D&D 5E Rolling Without a Chance of Failure (I love it)

[Lyxen]

I don’t care about metagaming, so that’s not a problem for me.

Where do the rules say that?

"When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence."

So it's when the creature tries to hide, not when someone is trying to find them.

 

[iserith]

Only very unconvincingly. We try to run really equal opportunity tables, where people who are not charismatic in real life can play characters with much more leadership than other characters at the table, and where people who try to explain in detail how a trap works in real life get zero bonus over a player who knows nothing about those but whose character is a specialist of.

It's one way to play the game, for sure, but for us it's important to allow everyone to play anything if they want to, and not penalise them for this.

You've just applied the same old erroneous argument that gets trotted out in all these discussions, usually by the same old people. It's tiresome.

A player need only state a goal and approach - "I give a stirring speech to rally the troops, mentioning duty, honor, and loyalty to the king..." or "I pick the lock with my lockpicks." Nothing more. Anything beyond that like flowery, inspiring speeches or discussion about complex engineering is just color and is not applied to the adjudication process. It might be worth Inspiration though if it plays to a character's personality traits, ideal, bond, or flaw.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You may like the scene, but the film would unquestionably be better without it.

No, it wouldn’t. It certainly isn’t “unquestionable” that it would.

As I’ve told you multiple times, this is a problem I see all the time especially with new DMs, and one of the reasons I advise people not to call for checks if the outcome of the check isn’t consequential.

And again, the failure isn’t in asking for the check, it’s I’m not bothering to think about the potential outcomes. A failure of narration, not of running the mechanics of the game.

Hell, if it’s gotta happen, the check could just determine who succeeds first. Does that “matter”? Not really, but players will still tend to be interested in it.

 

[iserith]

"When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence."

So it's when the creature tries to hide, not when someone is trying to find them.

Those rules cannot be divorced from the other rules about ability checks which is that you call for a roll only when there's uncertainty as to the outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. Which aren't present if there's nobody to hide from right now. So you make the roll later when there is and - hey what do you know - no issues about "metagaming" arise. No super secret double-blind rolls needed.

 

[reelo]

Reminds me of how I handle Stealth. Most other DMs I’ve observed call for a Stealth check right away when a player says their character is sneaking somewhere, even if there’s no one to observe them at that moment, and then refer to that number when/if they pass by an enemy that might spot them. I instead wait until there’s an actual chance the character will be spotted before calling for a Stealth check. Call for the rolls when they’re relevant, I find it’s much more exciting that way.

You should roll the player's Stealth check yourself. Stealth is one of those skills where if the player rolls it, he sees the result and can easily extrapolate an success/failure by the result, and proactively adjust his behaviour. Which is bad, imho.

 

[Charlaquin]

Unless this is just flavour and good roll will retroactively make the trap (if there is one) to be of such type that it would be detected by the method player described, this becomes just a game of 'guess what the GM is thinking.'

Or, rather, because I make use of telegraphing, it’s a game of “pay attention to environmental cues.”

 

[Charlaquin]

"When you try to hide, make a Dexterity (Stealth) check. Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature that actively searches for signs of your presence."

So it's when the creature tries to hide, not when someone is trying to find them.

Moving quietly through an empty corridor is not trying to hide. When the enemy guard barks “what was that?” and you dart behind the nearest crate, that’s trying to hide.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You should roll the player's Stealth check yourself. Stealth is one of those skills where if the player rolls it, he sees the result and can easily extrapolate an success/failure by the result, and proactively adjust his behaviour. Which is bad, imho.

Maybe. But that's not how I think it. The character actually knows whether they did well. If they roll badly, I will describe them stepping on some twigs that make sound or something like that. What they do not know, how good the potential enemies are at detecting them.

 

[iserith]

Or, rather, because I make use of telegraphing, it’s a game of “pay attention to environmental cues.”

Why would anyone want to incentivize players to pay attention to the game they're playing? There are memes to scroll through on their phones!

 

[Charlaquin]

You should roll the player's Stealth check yourself. Stealth is one of those skills where if the player rolls it, he sees the result and can easily extrapolate an success/failure by the result, and proactively adjust his behaviour. Which is bad, imho.

No, I shouldn’t, because I am not afraid of “metagaming” and am perfectly comfortable with players deducing information from the results of their own checks.