D&D 5E 5E low level monster skill checks

[S'mon]

If I plop down a lurking monster, I do so because I want to showcase it's awesome ambush routine or whatever. Not to see it being instagibbed before it can act.

We are definitely different.
I remember when a lurking giant constrictor snake dropped from above a doorway down onto the pointman PC -this should have been a Surprise situation, only the PC had Alertness and won init. He was also an Assassin Rogue I believe. He killed that poor snake before it could get an attack roll!
What I remember about that was the bathetic end of the monster and the extreme delight of the player. The sad demise of 'my' monster didn't bother me at all.

 

[S'mon]

When I use a lurking monster I need it to lurk.

Not against half-blind Commoners or Fighters, but against parties of adventurers.

And they are (assuming the players know what they're doing) led by someone with a high Perception.

AND the fact that party rolls 4-5 times and picks the best result.

THAT'S what the lurking monster needs to beat.

Anything less is just babysitting the players and I won't have it.

In 5e the party use their unrolled Passive Perception vs the monster's Stealth roll. On a tie the situation remains unchanged. A Tier I party tends to have highest PP around 15 (eg WIS +3 Prof +2, or WIS +1 Expertise +4), and the unseen monster succeeds on a tie ("situation remains unchanged"), so a +3 Stealth score = success on a 12+, or 45%.

Edit: You might get a PP of 16 at level 1 from a Rogue with WIS 14 & Expertise, but anything higher is very unusual IME. Rogues tend to have DEX 16 +3 which means WIS no higher than 14 +2 tops, and often they want a CON 14+ and CHA 12+, so WIS +1 is probably more common.

 

[clearstream]

In 5e the party use their unrolled Passive Perception vs the monster's Stealth roll. On a tie the situation remains unchanged. A Tier I party tends to have highest PP around 15 (eg WIS +3 Prof +2, or WIS +1 Expertise +4), and the unseen monster succeeds on a tie ("situation remains unchanged"), so a +3 Stealth score = success on a 12+, or 45%.

Edit: You might get a PP of 16 at level 1 from a Rogue with WIS 14 & Expertise, but anything higher is very unusual IME. Rogues tend to have DEX 16 +3 which means WIS no higher than 14 +2 tops, and often they want a CON 14+ and CHA 12+, so WIS +1 is probably more common.

I find that level 1 flashes by, so my comments are oriented more toward the lengthy span from 2nd to 12th. Notable characters included a druid with Observant, for a passive for the great majority of sessions on the order of +12.

The fact my players identified critical skills, and coordinated and specialised in those, had the consequence that the moderate values one might hope for were not the values I saw in play. Instead, far greater bonuses were achieved at each tier than seems to have been accommodated by the designed game balance.

As I noted, a linchpin of that seems to be a straightforward omission of proficiencies as standard for MM creatures. Some creatures have both proficiencies and expertise, and in cases advantage. Most do not, and I think nearly none with breadth.

 

[Krachek]

Proficiency and advantage makes a big difference in my campaign.


For me, there was no need to do them all at once. Only those I was about to use.


There is value in those rules, and we are not faced with a dichotomy. Can you explain why abilities would always be better?

When you add pass without trace, guidance, bardic inspiration adding +2 or +4 to monster won’t help that much. Pc will win their check.

Abilities are like a kind of immunity to certains skill. Blindsight combine with tremorsense provide almost immunity against stealth. A home brew detect lie ability provide immunity to deception, or at least render the task very difficult. Wizard face immunity against its spells all night long, skill monkey can face the same thing also.

 

[S'mon]

I find that level 1 flashes by, so my comments are oriented more toward the lengthy span from 2nd to 12th. Notable characters included a druid with Observant, for a passive for the great majority of sessions on the order of +12.

Yeah, I once had a campaign with an Observant Monk with similar PP. My view was that he had invested a lot into Perception so it was fine that he almost always spotted ambush attempts, secret doors & such. I didn't feel any need to raise DCs to challenge him - I think that would have annoyed him. Although players do love it when I say stuff like "coming down the stairs, you notice a secret door in the west wall - DC 25, so with your PP 27 you auto-pass".

 

[clearstream]

When you add pass without trace, guidance, bardic inspiration adding +2 or +4 to monster won’t help that much. Pc will win their check.

That is true, and expending two uses that recover on a rest feels about right to me, to circumvent a CR 1/4 creature.

Abilities are like a kind of immunity to certains skill. Blindsight provide immunity against stealth. A home brew detect lie ability provide immunity to deception, or at least render the task very difficult. Wizard face immunity against its spell al night long, skill monkey can face the same thing also.

I think you are right that there is a role for special abilities. In being fairly binary, I found that they often introduced a need for imaginative tactics such as a Silence spell to circumvent some kinds of sight.

It's not a dichotomy: I use both. Responding to the OP I believe that in many campaigns it will be effective to give MM creatures proficiencies and expertise. That doesn't mean never give them special abilities. Immunity to deception will play out differently from proficiency Insight. Probably more often the latter is right, but sometimes the former will be.

One risk with special abilities is that they can feel heavy-handed. Our Battle Master never questioned orcs having Athletics, but he did question the one time I gave a quadropedal demon a special ability making it very hard to shove.

 

[CapnZapp]

I find that level 1 flashes by, so my comments are oriented more toward the lengthy span from 2nd to 12th. Notable characters included a druid with Observant, for a passive for the great majority of sessions on the order of +12.

The fact my players identified critical skills, and coordinated and specialised in those, had the consequence that the moderate values one might hope for were not the values I saw in play. Instead, far greater bonuses were achieved at each tier than seems to have been accommodated by the designed game balance.

As I noted, a linchpin of that seems to be a straightforward omission of proficiencies as standard for MM creatures. Some creatures have both proficiencies and expertise, and in cases advantage. Most do not, and I think nearly none with breadth.

Precisely.

 

[CapnZapp]

When you add pass without trace, guidance, bardic inspiration adding +2 or +4 to monster won’t help that much. Pc will win their check.

Abilities are like a kind of immunity to certains skill. Blindsight combine with tremorsense provide almost immunity against stealth. A home brew detect lie ability provide immunity to deception, or at least render the task very difficult. Wizard face immunity against its spells all night long, skill monkey can face the same thing also.

Don't get me started on absolute abilities.

A thing like "cannot be surprised" might sound innocuous, but really, it's only result is to wreck stories.

Any dev that suggests abilities that trade in absolutes ("you cannot be tracked" is another) should simply be fired.

Just as I want specialized monsters to be actually good, I want there to be a chance of failure as well.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, I once had a campaign with an Observant Monk with similar PP. My view was that he had invested a lot into Perception so it was fine that he almost always spotted ambush attempts, secret doors & such. I didn't feel any need to raise DCs to challenge him - I think that would have annoyed him. Although players do love it when I say stuff like "coming down the stairs, you notice a secret door in the west wall - DC 25, so with your PP 27 you auto-pass".

In a similar vein the party bard was delighted by what he could accomplish with his crazy bonuses

My interpretation of 5e native balance is that it was consciously set to easy mode, and I believe that is the correct setting for the default. For one thing it is better for new players and some rp focused groups. If right, MM creatures are as intended.

For me and people I play with, system mastery makes easy mode feel not quite right. Possibly that is part of what the OP is experiencing. Game difficulty is subjective and it is not at all more virtuous to play on a hard mode (which may be subjectively equivalent to easy in any event).

Thus as DM I can suggest a way to respond to a feeling of monster skill values offering insufficient challenge. But I would not say that a group is any more or less admirable for chosing to play or not play that way.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, I once had a campaign with an Observant Monk with similar PP. My view was that he had invested a lot into Perception so it was fine that he almost always spotted ambush attempts, secret doors & such. I didn't feel any need to raise DCs to challenge him - I think that would have annoyed him. Although players do love it when I say stuff like "coming down the stairs, you notice a secret door in the west wall - DC 25, so with your PP 27 you auto-pass".

Most secret doors in published campaigns are more like DC 15.

The worst case was from Out of the Abyss, where the designer tried to describe a DC 10 door as "secret".

That really tells me that dev was on another planet. DC 10 means any random Commoner will detect it.

DC 10 is more like a regular door partially behind some old furniture - you COULD miss it, but only if you were distracted or drunk.

Your DC on the other hand tells me volumes: it means you have left the official guidelines behind and fixed what was broken.

I only wish you didn't have to, and that the game's skill scores wasn't borked in the first place.