D&D 5E Professions in 5e

[Umbran]

Page number.

I don't have the book handy. How's D&D Beyond for a reference?

"Each of a creature's abilities has a score, a number that defines the magnitude of that ability. An ability score is not just a measure of innate capabilities, but also encompasses a creature's training and competence in activities related to that ability."

Player's Handbook

Everything a player needs to create heroic characters for Dungeons & Dragons the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

DMG, p. 236 "The Middle Path" Specifically talks about deciding on success/failure sometimes, rolling sometimes.

"Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world. Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage."

I don't see anything about proficient vs. unskilled characters.

 

[prabe]

If we're playing that game: PH 173, first paragraph under the heading Ability Scores and Modifiers.

And there's what I was thinking of, about ability scores reflecting more than genetics.

 

[prabe]

"Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world. Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage."

I don't see anything about proficient vs. unskilled characters.

It's a basis on which the DM can decide. I don't see how this can be difficult, other than by choice.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

It's a basis on which the DM can decide. I don't see how this can be difficult, other than by choice.

OK. I guess I should give up trying to treat it like an objective system.

 

[prabe]

OK. I guess I should give up trying to treat it like an objective system.

I don't think I ever said it was an objective system. I said you could model things with it, and that it was flexible, but I don't think I ever said it was objective.

Of course, I don't think "objective" is an automatic good thing, either.

 

[Parmandur]

Exactly. Which means its very easy to become an expert Arcana scholar compared to an expert athlete. As an Arcana scholar, I can be infinitely better than the untrained historian, but as an athlete, I can only be 10% better than an acrobat.

That doesn't strike you as odd?

No, there can be Athletics checks that would be outside the scope of untrained characters, like competing in the Olympic games or something.

But I can say from experience that you don't need to be LeBron James to hot a 3 pointer once in a while.

 

[Parmandur]

OK. I guess I should give up trying to treat it like an objective system.

It is neither objective, nor a system. It is a toolset for subjective use by a DM.

 

[Parmandur]

Looks as though he's adding on the logic of Background Proficiency (DMG, p. 264) to the core skill/tool Proficiency system. At the least, it seems like a reasonable approach.

Yeah, best way to approach declared actions outside of the normal purvue of High Fantasy Adventure.

 

[Parmandur]

House rules are a way to cover up a game's shortcomings. Yes.

Not a house rule if it is suggested in the rule book.