suckers can hop in a crazy zig zag better than you think.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As someone with a toddler...toddlers are damn hard to catch. You're underestimating drunken half-blind one-legged todderls. Those suckers can hop in a crazy zig zag better than you think.

Point!

In the context of a game system in which the world's most proficient warrior will fail to hit a stationary outhouse from the inside 5% to the time...

 

[Sadrik]

It seems like the interesting thing about some tasks is not the binary pass/fail but instead the pass without a hitch or pass with some complications. This is very much a modern game design feel. Is the story more interesting if a lock picking attempt fails? No, but it is more interesting if the character breaks the lock, jams it, breaks the door jam, takes a really long time, needs to research the manufacturer, makes a lot of noise, etc.

So, not really interesting that the trained lock picker opens it or not. The interesting part is any troubles added onto the task.

So rather than take 20, why not just say you do it when you fail the roll (as long as you could make the roll in the first place) but you have to accept the troubles the DM adds on to the attempt.

You could add on a whole subsystem to the game that covers this type of check and include ways for players to chime in to speak to failures to gain a bonus of some type they could spend at a later time (if accepted by the DM).

This is a system I would want to play with but not something a middle schooler would be interested in likely. My vote for a base game is stripped down, bells and whistles removed, Roll a d20 add your bonus and apply it to your DC with a pass and fail and possibly a save to catch your fall or avoid the trap you sprung or fatigue you incurred. That's it. Advantage/disadvantage actually complicate that simplicity too...

Then in the narrative play style add my failure meaning: you succeed but....