For movement, it's basically the hard limit. It has to be, to maintain the cost/benefits of the movement system within combat. For darkvision, it is the hard limit of how far they can see, unless there's some sort of other light source that might be visible outside it.
I totally get darkvision, though I view it differently for my own games, but the movement statement is interesting. Wouldn’t the cost/benefit stay pretty much the same if your movement speed was just what you can do without especial exertion?
Its the floor, always.
Interesting. If someone asked if they could roll to climb faster, I'd agree but also let them know that they're doing so with the failure-risk of losing your grip and falling. If there was already a DC to climb, I'd probably increase it by 5.
That’s about how I do it, but falling would only happen if they’re really trying to push it or totally flub the roll.
Darkvision is darkvision, though. Sure, I can focus to see better but there's nothing I can do to see the dark better than what I can automatically do (afaik).
Whereas I’d say that allowing some minor improvement via rolling allows for a somewhat more graduated vision model. Definitely grok why people don’t want to have that complexity, though.
Its basically a case-by-case basis. If I can imagine exerting yourself at a cost, I don't mind rolling for more.
Makes sense.
Darkvision is how far you can see in the dark (with disadvantage on perception that most people forget). Other than that, the base is the floor unless there are extenuating circumstances. Horizontal jump for example is your your strength score (with a running start) but extenuating circumstance might be that you're jumping from one ship to another in the middle of a horrific storm. Then it might be athletics to just power your way through it, acrobatics to be graceful or investigation to time it just right.
Just kind of depends on what they're trying to do and what the scene is. My point with the investigation check is that I want to reward people for coming up with alternatives that make sense. On the other hand you couldn't use a persuasion check in my example to "charm" the ship into cooperating. Unless it was an intelligent living ship of course.
Absolutely. Give me a goal and an approach, and let’s have fun with it. I don’t mind suggestions of proficiencies either, like, “I’d like to use my proficiency in Athletics to turn my Dash into a Sprint and try to make up the 5 ft I’m short by” or “I’d like to use my proficiency in Navigators tools, which we have used previously to model knowledge of higher maths and ability to calculate distance and such mentally, to gauge the jump and get a little more distance.”
I guess the floor for some, maybe not for others. Jumping distance it is definitely the floor, roll an athletics check if you need to make up a couple feet in jumping distance. I'd likely do the same with climb speed. Current climb speed is a nice easy pace, no roll, try to speed up and risk falling.
I agree
Carry weight would be the limit, even if I allowed a roll to carry more, it wouldn't be for any great distance. Lifting something could be a roll to push beyond your limits though I don't think I've ever asked for one.
Even though the listed weights are often less than what strong man competitors can do?
Movement speed and darkvision I tend to have as the limit. You can't move faster than your speed or see anything beyond your darkvision distance.
Movement speed is the one where I probably differ the most from the majority.
You can do what the rules say you can do - you can see as far as your Darkvision allows, you can climb and swim as fast as your speed allows, you can jump as far and as high as your strength allows, carry as much as your strengths allows, etc. A roll is never required to do these things, and a roll is not normally possible to exceed their parameters. However, as with all things, if your goal is to exceed those parameters and you have an approach that would reasonably make that goal achievable, go ahead and declare that action! It might require a roll to pull off, if it has a reasonable chance of failure and failure would have a meaningful consequence.
This surprises me quite a bit.
I wonder what your reasoning is, here? Balance, efficient gameplay, other?
For me, the knowledge that 5e is mostly allowing less than (or at most the same as) what collegiate athletes can do, even at high levels, means I just can’t limit the PCs to the numbers provided. Beyond that, gameplay is improved for us by having skills allow greater feats with higher checks.
For movement, I’m fine with the limit in combat, but out of combat the speeds are ludicrously low. I simply can’t pretend that my rogue with Mobile is fast when he is too slow to compete in a foot race with a high schooler of moderate talent.
