Group checks house rules

[Danielqueue1]

So group ability checks are often weird for me, came up with a few ideas for some adjustments for ability checks to get some feedback on before actually implementing any of them.

1) if a group all does a check that can be done individually, (search for secret passage/look for traps etc) the party as a whole only get 3 checks and each must be by a different character. This wont come up often, but it can avoid the 5 party members 2 familiars, a conjured earth elemental, and the ranger's beast companion from all making separate rolls and having to deal with them all.

2) group stealth is a single roll made by the least stealthy party member. I never understood how in some groups the rogue being super stealthy somehow makes up for the fighter who rolled a natural 1 and has a -2 dex mod letting all of China know they are there. By making it a single roll, we can also avoid the above situation where with 5 players and a bunch of summons, someone's probably going to roll rather poorly.

3) you cannot take the help action to assist someone in doing something unless you are proficient at the appropriate skill. If no skill proficiency applies or it is a simple enough task that anyone can help, then one needs to at least be capable of doing that task. No the wizard's frog familiar isn't going to make a difference helping the barbarian push that boulder off the cliff onto some unsuspecting orcs, and the Conan with a -1 Int isn't going to help much in remembering obscure arcane lore.

I worry that these may come off as heavy handed or that there is something glaring that I missed.

Thoughts and suggestions?

[Shuruke]

So something I do for my players is

Either
A I ask for specefic people to do a check based off of the below order of operation and added changes.

A background that makes sense and expertise in said skill (advantage and dc lower by 2/add 2 to total)

A skill with expertise or a skill proficient and background that makes sense (advantage )

Proficiency with the skill or background that fits (roll normally)

Non proficient (either can't attempt or disadvantage)

The above is to be used on checks that it makes sense for
Knowledge checks, checks for things that make sense that it would need training to know.

I ask a player to rp or explain how their doing check and if they can link it to background or a tool kit I grant advantage.

I do this because I want choices got background traits and tools to feel important. I cant remember exact wording only played a session of Dresden. But I let them invoke background traits or etc in a fate like manner letting them make small changes etc as long as it makes sense.

Examples
Lore on a 3rd level or higher spell

Lore on creatures cr 2 or higher

Lore on rare plants that aren't very common

Specefic tracks especially for uncommon creatures or things that don't make sense for area.

Tying a rope in a way that'll be useful for a very specefic unusual use (traps, helping pull things at odd angles , or etc.)


I don't allow help action unless your proficient even for things like athletics or etc. Simple because i don't see how a wizard in melee with ogre can help the barbarian wrestle it better than the barb can do alone.


For group checks

My way takes a bit longer but for stealth I assume the stealthy people are trying to stear or otherwose help others

I have everyone roll then I add it all up and divide by the number of players.

This is for specifically stealth , tracking etc.

For finding hidden rooms etc I always do a skill challenge where only players participate.

Depending on how hard it is to find it can range from 2-6 successes of a dc 12-22

Generally I only do more than 3 if they are having to do it during combat or a chase scene.

This allows people to be creative etc and I give everyon advantage on skill challenge of a passive perception is within 3 of the dc theatrically its the person saying things and people looking nearby etc. It opens a lot of rp and my players have always enjoyed it.

For failures on the search it causes enemies to be alarmed
1 is a medium difficulty encounter
2 is a hard didficulty encounter
3 is a deadly encounter

This can be traps , monsters , or even hazardous terrain kicking in like someone accidentally making the stonework less stable etc.


Sometimes finding important rooms and etc is just as much an encounter as combat.

It makes jumping from certain tiles in a pattern or etc feel like the way it's scene in movies etc.

Hope this helps

If u need help with some of this I recemend looking up Mathew Coleville and his running campaign series

[Lunali]

You left out the situation that group checks are really made for, anything where people that are good at something can help others out, but everyone affects the final result. The first that comes to mind would be survival in dangerous terrain, someone skilled may be able to help others avoid danger, but if too many are stumbling into it, they won't be able to keep track of everything.

[Danielqueue1]

You left out the situation that group checks are really made for, anything where people that are good at something can help others out, but everyone affects the final result. The first that comes to mind would be survival in dangerous terrain, someone skilled may be able to help others avoid danger, but if too many are stumbling into it, they won't be able to keep track of everything.

I like the example. I think for a survival check in dangerous terrain it would make more sense to have everyone roll, but a survival check to follow tracks of escaping cultists, most of the party are just going to follow the ones who are good at tracking.

The types of situations I'm trying to avoid is when the lead tracker loses the trail and the party suddenly all want to have their character help and it becomes a game of with enough die rolls someone gets a nat 20.

Maybe I will change it to, something like

"When the situation requires only one person to succeed on an ability check for the party to continue, if the first three attempts fail it is assumed that the rest of the party will fail as well."

[guachi]

3) you cannot take the help action to assist someone in doing something unless you are proficient at the appropriate skill. If no skill proficiency applies or it is a simple enough task that anyone can help, then one needs to at least be capable of doing that task. No the wizard's frog familiar isn't going to make a difference helping the barbarian push that boulder off the cliff onto some unsuspecting orcs, and the Conan with a -1 Int isn't going to help much in remembering obscure arcane lore

There is no such thing as the Help action outside of combat. There is Working Together and the rule already states that "a character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone".

If you wish to restrict Working Together only to those who are proficient (which, by rule, only applies to thieves' tools, IIRC) you severely restrict those who don't have lots of skill proficiencies. I don't think that's a wise course of action.

[JoeJ]

The types of situations I'm trying to avoid is when the lead tracker loses the trail and the party suddenly all want to have their character help and it becomes a game of with enough die rolls someone gets a nat 20.

If the time to make those checks is a critical resource, allow it but have whatever time-based consequences occur after each atempt. If time is not that critical, just assume the lead tracker keeps trying until they get it and don't even bother to roll. You should only be rolling the dice if both success and failure have interesting consequences.

[Shuruke]

If you wish to restrict Working Together only to those who are proficient (which, by rule, only applies to thieves' tools, IIRC) you severely restrict those who don't have lots of skill proficiencies. I don't think that's a wise course of action.

I agree but disagree with this

Restricting those who don't have proficiency can be a good thing if you make ot clear that skill choice is important.

If someone mini maxes for combat picking a low skill choice class and taking only combat oriented skills that in the end is on them.

Even classes that get only 2 skills will still generally have 4 after background.

Making skill choices important will ad power to skilled feat and Prodigy
Meaning if a fighter wants at 6th level they can take one pf tjose of they don't feel they are contributing.

The important thing is what your group wants

If players don't mind their skill choices not really mattering and it being left to the number d20 lands on and the bonus is well just a bonus.

I agree with this because people like being part of what's going on
They want to be doing stuff.

However I believe that if you limit who can do x check and make it so people feel good about what their characters are story wise good at it is a lot better fpr table health.

Sure its funny when the barbarian has more arcane knowledge then the guy who has diligently studied it his whole life. But it takes away from the believability and kinda pulls you away.
This can be solved with good rp but in my experience as DM players want to feel rewarded for what theynwant their character to be good at and what they put choices into.


In the end TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS

Come to a group descision about how to find the balance for your group or the playstyle you guys like. Its an opinion based thing and we can only give our experiences here and from their you'll have to experiment ^.^ good luck!

[JoeJ]

Sure its funny when the barbarian has more arcane knowledge then the guy who has diligently studied it his whole life. But it takes away from the believability and kinda pulls you away.

The guy who diligently studied arcane lore his whole life has proficiency in it, and that might be the barbarian. Arcane lore can be spread by bards' tales just as much as by reading dusty tomes. And it hardly strains belief for a barbarian with a high intelligence score to be just as smart as a wizard with the same score.

[guachi]

Wizard with a 20 Int who takes zero Intelligence based skills can't ever make a check because he has no proficiency.

Sure. I'd never play at that table.

I mean, we might assume someone with a 20 Int is simply generically well read. But, nope, he doesn't know anything because he doesn't have proficiency.

[Danielqueue1]

Wizard with a 20 Int who takes zero Intelligence based skills can't ever make a check because he has no proficiency.

Sure. I'd never play at that table.

I mean, we might assume someone with a 20 Int is simply generically well read. But, nope, he doesn't know anything because he doesn't have proficiency.

I don't think you really understood what was said here. No one is saying you can't make ability checks without being profficient. I honestly have no idea where you got that idea, but perhaps some clarification is in order.

Things I am trying to avoid,
1 numbers game making skill proficiency less important. Sometimes it's fun to have Korg know something Astrogus the wise doesn't, but once the group starts getting bigger it starts getting to be more about the sheer number of dice being rolled, where a herd of backwater peasants have a pretty good probability of knowing more about magic than the wizard because at least one of them will probably get a nat 20 every time.

2 numbers game in the opposite direction making non-magical stealth practically not an option because someone is going to roll low in a large enough party.

3 help action being used when it makes little sense. (Side rant incoming)

Spoiler

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also to the people who say actions don't exist outside of combat, how in the nine hells do people use magic items that say "you can use your action to..." do you have to punch a rat before casting arcane lock with the staff of the magi so that you can have an action to activate the magic object. Is it impossible for druids do summon lightning with the call lightning spell outside of combat because it takes an action to do so? Can't control those summons either because the spell says it takes a bonus action and there are no actions outside of combat so I guess just leave them here being useless. The whole argument just makes absolutely no sense. Sure you don't have to keep track of your actions and there isn't really a turn order so most people don't care, but saying you can't take actions outside of combat is perhaps the weirdest argument I've heard and it's popping up in a few of these forums like it is an actual rule.

I wanted to adjust the help action to require the helper to at least have some way of realistically contributing. If it is something that is simple enough that anyone could reasonably help, like 2 people holding a door closed agaist a were-badger, then sure why not?
But in other cases that require more skill an untrained individual will get in the way more than help. Picking locks, is harder when someone else is doing anything to "help", an alchemist will probably kick out even an inteligent person who has not trained with the equipment. A bard's performace is going to be a lot harder with someone fumbling about the stage "helping." (I would accept instrument profficiency as plenty to help in the performance if it fit the type of performance)

Edit for clarity: so if a party found an alchemist's table in an abandoned tower, any of them could walk up and make an intelligence check to figure out what's going on. If someone else wanted to help, under the proposed house rule, unless the person helping is proficient in alchemy supplies they would get in eachother's way and neither would get advantage from helping.

[Mjolnirbear]

Wizard with a 20 Int who takes zero Intelligence based skills can't ever make a check because he has no proficiency.

Sure. I'd never play at that table.

I mean, we might assume someone with a 20 Int is simply generically well read. But, nope, he doesn't know anything because he doesn't have proficiency.

You know what assuming does...

If you're smart but choose not to apply that intelligence why should you magically have free knowledge?

Think beautiful men and women who are smart but use their looks to get ahead. Smart athletes who use their strength and dexterity to excel.

Having brains doesn't mean you use them for scholarly pursuits. And if said wizard chose not to take a single Intelligence skill and instead concentrated on Acrobatics and Persuasion and Perception and Insight, then he hardly knows nothing, does he? Every character has at least four skills. Why should this wizard assume he has more?

I'm not necessarily saying trained only skills is better. There are merits to either side and personal preference is perfectly valid. I'm saying your argument has no merit. Your preference is valid, and very clear. The argument you make in support of it is not.

[Maelynn]

So group ability checks are often weird for me, came up with a few ideas for some adjustments for ability checks to get some feedback on before actually implementing any of them.

1) if a group all does a check that can be done individually, (search for secret passage/look for traps etc) the party as a whole only get 3 checks and each must be by a different character. This wont come up often, but it can avoid the 5 party members 2 familiars, a conjured earth elemental, and the ranger's beast companion from all making separate rolls and having to deal with them all.

2) group stealth is a single roll made by the least stealthy party member. I never understood how in some groups the rogue being super stealthy somehow makes up for the fighter who rolled a natural 1 and has a -2 dex mod letting all of China know they are there. By making it a single roll, we can also avoid the above situation where with 5 players and a bunch of summons, someone's probably going to roll rather poorly.

3) you cannot take the help action to assist someone in doing something unless you are proficient at the appropriate skill. If no skill proficiency applies or it is a simple enough task that anyone can help, then one needs to at least be capable of doing that task. No the wizard's frog familiar isn't going to make a difference helping the barbarian push that boulder off the cliff onto some unsuspecting orcs, and the Conan with a -1 Int isn't going to help much in remembering obscure arcane lore.

I worry that these may come off as heavy handed or that there is something glaring that I missed.

Thoughts and suggestions?

In situation 1, what's wrong with having every involved individual (able to make such a check) roll and then have a majority count? Like, say there's 7 characters involved, then 4 of them need to succeed the roll. You can do this with any situation that calls for a check where a fail doesn't necessarily has repercussions.

In situation 2, you can basically do the same thing, but add that a roll of 5 or lower counts as an autofail for the entire group. This way you can let people get away with not being entirely stealthy, but still have consequences for failures.

In situation 3, judging by the other responses I think you need to be very specific with this. It's often not as clean-cut as 'proficient vs non-proficient'. Someone not proficient in arcana can still recall a story once told by the village elder. Someone not proficient in perform can be a surprise when they open their mouth and sing a bit. The Thieves' Tools mentioned are a clear example of something that can't benefit from untrained help, but as the DM you need to be able to distinguish between them. Also, if one of the players were to give a good reason why their untrained character could still help out, then allow it.

[Gilrad]

I think a lot of these "barbarian makes an arcana check" situations are the result of DMs (and past experience training) focusing too much on binary pass/fail.

If the mystic writing on the wall is an important clue to the adventure, it's only natural the barbarian would want to do what he can when the wizard rolls a 1 and all the DM gives is "you have no idea what it says".

Taking a page from FATE and other narrative-driven systems (and let's be honest here, 5e is much more narrative-driven than past editions anyway), when a crucial skill check is failed, it would make much more sense to succeed but at a great cost (failing forward). "You can't decipher the text at a glance, but you think a full day of working on it would give you a workable idea". Suddenly it's a question of "can the party afford to spend a whole day on this clue?"

[mephnick]

I'll use group checks for knowledge (a bunch of people arguing facts around a campfire without Google) and some really obscure uses, but they almost never come up. One time I used it to see if the party could hold back a tomb door coming down long enough for an NPC to escape. (They didn't).

Group checks for stealth are a sin. Stealth and surprise are handled individually. I have no idea how Group Stealth got its footing in the consciousness of this edition.