Yeah, at this point I'm not interested in talking about things in this skewed "at your level" way. I deal in FICTION. I'm a GM so that I can run a game in which fiction happens, and what happens in that fiction is what matters at my table. So I actually, despite this discussion so far, don't give two figs for this entire line of argument!
In 4e: I'm a level 1 fighter, I get to climb some difficult scree and a couple outcrops to reach the Altar of Forgiveness in order to help the Priest of Lir properly put the evil undead inhabiting the town graveyard to rest. Its part of an SC, and the DCs for these "somewhat hazardous to ordinary people" actions are level 1 DCs. Maybe if the challenge is really tough they could even be level 5 DCs, at most (Level + 4 encounter). This is all spelled out lock, stock, and barrel in the PHB/DMG (admitting that WotC fiddled with some of the numbers a few times over the course of 6 years).
In 5e: The scenario is the same. In this case though there's no SC structure to handle the 'valence' of the checks, so we don't really know what it takes to succeed. The DC architecture is confusing. Are these easy tasks? What is the scale, something is easy if low level guys are expected to do it? Or is it medium/hard, and if so how are they going to all pass the DCs?
Actually, guidance in 5e on that kind of thing is a bit vague, but leans very much towards no check, just difficult terrain. If a check is needed, the GM should take the description of the scree and the actions taken (did the fighter break out climbing gear, or are they freehanding it, or what?) and determine if the combination of these things sound easy, medium, or hard, and then present that to the player. Only call for a roll if the outcome is uncertain and there's a cost of failure (according to the Middle Path).
So, I'd actually need more than you've provided to determine what I'd set that DC as. I will 100% agree this puts much more on GM judgement and overhead than 4e does. 4e was very much easier to run for reason like this.
However, your example exposes a bit of a flaw in your approach. If you are only going by the fiction, and you describe a loose scree slope, but the PC is level 20, you're kinda stuck with the DCs -- they do not describe what you described. One of the things I found running 4e was that I needed to be able to describe what aligned to the DCs, not the other way around. The DC space informed my choice of fiction. You get some odd occurrences otherwise, where DC doesn't match description. You describe a loose scree slop to a level 20 character as part of a skill challenge, and now you need to explain why the DC is as high as it is for that. It required some finesse. This was a thing I got when I ran 4e (I didn't get running it narrativistly), but there were plenty of people that didn't get this about 4e. It was a complaint on the system.
Either way, the 1st level PCs accomplish a task which is fictionally pretty straightforward, and which might be within reach of an industrious 'normal person', or at least elements of it might be.
In 4e: I'm a level 15 fighter. The task is to sneak into Mag Tureah, rescue the Gnome King from the dungeon and get out with the information about the Fomorian spy before the Fomorians can mount a devastating sneak attack on Mithrendain. Again, the DCs will be level 15, maybe up to level 20 perhaps, and a mix of easy, medium, and a few hard checks. I will probably be poorly equipped to pass a few of them (I tanked INT, so I have only a +6 on some of those checks, though on my good checks I'm up around +15, maybe a bit higher). The tasks involved will be things like getting through enchanted iron doors, sneaking past high level sentries, bribing a cyclopes, and removing a nasty curse.
In 5e: I'm a level 10 fighter in this system (bit different leveling structure). Lets just assume the same basic adventure. Again, I don't really have an SC framework. It is clear that the tasks at hand are not easy or really likely even medium in nature. The GM will have to decide based on what ends up generating a reasonable DC against the character's average check bonuses.
Oh, my, no, no, no. This is not at all what's recommended in the 5e rules. Not even a little bit. Player bonuses are not mentioned at all in the sections on DCs. If you do this, it's not according to the guidance in the 5e rules. If this is your understanding, I very much get much of your arguments, but this is incorrect of the system, even if it is correct for how people might play, even many people. Again, I say that no one needs to read the rules for a new edition of D&D because they already know how to play D&D, and this is where you see things like this.
I don't even know what the bonuses for a given skill for on of the PCs in my games unless I go look at their sheet -- which I only ever do out of curiosity, never for planning or running or setting a DC. I mean, I know the rogue will be good a things because they have expertise, but I don't particularly care what those things are. They tell me what their doing, I look at the situation, and I call for a check and set a DC never once considering how good the PC might or might not be at that ability check.
I'm guessing those will be in the DC15 to DC20 range, based on personal experience with 5e. Again, the valence of any given check is unknown, if the GM simply wants to allow for a lot of 'failure, close call, go on' the DCs could be higher, or he could set them lower, or he could allow only 1 or 2 checks and then total success, or require dozens. It is all clear as mud, basically.
I don't know, because there's no description of the scene for me to align to, and no actions taken. Is it a sheer, glassy wall of volcanic glass? And you're climbing freehand? Yikes, sounds very hard, DC 25 STR check! Oh, you're using a climbing kit? And you're scouting for the best path up? Cool, sounds like a DC 15 INT check to get advantage on the STR check. It's still a hard wall, even with a kit, but using climbing gear is a different approach than freehanding, so DC 20 on the STR check. Advantage if you successfully scout a good path. This follows the guidance -- the tasks are uncertain, and there's a clear consequence for failure. The scouting check is one of the few I'd call for without a specific failure outcome because I'd treat it as a set-up move -- it's modifying another check, not trying to solve an obstacle on it's own.
Now, change that description to a craggy granite peak, and those DCs change -- that sounds DC 10-15 to me.
Either way, the task is pretty out there, sneaking into the infamous dungeons of the Mad King of the Fomorians with the fate of an entire ancient fey kingdom on the line. Clearly there's no climbing piles of loose rock here, or if there were, it wouldn't be mentioned as a challenge, maybe at best a minor tactical aspect of a fight or something.
Here's an important difference, though. The dungeons are difficult because of what they represent in 4e -- it's an important quest, so it's an important detail to sneak in, and, since it's important, the DCs need to be level appropriate. In 5e, I'm not concerned about this -- it's the fiction of the scene that determines DCs alongside what the characters do. Both ways are great -- I like that 4e drives coming up with increasing fictional complication to justify the DCs, but, again, this was a complaint about the system -- some people dislike having to make every single thing that gets rolled for have more fictional complication just because the DC treadmill moved forward. Not my problem, but I see it and understand where it's coming from.
5e does give you the option to just have a normal scree climb at any level. Sure, PCs that suck at climbing will be just as sucky at 1st as at 20th. They still suck at climbing. But PCs that are good at climbing trivialize this challenge. Cool. This is on me as the GM if I present this as a challenge, though, and the system should be acting to save me from that choice. 4e skips this by limiting where I'm supposed to make this choice, but there's nothing in that ruleset that says I can't describe the same scree slope at 1st and 20th and just change the DCs. This is as valid as many of the complaints you've made about 5e and DCs. I don't think you should be saying that 5e doesn't work because the GM can disconnect things and cause weirdness to happen while simultaneously claiming that 4e is being run by virtuous GMs so this never happens.
I don't think we need detail level 30/20 but my example might be something like bagging Tiamat in her lair in a mysterious Astral Realm.
Opps, hit enter too soon and orphaned this.
