D&D 5E Does (or should) the halfling “lucky” ability apply when the DM is making the roll?

[Hriston]

Don't ever do hidden rolls. There are better solutions.

Especially in your example "rolling survival to see if the halfling gets lost", I don't even see the need to hide it in the first place. What would you do on a failure? Tell the halfling that he found the trail and but really make him follow the wrong one? Don't do that. Golden DM rule: Don't lie to the player.

Better:

Failure:
Player: "I want to follow the trail."
DM: "Roll survival."
Player: "1."
DM: "You travel deeper into the forest, following the trail. Eventually you realize you can't find any signs of a trail anymore and you've no clue where you are."

Success:
Player: "I want to follow the trail."
DM: "Roll survival."
Player: "20."
DM: "You travel deeper into the forest, following the trail. Eventually you reach a small hut."

As you can see in both cases there was no need to hide the result.

I agree, hidden rolls are not desirable for my playstyle, and a passive Survival check in this case doesn't work either given that I use a static DC depending on terrain type to resolve uncertain navigation. I don't want some characters to always get lost while others never do.

My solution is to narrate success as the character receiving confirmation, through landmarks or astronomical information, etc., that they are on the right path. A failure is narrated as the absence of any such confirmation, although I still have the problem that the players know at that point that their characters have moved in the wrong direction.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I still have the problem that the players know at that point that their characters have moved in the wrong direction.

I don't see this problem.

On success you give them confirmation. On fail, they simply don't know if they are on the right path or not or don't know which path to take.

 

[Reynard]

This what passive checks are for. "You must be this good to succeed." Are there mitigating circumstances? +/-5 for Advantage or Disadvantage.

Now, that means that the result of failure can't be "no adventure for you." There should be another consequence. Maybe it means taking extra time or having a random encounter or suffering a level of exhaustion or missing out on an opportunity to rest.

 

[Ristamar]

If the DM absolutely needs to roll in secret, he should roll versus a passive score. Along with simplifying repetitive checks, it's what they were designed to do.

 

[Hriston]

I don't see this problem.

On success you give them confirmation. On fail, they simply don't know if they are on the right path or not or don't know which path to take.

You’re right. It isn’t really a problem, more a matter of preference. I don’t find that particular failure result to be meaningful enough. I want failure to mean they go the wrong way. And since I run a fairly transparent table, the players, upon seeing the result, will know the PCs went the wrong way and are lost. Now, I don’t tell them which way they went instead, but it would be nice if it was possible to get the result that they went the wrong way but have no reason to believe they didn’t go in the desired direction. The only way I can think of to get this result though is with a hidden roll of some kind, perhaps against the PC’s passive Survival score, but I’m not really inclined to do this. Maybe I’ll try it out and see if it works for my group.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

You’re right. It isn’t really a problem, more a matter of preference. I don’t find that particular failure result to be meaningful enough. I want failure to mean they go the wrong way. And since I run a fairly transparent table, the players, upon seeing the result, will know the PCs went the wrong way and are lost. Now, I don’t tell them which way they went instead, but it would be nice if it was possible to get the result that they went the wrong way but have no reason to believe they didn’t go in the desired direction. The only way I can think of to get this result though is with a hidden roll of some kind, perhaps against the PC’s passive Survival score, but I’m not really inclined to do this. Maybe I’ll try it out and see if it works for my group.

I think you create yourself a lot of complications by doing this:
- You will have to dictate players what they do without them having stated it "You take the wrong path and now are lost" or even be forced to lie to them "You find some tracks and follow them, they lead to a stream." (it's the wrong path but you don't tell them)
- The player knowing something bad happened is not actually more meaningful then the players not knowing what to do: If you told them on failure "You see three possible paths to take, but can't find any signs of which the correct one is.", then regardless which path they take, correct or wrong, they will feel unsure and that feeling actually is meaningful, because on success, they would be confident

The easiest example is actually "I check if the NPC is lying". Now some DMs would now think "The NPC is lying so if the roll fails I tell them he is telling the truth" and then they are like "Hmm, but then I need to hide the roll because otherwise if they roll a 1 they can assume they've failed and consequently assume the NPC is lying anyway". But if you hide the roll, the whole situation becomes pointless. You will tell your players either "The NPC is lying" or "The NPC is telling the truth", but since you've hidden the roll result, the result is completely meaningless to the players. They don't know if their DM is lying to them or not! Bad!
Also consider this: The players will now evaluate the result based on their success and fail chance. If the PC has high insight, they'd assume the DM is telling the truth since it's more likely. If the PC has low insight, they'd assume the DM is lying. That means a low skill is actually better than an average skill, because the farther away from a 50/50 chance you get to easier to tell what happened.

All of this is so much easier to handle if you set yourself the rule to never hide rolls and adjust your replies accordingly. On a high success: "You're absolutely sure the NPC is lying", on just-about success "You notice some signs that the NPC could not be telling the truth", on failure "You seem to be unable to tell if the NPC is lying or not". The failure here is actually a lot more meaningful, because the players will need to continue the adventure not knowing if they can trust the NPC or not at all, whereas on success they'd be confident about it.

 

[delericho]

According to the 1st Ed DMG, PC abilities only apply if the player specifically calls for their use. Therefore you should reroll that '1' if and only if the player of the halfling specifically reminds you about his "Lucky" ability. (IIRC, the actual example given is the then-elven ability to automatically roll to detect secret doors.)

Though I can't say I would actually run it like that.

 

[Hriston]

I think you create yourself a lot of complications by doing this:
- You will have to dictate players what they do without them having stated it "You take the wrong path and now are lost" or even be forced to lie to them "You find some tracks and follow them, they lead to a stream." (it's the wrong path but you don't tell them)
- The player knowing something bad happened is not actually more meaningful then the players not knowing what to do: If you told them on failure "You see three possible paths to take, but can't find any signs of which the correct one is.", then regardless which path they take, correct or wrong, they will feel unsure and that feeling actually is meaningful, because on success, they would be confident

I think some context would be helpful. The game I run is heavy on large-scale exploration. The PCs move across a landscape represented on a map with hexes four and a half miles or more in diameter, gauged to the difficulty of the terrain and travel pace so that it takes half a day's journey to move from one hex to the next. The players tell me in which direction and at what pace they want to travel, and who, if anyone, is going to navigate. That declaration is resolved, depending on the difficulty, with either auto-success or a Wisdom (Survival) check to see if they succeed in moving in the desired direction. So I'm not dictating what the PCs do any more than I am when I say a PC's attack misses when its attack roll result is lower than the target's AC. If the check fails to hit the DC, they inadvertently go in the wrong direction. Whether it succeeds or fails, however, I describe the area in which they arrive.

The change I'm considering separates becoming lost (and moving in the wrong direction) from becoming aware that you are lost. Currently, both result simultaneously from a failed navigation check, but I'd rather the discovery of being lost be the result of succeeding on the check after having been lost, and that seems to require a passive check.

The easiest example is actually "I check if the NPC is lying". Now some DMs would now think "The NPC is lying so if the roll fails I tell them he is telling the truth" and then they are like "Hmm, but then I need to hide the roll because otherwise if they roll a 1 they can assume they've failed and consequently assume the NPC is lying anyway". But if you hide the roll, the whole situation becomes pointless. You will tell your players either "The NPC is lying" or "The NPC is telling the truth", but since you've hidden the roll result, the result is completely meaningless to the players. They don't know if their DM is lying to them or not! Bad!
Also consider this: The players will now evaluate the result based on their success and fail chance. If the PC has high insight, they'd assume the DM is telling the truth since it's more likely. If the PC has low insight, they'd assume the DM is lying. That means a low skill is actually better than an average skill, because the farther away from a 50/50 chance you get to easier to tell what happened.

All of this is so much easier to handle if you set yourself the rule to never hide rolls and adjust your replies accordingly. On a high success: "You're absolutely sure the NPC is lying", on just-about success "You notice some signs that the NPC could not be telling the truth", on failure "You seem to be unable to tell if the NPC is lying or not". The failure here is actually a lot more meaningful, because the players will need to continue the adventure not knowing if they can trust the NPC or not at all, whereas on success they'd be confident about it.

I mostly agree with your point about Insight, but I think the more directly analogous example is Perception. Do you never use passive Perception in the event of a hidden creature? What about if a successfully hidden creature decides not to reveal itself? Do you tell the players about its presence anyway and that their characters don't notice it? I don't because it's information I think should be hidden from the players. The way I'm contemplating running navigation also relies on hidden information because I want the possibility that they don't know they're lost, which seems to suggest making a passive check, unless anyone has another suggestion.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Do you never use passive Perception in the event of a hidden creature? What about if a successfully hidden creature decides not to reveal itself? Do you tell the players about its presence anyway and that their characters don't notice it?

I use passive perception. If their passive perception is lower than the stealth roll of the creature, I won't tell my players that it's there. But I also don't lie to my players and tell them nobody is nearby. I might tell them they don't see anybody, though.

 

[Hriston]

I use passive perception. If their passive perception is lower than the stealth roll of the creature, I won't tell my players that it's there. But I also don't lie to my players and tell them nobody is nearby. I might tell them they don't see anybody, though.

I wonder how you reconcile this with your rule to never hide rolls. One of the purposes for a passive check is for the DM to determine success or failure secretly. What I'm considering for navigation is contesting the navigator's passive Survival with a roll on behalf of the terrain. More difficult terrain types get advantage on the roll. "Clear" terrain types, such as a plain, have disadvantage. The result determines whether the party is successful in moving in the desired direction and, if lost, whether they know they're lost. Would you consider this hiding a roll?