Haha. I get it. But surely you have a rogue stabbing and hiding or stabbing and disengaging? Surely you have a wizard that is surrounded that needs to get out of there? Surely you have a fighter that has to reposition in order to grant advantage to another PC attacking? And, you can still move, in fact you can move 35' around a large creature, without provoking opportunity attacks.
No, because all the Rogue has to do is attack a creature adjacent to an ally and they can Sneak Attack. Or give themselves advantage with a bonus action for a ranged attack. The only time you'd have to try the Stealth thing is if you wanted to Sneak Attack a creature in melee and you were by yourself. My groups have learned that spreading damage around instead of focus firing causes combats to take forever. As for circling around a creature, sure, you can do that, but there's often no reason to do so. It's not that it never happens, but without any bonuses for changing position (like d20 flanking), there's normally no particular reason to do so. This may change in my current group, which may soon be adding a Paladin, so there might be some jockeying to remain in their aura.
Why do we gate ability checks? Again, they are all unique, so, some get gated and others don't. But there are a few core reasons why:
- To keep the game moving. It is an expectation in D&D that combat takes quite a bit of time. (With four players and a DM, 1 round - 6 seconds, can take 15 or even 30 minutes of real time.) Exploration, the expectation is not the same. Hence, why so many rules revolve around combat, and fewer around exploration.
- Logic dictates. Reading an ancient book, and failing your history or arcana roll, and therefore not understanding it, is kind of a done deal for that scene. Trying to remember something about a long lost, dead god, and failing on your religion roll, is kind of a done deal for that scene. (I do not know of any DM that would disallow a later roll after doing research, speaking with sages, etc.)
- And we gate to sometimes hit a punchline or set a scene. We once had a character named Caz Creekleaper. His first attempt to cross a river, he rolled a 1. He was swept downstream and plummeted over the falls after failing a strength check to grab on to something. It was classic. It was almost destiny. That punchline was perfect for a fun laugh. (He was laughing too.) Sometimes, the failed roll just sets the scene, for serious or comedic effect.
And, I still think the door example needs to not be the only point. Everyone that has responded to the "breaking down the door" has stated they give repeated chances. And if they don't, I bet they would if you brought an axe to the door and performed the whole "Here's Johnny" bit.
Change out opening a door for searching a room, finding a secret door, locating an invisible enemy, tracking foes, or finding a path through a dense jungle. In previous points I disputed one and done Knowledge checks as well, because who hasn't blanked on recalling something, only to suddenly later go "Oh! Duh! It's x!". Also, I mentioned physically destroying the door in my last post as what my players tend to do if they encounter a door that cannot be opened (ala 2024 Arcane Lock). The whole reason I keep circling back to the door is my own experiences with my own front door, that occasionally refuses to open for me without effort and how silly it would be if every time I failed to open it, I was immediately forced to call a locksmith or take an axe to it.*
*Someone did reply to that saying that maybe multiple attempts were all one check, but 5e doesn't delineate any difference between in and out of combat actions, that's something individual DM's add to the game. Opening a door in combat would take an action, no action, or a bonus action (for a Thief), depending on circumstances. To say that one check = several combat rounds is within a DM's right to determine, but I don't believe we have any concrete examples of this from the rulebooks (I could be wrong!), so all we have is while DM A might say opening a door takes 30 seconds, DM B might say a minute, and DM C might say as part of a 6 second round.
I'm not saying there aren't justifications for this- a Charisma check after a conversation could take several minutes to account for said conversation. But there's no standard amount of time that I think everyone could agree upon. I mean, going back to lockpicking, modern locks are probably more complex than D&D locks (or should be- dungeons always seem to have complex clockwork death traps with no real justification for their existence, that work perfectly despite years of neglect and corrosion, lol) yet you can easily find Youtube videos of people showing you how to open one in very short amounts of time.
I think 4e defined searching a room, bandaging wounds, taking a drink or nomming on some rations to be ~5 minutes, as justification for it's short rest periods, which is generally the length of time I go with. But if a character had the ability to Search as a bonus action, I'd have to take that into account.
Ditto for Hiding. In real life, finding the right spot and hunkering down in it probably could take a good 20 seconds, but the game assures us that it can be done much more quickly (and any goblin can do it as a bonus action).
