D&D 5E Starter Set: Excerpt 3 (actual)

[Ruin Explorer]

No one rules as DM if you fail by more than 5, then your lockpick breaks in the lock preventing further attempts? Seems like an easy solution. So if you fail by less than 5, sure feel free to try again. Makes sense, doesn't it????

If you're trying to simulate Bethesda computer games, sure. Otherwise, that's not how lockpicks work outside of computer games.

 

[Agamon]

If you're trying to simulate Bethesda computer games, sure. Otherwise, that's not how lockpicks work outside of computer games.

Also, I really don't hate my players. "Hey, I know this is what your PC is good at, but if the dice hate you, you're screwed." They get enough of that in combat.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My preference is that you usually can't really try an ability check again unless the situation somehow changes. Your result indicates your best efforts. There are some issues with the rule, but it means that the average commoner isn't guaranteed to accomplish DC 20 tasks with a bit of time. It also encourages thoughtful solutions. Try to climb the wall and fail? Go get a grappling hook and try again.

 

[Agamon]

If that makes sense in your mind, power to you. I can't wrap my head around trying something once and not being able to try again.

Also, this is just me, I know mileage varies here, but I don't find the opening of doors, the climbing of walls, the opening of chests, the jumping of pits as interesting, in and of themselves. What's going on on the other side of these obstacles is interesting. Now including these obstacles as something in the way during something else that is interesting (that boulder is rolling down the corridor towards you, better get that door open!) can make the situation more interesting, but they are pretty dull by themselves (once again, IMO).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My preference is that you usually can't really try an ability check again unless the situation somehow changes. Your result indicates your best efforts. There are some issues with the rule, but it means that the average commoner isn't guaranteed to accomplish DC 20 tasks with a bit of time. It also encourages thoughtful solutions. Try to climb the wall and fail? Go get a grappling hook and try again.

Yeah, that makes no sense to me and definitely doesn't reflect reality. Using a climbing example specifically, absolutely, I make my "best effort" each time, but here's the thing - eventually I manage to climb the rockface, even if I slipped off it the first time, or couldn't get up more than a few feet before having to hop down.

I mean, have you ever gone climbing? Serious question. Did you magically pass/fail on every rockface you encountered within 6 seconds (one round)? Obviously that's rhetorical. You didn't. Just because you make your "best effort", doesn't mean you succeed. Maybe you did something wrong? With climbing that's very easy to do, especially if you're under time-pressure.

The same applies to lockpicking - I've only done a little, super-amateur stuff (totally legal, I assure you!), but no matter how hard I try, I'm not necessarily going to succeed or fail in the first X period of time. I might get it in a few seconds, or it might take me half an hour.

There absolutely ARE situations where you only really have one shot, and time is unlikely to help. For example, trying to remember a historical fact - the chances are, either you remember it, or you don't. It's possible that you'll remember it later, but in that case I'd just put some kind of "minimum check again" limit, or just deem it "not known" and not allow another check.

I suspect what you are ignoring is the fact that in most editions of D&D, a check absolutely does not represent "You take as long as you need to make you best efforts to achieve something", it means "You try to achieve X in Y timeframe". These are very different things. If it represented the former, your position would make more sense, but it doesn't. It represents the latter. In 3E, take 20 represents the former.

Also, if your problem is that a random weirdo will succeed on anything DC20 or less given time, you have the real answer there: RAISE THE DC ABOVE 20. It's very simple! It's not unfair. It's pretty obvious that 3E's DC tables were put together without thinking about Take 20, and if they need to be changed for that, go ahead and change them. Just don't be telling me my PC can't climb a sub-20-DC rockface, just because I failed in one 6-second period, and then claiming that makes some kind of sense, because it doesn't.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yeah, that makes no sense to me and definitely doesn't reflect reality. Using a climbing example specifically, absolutely, I make my "best effort" each time, but here's the thing - eventually I manage to climb the rockface, even if I slipped off it the first time, or couldn't get up more than a few feet before having to hop down.

I mean, have you ever gone climbing? Serious question. Did you magically pass/fail on every rockface you encountered within 6 seconds (one round)? Obviously that's rhetorical. You didn't. Just because you make your "best effort", doesn't mean you succeed. Maybe you did something wrong? With climbing that's very easy to do, especially if you're under time-pressure.

The same applies to lockpicking - I've only done a little, super-amateur stuff (totally legal, I assure you!), but no matter how hard I try, I'm not necessarily going to succeed or fail in the first X period of time. I might get it in a few seconds, or it might take me half an hour.

There absolutely ARE situations where you only really have one shot, and time is unlikely to help. For example, trying to remember a historical fact - the chances are, either you remember it, or you don't. It's possible that you'll remember it later, but in that case I'd just put some kind of "minimum check again" limit, or just deem it "not known" and not allow another check.

I suspect what you are ignoring is the fact that in most editions of D&D, a check absolutely does not represent "You take as long as you need to make you best efforts to achieve something", it means "You try to achieve X in Y timeframe". These are very different things. If it represented the former, your position would make more sense, but it doesn't. It represents the latter. In 3E, take 20 represents the former.

Also, if your problem is that a random weirdo will succeed on anything DC20 or less given time, you have the real answer there: RAISE THE DC ABOVE 20. It's very simple! It's not unfair. It's pretty obvious that 3E's DC tables were put together without thinking about Take 20, and if they need to be changed for that, go ahead and change them. Just don't be telling me my PC can't climb a sub-20-DC rockface, just because I failed in one 6-second period, and then claiming that makes some kind of sense, because it doesn't.

I'm not disagreeing with your overall assessment. But I ask you this: what values for DCs would work?

Realistically, we'd need DCs in very small increments. Anything that shouldn't work for an untrained person without special talent needs to be DC 21 to DC 22. But DC 25 is rough, because you need to be really good (which adventurers are), or have a few levels under your belt. And a DC 30 requires some serious heroic level skill and experience.

And if we are making a lot of the relevant DCs center around the low to mid 20s, then that means those who can perform the task at all usually can't perform it without taking plenty of time (ie, take 20 on it). It also means that if we want something to be doable by a less heroic character on the first or second try, we'll need to keep DCs of 10s and 15s. And there isn't really a lot of sense in having many DCs between 15 and 20. So we end up with a really odd scale of test DCs if we want to assume take 20 is an option.

Here's a question. When you succeed on your attempts at climbing or lockpicking after multiple tries, is it always because you are doing the exact same thing, or is it sometimes because you tried something a bit different? Maybe you move over a bit and try climbing in a different spot. Maybe you grab an extra tool to help stabilize what you're doing with the lock.

Now sure, often you can just try, try again and it works. But unfortunately, D&D's giant randomness factor in its skill resolution works poorly with it. Mess with the DCs and you end up messing up one of the factors I mentioned. Leave them alone and you end up with almost anyone able to do almost anything. Some sort of jury-rigged patch is necessary for the broken system that is D&D skill checks. My suggestion isn't perfect, but it at least lets the world more or less make sense.

 

[Agamon]

What if random weirdo needs to be proficient to do anything not Easy for things random weirdo should be able to do at a difficult DC?

 

[Ichneumon]

Given 'unlimited' time to open a lock, make three attempts. If all of them fail, the lock is too hard and can't be re-attempted till the relevant ability score improves.

 

[pemerton]

I don't find the opening of doors, the climbing of walls, the opening of chests, the jumping of pits as interesting, in and of themselves. What's going on on the other side of these obstacles is interesting. Now including these obstacles as something in the way during something else that is interesting (that boulder is rolling down the corridor towards you, better get that door open!) can make the situation more interesting, but they are pretty dull by themselves

I agree with this. But I think it is a reason to use "Say yes or roll the dice", with the die roll then settling whether or not the attempt is successful. (Ie I'm with [MENTION=6677017]Sword of Spirit[/MENTION] in being generally against re-tries.)

in most editions of D&D, a check absolutely does not represent "You take as long as you need to make you best efforts to achieve something", it means "You try to achieve X in Y timeframe". These are very different things. If it represented the former, your position would make more sense, but it doesn't. It represents the latter. In 3E, take 20 represents the former.

Two things.

First, 3E is something of an outlier here. There is no concept of Take 20 in classic D&D (and thief skills are based on a no-retries default, as are STR checks to bend bars, open wizard-locked doors, etc - the only abilities that both (i) lack clear failure conditions and (ii) permit retries that I can think of are opening stuck doors, and listening at doors - but even for the latter AD&D has a "no more than 3 tries in a turn" rule.

Second, I think the argument is that the game is better if it is adjudicated on a "no retries" basis. And I think that argument is sound.

Given 'unlimited' time to open a lock, make three attempts. If all of them fail, the lock is too hard and can't be re-attempted till the relevant ability score improves.

I think some sort of correction for the swinginess of the d20 - making it into more of a dice pool - is warranted. 4e skill challenges are one way, complex skill checks are another way, caps on retries is another way. (HeroWars/Quest solves the problem in yet another way - spend a Hero Point to bump a failure up to a success or a success up to a critical success.)

 

[Agamon]

Given 'unlimited' time to open a lock, make three attempts. If all of them fail, the lock is too hard and can't be re-attempted till the relevant ability score improves.

See, this means you're rolling to see how difficult the lock is. Why is the player rolling to see what the quality of an environmental obstacle is and what does his PC's skill have to do with it?

What happens if you have two PCs that can try the lock? The first guy is more skilled but really botches his rolls. Then the newb gets it on his first try with a good roll. How difficult was the lock? It's like the old open doors rule joke. The fighter heaves against the door with is enormous strength and fails. The weak mage steps up and shoves it open for him. Silly.

I'd rather just drop the arbitrary stopping point. If a player asks me why he can't try again and I can't give him a good answer, then of course he gets to try again. Maybe I just find verisimilitude to be more important than others though.