D&D 5E How difficult should Difficulty be?

[Stalker0]

Sure, we all have such great memories, but it holds true whether the PC needs a 19 or a 13. If your chances of failure are better than your chances of success, in those key moment people will remember the success, regardless of the number.

I disagree. I think the harder it is to do something; the more people will remember it, and this has played out over my experience just listening to the stories of what my players recall from old games, and what they actually remember from those games. Sure, they feel good when they needed a 13 and they get it, but players remember a whole lot more that time they could only succeed on a 20, and nail it.

Now to be clear, I am not saying the low chance of success events is the ONLY thing they remember. Obviously they remember the crazy jokes, the fun plots, the epic speeches they give, etc. Its just that I do find those "1 in a million" odd chances that they succeed on are remembered and talked about much more often than any "normal" roll would be.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In n eaelier playtest DC difficulties increased by 3 and I liked it a bit more.

I think very easy = 5 combined with automatic success rule of attribute score - 5 is a nice feature where you really see the difference between 8 and 10.

So probably I would have:

Trivial = 2
Very easy = 5
Easy = 8
Medium = 11
Hard = 14
Very hard = 17
Extremely hard = 20
Extraordinary hard = 23
Nearly impossible = 26 (out of reach for level 1 characters barring expertise)

 

[DND_Reborn]

I disagree. I think the harder it is to do something; the more people will remember it, and this has played out over my experience just listening to the stories of what my players recall from old games, and what they actually remember from those games. Sure, they feel good when they needed a 13 and they get it, but players remember a whole lot more that time they could only succeed on a 20, and nail it.

YMMV, of course.

In n eaelier playtest DC difficulties increased by 3 and I liked it a bit more.

I think very easy = 5 combined with automatic success rule of attribute score - 5 is a nice feature where you really see the difference between 8 and 10.

So probably I would have:

Trivial = 2
Very easy = 5
Easy = 8
Medium = 11
Hard = 14
Very hard = 17
Extremely hard = 20
Extraordinary hard = 23
Nearly impossible = 26 (out of reach for level 1 characters barring expertise)

Pretty much close to what I had in mind:

Easy 5
Medium 10
Hard 15
Very Hard 20
Nearly Impossible 25

 

[clearstream]

I think this is what it really comes down to. Some people, like (I presume) you, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for ordinary people” and, assuming PCs are a cut above ordinary to begin with and downright extraordinary by tier 4, think that the difficulty is too high. Other people, like me, take “nearly impossible” to mean “nearly impossible for a PC”, and assume only the most skilled PCs should be able to pull such a task off, and only with a lot of luck.

You're probably aware that the way DCs are contextualised in DMG 238 supports your view. I will quote the relevant text here for emphasis.

Most people can accomplish a DC 5 task with little chance of failure. Unless circumstances are unusual, let characters succeed at such a task without making a check.

DC 5 is typically auto-success for "characters".

a character with a 10 in the associated ability and no proficiency will succeed at an easy task around 50 percent of the time.

DC 10 is a coin-flip for characters who have put no focus on the ability.

A DC 25 task is very hard for low-level characters to accomplish, but becomes more reasonable after 10th level or so.

DC 25 is described as "very hard" only from the perspective of "low-level characters". For 10th level characters upward it is "more reasonable".

A DC 30 check is nearly impossible for most low-level characters. A 20th-level character with proficiency and - relevant ability score of 20 still needs a 19 or 20 on the die roll to succeed at a task of this difficulty.

DC 30 is nearly impossible from the perspective of "most low-level characters". Even a 20th-level character might only succeed 1-in-10. I would not describe something that happens 1-in-10 as "nearly impossible".

It helps to also bear in mind DMG 237, which parses out as

• Certain? Don't roll.
• Impossible? Don't roll.
• Uncertain (solely)? Don't roll, multiply time by 10.
• Uncertain and meaningful consequences? Only now ought we roll.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

YMMV, of course.


Pretty much close to what I had in mind:

Easy 5
Medium 10
Hard 15
Very Hard 20
Nearly Impossible 25

That is about how I use the current categories and how i figured out how dnd 3.x skills actually worked well.
Don't do an arms race with characters and suddenly you enable a lot of fun, because there is no fear of failing trivial tasks.

 

[clearstream]

YMMV, of course.


Pretty much close to what I had in mind:

Easy 5
Medium 10
Hard 15
Very Hard 20
Nearly Impossible 25

Something I am currently playtesting is to make the targets fixed numbers, so that following DMG 238 and 242 players always need to roll

Roll	Result	Description
11+ nat. 20	Critical success	Overcome the challenge with increased impact
11+	Success	Overcome the challenge
8+	Success at a cost	Make progress combined with a setback (a complication or hindrance)
Lower	Failure	Make no progress, and suffer consequences of failure
Lower nat. 1	Critical success	Make no progress, and suffer increased consequences of failure

DCs are then applied as modifiers

Difficulty Class (DC)	Modifier
Very Easy	+5
Easy	+0
Moderate	–5
Hard	–10
Very Hard	–15
Nearly Impossible	–20

Passive scores also convert to a modifier, so a stealthing character wants 8+ and will deduct an observer's passive modifier (without adding ten). A benefit of this conversion is that it makes explicit and (for me at least) more consistently actionable the DMG 242 rules. In my home campaign I am testing 5+ and 10+ as easier-to-check thresholds, so that would align pretty well with the OPs goals. And to paraphrase the the DMG - If the only DCs you ever use are +0, –5, and –10, your game will run just fine.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think that every class should be given one use of expertise to assign to one of their class’s natural skill proficiencies, This is the thing your class specialises in, you excel at it, the bard or rogue with expertise being better than the barbarian at athletics or the cleric at medicine shouldn’t happen just because they have access to a mechanic that heavily influences skill bonuses while the others don’t, yes they get more uses to spread around as skill classes but that doesn’t mean the other classes are unskilled in their own areas and the mechanics should represent that.

(RIP i missed DND_reborn suggesting this upthread)

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that is a very fair assessment.

DC's don't change according to who is trying to do them, nor should the descriptive task name.

I agree! That’s why I prefer they be named relative to the people usually making the checks - the PCs.

Yes, I feel if the task is nearly impossible, it is for everyone, not just the PCs at that point in their career.

Again, I agree, which is why I don’t think a task that a PC can attain a 60% chance of succeeding at can accurately be described as “nearly impossible.”

By the time PCs might be encountering DC 25 and DC 30, I feel their odds should be on par with what level 1 PCs deal with vs. DC 15 or 20, but it isn't quite there.

Well, by tier 4, a typical PC will have gained about +4 to checks they’re proficient in, or +6 if the check keys off a primary ability score. So it’s checks of DC 20 and 25 that they have similar odds of success at as they did on DCs 15 and 20 at 1st level. Again, this seems appropriate to me - what was “hard” and “very hard” when they started out has become the equivalent of medium and hard respectively, and what was impossible has become equivalent to very hard.

For example, a level 1 PC is +5 vs. DC 20 needs 14. But a level 20 PC is +11 vs. DC 30 needs an 19. That is the 5-point difference that bothers me.

It seems like you just find the rate of improvement for PCs too slow. Have you considered having proficiency bonuses increase by +1 every two levels instead of every 4?

One solution I proposed at the end of a post but no one has responded to yet was giving all creatures expertise in one skill. For PCs, that would likely be a background skill. With the extra +6 at level 20, then the PC is +17 vs. DC needing a 13, almost the same as the level 1 PC needed the 14.
This solution would allow higher level PCs to attempt higher level DC tasks with a reasonable chance of success but only in one thing they excel at. In a way, I like that idea because it isn't a universal shift but still accomplishes the change for having better than a 10% chance for a DC 30 task without relying on inspiration, guidance, et. al.

I think this is pretty much what the Skill Expert Feat is for.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think this is pretty much what the Skill Expert Feat is for.

But do you think a character ought to need to spend a feat to properly excel at what their class is meant to specialise in beyond what others are capable of who haven’t trained in this area specifically?
SE is fine for branching out even further but I don’t think it needs to be required for your core specialty.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That’s why I prefer they be named relative to the people usually making the checks - the PCs.

Well, this explains a lot. The tasks are in terms of the world, not the PCs doing them, to me.

a PC can attain a 60% chance of succeeding at can accurately be described as “nearly impossible.”

Without a feature to help them, such as magic, inspiration, or expertise, this will never be the case. 10% is the best baseline they can hope for.

It seems like you just find the rate of improvement for PCs too slow. Have you considered having proficiency bonuses increase by +1 every two levels instead of every 4?

In all honesty, yes, this is an issue for me. I find a +4 boost in proficiency ridiculous for 17+ levels of experience. I've increased it to anywhere from +8 to +12 at 20th level, but always dropped it because it means I also have to adjust ACs and spell saves.

I think this is pretty much what the Skill Expert Feat is for.

Which never existed until Tasha's came out.... So, what to do before then?

But do you think a character ought to need to spend a feat to properly excel at what their class is meant to specialise in beyond what others are capable of who haven’t trained in this area specifically?
SE is fine for branching out even further but I don’t think it needs to be required for your core specialty.

Pretty much my view. A feat (which is OPTIONAL btw both in that feats are optional and Tasha's isn't accepted by everyone, myself included for most of it!).

Now, for a LONG time I had a house-rule "background expertise" which allowed you to trade both your background skills for expertise in one of them, but dropped it along with the majority of my house-rules. Granting expertise in a single skill to each creature alleviates much of the problem, since it mostly exists at the higher DCs.