D&D (2024) Should Bounded Accuracy apply to skill checks? Thoughts on an old Alexandrian article

No, it’s nothing really.

It’s just a function of character build. It might as well be the same as hit points or numbers of spells per level. It’s not really a method to distinguish a character the way skill systems have typically been used. Then the skills themselves are poorly developed. There is extremely little agency involved in the actual mechanics to adjudicate success and failure.
Two Characters of the same Class and Background can have different Skills: hence it is a system that allows them to be distinguished from each other in what they can do. Thst ia, a skill system.

The Skills are sufficiently developed for use in gameplay, in my experience, and provide plenty of agency through action declaration.
 

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Honestly, if you get rid of the Expertise and RT, you can delete the Rogue class right along with it. The Rogue is a two-bit fighter with mediocre DPS (especially in 5.24) whose selling point is skill use beyond all other classes. It's already been diluted by how many other ways there are to get expertise (ranger, bard, wizard, feats) and removing it would just leave them sneak attack, which is fairly inferior compared to the damage multiple attacks and riders give.

So yeah, nerf the rogue's ability to auto success skills and you can just get rid of the class and use the room to print more "I win" wizard spells I guess...

(You could probably delete the bard and ranger too at that point).
I think this is a good point - since 3e, the game has been about making the PCs heroes. Being extremely competent skill wise has been the rogue’s thing for ages. If you remove that competency because you want to rein in skills, you need to be looking at the other parts of the game where characters are simply allowed to be awesome just by using a spell or smiting or declaring they get a whole other turn this round, etc.
 

I wonder why people conplain that reliable talent is reliable. It is the rogue's magic. It just works most of the time.

Does it trivialize challenges? Yes.

As does the sending spell whenever someone goes missing. The teleport spell when you want to get somewhere. The dimension door to go through closed doors. Spider climb when you want to get up somewhere.

Why is taking away what rogues excel at good sports?
Because it isn't magic? 🤷‍♂️

Magic that trivializes challenges is also not "at will" AND multipurpose. Reliable Talent to bypass locks (Thieve's tools), climb walls (Athletics), convince someone to help you (Persuasion), sneak past someone (Stealth), determine if someone is lying (Insight), and so on. A Rogue with Reliable Talent will score 15+ easily on any or all of these depending on the build, and with expertise can top 20+.

The closest thing you have is something like races who can fly (few of them), and then it usually isn't due to magic.

Frankly, I love the concept of Reliable Talent and don't really have much issue with it, but I would prefer it work more like Indomitable Might.
 

I think this is a good point - since 3e, the game has been about making the PCs heroes. Being extremely competent skill wise has been the rogue’s thing for ages. If you remove that competency because you want to rein in skills, you need to be looking at the other parts of the game where characters are simply allowed to be awesome just by using a spell or smiting or declaring they get a whole other turn this round, etc.

Exactly. The rogue's appeal is that they tiptoe past skill challenges with ease that other classes struggle with. Much like how the fighter shrugs off blows that would kill the wizard and the wizard can fly and do things a fighter cannot. If you plan on aligning skill use across classes, then combat and magic needs to be equalized across all classes as well.
 

Unless I'm reading you incorrectly (which is entirely possible I will admit)... you make it sound like your reasons for these checks are to think up ways in the fiction to generate bonus methods to "win the dice roll". That "winning the dice roll" is actually the point of playing, and not whatever it is your character is actually doing and trying to accomplish "in-game" in the world of the campaign. If your PC has to "get over a wall" within the fiction (for example), then the point of the RPG is to leverage game mechanics and think up methods within the fiction that allow you to get mechanical bonuses to win the dice roll that lets you "get over the wall". And if you "get over the wall" then you've won this encounter... not because your character now gets to see what is on the other side, but merely because you rolled higher than the DC the DM gave you.
Not quite. The point is that "winning the dice roll" is how a player accomplishes having their character accomplish something in the fiction.

If there's no desire for the fiction to be able to leverage a mechanic that impacts the chance of success or failure, it would make more sense to play FKR style or just flip a coin instead.
 
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It's not that I want to take anything away from the Rogue, but I'd prefer flatter numbers in the system that was supposed to care about flattening numbers and not pushing modifiers off the d20*, so I'm not stuck trying to figure out if a guy with a check of +5 is a village idiot compared to a guy with a check of +17 and beyond.

If all bets are truly off, and numberflation is just as real as it ever was, then have rules for epic skill check results for these phenoms who can routinely hit so-called "impossible" DC's.
That was what broke the 3e skill system. Numberflation.

At the end of 3e revelation came to me that you should not use class skill cap as guideline, but instead use 10, 15, 20 and 25 and be happy with that.
If you consider cross class skill cap (3+level)/2 as standard bonus, you are in the range of +2 to +11. With ability scores ranging from -1 to +5 on average it plays quite nicely with those ranges.

And characters that have those skills as class skills will eventually get to the point where they won't fail at all at level 15+.

And then you could use take 10 if the stakes are low or take 20 if there is plenty time.

So I consider this a good progression for proficient and expert people.

In 5e, without any special ability we are at about half that number. Or better: we start with the same bonus and the progression is only 40% of what we got before. So special abilities need to cover for what I considered a good progression. This is where reliable talent kicks in.

A rogue at level 20 has a floor of 22, without considering their stat bonuses. So they need 16 in a relevant stat or some extra bonus to make 25 DCs reliably. A fighter that somehow gets expertise has floor of 14, but their average is 28 using with second wind. So without good stats they are even more likely to make 25 DC checks than the rogue.


Or hey, maybe we could just get rid of skills, go back to OD&D where the DM can decide if a character can do something with an ability check, and give the Rogue back their bespoke "super skills" (ie, Thieving abilities).
They have super skills. Reliable talent allows them to do things most other people can't do reliably.
And given their high bonus, they eventually make DC25 or DC30 checks that allow them near impossoble results.
*At least, I think that's something someone at WotC claimed at some point. Maybe they never did and I just assumed that's what the point of this all was.
+17 is within the d20 range...
 

The big problem with auto-skill success is that it is all the time once achieve. Yes, casters can use magic to do great things, but it is limited in spell slots--not all the time. Warriors can shrug off damage but it is also limited by hit points. Relilable Talent limited to a number of uses per rest or such would receive less flack from people who find it too reliable IMO.

Frankly, you could give Rogues Reliable Talent at level 1 with proficiency bonus uses per long rest and I think people would be fine with that. At +5ish bonus would make those sometimes tricky DC 15 ability checks auto when needed even in Tier 1.

Since Expertise effectively raises the ceiling more, I find it actually makes challenges more trivial than reliable talent. Even in tier 2 at +11 our party rogue, for example has stealth abilities which pretty much nearly always beat any passive perceptions he encounters.
 

Because it isn't magic? 🤷‍♂️
Isn't it? Have you ever seen a real world magician. It is no magic. But they do things that look like it.
Have you seen speed boulder olympics? It seems like spider climbing.

Magic that trivializes challenges is also not "at will" AND multipurpose. Reliable Talent to bypass locks (Thieve's tools), climb walls (Athletics), convince someone to help you (Persuasion), sneak past someone (Stealth), determine if someone is lying (Insight), and so on. A Rogue with Reliable Talent will score 15+ easily on any or all of these depending on the build, and with expertise can top 20+.
Which is good.
The closest thing you have is something like races who can fly (few of them), and then it usually isn't due to magic.
Yeah. And denying martials their magic is justaking them feel stupid for not being a mage. Especially when mages who have trivialized anything the rogue can do insist on long rests and are annoyed when they can't or the rogue does not want to sleep after every easy task...
Frankly, I love the concept of Reliable Talent and don't really have much issue with it, but I would prefer it work more like Indomitable Might.
Maybe. I would have no issues with that. If it was usable often enough.
 

The big problem with auto-skill success is that it is all the time once achieve. Yes, casters can use magic to do great things, but it is limited in spell slots--not all the time. Warriors can shrug off damage but it is also limited by hit points. Relilable Talent limited to a number of uses per rest or such would receive less flack from people who find it too reliable IMO.
I think people simultaneously overvalue and undervalue "at-will" abilities.

Realistically, most tables don't have enough encounters for the "resource" portion of the game to have that much of an impact. A caster who used invisibility and knock to act as an ersatz rogue still has enough juice to impact a fight.

But, "at-will" abilities feel much more impactful because they act like toys the player can mess around with. "My stealth check is never lower than a 24" feels excellent after 10 levels of hoping not to roll a 1.
 

The big problem with auto-skill success is that it is all the time once achieve. Yes, casters can use magic to do great things, but it is limited in spell slots--not all the time. Warriors can shrug off damage but it is also limited by hit points. Relilable Talent limited to a number of uses per rest or such would receive less flack from people who find it too reliable IMO.

Frankly, you could give Rogues Reliable Talent at level 1 with proficiency bonus uses per long rest and I think people would be fine with that. At +5ish bonus would make those sometimes tricky DC 15 ability checks auto when needed even in Tier 1.

Since Expertise effectively raises the ceiling more, I find it actually makes challenges more trivial than reliable talent. Even in tier 2 at +11 our party rogue, for example has stealth abilities which pretty much nearly always beat any passive perceptions he encounters.
The issue though is that a lot of limited resources are only an illusion of limitations because many now regain a use on a short rest (or regain a use when initiative is rolled). If your campaign is not overly stingy with short rests, a fighter can shrug off damage infinitely (second wind recharges on a short rest) and a warlock can have infinite spell slots. Sure, those things are limited in combat, but Reliable Talent isn't broken in combat either (especially now that grapple is no longer based on athletics). The point is that limited use abilities don't actually limit characters much anymore, and you would have to kill short rests entirely to make them.
 

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