D&D 5e: Skill Checks, Success, and Statistics

As someone who has run D&D games (of the latest three editions) on and off for the last fifteen years or so, I have gotten into a pretty standard rhythm and take a lot for granted. As I discussed elsewhere, I have finally gotten the chance to play a character in a "normal" campaign (not a one-off, not a total homebrew) and I am very grateful to my new DM for letting me sit on "the other side of the table."

As a result of my new perspective, I've realized that one thing I always took for granted is skill check timing. The pace of a game's skill checks is critical to how certain skills, abilities, and even role-playing strategies are understood, utilized, and effected.

For example, consider how often you (as a DM) or your DM asks for:

• Stealth checks
• Perception checks
• Persuasion checks
• Deception checks

 Let's take Stealth as our exemplar.

• If the check is asked for once per "stealth session," a good roll allows a skilled Rogue to go through an entire castle worth of bad guys undetected.
• If the check is asked for a few times per "stealth session," a good roll allows a skilled Rogue to get in the door--but doesn't quite guarantee success. [As I'll discuss below, theoretically, a bad roll could be mitigated by a second or third check, given the right circumstance.]
• If the check is asked for multiple times per round, a good roll means little--the chance of failure goes up as the number of rolls increases.

This model, I feel, bears out in all of the above skills.

• The key is,  the more rolls a PC has to make in a (certain kind of) skill, the greater the chance for failure in the endeavor.  
• Similarly, and just as important, if only one opportunity for success is offered, the chance for failure feels greater.  
• And lastly, a limited/low number of rolls where a failure can be mitigated by a few successes provides (statistically and, I hope, satisfyingly) the greatest chance of success for PCs. 

My point is, I believe there's a sweet spot between a single skill check and an ever-increasing number of skill checks that ultimately provides the greatest chance at general skill success. (Note: that doesn't mean the DM should always be searching for that sweet spot; it is possible that the chance for success should only be offered in a single check, or that multiple checks should be required. It depends upon the situation.)

For the skeptics, let's try some math to back up my assertions. Using our above example, assume a low-level Rogue has a +4 in Stealth and a +2 proficiency bonus for a total of +6. She wants to sneak into a fort, at night, past two guards who are reasonably alert. There are plenty of places for cover, but it's a fifty-foot trip past the guards and through the doorway at a distance behind them. Seventy-five feet if you want to really take a wide arc.

The DM calls for one stealth check to go the whole way, though it will take about three rounds for the Rogue to traverse the distance (depending on how speedy she is and how slowly she's going). The guards roll (or the DC is) a 15. With a +6, she needs a 9 or better, meaning a 55% success chance. Not great, but not terrible either considering how low a level she is and the difficulty of the DC.

Now, what if the DM calls for a check twice a round for all three rounds? That's a total of six checks, and any one failure among them alerts the guards. The probability of making the check successfully all six times drops to 2.7%! That's unreal. Even if the DM only calls for three checks, assuming one failure fails the batch, the chance for success falls to 30%.

But, what if we add in a safety net?

What if we make it so that a failure can be mitigated by other successes, but keep the three checks? In this case, the math is easier if we look at the odds of two failures happening over three checks and then reverse it. In fact, we can look at our old 30% from our last experiment; it's the same as the failure rate in this one. That means we increase the odds of success from 30% (when you must succeed at all three) to 70% (when you must succeed at only 2 of the 3).

Such a simple change, but it makes a huge difference.

 In other words, a DM can actually increase the success rate of a player's skill checks by adding additional checks provided those additions are offset by a simple one-failure-is-mitigated safety net.

I had stumbled onto this idea intuitively, but only when I saw how another DM was pacing his checks did I realize that I could math my way to a better understanding. Again, I don't endorse using this mechanic all of the time, but the DMs out there can use this information to be mindful of the effects of asking for multiple skill checks. The DCs/opposing-checks are designed (in most cases) to be one-offs, and the more checks you throw the worse the odds are for the PCs. On the other hand, building in the possibility of an "acceptable failure" is a way to increase the odds.

In either case, the key to successfully using this methodology is to generally not let the PCs know what the DC is (when possible) so that you can decide in media res if this particular skill check sequence should have a fail-safe.

Hope this idea is somewhat enlightening! Happy gaming.

D&D 5e: Solving the Artificer Problem (Part 3)

In my first look at converting the Artificer into a 5e playable option, I considered how best to make it happen. After settling on Artificer as a 5e class (instead of a sub-class or archetype), I considered how to solve the problem of the Artificer being a permanent magic item craftsman in the Part 2. In this third installment, I'd like to consider the much fussier and probably less easily balanced art of Artificer "spells." In other words, how should infusions work in 5e?

In 3e, infusions (as cast by Artificers) had a few key characteristics that are worth remembering:

• Infusions are not spells, though they often mimic spell effects
• Infusions only go up to 6th level/circle; the Artificer was a hybrid class with a similar progression to a 3e Bard, where 6th tier spells are the cap.
• Infusions often have a casting time of one minute.
• Infusions often have costly material components or even experience point costs.

When we think about what "pitfalls" we might encounter when converting to 5e, a few things spring to mind:

• There are no more "6-circle" spellcasters. There are full casters (9 tiers/circles/levels), hybrid casters (5 tiers/circles/levels), and "faux" casters (4 tiers/circles/levels).
• Many of the original infusions were mimicking a system in which wizards/clerics buffed the party before combat with a variety of overlapping spells; this was a system without 5e's concentration rules.
• Many of the Artificer's spells reference Use Magic Device; a skill that no longer exists.
• At least in the playtest documents, warforged (usually the primary recipient/target of the Artificer's construct-related abilities) are now considered fully alive; healing spells cast on them are no longer halved in value, making Artificers less necessary in a warforged-heavy party. In fact, I'm not even sure that the "repair" line of spells/infusions is necessary in this environment.

So to reconcile these disparate pieces:

1. Should an Artificer be a full caster (9 levels of infusions) or a hybrid caster (5 levels)? (I'm assuming that an Artificer's infusions are more important to the class than an Arcane Trickster's few wizard spells, or an Eldritch Knight's offensive repertoire.)
2. Should infusions still be "separate" from spellcasting, or are infusions to be treated as spells that happen to only target items?
3. Should infusions continue to hold fast to the cost/experience model?
4. What replaces Use Magic Device, if anything?

Finally, since we're still dealing with just a base class (and not any archetypes yet) we can afford to allow the Artificer to be a tad underpowered compared with other classes; the gap can allow for some flexibility in the archetypes.

My first instinct tells me to try Artificers as hybrid casters, and to give them more infusions per day to compensate for them note being "full casters". After all, the Bard has been upgraded, why not the Artificer? Unfortunately, I think that ruins a very elegant system by adding another variable. Similarly, the original infusion progression is quite light; I think we either need to commit to Artificers being "full" spellcasters and assign them a full spell list (for example, give them access to Cleric spells or  Wizard spells) or commit to them using the hybrid progression. For now, let's consider the hybrid progression, but we'll assign them a single 1st level infusion slot at first level (hybrid casters don't start casting until second level).

If we stick to that idea, Artificers (under the current class model) will have light armor, simple weapons, no offensive spells, no cantrips, and only a scant few infusions per level even at the upper echelons of play.

All right, clearly that won't work.

On the other hand, if we assign a full spell list (say, the Cleric list), we're assigning a huge role (healing) that didn't exist in the 3e Artificer.  Of course, this did exist in 4e, so it's not entirely out of reach. If we make Artificers spellcasters, and give them the clerical spellcasting type (cleric spell list, cantrips, progression, and preparation procedure and number of spells), we're basically back to the Artificer as an archetype of the Cleric class. Not ideal!

Back to the drawing board.

This may be where the Warlock's unorthodox spellcasting can come in handy.  If we assume that Artificers are spellcasters, but that unlike Wizards (whose studies are formal, and whose manipulation of the Weave is based on training in an artful science) or Sorcerers (whose studies are of the self, and whose manipulation of the Weave is natural and based on the science of art), the Artificer is a muddled, idiosyncratic mimicry of other spellcasters--some science, some art, all based on research and observation (rather than tradition or talent).

Perhaps as a Wizard has a spellbook, a Cleric has a holy symbol, and a Warlock has a pact item, an Artificer could have an implement/weapon that is the focus of all spellcasting. For example, an Artificer doesn't "cast" Ray of Frost, but would rather be imbuing his staff, wand, or other implement with the power to cast it--and cast it. Cantrips become (for the Artificer) spells that are stored in the implement until needed by the Artificer, which can only be called forth by the Artificer.

An Artificer could have an implement (reminiscent of 4e) which could be the focus of most Artificer spellcasting. This particular object could be mundane or magical, but it is in some way bound to the Artificer (like attunement? short rest required to change implements?). In this way, the Artificer would not (for example) be casting  the spell straight out, but would actually be funneling magic through the implement.

Another piece of Warlock spellcasting that would probably make sense for the Artificer is the reset of spell slots each short rest rather than long rest. A smaller number of slots combined with the quick recovery of those slots means that Artificers are less likely to be able to break the new concentration rules because they won't have the means to do so (all at once, anyway).

Since this discussion is already well into deep water, let's finish out this theory and see where it takes us. For 5e:

• Artificers are spellcasters. They "cast" their infusions. For our purposes, Artificers casting spells is identical to casting infusions. (With the following restriction...)
• Artificers still may not cast spells directly, but rather must infuse an object with the spell. This can either be in the form of a "buff" (spell stays in the object) or in the form of a temporary magic item creation (as in the case of making a one-charge wand to cast magic missile).
• This will need some clarification down the line. Do Artificers both infuse and cast the spell from the focus item at the same time? Is there a delay?
• Artificers use the Wizard spell list to learn spells from.
• Artificers "know" certain spells from the Wizard list.
• Artificers use the Warlock progression for spells, with a few key differences.
• Artificers know their "Cantrips Known" from the Wizard list.
• Artificers know their "Spells Known" from the Wizard list.
• Artificers use the "Invocations Known" list to choose spells from any spell list. This functions like the Bard's "Magical Secrets" ability, but comes much sooner. 
• Similar to what is stated in the Warlock entry, one spell per Artificer level gained may be swapped out as the Artificer gains experience points/levels.
•  Spells learned must be of a spell level the Artificer is capable of casting.
• Artificers may choose to learn an additional cantrip, however only this cantrip may be changed out later. (Artificers cannot use this ability to learn a new cantrip then get rid of one they learned as a first level Artificer.)
• Artificers' "Spell Slots" and "Slot Level" mechanics function as a Warlock.
• Artificers may only cast spells if they have a spell slot remaining (except cantrips)
• Spell slots recharge after a short rest 
• One small change: beginning at 13th level, the Artificers spell slots become 6th level.
• Artificers use their implement as a focus for spellcasting.
• The implement may be a weapon, shield, or other handheld object.
• It may be magical or mundane.
• For the Artificer to cast spells, he/she must be attuned (as with a magic item, although this attunement doesn't count against the limit of three magic items. If, however, the chosen item must already be attuned in order to be used, that attunement must be done separately--and in that case counts against the total of 3).

Just a few more items to consider--the ones that break the bank, so to speak.

• Artificers ignore concentration. Because the Artificer is infusing an item with magic, once a spell is cast, it remains in the item and doesn't need to be concentrated on for the duration.
• After a short or long rest, any spells cast expire, even if their duration would normally be longer than that short/long rest.

 I am hopeful that the limited spell slots granted to an Artificer make this (concentration) less of an issue. Can an Artificer make four people invisible simultaneously? Sure, but only if they're 17th level or above, and even then they have no other magical powers until they've taken a rest (except cantrips). Can an Artificer heal? Sure, but only if they use one of their (total of) eight out-of-list spells on learning a healing spell. Can an Artificer cast fireball? Sure, but it'll use up one of the Artificer's scant few spell slots!


So let's return to our questions:

1. Should an Artificer be a full caster (9 levels of infusions) or a hybrid caster (5 levels)?
   An Artificer should be based on the Warlock model, ending with six tiers of spells, at drastically reduced spell slots.
2. Should infusions still be "separate" from spellcasting, or are infusions to be treated as spells that happen to only target items?
   Both. Infusions are spells, but Artificers still focus their castings through a particular implement item.
3. Should infusions continue to hold fast to the cost/experience model?
   Not for the moment. If we bring in some of the old infusions from the 3e class, it may be prudent to do so.
4. What replaces Use Magic Device, if anything?
   For now, since we're not using any of the old infusions, we don't need this skill. If (as in an archetype) we discover a need for this, it's possible that an Arcana skill will be functional.

To round things out, I think all we'll need are some archetypes. I'll try to consider one (or more) of those in a future post. For now, I think we need one that makes the Artificer more of an implement user (think of the old wand specialists), one that makes the Artificer more of a skill user (closer to a bard/rogue with a variety of skills and/or languages), and one that makes the Artificer more of a constructer (i.e. the old-school Artificer who used homunculi and build machines).

The last thing to be ironed out before we delve into archetypes (and therefore likely the topic of the next post) will be starting proficiencies and basic class features. Until then, please feel free to comment below with any suggestions for tweaking this "alpha draft" Artificer build!

D&D 5e: Making a Character

For the first time in a long time (almost a decade!), I'm going to be playing as a character in a D&D campaign. For the first time ever, I'll get to play as a character in a 5e campaign.

As one might expect, this definitely gives me a new perspective on the player's side of the table. I thought perhaps sharing the thoughts of a DM-turned-player on the character creation process might be useful to some.

Backgrounds Matter

As a DM, I try to ensure that players' backgrounds fulfill their primary functions: that is, that they are fun to roleplay and that they help build the character into the campaign that I'm running by giving the character some essential, useful connection to the adventure.

As a player, backgrounds seem both overwhelming and weighty. I started by looking into playing a Bard, and thought (perhaps in error!) that the Sage background would be an easy fit. That is, until I started looking at the mechanical benefits awarded based on backgrounds.

All of a sudden, choosing a Sage seemed less useful! If I play a Bard with the Criminal background, I would be proficient with thieves' tools. A Noble's background would give me access to high society. A Hermit's "secret" is supremely tantalizing! And who could pass up being an Entertainer or Charlatan?

Still, I figured I'd press ahead with the Sage and be a Researcher. Now, I'm reconsidering; the Entertainer, while not as useful in terms of game mechanics, sounds a lot more fun to play!

Party Balance

Looking at party balance from a player's perspective, I was happy to see that I didn't feel like I had to play a particular role just because the group didn't have it covered. Part of that might just be because I'm looking to play a Bard who is (at level two, literally) a jack of all trades, but more than that is just that 5e seems to be somewhat forgiving in the realm of "you need X to do Y, and if you don't have X you're done for."

Backgrounds cover a multitude of skill and story deficiencies, allowing even the most combat-oriented fighter to be the party spokesman, or the most uninvolved Rogue to feel connected to the game world. Race attributes and class archetypes contribute their own brand of variety, allowing players to cover a variety of traditional "roles." Even the most straight-forward of classes in our budding party (the Cleric) is going to be played in a less-than-conventional way, taking domains and backgrounds that will individuate the character right from the get go in ways that would simply not have been possible in previous editions.

In the end, my Bard is (loosely) filling the role of party "Wizard," but that doesn't really do it justice. My role in combat will be (primarily) control: I have the best (and maybe only) AoE spells available to our party. However, that doesn't take away from my role as secondary healer. If the Cleric goes down, I'm it! In exploration situations, I plan to take on the role of investigator and trap disarmer, but I am leaving the sneaking and perceiving to our Monk. In social interactions, I hope my character will really shine: a high charisma and loads of proficiencies in various knowledge skills should make my Bard a worthy negotiator, spokesman, and diplomat.

Spells

As expected, choosing spells was the most time consuming aspect of character creation. Clerics (and classes that cast spells like Clerics) can re-choose spells each morning. Wizards, if they choose poorly, can always hope to find spell scrolls with more useful spells. Bards (and those that learn spells like Bards) are bound by their choices. Needing to eke out the greatest possible variety from my few spells-per-day means being very selective about which spells my Bard learns. In the end, as a first level Bard, I chose Sleep (to fulfill my role of "Controller" on the battlefield), Cure Wounds (because I can't justify passing up the strongest healing spell available at first level) Dissonant Whispers (a single target damage spell that is almost exclusive to Bards), and Detect Magic (one utility spell to round out the bunch). Almost as difficult to choose were my two cantrips: Vicious Mockery (again, a Bard-only spell which has the potential to impose disadvantage on an enemy attack roll) and Light (though I'm playing a class with Darkvision, our party has at least one human member).

Race

In days gone by, choosing a race imposed a serious set of benefits and penalties, and you chose a race almost before you chose a class, since the race would determine what classes you'd be suited for. The Player's Handbook still seems to think in these terms: race is chosen before class. I'm not sure that's how most players think; it's certainly not how I think. When I'm thinking of a character, I think about what kind of things I want to be able to do, and then I impose the "who-is-doing-those-things" onto that.

The big difference for me, this time around, was that sub-races seemed to make a much larger difference than I expected they would. I made the decision to play a Dwarf Bard, but choosing between Hill Dwarf and Mountain Dwarf was more difficult than I expected. The benefits offered by both, and the story implications of each, were exciting to consider. I thoroughly enjoy that the new edition uses races to impose benefits rather than penalties. You may miss out on something by choosing one thing over another, but the choice itself is never penalizing. In the end, I chose a Hill Dwarf for my character's race, but I imagine I'll always wonder if I'd have more fun playing a Mountain Dwarf.

D&D 5e: Players Rule (or: Players' Rules), Part 3

In this post, I'll look at the non-combat options offered to players.

Without the Dungeon Master's Guide, this does feel like a vain effort, but it might be a worthy thought experiment. I hope it is!

In another time and place, I'd take the time to comb through the Player's Handbook to examine every single class- or race-specific option. For now, I'm just going to use the experiences of my players in the Lost Mine of Phandelver Starter Set.

The big categories of non-combat experiences in Dungeons and Dragons take the form of NPC encounters (as opposed to "monster encounters"), exploration/interaction, and downtime.

NPC encounters are those kinds of event which usually involve roleplaying: diplomacy, bluffing/deceit, persuasion, and occasionally awkward or unusual communication. Exploration and interaction are (in brief) all the things a Bard might do in a dungeon besides fight: skill checks of many kinds, for a variety of reasons; among them would be looking for traps/loot/enemies, tracking down clues and putting them together to form conclusions, moving around a space in any way other than walking across a dry flat surface, pickpocketing, sneaking, recalling knowledge, bandaging wounds, controlling animals, perceiving something hidden (in another person), surviving in a difficult environment, or (of course) participating in a performance. Downtime activities are nothing new to D&D, but they are somewhat new to the players' side of the screen. They include all of the activities a character might participate in "off-stage" or between the stages of a campaign. (Use your imagination: hobbies, research, relationships, construction, travel, etc.!)

NPC encounters and exploration/interaction are both handled (in rules-terms) through the skills mechanic. I could probably do an entire post just on how the skills have evolved over time, but I'm going to look at them through my own lens and (where appropriate) relate them back to 3e--the skill beast.

1) NPC encounters have been reduced to Deceive or Persuade. You want to convince that ogre that you're really a dragon in disguise? Be my guest: deceive him. You want to convince him that he should part with his sack of loot in exchange for what you believe is a fair (if low) price? Be my guest: persuade him. In 3e, the skills of Bluff and Diplomacy often served the same functions, but I like the elegance of the 5e system. Where Bluff was generally for short, simple deceptions, you also had Disguise for more elaborate ones, and Diplomacy itself could be used to lie in certain situations. Basically, Diplomacy was a morally ambiguous skill: both thieves and judges would need to take a few ranks in it to be savvy in their respective dealings with the law. In 5e, this is much clearer: acting in good faith? Use Persuade. Purposefully deceiving someone? Deceive is for you. Simple, clean, and uncluttered by a multitude of "sub-skills." (As a side note, Insight and Intimidation function much the same as they have in previous editions.)

2) Exploration and interaction skills compose the entire rest of the set. In general, 5e follows the same idea of "skill condensing" that 4e did. A few key notes:

Athletics and Acrobatics form a binary relationship. Does your task require strength, power, or strength-conditioning? It's an Athletics check: swimming, climbing, breaking, etc. Does your task require dexterity, agility, or balance-conditioning? It's an Acrobatics check: balancing, dodging, and maneuvering are all Acrobatics. Whatever physical ordeal your character faces, it should be a binary choice of skill.

Another interesting feature of 5e is the change from Spot, Listen, and Search to Perception and Investigation. At first blush, it looked as though Spot/Listen formed a perfect analogue with Perception, while Investigation would be the counterpart to Search. This is not the case. Perception is used for Spot(ting) and Listen(ing), but it is also used for Search(ing). Investigation is an entirely new idea: the designers wanted a metric for problem-solving (with clues), for putting clues together to form a conclusion, or to recognize the clues that are in plain sight. I like this dynamic because it creates a situation where a character who is tremendously good at seeing the strange symbols on the walls will not always be the same character who makes sense of them.

3) Finally, the "new guy" in the Player's Handbook: Downtime. In a section titled "Between Adventures" there are several suggestions for how a character might spend his/her downtime. Some options are fluffy rather than stat-oriented, but all of them have a real effect: your character has a place to go when he/she is not adventuring, and is able to continue to develop as a sentient being while not crawling around in dungeons: crafting, working, healing, researching, and learning are all presented as reasonable and valuable options.

I must admit, I cannot remember the last time that I have given characters "downtime." Usually, characters were rushed from one last-minute-save-the-world-scenario to another, with the one notable exception of going to large cities to shop for new toys. I rather look forward to giving characters downtime in the future, although I don't know if these rules were in place when the current campaign path was being drafted; it seems unlikely given the subject matter that there will be an ample amount of downtime in Tyranny of Dragons. One thing downtime would allow is a place for characters to invest their hard-won gold since they won't be buying up magic items with it.

Final verdict on the new take on skills is that it seems to combine the best of both worlds. Characters still have a variety of useful skills, and they routinely (but not often) get better at them via their proficiency bonuses. Skills are mostly intuitive and every character is proficient in a variety of them; bounded accuracy ensures that even the least perceptive character should still feel useful making Perception checks to search a room or look for danger. Characters have options to participate in the world right from the get go that don't always have to involve adventuring, and their options that do involve adventuring don't always have to involve combat.

It's a well-rounded system. I look forward to seeing how it plays out as characters reach higher and higher tiers of play.