D&D 5E Skill Checks (non time sensitive) homebrew fixes

[Dausuul]

The problem with the standard rule, equivalent to "taking 20" in 3E, is that it shuts down team play. Whoever has the highest skill modifier steps up and does the task. Either that PC succeeds, or that PC fails, but no one else can contribute in any way. If the person with a +5 modifier fails, the person with +4 is guaranteed to fail. Helping just grants advantage, and advantage means nothing if you're already getting 20 on the die.

I like Sacrosanct's idea. I do think it needs a little fleshing out, though. If you've accumulated a hefty penalty, can you still help someone else with the task? Is the penalty permanent or does it reset? If it resets, when/how?

 

[iserith]

The meaningful consequence of failure is that you aren't able to get in the door. Or chest. Or aren't able to decipher the riddle. Those are all pretty meaningful things. Not sure why you keep ignoring that, since I've mentioned it at least three times.

Look, I want players to have a chance of success at a task outside of combat. If they fail, I want them to be able to retry, just like in real life. But I don't want it to be a "you're gonna succeed anyway automatically, so we'll just narrate your success", because that's not realistic either. Even if there is no time constraint, success is not guaranteed. That's it. Nothing more complex than that.

"Sometime a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at the task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one."

So, if they got the time to spend, and the task is achievable, then they just succeed.

If the rules state what iserith said, (if there is no time constraint then that means the PC will automatically succeed), then what I'm doing is in fact a house rule because it runs counter to that.

They will succeed if the task is not impossible and retries are possible, yes. It's just a matter of time at that point. And with no time constraints, there's no meaningful consequence of failure in this instance. If you change the parameters of the example, then we'd have to reexamine it.

 

[Ristamar]

The cumulative penalty never resets, it's just eternal "frustration" no matter how much time passes?

 

[Sacrosanct]

The problem with the standard rule, equivalent to "taking 20" in 3E, is that it shuts down team play. Whoever has the highest skill modifier steps up and does the task. Either that PC succeeds, or that PC fails, but no one else can contribute in any way. If the person with a +5 modifier fails, the person with +4 is guaranteed to fail. Helping just grants advantage, and advantage means nothing if you're already getting 20 on the die.

I like Sacrosanct's idea. I do think it needs a little fleshing out, though. If you've accumulated a hefty penalty, can you still help someone else with the task? Is the penalty permanent or does it reset? If it resets, when/how?

I try to use existing guidelines whenever possible, so in this case, I'd reset after a long rest. Which aligns with my philosophy of achieving realism whenever possible. In this case, you have a day to clear your mind, refocus, and try again refreshed.

 

[iserith]

I would also posit this discussion is distracted from the real issue by use of the term "house rules." The DM is the arbiter of penalties and DCs, so if [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] wants to consistently apply a cumulative -2 penalty for retries, that's supported by the 5E rules, and not really a house rule any more than any other consequence for failure that the DM might apply.

That's fair. I'm not particularly hung up on whether a thing is a house rule or not. Just that it looks like this is a solution to a problem that is being created by the playstyle rather than the game itself. My gut says this is a result of playing D&D 5e like it's D&D 3e or 4e by going to the "skill check" first instead of doing the standard adjudication process. I could be wrong, but commonly people arrive at these sorts of issues because of that.

 

[iserith]

As an aside, I would not describe the -2 penalty as "frustration." That's getting into telling players how their characters feel about something and this can be dangerous territory. I think it's better to imagine something about the environment that is doing this rather than the DM infringing upon the character. (I gave an example of special tumblers on a lock upthread.)

 

[Dausuul]

"Sometime a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at the task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one."

So, if they got the time to spend, and the task is achievable, then they just succeed.

Please stop just quoting the rules. We know those are the rules as written. There is a reason why "homebrew" is in the title of the thread.

Sacrosanct believes the written rule creates a problem. Sacrosanct is proposing a house rule to solve the perceived problem. You could argue that the problem is not really a problem, or that the solution won't work, or what have you, but it adds nothing to the discussion to keep saying "But this is what it says in the book!"

 

[Ristamar]

The problem with the standard rule, equivalent to "taking 20" in 3E, is that it shuts down team play. Whoever has the highest skill modifier steps up and does the task. Either that PC succeeds, or that PC fails, but no one else can contribute in any way. If the person with a +5 modifier fails, the person with +4 is guaranteed to fail. Helping just grants advantage, and advantage means nothing if you're already getting 20 on the die.

That sounds like an encounter or adventure design problem rather than a mechanics problem.

If my buddy, a car mechanic, has me tag along to fix automobiles all day one by one with no time-based impetus, and I know very little about fixing cars relative to his skill and experience, he's probably going to do almost all of the work.

If we have a number of cars to fix at the same time and/or within a limited amount of time, my potential for assistance (or lack of thereof) becomes much more interesting.

 

[iserith]

The problem with the standard rule, equivalent to "taking 20" in 3E, is that it shuts down team play. Whoever has the highest skill modifier steps up and does the task. Either that PC succeeds, or that PC fails, but no one else can contribute in any way. If the person with a +5 modifier fails, the person with +4 is guaranteed to fail. Helping just grants advantage, and advantage means nothing if you're already getting 20 on the die.

Setting aside that I think it's perfectly reasonable for the character with the highest modifier to step up and do the task, I think how one views this depends on how "team play" is defined and whether "team play" by the definition on offer must necessarily be present in all challenges. Certainly there is "team play" in combats, for example. And even if there is no ability check in an exploration challenge, for instance, a character working together with another character is still "team play" in my view. I don't think there must be a roll of some kind. And arguably for the players, it's way better if there isn't one.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I go with the "one roll only" method. Mainly because I don't see a single roll as being "one attempt" at the action. I consider the roll to be a culmination of ALL the attempts to do the action under the circumstances the person (or people) are currently under.

If the thief is trying to pick a lock and rolls an '8'... then that's the best they've done over however long we want to say they took to do so. And they don't get to roll again to try again until the circumstances have been changed in the scenario.

"My wizard casts Light on this coin and I aim it directly at the lock to give the thief better light to see what he's doing."

Okay, he may try again. If he fails again it means he again spent X amount of time trying to pick it and still couldn't do it. At that point the party has to find another way to change the circumstances of the scenario. And if they can't think of any, then they don't get past the lock.

It's the same way I do INT checks to recall information. A person makes an INT (Religion) check to recall some info about this weird symbol they find in an ancient temple ruin, and they either know it or they don't. There's no "taking 20" or anything like that. If they roll a '3' then obviously the PC just doesn't know the info. And if they want to get the info, they have to change the scenario situation (like go to a library or something.

That being said... in the case of something like the INT (Religion) check I mentioned above... I do have a "house rule" for my table that says that if someone at the table thinks up the question and I have them roll to see if they know the answer... if their check does not succeed, not everybody gets to then line up and try the check themselves as well. I only allow those who are proficient in the skill to roll as well since they are the ones who might actually have the learned the info due to training.