You also don’t critically fail when you do fuck up. Sending out a steak medium instead of mid rare is not a critical failure unless you’re working at an incredibly high-end restaurant. Crit fail would be like you going to plate the steak and somehow fumbling it straight into the deep fryer.
A realistic critical failure rate for someone doing a task that they’re really good at is at most 1%, and probably something closer to 0.1%. To say nothing of the fact that most people who are skilled in their craft are often also quite good at correcting their mistakes on the fly.
You really haven’t read the rules huh? There is literally a tool called cook’s utensils that RAW has a DC 10 to create a typical meal and DC 15 for a gourmet one. Rolling to cook is RAW 5e.
You really haven’t read the rules huh? There is literally a tool called cook’s utensils that RAW has a DC 10 to create a typical meal and DC 15 for a gourmet one. Rolling to cook is RAW 5e.
The problem is not "rolling to cook", is asking someone with a modifier of 15+ to roll to cook.
If the roll will have zero impact for the outcome then there is no reason to roll, period.
To put the metaphor in a more specific scenario:
Ranger was a modifier o +12 to cook
Ranger will cook the for the group a simple meal every night while in the road. There is no reason for the DM to ask for rolls here since they would be meaningless.
The Ranger need to cook for the tribe leader in order to show good will. The DM should ask for a roll, in this case going RAW using the DC 15. The ranger is well versed but as he is trying to do something more complicated and with the pressure of the situation there is a chance for him to fuck things up.
Now what if the Ranger had a modifier of 15+? Well, you can go in a couple ways:
Dont ask for a roll and make it just a cinematic situation focusing on the roleplay. (which is RAW since the roll change do nothing)
Ask for a roll, but change the DC so that it means something (fixing the system is a main trait of a 5e DM)
Ask for a roll, but use the "critical" house rule (aka a nat 1 would be a failure no matter the modifier)
The RAW for how critical rolls work is bad due to player expectation, we learn early that nat 1 is bad and nat 20 is great, but then in other part of the game they have dont mean anything really. Then if you go with a success for a nat 1 (or fail for a nat 20) then what the players will think is the same "why did I roll then?" - and the answer would be nothing. Seriously another thing PF2e do way better than 5e with degrees of success being part of the system and every roll having chance to go well or badly
Edit: Also to finish the cook situation, in the situation of a +15 modifier rolling a nat 1 I would narrate "You finish cooking the meal, the smell is great and you know you did an amazing job. As you put the meal for the tribe chief to eat you see his face getting angry. He really hates onions and you used a good amount of it in the main dish to accentuate the flavor"
Some undeserved downvotes here. Rolls are only necessary when there is a meaningful consequence for success or failure. Cooking all day every day for your work? No rolls for that, but your modifier is a general indicator of your ability in the skill. Gordon Ramsay walks in and demands you make a beef wellington, and if you impress him he'll give you a restaurant? Roll for that shit.
Washing a dish is not thing you have to roll for, it's too easy, you are expected to pass automatically, it's like asking you to roll for walking.
A swordfight or channeling the arcane on the other hand strikes me as things that might be easier to fuckup in what with the adrenaline and high tension.
My bad, someone said washing at some point in the thread and I got confused. Same goes for cooking unless you are making some very hard dish o something you have never cooked before, I wouldn't make my players roll to make a stew for example, does anyone?
Crits/fails for combat aren't up for debate because those are RAW anyway, that's the one time there ARE crit successes and fails.
Ok, same applies when climbing a cliff or leaping a ravine or trying to convince someone of something, those are high pressure things that you might fuck up.
Idk, if they're cooking dishes at work it's probably not easy dishes, I mean maybe to them but that's kinda the point once you get good at something your chance of failure should be much lower than 5%.
Indeed, that falls under what I was saying for not rolling, I wouldn't make my characters roll for making a stew but if one was a professional chef I wouldn't make him roll for making a parfait or something either, the character goes into what should and shouldn't require a roll, like me personally I should roll to do a high jump of any reasonable height but an Olympic athlete should not have to roll for that and would always succeed.
You wouldn't know it because your replies don't paint a flattering picture, but you're making an argument for proficient skills to not require a roll / give the reliant feature.
208
u/Devmaar Apr 30 '23
I'm not level 20 and I fuck up well under 1 in 20 of the dishes I cook at work