D&D 5E How difficult should Difficulty be?

[James Gasik]

Or heck, Elminster's Ecologies (though he admits, he only wrote the first book). Here's an excerpt of him talking to a wannabe adventurer about them:

 

[Vaalingrade]

So basically, because of Elminster everyone should have a chance to know anything?

Even with Elminster traveling around doing that, the odds of a given PC encountering him AND learning that specific piece of information is still next to 0.

A lot of D&D books from 2E especially are presented as in-universe works.

So if your character can read, there's a good chance they know what's in them.

 

[Maxperson]

A lot of D&D books from 2E especially are presented as in-universe works.

So if your character can read, there's a good chance they know what's in them.

This isn't the modern world where books and libraries are common and easy to get to, and where you can find copies of the same books at all of them. It's highly unlikely that your PC has read any given book.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This isn't the modern world where books and libraries are common and easy to get to, and where you can find copies of the same books at all of them. It's highly unlikely that your PC has read any given book.

D&D, especially modern D&D, sure seems like a fantasy version of the modern world to me, particularly from the adventurer's point of view.

 

[Maxperson]

D&D, especially modern D&D, sure seems like a fantasy version of the modern world to me, particularly from the adventurer's point of view.

Given that the vast majority of people here in the real world haven't read even a tiny fraction of the books in a modern library, I'm going to say that even if what you say is true, the PCs would still be extraordinarily unlikely to have read any given book. They wouldn't be entitled to a roll to find out something about a personage on another world.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This isn't the modern world where books and libraries are common and easy to get to, and where you can find copies of the same books at all of them. It's highly unlikely that your PC has read any given book.

They haven't read the seminal works of a man who is provably more awesome and important in-universe than the gods?

Okay. The cleric only has a slim chance of knowing their religion's tenets too.

 

[Maxperson]

They haven't read the seminal works of a man who is provably more awesome and important in-universe than the gods?

Probably not. You can't check out books and bring them home and it's very unlikely that it happened prior to first level. After first level I know what they've done and where they've been.

Okay. The cleric only has a slim chance of knowing their religion's tenets too.

False Equivalences are false.

 

[Vaalingrade]

False Equivalences are false.

I'm sorry I compared Elminster to a mere god.

 

[James Gasik]

I do want to point out is that the game doesn't really have a system to allow someone to be a specialized scholar in esoteric knowledge other than "can they make a DC whatever Intelligence check"? So if we're trying to debate who has read a copy of "Volo's Guide to X" or "Van Richten's Guide to Y", both written by actual in-universe NPC's and presented as an in-universe resource, what's the barrier you want to apply? Skill proficiency? Expertise? Sage Background?

Because if you're playing a Wizard, you're already a high-Int bookworm who devours the written page like a fat kid looks at a Big Mac. I can point to examples in the game's lore where big brained NPC's do, in fact, interact with (and share their knowledge) with low level nobodies, including adventurers.

Elminster is known to be fairly loquacious and has hobnobbed with Dalamar and Mordenkainen regularly, so yeah, he might be persuaded to drop deep cuts of lore about other worlds and planes.

One can't remain a clueless berk forever, eventually you're going to learn the dark of the planes if you're a cutter, and a blood becomes a Knight of the Cross Trade. All roads lead to Sigil, Prime.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I wish we'd go with degrees of training in skills: Proficient, Expert, Master, and Legend. Rather than the numbers going up, you can just do more amazing things on a success. Master athletics lets you multiply weight limits by 5 (x10 if you roll hard success or accept a stage of exhaustion), Legendary x10/20.

Do NOT give higher tier proficiency to casters. Casting (allegedly) takes time to learn. You want master Arcana? Spend a feat or multiclass.

Add in COC/PF2's degrees of success while we're at it. Beating the DC by 10 is a critical success, failing by 10+ is a critical failure.

D&D's skill system is so pitiful as is. They need about 3-4 pages of skill "feats" per skill. 1/3 the PHB is spells, they can cut out half of them to make room for more skill tricks.