D&D 5E (2014) What is your "Sweet Spot" of Success? (poll)

[Oofta]

Can't really answer. Depends on what "difficult" means. Is it the same DC for a 1st level PC and a 20th level PC? Does expertise vs just proficient matter?

 

[Gammadoodler]

I think part of this also depends on what "success" and "failure" look like in the context of the question.

E.g. is failure, "cannot perform the task at all" or "can't perform the tast efficiently/expediently".

 

[Krachek]

A hard or difficult task is DC 20.
Sweet spot is irreverent in DnD!

 

[CleverNickName]

A hard or difficult task is DC 20.
Sweet spot is irreverent in DnD!

It's 23 at my table, thanks to the near-constant use of the Guidance cantrip. But yeah, fair point.

 

[R_J_K75]

I always felt the skill DC system is too arbitrary and would prefer a change to a straight pass/fail mechanic.

 

[Maxperson]

Can't really answer. Depends on what "difficult" means. Is it the same DC for a 1st level PC and a 20th level PC? Does expertise vs just proficient matter?

I think that difficult translates to hard(It's above moderate and below very hard), which is DC20.

 

[Oofta]

I think that difficult translates to hard(It's above moderate and below very hard), which is DC20.

Right, but then the poll is meaningless, right? Because the sweet spot for success is dictated by character build and level. An 11th level rogue that's specialized sleight of hand can get it 100% of the time. A 1st level cleric with an 8 dex and no proficiency 0% of the time.

Or I just don't understand the question.

 

[Pedantic]

I always felt the skill DC system is too arbitrary and would prefer a change to a straight pass/fail mechanic.

The skill system already is already a binary pass/fail model. Are you calling for a more constrained RNG? Like a fixed DC of 15 for all tasks?

 

[Maxperson]

Right, but then the poll is meaningless, right? Because the sweet spot for success is dictated by character build and level. An 11th level rogue that's specialized sleight of hand can get it 100% of the time. A 1st level cleric with an 8 dex and no proficiency 0% of the time.

Or I just don't understand the question.

It's not based on a particular build, but in general where is your sweet spot. Yes the barbarian is probably not going to be making those social checks 40% of the time, and the bard will probably be making them 100% of the time, but if you remove class and just look at where you think bonus will achieve the DC 20 and feel right(not be too easy or too hard) if you are good(not average or great), that will be your sweet spot.

For me it was +6/+7 Both of those feel like the person who is good to me, so I settled on +7 and put down 40%.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think that there is no single answer to this question, it all depends on the context and what is being tested for.
So, I like that characters that are proficient at something have a high degree of reliability at succeeding at that thing.
So, the answer is, it depends. Context matters, a person that is competent in doing something can do it approaching 100% of the time. We would not call someone a good driver if they crashed the car one of every 100 journeys.
As to how this translated to D&D, the competent lockpicker will pick most locks but some of them might take a bit more time. I am very happy with the way 5e handles this sort of think but I am not sure that there is a single sweet spot. It really depends on who is doing it, what they are trying to do and under what circumstances and the latter is the biggest source of difficulty.