I'm explicitly asking you not to repeat yourself, since all the examples you've given (such as the stealth example) are about expertise yielding success rates in the 70-100% range. But those are instances where moderate tasks become easy (if we grant that a 10-25% detection rate is low), not where hard tasks become a bit less hard. But instead of addressing why giving rogues and bards a feature that makes the really hard merely hard is a problem, you keep repeating yourself about medium difficulty tasks becoming routine or near automatic. But then the solutions you endorse boost the low end of skill rolls, which makes tasks that were moderately difficult with proficiency and routine with expertise into tasks that are automatic with expertise. Which is the opposite of what you say you want.
Let me quote you for a moment:
So, the rogue with expertise needs a roll of about 6 under RAW to succeed. Assuming a bonus of around +12 or +13 that corresponds to a DC of about 18 or 19. So what happens if you replace the boost to the bonus currently granted by expertise with proposal #7 or #8 in the list you said you were considering? Now, they don't get the +4 from expertise, so they need a 10, but the minimum result is now... 10. So they've gone from succeeding 75% of the time to 100%. On the other hand if you rework expertise using the 2d10+proficiency die+second proficiency die only on higher natural rolls as I've proposed, the proficient character is about break-even with RAW, and the expert character is a bit lower, as you can see on the graph I posted. If instead you use the gold curve you made that you said looks more like what you want, you've boosted both the proficient and expert characters at those DCs, but you've boosted the expert by more. So now the expert is succeeding something like 90% of the time.
Do you see now why I say that the proposals you're endorsing are at cross-purposes with the problems you identify?
Yeah, in some ways it messes with things, but it was still a good idea and I was summarizing everything (well, most of it) from the thread. But I don't mind losing the expert's high ceiling, that is an issue I am trying to remove.
In the post you are referring to I was summarizing most of the ideas presented in the thread that I thought
might have some merit. I had not yet tried running any numbers to see how they would actually affect things.
As I said in this quote, removing the expert's high ceiling is an issue I am trying to remove. Ideally, for the same ability score, proficiency and expertise should yield the same potential result. This difference is expertise should have an easier time getting to that result. If a ranger and a rogue have the same ability and proficiency, but the rogue has expertise, his mean result should be better, but his maximum should be the same as the ranger.
The rogue can't have expertise in everything. If there's a ranger in the party who wants to be a scout, then during session zero, they should express that, and then if there's also a rogue in the party, they can fill a different niche: maybe the face with a side of trap-monkey, taking persuasion, deception, insight and thieves' tools. If a rogue takes expertise in arcana (even takes arcana in the first place), they're probably doing that because there isn't a wizard in the party and they figure somebody should be good at it. Etc. Don't blame the game mechanics for players choosing to build characters with a high degree of overlap.
Well, we allow players to make characters who are as they want them based on concept, etc., not on team dynamics. While D&D has always been best played as a "group" game, I feel free to blame a game mechanic when it is nonsensical and only there to give a class "something" that is "theirs."
A while back I asked whether you were on board with replacing expertise with something that enabled the rogue and bard to retain their distinctive identity as skill-monkeys, and you said you were as long as it addressed the particular problems you had with expertise. But when you counter my questions and suggestions about how to replace expertise with something that feels equally powerful with it, you say things like this which make it seem that all along you just wanted to weaken the rogue and bard. If you'd said that from the outset I would have stopped participating in the discussion long ago, since that's a project I have no interest in.
Well, as I have said before, my goal is to reduce the impact of expertise numerically (as it getting higher numbers), but replace it with options that are meaningful and fun options for the players. You've offered ideas along those lines, such as the second approach you mention below.
I like the idea of tricks -- this is more or less the approach I was taking with my second proposal -- but you've got to fill in the details. I came up with some things for a few skills, but for others there didn't seem to be anything obvious. Also the rogue is very much designed as a resource-management-free class (I think the only thing in any subclass that has limited uses is the arcane trickster's spell slots), so I strongly suggest making the expanded skill options the kinds of things that can be done at-will.
As I replied to those ideas, some I like and some I don't. Filling in the details for the tricks might happen, but probably won't. I don't like superiority dice in any class, so anything I ultimately come up with most likely reflect that (well, not reflect that, you know LOL).
