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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6653064" data-attributes="member: 2067">I don't dispute that, I just note that just because a low-level party comes up against a high DC in 5e doesn't mean that something's broken, so thus having the assumption that the DC is not tailored to the party isn't inherently flawed (as AA was indicating). It's totally in-fantasy-genre to always succeed, but not it's not typically a very good gameplay element. Games are interactive, and part of that interactivity is shown by the ability to fail, to have the bad guy win, to decide to take those eagles to Mount Doom, etc. If there's no real failure state, there's no real game to play, it's just shared dynamic fiction (which can be fun in its own right!). No edition of D&D gets it that bad, but 4e at its most "fail forward-y" can produce that feeling of impotence in the face of success. Early days of tabletop RPGs or modern days of videogame RPGs. It's a little to see something that could describe a Deus Ex scenario or the gameplay of Skyrim be labelled so old-school. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I see it as really kind of a playstle thing. Compare tightly plotted JRPGs like Final Fantasy XIII with Western "open-world" RPGs, and they both have their distinct pleasures and foibles. The D&D I like to play is more Western in style than tightly controlled, but neither is better than the other, they just work different fun muscles (the fun of expression and discovery vs. the fun of creation and presentation). So I don't thikn 5e's CR guidelines are "less than dependable." They're perfectly dependable - "hard" and "very hard" and "easy" have meanings in the world, independent of PC level. A hard DC is hard compared with all the challenges in D&D, not just at the level you encounter it. If you beat it at a low level, you've exhibited skill and ability, like a low-level run. And you can not do it that way, if you want. Right - gameplay is the process for doing that. Specifically, in D&D, using resources and exploring the world and asking questions of the DM in a back-and-forth matter. It's hard to build a character to trump DC's in 5e (at least without being high level to begin with). Much better to ask the DM: "What's the lock made of? Is it acid-resistant?" "Make this Athletics check to catch yourself" is a world apart from "Make this Strength save or fall," psychologically speaking. The former is empowering the character, showing how heroic and strong they are that they are able to actively turn a disaster into something not so bad. The latter empowers the effect, showing how dangerous and menacing the threat is, that it can force you to fall unless you do something to stop it. Nah. Especially when you know that "oops splat you're a mark down below" isn't an option. When that isn't on the table, dangling from a rope 500' above the ground is almost dull. Because, really, you're not going to let me splat. If I say "I let go," there's going to be some flying bird that swoops around at the last minute and breaks my fall. If I then stab that bird, well, I landed safely in the treetops, maybe took some damage. I've got no real agency, I'm just here to roll dice and advance the plot. Yeah, it does, by saying that the DC of the lock shouldn't necessarily depend on the level the party encounters it at. 4e's "DC is dynamic with your level" philosophy would mean that the party doesn't encounter locks that they don't have a fair chance to pick, but 5e's "DC is static with regards to your level and varies with the world" philosophy means that the party will encounter locks that are easy, locks that are difficult, and a range in between, depending on what their goals are and how they approach the adventure. It's possible to ignore 4e's philosophy, just as it is possible to ignore 5e's, and neither is very difficult to do.In 5e, there is no such thing as a check out of your league. Just a check of varying difficulty for your league. It - correctly - disputes that what you say is reality. For a lot of tables, it really isn't. For a lot of tables, what the DC is will be a property of that thing (that lock, that chasm, that challenge), and it is up to the party to figure out how to beat that DC or go around it, not up to the DM to only give them challenges they can beat within expected margins.</blockquote>

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