D&D 5E (2014) Consequences of Failure

[FrogReaver]

This is really illustrative.

I think Hussar is saying, "My goal is to win the arm wrestling match, and my approach is to...well, arm wrestle."

Charlaquin says, "My goal is to impress the onlookers, and my approach is to engage in an arm wrestling match."

That dichotomy says WORLDS about the underlying difference between the two approaches.

I'm very curious, do you view winning the arm wrestling match as a valid goal and arm wrestling as a valid approach?

 

[Hussar]

Your failed your proof roll.

You can fail a stealth check. You can step on a twig and make noise. You can wear bright orange while attempting to hide in a white room. If you roll so poorly that there is no roll to see you, it's automatic, you've failed. That's the easy example that overcomes your proof.
[\quote]

Sorry nope. You absolutely cannot fail a stealth check. I can roll so poorly that observers can easily spot me but that doesn’t mean I failed to stealth. I just didn’t stealth very well.

But it is not possible to fail.

The more complicated on is that in an opposed check the roll of your opponent is the DC for success, so it doesn't matter if you haven't stopped wrestling. You've failed to successfully wrestle against your opponent who just pinned you.

And of course your proof is a Strawman, as @iserith did not specify opposed checks. He said ability checks, which of course leads to the next fallacy in that argument of yours which I'm too tired to remember the name of. You're starting off trying to disprove ability checks in general and then use specifically opposed checks to do so. That proof will automatically fail on its face since it's conflating ideas.



Yes. Those conditions are called house rules.

A contest isn’t a skill check? That’s an interesting notion. Your stealth check sets the dc for perception. You don’t stop arm wrestling because you rolled lower than the other guy.

But yeah it’s just going to be blown off. It’s impossible for a method to have any flaws apparently.

Aw well at least I tried. You folks have fun.

Btw how is a forgery check not am opposed check? Isn’t it actually listed as an example of an opposed check?

 

[Charlaquin]

To answer your question the detail I provided was a detail provided about the world by the hypothetical DM in the hypothetical scenario.

Right, who would hypothetically be me, since you’re asking me how I would resolve the hypothetical scenario, which I would have to be the DM to do.

So, if I had established the existence of this medicine ahead of time, I would imagine I would have devised mechanics for how it works. Based on your description of it having cured half the patients it had been used on in the past, and failed to have any effect on the other half, maybe it’s a 50% chance on percentile dice? Or maybe it gives the patient a bonus of some sort on their Constitution save for spending downtime recovering. In any case, I probably wouldn’t call for a roll to see if you applied it correctly, unless you had a very limited supply of it. I’d just apply whatever mechanical effect the medicine had.

By the way, isn't this step a tad unnecessary? Why can't you just assume that if we are talking a hypothetical example that it's from established fiction in the world the example is from?

Because my answer would have been different if it was something the player was making up on the spot. Have you not realized by now I don’t like making rulings based on assumptions?

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, who would hypothetically be me, since you’re asking me how I would resolve the hypothetical scenario, which I would have to be the DM to do.

So, if I had established the existence of this medicine ahead of time, I would imagine I would have devised mechanics for how it works. Based on your description of it having cured half the patients it had been used on in the past, and failed to have any effect on the other half, maybe it’s a 50% chance on percentile dice? Or maybe it gives the patient a bonus of some sort on their Constitution save for spending downtime recovering. In any case, I probably wouldn’t call for a roll to see if you applied it correctly, unless you had a very limited supply of it. I’d just apply whatever mechanical effect the medicine had.


Because my answer would have been different if it was something the player was making up on the spot. Have you not realized by now I don’t like making rulings based on assumptions?

I just love how you hate to make the easy and apparent assumptions, but then when you do make an assumption, it's an assumption that totally allows you to avoid the point of this hypothetical example.

So let's take a step back. You don't have unlimited supply of the medicine and it only works half the time. You have one application. Your ally is the only one you know that currently has the disease in question.

Is a roll required, if so what is the meaningful consequence of failure that's needed before the roll takes place? If no roll is required how do you determine whether the medicine works?

 

[Oofta]

So, nobody ever foes z forgery looks st it, sees its mediocre and does another one?

What if they show it to another PC? Csn that PC say "this looks like crap?"

I assume the forger did the best job they could. If someone else with knowledge of the document assists, it's the help action and the forger gets advantage.

People make really bad forgeries in real life. I may or may not have tried to forge a parent's signature at one point in my life. Hypothetically, I would have thought it was pretty good but the principal saw right through it even though my buddy double checked it for me.

The PC is not aware of the roll.

 

[Oofta]

I disagree with the whole cost of failure thing. Sometimes failure just means no progress (PHB page 174).

A typical example is any kind of knowledge check. I'm still trying to understand how not remember or recognizing something could have an immediate negative consequence. Maybe you get a brain aneurysm?

So forget walls with hypothetical hordes, if you simply can't recall or do not know a bit of lore that would have been useful, what's the "significant cost" other than not helping you achieve a goal?

Of course you can always ignore the dice as stated in The Role of Dice in the DMG, but what if you use the middle path?

 

[Maxperson]

Btw how is a forgery check not am opposed check? Isn’t it actually listed as an example of an opposed check?

It's not a contested ability check, because a contest requires direct opposition. Two people trying to grab the same thing at the same time or two people trying to pull something in different direction. That's also why stealth and perception aren't an example of a contest.

To answer the second question, no forgery is not a listed example of a contested ability check. It wouldn't be since there is no direct opposition. Making forgery a contest would be the same as making a climb check a contest. After all, someone built that wall with an ability check.

Sorry nope. You absolutely cannot fail a stealth check. I can roll so poorly that observers can easily spot me but that doesn’t mean I failed to stealth. I just didn’t stealth very well.

That's pretty silly. I mean, you just claimed that a man standing in a well lit, completely empty room with absolutely nothing to hide behind, can successfully hide just by making a stealth check.

 

[Maxperson]

So forget walls with hypothetical hordes, if you simply can't recall or do not know a bit of lore that would have been useful, what's the "significant cost" other than not helping you achieve a goal?

This cannot be answered as you have written it. As I patiently explained to you earlier, the circumstances around the check determine if the check has meaning or not. So give me a detailed set of circumstances surrounding a specific kind of lore check. Then I can answer this.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Despite my best intentions, somehow I let myself get sucked into arguing the merits of the approach (again). My goal was not to persuade anybody to use it, but to discuss interesting ways to use it.

My answer to the carnival feat-of-strength scenario: I wouldn’t do it.

First, what kind of carnival barker would give you a chance of winning 100g without having to bet something yourself? Would you really put that in your game? And thus...

Second, this scenario utterly fails my memorability test. “Hey, guys, remember that awesome time I rolled three times and won 100g?” “OMG yes! That was even better than the time you thought a gazebo was a monster!”

You can craft a scenario that seems to break the methodology by only using parts of it. And if the result is something you think would make your game more fun, I encourage you to use it.

 

[Maxperson]

Despite my best intentions, somehow I let myself get sucked into arguing the merits of the approach (again). My goal was not to persuade anybody to use it, but to discuss interesting ways to use it.

My answer to the carnival feat-of-strength scenario: I wouldn’t do it.

First, what kind of carnival barker would give you a chance of winning 100g without having to bet something yourself? Would you really put that in your game? And thus...

It was a festival, not a carnival, and towns/cities often put out contests with prizes under those circumstances. I agree that a carnival wouldn't do it.

Second, this scenario utterly fails my memorability test. “Hey, guys, remember that awesome time I rolled three times and won 100g?” “OMG yes! That was even better than the time you thought a gazebo was a monster!”

Not everything has to be so grand that it's memorable years later. In fact, if you make everything that grand, nothing is that grand. To be memorable, it has to stand out against typical game play, which means you need a lot of game play that won't stand out. The vast majority of ability checks are going to fall into the typical category.

Well, I'm off to Gateway 2019 for a day of convention gaming. I'm sure I'll have lots to reply to when I get back or tomorrow morning.