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<blockquote data-quote="Ibrandul" data-source="post: 8738598" data-attributes="member: 6871736">The 5.5e playtest includes just one change I really hate: a 20 automatically succeeds on an ability check, and a 1 automatically fails.I've seen precisely one rationale for this, stated over and over, that most groups already play that way because this is already a widely misunderstood rule—not that groups are already playing this way as a house rule despite being aware of the official rule. Crawford says they are changing the game so that the rules work &quot;the way people expect them to work.&quot;But is the game better this way?If it's not—if the game is better with the current rule, not the new one—then surely a better approach would be to change the way this rule is presented in the PHB so that it is easy to understand and to absorb, rather than changing the rule itself.And I think the change is a very bad one.Imagine a DC 25 ability check. The game defines a DC 25 task as &quot;very hard.&quot; Right now, a character with a total +5 modifier in the skill has a 5% chance of succeeding: on a roll of a 20 only. If you have a lower modifier, you just can't perform the task—you're just not acrobatic enough, or knowledgable enough about arcana, or whatever, to succeed at this very hard task. But with the new rule, the PC who has a negative modifier—even, potentially, a big one—has the same 5% chance of success as the PC who supposedly excels in this area.It gets even worse with a DC 30 check to perform a &quot;nearly impossible&quot; task. The character with a +10 has a 5% chance of success—the same as every other PC in the game.What's the rationale for why this change makes the game a better game?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ibrandul, post: 8738598, member: 6871736"] The 5.5e playtest includes just one change I really hate: a 20 automatically succeeds on an ability check, and a 1 automatically fails. I've seen precisely one rationale for this, stated over and over, that most groups already play that way because this is already a widely misunderstood rule—[I]not [/I]that groups are already playing this way as a house rule despite being aware of the official rule. Crawford says they are changing the game so that the rules work "the way people expect them to work." But [I]is[/I] the game better this way? If it's not—if the game is better with the current rule, not the new one—then surely a better approach would be to change the way this rule is [I]presented[/I] in the PHB so that it is easy to understand and to absorb, rather than changing the rule itself. And I think the change is a very bad one. Imagine a DC 25 ability check. The game defines a DC 25 task as "very hard." Right now, a character with a total +5 modifier in the skill has a 5% chance of succeeding: on a roll of a 20 only. If you have a lower modifier, you just can't perform the task—you're just not acrobatic enough, or knowledgable enough about arcana, or whatever, to succeed at this very hard task. But with the new rule, the PC who has a negative modifier—even, potentially, a big one—has the same 5% chance of success as the PC who supposedly excels in this area. It gets even worse with a DC 30 check to perform a "nearly impossible" task. The character with a [I]+10[/I] has a 5% chance of success—the same as every other PC in the game. What's the rationale for why this change [I]makes the game a better game[/I]? [/QUOTE]

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