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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5714926" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>I think this is a good example of the inherent problems with <em>so</em> much number scaling in 3 & 4E as you advance in levels. You want a standardized DC chart to reflect the difficulties of climbing any particular surface. However, because (in 4E for example) the numbers to PCs skills creep so high that as Ryujin said... by mid-Paragon a good PC no longer needs to roll to succeed. Thus we've lost a possible avenue for dramatic tension.</p><p></p><p>The only other option therefore is to make the DCs for climbing fluid... so that as a PC becomes more skilled, they still are required to make Climb checks. But at that point we get the situation where a wall that was a certain DC at 1st level has now morphed into a wall that is this new higher DC... not necessarily because the wall is more difficult, but merely because the DM wanted to present a challenge to the PC. It breaks a lot of reality in that way (unless the DM tries to get around it by taking standard DC walls and then modifying the DCs by throwing all kinds of oils, wind, darkness etc. etc. in attempts to raise the DCs so they present a challenge... but at some point when every wall is like that, it becomes kinda stupid).</p><p></p><p>It's a catch-22. How do you create DCs for non-supernatural events that don't become obsolete at some point because a PC advances past it? And what kind of challenges can you throw up instead that don't involve either heaping all manner of ridiculous modifiers to try and make the action more difficult. Or how do you explain away the changes in DC that come not from an action actually being more narratively difficult, but rather just from a fluid DC table put into place to keep the "dice rolling game" an active part of D&D throughout all levels?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 5714926, member: 7006"] I think this is a good example of the inherent problems with [I]so[/I] much number scaling in 3 & 4E as you advance in levels. You want a standardized DC chart to reflect the difficulties of climbing any particular surface. However, because (in 4E for example) the numbers to PCs skills creep so high that as Ryujin said... by mid-Paragon a good PC no longer needs to roll to succeed. Thus we've lost a possible avenue for dramatic tension. The only other option therefore is to make the DCs for climbing fluid... so that as a PC becomes more skilled, they still are required to make Climb checks. But at that point we get the situation where a wall that was a certain DC at 1st level has now morphed into a wall that is this new higher DC... not necessarily because the wall is more difficult, but merely because the DM wanted to present a challenge to the PC. It breaks a lot of reality in that way (unless the DM tries to get around it by taking standard DC walls and then modifying the DCs by throwing all kinds of oils, wind, darkness etc. etc. in attempts to raise the DCs so they present a challenge... but at some point when every wall is like that, it becomes kinda stupid). It's a catch-22. How do you create DCs for non-supernatural events that don't become obsolete at some point because a PC advances past it? And what kind of challenges can you throw up instead that don't involve either heaping all manner of ridiculous modifiers to try and make the action more difficult. Or how do you explain away the changes in DC that come not from an action actually being more narratively difficult, but rather just from a fluid DC table put into place to keep the "dice rolling game" an active part of D&D throughout all levels? [/QUOTE]
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