D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[Guest 6801328]

No.

We roll a contest.

There is still no chance of failure.

There is a consequence of one side winning the contest but no consequence for losing.

"You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

So I hand the the guard my forged documents, and he rolls some dice and "wins" the contest, and now he knows I just handed him a forged document, and I'm in deep doo-doo. How is that not a consequence for my failure?

 

[FrogReaver]

"You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

So I hand the the guard my forged documents, and he rolls some dice and "wins" the contest, and now he knows I just handed him a forged document, and I'm in deep doo-doo. How is that not a consequence for my failure?

I think you are looking for an example where there might be a consequence for failure. I would suggest starting at the simplest example first. An opposed roll to knock someone prone (can be done out of combat). What is the consequence for failure in this case?

 

[Hussar]

First, to be clear, you're arguing that the rules are wrong, not that I'm wrong. I'm quoting the rules there.
.

Hrm

I have a choice to either see the rules as inconsistent or there is a flaw in your interpretation. Since the contest rules are part of the 5e rule set and do not require a failure in order to be used, I choose to believe that your interpretation is flawed.

There are ability checks that do not require failure. Therefore an interpretation which requires ability checks to have a consequence for failure is a misreading of the rules.

 

[Hussar]

"You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

So I hand the the guard my forged documents, and he rolls some dice and "wins" the contest, and now he knows I just handed him a forged document, and I'm in deep doo-doo. How is that not a consequence for my failure?

You didn’t fail. The forged documents don’t cease to exist because the guard won. They are still forged documents that you created.

You successfully created forged documents. He successfully spotted the forgery.

There was no failure.

 

[FrogReaver]

You didn’t fail. The forged documents don’t cease to exist because the guard won. They are still forged documents that you created.

You successfully created forged documents. He successfully spotted the forgery.

There was no failure.

Him spotting the forgery was a failure to the player IMO. I think the key here is that this isn't really an opposed roll situation.

 

[iserith]

Hrm

I have a choice to either see the rules as inconsistent or there is a flaw in your interpretation. Since the contest rules are part of the 5e rule set and do not require a failure in order to be used, I choose to believe that your interpretation is flawed.

An entirely unsurprising, if erroneous, conclusion.

There are ability checks that do not require failure. Therefore an interpretation which requires ability checks to have a consequence for failure is a misreading of the rules.

The mistake you're making is assuming that, for example, every attempt to grapple another creature requires a contest. A contest is only called for when a character's or monsters efforts are directly opposed to another AND there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. These are ability checks, after all.

You're rushing to the ability checks without looking at the situation first.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think you are looking for an example where there might be a consequence for failure. I would suggest starting at the simplest example first. An opposed roll to knock someone prone (can be done out of combat). What is the consequence for failure in this case?

It could be a bunch of things. (I'll get back to that in a second.)

But I think one of the good points to come out of this thread is that it's not necessary to look for a the consequence of failure of a proposed action (or a roll, if you're in the camp that those two things are synonymous). That's getting things backwards. Rather the point is to ask: is there a consequence for failure? If so, this might be something to roll for.

But if not, if there's no obvious negative consequence of failure...maybe you don't need a dice roll? Take the medicine example: maybe it's really not likely that you're going to make the guy sicker. And maybe...like in your (was it your?) narration, there's some herb that's been mentioned in the game...or maybe even the player just makes all that stuff up and that's ok too...why not just give the guy an autosuccess? I mean, he's got proficiency in Medicine, right? What does it add to the game to make him roll? I think that's the bigger lesson here. Bigger than the question I was asking in the thread, really.

Ok, back to your knocking prone example:

1. If it's in combat, then obviously you use your turn, and if you fail you've wasted it.
2. If it's not in combat, I would think the most obvious consequence is that you're probably now in combat.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You didn’t fail. The forged documents don’t cease to exist because the guard won. They are still forged documents that you created.

You successfully created forged documents. He successfully spotted the forgery.

There was no failure.

Ohhhh...Now I see the semantic game you're playing.

Yeah. No thanks.

Next.

 

[FrogReaver]

2. If it's not in combat, I would think the most obvious consequence is that you're probably now in combat.

I'll respond more to the rest later. This is important.

You are now likely in combat whether you succeeded or failed the check to knock the NPC prone. If success leads to the same outcome as failure then it's not really a consequence of failure

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'll respond more to the rest later. This is important.

You are now likely in combat whether you succeeded or failed the check to knock the NPC prone. If success leads to the same outcome as failure then it's not really a consequence of failure

It's not the same outcome, because with success you're in combat with somebody prone. With failure you're in combat with somebody standing. And if you hadn't tried you wouldn't be in combat.

Now, I suppose it could be argued that both outcomes are worse than doing nothing at all, but presumably this wouldn't have happened unless that player had decided this wasn't true.

And, really, this is (also) a semantic game, because knocking somebody prone uses an attack action, so what really happened here is the DM gave the PC a surprise round. If he failed with his shove it's still a wasted turn.

And even if you don't want to agree with that, the same principle applies out of combat: clearly there was SOME reason he wanted to shove him prone, and the DM let him take some kind of action. So if the shove failed he has then squandered his chance to do something for free, outside of combat.

And, finally, if this isn't a high stakes situation...if there really is no consequence for failure because, say, he was shoving a friend into a snowbank for a joke...then there's no need for a roll.