On page 174 of the Player’s Handbook there’s a table of Difficulty Classes for ability checks that goes a little something like this…
DIFFICULTY CLASSES (PLAYER’S HANDBOOK)
| Task Difficulty | DC |
|---|---|
| Very easy | 5 |
| Easy | 10 |
| Medium | 15 |
| Hard | 20 |
| Very hard | 25 |
| Nearly impossible | 30 |
As you can see, to succeed on a Medium difficulty skill check you need to roll a 15.
What’s my problem with that? It’s way too difficult, that’s what!
Without modifiers you only have a 30% chance of succeeding at something that is supposed to represent an averagely difficult task. But even with a +3 modifier of someone incredibly naturally gifted at this type of challenge (ie. someone with a score of 16 in Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom etc.), and a +2 proficiency modifier for someone with relevant skill and training, you will still need to roll a 10 to succeed at this ‘average’ task.
A trained and talented hero has a 45% chance of failing at a Medium difficult task in their greatest area of strength
This means a trained and talented hero has a 45% chance of failing at a Medium difficult task in their greatest area of strength (at least until level 4… although the picture hardly changes greatly, even towards mid and high tiers).
That really bugs me.
15 is pretty much the standard DC baked into any published 5e D&D adventure and also the one that DMs give out for any task when improvising on the fly… of course they do. The rules pretty much tell them to.
Low fence jump…. shall we say DC 15?
It works well enough when it’s a group check that only one PC has to succeed at, such as a Perception check, but it can make getting even seemingly basic tasks done almost impossible when PCs are acting alone.
I’ve endured countless irritating times at the table when my insanely agile rogue can’t walk across a simple log bridge without taking a swim in the raging river below…
I’ve endured countless irritating times at the table when my insanely agile rogue can’t walk across a simple log bridge without taking a swim in the raging river below, or my beefy barbarian can’t climb a rope, or fails to break down a door. Some of these challenges are ones I’d fancy my undextrous, unbeefy self to be able to do in real life! (Not break down a door… that is really tough, as I once had the misfortune to find out!).
The picture gets far worse the minute you need to succeed in two or more tasks. A stealthy barbarian that needs to climb up a wall (DC 15 with +5 modifier), then sneak past a guard (DC 15 with +4), then lower a drawbridge (DC 15 with +5) would have only a 15% percent chance of pulling off their mission. With those odds maybe he should just go back home!
And before you start writing your comment, I actually love failing in D&D. It’s fun, dramatic and often very funny.
And yes, I do also understand the narrative power of set backs, and the experienced and talented DMs I am lucky enough to play with often offer ‘get out’ checks, or other chances to deal with failed rolls that often improve the story. And that’s great.
But nonetheless I want my heroes to be able to succeed at the things they’re great at 8 or 9 times out of 10… not barely more than 50 percent of the time. And that way, the times they do f@ck up will be memorable, and not annoyingly frequent… almost to the point of being predictable.
(And let’s not forget, there’s still ALL the things that heroes are crap at for them to fail at, without having to see them mess up the things they’re supposedly good at quite so often).
Can We Get Some Love for DC 10?
Anyway mild-tempered rant over. The point of this post is to encourage the dungeon delving, dragon-slaying world that DC 10 should be the new DC 15, and that their game will make more sense for it.
I feel labelling DC 10 as ‘easy’ in the Player’s Handbook has been bad branding for this unloved check point, which in most cases will still deliver a solid 20-50% failure rate.
And let me say that there’s nothing wrong with DCs 11-14 either (or 6-19 for that matter), if it means giving a PC a few extra percent chance to succeed where it makes sense to do so.
I am also a big fan of DC 12 as another “go-to” Difficulty Class. The way I see it, both DCs 10 and 12 offer a real chance of failure on any given check, without loading the odds unnecessarily against the hero.
I’ll sign off with a tweaked Difficulty Class table that I hope will encourage DMs to think about DCs a little differently…
DIFFICULTY CLASSES (HIPSTER’S REMIX)
| Task Difficulty | DC |
|---|---|
| Very Easy | 5 |
| Easy | 8 |
| Medium | 10 |
| Tricky | 12 |
| Hard | 15 |
| Very hard | 20 |
| Incredibly hard | 25 |
| Why bother? | 30 |
So readers… are you feeling me? Or not really… leave a (respectful) reply in the comments!
chris stomberg
I wholeheartedly agree. Dungeons and Dragons is a game of heroes, not a drunken bunch of bumbling incapables. I have found, in my games, that setting improvised DCs outside of the “5, 10, 15, 20” suggestions makes for a more cinematic adventure. Not only that, but it keeps the players guessing. One rule I also like to implement is DC modifications. If a player stands up from the table, puts on his angriest barbarian rage face, and gives his best attempt at a high kick while roleplaying his character bashing open a door, you can bet I’m reducing the DC. Actually, in this case I’d probably provide the player advantage on the roll. Either way, a successful DnD session is based on the story and the experience, not the dice.
duncan
Hi Chris
Thanks for the comment! Glad we’re in agreement here.
Interesting that you like to keep the players guessing… whilst I see the advantages there, when DMing I often like for players to know the DC of what they are trying, in order to give them a chance to change their mind if our imaginations are not aligned. For example, in their head, they might think that their Acrobatic rogue can jump off the back of one dragon onto another in mid air relatively easily. But when I set the DC to 30, then they at least know the risks before they most likely kill off their character, and a potentially upsetting scenario unfolds! Extreme example, but you see my point. People imagine things differently so it’s good for players to know what they’re attempting, particularly in scenarios where failure will hurt.
I enjoyed your idea of giving advantage for spirited acting! Haha, well I like to set Charisma check DCs according to how well the player spoke, and how convincing their arguments were, but I never thought of adjusting DC for physical tests… until now 😉
Sogen
question as a new DM: When do you tell the characters what DC they need? Like “Hey roll me a dexterity check with your thieving tools please! You’re going to need a 20 cuz this lock is a doozy…” ? or another way?
duncan
Good question.
If the players are risking danger I like to tell them the DC before the roll, so they know the risks…. “it’s a DC 10 to jump across the crevice. Failure and you’re going to fall to the bottom… however far that is.” Otherwise you might have a situation where a player attempts what they feel should be an easy task, but you’ve judged to be a very hard one and they end up getting hurt / dying, when they never would have taken on that risk.
If it’s a knowledge check you can have them roll and reveal varying degrees of knowledge in relation to the roll…. on a 5 they have common / basic knowledge (for example, the name and ruler of the elven city), on a 10 they know something more (that only elvish speakers may enter) , on a 15 they are knowledgeable (basic history of the city and some locations within it) on a 20 they have in depth knowledge (know local politics and customs).
For a thieves tool check I would personally retain a bit of mystery, and just say ‘it looks tricky / you think you can handle it / you’ve never encountered a mechanism like this’.
Jeff
I am so happy I found this article! I have only recently bought the 5e rules and have been a DM for friends. I haven’t played D&D since the 80s!
Well, I do love the new rules but when I saw that DC chart and it says “Medium” difficulty was a 15 roll I immediately thought that was too hard.
Thank you of validating my gut reaction! 🙂
duncan
Hi Jeff
Great to hear you’re getting back into the game! I also took a long break between 1996 and 2016.
Glad the post helped. Obviously different scenarios call for different DCs, but I wouldn’t throw out 15 as your ‘go-to’ DC.
Happy gaming 🙂
d
Brenden1k
I would guess but do not know that much about D&D that is susposed to be medium dc for heroic thing, something easy for a random peasant like jumping a small gap with a running start is why roll Territory, while the default dc for grabbing a chandelier mid jump and swinging across a large gap from one side of the bar room upper story to another is either medium or hard with advantage, but should be medium so a running start can give advantage. That is a 15 dc roll that makes players feel heroic if they succeed and like reality ensured if they do not.
Ben S.
That is exactly how I see it. Climbing a rope is an Easy check, not Medium. If climbing a rope is Medium then do players need to succeed on an Easy check to climb a ladder? Just allow auto success on mundane tasks and only roll for heroic stuff. Problem solved. Obviously whatever works for your table is best. Good gaming!
Gabe
Funny, when I read this I thought “but WotC updated this in an errata ages ago right?” I went back and realized they updated this in 4th edition, not 5e.
Right after 4th came out they got this feedback and changed the DCs from 15 medium to 10 medium (there was more of a chart for skill checks based on character levels in that cursed edition).
You can google “January 2009 4th edition DnD update” and find it.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dnd4/images/4/4d/Update4E.4.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20130702100132
I didn’t even notice this when I read the books because I’m so used to playing against the other chart.
I wonder why they went back to these old DCs? Because I totally agree that this is a much better way to play.
duncan
Very interesting, thanks Gabe!
I didn’t play any 4th edition (or 3rd!), so I was totally unaware of this.
If I remember, back in 2nd, or maybe even 1st edition AD&D, we used to roll underneath our ability score to succeed on a task. I am not sure if those were the official rules or not though!
But anyhow, strange that they’ve had this issue before, ‘fixed it’ (depending on your POV) and then gone back.
I can only assume that it’s because DC 10 can feel too easy for many group checks where only one person need succeed, or for high level parties.
I think it just shows though, that if 10 and 15 weren’t nice round numbers they wouldn’t be used as the checkpoints. Otherwise you’d assume there would be no need for WOTC to be going back and forth on themselves.
Angel
Ok. So I’m new but I guess I misinterpreted (or misunderstood completely) the rule. I thought the task was relative to the players character. So to kick open a door for a puny guy you’d have to role a 20 and for a strong guy he’d only have to role a 10 because kicking open a door would be an easy task for the strong guy but hard for the weak one.
duncan
Hi Angel
I’ve not seen anyone interpret the rules this way, although that would certainly make sense if you were going for realism.
D&D’s system is not very realistic at all in that it gives pretty much everyone a chance to succeed – or fail – at doing something, only slightly modified by their natural aptitude or training. If realism is your goal, your approach would make much better sense, or you could even recalibrate the game so that ability modifiers were your ability score minus 10 (I.e. Strength 15 = +5, Intelligence 8 = -2 etc. etc.) and then raise the average DC challenges.
To defend the existing system I’ll say that it’s more fun to have that chance of success and failure always somewhat in the balance, and that also many skills checks take place in challenging circumstances… breaking down a door in one round in order to escape, or scrambling up a tree while injured and being chased by a pack of giant hyenas, in which case luck always plays a large role.
I’ve seen Jeremy Crawford state in certain circumstances, like an arm wrestle, the best thing to do is compare Strength scores and see who has the highest to determine the winner. That’s actually very ‘anti D&D’ for me… 🤣
My personal approach to add a bit more realism to the game would be to keep skills checks as they are, but to award advantage or disadvantage in cases where it makes sense. Tough guy taking a run up on a door with a huge axe = advantage… weedy wizard with no athletics proficiency = disadvantage.
Advantage / disadvantage is great for realism because it really consolidates the probability of something likely happening (or something unlikely not happening).
Mark
This is a great idea, using advantage/disadvantage to push the probability curve either way. From a statistical viewpoint, it gives GM’s more options in how to determine the ease/difficulty of a task or as a cause of some effect (such as an avalanche) that calls for a DC roll.
I’ve used it some, mostly relying on determining DC scale, but now I’ll use the advantage/disadvantage adjustment a lot more in addition to the DC evalation. Thanks!
Adrian
Thanks for pointing out the math on this. It does put it in perspective a bit and may affect how I handle things going forward. I might have some ideas to contribute to the conversation.
1. It had been suggested to me the idea of success, with consequences/complications if players miss a DC by one or two. EG, the DC15 lock pick check. on a 14 the door is opened but the lock is jammed with a tension bar stuck in it making it obvious it’s been tampered with. This might even just be something in the DMG I’d just forgotten about.
2. In generic repeating checks like again the DC15 lock pick, I don’t like to second guess published adventure DCs too much… but I’ve toyed around with adjusting the DC via use of 1-3 fate/fudge dice (permanent, per door, not modifying the DC on each player attempt). These are the dice that are labeled -1/blank/+1. I’d just learned about this idea recently. So a dungeon with a bunch of DC15 locks will still be DC15 on average, but it’ll give some infrequent outliers of DC12 or even DC18 to add interest. Typically reserved for things where the attempt can be repeated and/or doesn’t risk harsh punishment for failure. Because players start assuming default DC15 after a while too. I haven’t played with this very much yet, so can’t say if it’s a *good* idea yet.
3. I liked Duncan’s idea above of letting players know the DC, mostly. I’ve been trying to come up with ways to better convey a character’s common sense to their player. I don’t want to take away the sense of risk completely, but I think going forward I’d have them make a related check for appraisal. Like if they were about to try to jump a chasm that exceeds their normal long jump, and I’ve set a DC15 on it I think I’d have them make a nonstandard DC15 Wisdom(Athletics) check. Passing that I think I’d tell them the exact DC of the jump. Undecided how I’d handle degrees of failure on the wisdom check. Already doing something similar in another scenario – implementing a low DC Wis or Int check to determine if I’m going to tell the player that they’re about to try something that their character should just know better about – when the player forgets a detail of a spell or class feature, or forgets their character’s own recent personal history for instance.
duncan
Hi Adrian
Sorry, seems I forgot to reply.
1. Totally agree! Complications beat outright failure and add extra drama.
2. I had never seen this idea before… but it has some merit, although could slow down gameplay. I’d be tempted to use it after the PC has rolled their Thieves Tools check… PC: “So I got 16” DM: “Ok, now let’s see what the lock’s DC is…” and then roll the fate dice in front of them for extra drama. Or once they know the system roll them all together with the player, almost like a contest.
3. Makes sense… although better to roll their Wisdom check secretly, and then tell them the DC dependent on what they got, misleading them if they rolled real bad. I would use this sparingly in any case, or in slow moments of the game only.
Cheers for input!
Ankheg
I like margin on DCs, where result changes, depending on how much you get higher or lower on a roll than a said DC. Characters don’t exactly fail if they get lower result – they get complications, or other interesting tidbits happen.
duncan
Yes, I like that style of DMing too 🙂
The rolls can inspire the story…
Highland Troll
I think you’re coming at this from the wrong angle. The rule of thumb is:
– If the task is easy enough that the character shouldn’t ever fail, don’t roll. Just describe that they’ve succeeded.
– If the task is so hard that the character can’t possibly succeed, don’t roll. Just say it’s too hard. If the player insists on trying…
– If there is a chance of either success or failure, choose a DC that fits your estimate of the likelihood, roll the dice and narrate the outcome either way.
So if you think your rogue should be able to cross that log bridge easily, either don’t roll at all or set the DC low. If she still fails, maybe she’s a cocky so-and-so who needed taking down a peg (didn’t notice that bit of moss…?).
The Gneech
I think it may just be a matter of nomenclature. “A simple log bridge” is an EASY task, not a medium one. And honestly, if it’s that simple, why roll for it at all? If a failure at something doesn’t make a difference other than to make a hero look like a zero, don’t call for a roll, just let the player cross the bridge already.
Dave
Why roll for an easy task? Because the majority of players will find it more fun to do so. Having the GM tell you that you don’t need to roll for something because it’s easy for you isn’t satisfying, but rolling and adding your bonuses to see that you’ve surpassed the DC by a long shot makes your character feel awesome and fun. And isn’t that why people play?
Bongobongo
I love it and am implementing your ideas. thanks for sharing!
maobezw
i can fell you with your idea. my approach is to determine proficiency. if someone is proficient with the tast, his DC is always easier as for someone who is not. its always easier for someone proficient to solve the task, but local and situational circumstances -maybe even based on roleplaying *gasp*- can be used to determine a decent dc. so to sneak past alert guards could be a dc15 in general. for someone unskilled or just blunt it could be dc20! not impossible to reach, but LUCK is needed. for the rogue i could lower this to a dc10. or just grant advantage/disadvantage depending on gut feeling and rule of cool.
Shane
Completely agree. While the book works fine for mid to late level parties, especially those early level parties are going to struggle. A 15 is not average when you have a nearly 3/4 chance of failure. When even the “easy” 10 is a 50/50, not the hero’s journey you expect in the beginning. Great write up.
Mark
Great article and solid with the numbers from a probability viewpoint. You broke it up into a few more tiers between DC5 and DC15.
As a GM, I don’t strictly adhere to the +5 tiers in the books, I might have a situation that calls for something like a DC7 for a party-wide stealth ability check to a DC 17, which indeed is quite difficult but quite possible (>10-20% chance) with characters at 5th level. As characters gain levels (and modifiers), the DC’s will become easier.
CoinCrafter
Worth noting this all presumes your character is working alone (no buffs) and doesn’t have advantage (which is pretty easy to get, especially when you aren’t alone).
15 is specifically a medium challenge, not a medium “task.”
duncan
True, that’s a good counterpoint. Sometimes folks forget to use the Help action (although it’s not always appropriate).
ARedthorn
On the other hand… a highly optimized party breaks this in the other direction.
In mine, for example:
The wizard dipped Knowledge Cleric so he could get Expertise on History and Arcana.
The bard has Expertise on Acrobatics, Insight, Persuasion and Stealth.
With feats, the ranger/rogue has Expertise on History, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth and Survival.
They have good key stats, and have gone out of their way to kit themselves out with anything that gives a bonus to skills and saves (there are multiple luckstones in the party).
All in all – for any of those key skills – I reliably have at least one player rolling a +14… which makes a DC15 trivial for that player, on that skill. Add in help actions, to provide advantage… and DC20 is trivial. Skill challenges just aren’t… challenging for them, ever, unless I set DCs in the upper 20’s. (And sometimes that’s fine – sometimes it shouldn’t be challenging to get through a door… but sometimes it should.)
And don’t get me started on saves. We have a paladin with a strong Charisma… no one’s strong on every save… but no one’s weak on any save while he’s around… and the highest save in the party is a +15 (Con +4, Cha +4, Prof +4, Staff of Power +2, Stone of Good Luck +1).
Some groups really enjoy optimizing… I have one of those… and in a campaign that’s gone long enough to reach mid-level… DC15 is (situationally) trivial, not hard.
The rule of thumb on DCs in the book is about as useful as a dead rat.
Know your players, and set DCs based on how tough you want a thing to be in the moment, for the players in question.
duncan
Hi ARedthorn
Thanks for sharing your experience, which is quite different to mine, and I’m sure others have encountered similar problems as you.
However, I do think your experience is more the outlier, as it seems your party have all gone and got the Expertise ability. That ability was really designed only for Rogues, to replicate their role from early editions, and then got tacked onto bards and was an obvious boon to give Knowledge domain clerics as well. Probably only some 15% of PCs created have Expertise… so your party has considerably skewed the norm here, by all taking it. Once you get to +4 proficiency bonus, it’s true that someone with Expertise is unlikely to fail many standard checks. But I’m sure 85% of PCs don’t have Expertise!
I also think you’re also referring more to skills checks where only one party member has to succeed… if the whole party have to succeed on an Animal Handling check, even in your skills optimised party, I’m sure even a DC 10 or 15 will still see a failure!
This post is more about setting DCs for individual exploits, when even two DC 15 challenges can really stack the odds against a heroic success.
Finally, I don’t think you’re suggesting this, but I would be very against raising DCs just because your party have optimised their skills. For me, in a consistent and credible world, DCs can’t go up just because the party have become more skilled… the challenge is rather to present harder challenges – not to give the same challenges a harder DC.
As I say, don’t think you were suggesting that, but I leave that out there as I feel like that quite important advice for DMs… Players that optimise their PCs for skills SHOULD pass nearly all their basic checks, at least if they’ve also managed to survive until tier 3.
As for paladins and saving throws… yeah that Aura of Protection is a very underrated ability. On the other hand the 10 feet range is pretty puny… that’s 3 metres – don’t let the PCs claim they are always stand so close together (unless they are positioned like that on a grid). To counter AoP you could try smashing Area of Effect spells onto the party as a punishment for clumping together, and then when isolated pick them off with nasty one target spells etc. – if you feel that it’s proving too influential!
Shasco
With these high skill checks, I would especially check if they as a group need to face something and if the person that is very skilled in this skill X can help the party also overcome this difficult task. Either by roleplaying, using items and knowledge, or a check to save party members from failing it. It stimulates group play and also helps each other instead of solo shining.
I mean I’m a climber, I can scale a wall, but helping my friend up is a whole different task.
And sometime for time urgent things I use a jenga tower, and they need to atleast complete x blocks against the time, or just x blocks with no timer. Let them Roleplay if they want to help each other out. ( picking a block for my neighbour because he’s really bad at it )
JT
I don’t understand this article. First, doing things in 5e is piss easy without bending over backwards to make things easier for the players. Guidance, bardic inspiration, help actions or other sources of advantage (e.g. a crowbar), bonuses are easy to find.
DC 15 is an average task. Not too easy, not too hard. At level 1, I have 16 (+3) in my main stat from point buy and +2 from my PB, ergo I’ll roll 15 or more 55% of the time. An easy task is DC 10, which I’ll hit at least 80% of the time. Sounds pretty good.
At level 11, I have a bonus of +9 (+5 from the ability, +4 PB), which means I roll a total of 15 or more 75% of the time, which increases to 85% of the time by level 20 (PB +6)… and again, this doesn’t include any features that can trigger when it actually matters, to add Expertise, Aura of Protection and Flash of Genius to the aforementioned list (although the latter two don’t work on ability checks, but you get my point).
Finally, and most importantly, if the DM is making you roll shit for no reason, you need a better DM. Any creature without a climbing speed can climb at half its speed, no check required. Opening a door shouldn’t require a check. Using your eyeballs to see whether there’s furniture in the room when you enter it should not require a check. Only call for checks when rolling this one time makes a difference. Slick surface, time pressure, explicit search for something off.
And in general, if there’s no time pressure, don’t waste your players’ time asking for inane checks. Ooh, I roll a 7 to break the door. If nobody’s chasing me and there’s nothing to stop me from trying again, then I just take a minute and a few attempts to bash the door down. Don’t fall into the trap of saying “er, well, you just can’t open the door”, especially if you wanted the players to open it to begin with.
The DCs are fine. They’re already stacked in your favour, given that a level 1 loser who’s trained in a skill can hit easy 80% of the time. If you want to s1ucceed every time, don’t play a combat-orientated wargame, just do freeform RP.
Highland Troll
Challenge levels should be set relative to the task’s significance for the adventure.
Tasks that simply bring a nice benefit or bonus should be a higher DC; failure simply means you didn’t get that bonus, but it doesn’t hinder the characters’ overall progress. Example: a secret door that bypasses a monster. DC15 is reasonable at 1st level.
Tasks that progress the mainline of the adventure should be a lower DC; failure is less likely to happen but it brings complications that will require extra effort to overcome. Example: a secret door that is the main access to the boss’s lair; if it isn’t found, the PCs will have to locate an alternative access point on the other side of the dungeon. DC10 is reasonable at 1st level.
Of course DCs should scale with character level, but in a way that’s internally consistent. The boss’s secret door doesn’t get harder to find the second time just because the PCs have gone up a level…unless the boss has done something to make it so.
Keith Major
Yeah but….
I was hoping you would be arguing about ”how good” you were at doing something re your appropriate skill check.
I mean your L5 Bard is trying to impress the ”xxxxxx” at a concert or persuade the Ancient Gold Dragon not to eat you’
He has the expertise so thats +6. 20 Cha, check, another +5. Clerics chucked in a bit o guidance for another D4. You cast Enhance Ability 30 mins ago. Gives you advantage.
One of your two rolls is a 19. The D4 is a 2 +11 and thats a whopping 32 !! Your music is truly world class and the Dragon is paying you not to leave
HoaryCripple
A little late to the party here, but I just made the switch to 5e and am a math nerd. After playing around with the numbers and reading your article, I think the game developers did a poor job of explaining EASY relative to who”? Obviously the frame of reference can’t be the heroes as they are now, since what a DM considers HARD at 1st level isn’t the same as at 20th level. IMO they should have specified these words are all relative to a 1st-level hero who proficient in the DC being used.
A 1st-level character who is proficient in a skill will have, at minimum, a +2 bonus. If they paired it will with their abilities and picked a symbiotic race, they could get up to an additional +3 bonus from ability scores. This boils down to a successful odds of EASY DC (10) between 65% (+2 bonus) and 80% (+5 bonus). Similarly, odds of a successful MEDIUM DC would range from 40% to 55%. Does that “feel right” to most folks? It does to me.
Now, the “Commoner” stat block, which shows 10’s across the ability board and no proficiency. Your “average” farmer, merchant, or layperson. A Commoner is no hero and I would argue that, if we were to relabel DC tags relative to them, then they would all shift up the table one row. Thus, EASY=5, MEDIUM=10, HARD=15, etc. This means odds of success on a MEDIUM is 55%. For a 1st-level hero, however, this is an EASY check. They are heroic after all.
Sogen
There are also times when I feel like a character failing on a simple action isnt really appropriate, and so I set the DC to nat 1 for any of those. If you get a crit fail on jumping over the trap in the floor that everyone knows is there and has jumped over 6 times already, then something very bad is going to happen to you. BUT if you get anything over a naturally occuring incident of terrible fortune, you’re good to go. I also give my players benefits on things they have done before. Opening your first DC 20 lock when the guards are chasing you, is a milestone you gotta earn. But down the road when youre an experienced lockbreaker, and you arent in a pressure situation, and there arent enemies around, and the only thing this stupid rusty DC10 lock that you keep rolling 2-3s on is doing for the story is giving the bard, who is in a seperate location and so trying to be quiet, a fit of the giggles.
Turamin
I loved this post. I have played DnD, every edition since the 80’s. As a DM, I always made the DC based on what I think the DC should be. I never relied on a chart. If it was easy fot the character, then it would be an easy DC for that character. If it was hard, I would make the DC hard. If a character was already so skilled on an easy task, I would say ” you don’t even need to roll”. Being fluid as a DM is the key. Know your players and their skills and adjust accordingly.
Matt
Actually, I feel like introducing the 3d6 “bell curve” instead of using 1d20 helps address this issue. I like the idea of the character being able to choose to roll 3d6 instead of 1d20 when they want to do a task “carefully.”
It makes more intuitive sense for a character to more often get an average result, especially an easy task that they have done many times before. Having a 5% chance to “critically fail” or “critically succeed” a task of any difficulty seems crazy (I know that’s technically only RAW for attacks, but still) .
The way the math shakes out, it’s the same mean value. It also raises the floor to a minimum of 3 but also lowers the ceiling to a maximum of 18, while also making extreme highs or lows very unlikely. ~80% of results are between a 7 and a 14 (as opposed to rolling 1d20 where ~80% of results being between a 3 and a 18). It turns out that it makes it better to roll a 3d6 if you just need to roll at least a 10, but worse if you need to roll over a 10 to succeed. So easy and medium (assuming at least +5 bonus to the roll from proficiency or otherwise) tasks become easier, but harder tasks actually become harder.
Personally, I like the idea of having it be an option for the character where they can make an attempt at doing the action “carefully.” This gives a good mental image of a trained adventurer being very unlikely to screw up an easy skill check, but also makes a lucky success less likely. Flavor wise I like the idea that they can optionally “study” the skill check for 1 min to then be able to roll a 3d6 instead of a 1d20. You can grant half advantage with a 4d6 drop 1 or full advantage with a 5d6 drop 2 approach, but honestly I think it should only work for a skill check without advantage, and you just use 2d20 if you have advantage (considering that already makes bell curve). I also like the idea of having to “trust your training” to quickly do a hard skill check and rely more on chance (by rolling a 1d20). In combat, it kind of screws up crit hit/miss chances, which you can amend by using 3,4,5 and 16,17,18 to get ~ 5% chance either way. But at that point I think its a little overcomplicated, so likely best used out of combat, imo.
maobezw
afaik there is no crit or fumble with skillchecks? it works, or it works not.
Grady
Is walking across a log really a medium task for an experienced rogue? Wouldn’t that be an easy task?
duncan
Hi Grady, you raise an interesting point, because there’s no such thing as a task that is easy for an experienced rogue but medium for a 1st level wizard for example. Whenever you read an official D&D adventure/product a task has a flat DC, and what makes it easier or harder for a character is their bonus to that check. A task might become easier for a rogue to accomplish by virtue of their expertise in Acrobatics, giving them +8 to the roll, but the DC is the same for all classes and levels.
I guess you could say ‘anyone with proficiency in Acrobatics can walk across the log without making a check, while everyone else has to make a DC 5/10 Acrobatics check’ but you would be house ruling the situation.
Highland Troll
Re the last paragraph, how is this house ruling? Isn’t it the DM’s responsibility to set the DC? That can include other conditions, can’t it?
duncan
In RAW the DM sets the DC and says which ability the check uses, and which skill or tool proficiency can be added. A player can make a case for other skill or tool proficiencies being relevant, in a bid to get their proficiency bonus (as well as ability modifier). And that’s it, basically.
A DM can always put conditions on anything, I guess, and you’d still be playing D&D, but a version less close to the rules set out in the PH and DMG, which suggest (without saying it out right) that players can pretty much have a go at anything. There are plenty of critics of D&Ds skills system for precisely this reason.
Kevin
I’d keep the original DC chart and the roll tells you the level of success … the classic 55 yard field goal (say , he hit that so well he would have cleared at 65) ..
Don’t tell the DC but communicate result
“You barely make, that was harder than you thought” – success with a consequence, say achieving Easy (eg rolled a 12) on a Medium check
“You judge that to perfection and pull it off” – achieved medium (eg rolled a 17) on a medium check
“You nailed it. Not quite sure why you though that would cause a problem – achieved a hard (21) on a medium check. It’s a critical success (take the action back, have a Inspiration .. here’s a free coffee)
Hurukan
I got this in French (if needed I would translate)…
The “Difficulty” is an abstract perception, i.e when you’re drunk dead you could consider driving back to home…
That is why I think we must consider the level and the ability score when considering the DC. A rookie may succeed with lot of difficulties by lack of training, a high level character may fail because of uncommon situation.
The DC may vary related to the context.
Tamas
Hey guys! IF YOU ARE AS OLD AS ME, PLEASE RESPOND.
I see some of you are from old times…like myself. We still play 2nd edition in 2023, but I would be interested in changing to 5e. I am converting a 5e module to 2e currently, this is how I got here. Exactly because of the bad DC chart. You can imagine transferring it to 2e. I was calculating the success chances, while realizing that the 17 WIS priest will have a chance of 46% on a DC14 check….lol below medium … 17 WIS is very high….still 46%….seems odd.
Anyways, my question is to all old guys. Do you enjoy 5e the same way as 2e? We dont like over/too regulated games. Is 5e still the same regarding this. We tried 3.5…was not our cup of tea.
Thanks for any reply!
maobezw
ho! if you have a look (without reading, just looking at it) at the PHB5e and compare it to the PHB3.5e you will notice at once: the older edition has a far higher density of written text. 5e is what we call “back to the roots”; no tons of skills, no dozens of modifiers. easy to learn, easy to play. it brought me back to D&D. you cant really compare it to 2e though. but the d20 system alone and the 5e addition of the advantage/disadvantage system rocks imho.
Me
I personally believe, a a dm since 3.5 released, that players simply will find anything and everything to gripe about. quit it lol. if you have a skilled dm, they will know your ranges and apply dcs accordingly. the focus on static charts (like the one provided) only serves to allow platitudes for disagreement. relax and enjoy, it’s your responsibility to unless your dm (or you are) hyperfocusing on the rules and it’s dragging everything down. I have lost count of the times an individual or group has focused on the raw and shot themselves in the foot. improv is the bulk of this game, rules only serve as a guideline*insert Barbosa meme here* just have fun and sometimes you lose, but losing can be fun, if eveyone gets a ribbon all the time then “winning” really is just the norm. we need the dark for light to shine 😉