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

[Immortal Sun]

As a sort of general response to the OP's questions, I lean towards alternative costs. "Rolling over and over" isn't a cost. If the players want to gain something, they need to spend something. Maybe that's time. Maybe it's HP. Maybe it's gold. Maybe it's spell slots.

But just throwing dice at the table until they get the necessary number doesn't really make anyone happy, IMO.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

That really gets to the nature of the game, and what you hope to get out of it. For a lot of DMs, the point of the roll is to figure out what happens, so they know how to narrate it; different rolls beget different narratives, which is important when you want to know how it goes. "You throw the ball into the basket," is a different narrative than "You try to throw the ball into the basket, and you spend some time chasing the ball around, but you eventually succeed after an embarrassing number of attempts." Especially when you're practicing free throws, that's a big difference.

If the character has some further goal, like they need to knock a bird nest out of a tree so that they can get a gem from inside, then it's probably safe to ignore the roll and just move on with the narrative. "It might take a few tries, but you'll eventually succeed, so you get the gem."

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.

There's a fundamental difference between what rolls represent in different game systems. What you describe is one approach, where a 65% chance means that all of the existing variables yield a 65% chance of success, and the die roll represents minor variations like wind and focus and sweat dripping down your hands; and no matter how many times you repeat the test, those minor variations will always be uncertain.

The other approach is that the die roll represents persistent factors. If you have a 65% chance, then it means there's a 65% chance that the unknown variables will allow you to succeed; but once you roll, and it's revealed whether those factors are in your favor, then those factors remain relatively constant. You either know how to pick this lock, or you don't, and we don't know which is the case, because we aren't manually tracking all of the relevant factors; but once you roll, and we know for a fact that you can't do it, then those unknown factors are no longer unknown.

Unfortunately, which model a game is using, is rarely made clear when reading the book. It's a relatively safe bet that the first model applies to attack rolls, saving throws, and free throws. The second model may apply to picking locks, breaking manacles, or knowing the capital of Assyria; or it may not, depending on the DM.

TLDR - I think I'm agreeing with you, but I've spent too long working on this post to justify canceling it at this point.

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.


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.

If you don’t think there’s a consequence for missing a free throw, then you haven’t ever watched a basketball game

 

[Charlaquin]

If you don’t think there’s a consequence for missing a free throw, then you haven’t ever watched a basketball game

I mean, the rules of basketball don’t allow unlimited free throw attempts, so your finite number of throws is the cost. My comment was meant to be in response to this part of Li Shenron’s post:

. 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.

 

[Li Shenron]

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

It is not the default/only way to handle out-of-combat challenges but it is the way which the rules support out of the box. Otherwise we would not have frequent threads like this about house rules required to support the other way!

 

[Li Shenron]

I mean, the rules of basketball don’t allow unlimited free throw attempts, so your finite number of throws is the cost. My comment was meant to be in response to this part of Li Shenron’s post:

One reason why I mentioned the basketball throws being the worst possible example is also because it splits people in two camps, each focusing on two thoroughly different cases:

- someone stans there alone throwing ad infinitum and sets herself the purpose as "success = I score eventually" > success is automatic unless you also add a constraint (max number of attempt or time limit)

- a number of throws in the context of a basketball match > in this case each throw has its own separate definition of success > similar to combat attacks

So people would start arguing while they have in mind completely different things.

But in either case, it's really not a good similitude with a typical out-of-combat challenges where in most cases there is a single yes/no outcome but you still want some randomness in the story.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It is not the default/only way to handle out-of-combat challenges but it is the way which the rules support out of the box. Otherwise we would not have frequent threads like this about house rules required to support the other way!

You’re confusing two things. You’re confusing “If the DM wants and there is no time rush, just allow the PC to succeed” (what the rules suggest) with “one die roll represents a whole pool of attempts of an action” (what you are claiming). Which is also untrue with the lone exception of melee attacks in a turn.

You’ll note my request for a house rule was not to have the PC make rolls for each attempt (because that wouldn’t be a house rule since that’s how the rules handle missile attack rolls and things like picking locks, sleight of hand, medicine, etc), but instead to look for alternative ways to handle skill checks outside of an auto success when there are little time limitations

 

[Charlaquin]

typical out-of-combat challenges where in most cases there is a single yes/no outcome

All rolls in D&D have a single yes/no outcome, in-combat or out of it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Nevermind.

 

[Li Shenron]

Unfortunately, which model a game is using, is rarely made clear when reading the book. It's a relatively safe bet that the first model applies to attack rolls, saving throws, and free throws. The second model may apply to picking locks, breaking manacles, or knowing the capital of Assyria; or it may not, depending on the DM.

Yep.

We usually agree that 5e designer's approach has often been to leave something unclear so that different DMs can apply their own ideas. But it's not THAT unfortunate if choosing one method would cut off the use of the other.

The problem is perhaps that any application of the first model to the second group of challenges (i.e. out of combat) quickly increases complexity and so requires very careful design, while potentially introducing unexpected problems. It's not impossible and I am sure someone has excellent rules for "social combat", but just see what is the only deviation from simply rolling once in 5e and how many discussion it triggers all the time! (hint: Passive Perception)