Maybe it is just because my start with table-top RPGs was 2nd edition AD&D, but I always get the feeling that people are thinking differently about scaling than the design team are.
To me, the scaling seems intentionally set to be like it was before WotC bought the intellectual property and made extreme changes to the math behind the game, which is why the "targets" don't move all that much, but the "aim" moves just enough to go from "I can't do it because my character is particular bad at this particular thing and this isn't an example of something 'easy'" to "I'm super-awesome at this particular thing, so I pretty much never fail."
There is no inherent need to have even highly-specialized characters still have the chance to fail in their high-specialized area in order to have the reduced scaling of 5th edition. In fact, I think it is how the game proves it has "bounded accuracy" because that means the difficulty will only ever be so high, and if you put all that you can put towards a thing, you will succeed - which is counter to the "unbounded accuracy" versions of the game such as 3.5 where you could devote every available resource to a particular skill and yet the DC you were meant to hit could keep rising and rising, giving you plenty of chance to fail (albeit at continuously more and more ridiculous things that people likely would never have bothered adding to the game if not explicitly to keep a player feeling like they still needed "more" of whatever particular thing).
I think it's more of a conceptual problem than a mechanical game-breaking problem, but it's a problem nevertheless.
Why is it a problem? We can't argue against the fact that the math doesn't sit well with you. That's just a feeling. What issues have you observed during real gameplay?
By the time Rogues can autosucceed at super mundane things like hiding and opening locks, clerics can literally bring people back from the dead, monks can run up walls and the wizard is polymorphing into a t-rex.
I guess my problem is tell me how a barbarian can always deal max damage? Tell me how a fighter can never miss? Tell me how a spell caster can always have monsters fail DC saves?
Those are all of those classes core features. How come they still have to put their faith in the dice bit rogues can say. Whatever I rolled a 1 that 10+12 on my stealth. So yeah.
And the argument a rogue can t deal damage. That's not true a rogue can deal massive amounts of damage because of how easy it is to get sneak attack.
The problem is I ha e hated the rogue in 5e. It feels ridiculously overpowered to any class.
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).
Wither I'm overstating it or not is kind of not the point; I'm just saying that a number of skills have a point and use in combat, so there's no skill/combat dichotomy to make. Skills have applications in each of the three pillars, just as magic does. Honestly, I'm just objecting to your mislabeled pillars.
Every game is different, and if Expertise doesn't work for your games, then it doesn't work. There's a lot of people who feel the same way about Rangers and their Natural Explorer feature, removing an element of the game. So, I'm not going to argue that you're wrong on that.
I guess my problem is tell me how a barbarian can always deal max damage? Tell me how a fighter can never miss? Tell me how a spell caster can always have monsters fail DC saves?
You're comparing super different things. A saving throw is the deadliest kind of roll to fail. Skill checks are the least deadly. Autosucceeding on skill checks is nothing like forcing save failures.
Yeah, but rogues are more or less as effective in combat as fighters and wizards are.
Less. Definitely less effective. Now, rogues are still meaningfully contributing, but wizards and fighters definitely pull more than their share in combat compared to the rogue.
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.
Wth all due respect, this can't be an outdated idea when its not only what people have asked for in this edition, but in pretty much every edition. Surveys were taken, and this was approved with rave reviews. For a game, that's about the only way to ensure that its contemporary.
Like I said above, if its a problem for your game, then it is indeed a problem. But these mechanics do work for a larger number of games out there, and not a problem at those tables.
I guess my problem is tell me how a barbarian can always deal max damage?
That would be equivalent to a rogue also always dealing max damage - and is a far more influential thing over the game as a whole than automatically succeeding at some skill checks.
Tell me how a fighter can never miss?
This is also a far more influential thing than automatically succeeding at some skill checks, but it is also a thing which is almost already a part of the game - a fighter can have a very high to-hit modifier relative to the AC of the enemies they face, potentially having every attack be 95% accurate (only missing on a 1) just as a matter of the DM not choosing especially high-AC enemies for the campaign. Plus, since they get to attack numerous times, the odds of them missing on every attack in a round become so low as to say that the fighter "automatically hits", even if only on a per-action, rather than per-roll basis.
Tell me how a spell caster can always have monsters fail DC saves?
To illustrate just how wildly different this is from automatically succeeding at skill checks - tell me the Persuasion DC to convince a creature to turn to dust? Tell me what the DC is for an animal handling check to whistle and make a beast do exactly what you tell it to? Tell me the athletics DC to hurl a whole group of enemies 100 feet into the air?
Skills can't even come close to what impact a failed saving throw against a spell can have on the game.
And the argument a rogue can t deal damage. That's not true a rogue can deal massive amounts of damage because of how easy it is to get sneak attack.
Most of their damage is usually reliant upon either A) having a party, so it'd be fair to say it's at least partly the party that are dealing that damage rather than credit it all to the rogue; or B) their skills never failing them.
So it's kind of odd to give them credit for dealing tons of damage but feel like their main avenue of doing any more than like a d8+dex mod without help is unfair for them to have.
I really don't understand why you think fighting is the core mechanic of D&D. Most encounters should be able to be resolved with skill checks as well. If the players want to find alternatives out of things there should be ways for them to do so.
You outdated logic of encounters is the only thing that matter seems greatly flawed.
I really don't understand why you think fighting is the core mechanic of D&D. Most encounters should be able to be resolved with skill checks as well. If the players want to find alternatives out of things there should be ways for them to do so.
You outdated logic of encounters is the only thing that matter seems greatly flawed.
You really should have quoted whoever it is that you were saying this to...
However, if I assume that you were talking to me when saying this, here is my response:
I don't think fighting is the core mechanic of D&D. I do think most encounters should be able to be resolved in numerous ways, rather than just one, or even just as many as I personally could think up without the aid of my players.
That has absolutely no bearing on that I firmly believe skill checks to be less influential than other aspects of the game (such as damage, attack rolls, or saving throws).
A single saving throw is the resolution of an encounter in some cases. A single skill check? The game is not written in such a way as to put that much weight on a skill check - and especially not the skills which the rogue is likely to auto-succeed at given the theme of the class and what players expect of them.
I think that the viability and importance of skills really comes down to how many traps or exploring challenges that your DM uses in every game. Skills are the primary method that you use to interact with the environment when not in combat. Especially in dungeons. Social challenges? Honestly, the guidelines there are crap on crap toast, and just as many people ignore it and make people role play as they do without ever rolling once. But traps? Needing to climb or jump? Spot something important? All those need skill checks to deal with in some form or another.
Granted, going by Xanathar's Guide, that's generally a Perception / Investigation check, followed by a knowledge check of some kind (usually Arcana or Religion), followed by an Athletics / Thief Tools / Dispel Magic check, or some combination thereof, for simple traps at least. Complex checks require ... well, combat using skill checks instead of attack rolls. Initiative, rounds, the works. I suppose we could extrapolate and make "social combat" but to date I have never seen a good social combat system. Always comes off as a cheap form of mind control.
Anyways, point is. I've played in plenty of games where traps, environmental challenges, and more are a thing. And failing those would be no different than failing in combat. Had one PC who, through strokes of bad luck, who kept getting caught in traps and dying. All in the same dungeon, same session. Three times,my character died in one game. And all these challenges relied on skill checks.
Anyways, point is. I've played in plenty of games where traps, environmental challenges, and more are a thing. And failing those would be no different than failing in combat. Had one PC who, through strokes of bad luck, who kept getting caught in traps and dying. All in the same dungeon, same session. Three times,my character died in one game. And all these challenges relied on skill checks.
Not sure which side you are on, but that last part is kinda my point. A barbarian which is a fighter and can never auto-succeed at fighting, he still can fail. However, the way 5e is designed (excluded Xanathar's because I have not read it) A rogue can never fail traps since, for the most part, the DC kinda caps off at 25 and to be making every single trap or chest have the best lock in a dungeon seems weird. A fighter can go up to a weaker opponent and lose due to bad luck of roles, it is not likely, but possible in combat.
A rogue with expertise and Reliable Talent will never really fail a DC less than 20. I get that a rogue is a skill-based class, shoot I even think they should have pretty good chance of doing most things, I just think them being able to auto-succeed at any less than 20 is ridiculously overpowered even if you are saying they are only traps or social instances. Those are still very important parts of the game.
I agree with the OP, I think expertise should be a single boost. You should receive a +4 to the stats in question. I also think reliable talent should at least include the text "Unless you roll a 1" meaning, yeah a rogue can still have a very high chance of doing most things, but he can also fail.
By the Mephista most of this is directed at previous conversation, not you, I was just using your example to help provide context to my point.
Anyways, point is. I've played in plenty of games where traps, environmental challenges, and more are a thing. And failing those would be no different than failing in combat. Had one PC who, through strokes of bad luck, who kept getting caught in traps and dying. All in the same dungeon, same session. Three times,my character died in one game. And all these challenges relied on skill checks.
Not sure which side you are on, but that last part is kinda my point. A barbarian which is a fighter and can never auto-succeed at fighting, he still can fail. However, the way 5e is designed (excluded Xanathar's because I have not read it) A rogue can never fail traps since, for the most part, the DC kinda caps off at 25 and to be making every single trap or chest have the best lock in a dungeon seems weird. A fighter can go up to a weaker opponent and lose due to bad luck of roles, it is not likely, but possible in combat.
A rogue with expertise and Reliable Talent will never really fail a DC less than 20. I get that a rogue is a skill-based class, shoot I even think they should have pretty good chance of doing most things, I just think them being able to auto-succeed at any less than 20 is ridiculously overpowered even if you are saying they are only traps or social instances. Those are still very important parts of the game.
I agree with the OP, I think expertise should be a single boost. You should receive a +4 to the stats in question. I also think reliable talent should at least include the text "Unless you roll a 1" meaning, yeah a rogue can still have a very high chance of doing most things, but he can also fail.
By the Mephista most of this is directed at previous conversation, not you, I was just using your example to help provide context to my point.
My own side. I have no problems with Expertise, Reliable Talent, Jack of All Trades, Natural Explorer or Primeval Awareness (other than the last costing a spell slot). I believe the majority of tables won't as well. But I understand where some DMs might have issues, for certain types of games and challenges that DM might want to include.
I also believe that simply creating a flat bonus isn't really going to solve any issue - it fails to address the underlying issues at play here. A lore bard, for instance, at level 14, who uses Guidance, their own Inspiration dice, and Expertise is still going to be hitting very high DCs, no matter if that is a +3 or a +5 bonus. From a DM standpoint, there's no real difference from having a DC set at 24 or 26. Its just arbitrary numbers. I think that the best solution is, rather than trying to downplay certain skills, is to craft challenges where the extra skill becomes simply one cog in the challenge to succeed overall. Expertise can only be taken for up to five skills (barring multi-class). There's no way that Expertise can cover every skill necessary here, and by level 11, we're looking at dealing with some rather fiendish, highly skilled opponents and dungeon crafters ourselves.
As for your comment about warrior types never auto-succeeding? Well, that's only natural. Combat, by its very nature, is a heavily stressful situation where anything can happen or go wrong, including just shifting armor in the wrong way. There are simply too many unknown factors to be able to calculate them on the fly. The only time even the most skilled warrior can reliably hit something is in a training room or practice. But picking a lock? Taking down a trap? Even lying to people. After a certain point of training, these become second nature, and you really only trip up when against someone/thing else highly skilled (ie a high DC or opposed roll). You don't have a wide variety of chaos going on - its actually a very simple set of things, down to a science. Even Stroke of Luck, which can turn a miss into a hit, is based on shifting odds in your favor rather than technical skill.
I'm sorry, but your argument is a strawman. Certain things make sense to be done with reliable consistency, while other things can't. Trying to equate the disparate things is meaningless, to establish parity where it wouldn't make sense to.
Rogues still should have a chance to fail! A number of things can always go wrong. However with Expertise and Reliable Talent, unless as a DM I just make all checks for rouges very high they are always going to exceed. Crap, I would be happy if they simply just included the homebrew rule I use in my game for Reliable Talent. Which adds the condition that a 1 is still a fail. It overrides Reliable Talent. Because to some extent, I do think that skills should be easier to accomplish then battle, but they never are to the point where to DM has no point to ask the user to roll for the check.
As for your bard argument, isn't Guidancea Cleric and Druid spells not a Bard spell (Unless you go whatever route it is that gives you two spells from any class, other than that, it is not really bard spell). And even that has a variable, it is 1d4. meaning if the character has a plus 8 on their skill, they could still roll 1d20 + 1d4 + 8 and get, you guessed it an 11 that isn't an auto succeed alike the rogue one.
I also find your argument a strawman argument, your example wasn't even true. A Spellcaster also who has a high ability score can still easily fail with Guidance.
I am not saying a rogue should always fail, I am not saying they should usually fail, I am just saying they shouldn't be able to auto-succeed because no other class is able to auto-succeed at anything else with the consistency a rogue can auto-succeed at skills.
Actually, no, you're mistaken. A 1 is not still a fail - there are no botches on Saving Throws or Skill Checks, nor are there critical successes on those either. If the DC is 10 and you have a bonus of +9 or higher, you will succeed no matter what is rolled, even a 1.
...the homebrew rule I use in my game for Reliable Talent. Which adds the condition that a 1 is still a fail. It overrides Reliable Talent...
And even you are sorta wrong, D&D 5e Dungeon Masters Guide even offers Critical Success or Failure as a variant rule. That link will only work if you have the DMG book.
It's honestly hard to believe the Critical success or fail for skill rolls is a variant/optional rule. I can hardly think of playing the game without it (as much as I understand it's the RAW version, just expressing a personal preference).
With a 1 always and without escape being a fail, any Rogue having Expertise in any skill is still liable for fail, albeit very rarely, adding a degree of realism (even if you are the best of messing with people/open a lock/hide etc., you could have a bad day) to the game.
Critical successes in skill checks can be technically a bit harder to rule/interpret, but not enormously if you have a tiny bit of inventive and are quick of wits.
...the homebrew rule I use in my game for Reliable Talent. Which adds the condition that a 1 is still a fail. It overrides Reliable Talent...
And even you are sorta wrong, D&D 5e Dungeon Masters Guide even offers Critical Success or Failure as a variant rule. That link will only work if you have the DMG book.
Having a 1 be an auto-failure with Reliable Talent can actually make it worse than not having the ability, since it gives you a 5% chance of failure, when you might normally not have it, since 1's on skill rolls do not auto fail. If you read the content at the link you sent, you'll notice that it talks about "rolling a 1 on a failed check" and "rolling a 20 on a successful check", suggesting that a 1 on a fail make the failure have a worse outcome that just failing the skill (e.g. thieves' tools break), and that a 20 on a success have a better outcome (e.g. extra clue on Investigation). Nowhere does it suggest having 1s auto-fail (or 20s auto-succeed).
So you're really talking about two houserules: 1) 1s automatically fail in skill checks, and 2) 1s negate Reliable Talent. I suppose you're not making 20s automatically succeed in skill rolls?
...the homebrew rule I use in my game for Reliable Talent. Which adds the condition that a 1 is still a fail. It overrides Reliable Talent...
And even you are sorta wrong, D&D 5e Dungeon Masters Guide even offers Critical Success or Failure as a variant rule. That link will only work if you have the DMG book.
Having a 1 be an auto-failure with Reliable Talent can actually make it worse than not having the ability, since it gives you a 5% chance of failure, when you might normally not have it, since 1's on skill rolls do not auto fail. If you read the content at the link you sent, you'll notice that it talks about "rolling a 1 on a failed check" and "rolling a 20 on a successful check", suggesting that a 1 on a fail make the failure have a worse outcome that just failing the skill (e.g. thieves' tools break), and that a 20 on a success have a better outcome (e.g. extra clue on Investigation). Nowhere does it suggest having 1s auto-fail (or 20s auto-succeed).
So you're really talking about two houserules: 1) 1s automatically fail in skill checks, and 2) 1s negate Reliable Talent. I suppose you're not making 20s automatically succeed in skill rolls?
I do reward players with extra information on critical success skill checks.
With a 1 always and without escape being a fail, any Rogue having Expertise in any skill is still liable for fail, albeit very rarely, adding a degree of realism (even if you are the best of messing with people/open a lock/hide etc., you could have a bad day) to the game.
Failing easy (DC 10) tasks 1 out of 20 times when you're skilled enough to reliably succeed at hard tasks isn't realistic. Yes, there's always a small chance that an expert will choke, but not that often.
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Maybe it is just because my start with table-top RPGs was 2nd edition AD&D, but I always get the feeling that people are thinking differently about scaling than the design team are.
To me, the scaling seems intentionally set to be like it was before WotC bought the intellectual property and made extreme changes to the math behind the game, which is why the "targets" don't move all that much, but the "aim" moves just enough to go from "I can't do it because my character is particular bad at this particular thing and this isn't an example of something 'easy'" to "I'm super-awesome at this particular thing, so I pretty much never fail."
There is no inherent need to have even highly-specialized characters still have the chance to fail in their high-specialized area in order to have the reduced scaling of 5th edition. In fact, I think it is how the game proves it has "bounded accuracy" because that means the difficulty will only ever be so high, and if you put all that you can put towards a thing, you will succeed - which is counter to the "unbounded accuracy" versions of the game such as 3.5 where you could devote every available resource to a particular skill and yet the DC you were meant to hit could keep rising and rising, giving you plenty of chance to fail (albeit at continuously more and more ridiculous things that people likely would never have bothered adding to the game if not explicitly to keep a player feeling like they still needed "more" of whatever particular thing).
I guess my problem is tell me how a barbarian can always deal max damage? Tell me how a fighter can never miss? Tell me how a spell caster can always have monsters fail DC saves?
Those are all of those classes core features. How come they still have to put their faith in the dice bit rogues can say. Whatever I rolled a 1 that 10+12 on my stealth. So yeah.
And the argument a rogue can t deal damage. That's not true a rogue can deal massive amounts of damage because of how easy it is to get sneak attack.
The problem is I ha e hated the rogue in 5e. It feels ridiculously overpowered to any class.
That would be equivalent to a rogue also always dealing max damage - and is a far more influential thing over the game as a whole than automatically succeeding at some skill checks.
This is also a far more influential thing than automatically succeeding at some skill checks, but it is also a thing which is almost already a part of the game - a fighter can have a very high to-hit modifier relative to the AC of the enemies they face, potentially having every attack be 95% accurate (only missing on a 1) just as a matter of the DM not choosing especially high-AC enemies for the campaign. Plus, since they get to attack numerous times, the odds of them missing on every attack in a round become so low as to say that the fighter "automatically hits", even if only on a per-action, rather than per-roll basis.Skills can't even come close to what impact a failed saving throw against a spell can have on the game.
Most of their damage is usually reliant upon either A) having a party, so it'd be fair to say it's at least partly the party that are dealing that damage rather than credit it all to the rogue; or B) their skills never failing them.So it's kind of odd to give them credit for dealing tons of damage but feel like their main avenue of doing any more than like a d8+dex mod without help is unfair for them to have.
I really don't understand why you think fighting is the core mechanic of D&D. Most encounters should be able to be resolved with skill checks as well. If the players want to find alternatives out of things there should be ways for them to do so.
You outdated logic of encounters is the only thing that matter seems greatly flawed.
I think that the viability and importance of skills really comes down to how many traps or exploring challenges that your DM uses in every game. Skills are the primary method that you use to interact with the environment when not in combat. Especially in dungeons. Social challenges? Honestly, the guidelines there are crap on crap toast, and just as many people ignore it and make people role play as they do without ever rolling once. But traps? Needing to climb or jump? Spot something important? All those need skill checks to deal with in some form or another.
Granted, going by Xanathar's Guide, that's generally a Perception / Investigation check, followed by a knowledge check of some kind (usually Arcana or Religion), followed by an Athletics / Thief Tools / Dispel Magic check, or some combination thereof, for simple traps at least. Complex checks require ... well, combat using skill checks instead of attack rolls. Initiative, rounds, the works. I suppose we could extrapolate and make "social combat" but to date I have never seen a good social combat system. Always comes off as a cheap form of mind control.
Anyways, point is. I've played in plenty of games where traps, environmental challenges, and more are a thing. And failing those would be no different than failing in combat. Had one PC who, through strokes of bad luck, who kept getting caught in traps and dying. All in the same dungeon, same session. Three times,my character died in one game. And all these challenges relied on skill checks.
My argument boils down to this,
Rogues still should have a chance to fail! A number of things can always go wrong. However with Expertise and Reliable Talent, unless as a DM I just make all checks for rouges very high they are always going to exceed. Crap, I would be happy if they simply just included the homebrew rule I use in my game for Reliable Talent. Which adds the condition that a 1 is still a fail. It overrides Reliable Talent. Because to some extent, I do think that skills should be easier to accomplish then battle, but they never are to the point where to DM has no point to ask the user to roll for the check.
As for your bard argument, isn't Guidance a Cleric and Druid spells not a Bard spell (Unless you go whatever route it is that gives you two spells from any class, other than that, it is not really bard spell). And even that has a variable, it is 1d4. meaning if the character has a plus 8 on their skill, they could still roll 1d20 + 1d4 + 8 and get, you guessed it an 11 that isn't an auto succeed alike the rogue one.
I also find your argument a strawman argument, your example wasn't even true. A Spellcaster also who has a high ability score can still easily fail with Guidance.
I am not saying a rogue should always fail, I am not saying they should usually fail, I am just saying they shouldn't be able to auto-succeed because no other class is able to auto-succeed at anything else with the consistency a rogue can auto-succeed at skills.
Actually, no, you're mistaken. A 1 is not still a fail - there are no botches on Saving Throws or Skill Checks, nor are there critical successes on those either. If the DC is 10 and you have a bonus of +9 or higher, you will succeed no matter what is rolled, even a 1.
What part of homebrew rule did you miss. It is a homebrew rule I added specifically for Reliable Talent.
I missed the part where you said homebrew, sorry. Must have missed that. However, my points do stand otherwise.
It's honestly hard to believe the Critical success or fail for skill rolls is a variant/optional rule. I can hardly think of playing the game without it (as much as I understand it's the RAW version, just expressing a personal preference).
With a 1 always and without escape being a fail, any Rogue having Expertise in any skill is still liable for fail, albeit very rarely, adding a degree of realism (even if you are the best of messing with people/open a lock/hide etc., you could have a bad day) to the game.
Critical successes in skill checks can be technically a bit harder to rule/interpret, but not enormously if you have a tiny bit of inventive and are quick of wits.
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