D&D 5E Is Expertise too good?

[Yaarel]

The only difference between a combat challenge and a skill challenge is, the skill challenge doesnt (usually) hit back.

Thus this passive skill challenge is either all-or-nothing pass/fail, or else a series of boring dice rolls.

So be it, all or nothing. But there is a narrative context.

I never have players roll a skill check, unless they propose a plausible narrative. If implausible it autofails. If decisive, it autowins. If it could go either way, then comes the skill check.

Thus it is the way that the players interact narratively that makes a skill challenge interesting.

Even for passive perception, I try to give a clue, rather than plainly telling them what is there. Let the players interact with the clue.

 

[Blue]

I don't know. My players usually have some crazy concepts. We had one guy who optimized for jumping and tried to solve all problems thought parkour. It was great.

What that means, however, is that just about every character at my table has one level of in the Rogue class for the soul purpose of picking up expertise. I would prefer not to use the optional multiclass rules at all, but doing so would severely nerf morethan half of the table's character concepts because they would no longer be able to access the Expertise feature.

One guy even came with a rogue whose soul purpose was to be better at Arcana, Nature, Survival, and History than the party wizard and druid. It was pretty funny, but ultimately showed us how unsatisfying the expertise feature is.

That sounds more like it's a problem with Rogue's expertise feature being so cherry-pickable via multiclassing rather then a problem with expertise itself.

I'm also not sure how the guy could be better at Arcana, Nature, Survival and History without making themselves terrible at being a Rogue because they had to pump their INT and WIS so much. (Assuming point buy or standard array.) Or was this just really high level play where the proficiency bonus was that big of a deal?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

That sounds more like it's a problem with Rogue's expertise feature being so cherry-pickable via multiclassing rather then a problem with expertise itself.

I'm also not sure how the guy could be better at Arcana, Nature, Survival and History without making themselves terrible at being a Rogue because they had to pump their INT and WIS so much. (Assuming point buy or standard array.) Or was this just really high level play where the proficiency bonus was that big of a deal?

Possibly. Or that expertise is so overhealmingly powerful it breaks bound accuracy in half.

As for the skill-expert rogue, he was great. Used all his skills to avoid combat. Spent a lot of time researching dungeons and adventure sites before the party delved into them. Figured out which one had the highest chance to have better magic items, etc. Definately pulled his weight, just not in combat - where he was below average. Honestly, though, if the entire party optimizes for out-of-combat challenges and avoid combat, it's quite difficult to drag them into combat encounters.

 

[Motorskills]

The issue isn't with Expertise, it's a very smooth way to convey...er...expertise.

The issue is Proficiency being too good, too fast.

Slightly more complicated would be that Proficiency in a skill gave you +0 (which would then scale as now).

Unskilled would give -5, availability of tools would give +1, proficiency with available tools would give another +1, Expertise would give a flat +2.

(Someone else can hammer the maths into place )

 

[Gladius Legis]

Expertise is 100% fine. Some things are intentionally designed to break bounded accuracy in certain areas. Rogues auto-succeeding in many cases and having a higher rate of success on skills than everyone else is one of those things. And as alluded to before, as long as Wizards have spells that auto-succeed on things skills are meant to accomplish, Expertise is totally fair.

The only thing I'd probably change, if anything, would be to shift the levels at which Rogues get Expertise, so other classes can't just dip 1 level for it. Maybe 3 and 7, for example, instead of 1 and 6.

 

[Satyrn]

What is it about your play experience that tells you it's "too good?" Is there anything you or your DM is doing in running the game that makes expertise better than it may be at other tables? For example, do players in your games ask to make ability checks or roll without asking and, if so, do some players choose expertise in proficiencies that are quite valuable in the given game?

I have another question: Is the DM inclined to inflate DCs to "challenge" or even thwart the character with Expertise?

When I realized I was doing that - well, something like that - back in 3e, I began hating the skill system. I still hate 3e's system (those skill points are annoyingly fiddly) but I embraced the notion that a high skill check was just fine, and I scaled back the DCs I used so that players didn't feel the need to max out their Climb check at level 10 in order to succeed.

I'm still leery when it comes to Expertise because of its fiddly purpose of simply raising the numbers involved. But my group hasn't felt the need for it, and it's not a "must have" for any of us, perhaps mostly because it's locked away behind the features of a very few classes.

What I'm leading up to, is the best solution to my "Expertise Problem" is to ignore its existence as DM, even when the rogue is using it to great effect, and prohibit any new, supplemental options that make getting Expertise easy and widespread (Those Unearthed Arcana Skill feats that did just that are my bane! )

 

[cmad1977]

No it is not.

 

[mellored]

I hate Expertise with a burning passion. Simply put, it breaks bounded accuracy. Common problems with it that I've actually seen in game play:

• Stealth Expertise rapidly renders stealth an auto-success for the rogue, and chancy for everyone else.
• Athletics Expertise can make rogues bizarrely good at grappling. Conversely, Acrobatics expertise makes them ungrapplable.
• Perception Expertise means nothing can be hidden, ever.

I could agree with rogues getting a more limited list to choose from, or using another method to reduce boost chances.

But the overall effect of having the rogue able to auto-succeed on hiding while being chance for everyone else sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

 

[mellored]

How about...

Unskilled: 1d20 (1-20)
Novice: 8+1d12 (9-20)
Adept: 11+1d10 (11-21)
Skilled: 14+1d8 (15-22)
Expert: 17+1d6 (18-23)
Master: 20+1d4 (21-24)


I like the scaling. Getting better is mostly about avoiding mistakes, but also slightly increases what you can do.
but probably too much math.

 

[Leatherhead]

There is one good thing that Expertise does:

It allows you to be good at something without backing it up with ability scores and ASIs for the rest of your characters life. If used as a replacement for ability modifiers, it only lets you become slightly better than someone who is partially relying on talent, which is something I am rather fond of.