D&D 5E Players: Why Do You Want to Roll a d20?

[Imaculata]

So, making the second check was actually making their action more difficult since now they have to succeed on two checks to make it to the bottom, rather than a single check. And, even though their climb check was good enough to get to the bottom, the use rope (I'm assuming Pathfinder? 3e?) check was so bad that they still fail.

3.5 btw.

No. The Use Rope Check made the most important check (the climb check) easier. You just have to succeed on the climb check. That is why the first player made it safely.

But the other players then started making use of the same rope, trusting it to be safe. That is when a rope can become a liability. It also made for an excellent cinematic moment. I should point out that I did describe to the players that were still at the top of the cliff that they could see the rope starting to unravel from the stress of the extra weight.

What, if I might ask, was the DC on the use rope check? What were the odds of failure?

This was at the start of a campaign that has lasted many years now, so from memory it would have been around 10 or 12. I usually don't make these sorts of checks very high. So basically any character that had a few ranks in Use Rope would have easily made it... but a poor roll is always a possibility.

The base climb check would have been a lot higher. Probably around 15 or 16, due to the wind and steepness of the cliff. There also was the difficulty of swinging into the opening halfway down the cliff that added to the DC.

 

[Imaculata]

I would say the why gets to the heart of the issue. In your method, you would need to telegraph every single trap every single time. Every corridor, every room everywhere would need to be detailed to the point where the player would have some idea of what kind of approach might be effective in that specific location.

Good grief, how long are your descriptions?

Not that long, but yes, I do telegraph everything. Often pointing out the elaborate floor tiles is enough to clue the players in on a hidden trap. But you perhaps forget that you save more time by simply declaring the not-trapped hallways as an automatic success. That save so much time on pointless rolls and repeated trap-searches.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ladies & Gents, please don’t announce or threaten intent to block another poster. Do or do not, but announcing it is rude & confrontational. Ditto accusations of arguing in bad faith. And Mgmt. doesn’t like rude & confrontational.

Find a way to disagree without being disagreeable, or the thread will get locked.

 

[Hussar]

Hey, would this be the first threadlock since the new site opened up? I almost feel honored.

But, yeah, sorry, let myself get sucked down into things too much and I would actually like to apologize to everyone in the thread for my poor behavior. I should certainly know better and it's far better to simply walk away.

----

That said, @Imaculata, I'd point something out here. The climb DC is 15 and the use Rope is 10 or 12. Now, again, I'm presuming fairly low level PC's, where these checks aren't automatically successful. Adding the second check almost doubles the chance of failure. Presuming a 50:50 shot on the climb check, even with a 75% chance of success on the use rope, the chances of failure are very, very high.

Again, this gets back to my point about DM's not judging odds very well. Would you send an encounter at your PC's where there is a 75% chance of killing a PC? By and large, no. ((I'm presuming falling to the rocks below would kill the PC's) We generally never send encounters that difficult at the party.

Frankly, I'm not sure why this wouldn't count as an auto-success. It's not any different than using a ladder to cross that pit trap or lifting the rug to find the door. Shouldn't this be an automatic success? They narrated taking steps (using safety ropes) to climb down. Why did they then have a fairly significant chance of failure? Isn't this the opposite of how this is supposed to work?

 

[Imaculata]

That said, @Imaculata, I'd point something out here. The climb DC is 15 and the use Rope is 10 or 12. Now, again, I'm presuming fairly low level PC's, where these checks aren't automatically successful. Adding the second check almost doubles the chance of failure.

It's really only the first check that matters. That's the dangerous one. The use of a rope is an extra option to lower the climb check (and a backup incase someone falls). I honestly didn't think they would fail that one, given that they all have ranks in rope use. But let the dice fall where they may. This is why I ruled that the first players descended safely.

So the chance for success isn't as low as you say. They just need to succeed at one DC 15 or 16 climb check. Not unreasonable, but challenging. And they knew it was a tough climb with deadly consequences going into it. A successful Use Rope check would have been a very handy backup in case someone failed their climb check. The rope would have prevented them from falling to their death. But of course they failed that particular check. I felt that should at least play some part in their descent.

Again, this gets back to my point about DM's not judging odds very well. Would you send an encounter at your PC's where there is a 75% chance of killing a PC? By and large, no. ((I'm presuming falling to the rocks below would kill the PC's) We generally never send encounters that difficult at the party.

You have to keep in mind that we play 3rd edition, so the number of ranks that players have invested in various skills differs quite a lot. It can easily make a DC 15 check a piece of cake, even at low levels. And in this case they let the person with the most ranks in Use Rope tie the rope, and he was also the best climber. He would hammer pitons into the cliff to attach the rope to, to ensure an easier descend for the rest of the party. When balancing the encounter difficulty, I always have to keep their skill ranks in mind to calculate a proper challenge.

Frankly, I'm not sure why this wouldn't count as an auto-success. It's not any different than using a ladder to cross that pit trap or lifting the rug to find the door. Shouldn't this be an automatic success? They narrated taking steps (using safety ropes) to climb down. Why did they then have a fairly significant chance of failure? Isn't this the opposite of how this is supposed to work?

It could definitely have been an auto-success, you're right. I decided however not to make it an auto-success for the purpose of adding suspense (and it made sense given how they stated their approach). I decided that since the ancient city was located in a inconvenient hard-to-reach spot, it would make the climb very tricky, even with the aid of a rope. I also factored in the strong winds and the fact that all the other players relied heavily on the rope and pitons that had been hammered into the side of the cliff.
I could have left it at that, you're absolutely right. But sometimes a DM may make an encounter a bit more tricky purely for entertainment value. That poor Use Rope roll was just too good an opportunity to scare the players a bit.

 

[Fanaelialae]

So can you answer the question. I ask about trolls and ranged attacks. Do I also know about regen at the same DC?

While I realize that not everyone plays the same, if asking for specific info grants you only that specific info and nothing more (or at a higher DC) then I think it's a game of 20 questions. If not, then why bother asking for specifics?

Depending on your roll, I might inform you about the troll's regen and other properties. However, because you were trying to recall whether troll's have a ranged attack, that would be primary question around which the roll is based. Succeed and you definitely get that question answered. Fail and you definitely don't. Rolling higher than the DC might get you more info, including the info on regen, while rolling lower might still get you something (trolls are green) unless the check was abysmal.

Asking "what do I know about trolls" is perfectly valid in my games. However, if it's a particular bit of info that you're interested in, directing the question guarantees you get it on a successful check. Asking an open ended question just gets you an info dump based on how well you rolled, which might or might not include the info you were looking for. Even if the player doesn't know specifically about troll regen, they could still ask whether troll's have any notable powers or weaknesses (which is basically equivalent in my book).

 

[Imaculata]

Don't mention the troll!

 

[Oofta]

For some minor things, including trolls, sure. The vast majority of adventurers aren't high level and haven't met rare or powerful creatures. Even if you had a monster sage as a friend you wouldn't get a whole lot more than that. Why you might ask? For the same reason that being friends with a professor of astrophysics doesn't make you a professor of astrophysics, or hell, even give you the equivalent of an AA in astrophysics. You will likely hear about the easy stuff, and some cool tidbits that most people don't hear, but you aren't going to know much more.

It's far better to be specific in your background. Let's say your party encounters an Alhoon. The guy who asks for a roll and the guy who talked to hometown adventurers aren't even going to get rolls. It's just going to be a no. This creature is far too rare and remote for that yield information. Player number 3 at the table, though, who when he was younger was taken captive by some orcs and brought back to their stronghold, only to be lost to a mindflayer raid and taken as a slave, would get a roll. His time as a slave in the Underdark with mindflayers around, talking to other slaves, etc., might give him that information. He would also automatically know about mindflayers themselves, something that the other two still wouldn't get a roll for. Plus he'd get rolls for names of underdark cities, races, etc. He'd have rolls for lots of things connected to that time. Specificity matters.

Which points out why I don't like that approach. Player number 3 just happens to be better at making up stories on the fly. I'm all for supporting creative solutions, but creative back stories? Nah.

It's the same with describing how I find a trap. How the **** would I know? I'm not the guy who has spent years understanding how traps are built and work. My PC is. It would be like playing a hacker in a modern-times or Shadowrun game and asking the player how they read the memory dump stack. The hacker knows, the player doesn't.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Which points out why I don't like that approach. Player number 3 just happens to be better at making up stories on the fly. I'm all for supporting creative solutions, but creative back stories? Nah.

It's the same with describing how I find a trap. How the **** would I know? I'm not the guy who has spent years understanding how traps are built and work. My PC is. It would be like playing a hacker in a modern-times or Shadowrun game and asking the player how they read the memory dump stack. The hacker knows, the player doesn't.

The number of times this has been explained to you and yet, here you are in tge sane place saying the sane things.

"I search the doir with my theive's tool, careful not to touch, looking for trap mechanisms."

"I read the memory dump stack using my deck, but I make sure all my virus protection is up, first."

Both of these are enough to adjudicate, which is all that's asked.

 

[S'mon]

Because I want to actively participate in the game. It's just a way of communicating to the DM what I'm thinking. Because most DMs I play with don't punish people for bad rolls. For example, if I make a stealth check and roll poorly the guards may see me. But they would have seen me anyway if I hadn't tried.

If I make an insight check and roll poorly, the status quo doesn't change (in my games or with most DMs, it may at your table). The DM doesn't tell me what I think, just that I can't pick up on any hint of deception or get a read on the NPC's attitude.

Just relating how it works in 5E games I've played with multiple DMs whether or not that matches up to your philosophy of how it should be run.

Yes, exactly. IME the situation rarely worsens as the result of a die roll. GMs tend to treat it more like how Gygax described saving throws - an extra chance to avoid bad (or get good), not a chance to fail.

Re Insight - if I say "does he look suspicious?" I'd expect the GM to ask me to roll Insight or check my Passive Insight. If the GM does not do so, and does not give a clear answer, I likely think s/he's missed the cue and I likely ask for a check.

Re Perception, as DM:
PCs enter room looking around - I check Passive Per to see if they spot the secret door.
Players say "we search for secret doors" - they can all roll (edit) Perception.
Player says: "I tap the north wall, listening for hollow space" - player finds indication of secret door in north wall, no roll.