D&D 5E What is your "Sweet Spot" of Success? (poll)

[Blue]

I think the 2 clusters are mostly do to different perceptions of person doing the action.

I believe

• The 35% group is seeing a common person doing a difficult procedure
• The 65% group is seeing a trained professional (but not master) doing the procedure

The original post defines this as a PC, they mention good but not great, and above average. PC by definition removes "common person". Really, by invoking PC they have moved away from all NPCs like a common person or trained professional. This is a hero, or at least a protagonist, but not doing the hero's specialty, just something they are good at.

I would have entirely different answers if this wasn't exclusively about PCs. The study I was mentioning was about enjoyment and does not need to be considered at all for non-PCs.

I am exclusively discussing from the position of a PC, what a PC who is good (say proficient and with a decent ability score modifier, or not proficient with the classes' primary ability score) but not great (expertise and a good score or proficient and ability score matching the class).

 

[DND_Reborn]

So if you advocate a 75% chance of failure for a "hard" task, you are saying 3 of 4 locked doors should remain inaccessible to the players, and 3 of 4 NPCs should not move for the players. I hope you have plans for what happens after those failures.

Only if you want to imply picking or forcing open a locked door is difficult instead of moderate, or that getting an NPC to move is difficult instead of moderate...

Using 5E mechanics, if someone is "good" at the task (IMO +7 to +8), and the task is moderate (DC 15), you do have that 65ish% chance to succeed. If you think those tasks are always "difficult" (i.e. "hard" at DC 20), than your chance is the 35ish%.

IME, much of the DCs in the game are 10-15, occasionally up to 20, rarely over that.

 

[Reynard]

Only if you want to imply picking or forcing open a locked door is difficult instead of moderate, or that getting an NPC to move is difficult instead of moderate...

Using 5E mechanics, if someone is "good" at the task (IMO +7 to +8), and the task is moderate (DC 15), you do have that 65ish% chance to succeed. If you think those tasks are always "difficult" (i.e. "hard" at DC 20), than your chance is the 35ish%.

IME, much of the DCs in the game are 10-15, occasionally up to 20, rarely over that.

If the check isn't "difficult" why are we bothering rolling at all?

 

[DND_Reborn]

If the check isn't "difficult" why are we bothering rolling at all?

Because the game has DCs below 20... A LOT OF THEM.

 

[Blue]

IME, much of the DCs in the game are 10-15, occasionally up to 20, rarely over that.

Just to add, I will also often use DCs lower than 10, say 5 or 8, when the whole party needs to try it, like swimming in a rushing torrent or something. Just enough for there to be some tension, and out of a party of five there's one who's likely a sure thing, and four with a 10-25% chance of failure. Even a DC that low is good for at least one failure 34%-68% of the time, even.

 

[Reynard]

Because the game has DCs below 20... A LOT OF THEM.

I am mostly playing devil's advocate here. I use informative rolls a lot (no DC is set; I just want to see what the player rolls and make a judgement based on that) and "not hard" rolls sometimes just to inject some uncertainty into play. But broadly speaking, consequential rolls should be tough. They should require PCs to work together and use resources and come up with the kinds of strategies that give you advantage. Of course 5E isn't very good at nuance so advantage is often something inane like "my bat familiar helps me) -- but the overall idea is that if something matters in play, it shouldn't be trivial.

 

[Blue]

If the check isn't "difficult" why are we bothering rolling at all?

Because there's uncertainty and consequences, and that builds tension.

And math.

I mentioned this right above. Say five characters need to DC 5 athetics check to swim in turblent rapids. One can't fail. The others average around +0 - two have dump-stat'd strength with an 8, few characters with +0 or +1 STR bother with athletics. (I did with my last rogue, turned out very useful.) So of the five there are four chances of failure around 25% each. That's over 2/3 of the time there is going to be at least one failure.. And that's with a DC 5 Very Easy check.

Had a rope to get down to part of a cave, no check if you can take your time with it. They ended up angering the ghost down there and were not prepared to deal with it so they were fleeing. Let me tell you that an Easy DC 10 check to get up, when a failure was a touch of falling damage and then being prone down there with the angry ghost was PLENTY of tension.

 

[Seramus]

Rolling when the consequences of failure are interesting is valid.

And while the DMG doesn't support it, I also like rolling to see how well you succeed.

 

[Garthanos]

Exactly, McGwyver never fails at opening a lock even if he is picking it with a paper clip and an old spoon.

must be a spell caster...

 

[James Gasik]

New NPC Adventurer party

SNL Samurai - Fighter
MacGruber- Rogue
The Church Lady - Cleric
Unfozen Caveman Lawyer - Wizard
David S Pumpkins- Warlock

What, no Jake and Elwood as Bards?