Yes, it is. It provides an enormous incentive to actually get better. Which was the whole point why I referenced it.
If it is an incentive to get better, focus your efforts towards it. If it isn't important enough for you, as the player, to decide to invest in improving Peter Paladin's stealth--then he won't get any better.
Your choice.
If you don't like "survival," consider something like "job performance." Imagine that you would get a 5% pay raise--permanently--if you manage to improve your golf game by some amount. I don't play golf so I don't know what would be a good metric here. This isn't a matter of "you must become PGA-level," just like..."if you can get within 10 shots of par, we will raise your pay permanently."
Do you think that under these circumstances, you would continue to have absolutely zero change in your skill, definitely always forever?
Right, so again, if there is incentive for a player to improve part of a PCs abilities, it is up to that player to choose it as something that should improve over time. Why? Because the PC is actively using the ability and/or training to improve it.
Under those circumstances, as you say, I would be better because I would be practicing--in other words,
investing in it.
Because that literally is an incentive for player characters to get better at all sorts of random stuff. It will, quite literally, help them succeed more. Survival is one aspect of success. Getting paid more often (and better) is another. Achieving personal goals is a third. Etc., etc., etc.
Exactly. If there is incentive to improve aspect X and not Y, you have to invest, in
game terms, to improve X. That means gaining proficiency in Stealth, improving DEX, and/or stop weaing heavy armor, which yes, will
always impose disadvantage.
You aren't going to get better at something just by doing it once in a while. You have to work at it.
Now, if you want to argue 5E does a horrible job of letting PCs "train" for a new skill proficiency, via downtime, or having it as an ASI option (such as instead of +2 ASI, you can get +1 ASI and a proficiency in armor or weapon type, or a skill, language, tool, etc.); THEN I would completely agree with you. Because now you have a simpler and less costly "built-in" mechanic for gaining proficiency in Stealth. As it stands, your options are basically multiclass to Bard or Rogue and choose Stealth as your one additional skill proficiency, OR spend a feat to gain it.
It is genuinely ridiculous to argue that a person who repeatedly risks life and limb on such activities, whose career is actively driven by activities such as this, and whose deeply-held life goals are bound up in such activities, would have absolutely no growth whatsoever, full stop, nothing will ever more be said. That doesn't mean they'll get GOOD at it. They won't, unless they're actively trying to--and we represent that with things like feats, and training/proficiency, and multiclassing, etc.
If your PC is continuously doing an activity, reflect that in your ASI or feat choices, or work with your DM to have a downtime used for training. The DMG has rules for it:
But I
highly doubt Peter Paladin is trying to Stealth all the time, even regularly, when he
KNOWS he is horrible at it. The only way he'll improve, to even become decent, would require investment by you and making a choice to improve his stealth capabilities. And I am also not talking about getting "good", I am simply talking about improvement, becoming decent. Yet even that, if it reflects a +1 bonus to his chances, is shown in game terms by investing time, money, ASI, feat, etc. into it.
Otherwise, he's just doing it once in a while, and really not enough to improve in any "measurable" way.
But passive learning IS a thing. To argue it isn't is simply a falsehood. That's not how the world works, and pedagogical science backs me up on this.
LOL I know, I teach at university. But passive learning is not enough on the scale D&D operates to warrant a +1 bonus (or better!) unless it is practiced regularly. Teachers lecture, and people can pick up things, perhaps gaining understanding, but until it is put into practice you don't actually know how much is learned.
Peter Paladin trying to stealth once in a while, would be like a student coming to class once every few weeks. They aren't going to learn much of anything really. Now, a student who comes to class regularly, etc. will learn (hopefully!), but you know what? That student is INVESTING time (and money LOL!) in learning. So, how about you do the same thing with Peter Paladin? Then he might actuallly improve.
full stop, nothing will ever more be said.
Yeah, I thought you were already at that point... but I guess not. Shall we try
again? Your choice.
