D&D 5E Is Expertise too good?

[Yaarel]

I would say a question is typically a goal without an approach - the "how" is missing. Okay, your goal is to see if the guard believes you. How? I can't determine what happens next unless I know. It might mean auto-success, auto-failure, or a check. And their approach to the goal is going to allow me to set a DC to resolve the task, if it's uncertain. So I need this information. The players have ONE thing to do in the basic conversation of the game: describe what they want to do (Basic Rules, page 3). Let's ask them to do it!

Consider also what a great advantage it can be to ask questions instead of take actions: You can fail at actions and sometimes that has consequences. Questions are far safer! (Super common.) There's really no reason why it's so common a way to play in my view.

Anyway, this is getting pretty far off-topic so I'll try to bring it back around: So far as I can tell, how one thinks about auto-success with regard to the adjudication process can be a way to address at least one of the objections to Expertise.

So. A player wants to know if the guard believes what he said.

What should this player say or do for you, to satisfy your needs to determine an adjudication?

 

[Yaarel]

Thank you for the kind words! I guess someone who blocked me still talks about me. It's kind of sweet.

Heh. Blocking seems to be in fashion. It is funny when well meaning people block other well meaning people. It happens. Hopefully the hurt feelings dont last too long.

 

[iserith]

So. A player wants to know if the guard believes what he said.

What should this player say or do for you, to satisfy your needs to determine an adjudication?

Without the surrounding context of the scene, it's really hard to say. But l think it's fair to imagine that for any reasonable goal it's possible to come up with some sort of approach. Maybe a few and perhaps even a great one.

 

[iserith]

I am not sure how you differentiate the two. If a player decided he wanted to climb a cliff, I would set the DC and tell them what skill and ability score to roll, but the DC would be the same no matter which PC initiated the action.

What if individual PCs wanted to climb the cliff (the goal) in different ways (the approaches)?

So say the players have a goal. The players each try a different approach. In your game, might one approach be better than another and either automatically succeed (no roll) or have a lower DC than the lesser approach?

 

[Yaarel]

Without the surrounding context of the scene, it's really hard to say. But l think it's fair to imagine that for any reasonable goal it's possible to come up with some sort of approach. Maybe a few and perhaps even a great one.

Give me an example of an approach?

 

[Yaarel]

What if individual PCs wanted to climb the cliff (the goal) in different ways (the approaches)?

So say the players have a goal. The players each try a different approach. In your game, might one approach be better than another and either automatically succeed (no roll) or have a lower DC than the lesser approach?

In this scenario.

The player says, ‘I climb the cliff’.

Now, I as a DM know that this cliff has various difficulties. Maybe a certain location triggers an avalanche, an other location is slippery, an other location has some kind of monster. In this case, I keep in mind what the player is able to see, and describe the layout of the cliff. Then allow the player to make a more specific route.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In this scenario.

The player says, ‘I climb the cliff’.

Now, I as a DM know that this cliff has various difficulties. Maybe a certain location triggers an avalanche, an other location is slippery, an other location has some kind of monster. In this case, I keep in mind what the player is able to see, and describe the layout of the cliff. Then allow the player to make a more specific route.

You could ask for a Wisdom (Survival) check to assess the safest route.

 

[iserith]

Give me an example of an approach?

Again, in a fully developed scene with an ongoing dialogue and everything else, I could probably name three. This is why abstract examples are an issue in forum discussions. We'll likely end up talking about the example forever, adding additional context to prove our respective points and go further off topic.

If a separate thread was created to discuss how everyone adjudicates, I'd certainly participate, but I fear this isn't the thread for it.

 

[5ekyu]

Wayof theFour
"Sounds like we run games differently. My world has already been designed before the PCs enter play. What they decide to do with it is their decision. That usually means they won't be spending the entire games in the ranger's favored terrain, but in a number of different environments they decide to explore. Or it could mean they spend the entire time in the ranger's favored terrain. It all depends on the characters' actions."

Yet didnt you just put forth the idea that for when wilderness stuff would matter "(except when the ranger is in his/her favored terrain, which probably won't be more than 20% of the time)." So, if the character's including the ranger in your games are choosin 80% of the time to go into non-favored wilderness over favored wilderness... is that because they want intentionally to gimp their teammate? or is it posdible that the world you put foryh and the leads thry find and missions they come across influence them to go into what are clearly areas they will be worse off in? i mean, it seems like if they had equally appealing offers and opportunities in what amounts to "home field advantage" areas, they would choose those over less advantageous ones more than 1 time in 5, doesn't it?

 

[Yaarel]

You could ask for a Wisdom (Survival) check to assess the safest route.

I avoid asking for a mechanic. I want a story.

In the case of climbing the cliff, the player needs to describe some specific effort. If the player is scanning for danger, what kind of danger?

I try to keep in mind the perspective of the character. Somethings are obvious. Other things are less so.

Passive skill checks reveal clues, but do not necessarily disclose everything. A successful passive perception that detects a possible avalanche might mean the DM says, ‘where you are walking, your footsteps sink into crumbly rock’. The location of a monster might reveal, you see what looks like scrapes across the soil (which are tracks the monster made while moving around). Or so on.

Everything translates into narrative.