D&D (2024) Should reliable talent be a feature that all characters get with proficiency/expertise?

[rules.mechanic]

Have you tried proficiency dice? Instead of adding a flat bonus, proficiency adds a die; starts at d4, increases in size at each level that PB usually goes up. Expertise lets you add a second die of the same type.

Yeah, one of my groups really liked it and still uses it but other found it a bit annoying when there were other dice in the mix too (Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, etc). Proficiency dice are actually where we got the idea of expertise as advantage from - we played expertise as advantage on the proficiency die (the proficiency die section of the DMG was pretty brief and we were wary of the potential range that adding two proficiency dice might otherwise enable).

 

[Kobold Stew]

No -- it's a rouge ability, and there has to be some niche that it gets to keep.

Ironically, other classes keep stealing the rogue's stuff as it is!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Giving it only to Rogues was a truly idiotic decision.

Completely senseless. Taking away Take 20 and Take 10 were also boneheaded brainfails, frankly.

So at this point, as much as it may make some Rogue fans cope and seethe, I think more classes than just Eloquence Bard should have access to it. It's one of the best approaches for making D&D work better. Stamping your foot and saying "ROGUES ONLY!!!" is just intentionally perpetuating bad design imho.

 

[Horwath]

Giving it only to Rogues was a truly idiotic decision.

Completely senseless. Taking away Take 20 and Take 10 were also boneheaded brainfails, frankly.

So at this point, as much as it may make some Rogue fans cope and seethe, I think more classes than just Eloquence Bard should have access to it. It's one of the best approaches for making D&D work better. Stamping your foot and saying "ROGUES ONLY!!!" is just intentionally perpetuating bad design imho.

Agree, that is why I scaled it better for rogues. And rogues get more expertise in general.

Then again, if we replace d20 with 3d6 for skills only, we would not have to have this kind of fixes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Agree, that is why I scaled it better for rogues. And rogues get more expertise in general.

Personally I've been considering, based on the fact that it's apparently fine for full casters to have fiat/always work-type abilities, giving Rogues a sort of "auto-succeed" ability like once per long rest (probably going up to 3 times by L20). I.e. "After you fail a skill check with a skill you have Expertise with, which you were capable of succeeding at, you can declare that you succeeded at it. This is treated as a normal success. You may use this ability once per long rest".

Obviously this would only work for DMs who understand that succeeding at Persuade on the king doesn't mean he automatically gives you his entire kingdom, but at this point I think that's like 90% of DMs (I also think this existing would help the remaining 10% to understand that a successful Persuade check is not mind control).

 

[Horwath]

Personally I've been considering, based on the fact that it's apparently fine for full casters to have fiat/always work-type abilities, giving Rogues a sort of "auto-succeed" ability like once per long rest (probably going up to 3 times by L20). I.e. "After you fail a skill check with a skill you have Expertise with, which you were capable of succeeding at, you can declare that you succeeded at it. This is treated as a normal success. You may use this ability once per long rest".

Obviously this would only work for DMs who understand that succeeding at Persuade on the king doesn't mean he automatically gives you his entire kingdom, but at this point I think that's like 90% of DMs (I also think this existing would help the remaining 10% to understand that a successful Persuade check is not mind control).

When you fail a skill check that you have Expertise in, you can treat the d20 roll as 15.
You can use this only if 15 on roll would be enough to succeed.
you can do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus.

 

[billd91]

Absolutely not. If something is supposed to be that trivial, then you shouldn't be rolling in the first place. If you can fail the roll with a low roll, then it's not trivial. Reliable Talent is an amazing ability that's on par with 3 attacks per round; giving it away for free (even a weaker version of it) is a terrible idea.

Yeah, I'm going with this one, keeping in mind that it's often crisis situations like combat that make rolls that shouldn't need to be taken (trivial) suddenly become non-trivial. And I'd be surprised if there were any class more reliant on their ability (skill) checks in combat/adverse situations than a rogue. Reliable Talent is basically a 5e version of the Skill Mastery rogue talent from 3e.

 

[billd91]

Taking away Take 20 and Take 10 were also boneheaded brainfails, frankly.

As much as I miss the ability to intentionally do so, the 5e DMing guidance to roll only when the check is consequential is supposed to take the place of Take 10. Any place where a PC could reliably Take 10 before is an appropriate situation for not rolling in the first place in 5e.
I do think some discussion of that would have been a useful sidebar in the DMG.

 

[Krachek]

I don’t agree, players don’t focus on easy task, they focus on hard ones!

 

[renbot]

This just might be the grey in my beard talking, but I never truly did away with "take 10" in 5e, although I don't call it that. I especially use this with Knowledge checks (I'm sorry, the Wizard simply HAS to have a higher Arcana check than the Barbarian, just like the Barbarian is better at swinging a greataxe) but my players have also learned that any proficiency can have a "passive score" and they are no longer confused when I say "what is your Passive Acrobatics?" as though that were a thing. As with the original "take 10," it never applies when under pressure or if the result has a significant negative/positive consequence, but unlike the original the PC never gets to say they are doing it, it is something that I grant them and I do so pretty sparingly.