D&D 5E How difficult should Difficulty be?

[Nephilim00]

Remember how 4e had challenges. Instead of a single roll of the dice, you had to make several rolls and reach a target number. More suspenseful. Try that.

 

[Charlaquin]

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

But they are someone, which means their ability to do it makes it merely nearly impossible instead of completely impossible.

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

Yes, as reflected by the fact that they have a 65% chance of succeeding at a task a character with no bonus would only have a 10% chance of succeeding at.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

It's only an 81% chance of failure. Not sure where 96% is coming from...

DC 30. +7 bonus. You need to roll 23+ on the dice.
To succeed, the wizard needed to either roll a 20 on the d20 and a 3 or 4 on the d4, or 19 on the d20 and a 4 on the d4.
Chance of getting a 20 is 5%, but even with a 20, half the time the guidance d4 won't be high enough. So 2.5% chance.
Chance of getting a 19 is 5%, but only a quarter of the time the guidance d4 is going to be 4, so 1.25%.
2.5+1.25 is 3.75%

Your wizard had a 3.75% chance of making that check. and a 96.25% chance of failing.
Without the spell, the chance of rolling 23+ on a d20 is zero.

So: In summary, the task was actually impossible, and the wizard only succeeded through divine guidance.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

But they are someone, which means their ability to do it makes it merely nearly impossible instead of completely impossible.

Nearly impossible was the description that you were objecting to, yes.

Yes, as reflected by the fact that they have a 65% chance of succeeding at a task a character with no bonus would only have a 10% chance of succeeding at.

OK. What sort of person's capability do you believe should be used to set the difficulty descriptions?

 

[DND_Reborn]

DC 30. +7 bonus. You need to roll 23+ on the dice.
To succeed, the wizard needed to either roll a 20 on the d20 and a 3 or 4 on the d4, or 19 on the d20 and a 4 on the d4.
Chance of getting a 20 is 5%, but even with a 20, half the time the guidance d4 won't be high enough. So 2.5% chance.
Chance of getting a 19 is 5%, but only a quarter of the time the guidance d4 is going to be 4, so 1.25%.
2.5+1.25 is 3.75%

Your wizard had a 3.75% chance of making that check. and a 96.25% chance of failing.
Without the spell, the chance of rolling 23+ on a d20 is zero.

So: In summary, the task was actually impossible, and the wizard only succeeded through divine guidance.

I didn't realize you were doing it with the roll for guidance since @Stalker0 said it was a 4.

Also, the wizard had advantage, so with that factored in the chance increases to 7.19% over all.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, I think the names are off by one level each.

• Very easy should be 0. So simply you can't really fail unless you have penalties and roll badly.

The term I would use for such a task is “trivial.”

• Easy at 5 makes more sense IMO. With proficiency and/or a decent ability score, failure is very unlikely (if at all).

With proficiency and a decent ability score, you have a +5, which means you can’t fail. With only one or the other, you are still very unlikely to fail. Even with no bonus, you are three times more likely to succeed than to fail. That’s very easy in my book.

• Medium at 10 is a bit challenging at lower levels, but at higher levels or with help/magic/expertise is not too bad.

DC 10 is not challenging for any level. Even with a -1 penalty you are as likely to succeed as to fail. Anyome with any degree of talent or training (let alone both) is most likely to succeed. That’s basically the definition of easy.

• Hard at 15 is starting to actually be hard. Lower levels have a reasonable chance to fail, and even higher level PCs can fail with a bad roll.

A 1st level character with a decent ability mod and proficiency succeeds at a DC 15 half the time. With any additional bonus, be that from expertise, inspiration, working together, guidance, or just being a slightly higher level, you’re in the 60-70% success rate sweet spot. Marking that as medium encourages PCs to play to their strengths and seek out advantage or other situational bonuses when possible.

• Very Hard at 20 means even someone with +0 has a 1 in 20 chance to succeed. It is a statistical anolomoly if such a creature does it and a lot of luck was involved. Lower levels have a chance, but aren't likely, and even high level PCs will find it challenging more often than not.

A character with literally no talent, no training, and no assistance or situational advantage still being able to succeed 5% of the time does not sound “very hard” to me.

• Nearly Impossible at 25 requires a high ability or expertise to even have a chance, and both to have a decent chance.

If anyone can achieve a decent chance, “nearly impossible” is not an accurate description.

• "Impossible" could be at 30 still, if it ever comes up... I've never seen it in use personally.

But DC 30 absolutely is possible to succeed at, so impossible would likewise be an inaccurate name for it.

Doing the 5-point reduction or level-shift for the task titles is simple and helps IMO. I also like this because those levels of 10,15, and 20 compared to AC values make sense to me. At AC 20+ creatures (such as older, larger dragons) approach "nearly impossible".

Larger dragons aren’t nearly impossible to hit though. And it would make for very boring gameplay if they were.

Again, at the end of the day, what you names you give to these DCs doesn’t really matter. But, given that they are meant to describe how difficult these tasks are for PCs of any level (rather than being relative to level, or based on a specific level), the names are about as accurate as I think one could reasonably expect.

 

[Charlaquin]

OK. What sort of person's capability do you believe should be used to set the difficulty descriptions?

A PC’s.

 

[Stalker0]

Sigh, definately regretting providing an example to a side question in this thread, apparantely I should have only providing the scenarios where my players are really trying with their big bonuses.

But to confirm the math:
Two scenarios that work

19 on a d20 roll (with advantage), 4 on guidance roll. That’s 9.75 % / 4

20 on a d20 roll (with advantage), 3 or 4 on guidance roll. That’s 9.75 % / 2

Or 7.31% total.

 

[Stalker0]

My rule is proficiency. If you have proficiency in a skill or tool or whatever, you can help whether you could succeed or not.

I find it is a nice logical middle ground between stingy and to open readings.

Ok sounds like we are on the same page. I thought you meant the helper had to be able to make a 30 dc themselves in order to help on a dc 30 check

 

[Stalker0]

Remember how 4e had challenges. Instead of a single roll of the dice, you had to make several rolls and reach a target number. More suspenseful. Try that.

Hehe I also remember that wotcs messed up the math so badly on their first version that they had to errata the system. If you followed their guidelines, PCs had almost no chance to pass even basic challenges!