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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 9039752" data-attributes="member: 93670"><a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#TypicalDifficultyClasses" target="_blank">The answer </a> for 5e is in both the DMG and PHB. I cited page numbers for each earlier in <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-would-you-change-skills-in-5-5e.697851/post-9039555" target="_blank">post 160</a>.  [spoiler="Here it is"]<table style='width: 100%'><tr><th>Task Difficulty</th><th>DC</th></tr><tr><td>Very easy</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>Easy</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>Medium</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Hard</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Very hard</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td>Nearly impossible</td><td>30</td></tr></table>[/spoiler]Bending that bar in 5e and any other bar is either very easy(for who?), easy(for who?), medium(for who?), hard(for who?), very hard(for who?), or nearly impossible(for who?).  Pick one and crash into the fact that now you as GM need to track  "all the different metals used in bars, what's the RAW for how thick the metal bars are?  Or the RAW for quality of the metal, like how rusted is it?  Or what about how long the metal bar is, what the RAW for bending a 2' bar versus a 10' bar?  All of these things".  (Very) easy for who?  Hard for who?  Nearly impossible for who?... don't forget to track those too.  Don't want to track it as a gm?  Too bad, your players will eventually remind you of the time that some other bar was easier than this one while pointing at the DC chart."Length" of the DC chart is different from the question of if the DC chart scales high enough to cover the range of PC abilities or not.  Given that PCs can start the game with around +6 or so and end the game with +18 or +18 with the inability to roll less than 10 the 5e DC chart obviously fails to scale adequately & does so with even the most cursory of glances. That was not always the case & I'll explain why.Focusing on the details  of the bar rather than who could do it demonstrates a failure of understanding though.  The 3.5 dmg table 2-5 Difficulty Class Examples on pg31 illustrates what you are missing by focusing on a specific rock near a specific tree in a forest & it does so in the column headings  before providing even a single example.  Tho1se headings are DC, Example, Roll (Key Ability), & Who could do it. That last one is critical because it acknowledges that not every action can be easily quantified even if it's easy enough to estimate parts of it.  You can find the data from all of those columns <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/hot-take-d-d-has-not-recovered-from-2e-to-3-0-transition.693849/page-8#post-8861111" target="_blank">here</a>, but we need to look specifically at just the "who could do it" list to answer your uncertainties with any given example. When you look at "who could do it" you see that the examples span from the lowest of the low for things like "hearing the sounds of a pitched battle"(a commoner on the other side of a stone wall) to the most extreme excess of specialization with things like "Track a goblin that passed over hard rocks a week ago, and it snowed yesterday "(A 20th-level ranger who has maxed out his Survival skill and has been fighting goblinoids as his favored enemy since 1st level). In addition to thhat range it presents a denmonstration of hoq once existing subsystems can modify a target for edge cases with an example that calls out different DCs for a ranger & a barbarian because of speed differences.  It's your example, who should be able to bend the bar?  The 5e rules ignore that and provide the GM with little more than an incomplete PH chart.  I considered linking to a PH chart but try as I might to find one it seems that those don't come with only 6 variations like the 5e dc chart has.</blockquote>

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