Highest total bonus at level one to a d20 roll

For those who say +5 or lower, what would you consider an average DC for a level 1 challenge?

For most checks, DC 10. Untrained guys are at 55/45, experts at 80/20.
For tricky things, DC 15. Untrained guys are at 30/70, experts at 55/45.

I often consider Call of Cthulhu/Basic Roleplay skills in comparison - a 50% skill is pretty good in that game, but you need 75% to be reliable. 25% feels like you've got a chance, but less than 20% and you know you're taking a big risk.
 

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For those who say +5 or lower, what would you consider an average DC for a level 1 challenge?

Like [MENTION=882]Chris_Nightwing[/MENTION] wrote, DC 10 to 15 for most of the challenges they are expected to be challenged by but overcome.

I don't really like the idea of "level X challenge", though. A 1st level party will occasionally run into things that would be DC 20 or 25 or even more if they attempt them, and even a 10th level party will sometimes be required to roll DC 5 or 10 checks when the failure has consequences.

The logic may seem inverted, but I think an "average" DC you roll against should be one where you succeed 50% of the time, because you don't need to roll when you always or never succeed. The rogue with 18 Dex doesn't need to roll dice to cross the DC 5 swinging rope bridge, and the barbarian with negative Int doesn't need to roll dice to not decipher the DC 20 ancient runes.
 


For most checks, DC 10. Untrained guys are at 55/45, experts at 80/20.
For tricky things, DC 15. Untrained guys are at 30/70, experts at 55/45.

I often consider Call of Cthulhu/Basic Roleplay skills in comparison - a 50% skill is pretty good in that game, but you need 75% to be reliable. 25% feels like you've got a chance, but less than 20% and you know you're taking a big risk.

Like @Chris_Nightwing wrote, DC 10 to 15 for most of the challenges they are expected to be challenged by but overcome.

I don't really like the idea of "level X challenge", though. A 1st level party will occasionally run into things that would be DC 20 or 25 or even more if they attempt them, and even a 10th level party will sometimes be required to roll DC 5 or 10 checks when the failure has consequences.

The logic may seem inverted, but I think an "average" DC you roll against should be one where you succeed 50% of the time, because you don't need to roll when you always or never succeed. The rogue with 18 Dex doesn't need to roll dice to cross the DC 5 swinging rope bridge, and the barbarian with negative Int doesn't need to roll dice to not decipher the DC 20 ancient runes.

By level 1 challenge, I meant a DC or Target number a DM would throw out without being a "gotcha" trap or "roll very high or fail" DC.


See I see the maxxed out attack or skill value at level 1 to be +10. This gives players and DMs eleven increments of design space (before negatives) to work with. That give you places to put munchkin fighter, common fighter, war cleric, normal cleric, brawny rogue, skinny rouge, half orc wizard, and squishy wizard.

+5 only allows for 6 (before negatives) spaces. It encourages sameness. Yes, it doesn't allow characters to not be able to contribute when the DC is in the sweet spot. A close range doesn't allow for noticeable amounts of reliability. A hard spent 18 Str or lucky 18 roll for Dex goes unrewarded. Weapon Focus fails to fail better. As a DM, I hate fudging results to make the pass/fail match the character's bio because the dice wont.


I was working on the assumption that it didn't matter where the bonus came from, only the final value was really important.

In the model I would adopt, attribute mods would be capped at +3, and Fighters would get a +2 to all attacks, giving the +5.

Additionally, they would get a +1 per 2 levels, as in 4e, and would also get their first feat at 2nd level, which could give them a further +2 at that point.

I could, potentially, see characters getting a masterwork weapon or a racial modifier giving a further +1 here or there... Mostly, though, I'd prefer any bonuses higher than that to be situational - a "precise attack" power, or a buff spell, or flanking, or whatever.



See, I disagree. On a d20 system, there's a sweet spot for modifiers at about +10. That's the point where your total result is roughly equally split between 'luck' and 'skill'. (Mathematically, it makes no difference - d20+10 vs DC 20 is the same as d20+50 vs DC 60, but the former feels better.)

The problem is that if you allow your 1st level character to hit that sweet spot immediately (and on all attacks, without any sort of "clever play bonus"), there really isn't anywhere for the character to grow to. Far better to start the character at a point where they are reasonably competent but only showing potential (rather than being the finished article), then fairly quickly grow them to the sweet spot.

The other consideration is the role of specialisation in the system. Both 3e and 4e gave players a huge range of options for advancing their characters, and I wouldn't bet against 5e eventually offering the same. But with all those options, as the game progresses the gap between the specialist and the non-specialist will grow. And if it grows too large, it can become a real issue, ultimately breaking the math in the game (as Andy Collins discussed at length in the "Epic Level Handbook" - a book that was widely slated, but which has the core advancement mechanic that was later adopted in 4e).

Far better to limit specialisation at the outset, and allow characters to grow reasonably specialised as they go. Unless you were thinking of having +10 for the ultra-specialist, +8 for the 'common' Fighter, +6 for 'everyone else', and +4 for the weakling mage. But then, I see absolutely no benefit in not reducing all those numbers by at least 4 across the board, and since people do better adding smaller numbers than bigger ones, I can see at least one advantage.

The other advantage of not allowing excessive specialisation at the outset is that if the campaign goes in a different direction from that expected, the non-specialist can adapt; the specialist is stuck. That's not good for anyone - either the player now has to not play the character he wanted, or the player has to play a character that doesn't suit the campaign, or the DM and other players are constrained to not take the game in that unexpected (and potentially interesting) direction.

My main issue is having the rolls match the players' description of the characters. I've watched a fighter roll an 11 and a wizard roll a 13 and the latter being the only one to hit.

I might be in a rare few that believe the d20 is just a randomizing tool and a nat 16 doesn't mean you should always pass. If you have 20 possible outcomes then they should all be used. I see no problem having one PC success on a 5 while the other needs a 15. There are huge gaps of competence in reality. The key to having these instances be rare not never.
 
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See I see the maxxed out attack or skill value at level 1 to be +10. This gives players and DMs eleven increments of design space (before negatives) to work with. That give you places to put munchkin fighter, common fighter, war cleric, normal cleric, brawny rogue, skinny rouge, half orc wizard, and squishy wizard.

I prefer differences that start smaller and in many cases grow larger. The first level fighter is going to be better with a weapon than the cleric and definitely the wizard, but not all that much. By 10th the time the fighter has put into weapons has paid off and the difference is more pronounced. (But the other characters have become better at their things.)

In the case of melee attacks, I could see your eight character examples have attack bonuses from +5 (munchkin fighter) to -2 (squishy wizard). By 10th level the difference would have grown and they might have bonuses from over +10 (munchkin fighter) to +1 (squishy wizard) with some numbers unoccupied.

The problem is that DC scaling often follows the best instead of the average or worst skill. That way it seems like some characters grow worse instead of other growing better. For example, I think AC should roughly follow the wizard's weapon attack bonus, and the fighter should grow from 40-60% hit chance to 80-95% when there are no circumstance penalties. Slow DC increase would also mean min-maxing isn't as beneficial, because you don't really care if your chance is 90% or 95%.
 

I think [MENTION=63508]Minigiant[/MENTION] wants characters to be fairly differentiated right from the start - hence his range of 0 to +10, whereas [MENTION=6675228]Hassassin[/MENTION] and I prefer the range to start smaller and grow.

My fear is, that the range will naturally grow in any system that involves numbers going up - the Fighter is going to take every opportunity to grow stronger and better at hitting but very few opportunities to know more stuff, vice-versa for the Wizard. If you start them both already 10 apart, then they will grow to unmanageably far apart.
 

[MENTION=882]Chris_Nightwing[/MENTION] & [MENTION=6675228]Hassassin[/MENTION]

+10 is my Maximum value. The range between the super pathetic and the super munchkin is 11 increments but neither super pathetic and super muchkin would be common.

For example, to get +10 for attack, you have to invest
Ability, Race, Feat, Theme, and Class in the same thing.

So only a Max Strength half orc fighter with Weapon focus: axe and Veteran theme or a Max Dexterity elf fighter with Weapon Finesse feat and the Fey Knight theme would have +10 attack. Is +10 possible, yes but rare.
 




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