Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9538442" data-attributes="member: 6790260">You can keep saying that all you like. The books explicitly say otherwise. I'm going to believe them over you.No, it isn't. The page you are referring to is when the DM has to INVENT a new DC for something that didn't already have one. It is not for deciding whether the wooden door in front of the players is a level 30 wooden door or a level 2 wooden door. Because, even in the 4e DMG, doors had specific, defined DCs (4e DMG page 64):<table style='width: 100%'><tr><th>Strength Check to...</th><th>DC</th></tr><tr><td>Break down wooden door</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Break down reinforced door</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Break down barred door</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Break down iron door</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td>Break down adamantine door</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>Break through force portal</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>Force open wooden portcullis</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>Force open iron portcullis</td><td>28</td></tr><tr><td>Force open adamantine portcullis</td><td>35</td></tr></table>So you are just, straight-up, wrong.Nope.And? Creatures in 5e have AC dependent on their CR. That means diddly-squat for the skills system, which is what you specifically spoke about.No. There wasn't a problem with that at all. The books even recommended occasionally--with care--using challenges eight or more levels above the party, with the understanding that doing so made for incredibly deadly challenges that the party most likely could not defeat. It also, very explicitly, said to use a range of different kinds of fights.All of which still has jack-all to do with the skills system, which is what you said you were talking about.ABSOLUTELY THE HELL NOT.You keep saying this. I've read the book. It explicitly, repeatedly rejects what you're saying. It includes MANY fixed DCs for various types of things. You are simply, straight-up, WRONG.You have turned page 42--which is for improvising, meaning, for things where THERE ISN'T ANY DC YET--into the one and only source of DCs. That is false. It is straight-up, objectively false.Would you like me to dig up more of the DCs from the 4e DMG? I'd be happy to do so. It also has tables for things like the AC and HP of various objects. The PHB also lists some DCs for generic actions, such as picking a generic lock (varying only by the tier in which the adventure appears, in other words, exactly like what you were told earlier where a genie-lord is going to have tougher locks than a local baron), finding information in a settlement (varying only by how hostile/alien the settlement is, absolutely nothing to do with level), and sleight of hand (fixed DC 15, albeit with situational modifiers.)Your thesis is simply, straight-up wrong. The books explicitly say so.Nnnnnnope. DCs are never--N E V E R--a function of a character's level. They are a function of:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the encounter's level (which you, the DM, are always free to decide...but you are given advice for what generally makes enjoyable encounters)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the individual target's level, if relevant (which, again, you are always free to decide)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">general tier</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">whatever material the object is made of, if there's a predefined DC for it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">a fixed number, in a few cases</li> </ul>Your premise remains false. I literally just looked it up to confirm.Except "use it correctly" creates the problem I described in my post above, where either optimized experts blow checks completely out of the water, or you actually challenge the optimized experts and now the un-Proficient party members are screwed. Because that's the problem. The math still DOES expect higher DCs for higher-level characters! But now any skill you were bad at, you never, EVER get better at. You are stuck being just as awful at stealth at level 20 as you were at level 1.In other words: you get worse over time. The game still gets harder!So the experts breeze through every check. That's not a solution. That's deciding which horrible thing you're okay with facing. It also means you're literally rewriting 5e, so that the skill DCs never increase, meaning you aren't even using 5e's skill DCs either! You've reinvented THIS system and called it the same, but apparently reinventing 4e's system was beyond the pale. Double standard, much?I was not much of an active poster on these forums when 5e was being playtested.Almost certainly the other way around.Neither. I don't believe that the effect achieved the results you're claiming it did. I believe those people were happy; I'm almost certain that they were happy for exactly the same reason you are happy with having DCs that literally never ever change: you have capitulated to the fact that experts will always become stupidly over-the-top excellent at skill checks, flying head and shoulders over the DC, in order to have skill DCs that don't horrendously punish people who aren't optimized for them.</blockquote>

Verification