Difficulty Numbers: Scaling, or Static?

[Reynard]

This came up in he Daggerheart General thread and I thought I would move it to its own thread for discussion.

In games that havel levels, ranks, tiers, etc, do you prefer difficulty or target numbers to be dependent on those levels, or should they be independent of levels?

For example, let's look at the example of climbing a cliff face. In the first paradigm, the Difficulty is set based at least in part on what level the party/character is attempting it. In the second paradigm, the difficuty is whatever it is, regardless of who tries to climb it (or what level the adventure is, or whatever).

D&D has had a weird relationship with DCs, especially in d20 editions and forward. WHile many seem to say the DC is static, in practice those numbers always seem to scale for the intended level of the challenge.

I prefer static difficulties generally. That is a Hard lock, so it always has a set DC/TN. High level thieves, of course, can bypass Hard locks with ease because they are just that good. Like that.

One place it gets weird is with adversaries, monsters etc. If monsters are leveled similarly to PCs, they will inevitably be tougher, harder to hits, etc... the higher level they are. This is its own kind of scaling. But as long as there is no forced "level appropriate challenge" rules, it can be easily ignored. Sometimes low level characters wander into the wrong part of the woods...

What do you think? How do you liked games to handle difficulties?

 

[payn]

As a PF1 guy, I prefer a static bounded accuracy type system like 5E.

 

[Basic Expert]

In your terms, always static. Otherwise, you're looking at a skill/DC increase treadmill. What's the point of increasing your skill if it doesn't give you any actual improvement?

However, I will say that even in systems or editions with a DC-by-level chart, like 4E's advice for what is a "Hard DC" for a level 13 character or something, the implication is that these DCs translate to more impressive challenges. Those paragon characters are climbing much gnarlier walls than their lower level brethren just like they're fighting giants rather than orcs.

That's why I tend to favor concrete examples in my DC charts. What is a DC15 wall anyway? A natural rock face with ample handholds or a classic brickwall with the barest of fingerholds? It helps both players and DMs understand what the PCs are and aren't capable of.

D&D has been traditionally horrible at properly explaining Tiers of Play and this is one facet of that.

 

[Reynard]

That's why I tend to favor concrete examples in my DC charts. What is a DC15 wall anyway? A natural rock face with ample handholds or a classic brickwall with the barest of fingerholds? It helps both players and DMs understand what the PCs are and aren't capable of.

I agree witht his. I will take the 3.x lists of DCs over the loosey-goosey 5E categories any day.

 

[billd91]

Static.
3e is the best edition for laying out what a difficulty class was and why for specific tasks (which stands to reason since players having well-informed options was that edition's mantra). It was just a bit cumbersome to use efficiently. That's why I'm OK with the loosey-goosey difficulty terms from 5e - though I do drop the DC levels down by 5 points for each category because the current values are really punishing to the Average Joe who has a middling stat and no proficiency (easy shouldn't be a 50/50 roll). I would just like the game to provide more guidance what constitutes Easy vs Medium vs Hard etc when it comes to an Athletics check, or Acrobatics, or whatever.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I tend to prefer static DCs for fixed tasks. But I also like to know how hard something is relative to the players, so being able to say something like "A Paragon Tier hard task is DC 25". If that tells me they should be scaling a smooth surface at an angle of 90° to 110° or beat down admantite doors at Paragon level, that's quite useful.

The bigger problem is that I have the feeling that with something like DnDs typical D20 + modifier system, you can get some hard DCs that an incompetent and untalented fellow could still accomplish, but the trained one will fail. I wish there was a way to handle this better, and not just have escalating the numbers to ridicilous extents or outright forbid some people from making a check.

 

[TiQuinn]

Static. Even with monsters, I'm not a fan of the whole Diablo/BG3 scaling where 9th level town guards are walking around throwing out spells like Blight.

 

[overgeeked]

Neither. Dynamic TNs for me. Before the game starts, roll whatever kind of dice you normally use for resolution, so 1d20 in d20 games. That's the first TN the PCs will face. From there, whatever the PC's result, the total of the dice plus modifiers, will be the next TN.

For example, I roll 1d20 and get a 12 before the game starts. Whatever skill check or ability whatsit the PCs make first, the TN is 12. Take their result and that's the next TN. So if your hyper specialized bard with +13 to their persuasion rolls a nat 20...the next TN is 33.

It's so much easier to handle than worrying about scaling or setting TNs. Saves a lot of time and brain power. And has the wonderful benefit of mirroring the pass/fail cycle of stories.

 

[djotaku]

I'm going to throw in a related concept - if you're an expert in something you should (almost) never fail. Some systems explicitly code this, but others leave it up to the GM. Can experts fail? Yeah, just yesterday or the day before one of the ladies at the Olympics broke her leg skiing. She's one of the best of the best since she made it to the olympics but she still rolled an nat 1 on her run. However, MOST of the time, it would be silly to make your Osiris Cleric roll Arcana on knowledge about Osiris; especially if the barbarian can roll a nat 20 right afterwards and know more about the god than the god's own cleric. One exception would be high level secret knowledge. Let's say you had a religion where the lay folk and the low level clergy had one truth about what was going on and the high level clergy knew what was REALLY going on. Then arcana would make sense to see if your person came across some secret knowledge one day while they were in the temple.

To bring it back around to your original question - while I prefer a static DC - a wall should not get harder to climb the more I've adventured - I also wouldn't ask my ultra-nimble fighter to roll OR I might set the DC to 1 (allowing for an epic fail like that olympian). Everyone else, especially the wizard, would have to roll.

 

[Reynard]

Neither. Dynamic TNs for me. Before the game starts, roll whatever kind of dice you normally use for resolution, so 1d20 in d20 games. That's the first TN the PCs will face. From there, whatever the PC's result, the total of the dice plus modifiers, will be the next TN.

For example, I roll 1d20 and get a 12 before the game starts. Whatever skill check or ability whatsit the PCs make first, the TN is 12. Take their result and that's the next TN. So if your hyper specialized bard with +13 to their persuasion rolls a nat 20...the next TN is 33.

It's so much easier to handle than worrying about scaling or setting TNs. Saves a lot of time and brain power. And has the wonderful benefit of mirroring the pass/fail cycle of stories.

I'm impressed. I literally can't think of a less satisfying, worse way to produce TNs. It embraces neither the fiction, nor the game mechanics. Bravo.