D&D 5E How difficult should Difficulty be?

[Maxperson]

Which is precisely what I did in the OP. A whopping 10% chance for the scene for a PC who is at that point, supposed to be "superheroic".

Not very heroic if you have just a 10% chance to do that heroic task.

Yes, yes it is superheroic to have a 10% chance at doing the nearly impossible. That's the point. Nobody else would even have a chance, but you at 20th level might be able to do it.

Which is nothing like what I said...

It's what you have shown in every post that has lowered DC numbers. You haven't come out and said it, but that's what DC 20 and 25 mean. Any first level PC can achieve a 25. I have yet to see one without a 16 somewhere and proficiency in a skill of that stat. Without nearly impossible being 30 or higher DC, literally nothing is nearly impossible.

 

[Stalker0]

You're experiences differ, great, but they aren't mine. You want 10%, great, I don't. Instead of going back and forth on it again and again and again, let's let it rest, ok???

I feel like the issue though stems back to the OP. When you proposed this change, you implied that ability check DCs in 5e were in general too high.

I mean if you think it's an improvement in your game than of course you should do it, but then there isn't really any reason for the thread. Instead, the thread was to propose the notion that the design of the game has a flaw (albeit a minor one) and that the game in general would be improved with this change.

And several of us are countering your experiences with our own, that we have found the DCs to be fine or even not high enough. Now I would argue that in most of these kinds of threads it should be "designers are right until proven wrong". Ie we should assume the game is doing things correctly for most people until someone makes a good case that there is a problem. You have attempted to say the design could use adjusted, several of us have countered. At this point I don't think you are able to prove your general case, and you certainly don't need our permission or blessing to make changes within your own game. So what is left to discuss?


One thing I do want to go back to is the "pointlessness" of a 10% chance. I have DMed over 20 years, and something I've noticed. As your players get really seasoned and have a dozen campaigns under their belt... the 10%s are the things people remember. People remember the crazy moments when PC A saved PC B with an incredible roll. The time the paladin could only flub his persuasion on a 1....and got that 1. Beating the monster by the absolute skin of their teeth. Those are the stories my players still tell over and over.... no one remember the series of standards roll they made in campaign X.

Sure 9 out of 10 times the player will fail.... and that failure will be forgotten in a few weeks. But those times they do succeed.....they will remember that for years to come.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You know, I find it interesting people keep bringing these up...

Bards aren't in every party. In 4 years now, I played a bard (getting just to 5th level in that class) once and no one else in my group (or the new group I'm in) has played a bard.

Guidance is available only to Clerics and Druids. While most parties tend to have one or the other (if not both), the spamming use of guidance has made a lot of people nerf the use or eliminate the spell altogether. In my own games, for example, guidance is only usable once per short or long rest for each PC.

Expertise is available only to Rogue and Bards. Xanathar's brought in Prodigy, but to limited races, and it wasn't until recently with Tasha's that you have it readily available if that is what you want, but competing with so many other feats it is by no means a guarantee. Of course, many classes have features which double proficiency bonus to a limited subset of skills, but those are subclass specific and limited as well.

While many people here seem to feel any or all of these things are a given, please know they simply are NOT universally so.

All that being said, what is nearly impossible should not be exceedingly rare IMO for tier 4 PCs! It is a huge let down when the situation does arise, the PC has a chance to do something great and memorable, but the odds are so against it that the PC might as well try something else.

So, for groups where you don't have power-gamers, min-maxers, or tactical-team experts, most modifiers to ability checks range from +3 to +10 with the only common exception IMO is the rogue due to expertise sometimes getting in the +13-16 range.

---------------------------------------------
Perhaps another route, which would be simpler than adjusting DCs and tasks names, is just to allow every creature to have expertise in one skill.

For PCs, perhaps limiting this to their Background skills would work best. Then, by the time they reach tier 4, they will probably have +14-17 in that one skill they can excel in.

You're lucky. I haven't seen a party without a bard in years.

 

[Stalker0]

I will also note that I can't remember the last time I saw a game without guidance. My players will use magic initiate to pick it up if they don't have someone who can cast it.

So a common houserule I use for guidance (which I didn't in this current campaign because I was going with a low houserule game for some newer players....which I now regret) is the following:

Guidance: Effects 6 people for 1 hour (concentration). Targets gain +1 to all ability checks.

This version is very fire and forget. The party has it up, everyone notes the bonus, we move on. No need to spam the spell, no need to ask me "can I use guidance in this situation". No muss no fuss. It also drops the max bonus from a 4 to a 1, which greatly reduces the chance a PC can grab a 30 DC roll (until you add a bard or something back in).

On the flip side its not a total nerf, now guidance applies to checks it wouldn't before. So overall my players still love guidance, they still use it all the time even when I use this altered change, but its dramatically less headache for me to worry about. I highly recommend it, and again I may slip it back into my current game at some point.

 

[Charlaquin]

All that being said, what is nearly impossible should not be exceedingly rare IMO for tier 4 PCs!

I think this is what it really comes down to. Some people, like (I presume) you, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for ordinary people” and, assuming PCs are a cut above ordinary to begin with and downright extraordinary by tier 4, think that the difficulty is too high. Other people, like me, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for a PC”, and assume only the most skilled PCs should be able to pull such a task off, and only with a lot of luck.

I don’t actually disagree that PCs should be a cut above ordinary people and be capable of greater things. I just assume the difficulty ranges are named relative to a PC’s capabilities rather than an ordinary person’s. What’s nearly impossible for a PC may be far beyond what’s possible for other characters. Heck, what’s easy for a PC might be impossible for other characters; that’s, again, a dial the DM has the power to adjust simply by setting the DCs differently. Naming the categories relative to a PC’s capabilities helps enable that.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Right, which we know to be a character with a 16 in the relevant ability, increasing at 4th and 8th level, and proficiency.

. . .
That bonus is going to change. Which means that if you think "a PC" should have a 50% chance of success, you will be changing the DC depending on who is attempting to do that task.

 

[Charlaquin]

. . .
That bonus is going to change. Which means that if you think "a PC" should have a 50% chance of success, you will be changing the DC depending on who is attempting to do that task.

It should be almost impossible for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 30 task. And it is; only PCs who are of very high level and/or are experts in the task even have a chance, and even they have a fairly low chance. It should be very hard for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 25 task. And it is; only characters with some combination of a high score in the relevant ability and proficiency have a chance, and only experts or high-level characters can achieve a decent chance at it. It should be hard for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 20 task. And it is; an unskilled character needs a very high roll to pull it off, but a high score and/or proficiency can help mitigate the difficulty. It should be moderately difficult for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 15 task. And it is; an unskilled character is more likely to fail than to succeed, but a specialized character or a character with a situational advantage succeeds more often than not. It should be easy for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 10 task. And it is; even an unskilled character will succeed half the time, and a specialized character will only fail very rarely. It should be very easy for a PC to successfully accomplish a DC 5 task. And it is; even an unskilled character will succeed most of the time, and a specialized character will never fail.

 

[Maxperson]

One thing I do want to go back to is the "pointlessness" of a 10% chance. I have DMed over 20 years, and something I've noticed. As your players get really seasoned and have a dozen campaigns under their belt... the 10%s are the things people remember. People remember the crazy moments when PC A saved PC B with an incredible roll. The time the paladin could only flub his persuasion on a 1....and got that 1. Beating the monster by the absolute skin of their teeth. Those are the stories my players still tell over and over.... no one remember the series of standards roll they made in campaign X.

Sure 9 out of 10 times the player will fail.... and that failure will be forgotten in a few weeks. But those times they do succeed.....they will remember that for years to come.

This. This is what heroes are made out of. Not rolling a 13 or better to succeed at a nearly impossible task.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think this is what it really comes down to. Some people, like (I presume) you, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for ordinary people” and, assuming PCs are a cut above ordinary to begin with and downright extraordinary by tier 4, think that the difficulty is too high. Other people, like me, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for a PC”, and assume only the most skilled PCs should be able to pull such a task off, and only with a lot of luck.

I don’t actually disagree that PCs should be a cut above ordinary people and be capable of greater things. I just assume the difficulty ranges are named relative to a PC’s capabilities rather than an ordinary person’s. What’s nearly impossible for a PC may be far beyond what’s possible for other characters. Heck, what’s easy for a PC might be impossible for other characters; that’s, again, a dial the DM has the power to adjust simply by setting the DCs differently. Naming the categories relative to a PC’s capabilities helps enable that.

I think that is a very fair assessment.

DC's don't change according to who is trying to do them, nor should the descriptive task name. Yes, I feel if the task is nearly impossible, it is for everyone, not just the PCs at that point in their career. By the time PCs might be encountering DC 25 and DC 30, I feel their odds should be on par with what level 1 PCs deal with vs. DC 15 or 20, but it isn't quite there.

For example, a level 1 PC is +5 vs. DC 20 needs 14. But a level 20 PC is +11 vs. DC 30 needs an 19. That is the 5-point difference that bothers me. One solution I proposed at the end of a post but no one has responded to yet was giving all creatures expertise in one skill. For PCs, that would likely be a background skill. With the extra +6 at level 20, then the PC is +17 vs. DC needing a 13, almost the same as the level 1 PC needed the 14.

This solution would allow higher level PCs to attempt higher level DC tasks with a reasonable chance of success but only in one thing they excel at. In a way, I like that idea because it isn't a universal shift but still accomplishes the change for having better than a 10% chance for a DC 30 task without relying on inspiration, guidance, et. al.

 

[DND_Reborn]

One thing I do want to go back to is the "pointlessness" of a 10% chance. I have DMed over 20 years, and something I've noticed. As your players get really seasoned and have a dozen campaigns under their belt... the 10%s are the things people remember. People remember the crazy moments when PC A saved PC B with an incredible roll. The time the paladin could only flub his persuasion on a 1....and got that 1. Beating the monster by the absolute skin of their teeth. Those are the stories my players still tell over and over.... no one remember the series of standards roll they made in campaign X.

Sure, we all have such great memories, but it holds true whether the PC needs a 19 or a 13. If your chances of failure are better than your chances of success, in those key moment people will remember the success, regardless of the number. Otherwise, when the odds get worse and worse, it just becomes dumb luck more than anything...

Sure 9 out of 10 times the player will fail.... and that failure will be forgotten in a few weeks. But those times they do succeed.....they will remember that for years to come.

If the moment is that important, failures will not be forgotten so soon, and will be bitter indeed, especially because the players realize with just a 10% chance, it wasn't just bad luck--odds were very good you would fail.