D&D 5E Proficiency vs. Ability vs. Expertise

[Maxperson]

Most Players: The rogue is a tad weak.

This Thread: Let's take one of the only things Rogues do better than others, and nerf it or give it to everyone else!

Rogue Player: [Slams head on table]

I haven't seen anyone say to give it to everyone else.

 

[Esker]

Most Players: The rogue is a tad weak.

This Thread: Let's take one of the only things Rogues do better than others, and nerf it or give it to everyone else!

Rogue Player: [Slams head on table]

My head is really sore after some of these threads lately. Finesse is too strong! You shouldn't be able to double dash! Expertise is too strong!

 

[Mistwell]

I haven't seen anyone say to give it to everyone else.

What would you think about giving every character expertise in one skill from their starting class's skill list? Wizards could have arcana expertise then, rangers could have survival, barbarians could have athletics, clerics could have religion (as it is, it's really hard for clerics to be good at religion checks, which is weird), ...

And now you have, Max.

 

[Maxperson]

And now you have, Max.

Expertise is granting double proficiency to 4 skills, granted at two separate increments. Nobody proposed that.

Maybe this will help you visualize what is going on.

I propose giving all classes something that I'll call Class Mastery. It allows you to add double proficiency at first level to one skill limited to class list. Only rogues and bards have a class ability called expertise, which gives double proficiency to 4 skills, granted at two separate increments. These two abilities in no way = one another.

Nobody* has proposed giving the rogue/bard Expertise to all classes.

*I have skipped posts, so I suppose it's possible someone went that far beyond the pale, but I highly doubt it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm not seeing why succeeding on an 8 on a stealth check is a problem. That's only a 65% chance of success. A cloud giant has a passive perception of 17, so with a +12 you need to roll a 5 or better to sneak around them (and that's assuming you're not sneaking past any guards who are making active checks). So the level 9 rogue specializing in stealth has an 80% chance to sneak around a cloud giant. And that's assuming they're going off by themselves, so that if they fail, they're in a lot of hot water. Why is that a problem?

And that's on a skill that aligns with the rogue's main ability score. It's even less of an issue when you get to skills like investigation, perception, deception, athletics, etc.

Except a level 9 rogue hopefully won't be anywhere near a CR 9 Cloud Giant (one of the best Passive Perceptions in the game, btw, so nice choice...), especially more than one!

But anyway, the average "monster" WIS is about 12 (slightly higher), so a +1 bonus. Many foes aren't proficient in Perception (the cloud giant is), so your typical passive perception is only 11. Even when the DM rolls a contested roll, the odds of that +1 beating that +12 is pretty darn small (about 11%). In other words, the rogue sneaks successfully on average about 90% of the time. THAT is a bit too high in our book.

I actually think that given your stated goals of bringing drama back into situations where rogues are almost guaranteed success, your proposed fix goes in the wrong direction. Reducing the expertise bonus and granting advantage means more near-auto-success on moderate challenges, but a lower ceiling on the level of difficulty that you can overcome with a lucky roll.

Well, adding advantage was more just to appeal to those who think a flat +2 "isn't enough" for the poor rogue.

To those who think that rogues shouldn't be better at a field than the best of those who specialize in the field(ie wizards and arcana), what if you gave each class 1 of their class skills and let them apply expertise to it. Include rogues so that their expertise class feature doesn't get gimped. That way a wizard who was an expert in arcana would at worst be tied with a rogue of the same level whose player raised his int to 20 for some reason.

Non-rogue/bard: 1 expertise skill that has to be on their initial list.
Rogue/bard: 5(eventually) expertise skills.

We already allowed a background skill to be chosen instead at the cost of the other background skill. This way, even Rogues can do it by default to gain a third expertise.

Most Players: The rogue is a tad weak.

This Thread: Let's take one of the only things Rogues do better than others, and nerf it or give it to everyone else!

Rogue Player: [Slams head on table]

No one at our table thinks the rogue is a tad weak in any way. In fact, most of us feel the rogue's feature of expertise is too much and throws the idea of bounded accuracy out the window. As I wrote before it leads to some pretty ridiculous ideas really. Even with a flat +2 bonus, expertise makes rogues better at what they want to be better at in many cases and for no ASI investment, freeing them to select feats or use the ASI in other places if they want.

 

[Mistwell]

Expertise is granting double proficiency to 4 skills, granted at two separate increments. Nobody proposed that.

No matter how hard you try, the lifetime pedantry award will always belong to Ovinomancer.

Giving 25% of the ability to everyone, is giving it away to others. Obviously. Everyone here, I am sure including you, understands that. You feigning misunderstanding that and then trying to argue the finer pedantic point for pages is not a game I have time to play today. So do please take the final word, and make sure you take a didactic tone in over explaining how I just don't understand that giving 25% of X is not giving away X

 

[Parmandur]

Except a level 9 rogue hopefully won't be anywhere near a CR 9 Cloud Giant (one of the best Passive Perceptions in the game, btw, so nice choice...), especially more than one!

But anyway, the average "monster" WIS is about 12 (slightly higher), so a +1 bonus. Many foes aren't proficient in Perception (the cloud giant is), so your typical passive perception is only 11. Even when the DM rolls a contested roll, the odds of that +1 beating that +12 is pretty darn small (about 11%). In other words, the rogue sneaks successfully on average about 90% of the time. THAT is a bit too high in our book.



Well, adding advantage was more just to appeal to those who think a flat +2 "isn't enough" for the poor rogue.



We already allowed a background skill to be chosen instead at the cost of the other background skill. This way, even Rogues can do it by default to gain a third expertise.



No one at our table thinks the rogue is a tad weak in any way. In fact, most of us feel the rogue's feature of expertise is too much and throws the idea of bounded accuracy out the window. As I wrote before it leads to some pretty ridiculous ideas really. Even with a flat +2 bonus, expertise makes rogues better at what they want to be better at in many cases and for no ASI investment, freeing them to select feats or use the ASI in other places if they want.

The relatively high success rate is a feature, not a bug.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My head is really sore after some of these threads lately. Finesse is too strong! You shouldn't be able to double dash! Expertise is too strong!

Then my advice would be to:

1. stop slamming your head on the table
2. stop reading the threads
3. play your game as you want

Hopefully you'll feel better then.

Seriously, though, yeah, we have finesse only adds to attack rolls, we allow double-dashing, and we want to reign in expertise. Of course, this is all in the discussion stage so it all might be for naught...

 

[DND_Reborn]

The relatively high success rate is a feature, not a bug.

Well aware of this, but it is not a feature we feel is implemented in a "good" fashion.

 

[Maxperson]

No matter how hard you try, the lifetime pedantry award will always belong to Ovinomancer.

Giving 25% of the ability to everyone, is giving it away to others. Obviously. Everyone here, I am sure including you, understands that. You feigning misunderstanding that and then trying to argue the finer pedantic point for pages is not a game I have time to play today. So do please take the final word, and make sure you take a didactic tone in over explaining how I just don't understand that giving 25% of X is not giving away X

Because I didn't give away 25% of X. What you say would be true if I gave the first level bonus to all classes EXCEPT for rogues and bards, but that's not what I did. I included rogues and bards in with everyone else. Because of that, Expertise gives rogues and bards the same 4 more double proficiency bonuses that it did prior to my idea. I didn't gimp rogues and bards or give away their ability to any other class.