D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[Tony Vargas]

You say here that the rule is one roll only unless the DM grants another (much like 1e does it; and my preference). Others are saying the rule is you can keep trying - and thus keep rolling* - until you either succeed or prove the task is beyond you, and that the DM is bound by this (much like 3e's Take-20).

Which is it?

There's the general rule that the player declares actions and the DM determines uncertainty, maybe calls for a check, and narrates the result.

So it's entirely up to the DM how any repeated declaration of the same action (or variations thereupon) might work out.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Per Jeremy Crawford's Sage Advice tweet....

"The DM says if an ability check is warranted, sets the DC & decides whether a check can be retried, using guidance in the DMG (p. 237) "

 

[Charlaquin]

Depends on the situation. If they have more time right then and there, why wasn’t that included in the roll I already asked for? If they said, “I’m only going to try for about an hour”, I’m going to probably hold them to that. We agreed on a resolution model, and they aren’t going to game it just because they failed a check. Next time, we can use a different model, if they didn't like how this one played out.

Now, if they go do something else that they were planning on doing anyway, and still have time to go back to the lock, say that evening, I’ll let them decide how long they spend working on it this time, and ask for a new roll. Depending on the task, I may even apply advantage on this check, because they’ve cleared their head and they know the task better than they did before. IRL, I often find such “after a break and completing some other task” attempts to inexplicably be trivially easy compared to the first attempt.

I’m not any other poster. I don’t insist on any sort of strict “must use a new approach” stuff.

So, this post is about a day old and I haven’t read everything after it, so apologies if you have already covered this, but I read this and had a thought I felt strongly about sharing.

It sounds like the way you run it, you take into account the amount of time spent on a task (let’s just roll with the lock picking example), set the DC accordingly, and abstract the whole process into one roll. Cool, I’m on board with you so far. When someone asks what happens when the player fails that check and asks to try again, you say that shouldn’t be possible, given that the amount of time being spend was already agreed upon, and immediately trying again would essentially mean they had spent more than the initial done on the task, which should have been accounted for in the one roll. You can’t just retroactively change how long you spent on the task. Ok, that makes sense.

My question is, what would you do if, instead of agreeing to spend a fixed amount of time on the task (let’s say a day, or something), the player said, “I want to keep trying until I get it. However long that takes”?

 

[Tony Vargas]

My question is, what would you do if, instead of agreeing to spend a fixed amount of time on the task (let’s say a day, or something), the player said, “I want to keep trying until I get it. However long that takes”?

Try to think, plausibly, how long it might take, at the most, and apply an improvised degree of success judgement. Roll very well, done quickly, roll very badly, takes a long time - possibly long enough that events intervene.

 

[Charlaquin]

If every game ran that way, then there would be very little point in manacles existing, given that anyone with at least a 10 in Strength or Dexterity would escape within a few minutes.

This is one of those areas where the rules just make zero sense, and no explanation is given.

For a check to be called for to resolve an action, the action requires a (reasonable) chance of success and a (reasonable) chance of failure. If you’re trying to break manacles by pulling really hard or wriggling around a bit, there is no roll called for. Manacles are built specifically to prevent that, so simply wriggling around or pulling does not have a reasonable chance of success and fails without a check. It is only if the approach could feasibly work (maybe you cover your hands in oil before trying to wriggle free, or you bash the manacles against a rock) that a check might be called for, if there is a cost or consequence for failure. If there is, the rules tell us the appropriate DC. If there isn’t, then yeah, the character escapes with a few minutes of work, because why not? They have a reasonable chance of failing and nothing preventing them from attempting to until they do.

 

[Charlaquin]

Try to think, plausibly, how long it might take, at the most, and apply an improvised degree of success judgement. Roll very well, done quickly, roll very badly, takes a long time - possibly long enough that events intervene.

Ok, that makes sense to me. Now, let’s assume this task is being performed in a context where the amount of time it takes is immaterial. Maybe the character is trying to pick the lock on a chest that they safely recovered from a dungeon. They’ve brought it to their home, where they have ample food, water, shelter, and no threat of being attacked. Whether it takes an hour, a day, a week, a month, it doesn’t really matter. In such a context, do you still call for a roll to see how long it takes?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ok, that makes sense to me. Now, let’s assume this task is being performed in a context where the amount of time it takes is immaterial.

I see no reason not to just narrate success.
Though, if there's anything that might interrupt - or even just bragging rights on the line - go with the above.

 

[Charlaquin]

Since the original thread has been 100% derailed into a discussion about how and when you should get to re-roll for picking a lock...

Does anyone in this thread see these two scenarios as being different and would one but not the other occur at your table?

Scenario 1
P1: I want to pick the lock.
GM: OK, give me a Lockpick roll.
P1: I got a 7.
GM: The lock doesn't budge.
P1: I try again. I got an 18.
GM: OK, now its open.

Scenario 2
P1: I want to know if his religion is tied to Tiamat.
GM: OK, give me a Religion roll.
P1: I got a 7
GM: You don't remember anything like that.
P1: I try again. I got an 18.
GM: Yes it is.

Scenario 1 does happen quite often at my table, with the caveat that after each attempt, I place a d6 into a glass bowl in the middle of the table. When the sixth d6 is placed in the bowl, I roll them all, and if any come up a 1, a random encounter or other complication occurs. If the player is willing to keep paying that cost, they are able to keep trying.

Scenario 2 doesn’t happen at my table because I don’t call for checks to handle knowledge recollection.

 

[Charlaquin]

I see no reason not to just narrate success.
Though, if there's anything that might interrupt - or even just bragging rights on the line - go with the above.

Fair enough. While that isn’t how I would do it, it doesn’t break immersion for me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

For a check to be called for to resolve an action, the action requires a (reasonable) chance of success and a (reasonable) chance of failure. If you’re trying to break manacles by pulling really hard or wriggling around a bit, there is no roll called for. Manacles are built specifically to prevent that, so simply wriggling around or pulling does not have a reasonable chance of success and fails without a check. It is only if the approach could feasibly work (maybe you cover your hands in oil before trying to wriggle free, or you bash the manacles against a rock) that a check might be called for, if there is a cost or consequence for failure. If there is, the rules tell us the appropriate DC. If there isn’t, then yeah, the character escapes with a few minutes of work, because why not? They have a reasonable chance of failing and nothing preventing them from attempting to until they do.

Standard Disclaimer: This edition is poorly written, and trying to find consistent answers will result in failure.

That being said, I don't like the way you would adjudicate that, because it seems contrary to the description in the book. The book says that the DC is 20 for trying to escape the manacles, and also 20 for trying to break them. To me, that's already telling us the methods that will be attempted. The DC of a check is always hardwired to the method; they couldn't tell us what the DC is, until they know what we're doing, and those DCs don't mention anything about oil or rocks.

The obvious interpretation (at least to me), is that they want an exceptionally slick character (like Houdini) to slip the manacles, and they want an exceptionally strong character (like Conan) to just break the manacles. They just set the DC far too low, because Bounded Accuracy is a bad design principal. The idea that anyone can attempt something - that you don't need to be an expert in order to have a reasonable chance of succeeding - is fundamentally at odds with a world that makes sense.