D&D General How do you set the DC of an ability check

[Maxperson]

Or you can have an In-Depth back story where you’ve been raised in the thieves guild and been picking locks since you were 8.

The average person has a stat of 9 or 10. Anyone with a 16 is exceptional. Anyone with proficiency in a particular skill can make a living with that skill and anyone with expertise in a skill is an expert. Level 1 doesn’t matter.

The mechanics do not back that up at all. At level 1 with expertise and 16 dex the rogue has +7. At level 20 he has +15. Yeah, both of those are the same. Just experts.

At level 1 someone with proficiency is barely proficient, not someone who could make a living at that skill. With a 9 or 10 in a stat, he'd be failing easy rolls 35%-40% of the time. That sort of failure rate doesn't make you a living, and since money is on the line, failure has meaning, so no auto successes for lack of meaning to the rolls.

You'd need +8 or so to be able to make a living. +13 would make you an expert who would be making pretty much all easy and moderate rolls, and most hard ones. With a good chance at very hard and sometimes even nearly impossible. THAT's an expert.

the difference between a level 0 expert locksmith and a level 1 and a level 20 is the stories.

One is picking locks as a job, one is picking locks in a dungeon and the other is picking locks in the Abyss. It’s the story of how they got to the lock that matters. Not that they can all pick a dc 25 lock.

Nah. Skill is supposed to be there, too. When the level 5 Rogue can pick any lock in the universe, something has gone terribly wrong.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes indeed! Agree wholeheartedly.

This is why I'm always saying that game mechanics are in no real way an actual representation of the world the characters live in (or indeed of the characters themselves.) They are there mainly to allow us players to play the "game" part of the 'roleplaying game', and throw us a few bones of story and fluff to make us think these numbers actually represent something real. When in point of fact, almost none of it does because we are all able to come up with thousands of ways game mechanics do not actually show a true representation of what things are actually like in the fantasy world and fantasy story. The DCs for skill use (and indeed the skill list itself) is just one of multitudes of things that have been simplified down to give us part of the "game" to play... as are the multiclass rules to somehow represent the years of "additional training" a character has done in the "background" of their lives that we never see, but somehow have their abilities suddenly pop into existence 'onscreen' as part of the story we are representing during our gameplay.

I half-ass it. My players are required to at least roleplay for a level or two(depending on how long it takes to level) working towards a goal in the fiction, such as studying with the party wizard, or practicing with the party rogue, before they can multi-class. Some classes are exceptions, such as warlock which just takes a pact that has to be sought out in the fiction, cleric which requires faith more than skill, sorcerer which requires some sort of justification of blood, etc.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

The mechanics do not back that up at all. At level 1 with expertise and 16 dex the rogue has +7. At level 20 he has +15. Yeah, both of those are the same. Just experts.

At level 1 someone with proficiency is barely proficient, not someone who could make a living at that skill. With a 9 or 10 in a stat, he'd be failing easy rolls 35%-40% of the time. That sort of failure rate doesn't make you a living, and since money is on the line, failure has meaning, so no auto successes for lack of meaning to the rolls.

You'd need +8 or so to be able to make a living. +13 would make you an expert who would be making pretty much all easy and moderate rolls, and most hard ones. With a good chance at very hard and sometimes even nearly impossible. THAT's an expert.

Nah. Skill is supposed to be there, too. When the level 5 Rogue can pick any lock in the universe, something has gone terribly wrong.

I would say a level 20 character with expertise in a skill is a Master in their craft. A level 1 with expertise is still an expert. Both, given time can reliably, crack a dc 25 lock. One can do it much faster.

 

[Scott Christian]

I half-ass it. My players are required to at least roleplay for a level or two(depending on how long it takes to level) working towards a goal in the fiction, such as studying with the party wizard, or practicing with the party rogue, before they can multi-class. Some classes are exceptions, such as warlock which just takes a pact that has to be sought out in the fiction, cleric which requires faith more than skill, sorcerer which requires some sort of justification of blood, etc.

Don't your players ever have downtime? Like a month in between their adventure? You know, like something you might montage. Couldn't they just say that was during their downtime? Would that be acceptable?

 

[bsss]

Nah. Skill is supposed to be there, too. When the level 5 Rogue can pick any lock in the universe, something has gone terribly wrong.

Not to pick on 5e again, but I think that's basically "working as designed" there, or if I'm giving them the "benefit" of the doubt, the math got away from them and they flattened the space in a way that excludes the kind of difference you're looking for.

 

[Maxperson]

Don't your players ever have downtime? Like a month in between their adventure? You know, like something you might montage. Couldn't they just say that was during their downtime? Would that be acceptable?

There is almost never downtime like that. I don't stop the world from moving and events from happening and my players want to interact with what is going on.

What they do when possible is teach each other stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

Not to pick on 5e again, but I think that's basically "working as designed" there, or if I'm giving them the "benefit" of the doubt, the math got away from them and they flattened the space in a way that excludes the kind of difference you're looking for.

There is no other skill that works that way, though. None of the other skills can reliably hit DC 25 without expertise with your typical first level PC.

 

[Scott Christian]

There is almost never downtime like that. I don't stop the world from moving and events from happening and my players want to interact with what is going on.

What they do when possible is teach each other stuff.

So, there is always one straight adventure after another? Like, they are never resting for a month after getting gobbled up by a carrion crawler and punched by a hill giant? They don't have lives outside of adventuring? Families? Relatives? Friends that they might help out with their new fortune?

 

[Maxperson]

So, there is always one straight adventure after another? Like, they are never resting for a month after getting gobbled up by a carrion crawler and punched by a hill giant? They don't have lives outside of adventuring? Families? Relatives? Friends that they might help out with their new fortune?

That's all part of the game. If they want to visit family, they do and we roleplay that. The world doesn’t just stop for months at a time.

 

[bloodtide]

But this is anyway a first pain point for a DM who might think "this should be easy, so I'll make it DC 10" without realizing it's only a 55% success chance for characters with no bonus on the roll (even though the PCs have a bonus on most checks since level 1, they may still not have it on everything).

First off, anything thing easy never needs a check. It's a huge waste of time to have the players roll a check they have a near 100% chance of making. Though really the PCs should not encounter much that is easy. It's pointless.

It should be "easy for a skilled PC" not "fair and balanced so every single player can play their character as a demigod 24/7". A low skilled character should have at least a 50% chance of failure. If you don't do this, then skills don't matter. Some PC was pass the DC super easy by like 10-20 points, other PCs will pass by like 5-10 points, but everyone will always pass.

And this goes back to: If your just going to auto pass everything, then don't waste the time rolling.

The second pain point is whether you should set a DC in a vacuum (as in "this task has an objective DC X for everyone") or tailor it to the PCs. I usually try to be objective, but I've seen DMs simply scale the DCs up with the PCs level, perhaps in an attempt to keep success chances stable across levels. At the extreme, I've seen DMs seemingly always declare a success if the dice result is generically high and a failure if single-digit, not even giving much attention to what is the PC's bonus on the check...

With the idea that the PCs are 'special' and 'above commoners', things that are easy for them should be hard for commoners.

It's not really directly ting it to the PCs: most adventure worthy things should be hard or near impossible for commoners in a setting.

It's also not really that just "the DC goes up with level", it is much more "the PCs attempt harder tasks". A LOT of games don't do this: The 20th level characters are still encountering DC 10 pits to jump over. And at 20th level the PCs can jump over that like Mario with a little jump 'bong'.

At like 10th level a PC should not be picking a lock on a farmers shed, they should be picking a lock on a door of damned souls inside a demons lair

The third pain point is whether you should modify a DC based on the circumstances (such as having the right tool for the job), or instead use (dis)advantage or other bonuses. For instance: does climbing a wall with a rope have a lower DC than climbing the same wall without a rope? Or do they have the same DC, but you have advantage (or another bonus) if you use a rope?

Yes. This is the whole point of tool sets and equipment. If you want to go down the "everything is automatic", then why even have equipment?

I am also curious to know how many DMs keep a reference list of tasks by DC (such as a list of door types, and the Strength check DC to force open them) or just improvise.

I have huge lists. I like to keep track of such things. Sometimes I will use them as a reference, but not too often.