D&D 5E How difficult should Difficulty be?

[Charlaquin]

Really? How do they do that. Abusing guidance gets you an average +2 or 3, what else is there??

Expertise (available from many sources now), inspiration, bardic inspiration, a peace cleric’s emboldening bond, dragonmarks…

 

[iserith]

I have the exact opposite problem, for me DC 30 is far too easy. Over multiple campaigns my players always find ways to jack up their checks around 5th or 6th level.

I consider DC 30 less nearly impossible and more “rare but doable”.

To me DC 35 is the true “nearly impossible”

Interesting behavior from those players. Out of curiosity, do your players ask to make or declare they are making an ability check when they are describing what they do?

 

[Stalker0]

Really? How do they do that. Abusing guidance gets you an average +2 or 3, what else is there??

Start with basic advantage for one, help action is free and easy to do on a lot of checks. Then add in that guidance. That’s a 36% chance with your numbers to succeed. Suddenly my “nearly impossible” task has a 1 in 3 chance to succeed.

Now add in expertise or bard inspiration, and over 50% becomes doable.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don’t think a task that anyone has a 50% chance or better of succeeding at can
Accurately be described as “nearly impossible.”

A mythical-level hero who is at maximum ability potential and skilled in the task at hand is not "anyone".

They can achieve feats that the average person with their +0 bonus would regard as nearly impossible on a regular basis.

 

[Stalker0]

Interesting behavior from those players. Out of curiosity, do your players ask to make or declare they are making an ability check when they are describing what they do?

Some do some don’t. But I’m used to it, I will either say “no check required” or say “eh that’s investigate not perception” if I think they are choosing the wrong skill.

My players like to shoot for the moon and they are good at team building. So they are routinely trying for crazy “dc 30” type stuff

 

[bloodtide]

I like to keep the balance right in the middle, so characters will make it or fail about 50% of the time.

 

[iserith]

Some do some don’t. But I’m used to it, I will either say “no check required” or say “eh that’s investigate not perception” if I think they are choosing the wrong skill.

My players like to shoot for the moon and they are good at team building. So they are routinely trying for crazy “dc 30” type stuff

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out where the incentive to go that hard on ability checks may be. That's not something I really see from players. What would you say the crazy DC 30 type stuff is in your games?

 

[Stalker0]

A mythical-level hero who is at maximum ability potential and skilled in the task at hand is not "anyone".

They can achieve feats that the average person with their +0 bonus would regard as nearly impossible on a regular basis.

It’s also part of how you think about DCs. In terms of a single person (a person succeeding) the dc is pretty high. But when you think of it as the “group succeeding”, with all the synergies that entails, suddenly it’s a different ballgame.

A classic example is a knowledge check. One character getting the check might have a decent chance of failure. But if multiple characters can roll…the odds of success go up temendously. It happens anytime a group can each make a check per person, but only one needs to succeed.

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out where the incentive to go that hard on ability checks may be. That's not something I really see from players. What would you say the crazy DC 30 type stuff is in your games?

Most recent example. Players found a mural of an ancient battle on a world they had never been able to. Wizard wanted to make a history check to see if he knew anything about it. Now this was a world not only had they never seen, but really had no connection to the world they had come from. So I ruled it a 30, nearly impossible, would have had to have been some crazy circumstance to fall upon this knowledge.

Wizard got his 30.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

It’s also part of how you think about DCs. In terms of a single person (a person succeeding) the dc is pretty high. But when you think of it as the “group succeeding”, with all the synergies that entails, suddenly it’s a different ballgame.

A classic example is a knowledge check. One character getting the check might have a decent chance of failure. But if multiple characters can roll…the odds of success go up temendously. It happens anytime a group can each make a check per person, but only one needs to succeed.

Yes. If you have a party with a number of intelligent characters with the right proficiency, the group as a whole will have a much better chance of succeeding than just one.

But I take check difficulties as being how the average person-on-the-street would think of them, rather than my player's characters.

Most recent example. Players found a mural of an ancient battle on a world they had never been able to. Wizard wanted to make a history check to see if he knew anything about it. Now this was a world not only had they never seen, but really had no connection to the world they had come from. So I ruled it a 30, nearly impossible, would have had to have been some crazy circumstance to fall upon this knowledge.

Wizard got his 30.

What did he roll?