D&D 5E Is Intimidate the worse skill in the game?

[W'rkncacnter]

Example: Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it. An Acrobatics check seems reasonable.
This sort of action is exactly the kind of thinking you want to encourage, so you pick a moderate DC: The table says DC 14."

That has zero to do with the encounter level and everything to do with character level.

except the moderate DC for level 8 is...16. in fact, the only level where 14 is a moderate DC is level 4. that tells me that the level being considered isn't the character's.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

....yes, it absolutely IS scaling DC.

It is DC that scales with the difficulty of the challenge. The thing @UngeheuerLich spoke of is DCs that do not scale AT ALL. Ever. For any reason.

Easy = 10, medium = 15, hard =20.

No scaling.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Scaling numbers BY ENCOUNTER LEVEL.

Encounter. Level.

Let me repeat that one more time so it can't possibly be missed.

ENCOUNTER. LEVEL.​

Who decides what level an encounter should be?

Player level +/- 4.

Of course the DM decides. But to not scale at all, DM always has to use level 1 challenges and ignore all the other numbers. If that was the spirit of the game, I misunderstood that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As far as I know, it was an option in the DMG and they expanded on it some in Xanathar's but it was never made core.

When did the player base expressly vote against it? Was it perhaps in one of the play tests?

Yes. Dndnext tried it out IIRC.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Because
Few read the book.

Many DMs don't want to be told what to do.

DMs: #$&@ YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME! I Know how to DM.

also DMs

DMs: I Have a very common problem that would be solved by reading page XX in the book but I didn't read the book at all to notice that page XX solves my problem.

I think you are generalizing too much.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Player level +/- 4.

Guess what? The DMG explicitly tells you to break out of that range if it's warranted, though it warns you that doing so can have consequences you should prepare for.

It even explicitly gives reasons why someone would do something at +8.

Meaning, you could just as easily simply fill the world with encounters of predefined level, and let the players have at it. The rules wouldn't be any different, the game wouldn't play any different, and players would in fact feel the progression.

In other words, if you have a world where everything is in perfect lockstep with the characters, it's because you chose to make it that way. The books tell you NOT to.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Easy = 10, medium = 15, hard =20.

No scaling.

So it's exactly what I said. The DCs do not scale, for any reason--not even because of monster CR or facing down a star-forged adamantine door or whatever. If breaking down a door is DC 15, it's always DC 15 no matter what the door is made of, who made it, what it was made for, or anything else. Which, to me, is so comedically unrealistic I would laugh if I weren't so annoyed by this conversation in general.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Guess what? The DMG explicitly tells you to break out of that range if it's warranted, though it warns you that doing so can have consequences you should prepare for.

It even explicitly gives reasons why someone would do something at +8.

Meaning, you could just as easily simply fill the world with encounters of predefined level, and let the players have at it. The rules wouldn't be any different, the game wouldn't play any different, and players would in fact feel the progression.

In other words, if you have a world where everything is in perfect lockstep with the characters, it's because you chose to make it that way. The books tell you NOT to.

So the spirit was only using level 1 challenges so the rest of the column is just there to ignore?

Of course the world is not scaling with the characters. I know and knew that. But the presentation was misleading.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So it's exactly what I said. The DCs do not scale, for any reason--not even because of monster CR or facing down a star-forged adamantine door or whatever.

I spoke of 3e and 5e where you tell me DCs scale.

If breaking down a door is DC 15, it's always DC 15 no matter what the door is made of, who made it, what it was made for, or anything else.

Which is total bollocks and you made it up.

Which, to me, is so comedically unrealistic I would laugh if I weren't so annoyed by this conversation in general.

Why would you make such examples then?

Then stop being annoyed.


Difference:

3e and 5e define what easy and hard is. And if you face a DC 20 door at any level, it is a hard challenge. Because even at level 20 anyone not learning the skill are still as good as they were at level 1.

In 4e easy and hard are constantly redefined, because even the wizad who never did anything to learn how to pick locks at higher levels is suddenly an expert who can break any easy lock and has a good chance to just laugh at the hard one woth DC 20 at level 20.

So comically you are somehow trying to swap it around and define scaling new.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So the spirit was only using level 1 challenges so the rest of the column is just there to ignore?

No. The spirit was "if you don't know what DC would make sense, this table will give you a reasonable difficulty for a typical character." Exactly what it says on the page itself, that it is for, and I have already said this several times, improvised actions for which the books do not already have specific guidance.

Of course the world is not scaling with the characters. I know and knew that. But the presentation was misleading.

Did you ever actually read page 42? Or did you exclusively look at the table?

Because I don't see how you could have read the following text and somehow gotten the idea that the DCs are being set in lockstep with the PC's level--except for things where there couldn't possibly be a pre-set DC to begin with, and thus inventing a reasonably-challenging DC is the whole point!