Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7623855" data-attributes="member: 58172">I need the skill math to cohere with the combat math. Combat math is tried and true, adapting and evolving since the origins of D&D. Combat math is robust and fair. 5e design innovates bounded accuracy. This sobriety to minimize bonuses to a d20 roll has many benefits. But it is a fragile ecology. Designers must persist in the effort to avoid adding new bonuses. The combat math works. There is less benefit from deviating from the combat math. Skills happen abundantly in combat, whether grappling or stealth, resolving improvisational stunts, gaining advantage from creature lore, detecting invisible foes, and other ways that skills prove ubiquitous in combat. Adjudication of combat stats and adjudication of skill stats need to follow the same simple principles and expectations of difficulty, especially to adjudicate on the fly. The multiplicative expertise bonus violates the design principles of D&D 5e.I seek to rethink what ‘expertise’ means. Something different than number porn. If the purpose of the Rogue expertise is to autowin a skill check, then just say this. ‘Once per rest, you automatically win one d20 roll for a skill that you have expertise with.’ If the purpose of expertise is to make the expert more reliable with skill checks, there are ways to do this without rupturing bounded accuracy. For example, a d20 roll that is less than 10 counts as 10.Really, one needs to look at combat math. What combat improvements seem acceptable within bounded accuracy? There is advantage or rerolls. There is Elven Accuracy that rerolls one if advantage. The +2 archery fighting style. The +d4 Bless bonus. The +d6 Bardic Inspiration bonus. To be sure, these bonuses strain bounded accuracy, and complaints exist because of combinations. Rerolls remain more stable.A central skill will already have a +5 bonus, from a +3 ability and a +2 proficiency. At the master tier, this improves to a +10 bonus.The DM needs to routinely adjudicate challenges for an expert character, that still remain possible for the other characters that are nonexperts to attempt.For now, expertise, allows the expert to reroll a d20 for a skill that one is expert in. So, if the expert gains a situational advantage, one of the two d20 rolls can be rerolled.</blockquote>

Verification