D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[DammitVictor]

Traditional D&D realism.

I've noticed there's a definite trend among the D&D fanbase of people saying they want the game to be "more realistic" but meaning they want it to be more consistent with the gamist abstractions of previous versions of D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've noticed there's a definite trend among the D&D fanbase of people saying they want the game to be "more realistic" but meaning they want it to be more consistent with the gamist abstractions of previous versions of D&D.

That's a new(ish) one, or maybe an old one that's new again. For quite a while it seemed like demanding 'realism' was passé, and demands for "verisimilitude," "immersion," and the corresponding horror of "dissociated mechanics" had taken its place.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If it is physically possible for your skills and your tools to disable the lock, then unless the consequences of failure actually change the conditions-- unless they make it impossible-- then there's absolutely no reason you cannot just keep working the lock until you succeed. You will succeed, eventually, unless your failure either makes the situation impossible or you give up.

The idea that if someone can't pop open a lock within the first six seconds of trying, they're physically incapable of doing it in any amount of time... that's baffling to me. What kind of "realism" is that?

That isn’t generally how the fiction is matching the mechanics.

Instead, the one roll represents how well you did overall over the course of however much time you spent trying. It doesn’t represent a single attempt.

 

[DammitVictor]

That isn’t generally how the fiction is matching the mechanics.

Instead, the one roll represents how well you did overall over the course of however much time you spent trying. It doesn’t represent a single attempt.

Which means, mechanically, trying to pick a lock for six seconds is the same thing as trying to pick it for an hour.

There's no way you can slice this that it makes sense.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Which means, mechanically, trying to pick a lock for six seconds is the same thing as trying to pick it for an hour.

There's no way you can slice this that it makes sense.

Not at all. The DC should change if you have significantly more time with no distractions, or you should have Advantage, or the DM May determine that there is no actual chance of failure and not have you roll a die at all.

And rolls represent multiple discrete actions over time all the time and they always have. Attack rolls, for one. A check can represent an individual action, or a series of related actions over time.

Mechanically, an attempt is an attempt, regardless of how long it is.

 

[DammitVictor]

Mechanically, an attempt is an attempt, regardless of how long it is.

And, fundamentally, there's things where a failed attempt makes it harder (or even impossible) to try again... and then there's picking locks. This is practically the Platonic ideal of people complaining about rules being "unrealistic" because they're more forgiving than older rules that were deliberately unrealistic in the first place.

People need to stop complaining that modern D&D is "unrealistic" when their only basis for comparison is old D&D.

The idea that a thief can only try to pick the same lock once comes from the same edition (and the same logic) that every door the PCs encounter is closed and locked, even if they've already unlocked and opened it. It's board game logic for a glorified board game; it's fine until you start unraveling the economy of a city full of landlords and notice you're only pretending to be the world's wealthiest top hat.

 

[Oofta]

And, fundamentally, there's things where a failed attempt makes it harder (or even impossible) to try again... and then there's picking locks. This is practically the Platonic ideal of people complaining about rules being "unrealistic" because they're more forgiving than older rules that were deliberately unrealistic in the first place.

People need to stop complaining that modern D&D is "unrealistic" when their only basis for comparison is old D&D.

The idea that a thief can only try to pick the same lock once comes from the same edition (and the same logic) that every door the PCs encounter is closed and locked, even if they've already unlocked and opened it. It's board game logic for a glorified board game; it's fine until you start unraveling the economy of a city full of landlords and notice you're only pretending to be the world's wealthiest top hat.

Or ... it's just a different approach because not everyone plays the way you do.

In my games if a lock can be picked and there is no time pressure I'll normally just hand wave it. If there is some time pressure but no imminent threat I may ask for a single roll just to see how long it takes you; roll a 1 and it takes several minutes roll a 20 and you get it the first try.

On the other hand if it's uncertain whether or not you even can achieve a task it's up to the DM how to resolve that uncertainty. Personally I'd take the better of the roll or passive value but that's me.

 

[Charlaquin]

Are we still talking about this?

 

[Bohandas]

*HP as meat with literally any faster than month of recuperation for a fairly small chance of mostly recovering. No. Absolutely not. You got shot in the face. You are permanently maimed. A year of healing isn’t gonna fix that. Period. A hit cannot be a direct hit and still play characters through a dozen fights where they get hit several times each fight. It’s a complete non-starter.

Unless the setting is sufficiently mystical. Unless the setting makes it clear that every high level wizard is basically Rasputin and every high level barbarian is basically The Hulk

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And, fundamentally, there's things where a failed attempt makes it harder (or even impossible) to try again... and then there's picking locks. This is practically the Platonic ideal of people complaining about rules being "unrealistic" because they're more forgiving than older rules that were deliberately unrealistic in the first place.

People need to stop complaining that modern D&D is "unrealistic" when their only basis for comparison is old D&D.

The idea that a thief can only try to pick the same lock once comes from the same edition (and the same logic) that every door the PCs encounter is closed and locked, even if they've already unlocked and opened it. It's board game logic for a glorified board game; it's fine until you start unraveling the economy of a city full of landlords and notice you're only pretending to be the world's wealthiest top hat.

I don’t think any edition actually functioned like that, but okay.

You seem entirely unwilling to even try to actually grasp what I’m telling you, but I’ll try one last time.

A single die roll does not necessarily equate to a single distinct attempt at something. If someone is going to spend an hour doing something, and I determine that there is a reasonable chance that they will fail to accomplish it within that hour, their die roll represents all their effort over that hour.

This “your first attempt” line of thought you come back to is a strawman. It isn’t how the thing that you don’t like even works.