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Is my DM being fair?
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<blockquote data-quote="Harzel" data-source="post: 7413339" data-attributes="member: 6857506"><p>I agree that having a +5 bonus to anything at level 1 is pretty big. However, to get that via Observant, you have to allow feats AND variant humans. I guess that the reason that Observant features such a large bonus is because it applies only to two specific skills - sort of an issue of being narrow and deep.</p><p></p><p>Also, just because a PC is very perceptive, that does not make her omniscient. Perception is always restricted by range at some point, and other factors could, at the DM's discretion, grant bonuses to the Stealth of would be ambushers. Just make sure you are ready to grant the same sort of bonuses to PC stealthing if they copy the tactics.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't share your distaste for auto-success. There are lots of situations in the game where, theoretically, there is a small chance of failure, but we don't bother making a check. Moving along the continuum a bit, it does not seem unreasonable to me that there are some tasks at which one PC's skill might be advanced enough that failure is effectively precluded whereas the outcome for a less skilled PC might be uncertain.</p><p></p><p>At the risk of putting words in your mouth, it sort of seems like the situation in which this bugs you is when it is so widely applicable in the context of a particular adventure that it seems like the PC has brought a phaser to a knife fight. I would tend to look at that as a problem with the adventure, not the PC.</p><p></p><p>Also, it is probably relevant that I never touched 3.5 or Pathfinder and so am much less sensitized to numbers inflation and do not embrace bounded accuracy as an absolute good.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree that the DM should not allow the feat and then render it completely useless. However, if the feat exists, then it is a thing in the world, and (in my world) sufficiently adept NPCs will have the means to compete with it at least to some degree.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I see how you could get to 20 more or less; I don't see how you get to 40 without a crit.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Depends on the social contract in the group.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I can empathize with some disappointment when a lot of challenges that you thought were going to be hard for the PCs turn out to be trivial. But I usually try to take those as learning experiences: despite the fact that as DM, the world is supposedly mine, in some cases I am still learning how it operates. So, yeah, the fictional persons who built that last dungeon might not have been totally on the ball, but whoever built the next one might well have been more aware of the existence of extremely perceptive creatures. Of course, their countermeasures will still be subject to considerations such as time and materials costs, cost/benefit trade off, and the need to not fall victim to their own traps, so they are unlikely to be uniformly resistant to the perceptive PC's skills.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Harzel, post: 7413339, member: 6857506"] I agree that having a +5 bonus to anything at level 1 is pretty big. However, to get that via Observant, you have to allow feats AND variant humans. I guess that the reason that Observant features such a large bonus is because it applies only to two specific skills - sort of an issue of being narrow and deep. Also, just because a PC is very perceptive, that does not make her omniscient. Perception is always restricted by range at some point, and other factors could, at the DM's discretion, grant bonuses to the Stealth of would be ambushers. Just make sure you are ready to grant the same sort of bonuses to PC stealthing if they copy the tactics. I don't share your distaste for auto-success. There are lots of situations in the game where, theoretically, there is a small chance of failure, but we don't bother making a check. Moving along the continuum a bit, it does not seem unreasonable to me that there are some tasks at which one PC's skill might be advanced enough that failure is effectively precluded whereas the outcome for a less skilled PC might be uncertain. At the risk of putting words in your mouth, it sort of seems like the situation in which this bugs you is when it is so widely applicable in the context of a particular adventure that it seems like the PC has brought a phaser to a knife fight. I would tend to look at that as a problem with the adventure, not the PC. Also, it is probably relevant that I never touched 3.5 or Pathfinder and so am much less sensitized to numbers inflation and do not embrace bounded accuracy as an absolute good. I agree that the DM should not allow the feat and then render it completely useless. However, if the feat exists, then it is a thing in the world, and (in my world) sufficiently adept NPCs will have the means to compete with it at least to some degree. I see how you could get to 20 more or less; I don't see how you get to 40 without a crit. Agreed. Depends on the social contract in the group. I can empathize with some disappointment when a lot of challenges that you thought were going to be hard for the PCs turn out to be trivial. But I usually try to take those as learning experiences: despite the fact that as DM, the world is supposedly mine, in some cases I am still learning how it operates. So, yeah, the fictional persons who built that last dungeon might not have been totally on the ball, but whoever built the next one might well have been more aware of the existence of extremely perceptive creatures. Of course, their countermeasures will still be subject to considerations such as time and materials costs, cost/benefit trade off, and the need to not fall victim to their own traps, so they are unlikely to be uniformly resistant to the perceptive PC's skills. [/QUOTE]
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