Yeah, but you don't have the players roll Skill Challenges for stuff like that, you just have them roll perception. I use skill challenges like this: each player can roll up to one check in each of up to three different skills for things they are proficient in.
For research: One player might roll a History the lore, persuasion to get the librarian to help, and perception to notice that hard to spot clue. Another player might use Investigation for pouring through all the books, Arcana if they have some minor divination, or Deception for tricking the guards into giving up secrets. Every success garners a clue, once they hit 3 fails they have exhausted all resources. Remember 2 characters may be proficient in History or Investigation, but thats no reason the others cannot contribute.
For pursuing some villains through a crowded marketplace: One might use Athletics to run flat out, and Intimidation to yell "EVERYBODY MOVE!!!" Another might use Acrobatics to vault the carts and animal handling to get a nearby horse to rear causing an obstruction. A third Character might use perception to spot a shortcut and "head 'em off at the pass", and the fourth player might use persuasion to shout "SOMEONE STOP THAT THIEF!" Every success gets them closer, every failure the bandit slips further away, after three collective failures the thief escapes.
Just to figure out who spotted the orc sentry, just call for everyone to make a perception test. See the difference?
the problem with that kind of thing, as mentionned above in my exemples.. is that players will just roll until they succeed. exemple... a player says i'll throw a perception check, the others are like we do too that way we have more chances at succeeding. basically leading to the problem of "lets all roll in order to have more chance at succeeding." skill challenges were created in the first place to stop that. but skill challenges do not happen often, so thats why 5e has created the advantage if anybody helps. but it still feels like we're cheating players out of their game because of it. but at the same time, allowing all of them roll a perception check just because they really want to not be ambushed is like stupid and suspend the belief as well.
its to a point where i started saying no to players and i do not like that.
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I guess to that last point of "roll until they succeed" what I normally do is each subsequent attempt is I increase the DC by 2 or 3. Then if it gets to a point where the DC is impossible even if a 20 is rolled, I force them to move on.
the problem with that kind of thing, as mentionned above in my exemples.. is that players will just roll until they succeed.
This is why I brought back Taking 10 and Taking 20.
Taking 10
When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.
Taking 20
When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.
Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task.
(Adjust verbiage to 5e where necessary, I C'n'P'd most of this.)
So, if the PCs have all the time in the world to search a place, they can just Take 20, give you the result, and they'll know they did as well as they possibly could.
You totally missed my point, if it’s just a simple matter of “spot the orc” that is NOT a skill challenge, that’s just “everybody roll perception”
for a Skill challenge it’s a matter of “how will you collectively use your various Skills to overcome this challenge?”
A) you can only roll a Skill in a challenge if you are actually proficient with that skill.
C) as soon as the group accrues three failures, they fail the challenge.
That limits how many CAN roll because they have to actually be proficient in the skill. It limits how many Skills each character can attempt to roll because they can only be proficient in so many Skills, AND it makes it risky for characters that suck at that Skill to roll because their crappy check could ruin it for the party so they have to pick and choose which skills they roll.
if it’s a Skill challenge to find a clue in a library and a character attempts to use acrobatics to climb to the top of the bookcase to look for a hidden clue i’ll Allow that, but if they fail that check then the whole party is 1 strike closer to failing the challenge. If the whole party tries it and gets 3 fails then the bookcase might collapse on them and they are then banned from the library so no more clues for them!
Every success would garner a clue. If there are a total of 6 clues, and they get 6 total successes before three total people roll failure they get all the clues, if the total group only gets three successes before the group rolls three failed checks, they only get three clues. If three people are all proficient in the same skill they can all try it, but each character’s check is a different “attempt” so if two of them fail that’s 2 strikes for the party. If the first three checks made are all failures then “no clues for you” Get it now?
You are leaving the house and see your phone out of the corner of your eye and pick it up. Passive Perception.
You are leaving the house and you look around the room for your phone. Active Perception. If you get a low roll, it's because you are so busy looking for it, you miss it entirely. "Can't see the forest because of the trees"
i know what passive and active means, thank you.. not what i'm talking about...
by your exemple... i'm never gonna actively look for something with my 21 passive perception... i'll always just generally look at the scene. waiting for you to tell me what i find.
chances of me rolling a 21+ on active... about 3%, chances of finding anything with my passive perception... about 90% what's it gonna be wise man ? thats the problem with passive, they are literally what 3E called, taking a ten ! it was that strong, it was almost always the way to go. why ? because your chances at rolling low were greatly diminished, but rolling higher were also greatly diminished because of your low rolls that just wasted those chances by just being there still. taking 10 literally removed the lower numbers and gave you the number. solving that problem.
do the math... even if i have a low passive of 13... i still have more chances at finding something by just randomly looking at a room then trying actively to find it. that's why passive do not work in this game.
@Iamspotta then all my players just roll perception, anyone who see the orc, yells the orc is there, there you go they "collectively" found your orc still ! because more rolls equals more chances at finding the hidding orc. just to tell you, thats why the help action was invented for. stop players from abusing the system by just rolling bazillion dice to find something.
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i know what passive and active means, thank you.. not what i'm talking about...
by your exemple... i'm never gonna actively look for something with my 21 passive perception... i'll always just generally look at the scene. waiting for you to tell me what i find.
chances of me rolling a 21+ on active... about 3%, chances of finding anything with my passive perception... about 90% what's it gonna be wise man ? thats the problem with passive, they are literally what 3E called, taking a ten ! it was that strong, it was almost always the way to go. why ? because your chances at rolling low were greatly diminished, but rolling higher were also greatly diminished because of your low rolls that just wasted those chances by just being there still. taking 10 literally removed the lower numbers and gave you the number. solving that problem.
do the math... even if i have a low passive of 13... i still have more chances at finding something by just randomly looking at a room then trying actively to find it. that's why passive do not work in this game.
@Iamspotta then all my players just roll perception, anyone who see the orc, yells the orc is there, there you go they "collectively" found your orc still ! because more rolls equals more chances at finding the hidding orc. just to tell you, thats why the help action was invented for. stop players from abusing the system by just rolling bazillion dice to find something.
I agree 95% with you DnDPaladin. Technically though, since passive is 10 + modifier, you have a 55% chance of rolling a 10 or higher on the d20 for your check. So the odds are slightly in your favor to actually roll instead of just use passive. In my opinion, passive skills should be 7 or 8 + mod instead of 10.....that way, you don't have into the trap that DnDPaladin is describing. Why would anyone with a passive of 24 roll for anything?
In your example of a passive perception of 21, you probably have the observant feat, or you're tier 4 level and have a 11 perception modifier. If you have the observant feat, that player will DEFINITELY only use passive. If they have a +11 perception modifier, that's where they have the 55% chance of rolling their passive score or higher since even a roll of 11, would turn their roll to a 22.
I get that, but why would you not tell all of your players to roll perception to see the orc?!? Of course the characters that see it will tell the others. What is wrong with that? That’s called “playing the game” If you don’t want all of the players to participate then why are they there?!?
THAT IS STILL NOT A SKILL CHALLENGE!!! I don’t understand what you’re objecting to?!? I can’t tell if you simply do not understand me or just want to disagree for the sake of disagreement. You don’t want to use skill challenges in your campaigns then don’t. But please stop telling me I am wrong for using them successfully in my campaign. My players like them, and I like them. I find them to be useful ways to challenge my characters AND my players at the same time. Players at my table aren’t *****.
I use approximately 1 skill challenge every 2 sessions. The last time I used one the party collected 9/12 clues before they accumulated 3 failed checks and the clues dried up. The players had to come up with creative ways to use their characters’ skills, and the characters got to use their skills in different ways to aid the party. Even the Bugbear Rogue was able to creativity help the party do research in a library. Some used Investigation, History, Religion, or Arcana. The characters that are NOT PROFICIENT WITH THOSE SKILLS found ways to use Intimidation, Persuasion, perception and Insight to get clues. One of them found a creative way to use Athletics (that one failed because she rolled low) and everyone contributed instead of just relying on the “nerd characters” to do all the work in in the same way that those same “nerd characters” still get to help in combat.
Natural 20 on attack: Natural 20 means you take ALL damage dice you had associated with the attack roll MAXED and then rolls the dice normally, adding it to the maxed total. To clarify, a rogue getting a natural 20 on a sneak attack with a dagger would deal 1d4+2d6+mod and then adds the maxed dice amount, 4+12 to the total. This also applies to a paladin's smite and a ranger's hunter's mark. The only dice roll it doesn't apply to is the brutal critical trait fighters gets as well as the brutal critical for half orcs. It makes my players excited to roll a natural 20 and give the attack description much more meaning as a critical rather then rolling a bunch of 1's on a critical attack and roleplaying that natural 20 dealing less damage then the wizard smashing in the goblin's head with a strike of his staff. It may seem a bit over powered but it has never been an issue in my games. After all, you can't forget D&D is not the DM vs the players.
Of note to the natural 20 on attack: If you add modifiers to your natural 20 and still don't match the AC of the target, that attack is converted to a regular hit and no longer benefits from the critical rule above.
Natural 1 on attack: This is always a miss regardless of modifiers or additional dice (Bless / Bardic Inspiration). Done mostly to offset the high damage critical rule.
Natural 20 on skill: Natural 20 does not mean auto success. If you roll a natural 20 you still apply your skill bonus and give me that total. That is compared to the skill DC and resolves as normal.
Natural 1 on skill: Natural 1 does not mean auto failure. Still add your modifiers and give me that total. That is compared to the skill DC and resolves as normal.
The thing is, unless they are actively looking, the DM shouldn't out of the blue say "Make a Perception check" because that leads the players to thinking something is out there making the round robin of everybody making the Perception check. Only when the Player has their character actively looking should they make a roll.
If you are at a situation where your Passive is at 21, you have to assume that the opposition is at similar levels of Stealth. So you are walking along with your Passive Perception of 21, not worried because you can see whatever is out there. Well, those orcs who are setting an ambush have a Shaman who cast Pass Without Trace and they have a 23 Stealth.
If they are Actively looking out for ambush, all the Characters who are looking can make a Perception check. Some will be looking the wrong way (low roll), some will be distracted by the fox running through the brush (low roll), and some will actually perceive the ambush(high roll).
If you want to mess with your players, randomly have one of them make a Perception check even when there is nothing to see. The first several times, the party will jump all over it wanting everybody to make their own check. Keep doing it and at a point they will, for the most part, stop.
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A party of 4 is searching a room which has a dead body, a desk, a couple of bookcases, and a hidden safe. The DM has them make an Investigation Skill Challenge with a DC of 15. 0 successes, they find nothing. 1 success, they find some coins on the body. 2 successes they find a note in the desk. 3 success, a spell scroll in the bookcase, 4 success, the safe. The party only gets 1 success, but they are sure there is something else in this room so they want to search again. This bumps the DC up to 20. Another success allows them to find the note. They try one more time, bumping the DC to 25. Hypothetically, they could keep searching until they find everything, but that could be hours searching this one room. Depending on how you feel about Nat 20s/1s in Ability checks, you could have a Nat 20 mean 2 successes and a Nat 1 bumps the DC up by 5.
I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Where it usually happens, a character is looking around the area and makes a low roll (1-9). Player 2 says they'll look around as well in order to try and get a higher roll. If an average or better roll is made, the players normally accept it. It is a meta-gaming problem and the DM should address it when it comes up.
I also like to use a rule of thumb like if the wizard makes an arcana check, then they take that to mean, "Well if the expert didn't know what it was, then how would I know?" so they don't make the check. Now you can't use that for every skill lol but it certainly cuts out a lot of the "roll until someone succeeds" issues.
I have no problems with passive perception checks. In fact I love them, it allows for characters with high perception or insight checks to be good at what they do, without everyone needing to roll every three seconds, or thinking to ask for checks, or my having to ask people for checks. I tend to do similar with social skills as well. Unless a player specifically asks, I treat all their skills as 5 + all their modifiers, unless they ask to make a check, or a 5 or less has a chance of disastrous results, then I ask for the roll. This is not counting class abilities that raise such numbers. There's active passive, which is basically taking a ten, which is what the passive rules are for, but that requires players to actively choose to be doing that, which means that's what they are concentrating on, and not other activities.
This way game can go along with rp, and not a bunch of unnecessary rolling.
For example, unless expressly using a skill, a person with charisma of say 16, that's level five and proficient in Persuasion has a passive persuasion of 5 + Cha: 3, + Prof: 3, for a total of: 11, so they are pretty likeable. Unless they are specifically asking to roll, if 11 or less is enough to influence the npc to the positive, well it happens, their innate natural persuasiveness wins the day, no check necessary and game can go without rolls until it's important and the player is really trying and asks for a roll.
This way I can take note of peoples social skills as a character, and apply them to every npc without needing to ask for a social roll every second. Tempted to home brew other versions of the observant feat to include other skills. Observant in my games basically allows a player to increase this number from 5 to ten, and give a bonus of five to active passive searches.
So basically, non active passive without observant is 5 + modifiers, and active passive is 10 + modifiers, while with observant, non active passive is 10 + modifiers, and active passive is 15 + modifiers.
I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Where it usually happens, a character is looking around the area and makes a low roll (1-9). Player 2 says they'll look around as well in order to try and get a higher roll. If an average or better roll is made, the players normally accept it. It is a meta-gaming problem and the DM should address it when it comes up.
Precisely. As soon as I say “How would your Character know that?” or “Your Character isn’t there.” or something similar my players realize they are metagaming and their first response is usually “That’s true, never mind.” or they role play out asking each other for help (advantage to the roll) or a Scooby-Doo style “Come on gang, let’s all chip in to help things go faster.” then what the heck, I’ll reward role playing it out by letting Character 2 roll too. They stop themselves/each other from meta gaming more often then I have to. Even my friend’s son (the only non-adult in my party) tends not to metagame like that. Like I said, I guess I’m just lucky.
@iamspotsta i'm objecting to the point of "everyone rolls in order for them to gain unfair advantages by rolling numerous dice in order to gain insight onto something some players shouldn'T know about."
Exemple: PC:"i go to the forest and look for intruders..." DM:"Roll a perception check" PC:"16" DM:"You see an orc about 75 feet from your camp where your friends at but they don't seem to have noticed him !" Group:"Wait a god damn second, we didn't even get a roll, since he's nearby we should al get to roll perception checks."
DM dillema... i say yes, they are sure to stop this encounter before it happens, because they will all see it and they wont be surprised even though the orc is ready to launch his attack. but if i say no, my players will feel cheated out of their rights in the game. so what's in gonna be ?
many a player do that, they just want to throw the dice and get to "WIN" because to them, winning is all about not being surprised, not losing companions, not losing period.
well, i think you are lucky then if it never happenned... and don't think maturity of age means better experience of play... i have seen my fair share of parents who just enjoys putting th egroup into trouble. because its not fun to win it easily as they say. my 3 groups right now, are all adults. ranging from 19 to 40. with 40 being almost me. if you are lucky to have players who are fine with you telling them no, me... they play with me because unlike other DMs, i don't say no just for the sake of story. i literally let them do whatever, as long as it doesn't break the game. and it takes a lot to break my games. but when the players wants unfair advantages, and they should be going for that. then dillemas appears and those dillemas often turns the game boring, not for the players, they like it, but for the DM who is almost forced to just go along with it, otherwise he will break their fun. exemple of you saying no to the group perception check. yes you uphold the rule, but right there, you are removing the fun factor from the players at that moment.
@Griz_Behr I did that a lot... made my players paranoid, like they were asking perception checks every 5 feet afterward. far worse, they were convinced that i was hidding something and that i was asking them perception rolls for a real reason, even though i was saying it was just to mess with them. i completely lost my players there, the game became a sluggish bog where players were just rolling dice to try and see what i was hidding or what they were missing. when i stopped doing that, they eventually turned back to their old habits.
I have a golden rule at my table about skill checks... the players have to initiate the checks otherwise i'm not using them ! the problem with this one, hence why i do ask perception checks and things like that. is when the players comes way too close to a hidden character, or they already saw something lurking. in that case, its hard not to use the checks because not using them would put suspension of belief in effect and i don't like that. thus i ask the checks anyway.
perception is the biggest skill check in the whole list, there is a reason why everyone picks it up as soon as they can. its literally everything and the most abused skill check in the whole list.
On another note... I'm still trying to put the shadowrun wound system into 5e. i think i have it down to what i want them to be. heres what i think should be a nice system. - everytime a player takes a hit die+constitution damage, they get a wound. a wound is a roll on the table. Like minor scars or major scars. basically i'm taking the table from the DMG workshop. Injuries ! but instead of it being only during criticals and when they die. its everytime they get hit for a certain threshold. basically, everytime they get hit for that threshold and higher, they roll an injury. injuries can be healed by magic, but only 1 injury at a time per spell of healing and the healing must be higher then the threshold.
exemple: BigSwing is a fighter with tons of hit points. but his threshold for injuries is d10 + constitution. he has a constitution of 18 thus he has a modifier of 4. so his threshold is 14. everytime he takes 14 point of damage and higher in one attack. He takes an injury from the list. now the cleric heals him with a healing word spell at level 2. the fighter heals 2d4+5 hit points. bad rolls on the healing... he only heals 9 hit points. that is below the threshold and thus he doesn't heal injuries. but vitality (hit points) still allow him to go further. as he is nowhere near death. (0 Hit Points)
that's what i think should be used to make hit points and injuries a thing in 5e. what do you guys think of it ? is there downfalls i didn't take into account or do you think its superfluous to use such a thing ? i played shadowrun return recently and loved the wound system. the fact you cant heal wounds by healing magic and the likes. but i dont think its useable into 5e. but i think the threshold injury system can easily be added and would actually make it more precise. because an arrow who critted is still an arrow who critted, even more if the injury given is "Internal bleeding, any actions you do hurts and will bleed out 1d6 hit points." this is an exemple, i may beef up the table from the DMG. but i think its a good table to take into accounts.
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I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Where it usually happens, a character is looking around the area and makes a low roll (1-9). Player 2 says they'll look around as well in order to try and get a higher roll. If an average or better roll is made, the players normally accept it. It is a meta-gaming problem and the DM should address it when it comes up.
Precisely. As soon as I say “How would your Character know that?” or “Your Character isn’t there.” or something similar my players realize they are metagaming and their first response is usually “That’s true, never mind.” or they role play out asking each other for help (advantage to the roll) or a Scooby-Doo style “Come on gang, let’s all chip in to help things go faster.” then what the heck, I’ll reward role playing it out by letting Character 2 roll too. They stop themselves/each other from meta gaming more often then I have to. Even my friend’s son (the only non-adult in my party) tends not to metagame like that. Like I said, I guess I’m just lucky.
Lucky you, everytime i asked that question, they simply started to explain the situation and say, our characters have hears they can hear a branch or they can hear something out. or i am faced the othr way, thus i would have a clear view of the forest. and literally would throw that argument about metagaming out the window.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
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I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Where it usually happens, a character is looking around the area and makes a low roll (1-9). Player 2 says they'll look around as well in order to try and get a higher roll. If an average or better roll is made, the players normally accept it. It is a meta-gaming problem and the DM should address it when it comes up.
Precisely. As soon as I say “How would your Character know that?” or “Your Character isn’t there.” or something similar my players realize they are metagaming and their first response is usually “That’s true, never mind.” or they role play out asking each other for help (advantage to the roll) or a Scooby-Doo style “Come on gang, let’s all chip in to help things go faster.” then what the heck, I’ll reward role playing it out by letting Character 2 roll too. They stop themselves/each other from meta gaming more often then I have to. Even my friend’s son (the only non-adult in my party) tends not to metagame like that. Like I said, I guess I’m just lucky.
Lucky you, everytime i asked that question, they simply started to explain the situation and say, our characters have hears they can hear a branch or they can hear something out. or i am faced the othr way, thus i would have a clear view of the forest. and literally would throw that argument about metagaming out the window.
That's when you say, that doesn't make any sense and if you didn't state any of that prior to the roll/situation then those explanations are void. You, as the DM, decide what is a valid excuse or not. Not the players.
@iamspotsta i'm objecting to the point of "everyone rolls in order for them to gain unfair advantages by rolling numerous dice in order to gain insight onto something some players shouldn'T know about."
Exemple: PC:"i go to the forest and look for intruders..." DM:"Roll a perception check" PC:"16" DM:"You see an orc about 75 feet from your camp where your friends at but they don't seem to have noticed him !" Group:"Wait a god damn second, we didn't even get a roll, since he's nearby we should al get to roll perception checks."
DM dillema... i say yes, they are sure to stop this encounter before it happens, because they will all see it and they wont be surprised even though the orc is ready to launch his attack. but if i say no, my players will feel cheated out of their rights in the game. so what's in gonna be ?
many a player do that, they just want to throw the dice and get to "WIN" because to them, winning is all about not being surprised, not losing companions, not losing period.
I don't see the dilemma. They were not actively looking around. Presumably, the orc had some cover from the group which made it harder to see, so it's Stealth was higher than their passive Perception. When the Player went out around looking, they were put into an advantageous position which lowered the DC so their roll was successful.
You don't win D&D...you just play it. You can have failures as well as successes and that makes the game enjoyable. Is it disappointing when things go wrong? Of course. That's when you get up and strive on. It's what makes it a "Hero's Journey."
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Yeah, but you don't have the players roll Skill Challenges for stuff like that, you just have them roll perception. I use skill challenges like this: each player can roll up to one check in each of up to three different skills for things they are proficient in.
For research: One player might roll a History the lore, persuasion to get the librarian to help, and perception to notice that hard to spot clue. Another player might use Investigation for pouring through all the books, Arcana if they have some minor divination, or Deception for tricking the guards into giving up secrets. Every success garners a clue, once they hit 3 fails they have exhausted all resources. Remember 2 characters may be proficient in History or Investigation, but thats no reason the others cannot contribute.
For pursuing some villains through a crowded marketplace: One might use Athletics to run flat out, and Intimidation to yell "EVERYBODY MOVE!!!" Another might use Acrobatics to vault the carts and animal handling to get a nearby horse to rear causing an obstruction. A third Character might use perception to spot a shortcut and "head 'em off at the pass", and the fourth player might use persuasion to shout "SOMEONE STOP THAT THIEF!" Every success gets them closer, every failure the bandit slips further away, after three collective failures the thief escapes.
Just to figure out who spotted the orc sentry, just call for everyone to make a perception test. See the difference?
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the problem with that kind of thing, as mentionned above in my exemples.. is that players will just roll until they succeed.
exemple... a player says i'll throw a perception check, the others are like we do too that way we have more chances at succeeding.
basically leading to the problem of "lets all roll in order to have more chance at succeeding." skill challenges were created in the first place to stop that. but skill challenges do not happen often, so thats why 5e has created the advantage if anybody helps. but it still feels like we're cheating players out of their game because of it. but at the same time, allowing all of them roll a perception check just because they really want to not be ambushed is like stupid and suspend the belief as well.
its to a point where i started saying no to players and i do not like that.
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Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
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I guess to that last point of "roll until they succeed" what I normally do is each subsequent attempt is I increase the DC by 2 or 3. Then if it gets to a point where the DC is impossible even if a 20 is rolled, I force them to move on.
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This is why I brought back Taking 10 and Taking 20.
Taking 10
When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.
Taking 20
When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.
Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task.
(Adjust verbiage to 5e where necessary, I C'n'P'd most of this.)
So, if the PCs have all the time in the world to search a place, they can just Take 20, give you the result, and they'll know they did as well as they possibly could.
You totally missed my point, if it’s just a simple matter of “spot the orc” that is NOT a skill challenge, that’s just “everybody roll perception”
for a Skill challenge it’s a matter of “how will you collectively use your various Skills to overcome this challenge?”
A) you can only roll a Skill in a challenge if you are actually proficient with that skill.
C) as soon as the group accrues three failures, they fail the challenge.
That limits how many CAN roll because they have to actually be proficient in the skill. It limits how many Skills each character can attempt to roll because they can only be proficient in so many Skills, AND it makes it risky for characters that suck at that Skill to roll because their crappy check could ruin it for the party so they have to pick and choose which skills they roll.
if it’s a Skill challenge to find a clue in a library and a character attempts to use acrobatics to climb to the top of the bookcase to look for a hidden clue i’ll Allow that, but if they fail that check then the whole party is 1 strike closer to failing the challenge. If the whole party tries it and gets 3 fails then the bookcase might collapse on them and they are then banned from the library so no more clues for them!
Every success would garner a clue. If there are a total of 6 clues, and they get 6 total successes before three total people roll failure they get all the clues, if the total group only gets three successes before the group rolls three failed checks, they only get three clues. If three people are all proficient in the same skill they can all try it, but each character’s check is a different “attempt” so if two of them fail that’s 2 strikes for the party. If the first three checks made are all failures then “no clues for you” Get it now?
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You are leaving the house and see your phone out of the corner of your eye and pick it up. Passive Perception.
You are leaving the house and you look around the room for your phone. Active Perception. If you get a low roll, it's because you are so busy looking for it, you miss it entirely. "Can't see the forest because of the trees"
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.
i know what passive and active means, thank you.. not what i'm talking about...
by your exemple... i'm never gonna actively look for something with my 21 passive perception...
i'll always just generally look at the scene. waiting for you to tell me what i find.
chances of me rolling a 21+ on active...
about 3%, chances of finding anything with my passive perception... about 90%
what's it gonna be wise man ?
thats the problem with passive, they are literally what 3E called, taking a ten !
it was that strong, it was almost always the way to go.
why ? because your chances at rolling low were greatly diminished, but rolling higher were also greatly diminished because of your low rolls that just wasted those chances by just being there still. taking 10 literally removed the lower numbers and gave you the number. solving that problem.
do the math... even if i have a low passive of 13... i still have more chances at finding something by just randomly looking at a room then trying actively to find it.
that's why passive do not work in this game.
@Iamspotta then all my players just roll perception, anyone who see the orc, yells the orc is there, there you go they "collectively" found your orc still ! because more rolls equals more chances at finding the hidding orc. just to tell you, thats why the help action was invented for. stop players from abusing the system by just rolling bazillion dice to find something.
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I agree 95% with you DnDPaladin. Technically though, since passive is 10 + modifier, you have a 55% chance of rolling a 10 or higher on the d20 for your check. So the odds are slightly in your favor to actually roll instead of just use passive. In my opinion, passive skills should be 7 or 8 + mod instead of 10.....that way, you don't have into the trap that DnDPaladin is describing. Why would anyone with a passive of 24 roll for anything?
In your example of a passive perception of 21, you probably have the observant feat, or you're tier 4 level and have a 11 perception modifier. If you have the observant feat, that player will DEFINITELY only use passive. If they have a +11 perception modifier, that's where they have the 55% chance of rolling their passive score or higher since even a roll of 11, would turn their roll to a 22.
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I get that, but why would you not tell all of your players to roll perception to see the orc?!? Of course the characters that see it will tell the others. What is wrong with that? That’s called “playing the game” If you don’t want all of the players to participate then why are they there?!?
THAT IS STILL NOT A SKILL CHALLENGE!!! I don’t understand what you’re objecting to?!? I can’t tell if you simply do not understand me or just want to disagree for the sake of disagreement. You don’t want to use skill challenges in your campaigns then don’t. But please stop telling me I am wrong for using them successfully in my campaign. My players like them, and I like them. I find them to be useful ways to challenge my characters AND my players at the same time. Players at my table aren’t *****.
I use approximately 1 skill challenge every 2 sessions. The last time I used one the party collected 9/12 clues before they accumulated 3 failed checks and the clues dried up. The players had to come up with creative ways to use their characters’ skills, and the characters got to use their skills in different ways to aid the party. Even the Bugbear Rogue was able to creativity help the party do research in a library. Some used Investigation, History, Religion, or Arcana. The characters that are NOT PROFICIENT WITH THOSE SKILLS found ways to use Intimidation, Persuasion, perception and Insight to get clues. One of them found a creative way to use Athletics (that one failed because she rolled low) and everyone contributed instead of just relying on the “nerd characters” to do all the work in in the same way that those same “nerd characters” still get to help in combat.
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The house rules I use in my game are:
Natural 20 on attack: Natural 20 means you take ALL damage dice you had associated with the attack roll MAXED and then rolls the dice normally, adding it to the maxed total. To clarify, a rogue getting a natural 20 on a sneak attack with a dagger would deal 1d4+2d6+mod and then adds the maxed dice amount, 4+12 to the total. This also applies to a paladin's smite and a ranger's hunter's mark. The only dice roll it doesn't apply to is the brutal critical trait fighters gets as well as the brutal critical for half orcs. It makes my players excited to roll a natural 20 and give the attack description much more meaning as a critical rather then rolling a bunch of 1's on a critical attack and roleplaying that natural 20 dealing less damage then the wizard smashing in the goblin's head with a strike of his staff. It may seem a bit over powered but it has never been an issue in my games. After all, you can't forget D&D is not the DM vs the players.
Of note to the natural 20 on attack: If you add modifiers to your natural 20 and still don't match the AC of the target, that attack is converted to a regular hit and no longer benefits from the critical rule above.
Natural 1 on attack: This is always a miss regardless of modifiers or additional dice (Bless / Bardic Inspiration). Done mostly to offset the high damage critical rule.
Natural 20 on skill: Natural 20 does not mean auto success. If you roll a natural 20 you still apply your skill bonus and give me that total. That is compared to the skill DC and resolves as normal.
Natural 1 on skill: Natural 1 does not mean auto failure. Still add your modifiers and give me that total. That is compared to the skill DC and resolves as normal.
The thing is, unless they are actively looking, the DM shouldn't out of the blue say "Make a Perception check" because that leads the players to thinking something is out there making the round robin of everybody making the Perception check. Only when the Player has their character actively looking should they make a roll.
If you are at a situation where your Passive is at 21, you have to assume that the opposition is at similar levels of Stealth. So you are walking along with your Passive Perception of 21, not worried because you can see whatever is out there. Well, those orcs who are setting an ambush have a Shaman who cast Pass Without Trace and they have a 23 Stealth.
If they are Actively looking out for ambush, all the Characters who are looking can make a Perception check. Some will be looking the wrong way (low roll), some will be distracted by the fox running through the brush (low roll), and some will actually perceive the ambush(high roll).
If you want to mess with your players, randomly have one of them make a Perception check even when there is nothing to see. The first several times, the party will jump all over it wanting everybody to make their own check. Keep doing it and at a point they will, for the most part, stop.
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A party of 4 is searching a room which has a dead body, a desk, a couple of bookcases, and a hidden safe. The DM has them make an Investigation Skill Challenge with a DC of 15. 0 successes, they find nothing. 1 success, they find some coins on the body. 2 successes they find a note in the desk. 3 success, a spell scroll in the bookcase, 4 success, the safe. The party only gets 1 success, but they are sure there is something else in this room so they want to search again. This bumps the DC up to 20. Another success allows them to find the note. They try one more time, bumping the DC to 25. Hypothetically, they could keep searching until they find everything, but that could be hours searching this one room. Depending on how you feel about Nat 20s/1s in Ability checks, you could have a Nat 20 mean 2 successes and a Nat 1 bumps the DC up by 5.
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.
I don’t have that pile-on problem. If I say “you didn’t notice anything” my players take it at face value. 5/6 of my party are adults with mortgages and everything. They separate the meta from the game. Maybe I’m just lucky.
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Where it usually happens, a character is looking around the area and makes a low roll (1-9). Player 2 says they'll look around as well in order to try and get a higher roll. If an average or better roll is made, the players normally accept it. It is a meta-gaming problem and the DM should address it when it comes up.
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.
I also like to use a rule of thumb like if the wizard makes an arcana check, then they take that to mean, "Well if the expert didn't know what it was, then how would I know?" so they don't make the check. Now you can't use that for every skill lol but it certainly cuts out a lot of the "roll until someone succeeds" issues.
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I have no problems with passive perception checks. In fact I love them, it allows for characters with high perception or insight checks to be good at what they do, without everyone needing to roll every three seconds, or thinking to ask for checks, or my having to ask people for checks. I tend to do similar with social skills as well. Unless a player specifically asks, I treat all their skills as 5 + all their modifiers, unless they ask to make a check, or a 5 or less has a chance of disastrous results, then I ask for the roll. This is not counting class abilities that raise such numbers. There's active passive, which is basically taking a ten, which is what the passive rules are for, but that requires players to actively choose to be doing that, which means that's what they are concentrating on, and not other activities.
This way game can go along with rp, and not a bunch of unnecessary rolling.
For example, unless expressly using a skill, a person with charisma of say 16, that's level five and proficient in Persuasion has a passive persuasion of 5 + Cha: 3, + Prof: 3, for a total of: 11, so they are pretty likeable. Unless they are specifically asking to roll, if 11 or less is enough to influence the npc to the positive, well it happens, their innate natural persuasiveness wins the day, no check necessary and game can go without rolls until it's important and the player is really trying and asks for a roll.
This way I can take note of peoples social skills as a character, and apply them to every npc without needing to ask for a social roll every second. Tempted to home brew other versions of the observant feat to include other skills. Observant in my games basically allows a player to increase this number from 5 to ten, and give a bonus of five to active passive searches.
So basically, non active passive without observant is 5 + modifiers, and active passive is 10 + modifiers, while with observant, non active passive is 10 + modifiers, and active passive is 15 + modifiers.
Precisely. As soon as I say “How would your Character know that?” or “Your Character isn’t there.” or something similar my players realize they are metagaming and their first response is usually “That’s true, never mind.” or they role play out asking each other for help (advantage to the roll) or a Scooby-Doo style “Come on gang, let’s all chip in to help things go faster.” then what the heck, I’ll reward role playing it out by letting Character 2 roll too. They stop themselves/each other from meta gaming more often then I have to. Even my friend’s son (the only non-adult in my party) tends not to metagame like that. Like I said, I guess I’m just lucky.
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@iamspotsta i'm objecting to the point of "everyone rolls in order for them to gain unfair advantages by rolling numerous dice in order to gain insight onto something some players shouldn'T know about."
Exemple:
PC:"i go to the forest and look for intruders..."
DM:"Roll a perception check"
PC:"16"
DM:"You see an orc about 75 feet from your camp where your friends at but they don't seem to have noticed him !"
Group:"Wait a god damn second, we didn't even get a roll, since he's nearby we should al get to roll perception checks."
DM dillema... i say yes, they are sure to stop this encounter before it happens, because they will all see it and they wont be surprised even though the orc is ready to launch his attack. but if i say no, my players will feel cheated out of their rights in the game. so what's in gonna be ?
many a player do that, they just want to throw the dice and get to "WIN" because to them, winning is all about not being surprised, not losing companions, not losing period.
well, i think you are lucky then if it never happenned...
and don't think maturity of age means better experience of play... i have seen my fair share of parents who just enjoys putting th egroup into trouble. because its not fun to win it easily as they say. my 3 groups right now, are all adults. ranging from 19 to 40. with 40 being almost me. if you are lucky to have players who are fine with you telling them no, me... they play with me because unlike other DMs, i don't say no just for the sake of story. i literally let them do whatever, as long as it doesn't break the game. and it takes a lot to break my games. but when the players wants unfair advantages, and they should be going for that. then dillemas appears and those dillemas often turns the game boring, not for the players, they like it, but for the DM who is almost forced to just go along with it, otherwise he will break their fun. exemple of you saying no to the group perception check. yes you uphold the rule, but right there, you are removing the fun factor from the players at that moment.
@Griz_Behr
I did that a lot... made my players paranoid, like they were asking perception checks every 5 feet afterward. far worse, they were convinced that i was hidding something and that i was asking them perception rolls for a real reason, even though i was saying it was just to mess with them. i completely lost my players there, the game became a sluggish bog where players were just rolling dice to try and see what i was hidding or what they were missing. when i stopped doing that, they eventually turned back to their old habits.
I have a golden rule at my table about skill checks...
the players have to initiate the checks otherwise i'm not using them !
the problem with this one, hence why i do ask perception checks and things like that.
is when the players comes way too close to a hidden character, or they already saw something lurking. in that case, its hard not to use the checks because not using them would put suspension of belief in effect and i don't like that. thus i ask the checks anyway.
perception is the biggest skill check in the whole list, there is a reason why everyone picks it up as soon as they can.
its literally everything and the most abused skill check in the whole list.
On another note...
I'm still trying to put the shadowrun wound system into 5e. i think i have it down to what i want them to be.
heres what i think should be a nice system.
- everytime a player takes a hit die+constitution damage, they get a wound. a wound is a roll on the table. Like minor scars or major scars. basically i'm taking the table from the DMG workshop. Injuries ! but instead of it being only during criticals and when they die. its everytime they get hit for a certain threshold. basically, everytime they get hit for that threshold and higher, they roll an injury. injuries can be healed by magic, but only 1 injury at a time per spell of healing and the healing must be higher then the threshold.
exemple:
BigSwing is a fighter with tons of hit points. but his threshold for injuries is d10 + constitution. he has a constitution of 18 thus he has a modifier of 4. so his threshold is 14. everytime he takes 14 point of damage and higher in one attack. He takes an injury from the list. now the cleric heals him with a healing word spell at level 2. the fighter heals 2d4+5 hit points. bad rolls on the healing... he only heals 9 hit points. that is below the threshold and thus he doesn't heal injuries. but vitality (hit points) still allow him to go further. as he is nowhere near death. (0 Hit Points)
that's what i think should be used to make hit points and injuries a thing in 5e. what do you guys think of it ? is there downfalls i didn't take into account or do you think its superfluous to use such a thing ? i played shadowrun return recently and loved the wound system. the fact you cant heal wounds by healing magic and the likes. but i dont think its useable into 5e. but i think the threshold injury system can easily be added and would actually make it more precise. because an arrow who critted is still an arrow who critted, even more if the injury given is "Internal bleeding, any actions you do hurts and will bleed out 1d6 hit points." this is an exemple, i may beef up the table from the DMG. but i think its a good table to take into accounts.
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Lucky you, everytime i asked that question, they simply started to explain the situation and say, our characters have hears they can hear a branch or they can hear something out. or i am faced the othr way, thus i would have a clear view of the forest. and literally would throw that argument about metagaming out the window.
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That's when you say, that doesn't make any sense and if you didn't state any of that prior to the roll/situation then those explanations are void. You, as the DM, decide what is a valid excuse or not. Not the players.
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I don't see the dilemma. They were not actively looking around. Presumably, the orc had some cover from the group which made it harder to see, so it's Stealth was higher than their passive Perception. When the Player went out around looking, they were put into an advantageous position which lowered the DC so their roll was successful.
You don't win D&D...you just play it. You can have failures as well as successes and that makes the game enjoyable. Is it disappointing when things go wrong? Of course. That's when you get up and strive on. It's what makes it a "Hero's Journey."
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.