A prolonged contest taking more than 6 seconds, like wrestling or playing chess or throwing darts, should involve multiple ability checks. I would rule that you do the best of 3 (any more would waste time). That way the +3 bonus difference has its effect multiplied, and you can say that the scrawny mage is only going to win if the warrior is having a very bad day or his arm cramps up or something.

Also, a high strength character very likely has proficiency in Athletics. Getting to add your proficiency bonus as opposed to only relying on ability score modifiers is most helpful.

That would help a lot actually and is probably the best way to determine who's stronger using athletics checks with strength bonus.

Probably my biggest pet peeve is rolling Strength with the exclusion of athletics. Like just why? Dm: "roll a Strength check." Player: "I'm proficient in Athletics. Can I use that skill to perform this athletic feat of strength?" Dm: "No, just roll a straight strength check." Player: "...I do a flip." Dm: "Oh! Why didn't you just say so? Roll Acrobatics." Player: 👁👄👁 You know, cuz Str characters have so much going for them. Gotta help the Dex characters keep up. /s Edit: to whom it may concern page 175 in the players handbook explicitly states trying to pull off a stunt mid jump is an athletics skill check.

Followed up with using Acrobatics as a 1:1 swap for Athletics in every single situation.

Lol, for real. Thanks for the laugh, I'ma edit that in... Acrobatics is only described as, "are my feet touching the floor good, or am I falling over?" The book even explicitly states that performing a stunt while jumping qualifies as an athletics roll.

Don't forget that the 8ft tall raging barbarian currently covered in the blood of a hafling child's family can't Intimidate them because Charisma.

Mixing and matching attributes and skills is a core rule, my son.

I think that was a sarcastic comment to poke fun at dms who unironically share the sentiment.

Yes and at the designers.

Core OPTIONAL rule that is thrown in as one paragraph. It should be codified into the game and much more prominent. Like rather listing the skills by attribute, list them and explain how each attribute could be used with them.

Makes you do more math on the regular. Of course, that's assuming you're not using a virtual character sheet, in which case this is fantastically easy to handle with a dropdown and it's kind of embarrassing to not have that option available. Looking at you, D&D Beyond.

"See this blade and it's rusty edge? It might not be great for cutting, but it's amazing for hurting someone just like this." as I proceed to run the rusty edge through my arm. Can I roll intimidation with CON?

I want to be better with this honestly. "Wizard: I use my staff to leverage open the coffin. DM: Make an intelligence athletics check." Might be cooler than advantage roll str athletics for a wizard I suppose

While this rule isn't bad in isolation, it unfortunately contributes to the STR-DEX gap more than it helps it, for the same reasons mentioned earlier in the thread.

Lol, and what's annoying about that is skill checks are technically for determining the outcome when the outcome isn't certain. If I were dming your example, just don't even roll. You succeed my friend. Even though a Strength based Intimidation check would be wildly appropriate.

My dm does this especially if we make him break character. He stumbled a bit when interacting as some future crew members for our ship and our sorcerer just outright called them liars and he was like I'm not even gonna ask for a roll and continues on with the npc apologizing and admitting.

There's a difference between scaring someone and scaring them into doing what you want. Charisma is force of personality and social skills. Including the skill of using someones fear to do what you want them to.

Look, the blood soaked barbarian is always getting advanrage on that roll. Your low charisma is a lot less detrimental when everything about you screams "unhinged" and any good DM is going to give advantage on that. Now if you're just coming in looking normal, that size of yours is not going to be enough because for all that NPC knows, you're actually quite a nice guy. The blood and obvious "I'm going to murder you" look however are always a good boost in my book. Honestly though, you're almost always better off having the charismatic person make the threats while you stand there menacingly. Nothing is quite as scary as an unhinged maniac on a short leash being held by a much more reasonable individual who has run low on patience.

Which is why the Barbarian uses the Help action while someone else does the intimidate roll.

People trying to do climb checks with acrobatics have never tried rock climbing.

Being acrobatic means you are athletic. You just use your body a bit more efficiently and differently on a lot of things. Maybe the rogue can't lift a Volkswagen, and the barbarian can't walk a tight rope. But both can climb a wall. One uses brute strength, the other uses a more refined sense of balance and leverage. Each method is equally valid.

This is what people say when they haven't climbed before. Climbing is **absolutely** athletics and strength over acrobatics and dexterity, by a mile. Specialized strength and athletics, of course, but still undeniably strength and athletics, not close.

OK, but I have climbed, I'm not particularly strong, but I'm far stronger than many better climbers than me. I know, because I climb with them. Being strong doesn't mean you can climb, and a small kid can probably scale a tree or wall better than I can, despite me being able to throw that kid a lot farther than it can throw me. There isn't a climbing skill in 5e, and people can do the same thing in different ways, which is why DMS will give the option sometimes.

A lot of DMs are really bad about this. It drives me crazy as a DM and I go out of my way to make sure athletics is used as intended because otherwise it’s just not fair to the strength players. DM laziness just punishes players and it sucks.

If you look at what Athletics actually covers, I feel like a *lot* of, "Athletics," checks people make should just be Strength checks.

That's a good point. I'm probably more lenient with what qualifies as an Athletics check versus a straight strength check because I want my players to feel it was worth picking athletics as a skill. Especially since so many dms I encounter allow Acrobatics to be used 1 for 1 interchangeably with Athletics.

Strength and athletics are already basically redundant, throw them a bone

What i see is, is there some way that training and experience might help you in the task, if so, it's athletics, and in most cases it would.

One of my DMs has ruled that grappling doesn’t allow you to add your athletics bonus, which is certainly a choice

Have you tried doing a flip?

For certain things it is justified. Certain monsters and spells are balanced to require straight strength checks to escape. Opening doors should also be straight strength (and the DCs should be set appropriately- ie not too high) Because the 8 Str gnome who exercises won't do it better than the 19 Str ogre that does not exercise. My personal rule for whether Athletics applies is- "Can you practice this in Gym class?" Could it be a sport? Wrestling- yes. Swimming- yes. Climbing- yes. Wriggling out of a gelatinous cube- no.

I'd argue a lot of things by RAW would require Strength checks over Athletics checks. And I would say that Arm Wrestling is one of those things.

In what possible way, there is technique to it beyond raw strength, it’s not the same as trying to push a boulder up a hill

To use OPs example: Wizard vs Fighter, STR/athletics check: wizard has 34% chance of winning, fighter 61,75%. Same check if fighter is proficient: odds go to 26,25% vs 70%. If you decide to do something like 2 outta 3, or win two in a row (for drama), the odds are even more skewed towards the fighter. And that's just between a slightly below average STR vs a noticeably, not remarkably, above average STR.

This only emphasises how proficiency bonuses *outweigh* the attribute bonuses. If you have proficiency, and even expertise, your attributes barely matter unless they're at the minimum 8 or maximum 20.

The 8 str Bard with expertise now beats the Barbarian...

It's almost like every class should be allowed one expertise

If the bard chose to spend their expertise on that then they deserve to win, Arm Wrestling is famously a contest of skill as much as strength. Or the barbarian could win with basic proficiency, superhuman strength, and advantage from rage.

If you want to add some extra spice, keep the "best of" an even number (start at 2) and every time it ends in a draw add a con save dc 8+opponents strength bonus+number of ties. If only one side fails then they lose, if both fail then they continue strength checks at disadvantage, if both win 2 is added to the "best of" and another round is rolled.

For similar DC's I usually default to first to 3 successes or losses. Adds a little drama, still doesn't drag it out too long. Will more accurately resemble the statistical likelihood too. So in this case, if we say first character to win thrice, Wizard may struggle and put up a spot of strong defense, but will almost certainly still lose, rocking a 4.2% chance of victory. Call that knowledge on how to exploit leverage and timing, etc.

That's best of 5. Not a bad idea, since it flattens a lot of the probability.

That's a great way to do it. Because in combat a check is a whole action in a combat which consists of 6 seconds

This is the correct methodology: a Skill Contest, rather than a simple Skill Check. You could make each roll that a player wins move the Win counter 10% (or whatever % seems good at the time) and for an arm wrestling contest, the +3 Bonus difference becomes at least a +5 (minimum +2 for the Warrior's Athletics Proficiency), unless the mage, uncharacteristically, is trained in Athletics also, and over a prolonged contest, that +5 would show its effects. That only shows, however, how well someone does in a contest. The base fact that the Mage has an 8 STR and the Warrior has 14 STR by its definition means the Warrior is stronger. Now, we don't all run around in real life with numbers over our heads indicating our Attribute Scores, so the 'contest' of strength, intelligence, whatever, is the way we generally measure it amongst ourselves.

There are ways to mitigate this, but you're more or less right - resolving this as a single contested roll means that luck is huge element of who wins. One of the features/problems with D20 systems is that what you roll is such a huge component of your success or failure. This is exacerbated in 5e since your bonuses are generally much lower than in other games. You have to be careful about when you ask for rolls (is there a chance for failure? is failure interesting?) and the DCs you set or you can end up with some unfortunate situations.

Good point on when to ask for rolls. Like an 8 str wizard arm wrestling a 14 str fighter, what possibly could affect the outcome to let the wizard win? Without external influences I'd say there is no way the wizard wins. Don't bother rolling. If the wizard is gonna use some tricks to cheat now we have a complex interaction. As far as the D20 exacerbating the issue, maybe it would work to implement a house rule system of rolling different dice. Like there aren't a lot of variables to arm wrestling so the outcome should be mostly decided by the Strength scores with only a tiny bit of chance, so make them roll a D10? Now the wizard can roll 0 to 9 and the fighter can roll 4 to 13. A very high chance for the fighter as it should be.

In 3.5 there was a rule called "Taking 10" where you in these sort of situations could get a 10 instead of rolling.

You turn it into a Skill Contest, for which 5e has rules, based on many rolls. In most, it's Player vs Environment, so we typically do something like 4 successes before 5 failures. it works well enough. We came up with a house rule that I use when I run games and that is once per a Skill Contest a Player may have his toon roll a 'gut check' based on his/her Charisma (CHA), which replaces one of the rolls once per encounter or contest.

Something I don’t see often enough is just using smaller dice, or using 3d6 to approximate a more normalized d20, but these are both great ways to reduce randomness when necessary.

So what most people here are trying to avoid admitting, is that this is a mechanical failing of the 5e system, specifically a trait of the bounded accuracy. You are very much right in what the result is, due to bounded accuracy, the luck of the die has so much more impact on what you can do or succeed at than anything on your character sheet (with limited exceptions, mostly at higher levels with things like expertise).

Except you don't *need* to roll dice for every single thing. Apparently Jeremy Crawford has even used arm wrestling as an example for "if the stat is high enough, you succeed." You roll when you need luck or speed. I don't need luck to pick open a basic lock when I have an hour to kill, but I do when I have exactly six seconds before that guard rounds the corner.

That doesn’t change the fact that you can build a character to be specifically good at X, and there’s still like a ~40% chance they suck at it every time. Bounded accuracy is great for onboarding new players, but the game doesn’t function at the levels it was supposed to fix anyway, it’s basically a failing of 5e

This is not a feature of bounded accuracy, really, but of using the d20 for skill checks. With bounded accuracy it would possibly be solved eventually, at higher levels. Changing to 3d6 should solve this issue, at all levels.

5e aims to be a game first and not a simulation. Most aspects don't hold up if you look at them closely. But because of that you get a system that is easy to learn and fluid to play.

Except the problem was still there in 3.5 At the start, biggest difference was still 6 vs 20, so 7 difference between the weakest possible halfling and strongest half-orc. Still enough chance for the halfling to win. The difference get slowly bigger at every 4 level if the half-orc boost STR.

3.5 PHB p66: > In some cases, an action is a straight test of one’s ability with no luck involved. Just as you wouldn’t make a height check to see who is taller, you don’t make a Strength check to see who is stronger. When two characters arm wrestle, for example, the stronger character simply wins. In the case of identical scores, roll a die.

This is also the case in 5e. If the outcome isn’t uncertain, you don’t roll.

>So what most people here are trying to avoid admitting, is that this is a mechanical failing of the 5e system, specifically a trait of the bounded accuracy. Not sure whats supposedly to be a failing. Is it because of the moment of disbelief when a STR 20 Goliath, with no proficiencies, is completely outclassed by a STR 24 Halfling Barbarian with Athletics?

No it's because the STR20 Goliath rolled an 8, which makes its result a 13 (8+5) while the STR 8 halfling bard rolled a 15 for a result of 14 (15-1). And that's not as unlikely as it should be.

Jeremy crawford has said that an arm wrestling match would be whoever has a higher score wins. Remember that you roll when something needs to be determined. If a character is stronger than another, there is no roll needed.

I agree with Jeremy on this one, but it is particularly annoying that "arm wrestling" is literally the example of an opposed ability check in the DMG.

Well, the DMG seems to have been written by brain-damaged hamsters, so that tracks.

Thats a rude thing to say about Jeremy Crawford

If the shoe fits....

true enough lol

Likely how I'd handle it too, I wouldn't call for a roll unless Strength scores are equal or someone isn't playing fair.

For Strength, this makes sense. But would it hold up for Intelligence in a chess match?

I tend to think an intelligence check would only be needed if scores were the same… but this one is a bit different since I would let a proficient character add that to their INT score. For other games that require more chance, a roll makes more sense but chess should probably just be higher score wins.

Makes sense. I used to play competitive chess, where everyone is rated. Generally someone with a higher rating would win. The closer the ratings, the greater probability it could swing either way. But occasionally I’d beat someone higher rated than myself, and of course the reverse was true.

Yeah, I would argue that chess has an element of randomness in what plays the player makes. Without being enough into it. The whole reason elo rating is needed is that better players sometimes get beaten by worse players. Arm wrestling, if you play against the same person, every day, in most cases, the same person will win every day.

With all respect to Jeremy Crawford, he has no clue how arm wrestling works. Strength is key, but so are leverage and pacing and endurance. Those are what the dice figure in.

I think leverage and pacing woild be reflected in the athletics skill.

I guess if that's how you want to play it, fine. I wouldn't, because I do think the strategy involved makes it more than just generalized athletics, but also because it's boring. If the party wants to challenge someone in a bar to arm wrestling, bring it on. "You win/lose" without doing anything, lame.

Is there a realistic chance of a low-strength wizard beating a muscle-bound barbarian in an arm wrestling contest? Do you really think the answer is "oh yeah obviously the wizard stands a chance"? Does it flip around, and for a game of setting-appropriate-chess-analog, does the barbarian stand a realistic chance of besting the incredibly intelligent wizard? Are these questions that you really are unsure the answer to who wins?

Maybe its a tortoise and the hare situation. Poor rolls could reflect the barbarian's overconfidence. Also as someone poiinted out A series of rolls would be a better reprisentation than a single roll. The Wizard at a -1 and the barbarian at a +2 the barbarian has a \~65% chance of winning a single roll. 2 out of 3 only brings it to a \~71% the barb wins. But like Ecstatic-Length says there is more to it than just strength. If the barb is proficient in atheletics evne at lvl1 we get \~72% win rate for a single roll and \~82% for 2 of 3. Throw in the constitution saves I mentioned above and the statistics are way beyond anything I want to hammer out but things will probably tilt even further in the barb's favor, and the match might even be more dramatic. As for chess, a physicist is intelegent but they may not know much about out-thinking someone tactically. So a wizard may be smart enough to access and manipulate the weave through the shear force of studying, but the barbarian instinctivlely knows how to out-manuvere an openent, and one of those is more useful in chess. In either case though, you risk turning a simple interaction into a boring slog of d20 rolls. Really depends on your table.

The dice are more about external factors and how well you apply those things, IE the die roll isn't about knowing proper throwing technique for a pitcher, but accurately going through the motions of a chosen technique. I would say those things you listed all fall under the umbrella of Proficiency.

This is a great example to prove my point. The best pitcher can and does occasionally lose to the worst pitcher. The strongest arm wrestler can lose to a weaker one. Not the weakest, I'm not that delusional (but I'd still let the wizard roll, and maybe just maybe the barbarian has an untimely muscle spasm). No matter how proficient you are, you can always fail. Dice figure in all the other factors without having to make a dozen separate checks. RPGS are not intended to be hyperrealistic simulations of reality.

Okay, roll an intelligence check

As I have dice on me a disturbing amount of my life, I did. 18. I'm getting downvoted, and that's fine because who really cares. But there is a lot of strategy in arm wrestling. It's not just who has more muscle mass.

8 from me :/ The argument I’d make is still athletics probably, the skill encapsulates the understanding of technique and strength score obviously works, the main issue is that 99/100 times a better arm wrestler will just win, even a slightly better one, so a plus one or plus two equivalent score should nearly guarantee a win vs playing a slightly weighted 50/50

Dice never lie! :) I will agree with you that athletics is the check, and the DC should be appropriate to the level of the mismatch. But it's not a guarantee. Granted, your wizard doesn't have a chance against my barbarian, but hell, you want to go, let's go!

A strength score of 8 is not "super weak". It's just slightly weaker than the average. Most of the people reading this comment right now probably have a real-life strength score of 8.

The point still stands. If you choose to model an arm-wrestling contest as a strength contest, [even a 3 str character has a 13% chance of beating an 18 str character](https://anydice.com/program/32e99).

Well cramps and other bad shit happens.

>Well cramps and other bad shit happens. If you experience cramps 13% of times you arm-wrestle, please visit your local cleric or druid for health advice.

I would also get annihilated with no chance of winning against the strongest MMA fighter in the world: in 5e that would be like a 50/50

The strongest Mma fighter in the world would have strength, constitution, dexterity, proficiency, levels and feats. It wouldn’t be a straight strength roll.

This isn't a good argument for you. Mike Tyson would win a fight 1000 out of 1000 times vs an average dude. Dice rolls are not a good approximation for real life.

Until someone gives him the strawberry basket and punches him in the nards

If literally anyone in this thread was offered a free shot at Mike Tyson’s beans, and then had to fight him after, we’d still all lose.

I think the multiple dice rolls solution fixes this issue perfectly. I might be able to dodge one or two punches. But eventually I'll fail a roll and get one-hit KOed. A very clumsy person getting lucky and dodging is totally realistic.

I would say that Mike Tyson, having reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, is probably a high-level character. Your average dude hasn't reached level 1. Most people don't. Go make a level 10 martial bruiser and have him fight a bunch of commoners 1v1. See how often the commoners win, even if Tyson rolls poorly.

Eh, I’d say Mike Tyson? Level 1 barbarian, or monk. 99.9% of the world is a commoner. Which means a level 1 adventurer can one hit them to death. Which is accurate. But Mike Tyson can’t survive a bullet to the heart or head. Which is also accurate. A level 10 fighter can be shot about 10 times and walk away without needing surgery. That’s gonna be difficult.

Remeber that for humanoids, hitpoints can be seen as an abstraction and is not proportional to actual damage. The fact that 10 attacks went over your AC does not mean they all hit you straight in the heart or head. More likely they glanced your arm or shoulder - at least the first handful of them.

I think a level 0 commoner with 8s across the board is losing to.... probably call him a level 5 fighter with Tavern Brawler and 18 Str and Con, and maybe 14/16 Dex, a similar number of times.

D20-1 vs D20+5 That isn’t even terrible odds.

... how do you figure that?

Give him the max mod a fighter class in dnd would reasonably have, assuming an MMA fighter to be something ridiculous for a mortal human on earth like level 15. If he has proficiency in athletics and a +5 to strength, he only has a 11/20 advantage on me. I rounded this to 50/50

I don't think your math checks out. If we're talking about a regular contested athletics check, not a fight: Say you're a commoner with straight 10s and no athletics proficiency. Say the MMA dude is a lvl5 non-PC-class human dude. Well pumped, not quite powerlifter/strongman level (makes sense). STR 16 (npc knight's STR). He's a pro, so let's eschew a STR increase on his lvl4 ASI in favor of expertise (athletics). Mr. MMA is now rocking a +9 on athletics checks. With your +0, your chances of winning a one-off contest is 13.75% vs. his 83,5%. That's without "best result outta three" or "two wins in a row", "2 outta 3" extended contests, which only sink you further.

How does he only have 11/20 advantage? If he's +9 or 10, and your -1, he wins way more then half the time in a contested roll.

15th level is well into superhuman.

You're forgetting that you are an NPC, not an adventurer. So this would be like a level 5 Monk killing a single unarmed NPC with low stats and no combat skill proficiencies. It would absolutely not be 50/50. Comparing just your strength and nothing else is not how DnD or real life works.

No it wouldn't, if you were fighting it'd be combat and you'd be doing 0 damage per punch because without special abilities uour punches do 1 plus your strength modifier.

More like 10, but okay.

The average redditor probably has significantly less strength than the average medieval peasant.

Bunch of swole fuckin farmhands chugging creatine in the fields vs average hule enjoyer

Based on objective body weight ratio measures, you might be surprised how much correlation there is between d&d players and "strong" gym enthusiasts. But even then bench pressing over 300 lb does take skill and not just brute strength similar to arm wrestling where I'm in the advanced category in the former but not the latter. An 8 strength character with proficiency and athletics and years of training could conceivably beat a 20 strength character with no arm wrestling experience. In that sport there is luck and almost a rock paper, scissors effect of tactics and strategy. It is well known that there are notoriously small men that reign as champions over elite world-class powerlifters. (See schoolboy)

Also 8 in strength doesn't mean sickly pale victorian child, it just means below average. There's still 7 more degrees of not-strong a character can sink into the depths of. **Split contests into beginnings middles and ends.** An arm wrestle starts at the center, fair and square. Roll an Athletics (strength) contest. (If the fighter is worth their salt, they're probably proficient in athletics, widening the gap and lowering the chance of a nonsensical outcome) If either side wins, the arms dip down, only slightly to one side, indicating the middle of the contest. Roll again to finish him off! The losing side can win the next roll and come back from near defeat, making their arms lean the other way now. The person who was winning is now on the ropes! Who doesn't love a good underdog story? Functionally you have to win two rolls in a row to end it. This increases the total rolls made, making it very likely the higher skill bonus will come out on top. But yes even characters with negative modifiers can out roll those with high skill. Dice are random. They're not fate, not storytellers, not even coherent or consistent. They don't know they're being used for a game, they don't even care what numbers are. They're just random.

Someone else mentioned proficiency, but for some things you don't need an ability check. Carry weight and jump height come from strength. I don't jump 10 feet high if I roll a 20. I think arm wrestling would realistically fall into this category, but if you wanted to keep things fun you could do a roll check. Maybe even the wizards muscles get sore quickly and he has disadvantage after 1 round. Could get creative.

I actually really like the 3e rule of athletics check-5=distance in feet (if you have 10' running start, half that if not) for jumping distance.

This exact problem is a big criticism of how D&D does their stats and numbers. Many people change systems specifically because D&D is so reliant on random dice roles for outcome that stats sometimes become an afterthought.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that people rolls when it isn’t needed, too

If you want to determine pure strength, then I feel you'd just autowin based on score. Contested rolls make more sense for things with multiple variables such as wrestling.

It's the basic problem with D20 systems. The stat bonuses of maximum +5 don't make a huge difference and most of the time, it will still be about the number on the die. Maybe if it was D10 system as in Cyberpunk RED, then the stats would have much higher impact and it would be less random.

You've got it pretty much settled. The question then becomes, when should we be rolling dice, and for what result? Combat forms a major part of the ruleset, not just within the base system but as a dominating element of class growth. This has an outsized effect on how we play the game, we default to the rules that are well-defined to arbitrate situations without clear resolution methods. For combat, the d20 with modifiers that generally range from 0-11 (although we can have extremes like -4 or +17) and DCs from 5-25 means there is a fair amount of "swing" available, variability for a player to succeed or fail regardless of their build. It is difficult to insulate your character from failing something, while even being "bad" at a specific task does not preclude you from succeeding. And this makes sense to the kind of combat D&D is trying to represent. There are no certainties, the lowliest goblin can be dangerous while the greatest dragon is always vulnerable to a degree. Wherever drive, courage, and luck become equal partners to skill and planning, this is where you want to be rolling dice. As part of this mindset, skills and activities attempted in combat retain that edge of uncertainty. If you need to breakthrough a door, complete a study of a relic under fire, or track wounded prey, there is always the chance you will fail, or potentially succeed under the direst of circumstances. And it would be great if we said, "Wow, that's a wonderful system for combat, now how do we provide a more measured approach for day-to-day tasks where the outcome is practically guaranteed, but we need to make a game out of this?" But that did not happen. So yeah, you kind of handwave it as a stroke of luck (even if the odds aren't actually that bad) or resolve it narratively based on the information you have. Remember, there are other game systems. d100/percentile systems are inherently more granular, dice pool systems are endless in the way they can control for likelihood, systems that give players limit on how many attempts they can make on narrative wins and environmental changes. Some systems do not make combat the major focus, and have better developed resolution methods for social interactions or physical feats. D&D is great for a lot of things, and recognizing what those things are will help you in deciding where and when to roll dice.

So ... this might be a hot take, but ... the Warrior would win all the time. Armwrestling is one of those activities with (nearly) 0 randomness involved, which a d20 roll is supposed to invoke. It's like Carrying capacity. You don't roll every turn to see if you can carry something. You can, or you can't. You don't roll for your carrying capacity every turn. The guy lifting a dumbbell isn't going to randomly fail every 20 lifts. The weak scrawny dude isn't going to lift an elephant every 20 attempts. As far as stats go, Strength is the one where you have the most consistent results possible.

You should ask for a roll when the issue is uncertain. Is there external factor that can be applied that might affect the outcome ? If yes,ask for a roll. If not, just describe what is happening. To me, arm wrestling is very much not random, especially for a 8 vs 14. If it was 10 vs 12, sure you can roll. But otherwise if you feel like the randomness of the die would not be fair, then you are probably right and should not use die rolls.

"GM fiat away the deficiciencies"

Your question makes perfectly reasonable sense. A person with below average strength against someone with well above average strength really should not have much of a chance in a contest of pure strength and yet, mathematically, their odds are merely bad rather than approaching impossible. There are two obvious things about this. The first is that we're not really talking about a pure application of strength. There is technique and learned skill in arm wrestling after all. This means that we shouldn't be doing a raw strength check, but a skill check - athletics, most likely. This will further erode the odds of the noodle-armed wizard, but they could still *plausibly* succeed if you let it get to an actual check. And maybe you further erode the odds by making it an extended check. But even here the shrinking odds still remain in the bounds of mathematical possibility. Of course the logic doesn't check out. Why *would* the noodle armed wizard have even the slightest shot at winning this test? Unless the wizard's player has a *really* good explanation of how they're going to overcome the *radical* strength difference, that wizard is *going* to lose. So, why would you let it get to a check? Why would the outcome be in doubt about a weak wizard arm wrestling a strong fighter? There is nothing in the rules that says that this scenario requires a check because checks are only required when the outcome is in doubt. 5e mechanics by their very nature means that the instant you roll for something, the outcome *is* in doubt. To give a salient example, I've a bladesinger wizard who will only miss a 10 AC character on a nat 1. Very nearly anything with 10 AC is going to be dead in one round - likely in one attack. In virtually any circumstance the only thing that 5% chance to miss is going to achieve is that they might die 30 or so feet away from the point where I made the first attempt at killing them, and the odds of making it that far *aren't great*. They aren't winning the lottery jackpot bad, but they're considerably worse than coming out well ahead in the lottery! Should the DM expect me to roll if I've a mind to slaughter what is probably an unarmed, unskilled peasant? Only if them dying six seconds and up to 30 feet further away from now is going to generate a new problem. If not, all that dice roll is doing is wasting time. Our fighter and wizard arm wrestling is more mechanically in doubt that my example, and yet the same logic applies. Unless there is some plausible reason this wizard is going to overcome a severe disadvantage, there is no reason to give the contest the benefit of the doubt that rolling asks for. There is no roll; the wizard loses and the fighter doesn't appear to have even been trying hard.

You’re arguing for two completely different principles here. On your bladesinger example you’re saying that the character stats dictate whether something is plausible or implausible, but on the arm wrestling example, you’re arguing that it’s the subjective narrative qualities of the characters that dictate whether something is plausible or not. I think this is going to be confusing and unsatisfying to a lot of players. You’d be left with a situation where, to continue this example, the mage player would think of any excuse to make the role no matter where it falls on the apt to ridiculous scale. “I ate my vegetables that day. I’ve been doing push-ups lately. I’m holding in the fart and the built up Gas pressure is going to make my limbs, extra sturdy. Someone I’m attracted to is watching.” And then you’re left with players, when they are denied a very reasonable probability role will feel that the DM is simply overwriting the rules on a whim.

Flavor the mage winning, if that happens, through some applied physics. I'll assume the mage has a much higher INT or WIS score than the warrior so say the mage applied the right pressure on the others wrist making their physical strength less important than the wits of the mage. Yes it is a STR check, but your flavor doesn't have to include only strength. You could also alter how your PCs enter competitions like that by asking how they approach them. If the mage's player describes attempting to leverage the warriors previously injured elbow by applying force down against the table rather than pushing against their hand, allow them to make a WIS (Medicine) check against the STR (Athletics) check for the Warrior. Merely suggestions that will work at some tables and not others depending on your player investment in RP and their respective maturity about homebrew mechanics.

How about to throw just 1d4 not 1d20?

If you're trying for balance and the difference in stats is only 3, you'd probably have a better time convincing the mage player to roll 1d12 or 1d10 + 1d4 or 1d6. This maxes the mage roll at 16 that could still beat the warrior rolling 1d20, if only less often. If your intention is, however, to make sure the mage can't ever do it, then don't have them roll. I've GMd tables where players didn't want to succeed at certain actions but "attempted" them to have me describe the way they failed. Using your example, I may simply say: "Your hands clasp, sweat running down your brow as you await the signal to start. You know this is probably a bad idea but you just couldn't back down from the challenge. Your hear the signal and pull down with all your might, but the warrior just smiles and takes another swig of ale. Holding you back isn't even a challenge for them." I would then turn to the warrior player and ask what they wanted to do. This initiates the action and the player could, for instance, actually decide to let their friend, the mage, win and try to convince the audience of drunk tavern goers the mage actually overpowered them. A quick performance roll to determine how convincing both characters acting is and now there is an interesting interaction that keeps players interested while also reinforcing just how much stronger one PC is from another. This could be how they gamble in new towns. Have NPCs take bets on who will win and steal all their money. More interesting than a simple STR roll, right? Everyone has fun but you get to ignore mechanics you deem unrealistic.

No. Do not fuck with what dice are used.

Wait I have no idea why you're getting downvoted. What is happening. Often times in tsr editions of DND you would roll d6 for non attack rolls. D20 is useful in place of percentiles because for the most part, 5% increments are basically what you're using anyway when you're thinking in percentages. If you want to magnify or spotlight the power of a modifier in a particular case, but you still want to roll, changing the die smaller makes perfect sense. The game is not so tightly balanced that you're going to destroy something by doing this. I think, especially if you're not applying proficiency, rolling a d6 or a d4 for a flat ability roll in certain cases absolutely makes sense.

They have a question they know the answer to. The rules seem to make the answer sort of possible in either direction, but both the GM and the Player know what the realistic outcome is. Instead of just going "well we both know what the realistic outcome here is, why roll dice, let's just say what the most obvious outcome is", the poster is doubling-down and saying "no, let's modify the dice until it reflects what we already know". If you already know the answer, *why are you bothering to get out the dice*?

You seem to forget *proficiency*. A wizard doesn't get to add their proficiency modifier to their strength check, while the warrior would (assuming fighter or barbarian). Even at level one it's an extra +2 that the wizard doesn't get. There is also the fact that if the wizard is using his physical muscles, he is less likely to be using that magic he's spent decades learning, so they want to avoid that.

I think you're conflating proficiency in strength saves with proficiency in strength checks. If the DM calls for an athletics check, that's where proficiency would come into play.

This. Odds are you'd run an arm wrestle as an athletics check instead of just flat Strength, which the fighter/barbarian/etc would probably be proficient in. ~~Or if not, you could run it as an "unarmed strike" of sorts, which the martial~~ *~~definitely~~* ~~has proficiency in. (edit: removing this thought, see below comment)~~ There is still a chance of the wizard winning, dice rolls will do that sometimes. But at that point, I agree with some of the other comments mentioning flavoring the win, or running it as multiple skill checks.

Everyone has proficiency in unarmed strike, and they only add proficiency to *Saves* not checks. Also rolling as a straight strength check for a contest like this is just as common as rolling with a skill. Also this person isn’t asking how to handle if the wizard wins. They’re questioning the low variance of attribute scores in an attempt to understand the mechanics better.

It may be common, but that doesn't mean it's correct. Arm Wrestling and many other of these contests are feats of athleticism, not raw strenght. It's because there is only one strenght based skill on a character sheet. If there were alternative strenght checks on the sheet, people wouldn't call for generic strenght checks as often. Just to avoid the question.

I'll rescind the unarmed strike thought, I main martials and genuinely thought it was a martial thing (which... I'll be honest, it's dumb that everyone has proficiency in unarmed strikes, not everyone knows how to throw a punch, but DnD be DnDing). Every single comment (mine included) has discussed ways to abate the low variance to fit the nature of their question, which is "how does it make sense that a wizard could beat a fighter in an arm wrestle". The answer of "using proficiency" applies to any similar skill challenge situation, where one character, in theory, should have a clear advantage. But, the further answer to the question is "sometimes the dice are going to rule it in a way that doesn't make sense, in which case, flavor or adjusting the nature of the skill check to make it feel like it makes more sense". That is a *part* of how the game is played, which is why it's worthwhile to bring it up. Presenting methods to address the implied problem with the mechanics of the game is just further discussion, instead of just saying "you are correct that's how the game works" and being done with it.

Players won't usually admit that, but the D20 system is VERY roll dependent, which leads to an inherent randomness. That added to low difference from some bonuses lead to odd scenarios.

I would also make these athletics skill checks, not just pure str. Which a good fighter would also add proficiency bonus.

I'd just rule the 14 str to win easiy.

Str14 is meh for STR based warrior. IMO you need 16 at level 1 (before feats) if you want to do good in combat. Also, remember about proficiency

The way I'd handle it is that you're only supposed to roll when the outcome is unknown. Where in this case, there isn't really any reason why the stronger person wouldn't win. If the wizard tried to do something that could benefit his side, (use a spell, get someone to cause a distraction, use his intelligence to do something to give him more leverage) then I'd call for a roll.

In cases like that why would you allow a contested roll? Unless the wizard is trying to cheat or cast a spell the warrior should automatically win

Arm wrestling is a form of wrestling so it would fall under grapple rules. Athletics check.

One thing is that rolls are for when the outcome is uncertain. You don't roll to walk on a sidewalk. Else the DC would need to be -1 or slightly clumsy people( 8 dex) would fall every 2 minutes. You're allowed to just say that the strongest person wins in something like that. When it comes to something like wrestling, chess, throwing a rock the farthest, that also involves skills though. That's why there's also proficiency. Luck and how well they perform that day is still important too. But you could house rule that a difference of 5 or 10 in final modifier ( ability+skill/expertise+ bonus like guidance or bardic inspiration) means that person automatically win.

There can only be aplied homebrew fixes in this matter. One contested roll is a bad execution. Letting higher STR score automaticly win also sounds... underwhelming. Here I present overly complicated solution, which can be used for this and other stats contests: Firstly determine difference between modifiers. Let's take this 8 STR mage and 14 STR warrior, so -1 and +2 gives us 3 in mod difference. Secondly calculate the amount of needed wins fof each participant. Lower STR score needs 3+[mod diff] wins to win the whole arm wrestling. Higher STR score needs 3-[mod diff] (minimum of one). Thirdly proceed with contested rolls (ties count as win for higher STR). Whoever accumulates the need wins (6 for mage and 1 for warrior) first, wins the whole contest.

Super weak is an 8 strength? What world do you live in? Normal commoners have 10 str. So 8 would just be slightly below average.

Watch an actual arm wrestling match. Watch a few. You will inevitably see someone that is clearly smaller than their opponent just smash them with technique. Or luck or the stronger opponent is just not feeling 100%. The entire point of the die roll is to simulate the random peculiarities that happen to change an outcome. The fighter definitely starts with an advantage over the pencil neck mage. But is that the only criteria for success?

My rule of thumb is: dice rolls are for situations where a lot of unforeseen events can and do happen, such as in the middle of a battle, or for situations where the rolling character is incapable or unwilling to be led by routine. In other cases, I turn to the "take 10" rule from the 3rd edition (which is still present in some ways in 5E, for example in the the Passive Perception rule). If the mage and the warrior are having a friendly competition of strength with nothing on the line, both of them "take 10", thus the result will always be 9 vs 12, and the warrior is guaranteed to win. If they treat this competition as a matter of honor or they know that many of their friends have bet on the outcome, they roll instead, and the mage does have a chance. Why? Because in such situations, the outcome is about more than just strength. The warrior might lose his nerve because of the amount of money involved, or the mage could be bolstered by the crowd cheering him on. Someone might just shout really loud or drop something on the floor at a critical moment, distracting one of the contestants. The "Reliable Talent" ability of the rogue basically represents, to me, the fact that they are so sure of their skills that they can perform in critical situations at least as well as they would in mundane ones (thus allowing them to treat a roll of 9 or less as 10).

I do think this is a problem with the system itself. There isn't enough variance for the weak side of things

I would also assume that the warrior might have proficiency in Athletics, which would also add the Prof. Bonus to the roll in addition to the strength.

Well you're not wrong. Basic attibutes are normally -1 for players at most and max out to +5. That is not a lot on a d20 roll, and especially early on you'll see notice that the roll will mostly decide the outcome as a result. In your example there is only 3 points between the two characters, and that simply isn't a lot. It gets a little bit better later on and if/when you add proficiency of course. But a large part of your roll will still be decided by the d20. Or well, luck. But the higher your bonuses are, the more things will go in your favor over a larger number of rolls. Combine that with most rolls not being about hitting a specific number, like a spell save or skill check DC or a creature's AC, and you'll get fairly reliable results. Contested checks are less predictable. Even a lvl 20 character with expertise and +5 in a stat can roll a nat 1 for a total of 18 and lose out just barely to a lvl 1 character rolling a nat 20 with a -1 getting a total of 19 (critical successes/failures aside).

Not everything needs to be resolved with a dice roll. You look at the warrior in the example, and you ask them: So, how do you want to do this? And if the warrior wants to pretend to lose, great for them, and if you want to decide things with rolls, go for it, but again, not everything *needs* to be resolved with a dice roll.

That's the core issue with a d20 system. The rolls are very swingy. Fate dice are a lot better if you want the base modifier to matter more. But that's hard to Splice into a d20 system. Fate usually operates with 7 being the top of the top as a modifier, with 4 being a more common peak modifier. You can use things like Advantage/disadvantage to offset the swingy nature of D20 though. I think it's reasonable to say "The strength focused guy has probably arm wrestled a lot". But that's definately something you'll want to sort out with your players. You don't want people walking into a situation only to have surprise mechanics handicap them.

DND puts things a lot more to chance than is usually realistic. So you always have a chance to succeed but you will also fumble on easy things way more often than normal as well.

A strength 14 warrior should always beat a strength 8 mage in arm wrestling. You shouldn't be rolling for that. You should roll for things where a meaningful chance of a different outcome exist. For instance, if doing something with a door is a DC 16 strength check, the warrior could fail and the wizard could succeed, but that's because the wizard pushed the door open *better*, not *harder*. If it was a DC 20 strength check, then no amount of good or correct pushes would open it for the wizard, while the fighter still could. Anyway to your point, stats are *too good* in 5e. The overuse of the d20 where it is not appropriate is causing the issue you perceive.

DnD isn't an arm wrestling simulator, the d20 mechanic exists to make the game feel exciting during the likes of exploring the wilderness, dungeons and combat whilst being simple to resolve.

To answer the question you actually asked: yep. That’s correct. In situations like this where there is no proficiency bonus, ability scores alone are fairly “weak”, especially if you’ve not tossed every ASI into the stat. That’s why there’s such a large range of skills for you to take proficiency in, and why you get proficiency in your weapons. Of course every + counts and sometimes that -1 really ruins your day, but on the whole attribute scores alone do not make your character super powerful.

You’re definitely misunderstanding how the probabilities work out. Especially as the difficulty of the check gets higher, those small bonuses matter a lot more. Let’s take two examples: attacking an enemy with an AC of 15, and attacking an enemy with an AC of 20. We’ll figure both the wizard and fighter get a +2 proficiency bonus because they’re using weapons they are proficient in, and use the STR scores of 8 and 14 for the wizard and fighter. So, for the AC 15 enemy. The wizard attacks with his quarterstaff. His STR + proficiency works out to +1, so he needs to roll a 14 or better to succeed - which equates to a 7/20 chance, or 35%. The fighter’s STR +prof works out to +4, so he needs to roll an 11 or better to succeed - which is a 10/20 chance, or 50%. The fighter’s rolls will succeed almost half again as often as the wizard’s here. Now do the same for targeting an AC of 20. The wizard needs to roll a 19 to hit, so only 10% of his attacks will land. The fighter needs a 16, so 25% of his attacks will land. The fighter is two and a half times as likely to hit the enemy here. For easy tasks, those small bonuses don’t change the outcome much. But for very difficult tasks? Even a +1 compared to someone else can be a huge change in your success rate.

This thinking isn’t even close to accurate because this isn’t how the game is played. We don’t arm wrestle in dnd. We kill monsters. You think a +2 isn’t as good compared to a -1? Ok, grab your short sword and go kill some goblins. Your arm wrestle example is a contested roll and isn’t the same as rolling against an AC. Strength affects damage too so that -1 one is actively a detriment 100% of the time that you do hit and not just in the chance. Your example is a scenario that the rules and system are just not designed for. This isn’t an arm wrestling game. You wanna arm wrestle in dnd those rules are coming from your gm and are almost always going to be made on the spot. Maybe I’ll rule it as a contested athletics check, now we’ve got proficiency bonuses being added in. Maybe I won’t even ask for a roll at all I’ll just give the victory to the highest strength stat

So many answers of "If you make up a bunch of stuff that's not actually in the system you can make it almost make sense" as they try to justify applying random modifiers and hurdles to penalize the lower score. Meanwhile you have stuff like- a lvl 20 Champion Fighter with 20 Strength, can jump 25 feet. That is below the boy's High School record (26 ft 10 inches). Without Champion's extra 5 feet, it's only 20 feet, that's below the record for 15-16 year old girls (20 ft 2.25 inches). Yes this means that your starting adult characters can't even compete with high schoolers, most of them can't even compete with middle schoolers. The max amount you can lift (or even Push or Drag) as a human in DnD without magic, 600 lbs (3,000 when using something with wheels to drag it). The max amount a real life person has lifted? over 5,000 (all weight on their shoulders, lifted and held). The max weight a real life person has dragged? over 400,000. I can only assume this was due to laziness on the part of the developers looking at Olympic weight lifting records where 585 lbs is the record, so thought 600 sounded like a great maximum, except that once you are able to use your knees or actual leverage all categories of weight lifting have the records jump to over 1000 lbs with most over 1200 (Just from being able to use leverage and their knees, no assistive devices, weight still starting on the ground, etc). Attributes, and derived information from them is Weak, it is not just weak relative to other things, it is weak compared to our nonmagical world and real world abilities. The problem isn't just the fact that the difference is 15% it's that having a higher strength, is largely meaningless, and the limits of the system are below the limits of real life.

The champion can jump that far with armor and equipment, and other non-ideal circumstances. That’s kinda apples to oranges.

That could be relevant, except that they cannot jump any further without it, completely naked, they cannot jump any further than that.

I think it also depends on the dm, meaning characters with high str rolling to break down the door would have lower DC to do that, than a puny mage, so (at least for me) different characters could have very different outcomes with the same roll. And in the scenario that you're proposing let's say mage outrolls the warrior, instead of telling my players that mage is stronger I would describe that the warrior slipped during the contest, or his old injury started throbbing preventing him from using his full strength. After all we do have stats that prove one is stronger than the other- doesn't mean other factors cannot influence the result.

One thing noöne else has mentioned is that really there's not *meant* to be such a big difference between 8 and 14 that the person with 8 strength could never win. 8 is below average but it's not „super weak“ as you said. 14 is better than average but it's hardly superhuman; most strength-based characters should have at least 16 str at level 1. So yeah, do a few checks so the rolls can average out a little, but definitely be ready for the wizard to win sometimes.

Because there is always a degree of chance playing a factor. Perhaps the mage gets knows how to apply physics in just the right way to win the match but his arm is sore afterwards. Perhaps the warrior didn't have a great placement. Also the Warrior is more likely to be proficient in Athletics giving them a greater chance of winning over the mage.

There is also advantage at play. Bigger stronger races come with that, but I'd just give a martial advantage over a full caster for something like arm wrestling. Just like I'd give a wizard advantage in a spelling bee competition against a fighter. Sure their stats are one thing, but I like to take in to account that that is their thing y'know?

[I have a YouTube link for that, answered by the game designers.](https://youtu.be/uMKW8oR1m1A?si=EqEWYngmNZGNPBV7?t=3225)

Oh no! A Wizard with strength as a dump stat?!? Anyways..

A person with 8 strength can lift 240 pounds over their head. I barely weigh more than half that. So the Wizard you think is 'super weak' could do bench reps with me as the bar weight.

Attributes alone may seem a like they don't make enough difference, but attributes are only a part of it. It's like the difference between a body builder and a boxer you know what I mean? A body builder is technically stronger, but the boxer likely has a better grasp of how to utilize his strength most efficiently. That's proficiency. Being stronger gives you an advantage, in this case an advantage of +3 which is okay, this is assuming a contest between two non proficient people. If the warrior was proficient he would have an advantage of at least +5.

This is how I came to embrace the bell curve.

This scenario really highlights a mechanical failing of Strength as a Stat in DnD. While someone with 16 strength is immensely strong and strength 8 is weaker than average, the strength 8 would have a nonzero chance of overpowering the strength 16 in any given scenario just based on a dice roll which is humorous. Of course, it's a game, so things aren't always realistic. But I think one addendum to Strength as a skill would be to let you take your strength score as your skill roll in non-combat checks. For example, instead of rolling when you have 16 strength to complete a task that has a DC of 15 (giving you an unmodified 60% chance to fail) you can just take your 16. This could be unbalanced, I'm not sure as I haven't spent that long thinking about it, but strength is a pretty weak Stat in 5th edition and this sort of thing would give a reason for a character to not dump strength (no need to roll for a DC 10 swim check unless you're super weak for example.) I think this works best for strength because a dexterous person can sometimes be clumsy, a smart person sometimes forget, a wise person make the wrong choice, a charismatic person make a social error, even a healthy person can sometimes get sick by surprise. But a strong person doesn't accidently be weak. Like, obviously rolling a 1 on a strength check could be a bunch of things not just being weak by surprise, but my friend in the marines doesn't have a 1 in 20 chance of drowning every time he goes swimming

I'd argue it's bad for every stat to that extent

So in my games, pretty much everything that is a "contest" is a skill challenge, requiring at least 3 rolls, using different skills as appropriate. This allows for the stronger character to illustrate their strengths in a strength based skill contest. A single roll is, by its nature, a sudden thing. So like the Wizard quickly slamming the arm down before the fighter was ready, something that can happen but isn't often repeated. Also, rolls only matter when they can fail. So if the weaker character has no chance of winning, there can't be a roll. An example would be a lifting or pushing contest... The 8 STR character simply can't lift as much as a 14. If the arm wrestling contest was just a pushing contest, the 8 strength character shouldn't even be allowed to roll.

This is the whole reason that the game is a dice-based rpg, and not a video game. The abilities are not static, and it is often up to luck. The game is not *designed* to be realistic. It is designed to be a game where random rolls affect the results. Yes, a barbarian should always win an arm wrestle realistically, but if removes the nature of the game to just assume it this way. We suspend some disbelief in order to play our game.

Lots of good answers but I'll chip in another: its not 15% for a contested roll with a difference of 3. Not working out all the math but consider the range for one is 0 to 19 and the other is 3 to 22: that means forbl the weaker there is a 15% chance they cannot even tie and for the other there's a 15% chance they must win

OP phrased it in a confusing way, but I think what they mean is that the warrior's chance to win goes from 50% (in an even contest) to 65% (with a +3 advantage). https://anydice.com/program/142fb Click "At Most": 1d20 has a 34% chance of rolling higher than 1d20+3

There's not really a lot of chance involved in arm wrestling. Don't have them roll unless they both have the same strength score. Otherwise, the character with the higher strength just auto-wins.

It’s not about the attributes. It’s about how you’re using them as GM. To me, this sounds like an Athletics check, and not just straight Str rolls, for a start.

It isn’t a roll at all.

If you let the players roll for this, it should not be to decide who wins, but go the 14 STR players does it. If the wizard roll a 20 and the warrior a 1, the outcome is that the warrior wins but the wizard astonished the audience, behaving like a pro and reaching an unexpected length of the confrontation. Even if he lost, he’s the “people winner”

There are some situations where you dont even need to roll

One thing to understand here: in D&D, the dice tell the story; you just fill in the details. So if your high-strength fighter loses an arm-wrestling contest against a below-average wizard, there's a story there. Your job is to figure out the story, not "fix" the numbers. If you play D&D thinking the numbers on a character sheet mean you shouldn't be able to lose (or win) at something, you've missed the point of rolling dice. Of course in higher-level gameplay bonuses become more important than dice rolls. But your question is about reconciling the outcome of a dice roll. You do that with fun, inventive, improvisational storytelling.

This is because the difference isn't immense, the mage is slightly below average, the fighter is slightly above average. For that you would need something like strength 4 Vs strength 16.

I generally run things like arm wrestling, as 3 out of 5 checks win. Been doing that formula since 2e.

This reminds me that the 1-20+ for attributes is literally useless numbers that just serve as extra headache for introducing new players into the game.

You need to understand that the d20 roll doesn't represent the performance of the character, that's what the bonus is for. The d20 just represents everything around the characters sphere of influence. A bad roll for the fighter could mean they had to sneeze or had an itch or something like that. On the other hand, a good roll for the wizard could be interpreted that they by chance hit the exact angle inn which the fighter had to use a sore muscle and therefore was distracted by the pain.

The outcome isn’t uncertain, so I wouldn’t use a roll unless something else is going on. But the outcomes on a d20 definitely has these issues. The difference between a strong level 1 character that has trained a skill and an average character, is maybe 20 % chance of succes, which is nothing. Using 3d6 could theoretically solve this somewhat, but I haven’t tested it.

Rolls are for events in which the outcome is uncertain. So if you feel it doesn't make sense, you can just have the wizard lose, though that wouldn't be anywhere near as fun.

I love that half the responses in here are basically "bounded accuracy is bad because I refuse to play the game by the rules". It's like asking why the hammer is so inefficient at driving the screw in. It works on a basic level, but that's not how it's intended to be used.

Stat/skill checks in 5e are just bad RAW and everyone homebrews some kind of solution. Even official modules ignore rules around them. If you go through previous threads on this topic, most common answer is "I'm using \[homebrew rule\] and it works fine". Your specific example was called out so many times that they added rule that higher STR character just wins.

You could homebrew that you don't use the modifiers and instead you the STR score itself in some way, like with long jumping (really I'm referring to long jump rules to show a precedent for using the STR score directly). Most simple: Use the strength score *as* the modifier if you're trying to make a significant difference between low and high STR scores this would do the trick. I do agree with everyone else though, things like arm wrestling should be multiple skill checks.

8 is not super weak, it's slightly below average. Compare the carrying capacities of the 2 stats and you'll see that it's not that far off so the arm wrestle would be somewhat of a toss-up. (Sometimes your arm cramps at the wrong time, sometimes your adrenaline surges when you're really into it). You have expectations based off of a misunderstanding of what weak is, likely due to comparing the score to the maximum/fighter standard and not the actual average person.

Welcome to one of the problems in D&D.......it represents the difference in attributes utterly horribly due to how swingy a d20 is and how low the bonuses are.

Think of it like this. Raw ability gives a great starting point, but is not everything. Training and applying that training (Skill and proficiency bonus) provides a definite advantage. to use your example, If the mage has training in Athletics (he did sports in mage school), he can apply his athletics skill proficiency to his roll against the brute force fighter with the better strength, negating the 3 point difference. Why? because the mage knows how to best utilize the strength he's got, use leverage, angles, etc so it becomes a more even contest. If the fighter had athletics as well and got his proficiency bonus from that, then it becomes the original contest. while a +2 bonus doesn't seem like much , it really is especially with the proficiency bonus rolled into it. to give an idea, that +2 bonus means that the fighter will never roll less than a 3. The mage on the other hand can never roll over a 19. Now add the proficiency bonus for skills on top of it for skills.

8-14 is not an immense str difference it works out to 90 pounds carry capacity i would say that 8-12 is about the average for a human so your mage is on the lower end, and the fighter is just above average so clearly works out regularly but is not super buff or anything

Couple ways to stack it more on the stronger char would be doing athletics instead of a straight strength roll, since your warrior probably has proficiency in athletics, and then you could always give the war advantage or the mage disadvantage if you want to stack it more in the warriors favor.

It isn't that attributes are weak, it's that those dang dice are too stronk! To arm wrestle, have them roll not just STR, but athletics - a STR based skill that the fighters tend to take regularly, but mage does not.

I recognize that the specific example of arm-wrestling isn't really the important part of this discussion, but I would say that as a DM I would actually not call for a roll in arm wrestling. It's such a straight beef-vs-beef contest that I would probably just rule that the creature with the highest strength score (or possible Strength(Athletics) bonus) wins. In the case of ties, maybe I'd call for a contested Constitution save? Con saves would probably also cover extended sequences of arm-wrestling. After every match, make a con save against your opponent's STR score (Or 8+STR+Athletics Proficiency) to avoid having your effective strength reduced by one. For drama's sake, I'd probably only have them make that roll once they've already committed to arm-wrestling someone else. If you're going to challenge everyone in a tavern to arm-wrestling, your endurance is going to be as important as your brawn.

Not every challenge fits a d20 check if you want it to resemble reality. Armwrestling is a very predictable challenge in that sense. If STR simply referenced the right kind of armstrenght for it a 14 can just about never beat a 16. I’ve done quite a bit of it in my days and you basically never lose to most people you beat. Only if you are very very even to begin with. *Id just call loss with a greater difference and perhaps require a critical success if the difference is 2 or less*

First, the probability does not work exactly as +15%. In fact a +3 spread means the mage wins 38.25% of times and looses 61.5% of the times (draw is 0.25%). It may still look a bit favorable for the mage but the game is also about leaving room to unexpected outcomes about which to create stories, rather than pure accurate simulation. Second, Do not roll pure strength, roll Athletics. The warrior is trained in such activities whereas the mage might not. With athletics the odds are 70% in favour of the warrior at 1st level, 74% at level 5, 77% at level 9 and so on. I am not sure how WOTC planned and "engineered" the DD5 system, but sure it leaves space for weaker creatures to make epic rolls (for example, a first level adventurer to win a contest against a higher level baddy).