When playing Dungeons & Dragons, players are faced with numerous challenges that they need to overcome. Whether it’s a locked door, a confusing trap, or a terrifying monster in their way, the players’ successes or failures depend on them surpassing a certain Difficulty Class (DC).
In this blog post, I’ll go over the basics of the Difficulty class in DnD 5e and give tips and tricks on how to calculate it.
Difficulty Class in DnD 5e Explained
So, what is DC? It represents the difficulty of any given task you’re trying to achieve in DnD 5e. In terms of game mechanics, it’s the target number you have to meet or exceed to complete the task you were intending to do. It’s used for many things in DnD e.g. moving a large boulder, jumping over a ravine, casting a spell, persuading an NPC to comply with your idea, or even attacking an enemy.
Depending on the difficulty of the task you’re trying to complete, the DM will set the difficulty and compare your d20 roll to it. The higher the DC, the less likely you will succeed. I mean, DnD is a fantasy game, but it’s not set in dreamland and you can’t do anything you want – a gnome cannot break through a huge door no matter how hard they try and a barbarian will find it impossible to squeeze through a tiny opening without any help from magic.
Now let’s go over a quick and easy way to determine/calculate DC.
How to Calculate DC On the Fly
Don’t worry, there’s no advanced calculus involved in determining the Difficulty Class of a task, just follow this step-by-step guide and you’ll be done in a jiffy. If you’re still unsure, be sure to check out the few examples at the end of the post too!
Dungeon Master’s Guide gives us some information on how certain Difficulty classes correlate to the difficulty of the task.
Task difficulty
DC
Very easy – 5
Easy – 10
Moderate – 15
Hard – 20
Very Hard – 25
Nearly impossible – 30
Write these numbers on a piece of paper or try to learn them by heart because you will definitely make good use of them. Some players only use a few of the DC values – most often those are the easy, moderate, and hard ones (10,15, and 20 DC, respectively), while others make use of the whole table for a more nuanced process. This is completely up to you!
Determine How Difficult a Task Is
So, when your player tells you what they want to do, you have to ask yourself how difficult you think that task is. If it’s very easy, like stepping over a calm small creature, they can probably get by without even rolling since it’s very likely that they’ll go over 5.
How you categorize each task should depend on the character’s level because a low-level character doesn’t have much of a chance to surpass a 25, let alone 30 – it would be impossible even with a net 20. So I would advise capping off at DC 20 to give your players a shot at success.
Also, I would consider a character’s stature when completing tasks that require brutal force or depend on somebody’s size. For example, I would give a gnome jumping over a fence a much larger DC than the goliath attempting to do the same thing. One is 3 feet tall, and the other one is 7 feet, respectively. It’s logical that a gnome would struggle more.
Compare a Player’s Roll to the DC
Now’s the time for the player in question to roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. When they tell you the final value of their roll, if it’s equal to or higher than the DC, they succeeded. If not, they, unfortunately, need to try try again. And that’s basically it, I told you – easy peasy!
DnD Spell Save DC
If you’ve ever played a spellcaster in DnD, you’re probably already familiar with this term. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but it took me way longer than it should’ve to realize that the DC in this term actually means Difficulty class. So now I’m trying to save you from the same embarrassment.
So, yeah, Spell Save DC is a special type of Difficulty class that determines how easy it is for the target of your spell to evade it. When you cast a spell, the target rolls a saving throw. If the d20 saving throw roll is equal to the DC or higher, they dodge it, if not, the spell takes effect.
Like the regular DC, it’s very easy to calculate. The formula is:
8 + spellcasting ability modifier + proficiency modifier = Spell Save DC
Examples of Determining DC
To round off this quick and easy guide on the Difficulty class in DnD 5e, I’ll give you a few examples of how I would figure out the DC of certain tasks for an average person.
Very easy
-
Climbing on a ladder
-
Crossing a very shallow stream
Easy
-
Sneaking by a sleeping monster
-
Breaking through a door with loose hinges
Moderate
-
Picking a lock with Thieves’ tools
-
Determining the cause of death when examining a body
Hard
-
Climbing a slippery cliff
-
Convincing a BBEG’s minion to switch sides
Very hard
-
Trying to hold on to a slippery cliff while somebody is trying to whack you down
-
Swimming upstream
Nearly impossible
-
Jumping over a 10m wide chasm
-
Persuading a king to give you a noble title
-
Survive a volcano eruption
Conclusion
As this blog post’s coming to an end, I hope you’ve got a better understanding of the significance of Difficulty Class in DnD 5e. Knowing the mechanics behind the DC will help you run your game more efficiently and create tons of fun moments and engaging encounters for your players.
Just remember, even though the rules for DC seem pretty cut and dry, you should also think about the abilities of your players, the context of the situation they’re in, and also how their success or failure will impact your narrative. I’m saying it’s okay to fudge the number sometimes if need be. After all, the most important thing is to have fun!
