Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[DSMatticus]

I suppose that's true. D&D DC's are a little too clustered for that to work. The entire range of listed DC's for non-trivial tasks is like 10-40, which means it's just 1.5 times the RNG, so a single exploding 20 moves you from "struggles with basic tasks" to "can occasionally potentially accomplish a legendary feat."

[Chamomile]

So...1d20+8 is a range of 9-28, at a DC of 15 and assuming matching the DC is a failure, you come out to 7/20 results failing, 7*5=35% chance of failure, which means a 65% chance of success.

Am I missing something?

[Fuchs]

Matching the DC is not a failure afaik.

[wotmaniac]

So...1d20+8 is a range of 9-28, at a DC of 15 and assuming matching the DC is a failure, you come out to 7/20 results failing, 7*5=35% chance of failure, which means a 65% chance of success.

Am I missing something?

you succeed on a roll of 7. that's 14/20 chance of success. 14/20 = 70%

[Username17]

So...1d20+8 is a range of 9-28, at a DC of 15 and assuming matching the DC is a failure, you come out to 7/20 results failing, 7*5=35% chance of failure, which means a 65% chance of success.

Am I missing something?

A DC is defined as "the number you need to roll in order to succeed. Not "the highest number you could roll and still fail".

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Am I missing something?

Yes, apparently a promotion to lead management on D&D.

I don't know what your point is. Are you saying that TTRPG skill systems should always allow a PC a chance to succeed at any given task, no matter how feeble the PC or how difficult the task?

General point: what works in videogames does not always translate to tabletop.

More Specific Point: Videogames involve a number of ways for players to have foreknowledge of challenges they will face. Tabletop games don't. Therefore it's more likely to have players who allocate abilities resources at chargen and then find those abilities insufficient in actual play. Furthermore, in videogames it's usually easier to grind additional ability points than it is in tabletop. So implementing a system which sets the RNG to zero and is strictly a comparison between rank and difficulty is more likely to piss off players in tabletop. At least rolling against an improbable DC maintains the illusion that those first 74 ranks in lockpicking weren't a complete waste of 74 ranks without the purchase of the 75th - which a flat out refusal does not.

Now the more I think about it, the worse Mearls' idea gets. Honestly, your Fallout 3 system where the RNG is 0 is a flat out better version of what he's suggesting. If you want people to auto-fail at tasks above their competence level, auto-succeed at tasks below their competence level and have a chance of either for tasks equal to competence level, you can put everything on a 3e style skill roll by making each competence level +20 DC, and +20 to roll - which does the same thing ( aside from the edge case of people min-maxing +20 to skill rolls from sources that aren't competence levels - which doesn't actually have to be in the game if someone who can do basic math designs it ). Or you can get rid of die rolling all together and just say you auto-fail harder tasks, auto-succeed easier tasks and succeed at equal tasks if and only if you have more favorable than unfavorable circumstances to it. Trying to graft non-numeric auto-fail and auto-success onto a numeric mid-system is complexity and confusion for the sake of complexity and confusion.

[DSMatticus]

Am I missing something?

Off by one error, curse those pesky boundary conditions.

[Ice9]

The one thing a rank-based system does let you do is treat opposed rolls differently than non-opposed ones. So for example, maybe you want a skilled thief to automatically bypass "Journeyman" locks, but not automatically sneak past "Journeyman" guards.

Now the way that he mentions to do this is craptastic, as has been detailed previously in this thread. But hypothetically, you could assign a bonus based on rank - let's say +10 per rank - that allowed the lower-rank person some chance of success in an opposed roll. Where-as if you just made that the straight bonus, it would not guarantee success/failure on lower/higher rank tasks.

[Chamomile]

Yes, apparently a promotion to lead management on D&D.

So, should I send them my resume, or...?

[Stubbazubba]

The one thing a rank-based system does let you do is treat opposed rolls differently than non-opposed ones. So for example, maybe you want a skilled thief to automatically bypass "Journeyman" locks, but not automatically sneak past "Journeyman" guards.

Now the way that he mentions to do this is craptastic, as has been detailed previously in this thread. But hypothetically, you could assign a bonus based on rank - let's say +10 per rank - that allowed the lower-rank person some chance of success in an opposed roll. Where-as if you just made that the straight bonus, it would not guarantee success/failure on lower/higher rank tasks.

I agree, the opposed rolls he suggested were mind-bogglingly stupid, but to have auto-pass or auto-fail unopposed checks make some sense. But we kind of already had some of that in the Take 10 rules. I can't say if going further down that road so that only things on your tier are acceptable challenges works very well, though. The things he describes as changing which tier you're working in make it seem like they're all relatively close together, so in the same party there would be people who are only slightly better off than you, but you're auto-failing the climb encounter.

[Psychic Robot]

someone please explain to me the difference between "I have a +30 on stealth checks so I automatically succeed" and "I am a grandmaster at stealth so I automatically succeed." I think this must have to do with storygames or some narrativist bullshit

[DSMatticus]

Absolutely nothing, PR. You can achieve all the effects of the rank system by inflating the difference between levels a bit such that when you enter tier X, all rolls in tier X-1 are instant successes. D&D does a bad job of this (it takes an entire 20 levels to cover the RNG, for the most part).

[Stubbazubba]

Curiously, most of the people on the WotC forums agree that this solves little or nothing, and is more of a description of the results the mechanics should deliver, and not a mechanic in and of itself.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Why does this not surprise me?

EnWorld has better fanboyism, apparently WoTC forums are still having edition wars.

EDIT: Damn, even the mindless Mearls worship at EnWorld doesn't like this.

[Aryxbez]

Pardon this post being fault of my own ignorance, but could Psychic Robot, or whoever, tell me what "Sotc" stands for?

Also how isn't rolling a 7 on a D20 to succeed, not 65% of success? As if 10 on D20 = 50%, and lower die needed to roll for success, means higher chance of success, and each pt is 5% as I recall..how is that not 65%??

Also sounds like could just use Static DC's for the ranks in the skills, and keep in mind "power creep" overtime that'll make them a bit easier, or monitor it well enough to ensure the RNG doesn't get out of hand.

[Falgund]

10 or lower on a D20 is 50%, but we aren't talking about that (and even if we were talking about that, 7 or lower will be 35%, not 65% !)

We are talking about 7 or higher, which has 14 successful results out of 20, or 70% chance of success.

[Stubbazubba]

Pardon this post being fault of my own ignorance, but could Psychic Robot, or whoever, tell me what "Sotc" stands for?

Also how isn't rolling a 7 on a D20 to succeed, not 65% of success? As if 10 on D20 = 50%, and lower die needed to roll for success, means higher chance of success, and each pt is 5% as I recall..how is that not 65%??

Also sounds like could just use Static DC's for the ranks in the skills, and keep in mind "power creep" overtime that'll make them a bit easier, or monitor it well enough to ensure the RNG doesn't get out of hand.

See above, you count the seven and everything above it. Seven is a success also.

1d20+8 on a DC 15, so you subtract the 8 from the DC to find what the die must show. You have 5% chance of rolling a 20 or above,

10 for 19+
15 for 18+
20 for 17+
25 for 16+
30 for 15+
35 for 14+
40 for 13+
45 for 12+
50 for 11+
55 for 10+
60 for 9+
65 for 8+
70 for 7+

You have a 50% chance of rolling a 10 or lower on a d20, but you have a 50% chance of rolling an 11 or higher; so if you count from 11 and lower or 10 and higher, it's 55%. Rolling a 7 is 3 * 5% = 15% more likely, so 70.

[Psychic Robot]

Pardon this post being fault of my own ignorance, but could Psychic Robot, or whoever, tell me what "Sotc" stands for?

spirit of the century

[CapnTthePirateG]

OH SNAP! NEW MEARLS ARTICLE!

Fail

This is pure ass and shit. In other words, he's debating going back to magic tea party on everything. Because its more immersive. Why the fuck is he getting money for essentially saying "make shit up?" And for the love of all that is holy stop fapping to DM bullshit control of everything, because most of the people who value DM control are the Gygaxian fucktard DMs. I don't care how well you describe that statue in the example, and you might just be shitty with descriptive language so that we spend hours examining the sword arm instead of the "obvious" base.

The problem with player abilities is that its a fantasy game, probably with things that PLAYERS DON"T KNOW BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXIST. While knowing that McEvil the Priest of Kittykilling is augmenting the third syllable of his prayer would tell Razravkar the wizard he's casting animate dead, that won't tell me, the player, shit. I don't know how to check a statue for hidden doors because I don't encounter hidden doors in real life. If you have a 10th level campaign, and a new guy rolls up with a rogue, that 10th level rogue probably saw a lot of trapped statues in his life. The player probably has not, so it's a little unfair to make him use his own experience.

Seriously Mearls, actually do some damn designing of stuff which is not made of fail. Players don't like old school Gygax bullshit. Stop trying to bring it back.

[Stubbazubba]

He's not even making an argument one way or another; he's just laying out old-school D&D and more recent incarnations and asking for a vote. This is not a design article, it's a research poll. Even then, it's a poor one, because he comes in at the bottom and says he likes 'X' better because 'Y,' while there is little other defense for those who prefer 'Z,' so he's going to get skewed results.

[Josh_Kablack]

On the other hand, this change takes away the DM's ability to manipulate the rules and make pure judgment calls. If there is no system for making Search checks, the DM decides to reveal clues or hidden objects when she judges that the players have done what it takes to find them. The game is intrinsically less immersive because the players look to their character sheets, rather than the environment as described by the DM, to determine what to do.

After failing at addition last time, Mearls fails to realize the implications of additions existence this time out

The existence of circumstance modifiers means that a DM can totally run a search-the-statue check in what Mearls calls "earlier edition" style in the 3e and 4e ruleset by the mere expedient of setting the DC more than 20 points above the PC's skill bonus. The PC cannot actually succeed on such a task unless they do a number of things to collect enough positive modifiers. Mearls, you mushbrained lout, this change did nothing at all to take away the DM's ability to manipulate the rules and make judgement calls - it merely required the DM to be able to perform subtraction to do so!

Conversely, a DM cannot run a search-the-statue check in "3e or later" style with an earlier edition ruleset at all. Decisions you make at chargen cannot possibly influence your success at search tasks - because there is no mechanical system for search checks and different DMs ran that in a myriad of different ways.


This is a clear case of one ruleset having greater Flexibility and Robustness than another.

So unless someone wants to present a convincing argument that such increases come at a greater than acceptable cost to Speed of Resolution, Verisimilitude, Clarity or something that actually matters - because "immersion" has nothing to do with the ruleset - then the old style system is flat out inferior.

[Archmage]

The existence of circumstance modifiers means that a DM can totally run a search-the-statue check in what Mearls calls "earlier edition" style in the 3e and 4e ruleset by the mere expedient of setting the DC more than 20 points above the PC's skill bonus.

The difference is purely psychological, but the issue here is that if a player rolls a natural 20 on a skill check and still fails "because the DC is impossibly high" they feel cheated and are likely to complain about how setting the DC to "impossible" is unfair. If there's no such mechanic at all and players don't feel entitled to a skill check to defeat obstacles, the DM can pretty much do whatever and there's no room for anyone to argue.

[Lago PARANOIA]

God, when is this stupid jackass getting fired? I officially hate this guy more than Andy Collins right now.

[Josh_Kablack]

The difference is purely psychological, but the issue here is that if a player rolls a natural 20 on a skill check and still fails "because the DC is impossibly high" they feel cheated and are likely to complain about how setting the DC to "impossible" is unfair. If there's no such mechanic at all and players don't feel entitled to a skill check to defeat obstacles, the DM can pretty much do whatever and there's no room for anyone to argue.

So, not only is Mearls crazy, but his players are just as far gone ?


Seriously, in the context of how to cockblock players out of using or even having character abilities, why should we even care that players feel cheated? They should quit being babies and suck it up. If the point of the mechanic is to hide the ways we are cheating players, that takes us away from the realm of a co-operative storytelling game and back to the days of spiteful, adversarial DMmming being the standard. But if the current line Manager wants to go back in that direction (despite relative sales numbers of 3e compared to all other editions) he could at least go back to being honest about it. Gygaxian DMs were always pretty honest about their games being tough and not tolerating "stupidity" - they didn't bother to try to hide their dickery behind smokesceens of poorly-considered design theory.

[Swordslinger]

Seriously, in the context of how to cockblock players out of using or even having character abilities, why should we even care that players feel cheated?

It's actually amazing how much psychological tricks can alter how people see the game.

4E for instance doesn't do anything most level based systems don't do, the problem is that it does it much more directly, like level-based scaling DCs that show what it's doing, which causes a lot more rebellion. And that's purely psychological.