D&D 5E Skill Checks (non time sensitive) homebrew fixes

[Li Shenron]

Like shooting a free throw. You can fail 10 times in a row and do the exact same thing every time, then make it the 11th time. Even the pros, who use the exact same technique and process, never succeed every time. They certainly don't learn what they did wrong when they missed, they do the exact same thing on the next attempt. And by missing, it certainly doesn't mean they realize they can't succeed. That's nonsense. They try again, using the same process.

I was totally expecting EXACTLY the example of a free throw in basketball. It is the worst possible example to mess up the understanding of how the rules of checks in D&D are conceived across editions.

Truth is, the basketball free throws are not an example of trying the same thing over and over until you succeed (once) and then you're done. What defines "success" in keep throwing infinitely until you score? Eventually you score, there is no chance of failure. If that's the case with a skill in D&D, there is NO point in the DM asking the player to roll in the first place. (Note that instead, throwing the ball in the context of a match is akin to rolling attacks, with each throw/attack being a challenge of its own with a separate outcome)

At most, in some cases it might be interesting to consider, if someone has a small chance of success but can keep trying indefinitely, how long it takes before succeeding. So instead of re-rolling the DM could just roll once for the time required. Or if multiple successes build up better results (as in crafting rules typically), roll once to quantify such results. In all cases, ONE ROLL is all you ever need, except perhaps a special occasion when the outcome has more than one dimension.

But if the outcome has one dimension only, complicating the rule only gives the illusion of improvement, and at worst it can wreck probabilities to the point of becoming moot to roll at all.

 

[5ekyu]

Do you believe that with handcuffs that anyone of sverage (+0) strength can give them six seconds of pull and have a realistic chance to break them? (Baring a manufacturing defect.)

And moreso, that 1 of 20 times this happens?

I don't. Therefore the DC is greater than 0+20.

Part of the issue is that in D&D, the possible variation in much bigger then the ability score modifier. A 6th level character with a 18 STR and training in athletics would have a +10 to the roll, which means could be as low as 1/3 of the result. Things like FATE with 4dF which are -1/0/+1 dice will cluster around the skill, the variation is small.

You manage in a single paragraph to conflate and confuse the degree of shift (magnitude) and the odds of the outcomes.

The 4F dice deal,out results down to less than 1/1200 - the d20 deals down to 5% on routine checks. That gives FATE a much higher swing, not a lower one.

As for the cluster... Thats talking odds of success... Odds of failure and in DnD 5e the GM sets the DC so he can set that to get as close as 5% increments as he wants to the same FATE odds.

Of course, maybe some folks feel they need that "yeah i will give you 1 in 1200" instrad of ssying "no, thats imposdible" cuz they know their scene was described in such detail that 1 in 1200 is needed.

 

[5ekyu]

I was totally expecting EXACTLY the example of a free throw in basketball. It is the worst possible example to mess up the understanding of how the rules of checks in D&D are conceived across editions.

Truth is, the basketball free throws are not an example of trying the same thing over and over until you succeed (once) and then you're done. What defines "success" in keep throwing infinitely until you score? Eventually you score, there is no chance of failure. If that's the case with a skill in D&D, there is NO point in the DM asking the player to roll in the first place. (Note that instead, throwing the ball in the context of a match is akin to rolling attacks, with each throw/attack being a challenge of its own with a separate outcome)

At most, in some cases it might be interesting to consider, if someone has a small chance of success but can keep trying indefinitely, how long it takes before succeeding. So instead of re-rolling the DM could just roll once for the time required. Or if multiple successes build up better results (as in crafting rules typically), roll once to quantify such results. In all cases, ONE ROLL is all you ever need, except perhaps a special occasion when the outcome has more than one dimension.

But if the outcome has one dimension only, complicating the rule only gives the illusion of improvement, and at worst it can wreck probabilities to the point of becoming moot to roll at all.

Actually, i agree that if you as GM have decided rerolls will succeed, then a roll might be for time taken or resources consumed.

Maybe its a case where you are gonna make torches and you are gonna spend hours so the roll is about how many you make.

The flaw in the premise here is how many contradictory choices the GM had to make to fabricate the ptoblem...

Time is not relevant...
There is only pass/fail...
There is no drawback to a fail...
There must be a roll...
Retries allowed...

The circumstances when those are all true are imx rarer than,Vecna's other hand.

 

[Blue]

You manage in a single paragraph to conflate and confuse the degree of shift (magnitude) and the odds of the outcomes.

The 4F dice deal,out results down to less than 1/1200 - the d20 deals down to 5% on routine checks. That gives FATE a much higher swing, not a lower one.

As for the cluster... Thats talking odds of success... Odds of failure and in DnD 5e the GM sets the DC so he can set that to get as close as 5% increments as he wants to the same FATE odds.

Of course, maybe some folks feel they need that "yeah i will give you 1 in 1200" instrad of ssying "no, thats imposdible" cuz they know their scene was described in such detail that 1 in 1200 is needed.

I'm not following, especially the 1200.

My example was that even with a decent bonus, the d20 is a large amount of the final result. And with FATE, the 4dF is a small amount of my final result.

 

[CleverNickName]

Let me ask you this then... Do you as GM provide barratively that player with "what the 2 was" and thus give that player some element in the scene they can adjust or change to sufficiently fix the problem for a retrExample - Search rolked a 2 because so much debris and unstable section that everytime you dig in more starts falling so... Now the character has a couple angles or apptoaches to (literally) clean up the trouble and get a thorough search.

In my experience, if the GM does not represent or manifest that 2 into some aspect of scenery or circumstance - asking the player to inuit some new approach that is better is going to lead to very uneven results.

Yes, or at least I try to. Like, if the rogue is trying to disarm a trap and fails, I try to give the player more than just a pithy "you fail."

I'll say something like "your thieves' tools don't seem to be long enough to reach the mechanism" or whatever. That telegraphs to the player that a second Thieves' Tools check probably won't succeed, either, but something else might. Maybe the bard has longer fingers? Maybe a crowbar will reach it? Maybe the cleric could give him guidance? Maybe a vial of acid? Or heck, if the player insists on using a Thieves' Tools check and stubbornly refuses to do anything else because Reasons, I might suggest they borrow a different set of tools from the bard or something.

I don't want the player to think "I rolled a two, therefore I failed. I need to roll again."
I'd rather they think "X was wrong, therefore I failed. I need to change X."

 

[Sacrosanct]

I was totally expecting EXACTLY the example of a free throw in basketball. It is the worst possible example to mess up the understanding of how the rules of checks in D&D are conceived across editions.

Truth is, the basketball free throws are not an example of trying the same thing over and over until you succeed (once) and then you're done. What defines "success" in keep throwing infinitely until you score? Eventually you score, there is no chance of failure. If that's the case with a skill in D&D, there is NO point in the DM asking the player to roll in the first place. (Note that instead, throwing the ball in the context of a match is akin to rolling attacks, with each throw/attack being a challenge of its own with a separate outcome)

At most, in some cases it might be interesting to consider, if someone has a small chance of success but can keep trying indefinitely, how long it takes before succeeding. So instead of re-rolling the DM could just roll once for the time required. Or if multiple successes build up better results (as in crafting rules typically), roll once to quantify such results. In all cases, ONE ROLL is all you ever need, except perhaps a special occasion when the outcome has more than one dimension.

But if the outcome has one dimension only, complicating the rule only gives the illusion of improvement, and at worst it can wreck probabilities to the point of becoming moot to roll at all.

I think I see the issue here. You seem to assume that your perception and assumption is the default way everyone plays D&D, and how skill checks are handled on an official design process. Hate to break it to you, but it's not. The only time one roll represents more than actual action by the PC is melee combat. That's it. Everything else is a single roll for every single action. You don't fire several arrows each time you roll to attack with a bow. You don't try many attempts at picking the lock by a single roll. That has not been established rule over the past editions. Just because some people choose to play that way, does not make it canon. So the basketball analogy I made is perfectly apt. Each attempt at a task is a separate attempt, and your position that either the user gets better (learns from mistakes) OR they realize they will never succeed is flat out incorrect. You're completely leaving out the most common occurrence of the middle ground there, as noted on my earlier post.

I've been playing since 1981, so I'd also appreciate it if you didn't try to lecture me on how each edition played.

 

[Charlaquin]

Truth is, the basketball free throws are not an example of trying the same thing over and over until you succeed (once) and then you're done. What defines "success" in keep throwing infinitely until you score? Eventually you score, there is no chance of failure. If that's the case with a skill in D&D, there is NO point in the DM asking the player to roll in the first place.

This is literally the point of the basketball example. It is meant to be an example of a situation where there is no power my in rolling. There is a chance of success, a chance of failure, and no cost or consequence for failure, therefore you eventually succeed and no roll is necessary to determine that. If the amount of time it takes matters, then there is a cost for failure - namely time - so a roll is used to resolve the action.

At most, in some cases it might be interesting to consider, if someone has a small chance of success but can keep trying indefinitely, how long it takes before succeeding. So instead of re-rolling the DM could just roll once for the time required.

I wouldn’t bother unless there was some time constraint, be it wandering monsters that are checked for every hour, or if the task takes long enough, the risk of having to spend multiple days (and therefore resources such as food and water). In that case, calling for one roll with success meaning it takes X time and failure meaning it takes Y time is one option. Another is multiple rolls with each attempt advancing time.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't want the player to think "I rolled a two, therefore I failed. I need to roll again."
I'd rather they think "X was wrong, therefore I failed. I need to change X."

Interesting. See, I want the player to know that if they do X and I ask for a check, that X has a chance of success and a chance of failure. And I want them to have confidence in the consistency of the world, which means unless something has changed since they last did X, doing X again must still have a chance of success and a chance of failure. And I want them to see that and think “is trying X again worth the risk, or should I try something else?” If they try Y instead, I want that to be because they saw what happened when they tried X, and relying on their understanding of the way the world works, made an informed decision that they would rather try Y than try X again, not because I told them trying X again won’t have a chance of success this time.

 

[5ekyu]

I'm not following, especially the 1200.

My example was that even with a decent bonus, the d20 is a large amount of the final result. And with FATE, the 4dF is a small amount of my final result.

Sigh...

The d20 can yield results from 5% to 100% with the smallest difference being 5%.

The 4F can generate values -shifts- from -4 to +4 with the odds of -4 being 1 in 1296 and the odd of +4 being the same. Now one **cannot** mislead folks by somehow trying to equate a -1 in 4F to the difference in 2-3 on a d20 because the numbers do not represent the same thing.

But the swing or magnitude of d20 is between 5% to 100% or 95% total. But the cawing of 4F is from like 1/1296 or a small fraction of 1% to 100%. So, the 4F is higher, bigger than the D20.

When one looks at success fail, neither has any meaning until a difficulty is assigned - which means the GM assigns the odds of success. So while the DC methods may be different (Fate "do you wind up at this noun" and d20 "do you wind up at this number") it stopill works out to an odds of success.

So if the odds are supposed to be 3 out of 4, that's gonna be 75% in either method, whether that means a -1 in Fate still succeeds or a raw 6 or better in d20.

The fact that 4F creates uneven odds from one number to the next does not make success more or less likely, that comes from the intersection of the difficulty of the task and the ability of the character - just like in 5e.

Now, maybe the setting and your GM wind up just giving you easier to succeed at tasks in 4F but you could just as easily do the same in 5e.

The thing 4F can do that d20 cannot is have different steps that are less than 5% chances. So, if your game scenes are so precise to need tighter than 5% maybe 4F is better.

 

[5ekyu]

Yes, or at least I try to. Like, if the rogue is trying to disarm a trap and fails, I try to give the player more than just a pithy "you fail."

I'll say something like "your thieves' tools don't seem to be long enough to reach the mechanism" or whatever. That telegraphs to the player that a second Thieves' Tools check probably won't succeed, either, but something else might. Maybe the bard has longer fingers? Maybe a crowbar will reach it? Maybe the cleric could give him guidance? Maybe a vial of acid? Or heck, if the player insists on using a Thieves' Tools check and stubbornly refuses to do anything else because Reasons, I might suggest they borrow a different set of tools from the bard or something.

I don't want the player to think "I rolled a two, therefore I failed. I need to roll again."
I'd rather they think "X was wrong, therefore I failed. I need to change X."

Yup... good... we have similar approaches - I narratively add the d20 into the scenery so it can be dealt with if need be. It's been done for ages with combat checks - rolled a 2 slipped on wet floor, rolled 14 but still missed narrowly skipped off shield scratching under ear - but doing it for skill checks provides a ton of benefits - especially social.

But you would be surprised how many seem to want to fuss and fret if the d20 is not treated as an invisible mystery out of game factor - ready to shout metagaming if anybody mentions their roll.