Nat 20s are automatic successes

Exactly. I don't mind using crits for flat-out attack rolls, but crit fails are fucking garbage

please take your thread back to /v/

The taint of
>"Anything is possible if you try really hard"
mindset goes deeper than that, I'm afraid.

Keep this utter shit on /v/ where it belongs.

I always act on the following assumption:
>players initiate rolls

If you want to use a skill then you initiate the roll and describe how and why you are using the skill. I then either use the DC I have already set or set one. If a character is not good enough then they may fail on a 20. Telling them they simply can't informs them, by inference, a ballpark of the DC which can give metaknowledge of the situation, which I do not like.

This. Don't let them roll and get a 20 if you have no intention of allowing them to succeed.

What is that Wojak even meant to be?

I think it's called Soyjak or Nu-jak.

when are we deleting /pol/

It's meant to make fun of nu-males always doing that open mouthed, faux-excited face in photos. Why faggots are mixing /v/ shit with Veeky Forums, I have no idea. I wish they'd stop though. This threads probably going to be derailed because of that shit too.

gotta delete them irl, they're never leaving.

A numale/soyboy wojack. Basically think of a pathfinder player

Numale\soyboy.

We're getting new mods to put things in place.
Or should I rather say nu-mods?

Stormking's Thunder is 5e, not 3.PF.

A feel like it's a good crossboard meme. Plenty of effeminate, stimuli addicted mouthbreathers in Veeky Forums

Remember, it's only /pol/ if it's not left wing~

new janitors you mean, fucking reddit

The "so good it's bad" natural twenty will always be more annoying.
>"I jump onto the giants back"
>natural 20
>"lol, you jump way too hard and sail clear over the giant, flying off into the forest."
That kind of thing.

I don't think you realize how deep in cognitive dissonance you are, along with every retard who calls someone a soy unironically and then proceeds to jack it off to drawn musclegirls.

/thread

Because sometimes players want to roll at something and you don't want them to know how hard it is? You don't tell the PC's "this lock is DC 35"

See
You guys are idiots jumping to conclusion

Oh shit, someone who has actually played a game.

There are better ways to do that than letting them roll.
>Even with your skills, you get the feeling that this might in fact not be possible. any such attempt would be futile

Why would I do that?

Use the "do the unlikely to achieve the impossible" rule: if the player wants to do something outlandish, make them roll for it. If they get a 20, make them roll again. If they get another 20, make them roll one more time. If they get a third 20, they can do their outlandish shit. If they fail after the first 20, they take a small penalty to their current situation (i.e. open to attacks if in combat). If they fail after the second 20, they take a larger penalty (i.e. are stunned for their round).

Any player who isn't an idiot will try it once, maybe twice, before realising the odds are so poor they might as well not even try, and once in a blue moon you might get a genuinely entertaining story.

>not letting your players kill themselves out of stupidity
I hate this new wave of feelgood DMs

Because anyone who has a skill at anything when confronted by something that is not possible to do and pays attention to it, would immediately know that its not possible to do.

I can't run up this flat vertical surface no matter how "lucky" or how many times I try, because there is 0% probability of that happening.

That's only acceptable if the characters IC are stupid

high INT/WIS characters should not ultimately limited by their players INT/WIS

If you deem that acceptable but not allowing characters to have more IC STR or CHA than their players, then its a double standard and anyone who has a double standard should be ignored

I feel like its not really metaknowledge, anyone who's not an idiot has general ballpark knowledge of what they're capable of and can usually tell when something is undoable.

It's not impossible, they just can't do it.
You assume that high skill comes with 100% certainty of what you are or are not capable of.

The DC of a lock is not immediately obvious.

Because otherwise it's going to be pointless rolling until they OOC realise that they can't succeed? That's wasting good game time.

hi r9k

No but telling the player 'You can't succeed' is better than just letting them roll and the telling them they fail no matter how well they roll. It means you spend less time doing nothing of value in the game and you don't end up with 'Well, I was told I failed but it was only an 11...I'll keep trying'

>you guys are idiots for not letting the players roll over and over on a test until they get a 20, then telling them it still doesn't work

Yes, I'm the idiot for not wasting my players time on an impossible task. Woe me in my ignorance.

Because you don't want to just tell them they can't do what they are trying to do.

Not if the failure has actual consequences.
Or if they just say "I take 20"

That’s called taking 20. You don’t have them roll over and over if they’re going to keep trying until they get max.

Your argument doesn’t make any sense because it assumes in order to roll high players keep rolling a dice rather than taking 20. Also your argument makes no sense if you consider situations where they only succeed on a 20. Both have the same number of rolls to determine the proceed condition, either find out it is impossible or succeed on a 20.

Again your premise is flawed.

This, allowing intelligent characters to be stupid its in a way metagaming even if its to the detriment of the player, its as shitty as letting an intelligent person play a dumb character without penalties.

Because even with good players an RPG is limited by the fact that you cannot actually put yourself into the game world or see inside another character's mind, and therefore we rely on abstractions by the DM.

If I'm a master thief, I should be able to look at a lock and determine whether it is possible to open with my thieves tools. But because my character possesses a skill that I as a regular person do not, and the lock is an imaginative construct, I won't be able to do that. So part of the job of the DM is to further the game by telling me what my character "would know", so that I have enough to go on in order to roleplay them.

>It's not impossible, they just can't do it.
Elaborate.

There are things that can't be done no matter how many times you attempt it, like trying to reach out and grab the sun with your hand. Your arm is not 93 million miles. That is impossible. If this is the former and the character is niether stupid or has a skill in that task, then they would know this IC.

There are things that can be done, but cannot be done due to circumstance or something hidden. Like trying to knock down a pair of metal bottles that have secretly been welded onto a concrete carnival stand. In such a case, a professional baseball athelete striking it at 100mph on a perfect hit would note that this task should have been possible, but something is out of the ordinary. Anyone who didn't perform so well or so skilled would indeed imagine that they simply were not up to the task.

So, you'll just let them roll and roll over and over again, telling they've failed on every roll?

It really is

You thinking it's not means that you didn't try hard enough and gave up on whatever you wanted to do after only a few years

Generally you need to try a few times before judging the DC. Also there are abilities in pathfinder for instance that let you judge the DC. If you did not take them then you do not have that ability, simple as that.

This sounds like Anima

That sounds pretty fucking passive-aggressive.

>You can try it but your odds are 1 in 8000 and if you fail I'll punish you for having tried :^)
Just fucking tell them no next time. Making up a bullshit rule so you can hide behind it and say "Technically, you're allowed to try!" is passive aggressive as fuck.

>Nat 20s are automatic successes
Only in combat
Have ever only been in combat
Will ever only be in combat
And it has, and always will be, only hitting and missing automatically, not some dumbshit like throwing your sword across the room.
Only retards take nat 20s and 1s outside of combat as crit failures or successes and only retards take critical failures and successes rather than what the book fucking tells you to and that is simply crit and miss.

>If I'm a master thief, I should be able to look at a lock and determine whether it is possible to open with my thieves tools.
Where in the rules are you entitled to this kind of metagaming? You don't get to know how hard a monster is to kill (HP, AC, etc). Why would you get to know the skill DC without a roll?

Why? Why don't you want to be real with your players?

>part of the job of the DM is to further the game by telling me what my character "would know"
to an extent, but the DM can't play your character for you

>Where in the rules are you entitled to this kind of metagaming?
Its GM metagaming to ignore the abilities of someone who is literally trained, educated, or licensed to look at how difficult or how easy a lock is at a glance which a skilled lockpick would be.

Just as it'd be metagaming to ignore the ability of someone who is skilled at guaging the HP or AC of a monster, without at least saying "despite your skill, you sense something clouding your vision. this is very uncommon and you don't know why"

What if the system has critical successes/failures built in?

Why are you allowed to take 20 without rolling?

Again, if you got time and there's no way for the character to succeed, a GM can inform them that while trying to pick it, they discover it's beyond their capabilities. It's all up to the GM, but if the GM has decreed this task to be beyond the player's skills, then there's no point in letting them think they have a chance and keep rolling and rolling for nothing.

asking the DM to use a characters skill in character is as much "playing their character for them" as telling the DM you want your swordsman to slash at the enemy with his sword skills

You're missing the point. The character has access to information that the player themselves does not, through both their physical senses and training. Therefore the DM has to sometimes fill in the gaps by telling the player things that should be discernible their character.

Then that's fine but we're talking about D&D here which has never had them (don't know about 1e to be honest) where people add them for no reason.

Oh yeah, it's still a fucking retarded house rule, especially when people treat the Nat 20s as Nat 1s but overly successful.

>You're missing the point. The character has access to information that the player themselves does not, through both their physical senses and training.
No they do not. What rule says that or implies that, anywhere in any game?

Nat 20 always succeeds/nat 1 always fails CAN work, but people take it too far due to memes and shit. It's when it gets expanded and exaggerated into increasingly "epic" and outlandish feats or failures that it becomes annoying. Even the greatest fighter in the world can plausibly have a 5% chance of missing when he swings his sword, but even a mediocre fighter won't accidentally cut his own leg open one swing out of every 20.

So, automatic success/failure should only be done in some conditions, what comes to my mind is:
>Only if the success/failure is otherwise possible for the character
You shouldn't have a master world-class unpickable safe fail 5% of the time to every rookie noob thief in the world. As others have said, don't ask a player to roll if even a 1 would succeed or even a 20 would fail.
>The automatic success/failure shouldn't be more than what would otherwise happen in a success/failure
This one is just my opinion, maybe it can be exaggerated somewhat for fun or comic effect, but let's be honest, a huge amount of the problem is that retards go overboard with it.

Depends on your definition of "immediately".

Within maybe 3 to 5 seconds of inputting your pins, you should have a relatively good idea on the number of pins, and potentially their design, spacing, etc. All of which can give you an idea of how bad the lock will be to crack.

The assumption is that they would figure it out after the first high roll. Even more than that, they often try rolling for things they CLEARLY can't do, but, realistically, that doesn't mean they can't try to do it regardless. For example, they couldn't seduce the enemy Orc leader that had a belt made out of babies, but, as characters, they still wanted to attempt it.

In every edition except 5th it also applied to saving throws.

Why is a lock they can't possibly open BUT can try there in the first place?

>"My character is a master swordsman"
>"Okay, describe exactly which guard stance he uses when fighting the enemies"
>"I don't know, but he would use the best one in this situation"
>"Since you don't know how to swordfight, neither does your character. He dies."

You could also use a d100 to reduce the chances or have them roll to confirm the crit but also this

>as a seasoned warrior you know that your nonmagical sword will not damage the beast, I don't allow you to take that action
no

>Never just tell your players they can't do what they want
This is a good mindset, actually, outside of reductions to the absurd and assuming good faith and reasonable competence from players.

But i think you've misunderstood its point. It's not about "don't ever say the word 'no'." That's pointless. If you've already decided they can't do what they want but are avoiding actually telling them that, you have missed the fucking point.

The point is that anything (again, within the bounds of sanity) is allowed, it's just not always feasible or practical and that success isn't guaranteed. If the party fighter with zero skill in lockpicking wants to attempt to pick a lock, that's mechanically allowable, even if success is mathematically impossible.

As a GM, if you're putting obstacles in your players' way that none of the party can actually overcome, you may want to rethink your methods. That's the point of the mindset.

Why would it not be? Why is everything in the world exactly tailored to the PCs? Is there a maximum pinnacle of lock technology dependent on the players' level?

The same rule that actually allows ANY RPG to function by actually telling the players something they literally have no way of knowing or sensing because, guess what, we don't live in D&D.

>"So GM how do we play this game?"
>"it's a neat and interesting world user! But unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about it or what your characters knows since you don't actually know that yourself."

>You don't get to know how hard a monster is to kill.

Except, at least in general, I do. The size of the monster, the amount of armor it's wearing, the number of scars/trophies it bears, are all fairly easy for me to notice in the moment.

I can look at a 50 foot dragon and think "Hey, that will likely be difficult" and look at a wheezing kobold and think "That is not a physically secure entity."

Magic can alter these values, to some degree, but even then, such magic is typically somewhat obvious: shimmering fields, glowing eyes, etc.

Why is there a cliff they can't survive falling but can jump off it in the first place?

Because player agency is kind of important and it's the mark of shitty GMing to arbitrarily declare anything you don't want them to do is beyond their reach.

>You are a seasoned warrior, familiar with the situation. You realize no matter how hard you strike at this foe, magic will render your actions neutered. You've seen this before.
>You can still attempt the action, knowing this
Yes

Because, get this, every one who sees the cliff that doesn't have a shit INT would know that you can't jump that and live

It's all up to the GM. I'd find humor in the prospect of a character trying to seduce someone, even if I wasn't going to allow it to go through, but there's little to be had in trying to pick a lock. Of course you can inform them after the first roll that the lock is beyond their understanding.

>The same rule that actually allows ANY RPG to function by actually telling the players something they literally have no way of knowing or sensing because, guess what, we don't live in D&D.
Why would the characters know this though?

Except there are explicitly many dangerous monsters where their danger is not immediately obvious. There are trees that are CR 9 that can murder hundreds. If you didn’t know however they just look like trees.

Who said it's arbitrary?
>Because player agency is kind of important
How does this prevent player agency?

>putting a few things in your world that the PCs can't overcome makes you a shitty DM
Uh, this isn't superman simulator

>"I cast a fireball."
>"Could you please recite the spell?"
>"I don't know that."
>"Then you fail. -10 fire points."

>Why does the character see the world around them
>Why do they hear the people talking to them
>Why do they talk back, responding to the hearing of them
It's almost like we're not the actual characters themselves but some kind of people who are just playing them, taking on a role if you will, in a kind of game.

If it’s impossible for them to succeed I still want to know how badly they fucked up. Many skills have built in mechanisms to punish the player for abysmal failures.

>How does putting obstacles your PCs are incapable of overcoming to either side of the railroad tracks reduce player agency?

And if you were suddenly saw a tree going about slaying armies, you'd know right away something is not right and definitely out of the ordinary

No, that's not what I am saying user.
Why would your character be able to evaluate tasks with 100% accuracy know whether or not he is capable of doing them?
Even skilled people cannot always judge this.

Having a box that the players aren’t good enough to open and have to lug around to try and find the key can be part of the story itself.

Are you implying that if a character with low INT investigated that cliff the DM has the right to say he jumps to his death? This whole idea of deciding shit for the player based on a score on their character sheet seems a bit wonky to me

Yes, once you see something in combat you can guess how dangous they are. However they are many fey, monstrous humanoids, and aberrations that easily pass for humans. Jin Devils are CR 5 (can easily murder a grizly bear), and look like homeless bums with big mouths.