20 Dexterity and Expertise with Thieves' Tools gives you +17 to your roll. So you need to roll at least 23 on a d20. Cool, cool. I assume you set enemy saving throws at at least +20, you know, so that spellcasters that are designed to cast spells can feel some challenge)
Tier 4 artificer thief: figure 14 Dex, 20 Int, Tool Expertise, Infusion (Replicate Magic Item: Gloves of Thievery), cast Enhance Ability (Dex), use Flash of Genius. Total bonus 2 (dex) +12 (expertise) +5 (gloves of thievery) +5 (flash of genius) = 24, with advantage; 94% to achieve a 30, 75% to achieve a 35, 44% to achieve a 40. And that's not even counting any benefits that can be granted from allies, found magic items, maybe having more than a 14 dex, etc.
And no, Wish will not open plot device locks; artifact grade items will simply ignore it and even affecting a legendary exceeds the power of an 8th level spell (as legendary items are generally not less than 9th level spell equivalent) and thus runs the risk of permanently losing the ability to cast the spell.
In any case, my original point with the example wasn't about DCs above 30, it was about how DC escalation isn't exotic, it's normal gameplay.
First, how good is that god of locksmithing against an ancient black dragon, and how good is that PC in case of DC40 Persuasion check? I mean, if a lock can be DC40, then all other checks can be. Or is it a universe of hard locks but mild other challenges?
Now try that with rogue. No guarantee that they'll get Gloves of Thievery. No guarantee they'll have an artificer in the party. No guarantee for Enhance Ability or Guidance either. By the way, Knock is a 2nd level spell.
Wish literally rewrites reality. But if you want to railroad your players so hard that even Wish can't break these rails...
20 Dexterity and Expertise with Thieves' Tools gives you +17 to your roll. So you need to roll at least 23 on a d20. Cool, cool. I assume you set enemy saving throws at at least +20, you know, so that spellcasters that are designed to cast spells can feel some challenge)
Tier 4 artificer thief: figure 14 Dex, 20 Int, Tool Expertise, Infusion (Replicate Magic Item: Gloves of Thievery), cast Enhance Ability (Dex), use Flash of Genius. Total bonus 2 (dex) +12 (expertise) +5 (gloves of thievery) +5 (flash of genius) = 24, with advantage; 94% to achieve a 30, 75% to achieve a 35, 44% to achieve a 40. And that's not even counting any benefits that can be granted from allies, found magic items, maybe having more than a 14 dex, etc.
And no, Wish will not open plot device locks; artifact grade items will simply ignore it and even affecting a legendary exceeds the power of an 8th level spell (as legendary items are generally not less than 9th level spell equivalent) and thus runs the risk of permanently losing the ability to cast the spell.
In any case, my original point with the example wasn't about DCs above 30, it was about how DC escalation isn't exotic, it's normal gameplay.
Ok so ya you have no idea what T4 of play is supposed to represent or what that skill level is supposed to represent +you are now multiclassing instead of single class + multiple magic items. So one of the most skilled locksmith in all planes of existence enhanced by magic and you are mad that they routinely pull off nearly impossible feats.... they SHOULD pull off nearly impossible feats routinely at that point.
T4 +magic is where herculean feats are the regular. The nearly is meant to be their playground. Your argument as to otherwise is just wrong.
Gonna admit: haven't kept up on the thread. But I can perhaps offer a little perspective here, irrespective of the math.
The Play Fantasy of an 'Expert' class - the reason people play these classes in the first place - is reliability. Within their area of expertise? The party can rely on these skilled masters. A player who favors Expert classes is after the fantasy of the Competent Man, exercising breadth and depth of skill and talent rare to find in any era. They're polymath Rennaissance (Wo)Men that routinely accomplish what others find difficult or even impossible through practiced application of wit and skill.
Despite that, it's not really the Height of Talent an Expert is looking for. Those moments are neat, but rare and hard to build for. What most Expert players are generally looking for is to be able to trust their skills. They want to know that they can say to the party "Don't worry, I've got this", and only very rarely be wrong. Most non-Expert characters cannot trust their skills - the d20 is so swingy and weird that even a character at the height of their talents flubs completely routine checks 'bout ten, fifteen percent of the time - more than often enough to feel humiliating and disrespectful. The Expert says "I should be able to open a god damned door without spending twenty minutes of session time and four spell levels' worth of magic on the motherf@#$ing attempt!"
This puts them at odds with DMs, who often lean on randomness and uncertainty in everyday activities to artificially ratchet up tension and challenge. The (bad) DM says "every door is a chance for you to hilariously humiliate yourselves and I won't skip it for all the tea in China!" Better DMs allow for mundane normal-person tasks, but still tend to crank DCs to match ability bonuses rather than utilizing the system correctly, chasing that 'magic' 65% success number. They fail to realize that the dedicated Expert player in their group is the gal who saw Crawford say "65% success rate is about where most players feel comfortable" and said "yeah, **** that, a 35% failure rate in my primary talents is unacceptable."
It's why I honestly think Expertise should work the other way around - rather than doubling your proficiency bonus and increasing the potential height of your skill checks without doing a single goddamn thing to offset humiliating and nonsensical failure, 'Expertise' should work more like Reliable Talent and institute a floor on checks. Proficiency lets you add PB to your check; Expertise lets you treat anything lower than an 8 on the d20 as an 8. That reinforces the "I've got this, trust me" fantasy of the Competent Man without bending the DC math over its knee and giving it the black-and-blue the way current Expertise does.
. Most non-Expert characters cannot trust their skills - the d20 is so swingy and weird that even a character at the height of their talents flubs completely routine checks 'bout ten, fifteen percent of the time - more than often enough to feel humiliating and disrespectful.
This is so true and it does screwy things, we were trying to open a chest with a crowbar and our 18 strength half-orc failed. I pushed him aside and opened it with my 8 strength Cleric-Wizard.
I agree completely on not rescaling the DCs. In terms of play most "experts" in 5E or 1 are not as powerful in other pillars, particularly combat. So you are giving up some things to get that "automatic" and the party is giving up some things to get that automatic. In the modern game where a lot of people powergame and try to eek every last point of combat ability out of their character, it is nice to have characters focused on something else.
I have been experimenting with the play test materials. It feels like feature creep. I was hoping that this would be an opportunity to simplify the game not make it easier to create power characters.
Feats should be simple with only one or two things. No feat should affect ability scores. Characters should only have access to about 1-3 feats total. They should be used to give some flavor and specialization to a class, not power it up so that 5th level characters are not challenged by 5th level adventures.
Ability score increases should be only in the class area. No feat or race should affect the basic ability scores. You should not have to sacrifice an ability score boost for a feat, they should be separate.
Reliable Talent should be changed somehow. A difficulty score of 25 should be a daunting thing to roll. I have had Rogues in my games that automatically have base scores of 27. I had to invent a new difficulty of 40 just to make the game a little challenging for them.
Backgrounds should give less game mechanic bonus and more role playing bonuses. Instead of giving out spells and bonus feats, backgrounds should give players access to guilds, universities, churches, noble courts, tribes that can help the character in an adventure.
One of the things I did like was that finally Rangers have both Goodberry and Create/Destroy Water spells available to them through the Primal spell list. A Ranger should not have to worry about rations and water while on the hunt for enemies of a near by village.
Reliable talent and feats that have half an ASI attached are not new things, though.....
True but this would be the opportunity to separate them completely.
Feats should be simple with only one or two things. No feat should affect ability scores. Characters should only have access to about 1-3 feats total. They should be used to give some flavor and specialization to a class, not power it up so that 5th level characters are not challenged by 5th level adventures.
Ability score increases should be only in the class area. No feat or race should affect the basic ability scores. You should not have to sacrifice an ability score boost for a feat, they should be separate.
The way it is, you don't have to choose between a feat and ASI - you get a feat while still progressing your main stat a notch. It's good.
Reliable Talent should be changed somehow. A difficulty score of 25 should be a daunting thing to roll. I have had Rogues in my games that automatically have base scores of 27. I had to invent a new difficulty of 40 just to make the game a little challenging for them.
A player chooses to excel at one thing and the DM auto-scales the world to challenge him exclusively. That's TES: Oblivion on a tabletop.
Backgrounds should give less game mechanic bonus and more role playing bonuses. Instead of giving out spells and bonus feats, backgrounds should give players access to guilds, universities, churches, noble courts, tribes that can help the character in an adventure.
So, lock down these social paths for everyone without the right background? And if they're not completely locked and can still be accesses by talking to people, what's the point? Trivializing parts of the game from the very beginning ("I skip the quest because I'm a noble", or "we automatically ignore survival scenarios because there's a ranger in group") is not fun.
Reliable Talent makes Roguge/Bard/Now Rangers good at many many things. Not just one thing. I had a Rogue player that was using dual attacks to first prone a Balor and then do sneak attack damage on the second attack. they had expertise in athletics plus a bunch of weapon bonuses. They basically were doing sneak attack damage every other attack. Even the player who was running the character got bored.
My main point was feature creep with over powered character builds. Backgrounds that give extra feats and access to spells are a bit over much in my opinion. Gold, tools, and some small local help from friends is what backgrounds should be about.
Most games I have played or hosted don't depend on survival scenarios for fun. We get bored counting arrows, rations, and water. We usually table rule every one brought enough for the adventure and go from there. Having something in the rules that helps that makes our homebrew feel more legit. Maybe if we were playing in Dark Sun or something...
I think the separation of IAS and Fests should be formal and complete. Characters should get both but they should not have to sacrifice an IAS to get a feat or vice versa. Something like four feats per character at various levels and normal IAS at the breakpoints would be just as fun and allow feats choice to be more open.
A player chooses to excel at one thing and the DM auto-scales the world to challenge him exclusively. That's TES: Oblivion on a tabletop.
It's the way every game everywhere works. DMs are predisposed to make games interesting, and automatic success is not interesting. It's also a side effect of 5e apparently not having a real numbers person to make sure that the design intent is actually followed.
Technically DMs aren’t suppose to be setting DCs higher than 30. Honestly they should rarely be set at 25 or higher. DCs are suppose to be set by the task difficulty not the player skill in the task.
A player chooses to excel at one thing and the DM auto-scales the world to challenge him exclusively. That's TES: Oblivion on a tabletop.
It's the way every game everywhere works. DMs are predisposed to make games interesting, and automatic success is not interesting. It's also a side effect of 5e apparently not having a real numbers person to make sure that the design intent is actually followed.
Technically DMs aren’t suppose to be setting DCs higher than 30. Honestly they should rarely be set at 25 or higher. DCs are suppose to be set by the task difficulty not the player skill in the task.
The Rogue I was talking about had Reliable Talent so ever role was a 10, 20 Dex and expertise. They took expertise in Athletics for auto-prone sneak attack advantage, Stealth, Thieves Tools, and Perception. If they rolled a 1 on a D20 they added up their bonuses and it was 27. They were annihilating combat opponents with massive sneak attack damage. The Rogue took out 3 Balrogs all by themselves at 12 level. Yeah, I tried to step up my game as DM so that everyone was having fun but a lot of the modules that you can buy just could not challenge that Rogue. Even the player got bored and rolled a different character with a different class. We even talked about homebrewing a rule that nerfed reliable talent.
Query: three balrog balors in succession, or three balrog balors all at once? Because even with every-turn Sneak Attack (tip: 5e's math assumes rogues will find a way to sneak attack every round), at 12th level that's 7d6 sneak attack damage or a rough average of about 25 points. The rogue's first attack is a shove to prone and thus deals no damage, which means their off-hand Sneak Attack only adds 1d6 maximum with no modifier. 8d6 damage a turn, for 'bout 30 or so if we're being a migfht generous. Nine turns to fresh-to-dead a 262-HP Balor. The rogue is furthermore taking an additional 9d6 fire damage every turn (3d6 for being close to the balor, and 3d6 for each of the melee attacks the rogue lands per turn), on top of the balor's rather dire Multiattack. A balor can also use its action to teleport 120 feet instead, gaining enough distance to be unreachable by the rogue. A balor being pressed in melee combat can also take to the skies, using its Whip to lash at pesky enemies and drag them into the air to add an extra 2d6 falling damage to the whip's already commanding (for a basic attack) 5d6+8.
Expertise on Athletics to Prone enemies for Sneak-generating Advantage is a cool idea. I've played rogues though, and I can safely say that taking on even one balor 'all by myself' would be an absolutely horrifying proposition at 12th level, or even 20th. I'm not necessarily discounting your story, but I don't think Expertise with Athletics to knock a balor prone multiple times is quite as powerful a way to win that fight as one might think. Against regular mooks? Absolutely, that's a neat play and it should be rewarded. But Sneak Attack is nowhere near as 'massive damage' as people make it out to be, and the rogue doesn't get a giant mess of Extra Attacks to shove with. Unless this rogue was beyond overloaded with Vestige-level gear, I would feel pretty confident as a DM that I could flatten any single given 12th-level rogue with a balor.
. Most non-Expert characters cannot trust their skills - the d20 is so swingy and weird that even a character at the height of their talents flubs completely routine checks 'bout ten, fifteen percent of the time - more than often enough to feel humiliating and disrespectful.
This is so true and it does screwy things, we were trying to open a chest with a crowbar and our 18 strength half-orc failed. I pushed him aside and opened it with my 8 strength Cleric-Wizard.
Nearly every example I read on the forums (perhaps EVERY example) is just like this and highlights not an issue with DCs but rather an issue with how it seems most DMs use checks.
Characters opening a locked chest in a room empty of threats would only require a check if the DM needs a sense of how long it takes. The DM should not just ask for a check for no reason, and they certainly shouldn't say, "Ok, the first person couldn't open it, who else wants to try?" as if the chest was a pickle jar. The strong character doesn't just say, "Well, it didn't open when I tried once...I'm all out of ideas." A failed check in this case just means it took more time, or was particularly noisy.
The main time checks like this are important is during an encounter, when timing is critical. You have one action on your turn, so you better roll high enough to open that chest.
With that mindset, I think Experts should definitely be more reliable, but they should not negate the need to roll 100% of the time. I'd like to see things like Reliable Talent be limited to a certain number of uses per Short or Long rest, much like the Lucky Feat. A character with that feat isn't lucky ALL the time. Though I admit I might be in the minority here (based on a number of comments in other threads) I find it boring as a player if I have 0 chance of failure. A game where every attack hits and auto kills the enemy is boring. A game where every spell automatically works and overcomes any obstacle is boring. And a game where any ability check succeeds is boring. Where the rules currently fail is in the extreme binary nature of most rolls. I'd much rather see abilities that mitigate failure and give partial success (or success with a complication) than abilities that just make rolling pointless.
Ok so ya you have no idea what T4 of play is supposed to represent or what that skill level is supposed to represent +you are now multiclassing instead of single class + multiple magic items.
My example is a single class character with no magic items, just class features.
... With that mindset, I think Experts should definitely be more reliable, but they should not negate the need to roll 100% of the time. I'd like to see things like Reliable Talent be limited to a certain number of uses per Short or Long rest, much like the Lucky Feat. A character with that feat isn't lucky ALL the time. Though I admit I might be in the minority here (based on a number of comments in other threads) I find it boring as a player if I have 0 chance of failure. A game where every attack hits and auto kills the enemy is boring. A game where every spell automatically works and overcomes any obstacle is boring. And a game where any ability check succeeds is boring. Where the rules currently fail is in the extreme binary nature of most rolls. I'd much rather see abilities that mitigate failure and give partial success (or success with a complication) than abilities that just make rolling pointless.
This is indeed worth clarifying.
I want rolls to matter. I intensely dislike D&D where the DM calls for a check every thirteen and a third seconds and mandates everybody roll something to accomplish anything, or where the DM is clearly fishing for nat 1s to punish with "hilarious" Critical Fumble idiocy. As an Expert player, when I roll for something I want that something to be an immediate issue, and for failure on that issue to be a capital-P Problem. Failing to open the door to my inn room for twenty minutes because I'm having a bad run of the dice is not 'funny', it's not 'hilarious', it's not 'lighthearted', it's not 'whimsical' - it's ******* infuriating and frankly insulting. Don't make me roll for junk that doesn't matter, and when I have a big number for something it's because I'm not prepared to accept "you flub like a rank amateur" as an excuse.
I am perfectly willing to bollix a roll when bollixing that roll makes the game better. But too many DMs have no freaking idea how to call for checks, and that might be the issue that needs the most attention in 1DD.
... With that mindset, I think Experts should definitely be more reliable, but they should not negate the need to roll 100% of the time. I'd like to see things like Reliable Talent be limited to a certain number of uses per Short or Long rest, much like the Lucky Feat. A character with that feat isn't lucky ALL the time. Though I admit I might be in the minority here (based on a number of comments in other threads) I find it boring as a player if I have 0 chance of failure. A game where every attack hits and auto kills the enemy is boring. A game where every spell automatically works and overcomes any obstacle is boring. And a game where any ability check succeeds is boring. Where the rules currently fail is in the extreme binary nature of most rolls. I'd much rather see abilities that mitigate failure and give partial success (or success with a complication) than abilities that just make rolling pointless.
This is indeed worth clarifying.
I want rolls to matter. I intensely dislike D&D where the DM calls for a check every thirteen and a third seconds and mandates everybody roll something to accomplish anything, or where the DM is clearly fishing for nat 1s to punish with "hilarious" Critical Fumble idiocy. As an Expert player, when I roll for something I want that something to be an immediate issue, and for failure on that issue to be a capital-P Problem. Failing to open the door to my inn room for twenty minutes because I'm having a bad run of the dice is not 'funny', it's not 'hilarious', it's not 'lighthearted', it's not 'whimsical' - it's ****ing infuriating and frankly insulting. Don't make me roll for junk that doesn't matter, and when I have a big number for something it's because I'm not prepared to accept "you flub like a rank amateur" as an excuse.
I am perfectly willing to bollix a roll when bollixing that roll makes the game better. But too many DMs have no freaking idea how to call for checks, and that might be the issue that needs the most attention in 1DD.
How do you feel about DM's who, are not fishing for a 1 but run a scaled success system. As a DM I hate the Binary pass fail of DnD, it is possibly my least fav TTRPG dice system but in many ways it is my fav fantasy setting so I live with it, but, when I set a DC that is my basic success number there is a scale either side of that and how far away from that set DC determines anything from How long the action takes, to how much chance there is of someone interrupting, or what the odds are that after the event the effect will be seen. I don't run a critical fail (but nat ones do auto fail regardless of skills or abilities), now that may well mean you succeed at the thing your doing but it takes much much longer, or it might mean that lock can't be picked and so you better find an alternative way in (If I set a roll and I know a failure means no there will always be alternative options I can provide in game incase the party don't think of anything).
However I do agree that those moments have to feel like they have meant something and are not just me wanting to break a lockpick.
I'm not opposed to scaled success, or the idea that a check can be used to see how a task proceeds whether than if it proceeds. Some tests can cover a lot of ground and/or time; "you're spending the day casing the town for leads on work? Okay, gimme...let's call it a Charisma (Investigation) roll to see what sort of options you can milk from the town" is one roll handling an entire day's efforts and can easily yield different benefits depending on the result. But both the player and the DM have to know how to do that, and a lot of DMs simply don't. Hell, a majority of players I've encountered have no idea that the action from Declaring Your Action can take longer than one six-second combat action to accomplish, and a lot of DMs falter on resolving stuff like that. When it works it's great, but it's not a natural or RAW use of the skill system and it cane take people some practice and getting-used-to before they're doing it properly.
... With that mindset, I think Experts should definitely be more reliable, but they should not negate the need to roll 100% of the time. I'd like to see things like Reliable Talent be limited to a certain number of uses per Short or Long rest, much like the Lucky Feat. A character with that feat isn't lucky ALL the time. Though I admit I might be in the minority here (based on a number of comments in other threads) I find it boring as a player if I have 0 chance of failure. A game where every attack hits and auto kills the enemy is boring. A game where every spell automatically works and overcomes any obstacle is boring. And a game where any ability check succeeds is boring. Where the rules currently fail is in the extreme binary nature of most rolls. I'd much rather see abilities that mitigate failure and give partial success (or success with a complication) than abilities that just make rolling pointless.
This is indeed worth clarifying.
I want rolls to matter. I intensely dislike D&D where the DM calls for a check every thirteen and a third seconds and mandates everybody roll something to accomplish anything, or where the DM is clearly fishing for nat 1s to punish with "hilarious" Critical Fumble idiocy. As an Expert player, when I roll for something I want that something to be an immediate issue, and for failure on that issue to be a capital-P Problem. Failing to open the door to my inn room for twenty minutes because I'm having a bad run of the dice is not 'funny', it's not 'hilarious', it's not 'lighthearted', it's not 'whimsical' - it's ****ing infuriating and frankly insulting. Don't make me roll for junk that doesn't matter, and when I have a big number for something it's because I'm not prepared to accept "you flub like a rank amateur" as an excuse.
I am perfectly willing to bollix a roll when bollixing that roll makes the game better. But too many DMs have no freaking idea how to call for checks, and that might be the issue that needs the most attention in 1DD.
All of this is exactly right. 'Nuff said.
If anything, WotC needs to focus the most attention on advice in the DMG. And then DMs need to actually sit down and read it.
I'm not opposed to scaled success, or the idea that a check can be used to see how a task proceeds whether than if it proceeds. Some tests can cover a lot of ground and/or time; "you're spending the day casing the town for leads on work? Okay, gimme...let's call it a Charisma (Investigation) roll to see what sort of options you can milk from the town" is one roll handling an entire day's efforts and can easily yield different benefits depending on the result. But both the player and the DM have to know how to do that, and a lot of DMs simply don't. Hell, a majority of players I've encountered have no idea that the action from Declaring Your Action can take longer than one six-second combat action to accomplish, and a lot of DMs falter on resolving stuff like that. When it works it's great, but it's not a natural or RAW use of the skill system and it cane take people some practice and getting-used-to before they're doing it properly.
ahh ok you're making sense now, I only DM so assume people do stuff like that and understand that not every action just takes 6 seconds. It is why I am worried about the Search, Influence and Study actions, are new players going to assume that Studying in a library is a 6 second action and a single roll to find out all they want to know for that thing.
If anything, WotC needs to focus the most attention on advice in the DMG. And then DMs need to actually sit down and read it.
Anything that relies on players/DMs changing their behavior is kinda doomed. The DMG can provide good advice, but that doesn't mean people are going to follow it.
That said, introducing degrees of success/failure (yes and, yes, yes but, no but, no, no and) would be a good thing but means that abilities that trigger on succeeding or failing a roll (e.g. the new guidance) need to decide exactly what success or fail means.
Query: three balrog balors in succession, or three balrog balors all at once? Because even with every-turn Sneak Attack (tip: 5e's math assumes rogues will find a way to sneak attack every round), at 12th level that's 7d6 sneak attack damage or a rough average of about 25 points. The rogue's first attack is a shove to prone and thus deals no damage, which means their off-hand Sneak Attack only adds 1d6 maximum with no modifier. 8d6 damage a turn, for 'bout 30 or so if we're being a migfht generous. Nine turns to fresh-to-dead a 262-HP Balor. The rogue is furthermore taking an additional 9d6 fire damage every turn (3d6 for being close to the balor, and 3d6 for each of the melee attacks the rogue lands per turn), on top of the balor's rather dire Multiattack. A balor can also use its action to teleport 120 feet instead, gaining enough distance to be unreachable by the rogue. A balor being pressed in melee combat can also take to the skies, using its Whip to lash at pesky enemies and drag them into the air to add an extra 2d6 falling damage to the whip's already commanding (for a basic attack) 5d6+8.
Expertise on Athletics to Prone enemies for Sneak-generating Advantage is a cool idea. I've played rogues though, and I can safely say that taking on even one balor 'all by myself' would be an absolutely horrifying proposition at 12th level, or even 20th. I'm not necessarily discounting your story, but I don't think Expertise with Athletics to knock a balor prone multiple times is quite as powerful a way to win that fight as one might think. Against regular mooks? Absolutely, that's a neat play and it should be rewarded. But Sneak Attack is nowhere near as 'massive damage' as people make it out to be, and the rogue doesn't get a giant mess of Extra Attacks to shove with. Unless this rogue was beyond overloaded with Vestige-level gear, I would feel pretty confident as a DM that I could flatten any single given 12th-level rogue with a balor.
The game I am talking about was a DnD 5e self made LOTR setting and I did not use Balor stats because I was trying to keep the CR of my creatures in the 12-15 range. I was using the DMG to help and I made a lot of mistakes. I could have saved a lot of grief if I had made my balrogs huge instead of large. If I had gone with Balor stats the Rogue could not have knocked them prone. I did have an aura of fire but the Rogue had the mobile feat and would run in, attack and run out. Honestly, the game was not my finest work. It was the first time I had DMed a mid level Rogue. Since, then I have not been a big fan of Reliable Talent. In my defense I was trying to create a game 12-15 level for the first time and I did not realize how powerful characters of those levels could be. Still Reliable talent needs an official tweak in my opinion.
The Rogue had expertise in stealth, athletics, thieves tools, and perception. She was also very good at charisma stuff. I had a very hard time with regular DnD modules and the modules I made myself I had to change to give some challenge. The Rogue had a automatic 21 with charisma based skills and her four expertise skills had automatic 27. So any trap, lock, ambush, etc. had to have a Difficulty of over 25. All she had to roll was a 13 to get difficulty level 30 stuff done with her expertise skills. So she was a face, warrior, scout, and engineer. I feel that is pretty over powered.
I'm not opposed to scaled success, or the idea that a check can be used to see how a task proceeds whether than if it proceeds. Some tests can cover a lot of ground and/or time; "you're spending the day casing the town for leads on work? Okay, gimme...let's call it a Charisma (Investigation) roll to see what sort of options you can milk from the town" is one roll handling an entire day's efforts and can easily yield different benefits depending on the result. But both the player and the DM have to know how to do that, and a lot of DMs simply don't. Hell, a majority of players I've encountered have no idea that the action from Declaring Your Action can take longer than one six-second combat action to accomplish, and a lot of DMs falter on resolving stuff like that. When it works it's great, but it's not a natural or RAW use of the skill system and it cane take people some practice and getting-used-to before they're doing it properly.
ahh ok you're making sense now, I only DM so assume people do stuff like that and understand that not every action just takes 6 seconds. It is why I am worried about the Search, Influence and Study actions, are new players going to assume that Studying in a library is a 6 second action and a single roll to find out all they want to know for that thing.
Search, Study, and influence are great actions and are only being added so that people understand what needs to be given up to use them during a combat encounter. No one tracks actions or bonus actions or the 6 second round outside of an encounter. Even if some player tried to studying the library in 6 seconds they couldn’t according to the rules. You can only interact with one object for free per turn. So you could study one book in the library in 6 seconds. That’s not reading the book. That’s getting the title, and skimming over the table of contents or index if it has one.
The Rogue had expertise in stealth, athletics, thieves tools, and perception. She was also very good at charisma stuff. I had a very hard time with regular DnD modules and the modules I made myself I had to change to give some challenge. The Rogue had a automatic 21 with charisma based skills and her four expertise skills had automatic 27. So any trap, lock, ambush, etc. had to have a Difficulty of over 25. All she had to roll was a 13 to get difficulty level 30 stuff done with her expertise skills. So she was a face, warrior, scout, and engineer. I feel that is pretty over powered.
You had a level 12-15 rogue, with +6 proficiency & a 20 in Charisma, Dexterity, Strength, & Wisdom? I believe there may be another issue other than Reliable Talent.
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Tier 4 artificer thief: figure 14 Dex, 20 Int, Tool Expertise, Infusion (Replicate Magic Item: Gloves of Thievery), cast Enhance Ability (Dex), use Flash of Genius. Total bonus 2 (dex) +12 (expertise) +5 (gloves of thievery) +5 (flash of genius) = 24, with advantage; 94% to achieve a 30, 75% to achieve a 35, 44% to achieve a 40. And that's not even counting any benefits that can be granted from allies, found magic items, maybe having more than a 14 dex, etc.
And no, Wish will not open plot device locks; artifact grade items will simply ignore it and even affecting a legendary exceeds the power of an 8th level spell (as legendary items are generally not less than 9th level spell equivalent) and thus runs the risk of permanently losing the ability to cast the spell.
In any case, my original point with the example wasn't about DCs above 30, it was about how DC escalation isn't exotic, it's normal gameplay.
First, how good is that god of locksmithing against an ancient black dragon, and how good is that PC in case of DC40 Persuasion check? I mean, if a lock can be DC40, then all other checks can be. Or is it a universe of hard locks but mild other challenges?
Now try that with rogue. No guarantee that they'll get Gloves of Thievery. No guarantee they'll have an artificer in the party. No guarantee for Enhance Ability or Guidance either. By the way, Knock is a 2nd level spell.
Wish literally rewrites reality. But if you want to railroad your players so hard that even Wish can't break these rails...
Ok so ya you have no idea what T4 of play is supposed to represent or what that skill level is supposed to represent +you are now multiclassing instead of single class + multiple magic items. So one of the most skilled locksmith in all planes of existence enhanced by magic and you are mad that they routinely pull off nearly impossible feats.... they SHOULD pull off nearly impossible feats routinely at that point.
T4 +magic is where herculean feats are the regular. The nearly is meant to be their playground. Your argument as to otherwise is just wrong.
Gonna admit: haven't kept up on the thread. But I can perhaps offer a little perspective here, irrespective of the math.
The Play Fantasy of an 'Expert' class - the reason people play these classes in the first place - is reliability. Within their area of expertise? The party can rely on these skilled masters. A player who favors Expert classes is after the fantasy of the Competent Man, exercising breadth and depth of skill and talent rare to find in any era. They're polymath Rennaissance (Wo)Men that routinely accomplish what others find difficult or even impossible through practiced application of wit and skill.
Despite that, it's not really the Height of Talent an Expert is looking for. Those moments are neat, but rare and hard to build for. What most Expert players are generally looking for is to be able to trust their skills. They want to know that they can say to the party "Don't worry, I've got this", and only very rarely be wrong. Most non-Expert characters cannot trust their skills - the d20 is so swingy and weird that even a character at the height of their talents flubs completely routine checks 'bout ten, fifteen percent of the time - more than often enough to feel humiliating and disrespectful. The Expert says "I should be able to open a god damned door without spending twenty minutes of session time and four spell levels' worth of magic on the motherf@#$ing attempt!"
This puts them at odds with DMs, who often lean on randomness and uncertainty in everyday activities to artificially ratchet up tension and challenge. The (bad) DM says "every door is a chance for you to hilariously humiliate yourselves and I won't skip it for all the tea in China!" Better DMs allow for mundane normal-person tasks, but still tend to crank DCs to match ability bonuses rather than utilizing the system correctly, chasing that 'magic' 65% success number. They fail to realize that the dedicated Expert player in their group is the gal who saw Crawford say "65% success rate is about where most players feel comfortable" and said "yeah, **** that, a 35% failure rate in my primary talents is unacceptable."
It's why I honestly think Expertise should work the other way around - rather than doubling your proficiency bonus and increasing the potential height of your skill checks without doing a single goddamn thing to offset humiliating and nonsensical failure, 'Expertise' should work more like Reliable Talent and institute a floor on checks. Proficiency lets you add PB to your check; Expertise lets you treat anything lower than an 8 on the d20 as an 8. That reinforces the "I've got this, trust me" fantasy of the Competent Man without bending the DC math over its knee and giving it the black-and-blue the way current Expertise does.
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This is so true and it does screwy things, we were trying to open a chest with a crowbar and our 18 strength half-orc failed. I pushed him aside and opened it with my 8 strength Cleric-Wizard.
I agree completely on not rescaling the DCs. In terms of play most "experts" in 5E or 1 are not as powerful in other pillars, particularly combat. So you are giving up some things to get that "automatic" and the party is giving up some things to get that automatic. In the modern game where a lot of people powergame and try to eek every last point of combat ability out of their character, it is nice to have characters focused on something else.
True but this would be the opportunity to separate them completely.
Reliable Talent makes Roguge/Bard/Now Rangers good at many many things. Not just one thing. I had a Rogue player that was using dual attacks to first prone a Balor and then do sneak attack damage on the second attack. they had expertise in athletics plus a bunch of weapon bonuses. They basically were doing sneak attack damage every other attack. Even the player who was running the character got bored.
My main point was feature creep with over powered character builds. Backgrounds that give extra feats and access to spells are a bit over much in my opinion. Gold, tools, and some small local help from friends is what backgrounds should be about.
Most games I have played or hosted don't depend on survival scenarios for fun. We get bored counting arrows, rations, and water. We usually table rule every one brought enough for the adventure and go from there. Having something in the rules that helps that makes our homebrew feel more legit. Maybe if we were playing in Dark Sun or something...
I think the separation of IAS and Fests should be formal and complete. Characters should get both but they should not have to sacrifice an IAS to get a feat or vice versa. Something like four feats per character at various levels and normal IAS at the breakpoints would be just as fun and allow feats choice to be more open.
The Rogue I was talking about had Reliable Talent so ever role was a 10, 20 Dex and expertise. They took expertise in Athletics for auto-prone sneak attack advantage, Stealth, Thieves Tools, and Perception. If they rolled a 1 on a D20 they added up their bonuses and it was 27. They were annihilating combat opponents with massive sneak attack damage. The Rogue took out 3 Balrogs all by themselves at 12 level. Yeah, I tried to step up my game as DM so that everyone was having fun but a lot of the modules that you can buy just could not challenge that Rogue. Even the player got bored and rolled a different character with a different class. We even talked about homebrewing a rule that nerfed reliable talent.
Query: three
balrogbalors in succession, or threebalrogbalors all at once? Because even with every-turn Sneak Attack (tip: 5e's math assumes rogues will find a way to sneak attack every round), at 12th level that's 7d6 sneak attack damage or a rough average of about 25 points. The rogue's first attack is a shove to prone and thus deals no damage, which means their off-hand Sneak Attack only adds 1d6 maximum with no modifier. 8d6 damage a turn, for 'bout 30 or so if we're being a migfht generous. Nine turns to fresh-to-dead a 262-HP Balor. The rogue is furthermore taking an additional 9d6 fire damage every turn (3d6 for being close to the balor, and 3d6 for each of the melee attacks the rogue lands per turn), on top of the balor's rather dire Multiattack. A balor can also use its action to teleport 120 feet instead, gaining enough distance to be unreachable by the rogue. A balor being pressed in melee combat can also take to the skies, using its Whip to lash at pesky enemies and drag them into the air to add an extra 2d6 falling damage to the whip's already commanding (for a basic attack) 5d6+8.Expertise on Athletics to Prone enemies for Sneak-generating Advantage is a cool idea. I've played rogues though, and I can safely say that taking on even one balor 'all by myself' would be an absolutely horrifying proposition at 12th level, or even 20th. I'm not necessarily discounting your story, but I don't think Expertise with Athletics to knock a balor prone multiple times is quite as powerful a way to win that fight as one might think. Against regular mooks? Absolutely, that's a neat play and it should be rewarded. But Sneak Attack is nowhere near as 'massive damage' as people make it out to be, and the rogue doesn't get a giant mess of Extra Attacks to shove with. Unless this rogue was beyond overloaded with Vestige-level gear, I would feel pretty confident as a DM that I could flatten any single given 12th-level rogue with a balor.
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Nearly every example I read on the forums (perhaps EVERY example) is just like this and highlights not an issue with DCs but rather an issue with how it seems most DMs use checks.
Characters opening a locked chest in a room empty of threats would only require a check if the DM needs a sense of how long it takes. The DM should not just ask for a check for no reason, and they certainly shouldn't say, "Ok, the first person couldn't open it, who else wants to try?" as if the chest was a pickle jar. The strong character doesn't just say, "Well, it didn't open when I tried once...I'm all out of ideas." A failed check in this case just means it took more time, or was particularly noisy.
The main time checks like this are important is during an encounter, when timing is critical. You have one action on your turn, so you better roll high enough to open that chest.
With that mindset, I think Experts should definitely be more reliable, but they should not negate the need to roll 100% of the time. I'd like to see things like Reliable Talent be limited to a certain number of uses per Short or Long rest, much like the Lucky Feat. A character with that feat isn't lucky ALL the time. Though I admit I might be in the minority here (based on a number of comments in other threads) I find it boring as a player if I have 0 chance of failure. A game where every attack hits and auto kills the enemy is boring. A game where every spell automatically works and overcomes any obstacle is boring. And a game where any ability check succeeds is boring. Where the rules currently fail is in the extreme binary nature of most rolls. I'd much rather see abilities that mitigate failure and give partial success (or success with a complication) than abilities that just make rolling pointless.
My example is a single class character with no magic items, just class features.
This is indeed worth clarifying.
I want rolls to matter. I intensely dislike D&D where the DM calls for a check every thirteen and a third seconds and mandates everybody roll something to accomplish anything, or where the DM is clearly fishing for nat 1s to punish with "hilarious" Critical Fumble idiocy. As an Expert player, when I roll for something I want that something to be an immediate issue, and for failure on that issue to be a capital-P Problem. Failing to open the door to my inn room for twenty minutes because I'm having a bad run of the dice is not 'funny', it's not 'hilarious', it's not 'lighthearted', it's not 'whimsical' - it's ******* infuriating and frankly insulting. Don't make me roll for junk that doesn't matter, and when I have a big number for something it's because I'm not prepared to accept "you flub like a rank amateur" as an excuse.
I am perfectly willing to bollix a roll when bollixing that roll makes the game better. But too many DMs have no freaking idea how to call for checks, and that might be the issue that needs the most attention in 1DD.
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How do you feel about DM's who, are not fishing for a 1 but run a scaled success system. As a DM I hate the Binary pass fail of DnD, it is possibly my least fav TTRPG dice system but in many ways it is my fav fantasy setting so I live with it, but, when I set a DC that is my basic success number there is a scale either side of that and how far away from that set DC determines anything from How long the action takes, to how much chance there is of someone interrupting, or what the odds are that after the event the effect will be seen. I don't run a critical fail (but nat ones do auto fail regardless of skills or abilities), now that may well mean you succeed at the thing your doing but it takes much much longer, or it might mean that lock can't be picked and so you better find an alternative way in (If I set a roll and I know a failure means no there will always be alternative options I can provide in game incase the party don't think of anything).
However I do agree that those moments have to feel like they have meant something and are not just me wanting to break a lockpick.
I'm not opposed to scaled success, or the idea that a check can be used to see how a task proceeds whether than if it proceeds. Some tests can cover a lot of ground and/or time; "you're spending the day casing the town for leads on work? Okay, gimme...let's call it a Charisma (Investigation) roll to see what sort of options you can milk from the town" is one roll handling an entire day's efforts and can easily yield different benefits depending on the result. But both the player and the DM have to know how to do that, and a lot of DMs simply don't. Hell, a majority of players I've encountered have no idea that the action from Declaring Your Action can take longer than one six-second combat action to accomplish, and a lot of DMs falter on resolving stuff like that. When it works it's great, but it's not a natural or RAW use of the skill system and it cane take people some practice and getting-used-to before they're doing it properly.
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All of this is exactly right. 'Nuff said.
If anything, WotC needs to focus the most attention on advice in the DMG. And then DMs need to actually sit down and read it.
ahh ok you're making sense now, I only DM so assume people do stuff like that and understand that not every action just takes 6 seconds. It is why I am worried about the Search, Influence and Study actions, are new players going to assume that Studying in a library is a 6 second action and a single roll to find out all they want to know for that thing.
Anything that relies on players/DMs changing their behavior is kinda doomed. The DMG can provide good advice, but that doesn't mean people are going to follow it.
That said, introducing degrees of success/failure (yes and, yes, yes but, no but, no, no and) would be a good thing but means that abilities that trigger on succeeding or failing a roll (e.g. the new guidance) need to decide exactly what success or fail means.
The game I am talking about was a DnD 5e self made LOTR setting and I did not use Balor stats because I was trying to keep the CR of my creatures in the 12-15 range. I was using the DMG to help and I made a lot of mistakes. I could have saved a lot of grief if I had made my balrogs huge instead of large. If I had gone with Balor stats the Rogue could not have knocked them prone. I did have an aura of fire but the Rogue had the mobile feat and would run in, attack and run out. Honestly, the game was not my finest work. It was the first time I had DMed a mid level Rogue. Since, then I have not been a big fan of Reliable Talent. In my defense I was trying to create a game 12-15 level for the first time and I did not realize how powerful characters of those levels could be. Still Reliable talent needs an official tweak in my opinion.
The Rogue had expertise in stealth, athletics, thieves tools, and perception. She was also very good at charisma stuff. I had a very hard time with regular DnD modules and the modules I made myself I had to change to give some challenge. The Rogue had a automatic 21 with charisma based skills and her four expertise skills had automatic 27. So any trap, lock, ambush, etc. had to have a Difficulty of over 25. All she had to roll was a 13 to get difficulty level 30 stuff done with her expertise skills. So she was a face, warrior, scout, and engineer. I feel that is pretty over powered.
Search, Study, and influence are great actions and are only being added so that people understand what needs to be given up to use them during a combat encounter. No one tracks actions or bonus actions or the 6 second round outside of an encounter. Even if some player tried to studying the library in 6 seconds they couldn’t according to the rules. You can only interact with one object for free per turn. So you could study one book in the library in 6 seconds. That’s not reading the book. That’s getting the title, and skimming over the table of contents or index if it has one.
You had a level 12-15 rogue, with +6 proficiency & a 20 in Charisma, Dexterity, Strength, & Wisdom? I believe there may be another issue other than Reliable Talent.