D&D (2024) Intersection of skill & tool proficiencies

[ezo]

OR... they just keep adding dice. When you have advantage and disadvantage, you roll 3d20 and take the middle roll.

"Okay, you have 3 advantage and 2 disadvantage, so roll 6d20, and use the third highest die."

That gets a bit more convoluted... I mean, look at your example.

Seriously, however, 3d20 take middle is a better way to run the game in general as it gets less swingy results.

If your net is advantage, you take the highest of the 3d20, which is about 15.5. If your net is disadvantage, you use the lowest, average 5.5 IIRC. This makes actual adv/dis truly a +5/-5 effect, similar to what you do with passive perception.

However, giving the impact, you'd want things that granted adv/dis more rare as they are pretty common now (especially advantage!!!).

 

[BattleworthyEntertainment]

They really should just bring in a Craft Skill to cover all basic Tool use

Working on it over at Patreon.com/BattleworthyEntertainment

 

[BattleworthyEntertainment]

They really should just bring in a Craft Skill to cover all basic Tool use

You're right this should have been baked in.

 

[Yaarel]

For me, the tools are "Craft Skill". The tool system is the best crafting ruling D&D has ever had.

Which skill advantages the tool set depends on what one is doing with the tools, and the medium one is crafting.

For example, a Performance check establishes the artistic esthetic worth of an item. Slight sculpts or paints intricate details. Perception establishes photorealism. Nature creates impressive pigments, or finds suitable marble, or works metal technologies, or high quality fabrics. And so on.

 

[kittenhugs]

I actually like both tools and adventuring gear being more relevant and people going for them more often. Specializing and being rewarded for it is not a bad thing, nor do I think it's a bad thing to keep things simple by making the overlap give advantage. I also... don't expect this to come up that often in-play cus most players probably won't remember to use tools and a skill together. Players succeeding isn't a bad thing, they're kind of expected to.

Combos I can think of atm:

• Thieves tools + sleight of hand for locks and traps
• Navigator's tools + survival for navigating terrain
• Performance + musical instruments for playing music
• Deception + disguise kit to pass as someone else
• Nature + herbalism kit to identify herbs
• Gaming set (cards) + sleight of hand to cheat at cards or do magic tricks
• Mason's tools + Athletics to climb a stone wall? (bit of a reach)

 

[GDGD]

What I find interesting is the impact of advantage on success probability and how the intersection of skill and tool proficiency potentially guides character and party composition as well as general gameplay strategy.

For instance, if most parties want to include a PC with lockpicking ability, the default assumption historically has been someone with thieves' tools proficiency, decent Dex, and (ideally) expertise. The virtual certainty now that you can have advantage on checks (by having proficiency in both sleight of hand and thieves' tools) disrupts those assumptions.

Here's a probability of success chart, assuming 17 ability score and +2 proficiency bonus:

Looking at this through a 2014 lens, one would observe a linear improvement by adding proficiency and then adding expertise. If a party wanted a >50% chance of picking most locks they were likely to encounter, expertise would be the best bet (short of having multiple proficient characters).

Adding advantage to the mix really changes things. Looking at the DC 15 column, we see that a PC without expertise but with intersecting proficiencies has a significantly greater chance of success than a PC with expertise but no intersecting proficiency. Adding expertise on top is nice, but not as impactful as getting advantage.

So that arguably diminishes the strategic relevance of expertise as a class ability, but it also points to a new paradigm where searching out -- and presumably convincing the DM to allow -- intersecting skill and tool proficiencies is a key gameplay strategy due to the sizable impact of advantage on success probability.

 

[mneme]

I didn't like this rule when it first appeared back in Xanathar's, and I don't like it now. I just feel like Advantage is the wrong boost here--it prevents it from being able to stack with other sources of Advantage.

In my own skill revision, if you have both a skill and a tool or language proficiency that relate to the same thing (and I have both a table and notes for each skill about when this applies to make it less arbitrary) you get double your proficiency bonus (Expertise basically) for the check. That just feels like a better fit, and allows you to still benefit from Advantage if something would give it to you.

If you don't like the stacking, why not just allow advantage to stack up to, say, 4-5 times?

The thing about advantage is that extra stacks grant diminishing returns. The first advantage from increases your average roll by around 3.3 (I ran a program to do it, but it's simple enough probabilities? What's the average amount by which the second roll is higher than the first one, for each result? (1) 1/20 it's 95%, and by avg 9. (2)1/20 it's 90%, and by avg 8.5, etc. Avg that prorgression with the probabilities worked in and you'll get around 3.3.

A second advantage only increases the avg result by a further 1.7 -- average result becomes a bit north of 15.

A third advantage only increases the average result by a further 1.

Sure, the curve changes a bit as you go up -- In particulary, the chance of a 1 automatic failure certainly gets lower (which is where a lot of the average going up is; as you add more dice the chance of a very high result only increases marginally, but for obvious reasons the chance of a very low result falls off more dramatically) but it's gradual and even with 3 advantages (4d20 keep best) there's still a 1/160,000 chance of rolling and having to keep a 1; low, but certainly not nonexistent.

 

[Xeviat]

Can we just get Mining Tools and some basic rules on how far you can dig in a day? My poor dwarf can't do his job.

Funny story, I was recently trying to get a straight answer on how far a badger could dig in X time. You think numbers like that would be easily searchable.

 

[Stormonu]

Can we just get Mining Tools and some basic rules on how far you can dig in a day? My poor dwarf can't do his job.

Here ya go (1E DMG, p 106)

<EDIT: Quoted wrong person at first>

 

[sevenbastard]

1e for the win. I feel like it generous, but at least it's rules.

Here ya go (1E DMG, p 106)

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<EDIT: Quoted wrong person at first>