Why doesn't the help action have more limits and down sides?

[Wyvern]

If your point is, a higher levels heroes stop worrying about DC 10 checks, I heartily agree.

In fact, that's my whole point.

Only the memo didn't reach the official hardback adventure writers, who insist in adding in such checks even at material aimed at tier II and even tier III parties!

If you describe a door as "secret", yet gives it a DC of 10, then, well... I really shouldn't have to explain how absurd that is.

Or rather, it's mind-blowingly horrendously absurd that's what! (What I hope I don't have to do is explain why)

I haven't read the official hardback adventures myself, so I can't tell you whether I think the DCs assigned by the writers of those adventures are reasonable or not. However, I *can* offer a couple of thoughts on why DC 10 checks in a high-level adventure might not be entirely inappropriate.

First of, all I dislike games that ramp up the DCs of every task just to keep pace with the PC' level. Listening at a door shouldn't become more difficult just because they're in a deeper level of the dungeon. All that does is break verisimilitude and make leveling up feel pointless.

Secondly, referring back to your previous post -- DC 10 isn't for the Really Important checks, it's for the minor obstacles that the players have to overcome in order to get to the Really Important checks. It's not necessarily a bad thing if those checks become trivially easy as the players gain levels; it can give them a sense of accomplishment.

Thirdly, as a corollary to the second point: some checks are *supposed* to be trivially easy because the players have to pass them to in order to proceed. To use your example, if the players *have* to find the secret door in order to access some vital part of the dungeon, it's not good design to give it too high a DC.

You might ask what the point is of asking for a check at all in those situations, and that's a fair question. Some games, like the Gumshoe system, actually bypass the dice-rolling for certain tasks and just let the PCs automatically succeed. That's a valid design choice. But I think some players *like* rolling the dice, even if the outcome is a foregone conclusion, because it makes them feel like they (and their PCs) are active participants in their success instead of simply having the plot handed to them by the GM.

Wyvern

 

[CapnZapp]

Maybe it's better if you first read up on what you're defending, eh?

 

[ClaytonCross]

Now you're arguing amongst yourselves about what it was I meant. For an idle thought I posted just so I could return to it for later consideration, this has taken on some seriously massive importance. I mean, I've already discardeded the thought behind it but you two are still arguing about how you imagine I run. It was a "what if" post, not a "I do it this way" post.

Yep people came to talk on a forum. Its a thing. lol

 

[Wyvern]

Maybe it's better if you first read up on what you're defending, eh?

What, so I'm supposed to buy and read every campaign book that WotC has published and try to guess at which DCs are the ones you take exception to? No thank you. If you want to start a new thread to critique a specific adventure, then you can reasonably expect people to familiarize themselves with the source material before engaging in debate with you. But I'm not trying to defend a specific adventure or a particular writer; I was just pointing out that there *are* valid reasons for having low-level DCs in a higher-level adventure.

Wyvern

 

[ClaytonCross]

Maybe you and the other people you play with are cautious types, but not everyone is like that. Like I said, I've seen games that *encourage* players to take on added risk and even invent complications themselves. I'm not talking about disastrous failures, just temporary setbacks. I think some people find that it adds tension and excitement to the game. Plus, there are often mechanical rewards for taking extra risks, such as XP points, bennies that can be spent later to improve a roll later on, and so forth. Some games even allow a player to turn a failed check to a success *if* they accept a complication in exchange.

I'm not saying that's how *I* would handle teamwork, specifically, in a game of D&D -- if nothing else, it doesn't make much logical sense to me that working together would come with inherently greater risk of a setback than working alone. But that doesn't make "greater risk for greater reward" an invalid strategic option.

Wyvern

We do tend to be cautious because our GM will striate up kill us and if we have a test we REALLY want to pass it because the fails lead to bad things. If your saying your in game or know people in games where having common damage or other setback is not an issue on top of the risk of failing the test to a point that they aren't worried about it... sure... but then It seems less important that they work together anyway. I agree their are different style and their can be one where this method is fine. I do feel like in general GMs are trying to make their tests important to raise the same tension your talking about. If they are just putting risk reward beyond the risk of failing and the reward of success... sure but its redundant, you don't need a standard of "setbacks" for tests for example, if you fail to disarm a trap it goes off.. you don't have to add an additional setback to it, you add the same risk or more by making it a lethal trap providing the same or greater risk, as far as reward... I don't even think its a requirement that risk come with reward. Sometimes risk is just risk. Sometimes you reword players for turning left instead of right with no risk, because you put the treasure room on the left and the exit on the right and right turn means they just left without the treasure so I am not sure that for the sake of "risk vs reward" is actually a viable reason for what your saying. If you opening a door to sleep in an old abandon shed to get away from rain and do a test to open the rusty door...the risk is you get wet... the reward is you get less wet... I don't think you need to add a setback that your hand slips and punches the wall just because someone helped you. I am not saying your wrong in that someone somewhere can do this and have fun. It just seems to me you can achieve all the same intent without it.

 

[5ekyu]

If your point is, a higher levels heroes stop worrying about DC 10 checks, I heartily agree.

In fact, that's my whole point.

Only the memo didn't reach the official hardback adventure writers, who insist in adding in such checks even at material aimed at tier II and even tier III parties!

If you describe a door as "secret", yet gives it a DC of 10, then, well... I really shouldn't have to explain how absurd that is.

Or rather, it's mind-blowingly horrendously absurd that's what! (What I hope I don't have to do is explain why)

My thought is that a secret doir being a 10 dc or 15 dc makes perfect sense even for tier2 and 3 if its representing the type of secret doir thats not well hidden ot not well maintained by anyone who knows what they are doing (dc10) or someone with a little skill or little aptitude (dc 15) regardless of tier (based on the dmg) which discusses assigning dc based on those factors.

While previous editions o DnD just raised skill checks difficulty by "tier" to keep "an orc treasure secret door" hard to find as you level up, this verdion seems to take a different approach.

The key difference between us, it seems, is you seem to want it to be that those secret doirs remain dramatic challenges, while for me, i am absolutely fine with then not being - as that shows a sign of advancement.

It still allows for them to be drama, if the nature of the situation means taking the time to investigate is problematic.

An orc can run into a corridor, thru a secret door he knows, pursued by the pcs and lose them for a time while they search. That is true even if the investigate checks/search are DC10.

Its especially true if they are being bushwhacked or every moment they lose is good for the other guys.

The difficulty can remain consistent and easy but still the scene can provide drama and stress - since it may well be that all the pcs start searching, or most if they are under threat of fire.

So now its not one specialist with every buff they can throw.

To be honest, i dont recall game systems ever making what they classed as easy and moderate difficulty checs with time and resources to apply to them "challenging" just on their own.

3.x had take 10 and take 20, didn't they? Hero had circumstantial adjustments to skill checks which oncluded favorables and time.

So, see, to me having tier-2 and tier-3 not challenged by serious risk of failure on easy and moderate skill tests (with prep and buff) seems like a well planned thing, a reasonable expression of the setting - not some broken mechanic.

I am sure their are some out there, but i dont think we ever spent much time playing games where by the time you were slaying dragons and saving the world you were having trouble with routine doors and their locks.





I don

 

[5ekyu]

Yesterday I was too busy trying to figure out how to disentangle myself from the sticky mess that I'd gotten myself into by trying to mediate between Ovinomancer and ClaytonCross, to give much thought to your reply. Now that I've had more time to mull it over, here's what I think.

I see your point that difficulty ratings are subjective and trying to pin them down can just result in pointless arguments. To the extent that avoiding argument is the goal, I agree with you. If one GM thinks that climbing a rope is a DC 10 task and another thinks it should be a DC 15, there's no point in debating over who's right and who's wrong as long as both GMs and their players are happy. Having said that, I still contend that there are two reasons why it *is* useful to have concrete guidelines as to what constitutes an Easy task, a Medium one, and so forth.

The first, of course, is for inexperienced GMs who need guidance in determining what DCs to assign.

The second is when the players are *not* happy. If one person thinks that DC 10 tasks are too easy and another thinks they're too hard, it's useful to know that the first has a GM who makes the players roll DC 10 Dex checks to tie their shoelaces, while the latter has a GM who thinks that juggling lit sticks of dynamite is a DC 10 Dex check. In those cases, having concrete examples of what they're basing their judgments on allows us to conclude that the problem isn't with the game, it's with how they're playing the game.

If you still don't think there's any value in having concrete examples, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. In any case, I think I've said everything I have to say on the topic.

Wyvern

Fwiw in the dmg they do give some guidelines as to easy moderate and hard
Easy can usually be done by average guy (not good ability scores) without training (no proficiency)
Hard usually requires both good score and proficiency(experience)
Moderate is either one of those.

As a gm i use those both forward and reverse (who setup the challenge, how good were they, etc) with further nod for advantage and disad getying us to 5 and 25 (extra resources or help)

Now two different table could use those guidelines and still reach different scores because one GM may see the band of orcs as soldiers good at maintaining their stuff while another might set up a group as sloppy and lazy while a third could have the evil number 2 added as a rogue with aptitude etc etc...

So, the DCs become just one of many flavor bits showing who you are up against - under consistent gms.

Is the place kept clean or os their accumulated dust shoeing where the secret door is?

That depends on who is their and what their focus is.

Just like is the guard alert or tired... May depend on if he is paid well and given decent time to rest.

So, in a nutshell, to me the value of consistent dcs following the basic kind of "skills needed on both sides" approach serves well because when applied well they make task dcs as much a thematic and informative bit of flavor as the npc adversaries are themselves. Just like those npcs, the gm need to put a little thought into "what kinds of these should be here?"

I mean, maybe the easy dc secret door leads you into a killing zone... While the hard or harder one is the safe way in.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fwiw in the dmg they do give some guidelines as to easy moderate and hard
Easy can usually be done by average guy (not good ability scores) without training (no proficiency)
Hard usually requires both good score and proficiency(experience)
Moderate is either one of those.

If that's really what the book says, then the designers prove themselves somewhat foolish, or very flexible with language at least. I wouldn't count "45% of the time" to be "can usually be done by".

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495062-Spreadsheet-of-published-skill-DCs

Has a gsheet of a bunch of published skill DCs. The examples of DC 10 are "find wagon tracks in trackless grassland", "push something heavy that's on rollers", "find blood on a weapon from a fight that you watched", "hear voices in a quiet tunnel", "walk on a slippery wet 6 inch beam", "find 3' wide tunnel that someone has put a rug over", "climb on a tame mount".

DC 10 is pretty much "nobody with training should ever fail this" (heck - most of those are "nobody without stat penalties should fail this"). And yet first level character can and do. Your career thief? Yeah, he's got a solid 5% chance not to notice a huge tunnel under a rug when he searches a room. It's laughable.

And you can't just lower DCs, because someone who only passes a DC 10 45% of the time also succeeds on a DC 20 5% of the time. The problem is that most of the time you can't even tell if someone is trained at a task or not, because whether they fail or succeed is pretty much down to the dice and external factors.

Simply put, the proficiency modifier is too low, and that means that getting sensible results out of the skill system isn't actually possible - you have to resort to spot rulings about whether someone auto succeeds or auto fails, otherwise you end up with D&D, keystone cops edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

DC 10 is pretty much "nobody with training should ever fail this". And yet first level character can and do. Your master thief? Yeah, he's got a solid 5% chance not to notice a huge tunnel under a rug when he searches a room. It's laughable.

That's just the d20, and he's 1st level, an 'Apprentice' thief.

And you can't just lower DCs, because someone who only passes a DC 10 45% of the time also succeeds on a DC 20 5% of the time. The problem is that most of the time you can't even tell if someone is trained at a task or not, because whether they fail or succeed is pretty much down to the dice and external factors.

That's BA. We've already had the fun of the other extreme, in 3e, when you could have tripple-digit bonuses to your d20 check.

So, again, artifact of the d20. Using 2d10 or 3d6 could even that out for you, a bit, if it's that annoying...

Simply put, the proficiency modifier is too low, and that means that getting sensible results out of the skill system isn't actually possible - you have to resort to spot rulings about whether someone auto succeeds or auto fails, otherwise you end up with D&D, keystone cops edition.

You are, indeed, supposed to narrate success or failure quite a bit. Don't call for a roll if succes or failure would be ludicrous, just narrate failure or success, respectively.

Not that the keystone cops edition of D&D wouldn't be fun to run now and then (hey, fast combat!). ;P

 

[5ekyu]

If that's really what the book says, then the designers prove themselves somewhat foolish, or very flexible with language at least. I wouldn't count "45% of the time" to be "can usually be done by".

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495062-Spreadsheet-of-published-skill-DCs

Has a gsheet of a bunch of published skill DCs. The examples of DC 10 are "find wagon tracks in trackless grassland", "push something heavy that's on rollers", "find blood on a weapon from a fight that you watched", "hear voices in a quiet tunnel", "walk on a slippery wet 6 inch beam", "find 3' wide tunnel that someone has put a rug over", "climb on a tame mount".

DC 10 is pretty much "nobody with training should ever fail this" (heck - most of those are "nobody without stat penalties should fail this"). And yet first level character can and do. Your career thief? Yeah, he's got a solid 5% chance not to notice a huge tunnel under a rug when he searches a room. It's laughable.

And you can't just lower DCs, because someone who only passes a DC 10 45% of the time also succeeds on a DC 20 5% of the time. The problem is that most of the time you can't even tell if someone is trained at a task or not, because whether they fail or succeed is pretty much down to the dice and external factors.

Simply put, the proficiency modifier is too low, and that means that getting sensible results out of the skill system isn't actually possible - you have to resort to spot rulings about whether someone auto succeeds or auto fails, otherwise you end up with D&D, keystone cops edition.

It wasnt an exact quote... Easy references about 50% tlfor 10 stat and no trsinging then the marxh the dc tree and degree up as i describe. Mechanically 45% vs usually when one includes getting advantage from help etc to me seems appropriate, thats why i used it.

I have found those standards for assigning consisten dcs to work well. Ymmv.

I would be more questioning the linking of terms "career thief" which implies to me not being a rookie with level 1 rogue.

As for the invisibility of training, i guess its a matter of how micro-sighted one wants to be.

I tend to expect a rookie thief to be at least +4 (2 prof plus 2 dex) than an untrained (no prof, no dex) as both ability and proficiency show ways of training or aptitude. +4 does show up often enough to be visible, over time, in my experience.

Of course that may vary from game to game, perspective to perspective but are you realky ssying that over the course of your campaigns using 5e no difference shows between those good at something and those not?

I mean, pretty much the same mechancs apply to combat checks - prof + ability vs dc... Are your fighters not seen as better than your wizards at srabby stabby stuff too?