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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5802811" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Everything changes as soon as things become opposed, or when looking at the internal consistency of the world via game mechanics.That is, look at a Str 10+0 Wizard and a Strength 16+3 Fighter. The Fighter is obviously stronger. They both decide to break down a door. Strength checks are called for. If the DC is 12, the Fighter will succeed 60% of the time, while the Wizard will succeed 45% of the time. If the Fighter rolls a little low, and the Wizard a little high, then the Wizard will kick in the door before the obviously stronger Fighter.I think the current proposed solution with 5e is "in this case, make the Fighter succeed." This is pretty unappealing to me, personally, as it kind of just tries to sweep the problem under the table. Let's look at another example.The Ranger gets +3 to Hiding from his Dexterity. The Rogue gets +3 to Hiding from his Dexterity, and +2 from his class (his total is +5). They both decide to hide, and enemies attempt to spot them. The Wizard and Fighter (+1 bonus to Hiding) also attempt to hide. When it comes to what the enemies need to roll on their Notice Hiding Enemies check, it's kind of a crap shoot on who will roll low.A larger spread between modifiers means that the Rogue can hide much more reliably than the Wizard and Fighter, and somewhat more reliably than the Ranger. Instead, what we have is a Rogue who feels a little gimped because the Wizard and Fighter are only 20% worse off than he is, and luck plays such a large part of his success.If the game does take up a system of opposed ability checks (I disarm him, a Strength check, and he opposes with Dexterity), then the Wizard can defend himself nearly as well as the Fighter can (from an in-game perspective), because the bonuses are so similar. The personal skill of the Wizard and Fighter are close martially, just as the ability to hide between a Rogue and Wizard are close.Statistically, the odds of success can remain controlled and consistent, but this is due to luck, not skill. For skill to be meaningfully separated from an in-game perspective, the Fighter must be consistently significantly better than the Wizard at fighting, and the Rogue must be consistently significantly better than the Wizard at hiding.This is not accomplished with such small modifiers. There's not enough spread. +1 to +5 is not enough to establish this on a significant level. Noticeable, yes. Appreciated to some degree, definitely. However, there's just too much of a chance that the Wizard will wildly succeed (natural 19) while my rogue bombs (natural 4).If they wish to keep numbers small, maybe they'll implement another mechanic, like Good At Sneaking: Roll 2d20 and take the larger of the two rolls or Good At Bashing Doors: Roll 2d20 and take the larger of the two rolls.I'm not talking about statistics of succeeding on rolls, I'm talking about comparing capabilities of different PCs (and, importantly, NPCs) from an in-game perspective. There's a few "fixes" (for those that find this problematic), including multiple rolls (taking the higher), rolling a lower die (I prefer a d6, and use it in my game for attribute checks), or raising the spread (+10 to +1 is more reliable).I'm not sure if they'll change anything, but right now the prospect of 1d20+(0 to 6) is by far the thing that makes me feel the most uneasy about the announcements.Of course, it's all speculation, and it might be different from what I think it is. I hope it is. But as it stands, there isn't anything that massively separates skilled warriors from skilled rogues from an in-game perspective, and that certainly affects my immersion, and my interest in the game.Again, since it keeps getting brought up, this isn't about chances of succeeding consistently (you always have 55% chance of success). It's about how well one person can succeed in relation to all other PCs and NPCs, and whether or not his skill is properly reflected within the fiction. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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