Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8422954" data-attributes="member: 7006">You know what I think is the saddest part of all of this though?  When it comes to the D&D game itself... what skills you know and how many there are doesn't actually matter.  Because your abilities to do things is so small compared to just random chance.  It doesn't matter how good you are or how well-trained... most of anything you succeed at is completely the result of one thing... the die roll.The random d20 die roll for all ability checks can easily result in something like 4/5ths of your entire success in doing something.  You could have a +3 in your stat and proficiency in some skill you are supposed to be fully trained and really good at... giving you a total of +5... but a roll of '20' on the die means that succeeding at a DC 25 check was a result of 5 points from natural ability and your training, and 20 points from complete and utter randomness.  4/5ths of your success had nothing to do with you as a character, it was just the fickle finger of fate this day that decided you remembered that historical fact or didn't lose your balance on the icy roof of the building.  Heck... even a 20th level character that has Expertise in a skill (+12) and a maxed out stat (+5) for a total of +17... still sees 1/5th of their checks get HALF (or more) of their result from complete chance (rolls of 17-20).  Doing virtually the impossible on a DC 35 check says 17 points comes from skill and training, and 18 points just from luck. Doesn't that seem odd?  That even the very pinnacle of human endeavor in Dungeons & Dragons can see any accomplishment be at best only 50% of it coming from who you are and what you've done?  When you look at it from the top-down meta view of the game system... that ain't great.The game through that prism really drives home the idea that the entire skill system in D&D doesn't actually matter.  Most of a character's success or failure across the board will be completely due to the random d20 roll and more often than not have little to nothing to do with your ability scores or proficiencies.  The system on the whole might as well not even be there for all the good it does, LOL.</blockquote>

Verification