Consequences of Variability

[Dimers]

Would it really make you guys like the game better if there was a list that said "this is easy, DC 10" or "this is hard, DC 20" for a bunch of actions?

It'd make me more comfortable as a player, and more supported as a DM, to have several lists that give sample skill DCs and what doesn't need rolling at all. Like, a list to emulate a crapsack world where life is cheap, a list to reproduce feats described in ancient epic poetry, a list that encourages careful planning and intelligence-gathering, contrasted with a list that gets the traps and social stuff out of the way so your beer-and-pretzels players can lay the smack down on their mindlessly evil foes ...

Then the DM can just pick a list and say, "This is the kind of game I'm running. Be hopeless/awesome/careful/aggressive/etc. as appropriate."

But I'd assume you want something like this:

Task Difficulty DC
Very easy 5 - climbing a wall your height
Easy 10 - climbing a regular tree
Medium 15 - climbing a regular tree under heavy rain
etc.

Something like, "In an epic game, you don't need to roll Athletics for climbing trees. Barehand-climbing the Cliffs of Despair is an Easy check. Picking up a river to reroute it is a Medium check. Inhaling a tornado and holding it until you want to breathe it out to disperse a Wish-generated miles-wide poison cloud is a Hard check."

And then in contrast, "In tier one of a zero-to-hero game, you don't need to roll Athletics to run over slightly uneven ground. Climbing twice your height up a tree with lots of branches is an Easy check. Sprinting to stay ahead of a pissed-off bear is a Medium check. Leaping across a twenty-foot ravine is a Hard check (or Very Hard if you have no running start)."

A couple pages of examples could help everyone in a group understand what kind of play they're aiming at.

Sure - but what "climbing is harder in my game" means? Does it mean you need to roll DC 20 to climb a simple tree - which is a bit ridiculous IMO - or that you're going against the giants and you will often have to roll against DC 20 to climb mountains?

Perfect!

[Unoriginal]

Are you sure you don't need to roll to climb a tree? When the subject was brought up in the original thread they were saying of course you need to roll because not all trees are the same. Further detail went into whether it was an apple tree or a palm tree. That's the point. Different DMs have different interpretations of what needs a roll or not, and if there is a roll what the DC is because what's easy for one DM is hard for another. A character's competency in doing stuff depends on who is DM that day, not the player creating his own character.

And no published DC list is going to change anything to this.

[DanyBallon]

That's an understatement.

Variance between tables is bad because it means I lose control of how I create my character and a little bit of playing my character. I could be proficient in all Intelligence skills because I want to know things. However, the DM at that table won't let me roll to identify the creature we're fighting, its strength and abilities, or the DC is 20 perhaps and even then I only get lore, not specifics to develop combat strategy. In another game my character is not proficient in Intelligence skills, but a DC 10 check lets me know to use fire against trolls. If I rolled 15+ I'm reminded acid works too. The ability of my character to knows things has become absolutely irrelevant to my character building decisions. It applies to any skill. Do I roll to climb a tree? Do I automatically get to climb trees? My strength score and proficiency or not in athletics is irrelevant to that decision. It depends on who is DM that day. It's my character. I should have a say on what he can do. Session 0 doesn't help because you can't foresee every possible scenario, and I shouldn't have to ask the DM what rules we are using this time. House rules there may be, fine, but not the fundamental playing of the game.

Having defined values of DCs does not mean having a value for every possible scenario. That is also impossible and nonsense. Defined values are benchmarks. The defined values would be for the most likely common scenario, climbing a tree, a rope, a wall, so a reference point can be used when a player wants to climb a pole of ice. If I want to be good at climbing trees I know how much effort I need to put in strength and athletics to be as good as I want to be. I needn't be subject to DM whim on his interpretation on ease of climbing trees even to detail of whether it's an apple tree or palm tree. The game sets a reference point. It could even offer the DM to increase or decrease DCs depending on going for a more gritty or cinematic feel. Most DMs will probably use the default value, but the option is there. That is information that can be relayed in Session 0, and I can create my character accordingly.

The game already define benchmark; they're called very easy (5), easy(10), moderate(15), hard(20), very hard(25) and nearly impossible(30). Being more specific leads to people taking the given examples as absolute truth, and this is a limiting factor for DM creativity and in my opinion makes the game boring. I want to be able to play in a world where iron locks are DC 20, because it's the toughest material available, and playing in an other where iron-making is flawed and iron lock are not as sturdy hence the DC is 10. When I play a game, I want to discover the world through the eyes and experience of my character, not from a rulebook and metagame data.

[Saeviomage]

See? They even provides some DCs to help you visualize things.

... yeah, in the equipment section.

The DC given for unlocking something in under 6 seconds is possibly realistic if not generous.

Using the whole skill rules (where anything not impossible can be automatically succeeded at by taking 10 times as long) for lock picking is... passable. They screw up because there's no avenue for makeshift tools, and disallowing unskilled individuals is silly given that proficiency requires 2000 hours of intensive one-on-one training.

So we've got rules in 3 places (2 different parts of the equipment section, DMG skills advice, PHB skills advice), and those rules contradict each other at least once.

It's a prime example of a scenario where the skill system needed more direction and more attention. Locks are common things that most people have little experience with, and without putting in a lot of thought, they end up being boring and detrimental to the game. So it makes sense that the only reference for how to handle them is a footnote in the equipment section, right?

There is enough page count in the PHB and DMG wasted on useless garbage that all the skills could have easily gotten some treatment to make them much more useful and nobody would have noticed the things that you removed.

[Sigreid]

It'd make me more comfortable as a player, and more supported as a DM, to have several lists that give sample skill DCs and what doesn't need rolling at all. Like, a list to emulate a crapsack world where life is cheap, a list to reproduce feats described in ancient epic poetry, a list that encourages careful planning and intelligence-gathering, contrasted with a list that gets the traps and social stuff out of the way so your beer-and-pretzels players can lay the smack down on their mindlessly evil foes ...

Then the DM can just pick a list and say, "This is the kind of game I'm running. Be hopeless/awesome/careful/aggressive/etc. as appropriate."



Something like, "In an epic game, you don't need to roll Athletics for climbing trees. Barehand-climbing the Cliffs of Despair is an Easy check. Picking up a river to reroute it is a Medium check. Inhaling a tornado and holding it until you want to breathe it out to disperse a Wish-generated miles-wide poison cloud is a Hard check."

And then in contrast, "In tier one of a zero-to-hero game, you don't need to roll Athletics to run over slightly uneven ground. Climbing twice your height up a tree with lots of branches is an Easy check. Sprinting to stay ahead of a pissed-off bear is a Medium check. Leaping across a twenty-foot ravine is a Hard check (or Very Hard if you have no running start)."

A couple pages of examples could help everyone in a group understand what kind of play they're aiming at.



Perfect!

Well, I personally prefer not to have the lists. Among other things I do not necessarily want the players to have too good an idea how hard a task is. They can ask, and I'll give them what I think their best guess is. They don't need a exact number. This is probably where I have my greatest conflict with Pex who seems to want to always know exactly how hard things are before he tries.

[Pex]

I find this whole thread rather ludicrous. It's not as if 3.P didn't including a byline that said DM's should add modifiers as they see fit. 5e just does away with a silly baseline that almost always got modded to hell anyway. 5e trusts DMs to do whats right to tell their stories, which is a perfectly fine baseline assumption for a game. You join a game of D&D because you trust a DM to tell a good story. It's inherent in the game regardless if there is or isn't a chart of Difficulty Checks.

That "silly baseline" is what we want. That's the point! It's a starting point for whatever skill so players and DMs alike know what can and can't be done based on a character's stats. The +/-2 "DM's best friend" that 3E uses in 5E would more likely be applying advantage/disadvantage.

[strangebloke]

Fail again.
Skill DCs don't scale. That's literally one of the founding concepts behind Bounded Accuracy.
And that's why the simple Very Easy to Nearly Impossible sample works regardless of class or level or proficiency.
Skill DCs are based off of fixed rules, just like AC. That's what the Very Easy to Nearly Impossible model is. It's fixed rules telling you how to set DCs.

Ah, that was a fail. Skill DCs do not scale.

But my larger point stands. AC doesn't scale either. Both AC and skill checks have rules for determining their DC. While the guidelines for AC are incredibly complex, the guidelines for skill DC are... 'This is Hard. This is Harder. This is really Hard.' I mean no kidding, system, higher rolls are harder to obtain. If only I'd known that before.

Here's a fun question: What does 'Difficult: DC 20' actually mean? Who finds it difficult? How difficult do they find it? (They find it more than moderately difficult, apparently.)

But here's my disconnect. You can't meaningfully set a baseline when the in-group variability is as big as it is.

Last point: THERE IS A DEFAULT DC FOR CLIMBING. DC: YUP (but counts as difficult terrain). Anything else screws over Thief rogues by making them lose a class feature. Let's please find another example for this issue. Please?

Your first point: Yes, this is a problem, but there are things that have less in-group variation. For instance, it would be easy to say:

Tame a wild foal(downtime): DC 5 animal handling
Tame a wild Mare(downtime): DC 7 animal handling
Tame a wild stallion(downtime): DC 10 animal handling
Tame a wild stallion as an action: DC 20 animal handling

It's easy to mod as well. It's easy to say, well, this is a particularly nasty horse, so we'll upgrade it to a 13.

Climbing, you could just say:

Climb a smooth surface 20ft high as part of movement on a turn: DC 10 athletics.
Climb a smooth surface 30ft high as part of movement on a turn: DC 20 athletics.

Your second point: yes, climbing is a pretty bad example, but its what everyone was running with. I didn't remember about the rules for that one, although I'd been following it.

snip

Look, examples are nice, ok? I homebrew most of the monsters I throw at my party, but I still own and use the monster manual a lot. As it happens, they put a lot more thought into their monsters than I did, and I can learn what is or isn't reasonable.

Same for mundane prices. I don't know that I've every sold anything 'at cost' printed in the PHB, because markets are different. But once again. I'd hate to come up with prices from scratch.

Climbing is admittedly a poor example. This is, however, illustrative of a more general problem. The PC in my story could just as easily have been a knight who discovered that the DM required handle animal checks every time that a bright spell effect went off.

Moreover, there are lots of small, easily forgotten rules about specific skills like the one regarding climbing. A general set of guidelines would help a lot more than a bunch of specific rulings.

[Eric Diaz]

Something like, "In an epic game, you don't need to roll Athletics for climbing trees. Barehand-climbing the Cliffs of Despair is an Easy check. Picking up a river to reroute it is a Medium check. Inhaling a tornado and holding it until you want to breathe it out to disperse a Wish-generated miles-wide poison cloud is a Hard check."

And then in contrast, "In tier one of a zero-to-hero game, you don't need to roll Athletics to run over slightly uneven ground. Climbing twice your height up a tree with lots of branches is an Easy check. Sprinting to stay ahead of a pissed-off bear is a Medium check. Leaping across a twenty-foot ravine is a Hard check (or Very Hard if you have no running start)."

A couple pages of examples could help everyone in a group understand what kind of play they're aiming at.

Seems reasonable. As I said, that is not useful to me - I use "it will be Hard to leap across the ravine, it's pretty wide" more often than that "the ravine is 20 feet wide, I wonder what the DC is?", but I can see how some people might found it useful. It doesn't change the fact that the DCs are still the same across multiple descriptions, which IMO was the point of the OP, but having such guidelines you certainly avoid many internet discussions (and start new ones such as "if I can auto-suceed in barehand-climbing the Cliffs of Despair in an epic game, how come a week without water or falling from 100 feet will kill me?"... but I digress).

[Unoriginal]

Except it's bull****, because even modern day locks are trivial to pick, even with improvised tools, and modern locks are so far beyond medieval ones that medieval locks look like toddlers toys.

First: maybe real medieval locks, but this is a pseudo-medieval game with dragons and Wizards.

Second: DC 15 is Medium, most trained people can do it without too much troubles.

Third: You are disagreeing with the DC provided by the book. I guess if you were the DM, you'd change the DC to correspond to your idea of the situation, right?

Mmmmh, it's almost like what everyone who don't think set DC lists are necessary has been saying.

[Pex]

The OP explains exactly why they didn't do this.



Inconsequential (0)
Very Easy(5)
Easy(10)
Moderate(15)
Difficult(20)
Very Difficult(25)
Nearly Impossible(30)

That's plenty of guidance.
If you need more, the system is not at fault.

How difficult is it to climb a tree? We have people in this very thread offering different difficulties of whether there should even be a roll at all, so that's not enough guidance.

[Eric Diaz]

Here's a fun question: What does 'Difficult: DC 20' actually mean? Who finds it difficult? How difficult do they find it?

Page 238 of the DMG deals with the issue. The explanation isn't great, but it assumes a first level character (or "most people"). How hard? "About 95% chance of failure", I think.

[Unoriginal]

How difficult is it to climb a tree? We have people in this very thread offering different difficulties of whether there should even be a roll at all, so that's not enough guidance.

How difficult it is to climb a tree is, according to the books, "not at all, you don't need a check to do it unless the DM decides so."

The fact people are disagreeing about even this should show why making a list with DCs wouldn't change anything.

[DanyBallon]

Look, examples are nice, ok? I homebrew most of the monsters I throw at my party, but I still own and use the monster manual a lot. As it happens, they put a lot more thought into their monsters than I did, and I can learn what is or isn't reasonable.

Same for mundane prices. I don't know that I've every sold anything 'at cost' printed in the PHB, because markets are different. But once again. I'd hate to come up with prices from scratch.

Climbing is admittedly a poor example. This is, however, illustrative of a more general problem. The PC in my story could just as easily have been a knight who discovered that the DM required handle animal checks every time that a bright spell effect went off.

Moreover, there are lots of small, easily forgotten rules about specific skills like the one regarding climbing. A general set of guidelines would help a lot more than a bunch of specific rulings.

I agree that example are a good thing to have at a table, but examples given in a rulebook often end up as being regard as absolute truth and this specifically is bad as it creates unneeded arguement around the table if a DM wants to deviate from those example because it fit better his game.

Again, your knight example is a good indication of what I'm saying, no matter how many examples there would be in the PHB, nothing will prepare you to roll animal handling checks when a bright spell goes off. This is specific to this DM world.

What you can do though is prior to game one, ask your DM to give you a list of typical DCs in his game world, or maybe ask him about skill checks your character may roll the most. This is far more productive than having a common set of examples that may end up being considered as rules...

[Unoriginal]

You know what, we should do an experiment.


Let's imagine a game of D&D 3.5. A Rogue wants to climb a castle's walls and get into its tower. It is raining, and it's at night.


What is the DC for climbing?

[Pex]

Whoa, slow down there, buddy! This would suggest that even with a fixed DC for this specific task handed to the DM (victim's PP), the DM will have to use judgment to determine the outcome of the character's action. How's a DM supposed to know to impose disadvantage for the lighting? How's the DM supposed to know to let the rogue overcome the disadvantage with a Stealth check? Where's all that in chart form?

It's almost as though judgment is inescapable in running an RPG and is therefore a skill good DMs should strive to cultivate! We're just looking for some friggin' charts here, man!

Having charts is not supposed to solve everything. Charts are for the starting point.

[DanyBallon]

You know what, we should do an experiment.


Let's imagine a game of D&D 3.5. A Rogue wants to climb a castle's walls and get into its tower. It is raining, and it's at night.


What is the DC for climbing?

You are not providing enough information for a 3.5 game! We need to know if the rogue is using a rope and a grapple, where he is trying to fix the grapple, what type of stone the wall is made of, what is the moon phase, and more importantly, is the stew the rogue had for diner was fresh or rancid? Because in 3.5 there is a modifier for almost everything

I'm sorry I couldn't resist

[Kane0]

Wow, my magic elf games have never been this serious.

When in doubt pretty much any check I need my players to roll ends up being DC 15, it's just a nice middle of the road number to aim for that isn't too easy or too hard. Advantage and disadvantage get thrown in if circumstances call for it.

It's pretty rare that I use 20 or 25 though there are cases, but i almost never use 5 or 10. Those are pretty much just given unless I have reason to believe the PC will balls it up.

The easiest thing for me to say would be DC 15 is the default DC for something that is challenging but obtainable for a heroic fantasy sort of game, shift it up 5 for gritty realism and down 5 for epic adventure. Examples being spotting something 'off' in a room you enter, convincing a reluctant NPC to obey you, lifting a shut portcullis, breaking into a locked chest, picking up on the subtext of a conversation, etc.

[DivisibleByZero]

How difficult is it to climb a tree? We have people in this very thread offering different difficulties of whether there should even be a roll at all, so that's not enough guidance.

Once again, we don't all have to agree. That doesn't matter. Every game will be slightly different, in a huge number of respects, not just skills. The only thing that matters is that the DM is consistent.

[strangebloke]

I'm not saying that I miss 3.5's method. I'm just saying that a chart would help.

[Pex]

And no published DC list is going to change anything to this.

That's exactly what it would do. It could have a table like:

Climbing (Athletics check)
DC 0: apple tree, steady ladder
DC 5: knotted rope
DC 10: palm tree, wall corner
DC 15: wall with handholds
DC 20: smooth surface

No more arguing on the competency of my character to climb a tree.

Details are for example only. Debating the numbers for climbing a tree or even if there should be a roll at all, as was done in this thread and earlier thread, proves my point since such a table doesn't exist ergo my character's ability to climb is dependent on who is DM that day not my choice for my character.

The game already define benchmark; they're called very easy (5), easy(10), moderate(15), hard(20), very hard(25) and nearly impossible(30). Being more specific leads to people taking the given examples as absolute truth, and this is a limiting factor for DM creativity and in my opinion makes the game boring. I want to be able to play in a world where iron locks are DC 20, because it's the toughest material available, and playing in an other where iron-making is flawed and iron lock are not as sturdy hence the DC is 10. When I play a game, I want to discover the world through the eyes and experience of my character, not from a rulebook and metagame data.

Are you going to tell me at character creation the DC of locks? Do I have to ask every DM I play with the DC of locks in his game? My competence in picking locks depends on who is DM, not my choices in creating my character. If the rules listed iron locks as DC 10 and special material locks are DC 20 then I know the competence of my character in lockpicking regardless of who is DM. There is a benchmark norm to relate to. Then if you want to make iron locks DC 20 you can say so, and I can adjust my frame of reference accordingly. Having a listed table of default DCs never prevents you as DM making iron locks DC 20. Not having a listed table of default DCs means I don't know the competency of my character's ability of lockpicking until it comes in up in game and by then it's too late.

How difficult it is to climb a tree is, according to the books, "not at all, you don't need a check to do it unless the DM decides so."

The fact people are disagreeing about even this should show why making a list with DCs wouldn't change anything.

Some of the people who are disagreeing are on your side of the debate.

The bolded part is exactly the point though. My character's ability to do something is irrelevant to the choices I make for my character. It's all DM whim. Great for the DM, like he needs more power. No fun for me as a player having no power to decide my character's strengths and weaknesses.

You know what, we should do an experiment.


Let's imagine a game of D&D 3.5. A Rogue wants to climb a castle's walls and get into its tower. It is raining, and it's at night.


What is the DC for climbing?

Maybe I'm falling into a gotcha trap, but I'll bite.

Rough surface like a brick wall. DC 25
Raining means it's slippery. +5 DC

If rogue has darkvision night time is irrelevant.
If rogue doesn't have darkvision DM call. Can use DM's best friend and apply +2 DC for poor vision since it's not completely dark. Night time can still be irrelevant since it's also about feeling the wall as it is looking for grips. The randomness of the d20 roll is that factor of whether the rogue can find grips or not. This is minutiae detail.

DC is 30. No personal objection if someone else goes with 32. Doesn't go against my gripe of different DMs having different interpretations because the starting point was the same, DC 25 for the rough surface built like a brick wall. Having a table does not prohibit DM adjudication.

Heh. 3E has climbing a tree at DC 15. I'm glad 3E allows for Take 10. By 3E standards my 4 year old self had some ranks in climb.

[Saeviomage]

First up, sorry about the ninja edit. Took a read of my own stuff and realised that if you actually track down and use all the rules, the specific example of opening a lock is ok with some caveats... but mostly due to the "you can do literally anything if you take 10 times as long to do it" rule from the DMG, which has it's own problems.

First: maybe real medieval locks, but this is a pseudo-medieval game with dragons and Wizards.

So... all the rest of the technology is more-or-less medieval, but locks alone are somehow very advanced?

Second: DC 15 is Medium, most trained people can do it without too much troubles.

Well... no. Exceptional trained people have a bonus of +5 (+3 stat, proficient, level 1-4). So they fail a DC 15 a little less than half the time. I've yet to hear of any real profession where a 45% failure rate would be considered acceptable.

Heck a DC 10 is "easy"... and most trained people will still fail 20% of the time, which is probably still beyond what should be acceptable for an individual who has 2000 hours of training and considerable natural aptitude.

Third: You are disagreeing with the DC provided by the book. I guess if you were the DM, you'd change the DC to correspond to your idea of the situation, right?

Mmmmh, it's almost like what everyone who don't think set DC lists are necessary has been saying.

... So the argument is that because the book does give a DC for something... and gets it wrong... that a set DC list will always be wrong?

This seems like an invalid argument.

[Easy_Lee]

How difficult it is to climb a tree is, according to the books, "not at all, you don't need a check to do it unless the DM decides so."

The fact people are disagreeing about even this should show why making a list with DCs wouldn't change anything.

Except that this discussion didn't come up all the time in previous editions, but is a recurring thing now. What's changed?

One difference is the emphasis on the DM to make decisions. How hard is this lock to pick? Most often, DMs don't base this on how hard it should be to pick, but how hard they want it to be for the narrative. Case in point:

I don't think this is useful to me; if I'm writing an adventure, I will say the lock to the hidden chamber is DC 20, regardless of what it is made of, if I can assume, for some reason, that this particular lock is harder to pick. If I'm running some else's adventure, I expect the DC to be written beforehand.

And DMs don't always make good choices. Some of the most memorable and enjoyable D&D moments are when the unexpected happens. But the unexpected never happens when all the spotlight is on the DM and his rulings, his ideas, his narrative...

A lack of consistent, understood skill checks disempowers the players to make informed decisions. Even if you want DCs to vary by table, DMs aren't going to be consistent. It isn't like DMs are handing out lists of DCs, is it? Hell no they aren't. The DCs are exactly what the DM wants them to be at the time. 5e encourages that sort of DM behavior. And not only is that kind of crap transparent, it ruins games.

This all comes down to a DM versus players mentality. Some DMs don't want their players to know anything ahead of time, because they think it takes away suspense and challenge. Those DMs don't understand what the game is really about.

[Sigreid]

First up, sorry about the ninja edit. Took a read of my own stuff and realised that if you actually track down and use all the rules, the specific example of opening a lock is ok with some caveats... but mostly due to the "you can do literally anything if you take 10 times as long to do it" rule from the DMG, which has it's own problems.

So... all the rest of the technology is more-or-less medieval, but locks alone are somehow very advanced?

Well... no. Exceptional trained people have a bonus of +5 (+3 stat, proficient, level 1-4). So they fail a DC 15 a little less than half the time. I've yet to hear of any real profession where a 45% failure rate would be considered acceptable.

Heck a DC 10 is "easy"... and most trained people will still fail 20% of the time, which is probably still beyond what should be acceptable for an individual who has 2000 hours of training and considerable natural aptitude.

... So the argument is that because the book does give a DC for something... and gets it wrong... that a set DC list will always be wrong?

This seems like an invalid argument.

Little caveat here. My interpretation of the rules would be with A DC 15 lock most locksmiths will be able to pick the lock without trouble, but will not be able to do it in an action (less than 6 seconds). The ability to do that is the perview of the exceptionally skilled (PC rogue level).

[strangebloke]

Little caveat here. My interpretation of the rules would be with A DC 15 lock most locksmiths will be able to pick the lock without trouble, but will not be able to do it in an action (less than 6 seconds). The ability to do that is the perview of the exceptionally skilled (PC rogue level).

Right, things that everyone can do (without time pressure) are free to be higher DC.

[Eric Diaz]

Except that this discussion didn't come up all the time in previous editions, but is a recurring thing now. What's changed?

One difference is the emphasis on the DM to make decisions. How hard is this lock to pick? Most often, DMs don't base this on how hard it should be to pick, but how hard they want it to be for the narrative. Case in point:



And DMs don't always make good choices. Some of the most memorable and enjoyable D&D moments are when the unexpected happens. But the unexpected never happens when all the spotlight is on the DM and his rulings, his ideas, his narrative...

A lack of consistent, understood skill checks disempowers the players to make informed decisions. Even if you want DCs to vary by table, DMs aren't going to be consistent. It isn't like DMs are handing out lists of DCs, is it? Hell no they aren't. The DCs are exactly what the DM wants them to be at the time. 5e encourages that sort of DM behavior. And not only is that kind of crap transparent, it ruins games.

This all comes down to a DM versus players mentality. Some DMs don't want their players to know anything ahead of time, because they think it takes away suspense and challenge. Those DMs don't understand what the game is really about.

I'm not sure I understand. What is the difference between "how hard it should be to pick" and "how hard they want it to be for the narrative"? Does it make more sense for you to say "this lock is DC 20 because it is made of mithril" than to say "this lock is DC 20 because the builder chose to put a particularly complex lock in the castle's treasure vault?"

All those observations about "A lack of consistent, understood skill checks disempowers the players to make informed decisions" and " Some DMs don't want their players to know anything ahead of time" make no sense at all to me; it seems obvious to me that the PCs will know is a task is easy, medium or hard before attempting it, because I will tell them. I see no reason to hide the DCs except in rare circumstances (say, perception rolls, if I were making perception rolls).

I can see no situation where this would happen:

GM: "Do you want to climb this mountain?"
PC: "Well, does it look difficult?"
GM: "You have no idea. You have to roll to see if you succeed."

At the very least, the GM should say "this seems like a difficult task".

Even worse, I can see no reason for this to happen:

PC: "Can I try to pick the lock without activating the trap? Is it difficult?"
GM: "You have no idea."
PC: "Well, what is the lock made of?"
GM: "Mithril."
PC (who memorized the big list of DCs for all relevant skills before coming to the game): "A-ha! DC 25 it is! Got you!"

And this second example seems to be what you're proposing as a solution to "empowers the players to make informed decisions", instead of the more simple:

PC: "Can I try to pick the lock without activating the trap?"
GM: "It seems like a Very Hard task, but you can try".

EDIT: if you dislike my examples, please show me one example of what you're saying.

[strangebloke]

We've given lots of examples.

Here are some major issues with things as they stand.
*pre-campaign signaling. Are all of the acrobatics checks going to be Very Hard? Or are they all Easy? Will my character be allowed to do cool things with handle animal? Is my DM going to never allow survival rolls to do anything useful?

*Unreasonable DCs because the DM came up with it on the spot and/or because the DM falls into the 'guy at the gym' trap.
Acrobatics says I can use it to land upright when falling off of a cart. What's a reasonable DC for that?
Acrobatics also says I can use it to walk across thin ice? What's the check for that? Seems Very Hard?

*DMs who make DCs for specific players at specific times. The cliff has a different DC depending on who is scaling it.

*The guidelines that exist are actually bad and conflict with other statements. Scaling anything that isn't a smooth or slippery surface is trivial by RAW, but many DMs make a tree DC 15 because they think 'trees are moderately difficult to climb.'

*DCs are hidden by default. Therefore, with no common reference point for DMs or player, the player and DM will come to different conclusions. If the DM signals the DC 'it is very hard *wink* *wink*' that sort of solves the problem... but this is nowhere a thing that the DM has to do.

The point is, that clear guidelines of what needs a check, what doesn't, and what kind of DC can be expected. Just having a guideline makes for a lot more clarity, and costs nothing.

[Safety Sword]

Wow, my magic elf games have never been this serious.

When in doubt pretty much any check I need my players to roll ends up being DC 15, it's just a nice middle of the road number to aim for that isn't too easy or too hard. Advantage and disadvantage get thrown in if circumstances call for it.

It's pretty rare that I use 20 or 25 though there are cases, but i almost never use 5 or 10. Those are pretty much just given unless I have reason to believe the PC will balls it up.

The easiest thing for me to say would be DC 15 is the default DC for something that is challenging but obtainable for a heroic fantasy sort of game, shift it up 5 for gritty realism and down 5 for epic adventure. Examples being spotting something 'off' in a room you enter, convincing a reluctant NPC to obey you, lifting a shut portcullis, breaking into a locked chest, picking up on the subtext of a conversation, etc.

My enchanted dwarf game must be WAY out there.

I make up DCs to make an appropriate and fun challenge for my players to overcome.

[BurgerBeast]

Apologies, but I have not read the entire thread. This is a reply to the OP.

I think you're mistaken to say the problem is one of variability. At least, I think it is fair to say many of the people who don't like fixed checks simultaneously think that bounded accuracy produces too much variability in rolled checks.

I think the problem is more properly described as predetermination.

If I have a +7 to a skill, then my success rates are affected in a predetermined way. The uncertainty, in a certain sense, disappears.

DC of task	rolled (active) success rate	fixed (passive) success rate
12	80%	100%
13	75%	100%
14	70%	100%
15	65%	100%
16	60%	100%
17	55%	100%
18	50%	0%
19	45%	0%
20	40%	0%
21	35%	0%
22	30%	0%

Half (or more of) the fun of the game is the uncertainty. Under the fixed roll system, the uncertainty is gone.

Just imagine if attack rolls were switched over to fixed. Each swing would either auto-hit or auto-miss based on AC, and there'd be no need to roll. Combat with passive attack rolls and auto-damage. A lot of the fun disappears.

Or, in the real world, imagine that sport had no uncertainty. There would be no chance that the underdog could ever win. They'd be predetermined to lose. Where's the fun in that?

[edit: Also note, in looking at the table, that passive checks make you proportionally better at harder tasks in some cases. In the table, a DC 12 task goes from 80% to 100%, improving your success rate by 25%. But a DC 17 task goes from 55% to 100%, improving your success rate by 82%. This is annoying for many people, myself included.]

[DanyBallon]

We've given lots of examples.

Here are some major issues with things as they stand.
*pre-campaign signaling. Are all of the acrobatics checks going to be Very Hard? Or are they all Easy? Will my character be allowed to do cool things with handle animal? Is my DM going to never allow survival rolls to do anything useful?

What's the matter? If you build your character to be good at acrobatics, then you'll still be better than character who aren't!

*Unreasonable DCs because the DM came up with it on the spot and/or because the DM falls into the 'guy at the gym' trap.
Acrobatics says I can use it to land upright when falling off of a cart. What's a reasonable DC for that?
Acrobatics also says I can use it to walk across thin ice? What's the check for that? Seems Very Hard?

What's the matter? If you build your character to be good at acrobatics, then you'll still be better than character who aren't!

*DMs who make DCs for specific players at specific times. The cliff has a different DC depending on who is scaling it.

This one is a bit trickier and no matter what benchmark is set in the PHB, it won't solve anything because the DM has decided that the task is story driven... As for myself, I try not to use this method... But there's is one certainty is that if there is a benchmark in the PHB, there will be an arguement between a rule lawyer type player and the DM and this will definitely stall the game and be no fun for all.

*The guidelines that exist are actually bad and conflict with other statements. Scaling anything that isn't a smooth or slippery surface is trivial by RAW, but many DMs make a tree DC 15 because they think 'trees are moderately difficult to climb.'

What's the matter? If you build your character to be good at a task, then you'll still be better than character who aren't! Knowing the DCs is metagaming, your character don't know about them, he only learns through experience that some stuff are easier to climb than others

*DCs are hidden by default. Therefore, with no common reference point for DMs or player, the player and DM will come to different conclusions. If the DM signals the DC 'it is very hard *wink* *wink*' that sort of solves the problem... but this is nowhere a thing that the DM has to do.

What's the matter? If you build your character to be good at a given task, then you'll still be better than character who aren't!

The DM describing you explicitely or not how difficult the task looks to you is part of the DM job, then as a player you can refer to the existing benchmark already provided in the PHB to guess the exact DC, but this is metagaming.

The point is, that clear guidelines of what needs a check, what doesn't, and what kind of DC can be expected. Just having a guideline makes for a lot more clarity, and costs nothing.

The point is that it's already covered in the PHB with the existing benchmark (very easy, easy, moderate, etc.).
By creating your character to be good at a task, you'll be better than character that aren't which is all that should matter, not what numbers needs to be beaten.
And lastly, 3.P proved us that rule lawyers are a thing, a bad thing as they lead to needless arguements and unfun for all at the table. The more you put in a rule book, the more they believe it to be set into stone and the game can never deviate from this.
Additionnal example of what a task DC is can always be asked to the DM, or be written down in session 0, but IMO they have no place in the PHB.

Sorry if it came out rude, but I just can't understand why some people are so focused on knowing the DCs before hand. It won't change a single thing in the effectiveness of your character. Proficient characters will succeed more often than non-proficient ones.

[SiCK_Boy]

I consider myself to be part of the camp that would like to have more examples to rely on in the manuals (PHB, DMG, MM). This is something I would appreciate both as a player, to give me a sense of what the baseline should be and help me make decisions (both in character building and during the game), and as a DM (to help me understand the intent of the rulemakers and try to play as close as possible to the game as intended). I do not see it as stifling or restricting to a DM; but I see this as giving everyone (player and DM) a common ground understanding of how the game (and the game world) should work.

A DM is always free to change stuff. But the DM who decides to change stuff should, in my opinion, do two things:
- Inform his players (if possible, as part of session 0, or otherwise during gameplay when applicable) that he changes stuff
- Explain or justify, as must as possible, why he is doing so (what is the purpose, what is the reason for the change)

The main reason for that is to prevent misunderstandings that, in my experience, lead to frustration (mostly for players) and negatively impact everyone's game experience.

I'll give two examples: if the DM announces to the players that they encounter a red dragon, and players then go ahead and buff themselves with fire-prevention effects, only to have that red dragon breath lightning instead (because the DM decided he did not want to use stock monsters or be bound by what the Monster Manual said), I would be pretty pissed off as a player. In the best of world, the DM should have done one of many things here: explain beforehand that dragons, in this world, have non-standard breath weapons (and maybe specify which dragon uses what, or leave that as a knowledge-skill check question if players want to know). If this is just specific to this one dragon, maybe the DM could have given a chance to players to observe the dragon breathing lightning. And if this is some kind of cursed dragon and the DM really wanted to surprise his players, he should at the very least let them know that he is aware that this is a weird dragon, but that there are reasons for this situation and that players can (or will) find out why or how in due time. What he certainly should not do is just tell his players to suck it up and stop making assumptions about monsters, or that he wanted to challenge them with something unexpected (with no in-world reason for that specific challenge besides DM's whim, when all other red dragons before and after will be standard fire-breathing monsters).

Another example: the DM decides that in his world, Plate Armor gives only AC 16 (instead of 18; and for some weird reason, chain mail also provides 16 armor as usual). If, as a player, I only discover that rule when I plunk down those 1 500 gp on an armorer's counter, I again would be pretty pissed off. There could be some valid reasons for the DM to make this change: maybe he wants to limit how high player's AC can go (a metagame reason), maybe the armorsmiths in this world have just not discovered how to build effective plate armors (in-world reason), etc. Again, what is important is that this kind of stuff be known beforehand, and if not, be explained as soon as possible during the game (ideally, before it matters, and before a player makes a choice based on a false assumption or some misunderstanding about the state and functioning of the world).

I think the same logic should apply to skill (ability) checks and DC.

The issue with the current guidelines (very easy, easy, moderate, hard, very hard, nearly impossible) is that the definitions for each are subjective. At a minimum, we would need an explicit definition of what is moderate (moderate is something that a person with a +5 modifier succeeds at 50 % of the time, as an example). I know people have inferred those definitions (assuming a basic human with or without proficiency), but I don't remember those being explicitly stated by the game designers.

In the current state, you are left at the DM's mercy (as a player), and the DM is left without guidance, and is thus much more at risk of not deciding DC in a consistent and "objective" manner (if he knew "why" things were the way they were - besides just I'm the DM and I decide - it would be easier for the DM to also rationalize and explain his decisions to the players).

What's the matter? If you build your character to be good at acrobatics, then you'll still be better than character who aren't!

I think you are missing the point. When building characters, there is a cost to choosing any one skill to be proficient with (because no character can have proficiency in all skills). One could even argue it also applies at level up (you could pick a feat instead of an ability score increase to improve your proficiencies). Nobody is arguing that the non-proficient character will succeed more than the proficient character. The point is rather that it would be nice, as a player, to understand if picking any one skill is worth it or not.

As an example, assuming a world where my character will be required to perform as many animal handling checks as lockpicking (thieves' tools) checks, and I have equal Dexterity and Wisdom (I know, weird adventurer who'll spend his career riding a horse while unlocking doors in every village he goes through). If the DM's baseline assumption is that all locks will be DC 15, but all animal handling will be DC 25, then it raises the question or whether it is even worth it to pick proficiency in animal handling (being proficient will barely impact my success rate in the first few levels against DC 25 - it only becomes relevant much later in the game once the proficiency bonus increases and I've had a chance to get a couple of ability score increases). This is the information that a player needs to make informed decision about his character, based on the state of the world. If there were examples in the books, it would give everyone a common ground, and DM could still change it, but would feel it's more important to explain and justify it beforehand (as part of a session 0, for example).

But there's is one certainty is that if there is a benchmark in the PHB, there will be an arguement between a rule lawyer type player and the DM and this will definitely stall the game and be no fun for all

Instead, we have these kind of threads and discussions and arguing popping up over forums all the time. I've probably never met these kind of rule lawyers, so that may be why I don't see it as being such a problem; in my mind, if a DM is able to properly explain the reasons for his decisions, players will go with them. What creates frustration is when a player discovers the painful consequences of something that he could not have guessed just by reading the game instructions, and then is simply told that the DM is god and that is that. Because many DM do not take the time to explain their own action resolution mechanisms (which is what all this skill check discussion is about) - either because they don't want to, don't care to, or don't understand it themselves - having these baseline examples in the game manuals would really help everyone. And I don't think it would stifle creativity or restrict DM.

The DM describing you explicitely or not how difficult the task looks to you is part of the DM job, then as a player you can refer to the existing benchmark already provided in the PHB to guess the exact DC, but this is metagaming.

The point is that it's already covered in the PHB with the existing benchmark (very easy, easy, moderate, etc.).
By creating your character to be good at a task, you'll be better than character that aren't which is all that should matter, not what numbers needs to be beaten.

I have to very strongly object to these last points. I suggest you read AngryGM's article on metagaming. I don't like to use climbing as an example, but it is a good one because the consequence of failing (usually falling) as such a clear and immediate impact on character survivability (as far as I know, no DM argues against the 1d6 per 10 feet of falling damage rule - I won't go into arguments about the 20d6 limit here). When discussing a climb check, unless it is in the context of a race between two characters, the important point is how can I beat that specific number, not whether I'm better than the next guy.

My character looks at a high cliff and tries to assess whether he can make it to the top without putting his life too much at risk. The character has a sense of his own "toughness" (as in, how high could I fall without killing myself). This is basically the player knowing his character's hit points total, and knowing the rules of gravity and damage for falling.

I could ask the DM to describe the cliff in all kind of fluffy words (and maybe he already did, mentioning how smooth it looked, noting how there were few handholds in the first 40 feet, but then things got rougher in the next 60 feet until the top). I could just ask the DM how "difficult" it looks (and he could either give me a flat statement - it looks "moderate" or "easy" or "nearly impossible" - or give me a statement through my character's eyes - based on your experience, this looks like a "hard" task). Or he could just make things easier for everyone and tell me it looks like a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) climb, and I'll need to do at least 2 successful checks to make it to the top.

I guess you would not want that 3rd option at your table. Personally, I think that's the best solution for everyone involved. It gives the player the proper information to make an informed decision. And the DM had to have these things in mind anyway (assuming he pre-planned for that cliff and knew climbing it would be a likely option for the players).

Because the medium we use to play is words (the DM talks, with a few visual aids here and there - mostly maps and miniatures). Words are imprecise. They cannot convey the fullness of an actual world in which your characters are living and breathing. Even if they could, no backstory could convey the fullness of a life of experience and give all that knowledge to a player. That is why we use abstractions in this game. Check DC are an abstraction. They are there to give a technical, objective meaning, to stuff that words can (and should) try to describe, but can never perfectly convey. In the same way that we don't expect the DM to narrate every single second of combat, every parry, feint, every move an enemy makes, and we just accept that he tells us we need to hit AC 16, we should be fine with accepting that the DM tells us a cliff is a DC 15 or 20 to climb (and I think it's important that he gives the actual number, but I could accept if he only used a specific qualifier - as long as everyone understands that the word "easy" means 5, "nearly impossible" 30, etc.). Because the DM cannot convey the full description of the entire cliff face, nor can he convey or understand my character's life experience climbing cliffs.

Knowing this information doesn't remove the uncertainty of my climb. It simply allows me to decide how much I want to risk my life trying it. I will still need to roll the dice, and I could roll a 1 and fall to my death.

Anyway, sorry if it looked like I was just picking on DanyBallon. This whole thread is interesting, and I'd like to hear more from those who don't want to have examples in the manual: how do you handle these things at your table? Why would you feel restricted if there were more examples in the rules?