recent d&d deathwatch data

[TheFlatline]

Exactly. Scaling DCs are useful as a kludge to get you past a particular obscure DC.

But Mearls is fucking lazy and doesn't give a shit apparently, so instead of providing a framework for that system to work with and off of, he sets it adrift in a sea of arbitrary and walks away.

In philosophy (I'm digging back here, so I could be mistaken who said this), Wittgenstein commented on how malleable and arbitrary language could be and how that arbitrary nature of language made traditional philosophy difficult or impossible. In college my proposed solution to this is to "calibrate" the tools of philosophy before you have a philosophical discussion: that is to say to agree with the person you're discoursing with *what* exactly the words you're using will be and what they mean.

Turns out I hadn't studied nearly enough of Wittgenstein, and specifically Oxford/Ordinary Language philosophy, but the analogy is somewhat appropriate here. Without a framework, without calibrating what a skill DC actually means to a character in a real, tangible sense, the system breaks down and risks becoming contrary or even meaningless.

[Swordslinger]

In other words, even the official published adventures realize this is bullshit and houserule the fucking rules.

So every official published adventure is "doing it wrong", but you're obviously correct. Riiiiggght. Might it be possible you just missed the designers intent?

No of course not, cause you're obviously completely infallible.

[Doom]

You're sort of getting it, kind of.

Yes, every published adventure goes off the rails as far as their own rules go, no matter how you look at it. I suppose from this you could conjecture that the actual rules could be gleaned from taking extracts from every adventure, then interpolating for any gaps, across all skills and all applications of those skills...assuming there really is enough data in the adventures to make such an interpolation credible.

But does this honestly make sense to you? Personally, I'd like the actual rules to be in the actual rulebook.

[DragonChild]

So every official published adventure is "doing it wrong", but you're obviously correct. Riiiiggght. Might it be possible you just missed the designers intent?

Are there any adventures that have rules for scaling non-skill DC things (such as monsters, and treasures) that do not have rules for scaling skill DCs?


In addition, everyone who's acting like the adventures mean something is being an idiot. These skill DCs should be compared to MONSTER LEVELS. No, no adventure is going to be 100% totally by the book on them. But they're guidelines. That an adventure doesn't say "Increase the skill DC by X when the PCs level up" is equivalent to it not saying "Make encounter A stronger by X when the PCs level up." They both scale with level in the same way.

[TheFlatline]

In other words, even the official published adventures realize this is bullshit and houserule the fucking rules.

So every official published adventure is "doing it wrong", but you're obviously correct. Riiiiggght. Might it be possible you just missed the designers intent?

No of course not, cause you're obviously completely infallible.

Facts have that kind of infallible bias. Annoying isn't it? Someone actually scanned the page with the passage in question and posted the picture and you just ignored it.

The published adventures don't make up the rules. They are supposed to adhere to the rules. But they don't.

The adventures are doing it logically. But they aren't doing it rules as written. So they're both right from a gameplay standpoint and yet at the same time incorrect from a rules standpoint. Grok me? If not I'm just gonna have to say "troll" and leave things at that, because you're extremely dense when it comes to understanding other points of view.

Here's *another* way to complain about level-dependent checks. Say you're writing an adventure, and the PCs are chasing a badguy. He shimmies up a building and runs away.

Now, with example, static DCs for deeds, you'd ask yourself "okay, what kind of building would he shimmy up? Probably something he could get up fast, so maybe a wall with good handholds and a pipe along it. That'd be a DC 12, since according to the DMG climbing up a knotted rope is DC 10, but this is a little more treacherous."

With the level-dependent stuff Mearls is stating, you say "How difficult do I want to make this for my PCs? Well, I want this chase to be difficult with only a 60% chance of success, so let's make this a moderate skill challenge. They're level seven, which makes DC 17 (just picking this number out of the air). Now... what would make a DC 17 wall? I dunno, maybe the bricks are loose here and there."

The real problem isn't just the paradigm shift of "design the world, the rules lay over it" to "come up with a success rate and shoehorn the world into that", it's that the DC of a check isn't absolute. A level seven PC climbing that wall would have one DC, and a level 15 character would be facing a much higher DC.

In fact, if you had a party with a level seven and a level 15 PC, rules as written, you'd have the level 7 dude roll DC 17, while a level 15 PC would rule DC 23 (again picking the exact numbers out of the air). Both are challenging skill checks, but the DC is completely meaningless at this point. You might as well completely eliminate skills entirely, since the pass/fail rate isn't determined by what is logically in the world, but by what the DM wants as the pass/fail rate.

We don't see this in normal gameplay though because it's desirable to have everyone at or near the same level.

Now, you *could* give the Level 15 PC an "easy" skill check (which would probably be like a DC 19, but I bitched about that earlier) to "even" things out with the Level 7 dude and not expose this issue. However, when the level 7 guy walks away, the next time a PC walks up to a crumbling wall with a drain pipe and wants to climb up it, the DM is under no obligation to keep that DC down at the "easy" level. If he wants a significant chance for the character to fail, the DC will increase substantially. Again, it'll be up to the DM to half-ass a reason why the DC jumped significantly.

It puts a large amount of arbitrary control into the DM's hands, and takes concrete knowledge away from the PC. The player literally cannot learn from experience, because each experience wasn't based on the world, it was based on how hard the DM wanted that particular roll to be.

[jadagul]

Swordslinger, here's my question. I'm a DM; I'm designing a dungeon. It has a ten-foot-long, six-inch-wide plank of wood over a chasm. What's the DC to cross it?

[Zinegata]

A better question may be:

Are most DMs actually that specific with regards to knowing the length of a chasm and the width of the wooden plank?

If you look at most fantasy stories and narratives, the precise scale and length of things are rarely given such a spotlight. Rather, they use more subjective words like "daunting" to describe a chasm encounter.

So I'm not entirely critical of a DC system that requires stringent real-life benchmarks.

[fectin]

In other words, even the official published adventures realize this is bullshit and houserule the fucking rules.

So every official published adventure is "doing it wrong", but you're obviously correct. Riiiiggght. Might it be possible you just missed the designers intent?

No of course not, cause you're obviously completely infallible.

Did you really just claim oracular insight to "designers intent"? I don't think anyone's worked so hard to defend a document without at least reading it since Westboro Baptist.
The actual text is unclear enough that you could argue a couple of points, but instead you've gone high and right defending a strawman.

Besides, as per the ruleswhich have been repeatedly cited, those difficulties should look like "Hard climb check" not "DC 13 climb check". Classing it as "Hard" (vice a specific number) agrees perfectly with Mearls' statement that every roll should be in question. That every published adventure is doing DCs 3E-style, in clear contravention of both written rules and "designers intent" does not really support your baseless defense of 4E.

[Krakatoa]

Swordslinger, here's my question. I'm a DM; I'm designing a dungeon. It has a ten-foot-long, six-inch-wide plank of wood over a chasm. What's the DC to cross it?

Whatever the heck you want it to be. I'm not Swordslinger but...

[Doom]

And what should the MC want it to be?

[Krakatoa]

That depends on how difficult you plan for that room of the dungeon to be.

[jadagul]

That depends on how difficult you plan for that room of the dungeon to be.

I plan for it to be as difficult as a room with a plank over a ten-foot chasm should be. That's the problem I think we're identifying--the 4e system works well if you start with a difficulty and then create a terrain; it's really bad if you start by creating terrain and then want to ask how difficult it is.

[Swordslinger]

Swordslinger, here's my question. I'm a DM; I'm designing a dungeon. It has a ten-foot-long, six-inch-wide plank of wood over a chasm. What's the DC to cross it?

See you're still thinking in 3.5 terms. You're starting with an object and then putting it in the dungeon. Don't do that.

Your first question should be "I want to have a chasm that has some kind of bridge over a chasm. I'd like this to be difficulty:easy for my PCs to cross. How should I describe it?"

The first and most important thing isn't that the plank is made of wood. It's the significance it has to your combat, adventure, story.

[TOZ]

So I decide to describe it as a plank over a chasm. What's the DC?

More to the point, when my PCs run into a similar set up, how can they know it will be the same difficulty? How can the characters encounter any consistently measurable challenges if the DCs change when they do?

[Krakatoa]

the 4e system works well if you start with a difficulty and then create a terrain; it's really bad if you start by creating terrain and then want to ask how difficult it is.

But the only reason to create the terrain and then assign some objective and consistent-between-campaigns difficulty for it is if you're maintaining a persistent world. Most DMs I'm aware of don't do this; even if they're running an established setting like FR or Eberron, they customize things to suit their needs. The GM should be looking first and foremost to give his players a fun experience. Keeping the world consistent is, for most players, a secondary concern if it's a concern at all.

And if consistent dice check diffiulties are really something that you're a stickler for, you can always justify a scaling DC with new narrative elements. Maybe the wooden beam they're crossing in THIS dungeon has been partially charred by fire and being carless with where you put your feet will result in it snapping.

[Swordslinger]

So I decide to describe it as a plank over a chasm. What's the DC?

What's it's purpose in the adventure?

[TOZ]

So I decide to describe it as a plank over a chasm. What's the DC?

What's it's purpose in the adventure?

To be an obstacle they overcome.

[Swordslinger]

To be an obstacle they overcome.

Is it hard, easy, trivial?

[Swordslinger]

And if consistent dice check diffiulties are really something that you're a stickler for, you can always justify a scaling DC with new narrative elements. Maybe the wooden beam they're crossing in THIS dungeon has been partially charred by fire and being carless with where you put your feet will result in it snapping.

Exactly. There are no generic objects you lay down in a dungeon. A stone floor doesn't have to be just a stone floor. It can be slimy, it can be wet, it can be unnaturally smooth and slippery.

[TOZ]

To be an obstacle they overcome.

Is it hard, easy, trivial?

Go with easy. Say they pass it. Then they level and come back. The board should now be trivial. Did the DC change?

[Swordslinger]

Go with easy. Say they pass it. Then they level and come back. The board should now be trivial. Did the DC change?

So when you create it you wanted it to be easy for a level 1 party. Easy DC off the table is DC 8. It does not change when the party levels up ,unless for whatever reason you wanted to scale it up as part of your story. But unless you actively go and change it, it remains a level 1 challenge.

[jadagul]

And this is a fundamental difference of philosophy, I think. Frank can give a very eloquent rant on how if you don't have a persistent world in exactly this way, you're playing a video game, not a TTRPG. I'm not going to try to reproduce it because his will be way better, and half the reason I come here is to read rants like that. But the fundamental point is that this system is not designed to do what most people here want it to do.

[TheFlatline]

But you're still approaching it backwards. If I'm describing a room the players walk into, I shouldn't have to figure out ahead of time that a tumbling check that may or may not be needed should be hard, and therefore when someone asks "what's the floor look like" match a description to a potential skill check you may make.

Players don't think in reverse that way. They ask what the floor looks like, and if it's super-slippery they decide if it's worth doing an acrobatics check or not. Or maybe they'd probe the floor for traps because there could be pressure stones. Or maybe they want to electrocute the floor with lightening if it's filled with water. Or whatever. You don't *know* their intent yet. And asking "why do you ask?" so you can assign an arbitrary, meaningless pass/fail rate is bad DMing.

4th ed doesn't actually define the qualities of the floor until someone decides to interact with it in a way that requires an acrobatics check and the DM decides how mean he's going to be. Which is fucking stupid and arbitrary.

At the system's worst even defining the floor and saying "It's super slippery and covered in 3 inches of water" doesn't actually do anything, because I can still decide that an acrobatics check is easy or hard. DCs mean *nothing* in a scaling system with no reference points. Mearls has stated this explicitly. A DC 14 skill check is not easier in-game than a DC 16 check. It entirely depends on the character making the check if it's "easier" or not.

[TheFlatline]

But the only reason to create the terrain and then assign some objective and consistent-between-campaigns difficulty for it is if you're maintaining a persistent world.

No. Wrong.

Establishing terrain creates a *consistent* world for the players to interact in. With concrete DCs, the PCs know what they're capable of, and what they can and can't do.

With Schroedinger's Wall, you never know precisely the nature of the wall, nor how hard it's going to be to climb, until you actually think about climbing it and play "mother may I?" with the DM.

That is fucking stupid as a core mechanic. Period. Schroediner's Cat is a piss poor approach to treat a world, where every object that can be interacted with is in a quantum flux state where it is in every possible state of existence and every possible difficulty in existence to interact with until a player collapses the quantum state and observes/interacts with it.

Fuck that. That's not a step forward, that's a lobotomy and masturbating with your own feces level of crazy right there.

[Swordslinger]

But you're still approaching it backwards. If I'm describing a room the players walk into, I shouldn't have to figure out ahead of time that a tumbling check that may or may not be needed should be hard, and therefore when someone asks "what's the floor look like" match a description to a potential skill check you may make.

As an adventure designer, you should be thinking that way. An adventure designer doens't randomly include a mind flayer for the sake of it. He envisions an adventure of treachery and deception where a monstrous mastermind controls pawns from the shadows. He then check the monster manual and find something that is around the target level of difficulty and may choose a mind flayer. That's how adventure design works.

I have yet to encounter a DM who has a hard-on for a moderate lock or a factory-spec wooden plank and includes it in his adventure without it serving any design purpose.

Otherwise, you run into the DM who 'thought it'd be cool' to insert a CR 15 monster against a party of 1st levels. Then when you ask him why he was being such a dick, he explains how he was trying to create a consistent world and that high level monsters don't cease to exist because the party is low level.

Hey, sometimes low level guys do have the misfortune of running into a random dragon attack, right?

Players don't think in reverse that way. They ask what the floor looks like, and if it's super-slippery they decide if it's worth doing an acrobatics check or not.

Players do go by descriptions yet, which is why I say that descriptions are important, but descriptions can be suited to the task. Descriptions can on occasion be intentionally misleading. Sometimes a surface doesn't have quite as much traction as it appears to have.

Assuming your DM is doing his descriptions right, PCs won't have problems with suspension of disbelief.

4th ed doesn't actually define the qualities of the floor until someone decides to interact with it in a way that requires an acrobatics check and the DM decides how mean he's going to be. Which is fucking stupid and arbitrary.

100% Wrong. Every official module I've seen with slippery terrain gives a DC right there that PCs need to cross it. I am unaware of any that don't do it this way, and because you've presented zero examples, I'm going to assume it doesn't exist.