D&D General "I make a perception check."

[Maxperson]

But a high CHA person and a low CHA person can say the exact same thing to the same person and yet have the result be completely different (as in much more favorable for the high CHA person). That's why modeling with a skill check roll often makes sense.

This doesn't change, though. Assuming that an auto success(the high or low charisma PC bringing ice peppers, the guard's favorite food in the world as a bribe to be let past) or an auto failure(both insulting the guard's mother), a roll is going to happen using their skills and charismas.

 

[iserith]

For example, you are really concerned about "automatic pass" or "automatic fail" based on adjudication of declared actions. And that happens in my game probably less than many of the games you are happy to play. For example, you mention that you play in a game were the house rule is "If you touch the lava you die." So in that game, all action declarations that result in you touching the lava are automatic fails. No one regardless of circumstances can run across the surface of a lava lake. So you are actually OK with "automatic fails" you just have quirks of when you are OK with them.

Technically the goal here is "remain alive" and the approach is "touch lava." An automatic failure in this game. You cannot touch the lava and remain alive.

Alternately, touching the lava is an automatic success - assuming nothing is trying to stop you. The result of the adventurer's action is that they are now dead.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I get that, and we also use checks when we are uncertain and failure has meaning. It just seems from your posts that nothing can be certain, and that goes against both RAW and what makes sense for some actions within the fiction.

no... I very much not only give auto successes the normal way the book suggests, but I add my own where if you are prof in something (skill/save/attack) and the DC is 11 or less you auto make it no roll (but if for some reason, like wanting to crit, you want to roll you can but you then have to go with the roll).

I again match what my players do... both in world/adventure and scene/encounter design. I also let my players choose (most but not all times) what is important and what isn't... as such the story of the game is all of ours to shape.

I have almost never told anyone (and the few times I had I doubt anyone would have let them try the crazy idea*) they can not declare there actions in as much or as little detail as they feel comfortable with... and that doesn't just change from player to player but from night to night.


(* first example that comes to mind was back in either 30 or 3.5 when a player got a keen adamantine dagger (Quick inf: stats means ignores object hardness, some damage reduction, and had +1 to hit and damage and doubled odds of a crit) and a game or two in they came to a wall of force... and the player declaierd "since it is keen AND made of the strongest metal I shove it in and cut a hole in the wall of force" I said no... you hit the wall of force with a 'pink' sound)

 

[Mort]

This doesn't change, though. Assuming that an auto success(the high or low charisma PC bringing ice peppers, the guard's favorite food in the world as a bribe to be let past) or an auto failure(both insulting the guard's mother), a roll is going to happen using their skills and charismas.

I don't understand.

Are you saying an auto success (the peppers) is an auto success for either PC but an auto fail (the insult) will then trigger a roll to see if the PC gets in despite the fail?

And my point is the insult is not necessarily an auto fail. I have seen my work colleague insult clients directly to their face (saying stuff that would 100% get me fired or punched) but the clients are laughing and nodding and going along with exactly what he wants. The point being there isn't necessarily an auto success OR fail in a social situation it REALLY depends on the person talking.

 

[Mannahnin]

right becuse saying "good idea, now roll to see how well you do it" is totally the same as saying "PRETEND TO BE DUMB!!!'

tf, dude?

Max asked "Is there any reason a 1st level wizard shouldn't be able to think to look behind a bookshelf?"

I opined that thinking a 1st level wizard shouldn't be able to think to look behind a bookshelf, or that gating that idea behind a roll, comes off as the style of game play where we require players to try to handicap their own thinking by some arbitrary amount, pretending to be ignorant. And that this doesn't work well.

Where do you get this "PRETEND TO BE DUMB!!!" nonsense?

 

[iserith]

I think, yet again, people are getting hung up on examples where everyone is reading their own context into it. We don't need examples to discuss this stuff. It simply makes things more confusing.

• Some actions are automatically successful - they are trivially easy with no chance of failure.
• Some actions automatically fail - they are perhaps impossible.
• Other actions have an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. In this case, we roll.
• If we roll, we must set a DC and decide whether there is advantage or disadvantage or neither.

Those are the rules.

In order to arrive at a DC and determine whether there is advantage or disadvantage, we must have some sense of the character's approach to their goal. Some are fine with assuming what the character is doing. A subset of those folks are also okay with the DM describing what the character does for the player. Others, like me, minimize that as much as possible because describing what the character does is the player's role, again, per the rules.

Easy, right? Now all that's left is to determine if the process by which the DM is managing these things is coherent and predictable by the players (so they can make informed decisions), which appears to be what is being discussed more or less. The examples, however, aren't helping.

 

[Mort]

Easy, right? Now all that's left is to determine if the process by which the DM is managing these things is coherent and predictable by the players (so they can make informed decisions), which appears to be what is being discussed more or less. The examples, however, aren't helping.

So "other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

Determining what is an autofail and what is an autosuccess is itself pretty hard to do.

I have had 2 people in this thread tell me that hiding under a table is an autofail on stealth. Where I think that a person skilled in stealth should be able to do it, or at least have a shot at it.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So "other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

Determining what is an autofail and what is an autosuccess is itself pretty hard to do.

I have had 2 people in this thread tell me that hiding under a table is an autofail on stealth. Where I think that a person skilled in stealth should be able to do it, or at least have a shot at it.

Depends on what table you are picturing. Which was @iserith's point about examples.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't understand.

Are you saying an auto success (the peppers) is an auto success for either PC but an auto fail (the insult) will then trigger a roll to see if the PC gets in despite the fail?

Yes for the success, no for the fail. An auto fail will fail for both PCs.

And my point is the insult is not necessarily an auto fail. I have seen my work colleague insult clients directly to their face (saying stuff that would 100% get me fired or punched) but the clients are laughing and nodding and going along with exactly what he wants. The point being there isn't necessarily an auto success OR fail in a social situation it REALLY depends on the person talking.

Have that colleague go up to a random cop and just insult his mother and see if that cop acts favorably towards him. Going up to a guard to trying and get past him by insulting his mother is NOT the same as your colleague talking to a client who wants something from the business AND who has spoken to your colleague outside of that insult, such that the insult can be viewed as a "joke" by the client.

 

[iserith]

So "other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

Determining what is an autofail and what is an autosuccess is itself pretty hard to do.

I have had 2 people in this thread tell me that hiding under a table is an autofail on stealth. Where I think that a person skilled in stealth should be able to do it, or at least have a shot at it.

It's easy to determine in the context of an actual game. It's not easy to determine on the forums, particularly as the point of an example is usually to prove the other person wrong, not to illustrate someone's position.