D&D 5E 50/50 chance is 'easy'?

[gideonpepys]

I'm not a trained athlete and I reckon my strength is just above average - maybe 11. If someone described a physical task as 'easy' I would expect that I had a greater than 50% chance of success. But in 5th edition the DC for an easy task is 10, which means, with no bonuses for proficiency or strength, it's a coin-flip.

'Difficult' (at DC20) is almost impossible.

I am less concerned about this from the perspective of character failure and more from the DM's point of view: straightforward language such as 'very easy, easy, moderate, difficult' is very useful when improvising DCs on the fly. I don't want to have to redefine what 'easy' means every time I use the word in that context (for example, by reminding myself that it means 'easy' only if you're trained, high-level and above average in ability).

Ability checks and skill checks are a big part of the game and I don't think they've got the DCs right at all.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm not a trained athlete and I reckon my strength is just above average - maybe 11. If someone described a physical task as 'easy' I would expect that I had a greater than 50% chance of success. But in 5th edition the DC for an easy task is 10, which means, with no bonuses for proficiency or strength, it's a coin-flip.

'Difficult' (at DC20) is almost impossible.

I am less concerned about this from the perspective of character failure and more from the DM's point of view: straightforward language such as 'very easy, easy, moderate, difficult' is very useful when improvising DCs on the fly. I don't want to have to redefine what 'easy' means every time I use the word in that context (for example, by reminding myself that it means 'easy' only if you're trained, high-level and above average in ability).

Ability checks and skill checks are a big part of the game and I don't think they've got the DCs right at all.

• +0 vs. DC 10 is a 55% chance of success.
• Terms like "easy" are subjective and relative, so there's no way to match everyone's definition.
• The game uses the DC adjectives only within the context of things that the DM already thought should be important enough to have the player roll. The purpose of the adjectives is that after the DM decides to make the player roll, the DM can go "How hard should this be? I think it should be pretty easy."
• If your definition of "easy" is "anyone can do this effortlessly with no chance of failure," then it's useless for this purpose.

 

[evileeyore]

It's supposed to easy for Heroes. Not every schlub with an average stat.

 

[fanboy2000]

Good point. I think the dichotomy comes from the fact that, IRL, when people say something is 'easy' they mean that the chances of success is closer to 100%. In those cases, a DM wouldn't actually call for a roll, you'd just be able to do it. In context of dice rolls where there is supposed to be some meaningful chance of failure, easy necessarily means something more difficult.

In that context, 'very easy' meaning an 80% chance of success when rolled with no modifiers and 'easy' being a 55% chance of success makes some sense.

Remember, a DM is only supposed to call for a roll if there is a chance of failure and that failure is meaningful in some way.

 

[gideonpepys]

It's supposed to easy for Heroes. Not every schlub with an average stat.

So 'easy' only for the trained character with a high ability score? Is the wizard in the party not a hero, then?

I'm sorry, but that isn't helpful.

I felt sure that within seconds I would get a couple of responses telling me I was wrong and that 'easy' doesn't mean what I think it means.

Easy means 'achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties'. I think the ideal baseline for applying such terms is the 'average schlub' because then everyone knows what easy means.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It's a valid criticism. I wouldn't have defined the terms the way they did if I were designing it.

But that's what they did, so the important thing is just to use a framework that makes it work the best for you.

If you don't want to treat "easy" as applying to an adventurer trained in the task (which likely means they have a +3 to +5 on the roll at 1st level), one alternative might be to just shift all the words up the chart by one--so that 5 is easy, 10 is moderate, etc. Game content generally presents numbers rather than words for the difficulties (outside of the initial description we are discussing) so you can really do just fine defining the numbers in whatever terms you like, and it won't have any effect on the game's math.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Hmm. Maybe wait for the three rulebooks to come out? If they called it easy, it might be easy because the full set of rules provide text that make much more likely to succeed.

 

[gideonpepys]

It's a valid criticism. I wouldn't have defined the terms the way they did if I were designing it.

But that's what they did, so the important thing is just to use a framework that makes it work the best for you.

If you don't want to treat "easy" as applying to an adventurer trained in the task (which likely means they have a +3 to +5 on the roll at 1st level), one alternative might be to just shift all the words up the chart by one--so that 5 is easy, 10 is moderate, etc. Game content generally presents numbers rather than words for the difficulties (outside of the initial description we are discussing) so you can really do just fine defining the numbers in whatever terms you like, and it won't have any effect on the game's math.

A constructive and thoughtful answer. Thank you.

 

[evileeyore]

Easy means 'achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties'. I think the ideal baseline for applying such terms is the 'average schlub' because then everyone knows what easy means.

No, easy for Joe Not-A-Hero Average shouldn't require roll for a Hero whose stat exceeds 10 in the category.

And yes, while the Wizard is a Hero, if said character has a STR of 10 or less he's obviously not a "Strong Hero". A Strong Hero with a 16 STR is rolling a 7 or greater for "Easy", so yes it is easy for the Hero who is supposed to be doing that stuff (and that's not counting Athletics). The Wizard's "Easy" set of tasks should not include "Strength" (necessarily). Though I'm sure people will roll the Mountain Dwarf Wizard with a STR in 12-14 range, in which case that '10' isn't difficult to roll.


For Instance out the gate, my Barbarian with STR 16 and Athletics needs to roll a 5 to make an "Easy STR Check". Sounds about right. Lowering "Easy" to '5' means he no longer needs to even roll...

 

[Evenglare]

I simply think this is definition problem. Easy to me is something that I can quickly overcome even if I need to take a bit of time, where as trivial (what 5 is) is something you can almost always do first time no problem. Trivial would be walking (where as sometimes you can trip no matter who you are) and easy would be doing like... long division or something. Something everyone can do but it may take a bit of time, even if it's not much.