Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
Except you have a much better idea of what the approximate target number is with combat than you do with ability checks.

Full Plate? 18 (or higher, if it's magical or something).
Shield? +2 (or higher, again) over what their base is.
Leather? In the 11-15 range, though it can go lower or higher. But that would likely be obvious, as it'd either be exceedingly clumsy or nimble.

Now, let's take a stony wall. The surface is rough and jagged, and there are a few deeper notches in the wall. You need to climb 30'.
What's the DC? It's presumably a Strength (Athletics) check, but what's the DC?
DC for the wall is 0 - you don't roll to climb a wall, since PCs climb at half their walking speed. It would have to be a different wall than what you described to have a roll. This is covered in the basic rules, chapter 8.

Quote Originally Posted by Theodoxus View Post
While true, Pex's point is that if a DM throws a goblin at you wearing plate and shield, it doesn't matter who the DM is (as the number of DMs approach infinity), the AC is going to be 20.
If a DM throws a wall at you that is dry and has some protruding bricks and/or stones, it's completely arbitrary at the DM level if that's a DC 5, 10, 15, 20, 11, 13, 19 or impossible!

We get 8 types of armor. Pretty sure, at the most basic level, players will encounter 8 different types of wall (regardless if they're an obstacle or just something you're walking past) before they encounter someone in a suit of ringmail. So, to argue that it's based on commonly faced items, that's hogwash.



And as mentioned upthread (or was it Skrum's skill thread) - there's no reason skills couldn't work the same way. I personally don't think they should outside of a skill challenge (and I think that's a pretty decent way to create a skill challenge). But I wouldn't be sad if there was an optional skill method that worked like combat.
Same for this - it is not completely arbitrary what they set for the wall. For the wall you described, the books absolutely have set a DC - none, because a player can climb that wall at half speed. I'm not sure why people keep pointing to the thing that is unambiguous as an example of how DCs are arbitrary.

A goblin with plate and a shield is not necessarily 20. If that armor or shield is magical with a bonus, it can be a higher number. If the DM has homebrewed their own version of the armor - say, poor quality stuff that a goblin can acquire - it could be anything. Perhaps standard "plate armor" one gets in a major city is made of steel and has an AC of 18. But the goblins don't know how to work steel, so they've been casting plate out of iron, which only gets them to a 15 (or 14, or 16, or whatever they decide is the right number). If they do so, they should describe the armor differently, but no reason they can't do it.