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That's been a sticking point with me as well. 5e bundles too much together. My desert nomad who has never been in enough water to swim in is a master swimmer because I picked athletics so he could climb well. I can't have a PC who can't see well, but has other good senses.

I'm actually going to be in rare agreement with you. Success with a cost does work in traditional play if the DC is two tiered. DC 15 to fully succeed and DC say 13-14 to succeed with a cost, where the cost directly applies to what is happening. So no cooks showing up in the kitchen if you...

No. It also works if you take it in the context that saying is used. It's used in the context of human on human violence, which in D&D translates to person on person violence, since many more races than human. Hunting is outside of that context and so doesn't run afoul of its meaning.

Yep. The DM will describe the cliff most of the time, and most of the rest of the time the players will examine it to see if it's stable. The rest of the time something big is chasing them and they don't have time to look. ;)

He's wrong about that, too. You don't need to spend significant time and effort quantifying, formalizing and then calculating outcomes. Far less complex simulations are still simulations.

Look at the rules! Swords are made of metal and have edges that slash for physical damage. They come in longswords short swords, rapiers and other real world varieties. You use them in combat to try and kill things. That's simulation. The rest of arms and armor are also simulating how...

Holy semantical nonsense Batman! There's no lock picking skill, there's only proficiency with thieves tools whose only purpose is to pick locks and disarm traps!

D&D does that in spades. Gravity is simulated. Weapons are simulated. Armor is simulated. Walking is simulated. Ships are simulated. Worlds, which includes trees, grass, berries, and millions of more things are simulated. Skills are simulated. And on and on and on and on. The DM is just...

First, even that simulates gravity. The point is that it doesn't matter why DM is narrating with the bounds of the games simulated gravity rules. It only matter that he has to do it or else it's a violation of the social contract and isn't applicable to this discussion. Second, bad DMing...

Okay, but that's not what I argued. I asked WHY the system has to be the one to the lifting in order for there to be verisimilitude. Also, even with the DM doing the heavy lifting there, it's still simulating gravity. The PC falls purely be the rules mechanics. A fall is caused by gravity...

The rock is pre-established and is there whether they climb or not.

First, they aren't probably moving about. Very few people are constantly roaming around the house at every minute of the day. They are probably in the same place they have been for a long while, which for a cook would be in the kitchen during daylight hours or early darkness when morons will...

Surprise depends on passive perception beating the DC of the roll of the stealth. So passive perception is the king here. Let me ask you this. What if there is no stealth roll? Passive numbers are used to represent the average of an act that is constantly being performed. If a group is...

An argument can be made that they are not worse off. :P

Plenty out there for you.

Very few complications are like that, but you are correct that skill can help avoid those few. Most complications happen despite skill.

Then there is no roll to determine surprise, because stealth doesn't determine it. Perception does. You can have all the stealth in the world due to a high roll and if someone's passive perception will pick you up anyway, no surprise. So even with your odd definition of a roll that determines...

I don't agree with that premise. Why must the system tell me why the climb check failed for it to seem real(have verisimilitude)? If the DM narrates a rock bearing my weight crumbles and my PC falls, that makes it seem real.

Given that I've said otherwise at least 6 times in this thread, why would you even ask that? If the cook is present on the other side of that door regardless of success or failure, a successful stealthy lockpicking might keep her from being aware that it happened.