Player skill vs character skill?

[Micah Sweet]

THEN WHY HAVE YOU BEEN ARGUING WITH ME!?!?!?!?!?!

I wasn't arguing. I was explaining how I prefer to play.

 

[Voadam]

I'm confused. You bolded the part I was referring to: "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence of failure." Why do you read it "completely differently"?

EDIT:
Oh, I see. I bolded the part you wrote at the end. Yeah, I very much disagree that failing to find a door is a consequence of failing a check. You don't know the door is there before you roll. You don't know the door is there after the roll. Nothing has changed for your character, therefore there is no consequence of failure.

Not quite.

You are reading meaningful consequence of failure as requiring an evaluation of the significance of the failure.

The text seems to say that by meaningful consequence of failure if the result is uncertain, if there is a meaningful difference between success and failure. If it is assured then a check is not appropriate. If it is impossible a check is not appropriate.

A problem with taking your interpretation is you are ignoring the explanatory text immediately after the quoted meaningful consequence where they say when "a roll is appropriate"

When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate.

It does not say if failure is not significant, do not call for a roll and the players' succeed.

You can choose to extrapolate off the specific words of meaningful consequence and come up with players otherwise succeeding as a style of DMing, but that is not what the text seems to say.

Their advice on running things without dice checks is on page 236 and says:

IGNORING THE DICE
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the player: make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

The 5e DMG also specifically provides a variant option on automatic success using checks is on page 239:

VARIANT: AUTOMATIC SUCCESS
***
Under this
optional rule, a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5.
***
Having proficiency with a skill or tool can also grant automatic success. If a character's proficiency bonus applies to his or her ability check, the character automatically succeeds if the DC is 10 or less. If that character is 11th level or higher, the check succeeds if the DC is 15 or less.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not quite.

You are reading meaningful consequence of failure as requiring an evaluation of the significance of the failure.

The text seems to say that by meaningful consequence of failure if the result is uncertain, if there is a meaningful difference between success and failure. If it is assured then a check is not appropriate. If it is impossible a check is not appropriate.

A problem with taking your interpretation is you are ignoring the explanatory text immediately after the quoted meaningful consequence where they say when "a roll is appropriate"

When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate.

It does not say if failure is not significant, do not call for a roll and the players' succeed.

You can choose to extrapolate off the specific words of meaningful consequence and come up with players otherwise succeeding as a style of DMing, but that is not what the text seems to say.

Their advice on running things without dice checks is on page 236 and says:

IGNORING THE DICE
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the player: make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

The 5e DMG also specifically provides a variant option on automatic success using checks is on page 239:

VARIANT: AUTOMATIC SUCCESS
***
Under this
optional rule, a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5.
***
Having proficiency with a skill or tool can also grant automatic success. If a character's proficiency bonus applies to his or her ability check, the character automatically succeeds if the DC is 10 or less. If that character is 11th level or higher, the check succeeds if the DC is 15 or less.

I'm having trouble following your logic. It seems like you are dismissing the line about meaningful consequences entirely, and instead only using the part about uncertain outcome (the two questions).

I'm interpreting the quoted passage from the DMG (from your post 161) to mean

• Are there meaningful consequences for failure?
  • No: don't roll
  • Yes:
    • Is the action either a guaranteed success or guaranteed failure?
      • Yes: don't roll
      • No: roll

In other words, only call for a dice roll if there are meaningful consequences for failure and the answer to both questions is no.

If not that, how do you interpret "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure"? What does that mean, other than exactly what it says?

 

[Voadam]

If not that, how do you interpret "Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure"? What does that mean, other than exactly what it says?

That "meaningful consequence of failure" is just a failure possibility that is distinct from a success possibility. Which the two follow up questions establish.

The examples, from that same meaningful consequences paragraph, of not using die rolls are:
1 "walk across an empty room"
2 "order a mug of ale"

Which seem to be examples of things where you just expect them to succeed, not of minor things that could be expected to succeed or not.

This would be congruent with the explanation of when checks are called for in the 14 PH.

In the 14 PH under Ability Checks page 174 it says

The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

 

[Maxperson]

Not quite.

You are reading meaningful consequence of failure as requiring an evaluation of the significance of the failure.

The text seems to say that by meaningful consequence of failure if the result is uncertain, if there is a meaningful difference between success and failure. If it is assured then a check is not appropriate. If it is impossible a check is not appropriate.

A problem with taking your interpretation is you are ignoring the explanatory text immediately after the quoted meaningful consequence where they say when "a roll is appropriate"

When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?
If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate.

It does not say if failure is not significant, do not call for a roll and the players' succeed.

You can choose to extrapolate off the specific words of meaningful consequence and come up with players otherwise succeeding as a style of DMing, but that is not what the text seems to say.

Their advice on running things without dice checks is on page 236 and says:

IGNORING THE DICE
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the player: make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

The 5e DMG also specifically provides a variant option on automatic success using checks is on page 239:

VARIANT: AUTOMATIC SUCCESS
***
Under this
optional rule, a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5.
***
Having proficiency with a skill or tool can also grant automatic success. If a character's proficiency bonus applies to his or her ability check, the character automatically succeeds if the DC is 10 or less. If that character is 11th level or higher, the check succeeds if the DC is 15 or less.

I think what you are saying is the same thing they are saying, just from a different direction. If there is no meaningful consequence for failure, then there really isn't going to be a meaningful difference between success and failure.

 

[Voadam]

I think what you are saying is the same thing they are saying, just from a different direction. If there is no meaningful consequence for failure, then there really isn't going to be a meaningful difference between success and failure.

I think there is a difference.

My reading is chance of failure means check to determine failure or success, regardless of how big a consequence the failure is. Their reading is no check if the consequence of failure is not meaningfully significant and so they succeed.

Thus I might call for a check when a player says they search for secret door detection while they would say the PC finds the door, no check, because maintaining the status quo of not knowing is not a failure of meaningful consequence.

 

[Maxperson]

I think there is a difference.

My reading is chance of failure means check to determine failure or success, regardless of how big a consequence the failure is. Their reading is no check if the consequence of failure is not meaningfully significant and so they succeed.

Thus I might call for a check when a player says they search for secret door detection while they would say the PC finds the door, no check, because maintaining the status quo of not knowing is not a failure of meaningful consequence.

A small difference isn't meaningful and it all has to be taken into account. You can't just ignore the requirement that failure be meaningful just because there are other examples that also give it context. The context is in total, which means not only that there be a chance of failure, but failure also has to be a meaningful. Little or no meaning and a chance of failure still doesn't require a roll.

For example, let's say your fighter has his hands bound and has to climb over a 7 foot wall. He's only 6 feet tall, but with a jump he can get part of his body over the top and with his feet and some foot holds make it over. The chance of failure exists. He might not jump high enough or he might not get a grip with his body and feet on the wall, but failure is utterly meaningless. He can take no damage from a 7 foot fall, since it requires 10 feet of falling for the first 1d6. He can keep trying over and over again until he succeeds, so there's no meaning to either success or failure as he will get over at some point no matter what.

According to you, unless he gets really lucky, he has to keep rolling over and over and over until he succeeds. According to the game, since failure has no meaning, the DM should just skip the rolls and narrate an eventual success.

Edit: Failure to find a secret door has quite a bit of meaning, because the PC doesn't get the shortcut, treasure, or whatever is behind the secret door. There is no requirement that the player and/or PC know what the meaning is, only that failure have meaning.

 

[Lanefan]

Again, if that is the case, then yes. But what if nothing might happen during that time? I have played in LOTS of games where wasting a bunch of time does not have any impact on the probability of other events. Have you not?

Or, more importantly, the players need to understand/believe that using the time to search could lead to something like a wandering monster. While in theory a GM could suddenly decide to change things up by throwing a wandering monster at them while they're searching, it doesn't count if they have never done such a thing before. Players need to understand the meaningful consequences for them to be...well, meaningful.

(However, if the GM did do such a thing, in the future the players might understand that searching has a meaningful consequence...)

Meaningful consequences or not, @Micah Sweet has it right: if the outcome is in doubt it should be rolled for.

What gets lost here (and 5e's wording doesn't help any) is that oftentimes the meaningful consequence arises on success rather than failure; and the roll is to see whether or not that success-side consequence can occur.

There's also uncommon instances where success merely retains the status quo. An example: you're stuck down a rope and can't climb up, and are hanging on until someone finds and rescues you. Every now and then you have to roll a strength check to see if you can continue to hang on, failure means you fall and probably die (rather meaningful consequence, that!) while success just maintains the status quo: nothing happens.

 

[Lanefan]

I think what you are saying is the same thing they are saying, just from a different direction. If there is no meaningful consequence for failure, then there really isn't going to be a meaningful difference between success and failure.

Yes there is, if there's a meaningful consequence for success.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes there is, if there's a meaningful consequence for success.

That automatically means that there is a meaningful consequence for failure.