I also just noticed that it is literally impossible for any PC to hit a DC 30, until Level 5...that is, until Tier II. So a certain gating is definitely built into the system.
Couldn't a 1st level PC roll with +2 for proficiency, +4 for Guidance, +4 for 18 stat? Which would be a 1 in 80 chance to hit DC 30.
Lol... I made this point earlier to @
pemerton. That there are in fact things that can be accomplished by higher level PC's that can't be by lower level PC's (from a mechanical standpoint).
My question is fairly simple - what is there (given bounded accuracy) that is feasible for a 15th level fighter but impossible for a 1st level fighter.
DC 25 or 30 doesn't fit that description: a 15th level fighter has +4 or +5 to CON, and even with +2 from Remarkable Athlete has almost no chance of succeeding at that attempt. (Literally no chance against DC 30 without further buffing, and even then the chance is very small.)
As I posted upthread, DC Heroes tries to deal with this issue via unbounded accuracy, that is, allowing very significant variation in both numbers on the PC sheet, and system-supported DCs.
4e tackles it completely differently, by looking first to the fiction to establish feasibility, and then having a chart to read off the DC given the level. MHRP and HeroQuest revised are both fundamentally the same in this respect. (Although obviously different in the technical devices they use to achieve this result.)
Imaro said:
The difference I think in the approaches, and maybe where @
pemerton ' s contention is, is that 4e tells you these things are part of the epic tier and they involve this specific fiction... while 5e says these are beyond the ken of certain men and you the DM decide what that is in your particular campaign. I think pemerton wants the game to define these things for him while I (and I think others) rea happy to decide what these things are for ourselves in any particular camapign.
The fact that official adventures seem to rarely if ever use these DC's (thus also not attaching a specific fiction to them) would seem to reinforce this notion of the DM defining what falls into those extreme DC's.
EDIT: I want a more mythical campaign... Fighters sticking their hands into forges of creation to hold an artifact while it is created become doable at high levels. More sword and sorcery... perhaps gigantic leaps and feats of extreme strength beyond those of most men become feasible at the higher end of the DC's.
This is a red herring. I've already posted upthread that it's easy to change the fiction of 4e while preserving the mechanical framework, and WotC published two examples: the Neverwinter Campaign Setting compresses the fiction of Heroic and Paragon into the mechanical framework of Heroic (mostly by offering versions of beholders, mind flayers and the like statted at heroic tier); while Dark Sun extends the fiction of Heroic and Paragon tier over the three tiers of paly (by statting up the sorcerer kings, who in default 4e terms would be Paragon tier opponents, as epic).
The best description ever offered on these boards of the relationship between bonuses and fiction in 4e is the following:
How the imagined content in the game changes in 4E as the characters gain levels isn't quite the same as it is in 3E. I am not going to pretend to have a good grasp of how this works in either system, but my gut says: in 4E the group defines the colour of their campaign as they play it; in 3E it's established when the campaign begins.
That's kind of confusing... let me see if I can clarify as I work this idea out for myself.
In 3E, climbing a hewn rock wall is DC 25. That doesn't change as the game is played (that is, as fiction is created, the game world is explored, and characters grow). Just because it's DC 120 to balance on a cloud doesn't mean that characters can't attempt it at 1st level; they'll just always fail. The relationship between colour and the reward system doesn't change over time: you know that, if you can score a DC 120 balance check, you can balance on clouds; a +1 to your Balance check brings you that much closer to success.
In 4E, I think the relationship between colour and the reward system changes: you don't know what it will mean, when you first start playing, to make a Hard Level 30 Acrobatics check. Which means that gaining levels doesn't have a defined relationship with what your PC can do in the fiction - just because your Acrobatics check has increased by 1, it doesn't mean you're that much closer to balancing on a cloud. I think the group needs to define that for themselves; as far as I can tell, this is supposed to arise organically through play, and go through major shifts as Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies enter the game.
The contrast I am drawing between 4e and 5e is fairly straightforward: in 4e the
feasibility of an action can be settled upon
independently of mechanical minutiae - by reference to the ideas expressed in the tiers of play, to the prior established colour, to the flavour of the paragon paths at use in the game, etc.
Once that has been done, the system has a simple way for setting a DC which will mechanically satisfy the desiderata for feasibility, namely, the DC-by-level-chart; and also a framework for integrating individual checks into the resolution of a scene, namely, skill challenges.
5e doesn't have a skill challenge system, and at least as bounded accuracy is presented appears to set a DC that is
prior to the question of feasibility, and
settles the question of feasibility rather than being an
afterthought to the question of feasibility.
Some posts in this thread seem to say the opposite, and that in fact DCs can be set just as they are in 4e. But then (i) what is the point of keeping on reiterating bounded accuracy? And (ii) what is the objection to a DC-by-level chart to facilitate this?
EDIT:
I'm not saying that there should be a different DC for a low level and a high level PC: but a Level 1 Fighter with 20 Strength and Proficiency in Athletics can only roll a 27, maximum. A DC 30 is literally impossible, though that is true of any PC at Levels 1-4 for any DC 30, irregardless of build choices or luck. That Fighter at Level 9 will be incapable of rolling lower than a 10, so DC 10 will be effectively autosuccess. Doesn't mean the task is different.
OK, so if the only "gating" is via setting high DCs, then we have the fact that a 15th level fighter succeeds against a DC 27 on a roll of 20 (+5 for stat, +2 for remarkable athlete). Suppose that the GM allows Athletics to apply (although to me the relevant stat seems to be CON rather than STR) then the roll required is 17+. I don't characterise that as "feasible". As opposed to
very likely to fail.
