D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[clearstream]

Let’s take that a little further out of the white room for a moment, shall we? Say you the player roll to Hide and it beats whatever number - same result as the DM granting auto success, right? Say you the player roll and the result is a failure - now your PC is not successfully hidden, can be targeted by enemies, and foregoes the chance for advantage on an attack next round. I think there can be many rolls in a session that allow for unexpected, surprising, and effective results. I don’t think failing to hide is one of those examples. YMMV

A hider can be noticed by some possible observers, while not being noticed by others.

The count has always hoped an assassin might come for their rival, the duchess. They noted the twitch of curtains by the high windows... and said nothing. Quietly strolling to a position shielded from that angle by the heaped table.

So a fail to the count's passive, while beating the duchess'.

 

[clearstream]

If the DM hasn't already considered it and decided the DC is 0, and the player just bursts out, "I try to Stealth! I roll a...4, rats!" the DM might just say, "Yeah, you fail."

Whereas if the player says, "I'm going to try to sneak past the guards. If I stay on the other side of the room and move from crate to crate* when they aren't looking, can I stay hidden?" then maybe the DM will consider that and say, "Yeah, they're distracted so you can do that easily."

It doesn't make sense, but it's very human.

*Because, as we all know, crates abound in any dungeon.

Barring wood elves, skulkers, and those magically invisible, the rules for stealth require cover to be able to hide. The check makes you unseen and unheard, if successful. Otherwise - strictly by the rules - your location is known. The point is, the guards being distracted per RAW is what lets you even make a check.

Of course DM can say it's automatic. No one who does that is doing it wrong. There's a lot of play in not doing so, also.

 

[clearstream]

It's actually primarily for the player and not the DM. A very, very small percentage of NPCs/monsters even have persuasion or intimidation.

100% of those encountered, that can amount to

There are a ton of monsters I've never used!

 

[Swarmkeeper]

A hider can be noticed by some possible observers, while not being noticed by others.

The count has always hoped an assassin might come for their rival, the duchess. They noted the twitch of curtains by the high windows... and said nothing. Quietly strolling to a position shielded from that angle by the heaped table.

So a fail to the count's passive, while beating the duchess'.

Of course, all I was getting at is that a player's goal is usually to succeed. What better way to succeed than, once given the description of the environment, to describe sufficiently what the PC is trying to accomplish and how... and then receive an auto-success from the DM?

Also, while I love the evocativeness of what you said above in italics... it reads like lines from a book and not the narration of the results of a die roll. Do you normally give your players the thoughts of your NPCs? Perhaps someone cast Detect Thoughts in this scene?

 

[clearstream]

Of course, all I was getting at is that a player's goal is usually to succeed. What better way to succeed than, once given the description of the environment, to describe sufficiently what the PC is trying to accomplish and how... and then receive an auto-success from the DM?

Also, while I love the evocativeness of what you said above in italics... it reads like lines from a book and not the narration of the results of a die roll. Do you normally give your players the thoughts of your NPCs? Perhaps someone cast Detect Thoughts in this scene?

The scene may be arrived at from many directions.

The count may be a PC. They're at court. The presumed assassin isn't anything of their doing. Their passive beat the assassin's Stealth, but the cunning player has a plan. NPCs in this case are assassin and duchess.

Or assassin is PC and as DM I am thinking about the count's motives as a way to decide their response. NPCs here are count and duchess.

Etc.

 

[Oofta]

I think you missed my point. I'm not describing a DM as being punitive, merely human. One who hasn't fully thought through how difficult it might be to stealth in that scenario, and so reacts to the low roll as a failed attempt. Whereas if the player proposed a course of action...especially a course of action that was more than just "I stealth" but described how they were taking advantage of terrain, the DM might, upon thinking about it rather than just reacting to the dice roll, grant auto-success.

Being punitive does usually require being human. That doesn't excuse the DM from being an a-hole. If the check was going to be successful no matter what they did then it's going to be successful no matter what they say.

While I reward creativity and out of the box thinking I don't want to reward or punish people for proficiency in saying what I want to hear. If someone does something I think the PC would know I'll simply tell them "there are crates you can go behind instead of the direct path, do you want to hide behind them instead?" I don't assume that I described the environment with 100% clarity and the PC is the one making the stealth check, not the player in my games.

There are many ways to run this but for my games I don't want to make the players guess the magic words to avoid risk of failure. It's unfair to people that don't know me as well as a DM or that aren't as fluent in describing their actions.

 

[HammerMan]

If the DM hasn't already considered it and decided the DC is 0, and the player just bursts out, "I try to Stealth! I roll a...4, rats!" the DM might just say, "Yeah, you fail."

Whereas if the player says, "I'm going to try to sneak past the guards. If I stay on the other side of the room and move from crate to crate* when they aren't looking, can I stay hidden?" then maybe the DM will consider that and say, "Yeah, they're distracted so you can do that easily."

It doesn't make sense, but it's very human.

*Because, as we all know, crates abound in any dungeon.

wait, you have DMs that are going to give auto success to a +3 or less (and based on the fact that you said rolled a 4 I assume it wasn't a nat 1 so +2?) or did you mean the die roll was a 4... becuse trained that is still a 6-10, and add even a modest (for someone trying stealth) of +2 dex that makes it an 8-12... that can totally still make DCs by the book. easy starts at 5 (and this is why I house rule DCs)

 

[HammerMan]

I wouldn't be so sure of that estimate. The D&D numbers have exploded with 5e, so although the kind of people who hang out in places like Enworld are D&D veterans, that's not really true for the rest of the population. What we read here is not representative.

even pre explosion we were not a good representaive group

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Good lord. Here we go with "magic words" again.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

wait, you have DMs that are going to give auto success to a +3 or less (and based on the fact that you said rolled a 4 I assume it wasn't a nat 1 so +2?) or did you mean the die roll was a 4... becuse trained that is still a 6-10, and add even a modest (for someone trying stealth) of +2 dex that makes it an 8-12... that can totally still make DCs by the book. easy starts at 5 (and this is why I house rule DCs)

What does a PC's ability modifier have to do with whether or not the DM grants auto-success in a situation?
Auto-success (and, indeed, auto-failure) have to do with the scenario and the PC's goal and approach to the situation. The modifier (and proficiency bonus, if applicable) come into play only when an ability check is called for - which is when the outcome is uncertain and there is a meaningful consequence for failure.