D&D 5E Is 5E Special

[clearstream]

No, it's also on the rules and the advice about how to use the rules, and on the fact that D&D chooses to use a high-RNG method of determining success/failure, whilst consistently presenting skill usage as a binary pass/fail.

The game text doesn't present skill usage as a binary pass/fail... not even if you stop at PHB 174.

If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success-the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it's a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the DM.

Core game text in the DMG is presented as "Variant" rules (rules that alter an existing rule), "Optional" rules (rules that add to the list of rules), and just rules. Among those rules is DMG 242 which gives the method for non-binary outcomes. The range of results from ability checks is broader than that even, including (this is all from non-optional game text)

1. Success with increased impact
2. Success
3. Success with a complication or hindrance
4. Draw (in contests)
5. Failure
6. Botched failure
7. Failure with greater impact

A few ability checks are also used to set standing obstacles (passive ability use, and stealth). My hope is that 6th edition will feel encouraged to go further, by revising the way roll indexes outcome (which I have explained elsewhere.)

 

[clearstream]

I just want to talk about the d20 for a moment (and kinda why 11th level rogue is SOOO AMAZING) even with lowish DC of 9, if you have a +1 you can roll a 1-7... once DCs (and I find this an issue more with saves but also with skills/tools) start hitting 15+ that die is WAY too important.

At 11th a rogue gains reliable talent and can't fail ability checks with DC 9.

+2 is a novice, +7 is someone pretty good and knowladgeable, and +12 is pretty much a master of the craft... but the variable of 1-20 means that a dc 17 is hittable by the novice, 50/50 for someone pretty good and 75% for the master of the craft... from a game point that sounds fair... BUT narratively it is NUTS.

At 11th a Rogue likely has +3 (ability modifier) +4 proficiency and +4 expertise = +11. Our untrained PC has say +2 (ability modifier).

Our Rogue counts rolls of 9 as 10, so the lowest they can "roll" is 21. Our untrained PC can achieve 21 or 22 in about 1:10 rolls. They can never achieve 23 or greater, which our rogue does nearly half the time. (This would be true even without reliable talent.)

I am a novice maybe even slightly above novice in many things (technology, science, math, accounting, history, driving, making armor, and even basketball) but my odds of doing better then a master who spent years on any of the fields is small enough it might as well be 0... even in my prime I am not beating Michael Jorden at Horse... even if he spots me H.O.R.
Maybe in a VERY rare occasion I MIGHT know a history fact better then my buddy who was a History Major... but not that often.

I might not be following your analysis correctly, but from experience at the table and white room analysis an 11th rogue can achieve results with their ability checks that an untrained person has no chance at all of doing.

EDIT I should add that the core game text specifies that there's often no need to roll at all. Regarding your history fact, a DM does not call for a roll if it is something so obscure only a History buff would know it. They also don't call for a roll if failure is inconsequential... you simply narrate researching the answer. See DMG 237.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I ran my base Bats vs Cats Vs Rats adventure in core book 4e, 4e Essentials, D&D platyest, core book 5e, and post TCOE 5e.
My experience is the at campaign I'm running now is closer to the playtest one that the one I ran right after 5e was published.

My experience is that the people I've DMed, played with, or talked to with are closer to the aligned with the shifted 2022 5e than the 2014 5e.

"2022 5e" with it's freeform ASI races, magic warriors, weapon mages, weird clerics, and 3rd party tactical fighters and 3rd party adventures with special rules is closer to the 5e audience.

That is no wonder. They have 10 years experience. Back then some concepts were hard to sell (shifting stat bonuses).
They had an iteration with stat bonus from class that was rejected.

Overall they took those parts that people liked and tried to put it together. They did a terrific job. Did I wish some other concepts, that were later reintroduced had made it intk the core rules? Of course.
Does that allow the conclusion, that the designers did a bad job, or were just lucky, or ignored the playtest? By all means, no.
And that they put those things back in in later books, does actually prove that.

 

[Minigiant]

That is no wonder. They have 10 years experience. Back then some concepts were hard to sell (shifting stat bonuses).
They had an iteration with stat bonus from class that was rejected.

Overall they took those parts that people liked and tried to put it together. They did a terrific job. Did I wish some other concepts, that were later reintroduced had made it intk the core rules? Of course.
Does that allow the conclusion, that the designers did a bad job, or were just lucky, or ignored the playtest? By all means, no.
And that they put those things back in in later books, does actually prove that.

I didn't say 5e was bad.
I said it was lucky.

The 5e designers overly stressed the opinions of traditionalists by insisting on a very high satisfaction score on surveys to remain in the game. However plurality of 5e players according to WOTC and DNDB were very young new school relatively new players. There is a heavy "fellow kids" element of the corebooks.

Where 5e got lucky is that no one pulled a Paizo and designed a game for new gamers because the tech, culture, media, and peripherals of the community had changed.

That is also with the HUGE gamble of not errataing out the most criticized parts of the Core books outside the confusing parts.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I didn't say 5e was bad.
I said it was lucky.

The 5e designers overly stressed the opinions of traditionalists by insisting on a very high satisfaction score on surveys to remain in the game.

At that time, after 4e, that was not lucky but a good business decision. Even if that means, that better design had to be reserved for later.

 

[clearstream]

Where 5e got lucky is that no one pulled a Paizo and designed a game for new gamers because the tech, culture, media, and peripherals of the community had changed.

I don't think any design team at the time was positioned to achieve that.

That's not to say that advances in TTRPG design have been made. Often advances made in niches take time to filter into the mainstream. For example, I can clearly see the influence of "story" games on 5e, even though the designers didn't want to take the risk of doing more. WotC designers will have been professionally aware of the possibilities, and made conscious choices based on their understanding of the highest value problems to solve for, and accessibility needs of, their audience. It's interesting to review artifacts such as the 4e DMG 2 in this light - an in-house source of which I'm confident the designers were aware.

 

[Minigiant]

At that time, after 4e, that was not lucky but a good business decision. Even if that means, that better design had to be reserved for later.

It was a risky decision. 5e could have been Pathfinder Ed by a slightly more crunchy game with working barbarians, monks, rangers, and sorcerers, more nontraditional races, a shorter encounter assumption, better resting rules, more dynamic monsters, and less oppressive spells.

In D&D celebs switched from 5e to Pathfinder Trackseeker, 5e could have seen a huge dip in success a few years ago.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It was a risky decision. 5e could have been Pathfinder Ed by a slightly more crunchy game with working barbarians, monks, rangers, and sorcerers, more nontraditional races, a shorter encounter assumption, better resting rules, more dynamic monsters, and less oppressive spells.

In D&D celebs switched from 5e to Pathfinder Trackseeker, 5e could have seen a huge dip in success a few years ago.

Do you really believe in that much coincidence. Don't you think someone tried to pull it off, if it was that easy?

You don't have to look far away to find a terrific game that pathfindered 5e.
And from my experience, despite how great it was done, it is nore complex and the barrier of entry is higher.

So I think adressing everything to lick and coincidence is disingeniius and not based on the facts, only on your pereception of it. I don't want to speculate more.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

At 11th a rogue gains reliable talent and can't fail ability checks with DC 9.

yes that is the point (and why it is amazing) that is what the entire part of teh post was about

At 11th a Rogue likely has +3 (ability modifier) +4 proficiency and +4 expertise = +11. Our untrained PC has say +2 (ability modifier).

I had moved on from the rogue at this point to show what the levels of knowladge are in 5e

Our Rogue counts rolls of 9 as 10, so the lowest they can "roll" is 21. Our untrained PC can achieve 21 or 22 in about 1:10 rolls. They can never achieve 23 or greater, which our rogue does nearly half the time. (This would be true even without reliable talent.)

again move past the rogue (and see that what they have is the ability to limit the range of variable, that shows that range of variable is too high

I might not be following your analysis correctly, but from experience at the table and white room analysis an 11th rogue can achieve results with their ability checks that an untrained person has no chance at all of doing.

the 11th level rogue is where it (almost always) works... but ANY OTHER use of the skill system breaks down...

4 PCs 1 has +11 the other 3 have +1-+3 the DC is 17 (no 11th level rogues here) yes the +11 hits the mark more often (needing a 6+) but if he rolls a 5 or less the other three can still roll with varying + to try... over time where the +11 will succssed more then any 1 of those other 3 you will find it way TOO probable for the others to one up that +11 because there is a 20pt random spread...

take that +11 down to a +7 (trained +4 and +3 stat is still good) and you have that DC of 17 being 50/50... and 3 other d20 rolls for someone to get lucky on a 14,15,or even 16+...

with out that rialable talent built in the variables are too high

EDIT I should add that the core game text specifies that there's often no need to roll at all.

everytime I bring up rolling people bring this up as some big gotcha... even in threads where I explain (as I have in this one) that I actually expanded that rule and roll LESS then the DMG suggest.
WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT NOT ROLLING... THE POINT IS WHEN YOU ROLL...

Regarding your history fact, a DM does not call for a roll if it is something so obscure only a History buff would know it.

okay what do you use as your guidance on when the bard not trained in history, the wizard trained in history with a high int, and the rogue with the highest Int of the 3 but not trained in history should know? now ask 5 other DMs and see if you can of the 6 of you get half to agree...
this is SOOOO dumb. I get it you can make a ruling... but that is not anymore useful then 'well you can change it' or 'well you can sometimes just not roll' does not change the problem with the variable of the d20.

They also don't call for a roll if failure is inconsequential... you simply narrate researching the answer. See DMG 237.

yes still useless in talking about a d20...


its like someone said "Man, if I walk to my grandmothers house it's too far and I am worn out, I wish she was close enough to walk to" and someone said "Hey you can drive a car there" and I answer "Yeah, I can drive I just wish we were close enough to walk" then the next person said "You know you can ride a bike and it will save your energy" and when I respond "yes, I know I can uber, I can drive, I can take a skate board, and I can drive a bike... I am talking about walking though, and none of those are walking..."

if we are talking about rolling and that rolling has odd consequences because it has such a 'luck' element in the d20 then changing it to talking about not rolling is not in anyway helpful to the discussion of rolling.



you start by seeming to not understand my point of the rogue ability that i call out as awesome, then when I show all of the ways it doesn't work as well without it you want to insert said ability that i was calling out how it made it work... then you just want to talk about how when the d20 doesn't work you think just 'not useing the d20' makes the d20 work...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

yes that is the point (and why it is amazing) that is what the entire part of teh post was about

I had moved on from the rogue at this point to show what the levels of knowladge are in 5e

again move past the rogue (and see that what they have is the ability to limit the range of variable, that shows that range of variable is too high

the 11th level rogue is where it (almost always) works... but ANY OTHER use of the skill system breaks down...

4 PCs 1 has +11 the other 3 have +1-+3 the DC is 17 (no 11th level rogues here) yes the +11 hits the mark more often (needing a 6+) but if he rolls a 5 or less the other three can still roll with varying + to try... over time where the +11 will succssed more then any 1 of those other 3 you will find it way TOO probable for the others to one up that +11 because there is a 20pt random spread...

This is not a bug. This is a feature of the system.
I have played enough games where the variance of the roll is lower, and all it does is encouraging people to not play the game. Use a d20, set DCs so low that an average person can get it done with a 50/50 chance but a trained person can do it almost reliably, and you have a game, where everyone can contribute.

So +11 vs -1/+3 is exactly what I want to have.

If you don't like the 20 pt spread, probably using a different die would be a good idea. Try rolling 3d6 instead.