D&D 5E Skilled contests and advice wanted

[Tormyr]

Age of Worms has a contest like this in the opening chapter. The 1st-level players can compete against a level 5 rogue. The contest is in 3 rounds, where each contestant has to hit a target with a dagger. Each round they have to hit a smaller ring on the target to advance. The AC of each ring is 10, 15 and 20. In 3.5e I am sure the to hit bonuses for the level 5 rogue make hitting that center ring fairly easy. The level 1 PCs generally have a +5 to hit. This was in April, so we were still using play test rules. The rogue would now be a CR5 rogue probably. She would have a +7 to attack. That is almost the same. I handled it in that case by giving her advantage because she is "supposed to be better." Now I probably would play it more like a dart game where the outer ring to inner rings were 1 to 3 points and let each contestant throw 5 daggers. That would average things out while still giving the PCs a reasonable chance of winning some gold.

For an archery competition, I would suggest having each contestant fire 10 shots (or 5 or whatever). Have the player roll 10d20 and count up the hits, or do what I would do with points for different rings.

Each type of competition is probably best handled differently. Using multiple shots or contested rolls is probably best when possible. For archery, that is just a lot of shots. For boxing, you could just use hp. For sumo, it is a series of contested Athletics and Acrobatics checks tracking the contestants as they go back and forth across the mat.

 

[77IM]

Use passive checks (result of 10+modifier). "Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly," Basic v0.2, p. 59.

 

[Anth]

Many classes have special abilities that make them better, like expertise for rogues.
For fighters in a combat contest, like arcery, you have to count the fighters multiattack.
For an arcery contest I would say that every contestant would shoot as many arrow that he/she possibly can for five consecutive rounds and then count the number of arrows that hit the target, say AC 20, and count natural 20 (crit) as bullseye and count them as double points.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The OP's example needs a closer look. That level 15 fighter who still has 10 dex and isn't at all specialized in archery - why should he be more accurate with a bow than a level 5 specialized archer?

3e and especially 4e embraced a power curve where a level 20 character was always better in every way than a level 1 character. Like, a level 20 4e fighter probably would have a better bonus to his arcana check than a level 1 wizard. That always seemed much more problematic to me.

 

[BigVanVader]

The OP's example needs a closer look. That level 15 fighter who still has 10 dex and isn't at all specialized in archery - why should he be more accurate with a bow than a level 5 specialized archer?

3e and especially 4e embraced a power curve where a level 20 character was always better in every way than a level 1 character. Like, a level 20 4e fighter probably would have a better bonus to his arcana check than a level 1 wizard. That always seemed much more problematic to me.

Yeah, I agree with this. Level 12 Hulk shouldn't be better at hiding than Level 7 Batman.

 

[Li Shenron]

Bounded accuracy really sucks for this sort of things. It's meant only for combat, really.

What you want IIUC, is that a lower-skill character has a chance of beating the lower-skill character, but the chance is small.

If you use opposed skill checks, bounded accuracy makes the change too large -> not good.
If you just make the highest score win, there is no chance for the challenger -> not good.

Some possible solutions directions to explore:

1- skill challenges, i.e. multiple rolls, can make the chance as low or high as you want; IMO these work well or not depending on the narrative of the challenge i.e. if you can break down the challenge in smaller tasks or steps, and especially if the player can make some decision between each step (but then each challenge requires some work to be designed properly)

2- just give expertise (e.g. via a feat) to the character which is supposed to be a master in that skill; this is simple, but achieves a flat bonus so you don't have "full control" over how high or low the chance will be

3- as an even simpler option, set a base DC = passive score of the high-skilled character, and have the low-skilled character roll against that: if it fails, no need for the high-skilled to even roll; if it succeeds, the high-skilled also rolls and has to be beat the low-skilled's result (this is equivalent to allow the high-skilled character to "Take 10", but IMHO there's a slightly better "drama feel")

 

[bmcdaniel]

For the specific example, I would count a hit as hitting the target, while damage is how close to the center of the target the shot landed. That simulates the ability of a great archer to put the arrow where it would do the most damage.

Contrarywise, if I was modeling an arm wrestling contest, I'd let each particpant automatically deal 1d6+ str bonus damage to the other each round. Dropping to 0, means the participant is too exhausted to carry on anymore.

But more generally, the OP is right. 5e takes some creativity to give higher level characters an appropriate advantage in a world of bounded accuracy.

 

[Meliath1742]

Agreed. Contest vs level is comparing apples with oranges. A characters ability in combat takes into play the character as a "whole" while a contest narrows the focus to essentially a singular ability.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with [MENTION=17420]Roger[/MENTION] and [MENTION=61749]Jeff Carlsen[/MENTION] - just compare static modifiers. (Passive checks have the same effect.)

If you want a chance of the stronger character losing, you could always have them roll a d20 and lose on a 1 (provided the weaker character doesn't also roll a 1 on 1d20).