overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
The DCs listed in the 5E DMG are for the assumed math of 5E.
D&D 5E Average skill modifiers by level?
- Thread starter bert1001 fka bert1000
- Start date
This is just ability mod + proficiency right?
I have to admit I haven't been keeping up with all the 5e material. Is it still true that there are not many ways to increase these numbers with magic items and spells like Guidance and Skill Empowerment? Or are they more prevelent now?
At what levels would you assume that a party could reliable "juice" the numbers a bit and by how much? (ignoring expertise because I agree this should break the curve)
As far as I know 5e doesn't include Skill Challenges which is what this thread is about? It's the math for single checks?
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Correct. That’s the assumption 5e’s base math uses, so that bonuses from magic items, spells, etc. are actual bonuses, improving your chances of success, instead of taxes, required to keep up with the baseline.
There are some pretty reliable ways to get bonuses - guidance and bardic inspiration being two of the most prevalent examples. I wouldn’t recommend tweaking the math to accommodate these, but if you want to, guidance is worth +2.5 on average and is available from 1st level. Bardic inspiration is worth an average of +3.5 at first level, increasing by 1 at 8th, 10th, and 15th levels. There might be some other sources of bonuses, but again, being able to exceed the baseline difficulty is the point of such features, so I would assume them in your math if I were you.
jmartkdr2
Hero
13th Age montages work pretty much as-written if you change the DCs. But they're not quite the same thing.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Why would you assume the math needs to be different for skill challenges as opposed to single checks?
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
This is what I use when I am examining mechanics:
It differs slightly from some because I don't assume +5 ability mod until level 12, while others assume you jump your main score at 4th and 8th to get to 20 ASAP.
| Level | PB | Abil | TOTAL |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 6 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 7 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 8 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 9 | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| 11 | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| 12 | 4 | 5 | 9 |
| 13 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 14 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 15 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 16 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 17 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 18 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 19 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 20 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
It differs slightly from some because I don't assume +5 ability mod until level 12, while others assume you jump your main score at 4th and 8th to get to 20 ASAP.
It's likely different to serve it's purpose within the skill challenge and have the math work.
On purpose-- The way I run skill challanges is in "cinematic mode". Different than combat enounter mode or general exploration mode. Skill checks represent "strategy actions" that get you closer to your goal and we don't worry about the details of exactly how many feet you can jump, etc. as long as the decription fits within our shared understanding of what somone can do in that "Tier of play". A successful skill check means you get closer to the goal, a failure means no progress and possibility a complication (which might change the nature of what skills are useful). So if we are 5th level and chasing someone through a crowded city, a player could say "I climb up to the roof tops and jump from roof to roof to try to get ahead of him" (Tier appropriate, yes). "I try to convince the 2 city guards near us that the man just stole a valuble gem from a nearby merchant and they should join us in the pursuit" (Tier appropriate, yes). The check represents the success of that strategic action and movement toward the goal but not each individual jump or balance or change in whatever. The fiction changes as we go along perhaps opening up and closing down some skills that are appropriate.
X successful strategy actions before Y failures or X successful before 3 rounds (different math/system) results in reaching the goal (capture the person they were chasing in this case).
The structure is there to provide closure to the scene that doesn't rely on DM fiat and to provide math structure that ensures a challenge that is neither trivially easy nor impossible over multiple checks (there are of course situations that are both easy and impossible -- but don't use skill challenges for them).
As a DM, I need to set some baseline DCs where you know that say a 5th level party that is likely to have +7 mods has say a 65%-70% of success IN TOTAL over the X checks. Or perhaps assume out of a party of 4, 2 have +7 mods for a physical challenge like this and 2 have +3 mods (either proficiency or high ability but not both). You can use creative uses of non physical skills in a physical challenge but perhaps only once a skill per skill challenge per party to let the physical skill people shine a little (wheras in a social skill challenge you might be able to cleverly use Athetics but again only once a skill challenge per party).
Then I can modify up and down that baseline depending on whether I think the challenge is above or below level so to speak. And characters with skill resources can handle above level challenges as well.
**
On math -- Because it involves evaluating the results after a set of multiple checks, this likely requires different DCs.
It's like those DMs when I was a kid that made us make 5 consecutive successful stealth checks to sneak around. Let's say you have a 70% chance of succeeding at a single check. If you have to make 5 in a row your probability goes down to 17%
Anyway IMO it's fine to have different DCs because they represent different things. You can even call them something different, Skill Challenge Checks -- SCCs, so as not to confuse people. The checks simply represent ability to move closer to the goal using that "Skill mode" as means to the end.
I'm trying to set the SCCs at the right level so I can run these cinematic skill challenges and know that I'm not making it impossibly hard or trivially easy.
It's a very gamist structure but I find that it creates interesting non combat "scenes" and if the math is fair you can attach fairly meaningful story consequences to the skill challenges. For instance, you could have a wilderness skill challenge where you are trying to push your party to get through the wilds before an orc raiding party reaches a town. As a DM I set the DCs where I know there is ~65% chance of them getting through as I think getting though this wilderness fast is an on level challenge. Over 12 skill checks over 3 days and some memorable obstacles, they fail. They arrive too late and the town has been razed, one of their friends was killed ,and there are indications the orcs took prisoners. It's an easy way to abtract this non combat challenge AND put some non arbitrary resolution to pursuit of the goal.
See Stalker's Obsidian system for 4e for a more indepth look at one kind of skill challenge and the math for 4e.
Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge System (Update: Version 1.1) Now with PDF!!
Stalker0’s Obsidian Skill Challenge System VERSION 1.1 UPDATE!! The system has now moved to Version 1.1. The changes are small, here you go. Changes from Version 1.0 1) Critical Success now gives 2 successes, instead of providing rerolls. 2) Table 2’s victory and partial victory numbers have...
www.enworld.org
Why do you prefer a different approach if you liked them in 4e? Seems like the 5e skill system is just as abstract (maybe more) then 4e and that it would work just as well with skill challenges (pending the right DCs)?
I certainly understand not always using skill challenges as I think they can be overused and misused.
I tend to only use them when I think its a challenge that the whole party should be tackling and when there is a significant story reward / penalty that is up for grabs.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
4e and 5e are different games with different approaches to action resolution. Skill challenges worked in 4e where the players were encouraged to initiate skill checks and the DM was encouraged to say yes unless there was a compelling reason to say no. I don’t think they work as well in 5e where the players describe what their characters do and the DM determines the results, calling for a die roll if necessary to resolve uncertainty in the outcome. Skill challenges wouldn’t flow right in that action resolution framework, and the meta-structure of the skill challenge just doesn’t feel necessary to me in that context. The exploration rules fill that role for me in a way that is better integrated into 5e’s core gameplay loop than skill challenges would.
