Or your Familiar!
1E and earlier also had alignment languages, FWIW.Alignment mechanics in previous editions seemed to boil down to:
1. If your alignment tag doesn't match with the alignment tag of x item, take damage (or suffer effect).
2. If your alignment tag doesn't match, you can't use this class/item/thing.
3. If you change your alignment tag you lose a level.
It's not like any edition had deep mechanics.
A 40% chance to fail, aka a 60% chance to succeed. I don't think people really understand numbers sometimes. You might be a baseball fan, so here's a quick bit of trivia. The all-time best hitter in MLB is Ty Cobb. His batting average was .366. Translating that to non-sports nerd means he hit 36.6% of the balls that came across the plate when he was at bat. The best hitter in major-league baseball's history...hit less than 40% of the time. And to you, succeeding 60% of the time is too low. Okay. But that makes no sense.I just want to point out that this is a game where a 20 Charisma final tier character with a +6 proficiency mod has a 40% chance to fail that roll. Most characters have a lot worse chances.
Well, players have a bizarre habit of trying to get NPCs to do everything for them (trap-sweeping hirelings) and treating social skills like literal mind control (sure the king will give you his kingdom since your rolled a nat 20).A simple "hey let's work together unless we have good reasons not to" shouldn't be an extremely hard check, and I can certainly imagine players, after trying it a few times and not rolling 15 or better on the die to realize it's just not worth the effort.
If it's a straight roll with zero bonuses, then it's a 5% chance of success. As it's your example, a CHA +5 and 20th level with proficiency in the relevant skill for a total of +11 on that roll, you're talking about a 60% chance of success...which is almost double MLB's all-time best hitter's average chance to hit a ball.I understand this, but I was just saying what a DC 20 check means- if that's the desired end goal, saying "well you need a 20" still makes it a Hail Mary.
Sometimes things are not likely. Sometimes the PCs cannot do something. Sometimes they try and fail. It's part of the game. The PCs don't have to succeed on every roll, win every fight, and succeed all the time. It's okay. It's just a game.That you might not need a 20 is nice and all, of course, but it's not relevant when you actually do.
Well, advantage averages out to be a +5 to your roll, so +25% chance of success. That's huge. The opposite of "a little".The fact that you can Help does change things a little...
No one's going to stand around as you cast a spell on your friend prior to negotiations without objecting or refusing to continue. It's silly to think they'd be fine with it. "Hey, do you mind if I magically boost my friend here so he's more likely to convince you to do what we want?" No one would agree to that.-As an aside, I have seen DM's who are very resistant, however, to allowing players to pad their odds in social interactions- just last week I had a fun conversation with people who felt that Guidance, for example, should never be allowed to affect a negotiation (and a few who seem to feel that allowing Help out of combat is somehow abusive).
-As an aside, I have seen DM's who are very resistant, however, to allowing players to pad their odds in social interactions- just last week I had a fun conversation with people who felt that Guidance, for example, should never be allowed to affect a negotiation (and a few who seem to feel that allowing Help out of combat is somehow abusive).
I believe Mythras has something like that (at least M-Space does, which is based off the same engine). It works well-enough, but needs more fleshing out (It just uses social skills against 'hit points' coming from social and willpower stats. There needs to be actual different moves). Still, a good way of having more than just 'success, and by how much' as a resolution mechanic.
This is a fundamental thing. Overall skills and generalized task resolution is the sticky wicket of so many RPGs. Even games with more rigorous skill lists and modifiers (say, GURPS) often have trouble when they get to 'so how should we have my profession: psychologist skill actually play out?' Skill challenges was a solution. Plenty of argument as to how good it was. Something like this would go a long way to making the skill system in 5e seem less vestigial.
I think you are misunderstanding the point of the minion rules.Uh…unless you’re altering Matt’s minion rules there’s nothing about them that will “put fear” into the PCs. Once the group lands its one hit and it does 1 hp of damage per minion, your players will laugh and wade through them…fearless as ever.
A 40% chance to fail, aka a 60% chance to succeed. I don't think people really understand numbers sometimes. You might be a baseball fan, so here's a quick bit of trivia. The all-time best hitter in MLB is Ty Cobb. His batting average was .366. Translating that to non-sports nerd means he hit 36.6% of the balls that came across the plate when he was at bat. The best hitter in major-league baseball's history...hit less than 40% of the time. And to you, succeeding 60% of the time is too low. Okay. But that makes no sense.
Well, players have a bizarre habit of trying to get NPCs to do everything for them (trap-sweeping hirelings) and treating social skills like literal mind control (sure the king will give you his kingdom since your rolled a nat 20).
If it's a straight roll with zero bonuses, then it's a 5% chance of success. As it's your example, a CHA +5 and 20th level with proficiency in the relevant skill for a total of +11 on that roll, you're talking about a 60% chance of success...which is almost double MLB's all-time best hitter's average chance to hit a ball.
Sometimes things are not likely. Sometimes the PCs cannot do something. Sometimes they try and fail. It's part of the game. The PCs don't have to succeed on every roll, win every fight, and succeed all the time. It's okay. It's just a game.
Well, advantage averages out to be a +5 to your roll, so +25% chance of success. That's huge. The opposite of "a little".
No one's going to stand around as you cast a spell on your friend prior to negotiations without objecting or refusing to continue. It's silly to think they'd be fine with it. "Hey, do you mind if I magically boost my friend here so he's more likely to convince you to do what we want?" No one would agree to that.
Why do players think that they have to never fail? Why is the expected baseline perfection and anything short of that seen as unacceptable failure? It's so odd. I can't think of a single interesting story where the protagonist never fails at anything. Why is that the prevailing fantasy of modern D&D players?
I could respond with "why do DM's think the players have to have a high chance of failure? Why is the expected baseline a 60% chance to succeed instead of 75%? It's so odd, I can't think of a single interesting story where the protagonist fails at everything. Why is that the prevailing fantasy of modern D&D dungeonmasters?Why do players think that they have to never fail? Why is the expected baseline perfection and anything short of that seen as unacceptable failure? It's so odd. I can't think of a single interesting story where the protagonist never fails at anything. Why is that the prevailing fantasy of modern D&D players?
The social pillar is woefully undersupported, mechanically speaking. yet people think they need to resort to dice as often as with the combat pillar. That's the problem.I could respond with "why do DM's think the players have to have a high chance of failure? Why is the expected baseline a 60% chance to succeed instead of 75%? It's so odd, I can't think of a single interesting story where the protagonist fails at everything. Why is that the prevailing fantasy of modern D&D dungeonmasters?
But that's not exactly the problem. The problem is a task that is difficult for a optimized high level character should not be a task that is reasonable, or an expected option for a character of any level. At any level of the game, characters should be allowed to have reasonable chances of success at reasonable things.
If my party has no Charisma-based characters, and our best diplomat has a Persuade check of +3 which should be viable for play since the rules never enforce someone being better than this (and in fact, people tell me all the time you don't need to optimize for 5e), and you go "wait, wouldn't it be better if we work together instead of fight each other needlessly?" your DC shouldn't be 20.
The social interaction rules give you opportunities to lower the DC or possibly gain advantage- but that's out of a player's control. They have to convince the DM for this to be a viable or reasonable course of action.
So let's say our hypothetical +3 Persuade guy drops the DC to 15. And you get that help action. You still need to roll a 12 or better, and what is that at this point, a 37.5% chance of success? Not even a coin flip.
Is it any wonder why there's so many murderhobos out there who decide "man, it's just easier to beat monsters up than to talk to them"?
1E and earlier also had alignment languages, FWIW.
Chris Currie said:
Alignment mechanics in previous editions seemed to boil down to:
1. If your alignment tag doesn't match with the alignment tag of x item, take damage (or suffer effect).
2. If your alignment tag doesn't match, you can't use this class/item/thing.
3. If you change your alignment tag you lose a level.
It's not like any edition had deep mechanics.
DCs aren't supposed to be level based in 5E. they are supposed to represent objective difficulty to perform a task. Nothing screws the PCs quite like always upping the DCs to match their level so there is always a 50% or whatever chance of success.You probably shouldn't see DC's of 20 any sooner than that.
that is what is missing. Rules (even optional) that support exploration and Social interactions as much as combat... heck half as much as combatThe social pillar is woefully undersupported, mechanically speaking. yet people think they need to resort to dice as often as with the combat pillar. That's the problem.
Dice are only used if there is uncertainty in the outcome.
I'll agree with that and say that the whole DC system really needs to have an overhaul, or at least discuss some of the assumptions. I find that most checks are too difficult and seem to assume something like Guidance or Aid is happening. A flat 20 seems poorly thought out when there are so many other options. It would also be nice to see that under the Intimidate skill itself.I just want to point out that this is a game where a 20 Charisma final tier character with a +6 proficiency mod has a 40% chance to fail that roll. Most characters have a lot worse chances.
A simple "hey let's work together unless we have good reasons not to" shouldn't be an extremely hard check, and I can certainly imagine players, after trying it a few times and not rolling 15 or better on the die to realize it's just not worth the effort.
I think it's also worth noting that the game actively advises against rolling when it's not absolutely necessary due to the amount of uncertainty or stakes. If a PC has a hard time climbing a tree but isn't under significant pressure (like being shot at by a goblin with a bow), then it isn't particularly important to roll - they may have a little trouble, get stuck for a moment, have to back track down a limb or so to approach from another direction. But as long as there's no significant pressure, it's OK to wave it off as done. No need to worry about that DC.The fact that DC's aren't in any way tethered to level is logical- it shouldn't be harder to climb a tree at level 20 than at level 1, but it does create some very odd problems when setting DC's. Most of the time, DC's seem to be set higher than I'd like them to be for characters with lower chances of success.
But then, when characters do get abilities like Expertise, they can make checks pretty much all the time, to the point where it sometimes feels like we shouldn't bother asking them to roll at all. "Oh yeah, right, Observant and Expertise in Perception, yeah, you see it."
The DMG does address some of those issues, but I wouldn't mind seeing a broader and stronger treatment of the topic.5e, IMO, needs rules for "degrees of success". The social interaction rules take a stab at it, but I think it could be done better for all aspects of the system.
Like, "this is failure", "this is failing forward", "this is success". "This is critical success for you lucky SOB's and optimizers".
The Level Up monster manual is great for this. I feel like a previous edition MM did it too, but I can't recall for certain.Just had this thought in another thread. Monster knowledge/identification rules.