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

[doctorbadwolf]

Remember that the roll does not necessarily say how they are doing in general, but how the circumstances react to what they are doing. With the swinginess inherent to a d20 (compared to the bonusses), it would be absurd to consider that someone trained at stealth can be that good or bad just depending on what, their mood ?

No, the roll determines how well they perform. The DM determines how the environment reacts, often using that to set the DC, determine whether a check is needed or possible, and sometimes give advantage or disadvantage.

The swing of the d20 exaggerates reality, but that can be mitigated, if you see it as a problem, by using fail forward and success with complication, as well as using the check to establish more interesting things that binarysuccess and failure, such as how expertly you navigate sneaking through the palace gardens, around guards, and up the side of the palace wall, to meet covertly with the princess.

no level of expertise ever means that you always perform at 100%. I’ve seen masters in thier field have to walk away from a task and come back after doing something else, when normally they’d be able to knock it out in minutes. Likewise, your master rogue may arrive at the meeting out of breath and disheveled, starting the meeting off on bad footing, frustrated, and out of sorts.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't feel expecting players to describe such things in detail is fair.

Once more with feeling: no one here is expecting players to describe their actions in detail.

 

[Lanefan]

There are many situations where I don't need anything explicit. I mean, I do care but I know that Sly will always attack with their short sword and if the first attack doesn't hit they'll decide whether to attack with their dagger unless they've specified otherwise. We use minis so if Sly is indicating movement and moves into position that they can only attack 1 creature, that also does not need to be stated. Even if there are multiple targets, if the target they attacked last time is the creature is still around I'll assume that's the target.

Makes sense; and it boils down to "SOP unless advised otherwise".

So even with option D, you would still have them go through the motions of checking for a trap even though there is none?

Of course, otherwise I'm giving away info they shouldn't have (yet).

As for the rest - maybe I'm just having flashbacks to the DM who would say something along the line of "Aha! You touched it! Make a constitution saving throw because you didn't look for contact poison first!" It became a game of player description versus DM gotcha. Now, I'm not saying that you would do that. However it's not my preference because it stresses player's skillful description over PC capability. I want PC proficiencies and how the player built their character to matter outside of combat. If someone wants to min-max their PC so that their fighter has maxed out strength and con while ignoring every out-of-combat skill, I think it should matter.

As far as stating specific goals and whatnot, for me it would just be superfluous most of the time. Obviously they're checking the chest for traps because they want to open the chest. Why else would they?

If in that order, yes. But if they jump straight to "I open the chest" without checking for traps then if there's a trap they're gonna find it the hard way.

I'm going to assume the rogue has thieves tools, just like I'm going to assume that Sly is going to use their short sword in melee combat and is not try to kick the goblin in the knee. I don't need to police my character's possessions and I assume that if they have the tool for the job they're going to use them. Why would they not?

In general I agree; I assume that once a posession's been noted on the character sheet that it's on hand until-unless something in the fiction dictates that it isn't (e.g. the possession was destroyed, or is in a backpack that's been left at the inn while we wander the town, that sort of thing).

Where we differ, I think, is that while I assume competence in general I also realize there's going to be occasional times when incompetence or clumsiness rears its ugly head no matrer how well trained you are; and that's what dice are for. Nobody is perfect.

 

[iserith]

I actually agree with your overall sentiment. And I this isn't a new conflict, and I am usually on the side that player skill is allowed to matter. But ultimately in a game where skills and such are a thing, they must matter too. And I feel farther we go from the area of which the players actually have practical understanding, more we need to abstract things and let the system handle it. Like everyone (Ok, almost everyone) has at least some idea how conversations work. Even if they were not super charismatic master manipulators, they can at least approximate a persuasion attempt. But when we get to specialised technical knowledge I don't feel this really works, and I don't feel expecting players to describe such things in detail is fair. Like in real world there are people who can fix computers. I'm definitely not one of them. And if I was playing a techie character in a modern game, I would just expect that I could say things like "I try to fix the broken computer" and I feel it would be extremely unfair if the GM expected me to be able to describe whether I check if the problem is in the mother board or in the power... thing.

Is "I touch the chest to examine it for traps..." "specialised technical knowledge" though?

 

[Charlaquin]

New DM so obviously I'd cut a lot of slack; but the mistake here isn't in calling for the check, it's in not honouring the result.

DM: "OK. You've looked at the doors such as you can in the dark and haven't found anything. What do you do next?"

Player responses could be anything from "We check each door again only this time using a muffled lantern to give a little light" to "We feel each door to see if there's any unusual carvings" to "We abandon for the night and will look again when it's daylight" to whatever else they might come up with; and things carry on from there.

I think either honoring the result of the check or not calling for one in the first place would have been fine options here, but yes, I agree.

Except the outcome of the check is consequential, in that it concludes what they're doing doesn't work and so they have to think of something different.

Only if the DM is employing a “one roll represents your best attempt” rule. In that case, yes, failure is always consequential because it makes success impossible without a different approach. I, however, detest this technique and do not use it myself, so this statement is not the objective fact you make it out to be.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Is "I touch the chest to examine it for traps..." "specialised technical knowledge" though?

Yes, in this context. And it is not just that. There could be thousand different things that trigger a trap, which the plyer might accidentally do in their description because they're not familiar with bizarre D&D traps. The contact poison indeed is a good example. You're literally relying on player knowledge of (imaginary) traps to avoid it, rather than character's skills that specifically exist to represent such expertise.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Once more with feeling: no one here is expecting players to describe their actions in detail.

Yu are. Iserith is. You're basing avoidance of traps on players description rather than character's skills.

 

[Charlaquin]

The problem I see is that someone playing Oaf McClumsy, tank fighter with an 8 dex and no proficiency, has exactly the same chance of describing how to look for traps "correctly" as Sly Quick fingers who maxed out their dex and has expertise. Maybe Sly even invested in magic items to increase their odds.

It would just feel wrong to me if Oaf had a better chance to succeed because the player was more skilled.

It’s not a matter of skill that affords Olaf’s player the opportunity to succeed without his character’s clumsiness getting in the way, it’s a matter of the decisions that player made. Giving weight to the player’s decision is my prime directive here. Also, who’s to say dexterity would even be involved if a check did need to be made? I imagine searching for traps would more likely involve Wisdom. Though, ultimately it depends on what Olaf does to try and find the traps. If Olaf wants to avoid risking failure due to his clumsiness, he ought to try searching in a way that doesn’t involve precision or nimbleness. Perhaps, if Olaf is a hardy fellow, he might consider simply opening the chest and counting on his high Constitution and HP to save him if it’s trapped. Or perhaps he could defer to someone better suited to the task, like Sly. These are the kinds of decisions D&D is all about.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The issue is in the assumption that examining a chest for traps involves touching the chest. That is, at best, a table rule that you and your players may agree on. Perfectly fine, but it is not a rule of the game. Therefore, for those groups who do not share your table rule that "examine chest for traps = touching the chest," you're going to get pushback that the DM is overstepping their role and that reasonable specificity is required (which actually is set forth in the rules in the section on hidden objects).

You're simply looking this at extremely zoomed (IMHO unnecessarily so) granularity. This is what I see going on mechanically: There is trap which has certain DC to detect and a rider that failed examination attempt triggers it. Rest is fluff.

As for why the character has skills, as @Charlaquin has noted, these are effectively insurance for when a player's decisions fall short of success without a roll. Which will happen quite a bit in a game where the pace is reasonably good and the PCs are engaged in situations that have actual stakes to them.

So if the player says they touch your contact poison chest, then they get to roll investigation and on success they don't?

 

[iserith]

Yes, in this context. And it is not just that. There could be thousand different things that trigger a trap, which the plyer might accidentally do in their description because they're not familiar with bizarre D&D traps. The contact poison indeed is a good example. You're literally relying on player knowledge of (imaginary) traps to avoid it, rather than character's skills that specifically exist to represent such expertise.

One would hope that the contact poison is telegraphed by the DM in the description of the environment ("shiny" as I mentioned upthread, for example), suggesting that something odd is going on. This is the starting point of exploration. What the character does from here is up to the player. I would not consider whether or not the character touches the chest to be a matter of specialized knowledge, but rather just normal exploration anyone can imagine while engaging with the environment. That a player might not know that a shiny chest may indicate something is dangerous is simply a learning opportunity for the player. Perhaps they confab with other more experienced players who advise caution. Or maybe they just give the chest a nice long lick to see what happens for the hell of it. Or maybe they'll put on some gloves before touching the chest. I have faith they'll figure it out. What matters to me is that they say with reasonable specificity what they do so I can adequately determine without undue assumptions if they succeed, fail, or whether they need to make an ability check.