So concerning the argument involving music, I would argue that missing a few notes doesn't necessarily constitute failure. Success doesn't mean you performed the action perfectly, it means you performed the action adequately. Failure implies you didn't even perform good enough to be considered adequate. So I would ask how many times do masters of the craft fail to perform even adequately when it comes to objectively easy tests of their mastered skill?
Routine tests use your passive skill, which can neither critically succeed nor critically fail.
The situation Gospel is describing though is essentially someone making a performance or an instrument check in an actual performance rather than as a passive check. A successful check does not necessary mean you performed perfectly, but well enough for it to be considered a success. Which means, missing a note doesn't necessary mean they failed. So when looking at someone like Beethoven or any other highly skilled performer, sure each performance is not necessary perfect, but they are still successes. They don't fail to adequately perform 5% of the time.
So concerning the argument involving music, I would argue that missing a few notes doesn't necessarily constitute failure. Success doesn't mean you performed the action perfectly, it means you performed the action adequately. Failure implies you didn't even perform good enough to be considered adequate. So I would ask how many times do masters of the craft fail to perform even adequately when it comes to objectively easy tests of their mastered skill?
Routine tests use your passive skill, which can neither critically succeed nor critically fail.
I didn't say routine test. I said easy. DC 10, which seems to be the main break point being discussed, is explicitly categorized as being easy. That's what DC 10 is. DC 15 is moderate difficulty.
It only takes a +9 to auto-succeed at concentration damage for hits of less than 22.
So? The only caster class that gets proficiency with constitution saves by default are Sorcerers, who also have the smallest spell selection and need some incentive to take concentration spells over just pure damage (and/or healing, for Divine Souls) and Artificers, who are utility casters whose spell list leans heavily towards concentration spells that buff other party members. In order to actually get to +9 at a point where you might be taking 22 damage from the average attack all other casters need to either dip into a different class or take a feat to get proficiency on constitution.
Besides, which, concentration checks are supposed to be somewhat lenient because it encourages DMs to have monsters hit casters hard if they want to break their concentration instead of just nickle-and-diming them with little bits of damage until they fail a roll. That's why it's DC 10 OR half the damage of the attack, whichever is higher.
Also, remember that Aura of Protection exist; a high level party with a paladin may have multiple people rolling against as much as +16.
Yeah, and that's a class feature that scales with Charisma, in order to make Paladins who focus on party support and spellcasting just as viable and useful to the party as Paladins who purely pump their combat abilities so they can be a frontline tank.
And eh... Creatures that suchs a high level party might encounter include such lovely examples as Liches (who have a spell DC of flippin' 20 and can force the entire party to make multiple saves per turn), and Ancient Dragons, even the weakest of which have DC 22 on their Breath attacks. And wouldn't you know it, in order to benefit from said aura the party has to stay neatly within breath weapon, fireball and cloudkill range from the Paladin.
Even getting a +5 to saves (on top of the +11 in their proficient saves and the much less than that in their non-proficient ones) thanks to the Paladin doesn't make the party immune to the DCs of attacks made by threats on their level. At best it protects them from stuff that shouldn't be a threat to them anyway (but with the '1 is an auto-fail' rule definitely still are), like a Banshee's Wail... (And even then only if they're already proficient in Constitution saves).
You know... The Banshee. That thing that can, if things go bad, instantly TPK a party because it instantly reduces everyone within 30ft who fails the save to 0 hitpoints and they're CR 4 so you'll usually be encountering them when your constitution save is, at the absolute best (if you maxed your con) +7? And the DC is 13, so even a the average level 20 character with max Constitution and proficiency in Constitution saves has a 10% chance to still fail that save. That Banshee.
Yes, god forbid players at level 20 might enjoy the benefit of a a specific class feature that comes with its own weaknesses to the AoE slinging threats at their own level to get some immunity against an CR 4 monster that STILL has the potential (though not a very high chance, let's not oversell Banshees here), on a bad roll day, to TPK the party solo without that feature.
You know... The Banshee. That thing that can, if things go bad, instantly TPK a party because it instantly reduces everyone within 30ft who fails the save to 0 hitpoints and they're CR 4 so you'll usually be encountering them when your wisdom save is, at the absolute best (if you maxed your wisdom) +7? And the DC is 13, so even a the average level 20 character with max Wisdom and proficiency in Wisdom saves has a 10% chance to still fail that save. That Banshee.
The Banshee is a stupidly designed monster, but not because of auto-fail on 1. It's stupidly designed because reduce to 0 on a fail is incompatible with the entire way they designed CR. The damage math works out about right if it does something like 9d6 (31) with its wail (which will one-shot plenty of level 4 PCs)
Everyone has a different idea of what the die rolls should be or when they should be rolled.
That's the thing though.
Nearly everyone in this thread actually agrees on at least these two things about when a roll should be made:
A roll should be made if there is a chance of failure.
And a roll should not be made if there is no chance of success.
With some people, myself included, saying that a roll can also be made if either success or failure is guaranteed in order to determine the magnitude of the success or failure.
And for none of those situations does the 'auto-fail on 1, auto-success on 20' rule add anything, except needless complication.
Yeah, we're not going to even bother with the rest of that.
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw? When you cannot fail, how do you succeed more than just succeeding? When the only possible outcome is some form of success, where is the risk of harm? Why force a roll against harm when there is no risk of harm? Why face what is intended to be a damaging or debilitating action or ability when the only possible outcomes are getting a cookie and getting a cookie with a glass of milk?
Because, to me, that sounds insane. It was a dumb change for 5th edition that never should have made it in.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process. Because, for the life of me, I cannot see how not needing to do math 10% of the time is a complication.
you should only ask for a roll of the player for things they're potentially able to do. If they won't absolutely be able to do a thing, don't ask for a roll. if the player rolls anyway, disregard it and ask politely for the player only to roll for the tests you ask them.
Otherwise I could say "I lift the castle over my shoulders and throw it away", roll a 20 and I succeed.
So, don't ask of your players rolls for things they can't do. Just tell them it's not going to happen.
Just make the difference between things you don't want to happen and things they can't do. Like lifting up a castle, fitting inside a drawer, etc.
A lot of posts have assumed that under the new playtest rule, players will be able to roll for impossible tasks, but in the UA, it clearly states that "The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance."
As I stated in the initial post, the new playtest rule doesn't actually change anything for ability checks. All the points that you stated for ability checks under the current rule, still applies the same way under the new playtest rule.
You might ask, "why bother updating the rules if nothing changes?" Well, since attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws are now being curated under the term "d20 Test", this rule is just updating the language. Saving throws are affected, but not ability checks. Nothing actually changes for ability checks.
This isn't true. Under current rules, a natural 1 is not a failure and a natural 20 is not a success when making Ability Checks or Saving Throws. Under the rules presented in the UA, that in fact would change.
It's a difference without a distinction. The DM, not the player, decide when and how to roll an ability check. And the DM should only be calling for ability checks when there's a real chance of success or failure. Under this paradigm, a 1 or 20 would still result in a failure or a success. The has not changed. What has changed is a 20 also grants inspiration to the character.
The change is also check against adversarial DMs. There are some out there who, in an effort to be deceptive, call for inconsequential ability checks where the players cannot hope to succeed. WotC doesn't agree. Their underlying principle is every roll should be meaningful. Ability checks, and how they work, haven't actually changed. Attack rolls haven't actually changed. The only real change is to how saving throws work, and that's what's getting the most pushback.
And I think they're wrong for pushing back. The principle is sound. In a game where every cast of the die is a binary outcome, both success and failure needs to always be options. Anything is possible. Nothing is impossible.
Some of this is just growing pains from clumsily lumping everything together into a D20 Test. I get wanting to unify everything, and some systems pull it off, but I don't think it's necessary here. It reads like an attempt to save ink and page space. And if anyone out there has a better execution for this principle, then I'd love to see it. If they disagree with this principle, I'd like to see a justification beyond simply rewarding players for stacking numbers. That's a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question.
Why do we seem to be pretending that more appropriately difficult challenges don't exist? Yes, player characters can get strong/skilled enough that easy challenges (DC 10) are no longer a threat to someone who has dedicated a non-insubstantial amount of their resources towards being good at overcoming that particular avenue of difficulty. That isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's a clear indicator that their character is better than they were before, and that their efforts have paid off.
So yes, they can (with sufficient dedication) make overcoming the simplest of challenges casual. The scale of difficulty goes up as high as the DM feels it needs to. If you want to challenge that character in the arena of their specialty then you have the freedom to do so with higher difficulty challenges. And if your argument is that it makes it more difficult for those who haven't dedicated their resources into that one particular point of skill, I'd argue that that is working as intended. The rest of the party shouldn't be able to compare to a characters specialty without dedicating a similar amount of effort/resources.
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw?
You wouldn't roll magnitude for a saving throw. You'd roll magnitude when a player insists on trying something that requires an ability check that will fail anyway, but it could just simply fail or it could fail spectacularly. The same for success.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process.
I just did, in the part you didn't quote. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself...
Well, not any more than I already do regularly, any way.
You know... The Banshee. That thing that can, if things go bad, instantly TPK a party because it instantly reduces everyone within 30ft who fails the save to 0 hitpoints and they're CR 4 so you'll usually be encountering them when your wisdom save is, at the absolute best (if you maxed your wisdom) +7? And the DC is 13, so even a the average level 20 character with max Wisdom and proficiency in Wisdom saves has a 10% chance to still fail that save. That Banshee.
The Banshee is a stupidly designed monster, but not because of auto-fail on 1. It's stupidly designed because reduce to 0 on a fail is incompatible with the entire way they designed CR. The damage math works out about right if it does something like 9d6 (31) with its wail (which will one-shot plenty of level 4 PCs)
That is one area of the game that really does need reform. They need to put actual serious thought into CR's, or scrap them entirely. Right now they are unreliable at best and way too often completely misleading.
I think people often don't realise that CR in 5e is a 'don't send this against a regular party below this level unless you're willing to accidentally TPK them' rating.
Banshees are a special case, because, as pointed out, they can accidentally TPK right up until level 20, but the main reason they're CR 4 is that that is the level that players get their first ability score improvement and therefore the first level that constitution focused classes can be expected to gain a decent chance to save against the Wail (and Wisdom focused classes gain a decent chance to save against the Horrid Visage) if you're using Standard Array.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
Really, if that could be explained in a way that made sense to me, then I would feel better about this rule.
Because sometimes the best at something still makes a mistake and the person less skilled gets in a lucky shot. The +2 actually has a larger chance at failure than the +12 The plus +12 is going to succeed on a DC 10 on any roll but a one. A DC 15? A success on 1 3 or more. A +2 will fail on any role for a DC 10 1-7. 1-12 for a DC 15. That 1 is just that there is a chance.
But, that’s the issue that’s a sticking point for me. Someone better skilled than I should be able to succeed even though they face a level of unluck that would leave me huddled in a corner sobbing.
If the target number is 18 and I have a +19 on the roll and they have a +22, they should still have an easier time succeeding.
They would have an easier time of meeting a static DC yes; but they would never have a completely 0% chance for failure. The point of it is that everyone always has a small chance to fail. How small a chance may be variable, but never absent.
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A natural one is Beetoven missing a key or Luciano Pavarotti missing a note. No matter how natural their talent is; yes, it can still happen.
You don't realise this, but you've basically made an excellent argument for why a 1 shouldn't be an automatic fail with this.
Because, you know what? Musicians, including vocalists, miss notes all the time. Even the most talented, most skilled musicians do this.
But you know what separates the really good musicians from the merely adequate ones? When the good ones do it, you don't notice unless you're specifically listening for it. And when the absolutely great ones do it, you might not even notice then.
When someone who's just starting to get acquainted with their instrument misses a note, you notice because they notice and it throws them off and 9 times out of 10 it's not the missed note, but their distraction and inability to adjust that ruins the performance. When someone who's mastered their instrument misses a note, they know the instrument and they know the piece and instead of thinking 'wait, that's not right, what did I do wrong?' they just keep playing and hit the next note instead.
Fair point. In an RP of my bard playing a long performance, I would see a series of perforance checks, i.e. 1 per song, or one per 10 minutes of singing etc. There would be several levels of DC's per check to represent each situation you are describing above. A nat20 means I miss no notes. A nat 2-19 means I may miss a note but by my modifier is so high that I beat most of the DC's anyway and most people in the audience don't notice or don't care - the performance continues unabated. A nat-1 means I do fumble the piece; i.e. drop my instument, burst out laughing min-sentence as I see someone with a ridiculous hat join the crowd, etc.
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But, that’s the issue that’s a sticking point for me. Someone better skilled than I should be able to succeed even though they face a level of unluck that would leave me huddled in a corner sobbing.
If the target number is 18 and I have a +19 on the roll and they have a +22, they should still have an easier time succeeding.
They would have an easier time of meeting a static DC yes; but they would never have a completely 0% chance for failure. The point of it is that everyone always has a small chance to fail. How small a chance may be variable, but never absent.
If we consider success to be simply performing adequetely rather than perfectly, then a true master would have a 0% chance of failure, repesented by having a modifier allowing them to succeed on a Nat 1. If a situation in which they can fail appears, it should be represented by a higher DC.
Can someone explain to me why a character with +12 on their save should have the same chance of critical failure as someone with a +2?
Really, if that could be explained in a way that made sense to me, then I would feel better about this rule.
Because sometimes the best at something still makes a mistake and the person less skilled gets in a lucky shot. The +2 actually has a larger chance at failure than the +12 The plus +12 is going to succeed on a DC 10 on any roll but a one. A DC 15? A success on 1 3 or more. A +2 will fail on any role for a DC 10 1-7. 1-12 for a DC 15. That 1 is just that there is a chance.
A single mistake such as missing a note in a song does not mean failure. A success doesn't require perfection but simply an adequete performance. Someone with a +12 may make a mistake or two on a DC10 but nothing that would actually make the check a failure.
And I think they're wrong for pushing back. The principle is sound. In a game where every cast of the die is a binary outcome, both success and failure needs to always be options. Anything is possible. Nothin
Some of this is just growing pains from clumsily lumping everything together into a D20 Test. I get wanting to unify everything, and some systems pull it off, but I don't think it's necessary here. It reads like an attempt to save ink and page space. And if anyone out there has a better execution for this principle, then I'd love to see it. If they disagree with this principle, I'd like to see a justification beyond simply rewarding players for stacking numbers. That's a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question.
They are not wrong for pushing back. Being wrong on pushing back means their fun is wrong which is a wrong idea to begin with.
Also, rewarding someone for stacking numbers is not a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question; it is simply you hating optimization. Fact is, the nat 1 auto fail will really only affect people who optimize and will likely only impact their fun. Even if nat 1 auto fails did not exist, I doubt your games would change in anyway vs if they did as it seems unlikely that people in your games would pump up their modifiers to succeed on Nat 1's. People would fail on Nat 1's because normally their modifiers would not be enough to succeed on a nat 1. You are literally advocating a change that will probably not affect your games but can hinder the fun of other people's games.
Furthermore, the nat 1/20 auto fail/success will likely slow games down as either DMs will make players roll for that 5% auto fail chance or players will bully a DM into letting them try for that 5% autosuccess. Won't happen everygame or even most games, but it will happen in some games.
Finally, Saving Throws are not actually forced rolls under the One D&D rules because DMs have full control over when any d20 test is made. They very much can just say you succeed or fail a save, basing it on your modifier. This means some DMs can outright stop the auto fail/success rule from working. However this will lead to variance in Organized Play, e.g. Adventurers League, where idealy there should be 0 ruling variance from table to table.
Maybe the ruleset for adjudicating the outcomes of perilous adventures into monster-filled dungeons isn't actually able to accurately reflect a man playing a piano? Maybe we shouldn't expect it to?
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw?
You wouldn't roll magnitude for a saving throw. You'd roll magnitude when a player insists on trying something that requires an ability check that will fail anyway, but it could just simply fail or it could fail spectacularly. The same for success.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process.
I just did, in the part you didn't quote. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself...
Well, not any more than I already do regularly, any way.
I ask for clarification because you contradict yourself. If we already agree that we should only roll when the outcome matters, when success and failure are both possible, then adding a condition where we don't have to perform addition and compare the sum to the DC isn't a complication. It's a shortcut. It speeds the process along.
I'm talking specifically about saving throws, because ability checks aren't (or shouldn't) be impacted whatsoever. Instead, you want to add degrees of success and failure, which is already in the DMG, to the PHB. Am I reading this correctly? Are you trying to shift two sets of goal posts at once? Because moving something from one book to another is pointless. We're looking at player-facing rules. Players don't need to know about degrees of success; should a DM even choose to use them. And I was not talking about ability checks, so why you try to change the subject is just...ARGH!
Are you that uninterested in what others have to say? I'm trying to understand you. But I can't. You aren't making sense.
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw?
You wouldn't roll magnitude for a saving throw. You'd roll magnitude when a player insists on trying something that requires an ability check that will fail anyway, but it could just simply fail or it could fail spectacularly. The same for success.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process.
I just did, in the part you didn't quote. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself...
Well, not any more than I already do regularly, any way.
I ask for clarification because you contradict yourself. If we already agree that we should only roll when the outcome matters, when success and failure are both possible, then adding a condition where we don't have to perform addition and compare the sum to the DC isn't a complication. It's a shortcut. It speeds the process along.
I'm talking specifically about saving throws, because ability checks aren't (or shouldn't) be impacted whatsoever. Instead, you want to add degrees of success and failure, which is already in the DMG, to the PHB. Am I reading this correctly? Are you trying to shift two sets of goal posts at once? Because moving something from one book to another is pointless. We're looking at player-facing rules. Players don't need to know about degrees of success; should a DM even choose to use them. And I was not talking about ability checks, so why you try to change the subject is just...ARGH!
Are you that uninterested in what others have to say? I'm trying to understand you. But I can't. You aren't making sense.
My other concern here is that looking at a characters modifier and then using that to determine if a roll is or isn't needed encourages gameifying at the table. Players sending the character with the biggest stat to do a thing. At my tables that is not allowed, if a player asks a question that necessitates a skill check, what can I see around the room, is there any gold here, are there any traps then there character is who makes the roll, they are not allowed to the delegate that roll to another player. They might get assistance in the roll, but, they are the one responsible for making it. Now if players know that if player B does this test they are auto guaranteed a success then they will game it a lot more. With a Nat 20 Nat 1 it reduces the necessity for the Optimised character to be the one who always takes the roll.
Maybe the ruleset for adjudicating the outcomes of perilous adventures into monster-filled dungeons isn't actually able to accurately reflect a man playing a piano? Maybe we shouldn't expect it to?
Well that is the problem. For most, or at least for a great many, there is intended to be a lot to the game other than just fighting in monster filled dungeons.
In the end, a d20 is simply too random to resolve ordinary (low stress) situations, and in the higher stress situations it's meant to be used in, a minimum 5% failure chance is reasonable.
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw?
You wouldn't roll magnitude for a saving throw. You'd roll magnitude when a player insists on trying something that requires an ability check that will fail anyway, but it could just simply fail or it could fail spectacularly. The same for success.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process.
I just did, in the part you didn't quote. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself...
Well, not any more than I already do regularly, any way.
I ask for clarification because you contradict yourself. If we already agree that we should only roll when the outcome matters, when success and failure are both possible, then adding a condition where we don't have to perform addition and compare the sum to the DC isn't a complication. It's a shortcut. It speeds the process along.
I'm talking specifically about saving throws, because ability checks aren't (or shouldn't) be impacted whatsoever. Instead, you want to add degrees of success and failure, which is already in the DMG, to the PHB. Am I reading this correctly? Are you trying to shift two sets of goal posts at once? Because moving something from one book to another is pointless. We're looking at player-facing rules. Players don't need to know about degrees of success; should a DM even choose to use them. And I was not talking about ability checks, so why you try to change the subject is just...ARGH!
Are you that uninterested in what others have to say? I'm trying to understand you. But I can't. You aren't making sense.
I think a lot of us are more focused on the ability checks than Saves. Saves are binary in the same way Attacks are. You either save or you don't.
Ability checks don't really function in the same manner. Degrees of success/failure with skill checks are mostly reflected in the Role Play and how that impacts the story. A character may not be able to out right fail at a skill check, but might barely scrape by and that has story complications all on it's own represented in the amount of time something might take or how an NPC might react. Those things are significant enough to warrant a roll, even if a 1 might succeed, a higher result would be of greater benefit. The same can be said of tasks that are possible, but not by anyone in the party due to lower modifier. You can let them roll, knowing that they can't succeed, but they might be able lessen the impact of the failure or learn of a different course of action that could lead to success.
Of course if a task is truly impossible, such as jumping over the moon, then you don't allow the roll. Same thing with anything that is mundane or has no real impact on the story.
And I think they're wrong for pushing back. The principle is sound. In a game where every cast of the die is a binary outcome, both success and failure needs to always be options. Anything is possible. Nothin
Some of this is just growing pains from clumsily lumping everything together into a D20 Test. I get wanting to unify everything, and some systems pull it off, but I don't think it's necessary here. It reads like an attempt to save ink and page space. And if anyone out there has a better execution for this principle, then I'd love to see it. If they disagree with this principle, I'd like to see a justification beyond simply rewarding players for stacking numbers. That's a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question.
They are not wrong for pushing back. Being wrong on pushing back means their fun is wrong which is a wrong idea to begin with.
Also, rewarding someone for stacking numbers is not a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question; it is simply you hating optimization. Fact is, the nat 1 auto fail will really only affect people who optimize and will likely only impact their fun. Even if nat 1 auto fails did not exist, I doubt your games would change in anyway vs if they did as it seems unlikely that people in your games would pump up their modifiers to succeed on Nat 1's. People would fail on Nat 1's because normally their modifiers would not be enough to succeed on a nat 1. You are literally advocating a change that will probably not affect your games but can hinder the fun of other people's games.
Furthermore, the nat 1/20 auto fail/success will likely slow games down as either DMs will make players roll for that 5% auto fail chance or players will bully a DM into letting them try for that 5% autosuccess. Won't happen everygame or even most games, but it will happen in some games.
Finally, Saving Throws are not actually forced rolls under the One D&D rules because DMs have full control over when any d20 test is made. They very much can just say you succeed or fail a save, basing it on your modifier. This means some DMs can outright stop the auto fail/success rule from working. However this will lead to variance in Organized Play, e.g. Adventurers League, where idealy there should be 0 ruling variance from table to table.
Now you're just attacking my opinion, not my reasoning, while making specious arguments. And that's me be being charitable.
I laid out my case while contrasting the descriptive text for what a saving throw is against the actual mechanics. The OneD&D playtest, so far, has not redefined what a saving throw is. And until it does, the old text from 2014 stands. If it doesn't still stand, then none of this has any meaning. Even our mutual citing it was pointless. You're moving goal posts, you aren't the only one, and I'm sick of it. So far, the playtest only tells us how a saving throw is to be resolved. It has changed nothing about them being forced.
I feel like I'm talking to a wall.
You say the Nat1/Nat20 proposal will likely slow the game down. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know what data there is on when the game last used this rule versus now. No one may even have kept track. What that does tell me, though, is you haven't tried it yourself. Because you aren't citing your own experience. You're giving me an armchair review. And I think that's just cute. Everyone has an opinion. Not all opinions are equal. A flat-earther is a joke. A J6 insurrectionist is a joke. Attempting to weigh in on the rules without trying them means any opinion you have is born from ignorance. You owe it to yourself to give them a fair shot.
For crying out loud, if saving throws aren't actually forced and are just something the DM decides happens, then hold person is going to be an automatic success every time. You don't get a save. You're just [condition]paralyzed[/spell]. But that would be capricious, subject to abuse, and therefore wrong. These are player-facing rules. They exist to establish a norm, a social contract, between the player(s) and the DM. There may be special rules only the DM can see or use, but this is the common clay on which everything else is built from. And something that is forced, because there is always an inherent element of harm, should always have a fail condition. For those words to mean anything, the rule needs teeth. So that failure chance should be there; no matter how small it might be.
You're worried about players bullying the DM. And that's fair. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. You know what else doesn't happen often, but does happen? The DM gives the party an impossible task, knowing full well they can't complete it, but has them roll anyway to deceive them into thinking there's a chance. I've already typed about this. That's adversarial, and I hope I'm not alone in this thread in thinking that's not acceptable behavior. Even implementing degrees of failure doesn't mitigate this. I don't care how badly I'm going to fail because I'm still going to fail. I'm still being gated─railroaded. The degree of failure doesn't actually matter. It would have been better to just let me know not to try this and move on to something else that doesn't waste anyone's time. What this rule changes for ability checks is every roll has a guaranteed chance of succeeding or failing. This means you can't actually gate the players. It functionally ends that adversarial play. And for a player, not having an adversarial DM is a good thing.
Bullying, no matter which way it goes, ultimately comes down to manners and etiquette. Players can already bully the DM into allowing an ability check. This proposal might encourage more of that, but hypotheticals aren't real or helpful. We can go back and forth until we're all blue in the face and still haven't gotten anywhere. What this does is definitely cut a real problem off at the knees. And if my only two choices are leaving two problems alone or fixing one of them, I'm going to fix the one. It's a no-brainer.
We do all agree that ability checks should only be rolled when there's a meaningful consequence, right? This just codifies that, so there always is. The DM still decides when a check is called for. And routine activities don't need checks. Functionally, we shouldn't actually notice a difference with ability checks. I sure haven't.
The only thing that really changes are saving throws. And that's just a bridge too far for some of you.
The situation Gospel is describing though is essentially someone making a performance or an instrument check in an actual performance rather than as a passive check. A successful check does not necessary mean you performed perfectly, but well enough for it to be considered a success. Which means, missing a note doesn't necessary mean they failed. So when looking at someone like Beethoven or any other highly skilled performer, sure each performance is not necessary perfect, but they are still successes. They don't fail to adequately perform 5% of the time.
I didn't say routine test. I said easy. DC 10, which seems to be the main break point being discussed, is explicitly categorized as being easy. That's what DC 10 is. DC 15 is moderate difficulty.
So? The only caster class that gets proficiency with constitution saves by default are Sorcerers, who also have the smallest spell selection and need some incentive to take concentration spells over just pure damage (and/or healing, for Divine Souls) and Artificers, who are utility casters whose spell list leans heavily towards concentration spells that buff other party members. In order to actually get to +9 at a point where you might be taking 22 damage from the average attack all other casters need to either dip into a different class or take a feat to get proficiency on constitution.
Besides, which, concentration checks are supposed to be somewhat lenient because it encourages DMs to have monsters hit casters hard if they want to break their concentration instead of just nickle-and-diming them with little bits of damage until they fail a roll. That's why it's DC 10 OR half the damage of the attack, whichever is higher.
Yeah, and that's a class feature that scales with Charisma, in order to make Paladins who focus on party support and spellcasting just as viable and useful to the party as Paladins who purely pump their combat abilities so they can be a frontline tank.
And eh... Creatures that suchs a high level party might encounter include such lovely examples as Liches (who have a spell DC of flippin' 20 and can force the entire party to make multiple saves per turn), and Ancient Dragons, even the weakest of which have DC 22 on their Breath attacks. And wouldn't you know it, in order to benefit from said aura the party has to stay neatly within breath weapon, fireball and cloudkill range from the Paladin.
Even getting a +5 to saves (on top of the +11 in their proficient saves and the much less than that in their non-proficient ones) thanks to the Paladin doesn't make the party immune to the DCs of attacks made by threats on their level. At best it protects them from stuff that shouldn't be a threat to them anyway (but with the '1 is an auto-fail' rule definitely still are), like a Banshee's Wail... (And even then only if they're already proficient in Constitution saves).
You know... The Banshee. That thing that can, if things go bad, instantly TPK a party because it instantly reduces everyone within 30ft who fails the save to 0 hitpoints and they're CR 4 so you'll usually be encountering them when your constitution save is, at the absolute best (if you maxed your con) +7? And the DC is 13, so even a the average level 20 character with max Constitution and proficiency in Constitution saves has a 10% chance to still fail that save. That Banshee.
Yes, god forbid players at level 20 might enjoy the benefit of a a specific class feature that comes with its own weaknesses to the AoE slinging threats at their own level to get some immunity against an CR 4 monster that STILL has the potential (though not a very high chance, let's not oversell Banshees here), on a bad roll day, to TPK the party solo without that feature.
The Banshee is a stupidly designed monster, but not because of auto-fail on 1. It's stupidly designed because reduce to 0 on a fail is incompatible with the entire way they designed CR. The damage math works out about right if it does something like 9d6 (31) with its wail (which will one-shot plenty of level 4 PCs)
Yeah, we're not going to even bother with the rest of that.
What would magnitudes of success or failure look like on a pass/fail saving throw? When you cannot fail, how do you succeed more than just succeeding? When the only possible outcome is some form of success, where is the risk of harm? Why force a roll against harm when there is no risk of harm? Why face what is intended to be a damaging or debilitating action or ability when the only possible outcomes are getting a cookie and getting a cookie with a glass of milk?
Because, to me, that sounds insane. It was a dumb change for 5th edition that never should have made it in.
And how in Ao's name is automatic success or failure a needless complication? Walk me through your thought process. Because, for the life of me, I cannot see how not needing to do math 10% of the time is a complication.
you should only ask for a roll of the player for things they're potentially able to do. If they won't absolutely be able to do a thing, don't ask for a roll. if the player rolls anyway, disregard it and ask politely for the player only to roll for the tests you ask them.
Otherwise I could say "I lift the castle over my shoulders and throw it away", roll a 20 and I succeed.
So, don't ask of your players rolls for things they can't do. Just tell them it's not going to happen.
Just make the difference between things you don't want to happen and things they can't do. Like lifting up a castle, fitting inside a drawer, etc.
It's a difference without a distinction. The DM, not the player, decide when and how to roll an ability check. And the DM should only be calling for ability checks when there's a real chance of success or failure. Under this paradigm, a 1 or 20 would still result in a failure or a success. The has not changed. What has changed is a 20 also grants inspiration to the character.
The change is also check against adversarial DMs. There are some out there who, in an effort to be deceptive, call for inconsequential ability checks where the players cannot hope to succeed. WotC doesn't agree. Their underlying principle is every roll should be meaningful. Ability checks, and how they work, haven't actually changed. Attack rolls haven't actually changed. The only real change is to how saving throws work, and that's what's getting the most pushback.
And I think they're wrong for pushing back. The principle is sound. In a game where every cast of the die is a binary outcome, both success and failure needs to always be options. Anything is possible. Nothing is impossible.
Some of this is just growing pains from clumsily lumping everything together into a D20 Test. I get wanting to unify everything, and some systems pull it off, but I don't think it's necessary here. It reads like an attempt to save ink and page space. And if anyone out there has a better execution for this principle, then I'd love to see it. If they disagree with this principle, I'd like to see a justification beyond simply rewarding players for stacking numbers. That's a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question.
So yes, they can (with sufficient dedication) make overcoming the simplest of challenges casual. The scale of difficulty goes up as high as the DM feels it needs to. If you want to challenge that character in the arena of their specialty then you have the freedom to do so with higher difficulty challenges. And if your argument is that it makes it more difficult for those who haven't dedicated their resources into that one particular point of skill, I'd argue that that is working as intended. The rest of the party shouldn't be able to compare to a characters specialty without dedicating a similar amount of effort/resources.
You wouldn't roll magnitude for a saving throw. You'd roll magnitude when a player insists on trying something that requires an ability check that will fail anyway, but it could just simply fail or it could fail spectacularly. The same for success.
I just did, in the part you didn't quote. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself...
Well, not any more than I already do regularly, any way.
I think people often don't realise that CR in 5e is a 'don't send this against a regular party below this level unless you're willing to accidentally TPK them' rating.
Banshees are a special case, because, as pointed out, they can accidentally TPK right up until level 20, but the main reason they're CR 4 is that that is the level that players get their first ability score improvement and therefore the first level that constitution focused classes can be expected to gain a decent chance to save against the Wail (and Wisdom focused classes gain a decent chance to save against the Horrid Visage) if you're using Standard Array.
Because sometimes the best at something still makes a mistake and the person less skilled gets in a lucky shot.
The +2 actually has a larger chance at failure than the +12
The plus +12 is going to succeed on a DC 10 on any roll but a one. A DC 15? A success on 1 3 or more.
A +2 will fail on any role for a DC 10 1-7. 1-12 for a DC 15.
That 1 is just that there is a chance.
They would have an easier time of meeting a static DC yes; but they would never have a completely 0% chance for failure. The point of it is that everyone always has a small chance to fail. How small a chance may be variable, but never absent.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Fair point. In an RP of my bard playing a long performance, I would see a series of perforance checks, i.e. 1 per song, or one per 10 minutes of singing etc. There would be several levels of DC's per check to represent each situation you are describing above. A nat20 means I miss no notes. A nat 2-19 means I may miss a note but by my modifier is so high that I beat most of the DC's anyway and most people in the audience don't notice or don't care - the performance continues unabated. A nat-1 means I do fumble the piece; i.e. drop my instument, burst out laughing min-sentence as I see someone with a ridiculous hat join the crowd, etc.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
If we consider success to be simply performing adequetely rather than perfectly, then a true master would have a 0% chance of failure, repesented by having a modifier allowing them to succeed on a Nat 1. If a situation in which they can fail appears, it should be represented by a higher DC.
A single mistake such as missing a note in a song does not mean failure. A success doesn't require perfection but simply an adequete performance. Someone with a +12 may make a mistake or two on a DC10 but nothing that would actually make the check a failure.
They are not wrong for pushing back. Being wrong on pushing back means their fun is wrong which is a wrong idea to begin with.
Also, rewarding someone for stacking numbers is not a Dolyist answer to a Watsonian question; it is simply you hating optimization. Fact is, the nat 1 auto fail will really only affect people who optimize and will likely only impact their fun. Even if nat 1 auto fails did not exist, I doubt your games would change in anyway vs if they did as it seems unlikely that people in your games would pump up their modifiers to succeed on Nat 1's. People would fail on Nat 1's because normally their modifiers would not be enough to succeed on a nat 1. You are literally advocating a change that will probably not affect your games but can hinder the fun of other people's games.
Furthermore, the nat 1/20 auto fail/success will likely slow games down as either DMs will make players roll for that 5% auto fail chance or players will bully a DM into letting them try for that 5% autosuccess. Won't happen everygame or even most games, but it will happen in some games.
Finally, Saving Throws are not actually forced rolls under the One D&D rules because DMs have full control over when any d20 test is made. They very much can just say you succeed or fail a save, basing it on your modifier. This means some DMs can outright stop the auto fail/success rule from working. However this will lead to variance in Organized Play, e.g. Adventurers League, where idealy there should be 0 ruling variance from table to table.
Maybe the ruleset for adjudicating the outcomes of perilous adventures into monster-filled dungeons isn't actually able to accurately reflect a man playing a piano? Maybe we shouldn't expect it to?
I ask for clarification because you contradict yourself. If we already agree that we should only roll when the outcome matters, when success and failure are both possible, then adding a condition where we don't have to perform addition and compare the sum to the DC isn't a complication. It's a shortcut. It speeds the process along.
I'm talking specifically about saving throws, because ability checks aren't (or shouldn't) be impacted whatsoever. Instead, you want to add degrees of success and failure, which is already in the DMG, to the PHB. Am I reading this correctly? Are you trying to shift two sets of goal posts at once? Because moving something from one book to another is pointless. We're looking at player-facing rules. Players don't need to know about degrees of success; should a DM even choose to use them. And I was not talking about ability checks, so why you try to change the subject is just...ARGH!
Are you that uninterested in what others have to say? I'm trying to understand you. But I can't. You aren't making sense.
My other concern here is that looking at a characters modifier and then using that to determine if a roll is or isn't needed encourages gameifying at the table. Players sending the character with the biggest stat to do a thing. At my tables that is not allowed, if a player asks a question that necessitates a skill check, what can I see around the room, is there any gold here, are there any traps then there character is who makes the roll, they are not allowed to the delegate that roll to another player. They might get assistance in the roll, but, they are the one responsible for making it. Now if players know that if player B does this test they are auto guaranteed a success then they will game it a lot more. With a Nat 20 Nat 1 it reduces the necessity for the Optimised character to be the one who always takes the roll.
In the end, a d20 is simply too random to resolve ordinary (low stress) situations, and in the higher stress situations it's meant to be used in, a minimum 5% failure chance is reasonable.
I think a lot of us are more focused on the ability checks than Saves. Saves are binary in the same way Attacks are. You either save or you don't.
Ability checks don't really function in the same manner. Degrees of success/failure with skill checks are mostly reflected in the Role Play and how that impacts the story. A character may not be able to out right fail at a skill check, but might barely scrape by and that has story complications all on it's own represented in the amount of time something might take or how an NPC might react. Those things are significant enough to warrant a roll, even if a 1 might succeed, a higher result would be of greater benefit. The same can be said of tasks that are possible, but not by anyone in the party due to lower modifier. You can let them roll, knowing that they can't succeed, but they might be able lessen the impact of the failure or learn of a different course of action that could lead to success.
Of course if a task is truly impossible, such as jumping over the moon, then you don't allow the roll. Same thing with anything that is mundane or has no real impact on the story.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Now you're just attacking my opinion, not my reasoning, while making specious arguments. And that's me be being charitable.
I laid out my case while contrasting the descriptive text for what a saving throw is against the actual mechanics. The OneD&D playtest, so far, has not redefined what a saving throw is. And until it does, the old text from 2014 stands. If it doesn't still stand, then none of this has any meaning. Even our mutual citing it was pointless. You're moving goal posts, you aren't the only one, and I'm sick of it. So far, the playtest only tells us how a saving throw is to be resolved. It has changed nothing about them being forced.
I feel like I'm talking to a wall.
You say the Nat1/Nat20 proposal will likely slow the game down. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know what data there is on when the game last used this rule versus now. No one may even have kept track. What that does tell me, though, is you haven't tried it yourself. Because you aren't citing your own experience. You're giving me an armchair review. And I think that's just cute. Everyone has an opinion. Not all opinions are equal. A flat-earther is a joke. A J6 insurrectionist is a joke. Attempting to weigh in on the rules without trying them means any opinion you have is born from ignorance. You owe it to yourself to give them a fair shot.
For crying out loud, if saving throws aren't actually forced and are just something the DM decides happens, then hold person is going to be an automatic success every time. You don't get a save. You're just [condition]paralyzed[/spell]. But that would be capricious, subject to abuse, and therefore wrong. These are player-facing rules. They exist to establish a norm, a social contract, between the player(s) and the DM. There may be special rules only the DM can see or use, but this is the common clay on which everything else is built from. And something that is forced, because there is always an inherent element of harm, should always have a fail condition. For those words to mean anything, the rule needs teeth. So that failure chance should be there; no matter how small it might be.
You're worried about players bullying the DM. And that's fair. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. You know what else doesn't happen often, but does happen? The DM gives the party an impossible task, knowing full well they can't complete it, but has them roll anyway to deceive them into thinking there's a chance. I've already typed about this. That's adversarial, and I hope I'm not alone in this thread in thinking that's not acceptable behavior. Even implementing degrees of failure doesn't mitigate this. I don't care how badly I'm going to fail because I'm still going to fail. I'm still being gated─railroaded. The degree of failure doesn't actually matter. It would have been better to just let me know not to try this and move on to something else that doesn't waste anyone's time. What this rule changes for ability checks is every roll has a guaranteed chance of succeeding or failing. This means you can't actually gate the players. It functionally ends that adversarial play. And for a player, not having an adversarial DM is a good thing.
Bullying, no matter which way it goes, ultimately comes down to manners and etiquette. Players can already bully the DM into allowing an ability check. This proposal might encourage more of that, but hypotheticals aren't real or helpful. We can go back and forth until we're all blue in the face and still haven't gotten anywhere. What this does is definitely cut a real problem off at the knees. And if my only two choices are leaving two problems alone or fixing one of them, I'm going to fix the one. It's a no-brainer.
We do all agree that ability checks should only be rolled when there's a meaningful consequence, right? This just codifies that, so there always is. The DM still decides when a check is called for. And routine activities don't need checks. Functionally, we shouldn't actually notice a difference with ability checks. I sure haven't.
The only thing that really changes are saving throws. And that's just a bridge too far for some of you.