D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Minigiant]

Why? Like, honestly why?

At level One, assuming I have a 14, and Proficiency, thats a 50% ya?

Its a moderately difficult task. Not easy to the degree of being hand waved, not easy but still notable so 'Easy' DC 10, but a difficulty that is 'moderate'.

Just remove moderate, and say instead 'even skilled, this is a 50/50'.

You step up to the plate. You are paid literally millions of dollars to hit a baseball.

You succeed 30% of the time, and this is good.

Give me a easy, moderate and hard task.

Do those action with a 14 and proficiency match the percentages the game listed?

The core problem seems to be what is a moderate task?

You are telling me a fantasy Ranger with a 14 Wisdom and Survival proficiency has a 50/50 chance of tracking on dirt and grass? Ridiculous.

 

[James Gasik]

I guess it comes down to the stakes for failure. Something I tell new DM's a lot is "if you don't want something to happen, don't make it dependent on a die roll". You see this in (bad) adventure design "to get through this door that leads to the rest of the adventure, a DC 20 Dexterity (Thieve's Tools) check must be made", and of course, odds are the players fail. Now what?

There's a lot of things you don't really want to be a coin flip, but many DM's feel that dice must be thrown for most any task, and they seem to have a phobia of making things easy for the players, lol.

If the stakes for failure are no big deal (there's an alternate route, you can find a key, etc.), it doesn't matter if the DC is a little hard to hit, especially if you can try multiple times and maybe you can use Help or Guidance or Bardic Inspiration (or just regular Inspiration). Easy peasy.

However, if the check is rather vital to proceed in an adventure, or can lead to serious pain and injury, and you can't set up the ideal situation for it, then things become a bit fuzzy and potentially problematic.

Hopefully the 2024 DMG will actually give new DM's more insight into when to ask for checks, and what reasonable difficulties are (I'm not a fan of +5 DC ascending myself, since most characters only improve their checks sporadically, if at all, meaning it can be quite some time before you can make DC 15 checks as easily as you could make DC 10 ones when starting out. I mean, imagine if AC went up by 5 per Tier!), and to always have a backup plan (or some way for players to "fail forward" so as to not bring the game to a screeching halt because of failed checks).

 

[CreamCloud0]

you know how there aren't any CON skills, what would people's thoughts be on the following four:

-Resistance - proficiency in CON saving throws, also grants half proficiency in untrained skills when resisting effects
-Vitality - prerequisite for adding your CON modifier to HP gain
-Concentration - for spell concentration or any other abilities that use it
-Death - for death saving throws

now, i realise none of these are 'active' abilities you can use but CON has always been a little bit weird like that, in 5e at any rate, add in a few extra skill proficiencies to classes especially martials so they can really benefit from their basically required CON investment, i realise with some of these some of the base math might have to be tweaked a little to account for modifiers on things that didn't have them before.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I have quite a few issues with 5e, and my trust in the designers has wavered, but reading suggestions here how to "improve" the game certainly makes the official stuff look good in comparison.

But seriously, most of these suggestions are easily implemented as houserules, so do it in your game and see how it goes. If you like it, then the problem is solved. I certainly don't expect any game to perfectly match my preferences, and houserule them quite a bit. And whilst I think some of my ideas are pretty good, most of it is really just about matching my personal preferences and would probably not make the game "better" for general audience.

 

[Xamnam]

You step up to the plate. You are paid literally millions of dollars to hit a baseball.

You succeed 30% of the time, and this is good.

I get that it's not the point, but hitting a baseball, at the professional level, thrown by one of the <1% best of pitchers to play the sport? By DC guidelines, on a human to human level, it probably should be around 25. It's kind of absurd that that is the baseline activity of that sport, in the best way.

 

[Minigiant]

I have quite a few issues with 5e, and my trust in the designers has wavered, but reading suggestions here how to "improve" the game certainly makes the official stuff look good in comparison.

But seriously, most of these suggestions are easily implemented as houserules, so do it in your game and see how it goes. If you like it, then the problem is solved. I certainly don't expect any game to perfectly match my preferences, and houserule them quite a bit. And whilst I think some of my ideas are pretty good, most of it is really just about matching my personal preferences and would probably not make the game "better" for general audience.

Because they are kludges. Of course you can houserule 5e. But the houserules are just bad rules laid atop the the poor assumptions of the original. And most of these houserules don't fit on most character sheets nor apply to apps so most DMs use a few hard kludges.

The best fixes would be the adjustment from the ground up. But then it wouldn't be 5e anymore.

And before someone says "everyone loved 5e math", there is a reason why the community believed everyone needed to start with a 16.

 

[payn]

And before someone says "everyone loved 5e math", there is a reason why the community believed everyone needed to start with a 16.

How is that different than anything thats come out in the last 25 years?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess it comes down to the stakes for failure. Something I tell new DM's a lot is "if you don't want something to happen, don't make it dependent on a die roll". You see this in (bad) adventure design "to get through this door that leads to the rest of the adventure, a DC 20 Dexterity (Thieve's Tools) check must be made", and of course, odds are the players fail. Now what?

There's a lot of things you don't really want to be a coin flip, but many DM's feel that dice must be thrown for most any task, and they seem to have a phobia of making things easy for the players, lol.

If the stakes for failure are no big deal (there's an alternate route, you can find a key, etc.), it doesn't matter if the DC is a little hard to hit, especially if you can try multiple times and maybe you can use Help or Guidance or Bardic Inspiration (or just regular Inspiration). Easy peasy.

However, if the check is rather vital to proceed in an adventure, or can lead to serious pain and injury, and you can't set up the ideal situation for it, then things become a bit fuzzy and potentially problematic.

Hopefully the 2024 DMG will actually give new DM's more insight into when to ask for checks, and what reasonable difficulties are (I'm not a fan of +5 DC ascending myself, since most characters only improve their checks sporadically, if at all, meaning it can be quite some time before you can make DC 15 checks as easily as you could make DC 10 ones when starting out. I mean, imagine if AC went up by 5 per Tier!), and to always have a backup plan (or some way for players to "fail forward" so as to not bring the game to a screeching halt because of failed checks).

You realize that in order for the new DMG to include the advice you want it to have, the people who write it would have to actually possess those insights, right? Do you really trust the WotC team to be capable of providing this? If so, where's your evidence? The Tweets of Chris Perkins?

 

[Minigiant]

How is that different than anything thats come out in the last 25 years?

Some editions and RPGs in the last 25 years told you the game's mathematical assumptions up front in clearer language.

5e attempted to be as vague as possible in order to not offend old school DMs. So how the game work could only be discovered via long term play.

 

[payn]

Some editions and RPGs in the last 25 years told you the game's mathematical assumptions up front in clearer language.

5e attempted to be as vague as possible in order to not offend old school DMs. So how the game work could only be discovered via long term play.

What are you talking about? BA was explained in detail during development.