D&D 5E Bounded accuracy and more mundane heroes

[Tony Vargas]

But ultimately the DM is always setting a DC. The DC may be based on some obstacle but if there's a wall the DM decides what kind of wall. Ice wall? Old, crumbling wall with lots of handholds? Basing the DC on the type of wall just moves the decision point.
If I set a DC, I do it based on what I envision.

The point (ok, a point) is that in the 5e play-loop, you don't set a DC until after the player has declared an action, and you've judged the outcome uncertain.

On the other hand, I do get the whole "a peasant could succeed" thing. I just don't think there's a great way around it.

It is a way around it. The hypothetical DM hypothetically narrates hypothetical failure for the hypothetical peasant, success for the masterful character heavily invested in the skill, and calls for checks from some of the folks in-between, with a DC set by his judgement of how likely that character is to succeed at that task under those circumstances. You can't say, well, I made that DC 18 check, but a peasant could've done it, because it might not have been a DC 18 check for the peasant, it might've been narrated failure.

 

[Oofta]

The point (ok, a point) is that in the 5e play-loop, you don't set a DC until after the player has declared an action, and you've judged the outcome uncertain.

It is a way around it. The hypothetical DM hypothetically narrates hypothetical failure for the hypothetical peasant, success for the masterful character heavily invested in the skill, and calls for checks from some of the folks in-between, with a DC set by his judgement of how likely that character is to succeed at that task under those circumstances. You can't say, well, I made that DC 18 check, but a peasant could've done it, because it might not have been a DC 18 check for the peasant, it might've been narrated failure.

The way I do it is that most peasants simply aren't trained in a skill and training is required to accomplish a task.

That way there are exceptions to the rule. There may be someone trained in medicine, or a scholar who as taken and interest in the arcane or the guide that climbs mountains for a living.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The way I do it is that most peasants simply aren't trained in a skill and training is required to accomplish a task.

Sure. That's not an actual rule in 5e like it was for many skills in 3.x and some check in 4e, but it's a perfectly fair rule of thumb a DM could choose to use. And, it's not like you're 'changing the rules' you're just determining uncertainty, which, by the rules, is part of your role as DM.

 

[Oofta]

Sure. That's not an actual rule in 5e like it was for many skills in 3.x and some check in 4e, but it's a perfectly fair rule of thumb a DM could choose to use. And, it's not like you're 'changing the rules' you're just determining uncertainty, which, by the rules, is part of your role as DM.

I'd say the rules are a little contradictory on this, or maybe I'm just failing my search check. The example they give under Working Together explicitly states that if you want to help someone you have to be able to complete the task on your own. If you are not proficient in thieves tools, you could not accomplish the task and could not help.

A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone. For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves' tools, so a character who lacks that proficiency can't help another character in that task.​

 

[jayoungr]

In practice, I've found that due to the PC's high amount of hp and ease with which they can kill low CR creatures without spending too much resources, those "sufficient numbers" of low-level opponents need to be quite high indeed

True, though it depends on how low is "low." The closest I came to a TPK in my 20-level campaign was when the PCs hit level 17. Thanks to some bad tactical decisions on their part, they were swarmed by about 17-20 level 11 monsters, plus a boss and a hazard. And even then, they didn't kill all the monsters; the last several monsters were just frozen when the hazard was disabled, allowing the one character left standing (with 1 HP) to pile the others' unconscious bodies onto a flying carpet and escape.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'd say the rules are a little contradictory on this, or maybe I'm just failing my search check. ... For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves' tools, so a character who lacks that proficiency can't help another character in that task.

That's right, Tool Proficiencies are treated a little differently than skills in 5e. That'd slipped my mind, above.

 

[Oofta]

That's right, Tool Proficiencies are treated a little differently than skills in 5e. That'd slipped my mind, above.

Are they? Because I don't see anything that says to treat them differently.

I always thought it was up to the DM to decide whether you need training to accomplish a task. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

In any case whether it's a house rule or not there are certain tasks I require training in order to succeed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Are they? Because I don't see anything that says to treat them differently.

In a few ways, like saying you can't attempt to use Thieves Tools without the proficiency. And, for another big instance, that you can acquire Tool Proficiencies via Downtime.

I always thought it was up to the DM to decide whether you need training to accomplish a task. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's up to the DM to determine success/failure/uncertainty. Much broader.

 

[uzirath]

The problem with subjective success based on the DM's empowerment is that cuts both ways. If some of the time you are going to succeed just because the DM thinks you should, then some of the time you are going to be tested just because the DM thinks you should. This is an example where the DM empowerment philosophy cuts against player empowerment.

I'm not sure this follows. Most players I know love it when the DM "tests" their characters. Missing checks is more fun because it creates more challenges. Yes, we need enough shared vision that we understand the difference between easy and difficult tasks, but if I go for something difficult and fail, I don't really care if the DM was following RAW to the letter or if they were following their gut. All I care about is that I fell in the pit or failed to pick the lock and I'm entirely empowered to continue trying to do cool stuff in the face of crazy (and awesome) threats.

But ultimately the DM is always setting a DC. The DC may be based on some obstacle but if there's a wall the DM decides what kind of wall. Ice wall? Old, crumbling wall with lots of handholds? Basing the DC on the type of wall just moves the decision point.

Yes. The key is that the players and DM should have a sense of what types of adjectives go with what sorts of challenges. If the DM describes a wall with numerous cracks and handholds, the player might be justifiably miffed if it turned out to be a DC 30 climb. (Of course, I would love it if there were an in-game explanation: illusionary cracks! Oil of slipperiness oozing from the crevices! The wall is actually the skin of a giant eel of uncatchableness.)

But, ultimately, it's not an adversarial game. I trust the DMs I play with to have a vision that makes sense to them and the game works best if I, as a player, make an effort to adapt my vision to theirs.

As to the OP, I haven't played at top tier 5e yet, but my own preferred fantasies don't cast "peasants" as helpless sops. I'm ok with non-heroic folks occasionally getting lucky. I like a world where my hero shouldn't just ignore a mob of angry villagers with pitchforks.

 

[Celebrim]

I can't tell what you're contrasting, here: "works intuitively without fiat" sounds pretty elegant.

Achieving "works intuitively without fiat" usually involves mechanical complexity, because simulating real processes usually involves a lot of granularity and special cases.

Elegance is the opposite of mechanical complexity. Something is elegant if, despite lacking mechanical complexity it can achieve broad or powerful results. The core D20 system is elegant, but this elegance results in situations were the results won't work intuitively or well if you apply the core mechanic to them - rules for jumping are one case that continually bedevils me that you may be familiar with. If you want to deal with jumping in a way that provides a sensible range of results for a given assumed degree of athletic ability, then you need to develop a subsystem that treats jumping as uniquely different from either typical pass/fail tasks or even other range of result tasks.

More subsystems means less elegance.

So what makes this instance of DM Empowerment (the DM narrating success when a PC uses a skill he's very good at, even if the numbers modeling 'very good' don't overwhelm the d20 dictating success) zero sum? The player has invested heavily in a skill, the DM has rewarded that, right?

The DM is the active party in your imagined relationship. Only the DM can validate when the PC is allowed to shine. As such, the PC is forced into a "mother may I" role, where he knows he cannot reliably make propositions about the fiction. And because he cannot reliably make propositions, the PC has to either choose to play the DM and coax the DM into seeing the fiction the way the player wants, or simply avoid making risky propositions because the player knows that the DM if he doesn't feel like success ought to be warranted in this case (maybe it goes against the DM's own prior plans) will declare in this case - unlike in the prior case were it didn't go against the DM's plans - that a fortune test is required.

Conversely, if I know what sort of situation involve a 15 DC, and I have a +14 skill bonus or higher, then I can reliably back propositions in every similar situation without fearing that because it might interfere with the DM's preferences he'll not in this case validate my proposition. (Of course, the DM may by careful planning make sure such situations don't appear, but that's a different issue.)