New PHB-Havers: Thoughts?

[pwykersotz]

Yes, I'm well aware that this is a matter of taste. WOTC is deliberately taking a risk here: in virtually every roleplaying game ever, your character can right from the beginning be competent in some task to the level that you can reliably do something that average people can't. In 5E, this will happen around level 9 if you're a rogue, and will not even happen at level 20 otherwise. This is certainly one way in which 5E is distinguishing itself from other games, so I'm assuming WOTC is doing this on purpose (yes, I've seen some people claim that WOTC is utterly incompetent but I don't buy that; I think they're fairly good at what they do). We'll just have to see how many people like this, don't mind this, and hate this.

Assuming you are correct and that the skill system (which I'm still skeptical about myself) is designed to illustrate commoner-epic and distinguishes that scale poorly, I still think it's worth it. Skills were my least favorite part of 3.5. Anything is an improvement to me. I'll take it, run with it, and see how it goes. So far it hasn't been a problem with levels 1-3 in Lost Mines, but I'll keep my eyes open.

That being said, I think this skill system is a gamist construct designed to let adventurers do things, not a scale from Dirt Farmer to Epic Hero. But maybe that's me.

[Kurald Galain]

Assuming you are correct and that the skill system (which I'm still skeptical about myself) is designed to illustrate commoner-epic

I didn't say it is that...

That being said, I think this skill system is a gamist construct designed to let adventurers do things

...but it certainly isn't that. The system, by design, doesn't allow adventurers to reliably complete an average-difficulty task. So it's not designed to let adventures do things, but to let adventurers randomly fail at things (except in case of DM fiat, of course).

[hawklost]

I didn't say it is that...


...but it certainly isn't that. The system, by design, doesn't allow adventurers to reliably complete an average-difficulty task. So it's not designed to let adventures do things, but to let adventurers randomly fail at things (except in case of DM fiat, of course).

I think you fail to notice something. The "Average-difficult" tasks are not done when you just want to do it. Want to jump 10 ft? Sure, do it. Want to climb that rope ladder? Done. Want to scale that abandoned but perfectly serviceable castle wall for fun? Go ahead, you have done it! Now, you want to jump over a pit with Snapping dragon hatchlings while carrying that 50 lb of raw meat? I am going to have to ask you for a DC check. Want to climb up the slick wall fast? Yea, gonna need you to roll for that.

Adventurers only fail when there is a chance and consequence to of failure. If one of those two criteria are missing, there was no point in having the PC roll anything, he either auto succeeds or auto fails depending.

[Caelic]

I think you fail to notice something. The "Average-difficult" tasks are not done when you just want to do it. Want to jump 10 ft? Sure, do it. Want to climb that rope ladder? Done. Want to scale that abandoned but perfectly serviceable castle wall for fun? Go ahead, you have done it! Now, you want to jump over a pit with Snapping dragon hatchlings while carrying that 50 lb of raw meat? I am going to have to ask you for a DC check. Want to climb up the slick wall fast? Yea, gonna need you to roll for that.

Adventurers only fail when there is a chance and consequence to of failure. If one of those two criteria are missing, there was no point in having the PC roll anything, he either auto succeeds or auto fails depending.

I think this is a very important point. "Medium difficulty" doesn't mean commonplace things that everyone does every day; they're firmly in the middle of the spectrum of difficulty. If everyone can reliably complete a medium difficulty task all of the time, the entire first half of the difficulty spectrum is meaningless.

That said, it would REALLY have been a good idea for WotC to include some examples of tasks at each level of difficulty to establish a norm.

[hawklost]

Oh I definitely do not dispute that them putting examples of a DC would have been great.

I also could have loved them to put examples of the Stats too. I loves the way Scion RPG did it, with an example of low, med and high stat and skill.

[golentan]

I just bought mine 2 hours ago, and I have to say, I'm pleased. It may not be the best thing ever, but it rekindles my interest in DnD which was lost with 4e (As a note, I was excited about 4th right up until I started my read through of the core set: I was thrilled while I was unwrapping them). I've got dozens of character ideas based on what's available, and will keep an ear to the ground for a game I can test them in, and having done a dry run for character creation I don't feel either flooded with needless amounts of options or deprived of opportunities to customize to fit my concept. 4/5 stars.

[Falka]

Wouldn't it be easier to roll 2d10 or 3d6 to handle the more 'unskilled' people not having so wide of a chance of being good?

2d10 gives you a much higher chance of getting around an 11 instead of lower or higher numbers
3d6 removes 1,2,19,20 from your rolls but gives you even more weight towards the middle.

Neither or those rolling styles require you to mess with the Proficiency System, which I see as being precariously balanced already. It doesn't require the DCs to be competely revamped but it does give those with more bonus to a skill a higher chance of succeeding on harder DCs from someone with no skill.

You -do- know that there is absolutely no skilled involved in dice throwing, right? That's just superstition.

[Cibulan]

Wouldn't it be easier to roll 2d10 or 3d6 to handle the more 'unskilled' people not having so wide of a chance of being good?

2d10 gives you a much higher chance of getting around an 11 instead of lower or higher numbers
3d6 removes 1,2,19,20 from your rolls but gives you even more weight towards the middle.

Neither or those rolling styles require you to mess with the Proficiency System, which I see as being precariously balanced already. It doesn't require the DCs to be competely revamped but it does give those with more bonus to a skill a higher chance of succeeding on harder DCs from someone with no skill.

Changing the die type is one approach but I think it's worthwhile to come up with a d20 solution as well since the default paradigm is "one check to rule them all".

[Caelic]

You -do- know that there is absolutely no skilled involved in dice throwing, right? That's just superstition.

Well, there is a skill that will allow you to influence die rolls, but it's generally called "cheating."

[Marius]

I think you fail to notice something. The "Average-difficult" tasks are not done when you just want to do it. Want to jump 10 ft? Sure, do it. Want to climb that rope ladder? Done. Want to scale that abandoned but perfectly serviceable castle wall for fun? Go ahead, you have done it! Now, you want to jump over a pit with Snapping dragon hatchlings while carrying that 50 lb of raw meat? I am going to have to ask you for a DC check. Want to climb up the slick wall fast? Yea, gonna need you to roll for that.

Adventurers only fail when there is a chance and consequence to of failure. If one of those two criteria are missing, there was no point in having the PC roll anything, he either auto succeeds or auto fails depending.

A medium difficulty check is dc15, my level 4 rogue would fail it 55% of the time and that's with expertise. That sucks for me, he should be GREAT and unskilled people should suck and only have a really, really low chance of success.

[Cibulan]

A medium difficulty check is dc15, my level 4 rogue would fail it 55% of the time and that's with expertise. That sucks for me, he should be GREAT and unskilled people should suck and only have a really, really low chance of success.

That margin of failure seems appropriate to me but in my continuing quest for a house rule for this, how about skill = ability mod + proficiency + 1/2 character level?

Your level 4 rogue would fail DC 15 45% of the time. Does that smooth the curve enough?

[Chaosvii7]

Frankly, I'd just let anybody who's proficient with a skill be able to take 10 with that skill when they're not in combat. It's a fair measure of skill - that somebody is trained to the point of being able to think clearly and pragmatically before they climb a 30 foot tall tree sounds sensible to me, especially if it's within the DC. The not in combat thing makes it so that if they want some sort of cool narrative way of gaining advantage, that they still have to make the check.

[Falka]

A medium difficulty check is dc15, my level 4 rogue would fail it 55% of the time and that's with expertise. That sucks for me, he should be GREAT and unskilled people should suck and only have a really, really low chance of success.

Biased example. You don't roll Stealth vs "medium DC", you roll against Passive Perception usually. Most low level monsters have average PP of 10-13, so that's the actual DC.

Level 4 Rogue can have +7, so he'd actually only need to roll at least a 3 to 6 in average (that's about a 85-75% success rate).

There is no need to houserule what's not broken, people are just overreacting. And probably setting DCs way too high.

[Marius]

That margin of failure seems appropriate to me but in my continuing quest for a house rule for this, how about skill = ability mod + proficiency + 1/2 character level?

Your level 4 rogue would fail DC 15 45% of the time. Does that smooth the curve enough?

I don't like because:

A) it would make everybody better, no just proficient characters and
B) I want, at least, an 80% chance for a level 1 rogue to pass a medium check. He should be really good at what he does.

Biased example. You don't roll Stealth vs "medium DC", you roll against Passive Perception usually. Most low level monsters have average PP of 10-13, so that's the actual DC.

Level 4 Rogue can have +7, so he'd actually only need to roll at least a 3 to 6 in average (that's about a 85-75% success rate).

There is no need to houserule what's not broken, people are just overreacting. And probably setting DCs way too high.

No it's not. I never said "Stealth" change that for Thieves Tools and set a Medium DC for a trap or a Lock.

Also, I never said that the System is broken, just that I don't like that everyone sucks. And my example BTW is using a Rogue! Imagine without expertise

[Human Paragon 3]

If you don't like it just double everyon's proficiency bonus to skill checks and triple the rogue's.

[obryn]

A medium difficulty check is dc15, my level 4 rogue would fail it 55% of the time and that's with expertise. That sucks for me, he should be GREAT and unskilled people should suck and only have a really, really low chance of success.

So basically what you want is for training to matter more than talent? Right now, in 5e, talent > training until mid-levels for most classes (bards and rogues, excepted). I think it works well enough for a game like D&D, in which I'm not a fan of skills in general.

Well, keeping in mind these are all tweaks, there are a few things you can do.

(1) Reduce all DCs by 5. This helps everyone, but it fits with general adventurer competence at moderate tasks. Moderate = DC 10 now.

(2) Give Trained characters a boost. I don't like double proficiency bonus for this; it isn't much at low levels. So my suggestions are (a) Give a Trained character their Stat modifier again as a bonus, or (b) give a Trained character a +5 bonus over and above Stat + Proficiency. The former scales more, but the latter is much easier to track.

(3) (my personal favorite) Give Trained characters FATE-like "Aspects" for their Trained skills. (Or, backgrounds. Or, classes. Or, races. Or some combination of the above.) A Trained character gets to invoke one of two options a number of times per Short (Long?) Rest equal to their Proficiency bonus, after they roll a skill check and see the result. (a) Get a +5 bonus, or (b) a reroll.

These are all ways to make the game work better for you if you like what else it offers.

[Sir_Leorik]

Creating your own content, modifying some rules to taste, incorporating modular options, and so on aren't done because anything is actually broken or non-functional; they're just twisting the game more to your taste. I love putting Sriracha on my pizza, but I'm not doing it because the Pizza was incomplete or inedible without it. Though it totally is. Sriracha + pizza = amazing, and I can't live without. Sriracha + mac & cheese = even more amazing.

Let me see if I understand your analogy. House-ruling in order to customize your game to your tastes is like adding Sriracha to your pizza. Would house-ruling the system because its broken be like ordering a pizza and having to put it in your oven because the pizza place you ordered from didn't finish baking it?

My first thought to the skill "problem" was let everyone have half proficiency bonus to untrained skills but that steps on the Bard's toes. Then I thought about doubling proficiency bonus but that steps on the Rogue's/Bard's toes again... What would people think of doubling ability modifiers + proficiency bonus? A level 20, 20 dex rogue would rock a +22 (10 dex + 12 proficiency) to stealth for example. That allows everyone to be better and Rogues/Bards to be even better.

Why not just use the Ability Check DCs as a range? Easy could be from 6 to 10, Moderate from 11 to 15, etc.

You -do- know that there is absolutely no skilled involved in dice throwing, right? That's just superstition.

The Gambler's Fallacy, to be precise. Nevertheless, I constantly see players who switch dice, blame their dice, or in some way indicate they don't understand that a randomly generated number is just that: randomly generated.

[Elderand]

The Gambler's Fallacy, to be precise. Nevertheless, I constantly see players who switch dice, blame their dice, or in some way indicate they don't understand that a randomly generated number is just that: randomly generated.

And thinking that way is a fallacy too, dice aren't perfect. All dices are loaded toward certain number. Just the painting of the numbers on a dice can unbalance it. Even precision dice as used in casino of las vegas will show some predilection for certain numbers if rolled enough time.

And I doubt most gamers use such dice.

Then there is also the following fallacy. Random isn't the same thing as equaly likely. The roll of a d20 is both random and idealy equaly likely.
The roll of 3d6 is also random, but it does not have equaly likely result.

Hell if you want to be absolutly specific, dice throwing isn't random at all. You can predict you're going to get a number, a fairly well defined number at that. On a d20 you're going to get a positive integer between 1 and 20 included. As far as numbers go that's extremely precise.
As far the universe go that's ridiculously precise. You're not going to throw your d20 and end up with 5 tons of purple tuna.

Is there skill in dice throwing ? No. but thinking dice are random and perfectly balanced is just as naive.

[Sir_Leorik]

And thinking that way is a fallacy too, dice aren't perfect. All dices are loaded toward certain number. Just the painting of the numbers on a dice can unbalance it. Even precision dice as used in casino of las vegas will show some predilection for certain numbers if rolled enough time.

And I doubt most gamers use such dice.

Then there is also the following fallacy. Random isn't the same thing as equaly likely. The roll of a d20 is both random and idealy equaly likely.
The roll of 3d6 is also random, but it does not have equaly likely result.

Hell if you want to be absolutly specific, dice throwing isn't random at all. You can predict you're going to get a number, a fairly well defined number at that. On a d20 you're going to get a positive integer between 1 and 20 included. As far as numbers go that's extremely precise.
As far the universe go that's ridiculously precise. You're not going to throw your d20 and end up with 5 tons of purple tuna.

Is there skill in dice throwing ? No. but thinking dice are random and perfectly balanced is just as naive.

I'm referring to players who keep complaining when their dice don't roll higher than a 7, but act like it's natural when they roll three 20's in a roll. Or players who don't understand that each roll of the die is independent from the last roll and the next roll.

I know that dice aren't perfect, especially dice that are several years old and edges have started to wear away. But they're relatively random and for some reason plenty of players can't seem to comprehend that.

[MeeposFire]

I'm referring to players who keep complaining when their dice don't roll higher than a 7, but act like it's natural when they roll three 20's in a roll. Or players who don't understand that each roll of the die is independent from the last roll and the next roll.

I know that dice aren't perfect, especially dice that are several years old and edges have started to wear away. But they're relatively random and for some reason plenty of players can't seem to comprehend that.

Actually supposedly there is a technique to throwing dice, at least for craps, but that it is not universally believed. They did have a tv special on it though I guess it would depend if you believe them or not.

I would imagine that if you really tried you can game the dice but it would take a lot of time and energy devoted to learning how to do it and it will not be allowed at the table. Seriously how many 20s could you roll until people thought you were cheating? D&D has an advantage though in that it uses multiple types of dice so you would not be able to concentrate on just one thing like you do in craps.

[obryn]

Let me see if I understand your analogy. House-ruling in order to customize your game to your tastes is like adding Sriracha to your pizza. Would house-ruling the system because its broken be like ordering a pizza and having to put it in your oven because the pizza place you ordered from didn't finish baking it

Yep! Or, "I ordered pepperoni but I wanted sausage!" "Nothing is wrong, just take off the sausage and add your own pepperoni!"

The issue is with the assertion there's no problem, not with providing a potential resolution.

Actually supposedly there is a technique to throwing dice, at least for craps, but that it is not universally believed. They did have a tv special on it though I guess it would depend if you believe them or not.

There is. It involves holding the dice a certain way and spinning them so the numbers on the sides are less likely to come up. It's not perfect, of course, in part because the staff is watching for it and will have a nice talk with you, but it does improve your odds.

[akaddk]

Frankly, I'd just let anybody who's proficient with a skill be able to take 10 with that skill when they're not in combat. It's a fair measure of skill - that somebody is trained to the point of being able to think clearly and pragmatically before they climb a 30 foot tall tree sounds sensible to me, especially if it's within the DC. The not in combat thing makes it so that if they want some sort of cool narrative way of gaining advantage, that they still have to make the check.

So what are you going to give an 11th-level rogue so that they don't feel screwed over?

[Chaosvii7]

So what are you going to give an 11th-level rogue so that they don't feel screwed over?

Funny you should mention that.

I was originally planning to give Rogues an Extra attack AT 11th level. I'm still not sold on the idea, solely because I don't know what that will do to Rogue besides give them another chance to Sneak Attack, but I'm not opposed to it.

[SiuiS]

Extended checks take the bite off the RNG spread, too.

I'll be honest, though, I think it's perfectly adequate for the kind of game D&D usually is. Just make sure the DCs are reasonable.

"Reasonable DCs"'isn't an easy thing to nail though. What's reasonable? What's the math scale? Are we certain? Are we sure that this works best with extended rolls? Will it hold up across dice bells?

I remember the skill system being functional but looking broken; I also remember that their next iteration was very functional but only if you didn't roll as simulation, and the next one worked great if all the DCs were 4 lower or based on +4 over +5.

We'll have to do enough numbers crunching over time to show clear patterns and trends despite bias, not because of them.

[QUOTE=Caelic;17981625]People often seem to use "houseruling" as a dirty word, but let's keep in mind that most of the standard conventions of the game started out as "house rules." Critical hits? House rule. Fumbles? House rule. Max hit points at first level? House rule.[/auote]

Ah what? Fumbles really are a thing now?

If house rules are supposed to be the answer for anything imperfect, what's the new edition for?

Money.

And hell, it works. 5e us exactly what they could get the most money out of me for; a well-rounded if lack-luster revamp that would be perfect for my children to find in a few decades.

Wouldn't it be easier to roll 2d10 or 3d6 to handle the more 'unskilled' people not having so wide of a chance of being good?

2d10 gives you a much higher chance of getting around an 11 instead of lower or higher numbers
3d6 removes 1,2,19,20 from your rolls but gives you even more weight towards the middle.

Neither or those rolling styles require you to mess with the Proficiency System, which I see as being precariously balanced already. It doesn't require the DCs to be competely revamped but it does give those with more bonus to a skill a higher chance of succeeding on harder DCs from someone with no skill.

Worth a shot.

Oh look, someone on the internet is making outrageously extreme claims in order to support their bias and denigrate someone instead of attacking their argument.

Oh, don't fool yourself to think our positions are equal, sunshine. Yours is "I'm def an authority, totes, I've played, like, dozens of complete games. You know, probably." And mine is "I find this ridiculous because on the bald face of it, if you have played a dozen complete campaigns, they wouldn't be far apart enough to be fistinguishable from each other and it's likely you haven't done anything but rehash the same thing repeatedly".

I am directly attacking your argument, because your argument is asinine and itself couched in poor rhetoric. I just thought that someone who took the time to validate their position, even as tenuously as you did, would understand the thrust of my dubiousness.

I just bought mine 2 hours ago, and I have to say, I'm pleased. It may not be the best thing ever, but it rekindles my interest in DnD which was lost with 4e (As a note, I was excited about 4th right up until I started my read through of the core set: I was thrilled while I was unwrapping them). I've got dozens of character ideas based on what's available, and will keep an ear to the ground for a game I can test them in, and having done a dry run for character creation I don't feel either flooded with needless amounts of options or deprived of opportunities to customize to fit my concept. 4/5 stars.

Legit. 4e is beautiful whenever I'm not in the middle of it's circuits and guts. Pair o'Dice was right though, and I'm starting to feel it could have been handled better.

I'm glad it inspires you. The system's aesthetic pleases me even though I think the book is too sense for casual perusal. But the art and the colors trigger my synesthesia in fun ways. I am drawn to it despite myself. What I read here is subtly pleasing. It's not 3e, but them the Internet preferred 3e is literally retarded, in the repels mental sense and does not follow logical or rational sequence sense.

I mean, the argument that you create money out of thin air by performing a profession check but that you cannot use craft: smithing, craft: smelting, profession: mining and craft: weaponsmith in sequence to increase value of raw materials you mine yourself? That's not logical or rational at all.

A medium difficulty check is dc15, my level 4 rogue would fail it 55% of the time and that's with expertise. That sucks for me, he should be GREAT and unskilled people should suck and only have a really, really low chance of success.

Problem: define "medium difficulty task".

Is jumping a 20' chasm medium difficulty? Probably not.
Is jumping he same chasm while being chased by rabid warg's and wounded medium difficulty? Maybe.

[Kurald Galain]

"Reasonable DCs"'isn't an easy thing to nail though.

Come on, we're talking high school-level math here, not rocket science.

If you start with what the probabilities should be then it's pretty easy to derive what the modifiers are. However, that's not what the designers did; they instead went by just taking some arbitrary numbers that feel nice and hoping it works out somehow.

[SiuiS]

Probabilities? Have you been to an American high school? I was denied acces to geometry my second year because there weren't enough people. They put me in remedial patterns instead. There are workig adults who don't know what a Fibonacci is, or why it has a sequence, or why rabbits have sex for it.

And let's also be fair; during the playtest I laid out actual math to rigorously show that A) fighters were fully capable of dealin tremendous and level appropriate damage and B) the skill system was functional and consistent and simply a magnitude lower than people wanted and then only because they misapplied it, and people still whined about how fighters couldn't do damage and the skill system was borken freoevr!!1! And all that.

Like your "took arbitrary feelgood numbers" jab there. So you know that? Do you have proof? Ave you broken down the system and it's application conditions? Or are you just throwif that out there? Obfuscating actual data with opinion-as-fact is part of why reasonable DCs are hard. It's difficult to look at the numbers and devise their use when people are just telling you to give it it's stupid why bother.

[Falka]

Imo people just grief because the DC table is worded poorly and the PHB does not give enough examples.

Medium dificulty (DC 15) should be reworded as 'medium challenge' or just 'challenging'. Meaning that here you have a standard chance of success, but also it's not guaranteed. It's, you know, a challenge.

It doesn't mean that's the "average" level you should try to achieve.

Most DCs in published adventures, to beat mundane tasks (like lockpicking a normal lock, getting past guards, etc.) range between DCs 10-13, which admittedly is kind of easy. A group Stealth check for a level 1 adventure has DC 10.

One you get reading these adventures you get a better grip of what is a fair DC.

[Sir_Leorik]

Actually supposedly there is a technique to throwing dice, at least for craps, but that it is not universally believed. They did have a tv special on it though I guess it would depend if you believe them or not.

I would imagine that if you really tried you can game the dice but it would take a lot of time and energy devoted to learning how to do it and it will not be allowed at the table. Seriously how many 20s could you roll until people thought you were cheating? D&D has an advantage though in that it uses multiple types of dice so you would not be able to concentrate on just one thing like you do in craps.

I think we can all agree that this is considered cheating and should be discouraged.

Yep! Or, "I ordered pepperoni but I wanted sausage!" "Nothing is wrong, just take off the sausage and add your own pepperoni!"

The issue is with the assertion there's no problem, not with providing a potential resolution.

So the question is, is the pizza under baked, or does it have toppings you don't like? I think that a game that absolutely fails to achieve its core goals is like the under baked pizza; you should be demanding your money back from the pizza place (and maybe calling the Department of Health). But if the toppings aren't to your liking, you can always peel them off. By the same token, if the game is inherently sound, but you don't like one or two features, or feel that different features would fit better into your campaign, that doesn't mean the game is broken.

To take a few examples that I've seen on these forums, there have been complaints about the Ability Checks (specifically that Proficiency Bonuses are too low and Skill DCs are too high), that certain spells like Animate Dead, Conjure Woodland Beings and True Polymorph (to name a few) break the game, and that the Ranger sucks.

I feel that its too soon to judge whether the math in the Ability Checks are unbalanced. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so why not play a few sessions and see whether the math needs to be recalculated.

Re: the Ranger; its funny that everyone is complaining about how lousy the Ranger is, considering how overpowered the 4E Two-Blade Ranger was (before they nerfed it).

Animate Dead has two major restrictions: one that it needs to be constantly recast to maintain control over the Undead, and a roleplaying one. Even if the party's okay with a bunch of Skeletons and Zombies accompanying them, I doubt that the townsfolk will respond with anything less than Pitchforks and Torches^TM. I'm hoping to run a 5E campaign set in Ravenloft in the near future, and if any player tries to cast Animate Dead on a regular basis, they will have to make Ravenloft Dark Powers Checks. Eventually, if they keep casting the spell I'm going to let them know that the chance of failing the Dark Powers Checks will be rising, especially if they use higher level spell slots to cast the spell.

Regarding the Conjure series of spells (Conjure Animals, Celestial, Elemental, Fey, Minor Elemental, Woodland Beings), all of these spells are Concentration spells. A blown Constitution Saving Throw to maintain Concentration will send all 8 Pixies conjured by Conjure Woodland Beings away. On the other hand, these spells are better than Animate Dead, since the caster doesn't need to use an action to issue a command to the Conjured creatures.

As for True Polymorph... whoah. Yeah, this spell is broken and needs some errata, stat! Luckily its a 9th level spell, and WotC can do some damage control quickly.

But I don't think True Polymorph being overpowered ruins the whole game. I do think that if the math for Ability Checks, Attack Rolls and Saving Throw DCs are wonky, that the game has a problem. But I haven't seen this cropping up in either the Playtest or the Encounters game I played. Right now I'm very satisfied with the game as is (True Polymorph excluded).

[Kurald Galain]

Probabilities? Have you been to an American high school?

I get the impression you're taking this much too personal. If you're going to make posts like that then I'm not interested in discussing this with you any further.

But for the record, I'm from Europe so I haven't been to an American high school, no.

[SaintRidley]

I think that Sius's point there is that what you see as high school level math is in America often glossed over as a lesson for one day in the entirety of your high school career or completely left out, only to be learned if you choose to take statistics classes in college. Understanding probabilities in America is a skill that statisticians and people who are just interested in knowing it have, and not many other people.