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

[Seramus]

I disagree.

I feel reasonably confident than if I was allowed to observe your game and halt any instance of you using ‘degrees of success’ that it would quickly bring your game to a crashing halt. Not that I would actually do that. That would be rude.

Not really. The result is still binary: either he passes and does 10 flips, or he fails, does not do 10 flips, and suffers whatever the consequence of failure was determined to be. How many flips he managed to do is inconsequential, he still failed to achieve his goal of doing 10 flips and fell prone.

If he does not do 10 flips, then he either has a degree of success (1-9 flips) or no degree of success (0 flips). I also disagree that it is inconsequential, because degree of success often impacts the DC of the next action they take and the narrative in general.

 

[Bawylie]

If you fail a Wisdom (perception) check to eavesdrop on conspirators through a closed wooden door, what happens?

Do you actually experience hearing loss?
Do you fail to overhear anything useful?
Did the conspirators coincidentally stop talking during the time you’re listening?
Did you fail to overhear something useful, while overhearing something interesting?

Are there, perhaps, varying degrees of failure?

 

[Charlaquin]

I feel reasonably confident than if I was allowed to observe your game and halt any instance of you using ‘degrees of success’ that it would quickly bring your game to a crashing halt. Not that I would actually do that. That would be rude.

I imagine it would result in a lot of arguments like the one about Mr Flip

If he does not do 10 flips, then he either has a degree of success (1-9 flips) or no degree of success (0 flips).

No, he either rolls equal to or higher than the DC and does 10 flips, or he rolls below the DC and does not do 10 flips, and also suffers the consequence, which in this case I decided was falling prone. That’s binary. I don’t really care if he does 0-9 flips, that’s not what the check was being made to determine.

I also disagree that it is inconsequential, because degree of success often impacts the DC of the next action they take and the narrative in general.

I’m not really sure what you mean by “degrees of success often impacts the DC of the next action they take,” and if the consequences of doing 1-9 flips is purely narrative, I don’t see a need to resolve it by means of an ability check.

If you fail a Wisdom (perception) check to eavesdrop on conspirators through a closed wooden door, what happens?

Do you actually experience hearing loss?
Do you fail to overhear anything useful?
Did the conspirators coincidentally stop talking during the time you’re listening?
Did you fail to overhear something useful, while overhearing something interesting?

Are there, perhaps, varying degrees of failure?

I am making some assumptions about the context surrounding this action, but I don’t imagine I would call for a Wisdom (Perception) check to resolve it. More likely, I would call for a Dexterity (Stealth) check against the conspirators’ passive Wisdom (Perception). On a success, you hear their conversation and they do not hear you, on a failure they do, and come to investigate.

 

[Seramus]

No, he either rolls equal to or higher than the DC and does 10 flips, or he rolls below the DC and does not do 10 flips, and also suffers the consequence, which in this case I decided was falling prone. That’s binary. I don’t really care if he does 0-9 flips, that’s not what the check was being made to determine.

I’m not really sure what you mean by “degrees of success often impacts the DC of the next action they take,” and if the consequences of doing 1-9 flips is purely narrative, I don’t see a need to resolve it by means of an ability check.

It might be very important how many flips he does. If he was say... being judged by a gymnastics panel, escaping from a rolling boulder, or pretty much any challenge you intend to resolve over more than a single roll.

On the flip side (pun intended) without degrees of success there is no benefit to rolling really well beyond the stated DC for many situations. A bard walks into a nice tavern and has to beat DC15 to earn her meal tonight and please the patrons. She rocks a 26 (Nat 20) and you have the crowd... give the same reaction as DC15?

 

[Hussar]

Nope! The risk is not worth the reward. I'd go the other way, though. On a 1 I lose my $100, and on a 2 I win/lose nothing, and on a 3-4 I win $100. That's significant risk, but enough chance of reward to make it worthwhile.



A few things. First, no damage IS a hell of a lot of reward. Especially since once a DM allows that, the player is going to use it for every attack. It would be stupid to not have some sort of increased risk associated with it as a mitigation for the very powerful extra ability to just outright negate damage.

Second, I never said anything about double damage. I said increased damage.

Third, it doesn't have to be damage. The risk could be falling prone in front of the monster and being unable to get up until your next turn.

There does need to be some sort of increased risk, though, or else I'm just going to tell you no. I don't allow abusive abilities like that where you can just negate or minimize damage for a free roll with no downside. As I said, it then becomes something rolled by every player(since they all have athletics) on the chance that they hit the DC and take no damage.



But not as bad as your suggestion of a free roll on every attack to avoid damage. At least with double damage(something I didn't say), if you're going to be going down to 0, it's worth the shot to stay up.

Sigh. Look at the example @Maxperson. It's double damage.

Ovinomancer said:
Goal: And I take no damage.
Me, as DM: that's sounds really hard. Gimmie a DC 25 Dex check to time it right. If you fail, you faceplant and will take double normal falling damage.

 

[Charlaquin]

It might be very important how many flips he does. If he was say... being judged by a gymnastics panel,

Well, see, that’s a different action. Instead of “do 10 flips” being the goal, it’s the approach he is taking to the goal of “impress the gymnastics panel.” He either rolls equal to or above the DC and impresses them with his flips, or he rolls below the DC and fails to.

This is actually a great illustration of why goal and approach is meaningfully different than simply saying “I make an Athletics check.”

escaping from a rolling boulder,

Is this a one-off rolling boulder trap, or more of an Indiana Jones style situation where escaping from the boulder is the dramatic question of a whole encounter? In the former case, I think a single roll is sufficient. In the latter case, I think there are far better ways to handle the encounter than a series of contingent Ability checks. In either case I’m not sure how doing 10 flips would help

or pretty much any challenge you intend to resolve over more than a single roll.

There are very few cases where I intend to resolve an action over more than a single roll. They do exist, but they are rare. Encounters are a different ball of wax.

On the flip side (pun intended) without degrees of success there is no benefit to rolling really well beyond the stated DC for many situations. A bard walks into a nice tavern and has to beat DC15 to earn her meal tonight and please the patrons. She rocks a 26 (Nat 20) and you have the crowd... give the same reaction as DC15?

In this case, the crowd’s reaction is inconsequential. What we are checking for is whether or not the performance pleases the patrons enough to earn her meal. Exactly how impressed or unimpressed the patrons are beyond that is pure narrative, and doesn’t really need to be resolved by an ability check.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

So your objection was to the DC in the specific example? Ok, I don’t disagree with that. I thought you were objecting to the general idea of consequences for failure beyond missing out on the benefits of success.

It's more nuanced than that. Primarily it's the DC in this case, but, generally it's because DM's are very poor at judging odds. It's not that consequence of failure is necessarily bad, but, rather if the chances of failure are fairly high, then the reward must be commensurate with that risk. If you have a 3 in 4 chance of failing this check, and failure carries a heavy penalty (such as double damage in this example), then success should be a heck of a lot more than just "You don't take any damage" because there's no point in taking that check.

So, in this case, we either lower the DC (probably the best option) or raise the reward to the point where it is worth about three times whatever failure equals. The trick being, what does a three times reward look like? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but, I know what it doesn't look like.

Yeah, see in combat those turns spent floundering are a real consequence. Same thing if the ship is at sail. If the ship was anchored and no combat was happening, I’d have skipped the roll.

Yup. Me too. I was commenting on the comment that I understood to mean that some DM's just always skipped the easy checks. I think I may have misread that one though.

 

[Hussar]

If you fail a Wisdom (perception) check to eavesdrop on conspirators through a closed wooden door, what happens?

Do you actually experience hearing loss?
Do you fail to overhear anything useful?
Did the conspirators coincidentally stop talking during the time you’re listening?
Did you fail to overhear something useful, while overhearing something interesting?

Are there, perhaps, varying degrees of failure?

Y'know, this is an excellent point. There are tons of skill uses that don't carry a "penalty" for failure beyond simply not doing whatever it is you wanted to do. You don't take damage if you fail to break open that door. You don't spontaneously burst into a song and dance number if you fail your Stealth check. You can always automatically jump your Str in feet. Failing a Handle Animal check doesn't automatically make the animal hostile and attack you. So on and so forth.

The only time I see this "penalty for failure" thing come up, actually, is if the players try to use the skills for more than whatever is specifically listed in the PHB. So, if I try to jump more than my STR Score in feet, and fail my Athletics check, not only do I fall short, but, I slam into the ground, prone or even incapacitated. So on and so forth.

So, again, I can totally understand why players would want to avoid skill checks and would rely on spells (very well defined and often carrying zero penalties) or trying to engage the fiction and skip the roll.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's more nuanced than that. Primarily it's the DC in this case, but, generally it's because DM's are very poor at judging odds. It's not that consequence of failure is necessarily bad, but, rather if the chances of failure are fairly high, then the reward must be commensurate with that risk. If you have a 3 in 4 chance of failing this check, and failure carries a heavy penalty (such as double damage in this example), then success should be a heck of a lot more than just "You don't take any damage" because there's no point in taking that check.

So, in this case, we either lower the DC (probably the best option) or raise the reward to the point where it is worth about three times whatever failure equals. The trick being, what does a three times reward look like? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but, I know what it doesn't look like.

Ahh, ok, I get you now. Yeah, I think a check where you fail 3/4 times is super steep for 5e, but I agree in principle.

Yup. Me too. I was commenting on the comment that I understood to mean that some DM's just always skipped the easy checks. I think I may have misread that one though.

Ok, I see. That may have been me, I did say that checks with DC lower than 10 are pretty rare at my table, because most tasks that could be described as “very easy” don’t meet my standards for requiring a check. But I didn’t mean that checks with lower than 10 literally don’t qualify for a check at my table, I just meant that usually if something has a reasonable chance of success, reasonable chance of failure, and consequences for failure, it’s unlikely (though certainly not impossible) to be Very Easy.

 

[Charlaquin]

Y'know, this is an excellent point. There are tons of skill uses that don't carry a "penalty" for failure beyond simply not doing whatever it is you wanted to do. You don't take damage if you fail to break open that door.

No, but if you fail to break open that door the first time, the monsters on the other side will know you’re coming. After that, you can break down the door without a second check, because the second time around there is no further cost or consequence for failure.

You don't spontaneously burst into a song and dance number if you fail your Stealth check.

No, the consequence of failing a stealth check is that your presence is detected by whatever you’re trying to stay hidden from.

You can always automatically jump your Str in feet.

Yes, and jumping further than that would require an approach with a reasonable chance of success, reasonable chance of failure, and consequence for failure (most likely falling down whatever you’re trying to jump across). I don’t especially want to get into jumping though, cause several people blocked me last time we talked about this.

Failing a Handle Animal check doesn't automatically make the animal hostile and attack you.

If there’s no cost to attempting to handle the animal or consequence for failing to, you should just succeed at doing so, in my opinion. So, most attempts to handle an animal are just going to be successful. A check would be called for if, say, the animal was on-edge, in which case it would make sense if the animal attacked on a failed roll.

The only time I see this "penalty for failure" thing come up, actually, is if the players try to use the skills for more than whatever is specifically listed in the PHB. So, if I try to jump more than my STR Score in feet, and fail my Athletics check, not only do I fall short, but, I slam into the ground, prone or even incapacitated. So on and so forth.

Interesting. That’s not how it works in my game. So if that’s the only time you see additional consequence for failure, I must not be running or exactly like those other DMs that you have seen. Fancy that.

So, again, I can totally understand why players would want to avoid skill checks and would rely on spells (very well defined and often carrying zero penalties) or trying to engage the fiction and skip the roll.

Yeah, folks are risky. You want to avoid them if possible.