Just wondering if anyone, when actually playing, have concluded that having the rogue double their proficinecy for certain skills means the rogue always succeeds in those skills.
I have not that much experience, but no the outcome is not certain. For tier 1 and tier 2 skill checks, you mostly have to beat a DC of 15 - 20. +8 (double proficiency at 9th level) +5 (DEX modifier at a score of 20), you have a skill modifier of +13. SO to beat a DC 15 you have to roll 2 or higher, to beat DC 20 to have to roll 7 or higher.
Yes for DC 15 it is very easy, for DC 20 there is some degree of failure.
Just wondering if anyone, when actually playing, have concluded that having the rogue double their proficinecy for certain skills means the rogue always succeeds in those skills.
Using the standard proficiency bonus, doubling it, especially at higher levels, does generally assure the rogue will succeed at the check. But at 10th level, you'd want your rogue to succeed at a DC 15 75% of the time. Unlike Creepfinder, where the DCs continue to skyrocket at higher levels (how do locks suddenly become DC 35 in a dungeon when the norm used to be 20 or 25 tops?!), 5E does not have the DC Powercreep and those DC 15 or DC 20 checks stick around even into higher levels because PC skill values do not Powercreep either. Yay, metagame logic! I'd expect the rest of the PC Party is happy the rogue is making their double-proficiency skill checks the majority of the time so to minimize resource depletion and get to the end goal quicker.
I use the Proficiency Die in my games so doubling the d6's or d8's tends to assure the skill check is passed about 85% of the time. Yet, when the rogue's player rolls double 1's and misses the DC, it adds a little more excitement to the game as what should have been "ho-hum, sneak past the guard" turns into a "hello, can you spare a moment to hear the word of Pelor this fine evening?".
Rogues are the epitome "skill" character in the standard party of tank, skill, arcane, and divine. Let them shine at their 2 - 6 skills because they're supposed to. Let the wizard know stuff, let the cleric divine/heal stuff, let the tank soak damage so the rogue can murder the 'ell out of them with a sneak attack.
In case you like math, I made a simple web app at https://skizzerz.net/expertise5e.php that lets you plug in an ability score bonus, and it shows you your chances of success versus common DCs with and without expertise. Each entry has three sets of numbers, R for a normal roll, A for a roll with advantage, and D for a roll with disadvantage. The takeaway I got from playing around with it is that even with proficiency and a +5 ability score bonus, you still aren't going to be hitting high DC checks consistently without something else to give you an additional boost.
To be honest my main concern isn't against locks and traps. Its always having the Rogue insight check someone and always knowing whether the person is lying or not, without much chance of failure. Or maybe Always succeed on persuasion or deception rolls. That kind of thing.
I look at it this way. It's just a +2 (1-4) +3 (5-8) +4 (9-12) +5 (13-16), and +6 (17-20).
Means a Rogue is going to be +2, or a little bit more higher then everyone else with that same skill, but until really high level games it's not going to be THAT big of a different. Also a Rogue can use it to help make up for a not optimal ability score in an ability.
Sure at level 13, having a +5 (which is a 20% increase!) is a pretty big deal... but you're level 13.
To be honest my main concern isn't against locks and traps. Its always having the Rogue insight check someone and always knowing whether the person is lying or not, without much chance of failure. Or maybe Always succeed on persuasion or deception rolls. That kind of thing.
That fear is unfounded. Those checks would probably be DC 15 at a minimum, and expertise alone is not enough to make even a DC 15 an automatic success until high levels along with a decent ability score for that check. For not having much chance of failure, that is why they are playing a rogue (or one of the reasons, rather). Don't strip someone's niche away from them because you don't like it -- if you have a rogue, the 2 or 4 things they're experts at should have a very low chance of failure. Artificially inflating DCs so that the rogue fails most of the time on the things they are supposedly experts at is bad DMing. Instead, work with the player and play to both their strengths and weaknesses.
A rogue who is an expert at detecting whether or not people are lying doesn't force NPCs to tell the truth. You can get in some good roleplaying with trying to get information out of an NPC who tells half-truths at best, who doesn't actually know the correct answer, or who actually believes that some incorrect information is true (in which case Insight won't be able to detect that).
(Anecdote: in a Pathfinder game I'm running, one of the players has a passive perception of 32 at level 6. Typical Perception DC's in Pathfinder are in the 20-30 range for things which are hidden but not invisible. Instead of obscuring things I don't want found more than normal, I just tell that player about everything he sees, including irrelevant stuff. It's up to him to determine whether or not anything in particular that was noticed is cause for alarm. In any event, I don't feel the game is lessened just because it's very difficult to have things well-hidden. I think I would have the same non-issue if a PC was a master at Insight or Investigation or Diplomacy or Intimidate or... -- there are plenty of other ways to challenge the PCs, and sometimes you just let them do their thing and be awesome)
Being able to make your character succeed at something specific far more than they fail at it is not, in any case at all, a bad thing.
There is no such thing as a universal solution to all problems, so there is no need to make sure that no tool in a tool set cannot be extremely reliable at accomplishing the tasks it is designed for - because there will always be tasked for which that tool simply isn't of use.
You can't persuade a lock to open. You can't sleight of hand a rampaging beast into a manageable state. You can't use your stealth to convince the king he needs to do some particular favor for you. And so many other tools can't be used for so many other jobs.
So no, expertise is not "too powerful" because it makes it very likely that a character succeeds at a particular sort of check; That is just how we know it is working as intended.
To be honest my main concern isn't against locks and traps. Its always having the Rogue insight check someone and always knowing whether the person is lying or not, without much chance of failure. Or maybe Always succeed on persuasion or deception rolls. That kind of thing.
Insight isn't necessarily black and white unless the nature of the deception is obvious. The only way a PC knows an NPC is lying outright is when they know the truth themselves, so why bother rolling? If what the NPC says is perfectly plausible and the PC has no basis to suspect a deception (aside from the player's desire to roll a d20 everytime an NPC speaks), let the player roll and shrug your shoulders and stress nothing seems out of sorts...unless you, the DM, want there to be something. Eventually the player will stop demanding a roll every time and will hopefully use deductive reasoning to ask for a check. When they do, it's great they have the expertise to notice the flush of the ears, the lack of eye contact, the nervous button twisting, that gives them the insight that something is not on the level.
To be honest my main concern isn't against locks and traps. Its always having the Rogue insight check someone and always knowing whether the person is lying or not, without much chance of failure. Or maybe Always succeed on persuasion or deception rolls. That kind of thing.
Insight is Wis based which is not a traditional high stat for Rogues, Persuasions and Deception are both Cha based, again not a high stat usually for Rogues. I haven't personally seen this is being an issue in any of my campaigns. If there's a situation where it would be unbalanced or trivialize and encounter because the skill check would be auto-win the DM should throw a wrench in the works to cause the check to be more challenging or fail outright.
I haven't seen it to be an issue. Its an identity to the Rogue being a skill-based class. They should excel at it. Just like Fighters should be able to fight good. Clerics heal. Rangers... range. You get the idea.
I think the underlying question is: How do a challenge a character when they are too good at something?
That could be anything. Skillchecks. Combat/Character Op'd. Etc. In cases of good Insight I think of it like Sherlock. "You can detect everything with ease but this person... they are an enigma to you" should help without punishing them for just being good at what they do. Twist it around some. Twisty twisty.
I know this is an old thread, but this is something I'm exploring for house-ruling.
I think they went this route for expertise just for the sake of simplicity, but with 5e's bounded accuracy and flattened DC scaling, I would argue that it is overpowered (just as Jack of All Trades is) - consider that magical equipment only gives you about a +3 bonus to d20 rolls at maximum.
I'd also like to be able to offer a feat version of Expertise to other classes instead of it only being available to Bards and Rogues.
So, what I determined to be more appropriate is granting a static +3 bonus to two skills or tools you are proficient with.
I haven't seen it to be an issue. Its an identity to the Rogue being a skill-based class. They should excel at it. Just like Fighters should be able to fight good. Clerics heal. Rangers... range. You get the idea.
I think the underlying question is: How do a challenge a character when they are too good at something?
That could be anything. Skillchecks. Combat/Character Op'd. Etc. In cases of good Insight I think of it like Sherlock. "You can detect everything with ease but this person... they are an enigma to you" should help without punishing them for just being good at what they do. Twist it around some. Twisty twisty.
I think this argument is a bit flawed, only because skill use and combat are more or less different pillars of play. Why should rogues (and bards) be uniquely so much better at one pillar of gameplay, especially since they aren't exactly weak in the combat pillar? I think having them be a bit better at it is one thing, but, due to the simplicity of the skill system and class features like Expertise and JoAT, the gap is too large with other classes not having enough options to become better. I've always thought of it as something to be worth houseruling, as I mentioned above.
The skill I always think is overpowered for a rouge is Reliable Talent a rogue with the right skill choices and background choice can have a ridiculous amount of skills that they basically can not fail. By level 11 they can have up to 8 (if not more this is just the one I am using as an example) skills that they are proficient in. This means half of the checks the rogue can make will basically never fail. This is also because as stated above, unlike in previous additions, you really don't get higher DC checks, they stay about the same 15-25.
There was a dungeon I was running where the rouge would be like I do this and I just said sure, you cant freaking fail because you have a +12 and the DC is a 20... You can not fail because even if you roll a 2 it's a 10 meaning its a 22. That is freaking ridiculous.
The skill I always think is overpowered for a rouge is Reliable Talent a rogue with the right skill choices and background choice can have a ridiculous amount of skills that they basically can not fail. By level 11 they can have up to 8 (if not more this is just the one I am using as an example) skills that they are proficient in. This means half of the checks the rogue can make will basically never fail. This is also because as stated above, unlike in previous additions, you really don't get higher DC checks, they stay about the same 15-25.
There was a dungeon I was running where the rouge would be like I do this and I just said sure, you cant freaking fail because you have a +12 and the DC is a 20... You can not fail because even if you roll a 2 it's a 10 meaning its a 22. That is freaking ridiculous.
Yeah, but it's really the combination of Expertise and Reliable talent that's over the top. Nerfing expertise also indirectly nerfs Reliable Talent. Judging them independently, I actually think Reliable Talent is more mechanically sound in the official rules than Expertise is.Expertise, IMO, is fundamentally broken simply because it's a scaling bonus in a system with bounded accuracy, which is why I think it's better for the bonus to be a static +3.
I think this argument is a bit flawed, only because skill use and combat are more or less different pillars of play. Why should rogues (and bards) be uniquely so much better at one pillar of gameplay, especially since they aren't exactly weak in the combat pillar? I think having them be a bit better at it is one thing, but, due to the simplicity of the skill system and class features like Expertise and JoAT, the gap is too large with other classes not having enough options to become better. I've always thought of it as something to be worth houseruling, as I mentioned above.
With all due respect, the three pillars are exploration, social interaction and combat, not skill use / combat. While combat is admittedly the most important of pillars, and exploration / interaction tend to rely more on skills than any other mechanic, we do have to keep in mind skill use during combat as well as using things like Action Surge and spells out of combat as well.
For instance - during combat, rogues often use their Cunning Action in order to Hide. That requires a stealth roll, and you need to consistently be able to hide in combat to get Advantage, otherwise next turn you can't do Sneak Attack, and your damage drops significantly. You also need to be able to avoid grapples (which is another huge issue for melee rogues / bards) so that means Acrobatics or Athletics is a necessary combat skill.
I'd also like to be able to offer a feat version of Expertise to other classes instead of it only being available to Bards and Rogues.
The skill I always think is overpowered for a rouge is Reliable Talent a rogue with the right skill choices and background choice can have a ridiculous amount of skills that they basically can not fail. By level 11 they can have up to 8 (if not more this is just the one I am using as an example) skills that they are proficient in. This means half of the checks the rogue can make will basically never fail. This is also because as stated above, unlike in previous additions, you really don't get higher DC checks, they stay about the same 15-25.
There was a dungeon I was running where the rouge would be like I do this and I just said sure, you cant freaking fail because you have a +12 and the DC is a 20... You can not fail because even if you roll a 2 it's a 10 meaning its a 22. That is freaking ridiculous.
When I saw the features of the rogue class, and the way they combined to make it actually likely that the "skill monkey" class would succeed at skill checks, I thought "Awesome. Finally brings back the feel of a high-level AD&D thief."
So what I am saying is, yes, reliable talent and expertise combine to make the rogue class functionally auto-succeed at numerous skill checks. Yes, that's more than any other class can hope to do with skills. But is that actually a problem for any reason other than not being comfortable with the idea of ensured success? (i.e. does it really "break" something, or just feel strange because ensured success isn't available in other portions of the game). I think the answer is "No." The rogue auto-succeeding at skills, especially those they have chosen to focus on, feels just as sensible to me as wizards preparing spells from their spellbooks and fighters gaining multiple attacks per round.
I think this argument is a bit flawed, only because skill use and combat are more or less different pillars of play. Why should rogues (and bards) be uniquely so much better at one pillar of gameplay, especially since they aren't exactly weak in the combat pillar? I think having them be a bit better at it is one thing, but, due to the simplicity of the skill system and class features like Expertise and JoAT, the gap is too large with other classes not having enough options to become better. I've always thought of it as something to be worth houseruling, as I mentioned above.
With all due respect, the three pillars are exploration, social interaction and combat, not skill use / combat. While combat is admittedly the most important of pillars, and exploration / interaction tend to rely more on skills than any other mechanic, we do have to keep in mind skill use during combat as well as using things like Action Surge and spells out of combat as well.
For instance - during combat, rogues often use their Cunning Action in order to Hide. That requires a stealth roll, and you need to consistently be able to hide in combat to get Advantage, otherwise next turn you can't do Sneak Attack, and your damage drops significantly. You also need to be able to avoid grapples (which is another huge issue for melee rogues / bards) so that means Acrobatics or Athletics is a necessary combat skill.
I'd also like to be able to offer a feat version of Expertise to other classes instead of it only being available to Bards and Rogues.
Human feat Prodigy.
You're overstating the importance of Stealth and Athletics/Acrobatics in combat, IMO. Rogues have plenty of easy ways to gain advantage, and grappling has modified rules in my campaigns anyway which make it more specialized (I'm also not sure why Rogues and Bards deserve to have a pitifully easy time escaping grapples compared to other classes). It remains my opinion that the official implementation of Expertise is not good simply because it represents a scaling bonus on a d20 roll against a relatively flat difficulty curve.
I was unaware of that feat, so thanks for pointing it out. I'm not sure it's to my taste though as far as addressing this is concerned. I had planned to make Expertise a generalized feat granting the bonus I described above to two proficiencies along with +1 to Intelligence, but also with a required Int of 13.
The skill I always think is overpowered for a rouge is Reliable Talent a rogue with the right skill choices and background choice can have a ridiculous amount of skills that they basically can not fail. By level 11 they can have up to 8 (if not more this is just the one I am using as an example) skills that they are proficient in. This means half of the checks the rogue can make will basically never fail. This is also because as stated above, unlike in previous additions, you really don't get higher DC checks, they stay about the same 15-25.
There was a dungeon I was running where the rouge would be like I do this and I just said sure, you cant freaking fail because you have a +12 and the DC is a 20... You can not fail because even if you roll a 2 it's a 10 meaning its a 22. That is freaking ridiculous.
When I saw the features of the rogue class, and the way they combined to make it actually likely that the "skill monkey" class would succeed at skill checks, I thought "Awesome. Finally brings back the feel of a high-level AD&D thief."
So what I am saying is, yes, reliable talent and expertise combine to make the rogue class functionally auto-succeed at numerous skill checks. Yes, that's more than any other class can hope to do with skills. But is that actually a problem for any reason other than not being comfortable with the idea of ensured success? (i.e. does it really "break" something, or just feel strange because ensured success isn't available in other portions of the game). I think the answer is "No." The rogue auto-succeeding at skills, especially those they have chosen to focus on, feels just as sensible to me as wizards preparing spells from their spellbooks and fighters gaining multiple attacks per round.
Yeah, but rogues are more or less as effective in combat as fighters and wizards are. The idea that Rogues are a "skill monkey" class is a bit outdated. Like I said above, rogues probably deserve to have a bit more innate skill proficiency than other classes just due to their theme, but 5e made the gap too large and gave other classes very limited options for reducing it.
I think it's more of a conceptual problem than a mechanical game-breaking problem, but it's a problem nevertheless. I also just have a general dislike for idea of doubling the proficiency bonus due to the scaling in 5e as opposed to giving it a more modest bonus, like the above suggested +3 (which would basically give you three proficiency levels at high level of +3, +6, or +9).
Like I also said above, I think the doubling was done just for the sake of simplicity, rather than because it's what made the most mechanical sense.
Just wondering if anyone, when actually playing, have concluded that having the rogue double their proficinecy for certain skills means the rogue always succeeds in those skills.
I have not that much experience, but no the outcome is not certain. For tier 1 and tier 2 skill checks, you mostly have to beat a DC of 15 - 20. +8 (double proficiency at 9th level) +5 (DEX modifier at a score of 20), you have a skill modifier of +13. SO to beat a DC 15 you have to roll 2 or higher, to beat DC 20 to have to roll 7 or higher.
Yes for DC 15 it is very easy, for DC 20 there is some degree of failure.
We all leave footprints in the sands of time.
In case you like math, I made a simple web app at https://skizzerz.net/expertise5e.php that lets you plug in an ability score bonus, and it shows you your chances of success versus common DCs with and without expertise. Each entry has three sets of numbers, R for a normal roll, A for a roll with advantage, and D for a roll with disadvantage. The takeaway I got from playing around with it is that even with proficiency and a +5 ability score bonus, you still aren't going to be hitting high DC checks consistently without something else to give you an additional boost.
To be honest my main concern isn't against locks and traps. Its always having the Rogue insight check someone and always knowing whether the person is lying or not, without much chance of failure. Or maybe Always succeed on persuasion or deception rolls. That kind of thing.
I look at it this way. It's just a +2 (1-4) +3 (5-8) +4 (9-12) +5 (13-16), and +6 (17-20).
Means a Rogue is going to be +2, or a little bit more higher then everyone else with that same skill, but until really high level games it's not going to be THAT big of a different. Also a Rogue can use it to help make up for a not optimal ability score in an ability.
Sure at level 13, having a +5 (which is a 20% increase!) is a pretty big deal... but you're level 13.
Some monster have Expertise too:
Oni have expertise in Deception.
[Tooltip Not Found] have expertise in Deception, Insight, Perception, Persuasion and Stealth.
Nothic have expertise in Insight.
The list can go on, but there are quite a few monsters that can be very challenging even for a Rogue with Expertise.
Being able to make your character succeed at something specific far more than they fail at it is not, in any case at all, a bad thing.
There is no such thing as a universal solution to all problems, so there is no need to make sure that no tool in a tool set cannot be extremely reliable at accomplishing the tasks it is designed for - because there will always be tasked for which that tool simply isn't of use.
You can't persuade a lock to open. You can't sleight of hand a rampaging beast into a manageable state. You can't use your stealth to convince the king he needs to do some particular favor for you. And so many other tools can't be used for so many other jobs.
So no, expertise is not "too powerful" because it makes it very likely that a character succeeds at a particular sort of check; That is just how we know it is working as intended.
We all leave footprints in the sands of time.
I haven't seen it to be an issue. Its an identity to the Rogue being a skill-based class. They should excel at it. Just like Fighters should be able to fight good. Clerics heal. Rangers... range. You get the idea.
I think the underlying question is: How do a challenge a character when they are too good at something?
That could be anything. Skillchecks. Combat/Character Op'd. Etc. In cases of good Insight I think of it like Sherlock. "You can detect everything with ease but this person... they are an enigma to you" should help without punishing them for just being good at what they do. Twist it around some. Twisty twisty.
I know this is an old thread, but this is something I'm exploring for house-ruling.
I think they went this route for expertise just for the sake of simplicity, but with 5e's bounded accuracy and flattened DC scaling, I would argue that it is overpowered (just as Jack of All Trades is) - consider that magical equipment only gives you about a +3 bonus to d20 rolls at maximum.
I'd also like to be able to offer a feat version of Expertise to other classes instead of it only being available to Bards and Rogues.
So, what I determined to be more appropriate is granting a static +3 bonus to two skills or tools you are proficient with.
The skill I always think is overpowered for a rouge is Reliable Talent a rogue with the right skill choices and background choice can have a ridiculous amount of skills that they basically can not fail. By level 11 they can have up to 8 (if not more this is just the one I am using as an example) skills that they are proficient in. This means half of the checks the rogue can make will basically never fail. This is also because as stated above, unlike in previous additions, you really don't get higher DC checks, they stay about the same 15-25.
There was a dungeon I was running where the rouge would be like I do this and I just said sure, you cant freaking fail because you have a +12 and the DC is a 20... You can not fail because even if you roll a 2 it's a 10 meaning its a 22. That is freaking ridiculous.
Human feat Prodigy.