D&D 5E Proficiency vs. Ability vs. Expertise

[DND_Reborn]

In other threads about using 2d10, the DCs were adjusted slightly to reflect the unlikelihood of rolling very high results.

Of course, in other games as high as a DC 40 is nearly impossible, but I think bonuses were higher. Honestly, it has been too long for me to recall.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In my games where I use 2d10 for ability checks my DCs are as follows:

Trivial: DC 8
Easy: DC 11
Moderate: DC 14
Difficult: DC 17
Hard: DC 21
Onerous: DC 24
Nearly Impossible: DC 27
Superhuman: DC 30

Personally, I LOVE the 3 point separation between the DCs, and I find it so much easier to come up with useful DCs on the fly. I'm usually just dropping 14s and 17s, with the rarest of occasion a 21 if they are trying something really outlandish. And because the modifiers have more of an overall impact, it is easier for the players and I to know when the trained people should probably be making checks and when the untrained probably shouldn't.

Yes, if someone wants to go through all the white-room "real math" behind all of this, they'll come up with all kinds of reasons why 2d10 isn't "better" than d20, but I don't care about the invisible "real math". All I care about is the APPARENT numbers at the table for the players. How they look and feel. Even if it's only an illusion by a handful of percentage points, if one way feels better than the other, then that's what I'm going with. And for us, 2d10 give us the appearance of modifiers having more of an impact on success than the random number generator. And that's why we like it.

 

[Fenris-77]

The bell curve on 2d10 vs 1d20 is going to make characters better at run of the mill stuff and increases the utility of lower mods from non-core abilities and whatnot. That at the cost of (slightly) less ability to hit the ball out of the park on the really high DCs. I think that's a more than useful trade off really. That said, the math works the same way for NPCs in the context of opposed rolls but I think the trade there is fine, and I can see why your table likes the system.

Do you crit and whiff on 20 and 2 then?

 

[Umbran]

Their goals were noble, but they lacked the ability and drive to see them through.

It is fine to not like a part or whole of a game system, and say so.

Assigning something you don't like about a system to some personal character flaw of the designers is not acceptable. Stop insulting people. Thank you.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Do you crit and whiff on 20 and 2 then?

We only use 2d10 for ability checks, so no worrying about crits are necessary.

Attacks and saves still use the d20.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In my games where I use 2d10 for ability checks my DCs are as follows:

Trivial: DC 8
Easy: DC 11
Moderate: DC 14
Difficult: DC 17
Hard: DC 21
Onerous: DC 24
Nearly Impossible: DC 27
Superhuman: DC 30

Personally, I LOVE the 3 point separation between the DCs, and I find it so much easier to come up with useful DCs on the fly. I'm usually just dropping 14s and 17s, with the rarest of occasion a 21 if they are trying something really outlandish. And because the modifiers have more of an overall impact, it is easier for the players and I to know when the trained people should probably be making checks and when the untrained probably shouldn't.

Yes, if someone wants to go through all the white-room "real math" behind all of this, they'll come up with all kinds of reasons why 2d10 isn't "better" than d20, but I don't care about the invisible "real math". All I care about is the APPARENT numbers at the table for the players. How they look and feel. Even if it's only an illusion by a handful of percentage points, if one way feels better than the other, then that's what I'm going with. And for us, 2d10 give us the appearance of modifiers having more of an impact on success than the random number generator. And that's why we like it.

Yep. I think it was your thread I was referring to. I remember something along these lines.

 

[Esker]

And for us, 2d10 give us the appearance of modifiers having more of an impact on success than the random number generator. And that's why we like it.

I know you said you don't actually care about the "real math" but this isn't just an appearance; it's absolutely the case that 2d10 makes modifiers have a bigger impact! Which I like, myself. Others may not. But that's part of the beauty of D&D; you can adapt the system to your table's taste!

Thanks for chiming in with your actual practical wisdom. I've not tried this myself yet, so my remarks are just theorycraft.

 

[WaterRabbit]

The only thing I don't like about using something other than a d20, is that it really messes with DCs. A very easy 5 DC might as well not be rolled for any longer, and an easy 10 becomes very easy. But the ease is only on the low end. The upper end becomes harder to reach.

But how often are DC 5 checks used anyway? A check is only supposed to be made if there is a meaningful consequence for failure. If the DM is assigning a DC 5 for a check he should really be asking why he is bothering in the first place. And as been pointed out, the lower bound would be raise to a DC 8.

With a D20, though, the numbers are as follows. A has a 35% chance, be has a 50% chance, C has a 65% chance, and D has 80% chance. You're dropping the low guy a bit, and raising the others quite a bit, and that's for a moderate challenge. You aren't just boosting proficiency, but you're boosting success rates. At least in the low and middle ranges. At the high ranges they drop considerably.

That master with his +4 modifier and +6 from proficiency/expertise has only a 1% chance to hit the DC 30 nearly impossible task, instead of the 5% the game would normally give him. During game play when I tell a player that he needs a natural 20 to succeed, he and the other players get excited and gather around to watch, because we've all seen the long shot happen. If I were to change to, "You need a natural 100(2 consecutive 10's) to succeed, they wouldn't get that way, because there's almost no chance of success.

I get the desire to remove some of the swinginess from the game, but it also comes at the expense of some of the fun in my opinion. Most DCs that will be encountered become easier for those with proficiency and expertise, reducing the challenge level of the game, while removing much of the chance of success from the dabbler, who then can't really participate in most challenges that they aren't proficient in or fall into their main stats. And the long shot success roll is pretty much kaput until high level.

Yes the I want to jump to the moon, let me roll and see if I get a 20 on my check. The roll-playing game instead of the role-playing game. If the DC is set high enough that there is little chance to succeed, the the players should be using their creativity to reduce the DC or improve their bonuses instead of just relying on pure luck. This isn't a problem but a feature of the 2d10 solution.

 

[Esker]

That said, the math works the same way for NPCs in the context of opposed rolls but I think the trade there is fine, and I can see why your table likes the system.

It seems to me that opposed rolls is where the 2d10 system yields the biggest benefit, because now both parties are more likely to roll near their average, and so having the higher modifier is worth more.

Here are the numbers (rounded to whole percentages):

mod delta	d20 win chance	2d10 win chance
0	48%	47%
1	53%	53%
2	57%	60%
3	62%	66%
4	66%	72%
5	70%	78%
6	74%	82%
7	77%	87%
8	81%	90%
9	84%	93%
10	86%	95%
11	89%	97%
12	91%	98%
13	93%	99%
14	95%	99%

(If a tie counts as a win --- e.g., with insight vs deception --- just treat the delta as one more than it is)

So within a couple of points, 2d10 yields pretty much the same results as a d20, but as the asymmetry grows, you no longer have the (to me) strange result where someone with no skill and no modifier can beat someone with a +10 or more without even needing the equivalent of rolling a crit to do it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I know you said you don't actually care about the "real math" but this isn't just an appearance; it's absolutely the case that 2d10 makes modifiers have a bigger impact! Which I like, myself. Others may not. But that's part of the beauty of D&D; you can adapt the system to your table's taste!

Thanks for chiming in with your actual practical wisdom. I've not tried this myself yet, so my remarks are just theorycraft.

Oh yeah, I always knew there was also a practical math difference, but if you went back to the old thread I had made when I talked about how it was actually working, there was a lot of pushback on the idea. The numbers were calculated in certain situations where there wasn't as much of a difference to warrant (in their opinion) making the switch. But as I said then (like I said here), we really only care about the appearance of difference. If it appears like the higher modified people succeed more often (even if you were to white-room the math and come to the conclusion "Oh no, at these specific DCs its only a 6% difference between the two and thus your decision to change was unnecessary")... then we go by the appearance rather than the "real math".

And for us its the same way across the board with everything-- the "real math" has never been a concern, its always just the story that comes out of the numbers and dice. If at the end of the day someone has a +7 to their Arcana check... it doesn't matter to me in the slightest HOW they got to that +7. They have a +7? They're knowledgeable about Arcana. But is it +3 from proficiency and +4 from INT? Is it +6 from Expertise and +1 from INT? Or they have no proficiency whatsoever and instead have a magical item that boosts their INT? When the dice drops, it doesn't really matter. When I tell them to roll an Arcana check, no one is comparing and contrasting what the individual parts were that GOT them to +7, they just care that they have a +7 because they have a better chance of answering the question that the check is asking about the information about magic. And its never a concern that "Well, my knowledge is from my background and I'm kinda smart and yours is from your class and you're really smart, and that character is dumb as a brick but for some reason has spent most of their life doing nothing but reading and learning about magic information so they have expertise in it." etc. etc. etc.

Heck, I have a hard enough time just getting the players to even kinda sorta roleplay their characters along the lines of their stats, let alone then divide everything up into their component parts.