D&D 5E What rule(s) is 5e missing?

[James Gasik]

Or your Familiar!

 

[JEB]

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.

1E and earlier also had alignment languages, FWIW.

 

[JEB]

Not exactly missing, but forgotten too soon - monster templates, beyond the handful we got in the 2014 Monster Manual.

 

[overgeeked]

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

That you might not need a 20 is nice and all, of course, but it's not relevant when you actually do.

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.

The fact that you can Help does change things a little...

Well, advantage averages out to be a +5 to your roll, so +25% chance of success. That's huge. The opposite of "a little".

-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).

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?

 

[Azuresun]

-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).

Well, if I was in a negotiation and the spellcaster suddenly started very obviously casting a spell, I'd probably be a lot more suspicious. Or hostile, if I didn't know for sure that he wasn't about to drop a Flame Strike.

 

[Argyle King]

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.

Sidenote: GURPS (at least the edition I'm most familiar with) does address how this might/should work.

Funny enough, the margin of success rules from GURPS 4E influenced how I ran D&D 4E skill challenges. D&D 4E also influenced how I did some things while running GURPS.

I liked a lot of D&D 4E's ideas, but a good chunk of how those ideas were implemented bugged me.

 

[Reynard]

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.

I think you are misunderstanding the point of the minion rules.

 

[Oofta]

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?

Just a quick addendum: if the plot relies on the intimidation being successful, it's not a problem with the rules on intimidation.

Oh, and as with all DCs the number given is just a starting point that can be adjusted based on DM's discretion. If nothing else, do you have a way to change someone's attitude toward you? If not, why would it be easy to convince someone who is actively hostile to give you info?

 

[James Gasik]

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?

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"?

 

[Reynard]

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"?

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.
Dice are only used if there is uncertainty in the outcome. If two rival adventuring groups meet in the dungeon and a player tries to de-escalate, there is nothing in the rules that demands that character make a Charisma (Persuasion) check to convince the NPCs. That's a GM call, and if the GM demands the roll that means (ostensibly) the GM doesn't know or can't decide how the NPCs will react. Presumably, the GM has also rolled on the reaction chart to find out the NPCs' starting attitudes, etc. The DMG makes it quite clear that the GM can lean way too heavily on the dice and tries to advise GMs to avoid that practice. yet we still end up with arguments as above that hinge on making rolls for no reason.

Not that the other side of the coin is just as true: you don't need a Persuasion roll to get the gnolls to stop trying to eviscerate you in the name of their demon master because the outcome isn't uncertain: they won't, and if you waste an action trying to convince them otherwise all you did was help them murder you.