D&D 5E "OK, I try Skill A. Now Skill B. Well, in that case, how about Skill C?"

[Reynard]

How does describing actions solve "OK, did I read about this in history? How about in religion? Is it from something I would have learned in mage school?"

This is what I meant by "skills in the same class." All these are "knowledge" checks and you only get one roll. If more than one is applicable, i would tell the player to choose whichever one they like. And they are still going to pick Investigation.

 

[prabe]

As a DM, I hate this chain of players asking to do skill check after skill check.

Part of this is on me, as a DM. (Does that DC really need to be a 25 for a Tier 1 character?)

So I understand this is players trying to get past a necessary check. (And yes, yes, don't lock too much of the game behind DC checks. This is for supplemental or bonus content rolls.) But it slows down play terribly.

Instead of, potentially, the wizard rolling every single intelligence skill when faced with a problem, would it make more sense to just give them advantage on their roll if they have relevant skills above a certain level?

What would be the mathematical impact of implementing this?

Thanks for your feedback.

Generally if a PC has more than one approach they're Proficient at, I give them Advantage on the roll, and ask them to pick an approach--the thinking at least with the choice being that it'll make a difference what the result is based on what their core approach is. I haven't found it to be a problem, even though it does occasionally result in some startlingly high rolls.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Another thing to try at least when it comes to knowledge checks is to not give the players the DC. Instead, you decide on the DC in your head and then you give out information based upon the check they roll. So they end up getting something after the roll... they just don't know how much they ultimately got.

Case in point, you decide that for the History check the wizard is making, the base DC will be 5 for one piece of information and an additional piece for every 5 points higher. So they hit DC 10 they get 2 pieces, DC 15 gives three, etc. And what this does is make them feel like they actually move forward because they now know more than they did before... and thus will probably cut down on asking to roll other checks because they didn't "fail" per se.

If they roll an 11 but still got info... they are probably assuming they actually hit the DC and stop there, even if you set it originally at 5 and you would have given them even more info when they hit 15, 20, 25 and so on.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm interested even if the OP isn't.

Alright. I’ guess I’ll… spoiler tag it…? Hopefully that will help. Maybe.

Spoiler

"OK, did I read about this in history? How about in religion? Is it from something I would have learned in mage school?" Those aren’t descriptions of actions, those are questions. An action declaration should include what the player wants to accomplish and what the character does to try to accomplish it, “I think back to my time at magic school to try to remember if I learned anything about this” would be a complete action declaration. Can the players describe many such actions in succession? Sure, but each of them has enough information for the DM to easily assess if there is a reasonable possibility that the character could have gained that information there, and/or a reasonable possibility that they could not have done so. If both are possible, call for a roll. If only one is possible, simply declare the result.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If they have the time to try several different skills, why have them roll in the first place? If you want them to roll, have it be a "how long to X" rather than a "succeed or fail at X" check.

This is them asking for rolls, seeking more details for the adventure. I'm not locking content behind "do you recognize who this dude in the fressco is?"

Instead, this is them trying to figure out as much as possible about who the dude is, what's the name of his weapon, what military tactics did he use, what monsters were part of his army, etc. All them trying to slurp up whatever potential clues there are for what's coming up later.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know if I've ever seen that happen. Or if I have, I literally cannot remember the last time I saw it happen.

I guess this means we're DMing for different players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Alright. I’ guess I’ll… spoiler tag it…? Hopefully that will help. Maybe.

Spoiler

"OK, did I read about this in history? How about in religion? Is it from something I would have learned in mage school?" Those aren’t descriptions of actions, those are questions. An action declaration should include what the player wants to accomplish and what the character does to try to accomplish it, “I think back to my time at magic school to try to remember if I learned anything about this” would be a complete action declaration. Can the players describe many such actions in succession? Sure, but each of them has enough information for the DM to easily assess if there is a reasonable possibility that the character could have gained that information there, and/or a reasonable possibility that they could not have done so. If both are possible, call for a roll. If only one is possible, simply declare the result.

I'm not sure how this is any different than what I described, in practice. Knowledge rolls are going to be a lot easier to daisy chain, in theory, than "OK, I couldn't persuade him, so now I intimidate him," as obviously that situation is changing with each failed action.

 

[Oofta]

As a DM, I hate this chain of players asking to do skill check after skill check.

Part of this is on me, as a DM. (Does that DC really need to be a 25 for a Tier 1 character?)

So I understand this is players trying to get past a necessary check. (And yes, yes, don't lock too much of the game behind DC checks. This is for supplemental or bonus content rolls.) But it slows down play terribly.

Instead of, potentially, the wizard rolling every single intelligence skill when faced with a problem, would it make more sense to just give them advantage on their roll if they have relevant skills above a certain level?

What would be the mathematical impact of implementing this?

Thanks for your feedback.

Unless they are doing something truly different, I just don't allow it. If they ask for a skill (which is fine by me) they gave it their best shot, especially for knowledge checks. It's not like they were trying to remember what they know from history but ignoring what they might know from religion. If they state that they're looking at something and searching their memory I'll tell them something along the lines of "Give me a history or religion check". As far as I'm concerned knowledge type checks (history, religion, arcana, etc.) are basically the same things.

There are exceptions to every rule of course for example they might first just try to physically move something and then when it doesn't work try to see if they remember something. They might look around and get a perception check and then decide to examine something in particularly closely meaning an investigation check. There are also potentially multiple ways around an obstacle or different ways of solving a puzzle.

How they declare their actions really makes a difference to me and I can't remember a time when the "describe what they do" would make much of a difference anyway.

EDIT: I like @prabe's idea of advantage if they have proficiency in multiple knowledge skills, I may have to try that out. It also makes sense - it's not like I think about what I learned from source A and completely ignore source B, I'm just trying to remember what I know on a given topic. But interdisciplinary knowledge can add up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's not like they were trying to remember what they know from history but ignoring what they might know from religion.

Excellent way of describing it. Filing that away for my use when this comes up next time.

 

[LordEntrails]

The players describe what they are going to try. Even if they describe ten things they are going to try, you as DM decides which one is most likely to succeed, then you tell them the one skill roll they get to make. One roll, not a series of them.

If they are proficient with multiple skills that apply, give them advantage.

And don't make the results binary. Use degrees of success and failure. Sure, they've heard the name before, and maybe it was related to Y, but they aren't sure. (and sometimes give them wrong info!)