Rules, Rules, Rules (Legends & Lore)

[beepeearr]

I don't really like any of the options, he presented. I really don't like how watered down skills became in 4E where everyone can succeed at everything. I like a systems where characters can have things they excel at. Instead of making everyone average at everything, make the skills more abstract.

In my game there are no "ability checks" everything is a skill check, and few checks are hard coded, ie make a climb check. Instead I encourage players to play to there own strengths. I decide if the check to overcome an obstacle is easy, moderate, hard, or harder as the case may be. Then allow the Player's to figure out how to proceed.

Take a simple pit. The Ranger may make an athletics check to simply climb out, the monk may make an acrobatics check ala jackie chan. Maybe the orc berserker simply heaves the gnome out of the pit using Might (the skill that replaces the standard strength check), while the rogues Examines (basically an Int based skill used to investigate or reason) the pit trying to find the best hand holds to climb out.

Good ideas get a bonus to the check +2 or +5 while more challenging ideas get a -2 or -5, or maybe a bump up in difficulty.

As the PC's advance things that were once challenging are now easier so I rank challenges by difficulty (easy, moderate, hard, etc) and Tier. A Tier 1 moderate challenge becomes an easy challenge at tier 2.

This way I don't get bogged down with Particular DC's, but I still have challenges that get easier as the PC's progress. I have challenges everyone can participate in, but by doing there own thing instead of making everyone roughly the same at everything.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I like a systems where characters can have things they excel at...

...I have challenges everyone can participate in, but by doing there own thing instead of making everyone roughly the same at everything.

But if you have everyone making checks using the skills they excel at... then you ARE having everyone roughly the same. They're just all better, rather than all average. You actually aren't accomplishing anything.

 

[beepeearr]

The point is the player's have a chance to use the skills they are good at, they still have to justify to the DM why they think a particular skill can be applicable. One system is everyone roll a climb check, where everyone even the trained individual is within 5 points (roughly) of one another, everyone is about avg with one another. The other requires the Player to problem solve and allows players to strive to be better then avg, but without the problem of being the only one capable of overcoming an obstacle.

4e skills were designed so that everyone could participate, but everyone is the same. The system I use still allows everyone to participate, but in their own way. Not everyone is the same because depending on the individual and what they are trying to do DC could become higher or lower.

A hard coded DC system where Skill A is the only way to achieve B creates problems where only the Player with Skill A can succeed, which is why now everyone is Avg at Skill A, but now one Player is slightly better then everyone else. Its the Role-playing equivalent of a participation trophy.

It's basically two different ways to achieve a similar goal, allow everyone to participate in the game. Also excelling at a skill isn't just about beating a DC it's also about being able to overcome penalties when you attempt the extraordinary. Climbing a wall may not be a big deal DC wise, but climbing up a wall while fighting off harpies with with your off hand might be.

 

[S'mon]

I think this is a good example of the inherent problems with so 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.

I don't really understand this; in 4e the difference between 1st and 15th level is only +7 on the roll. A DC 20 that is a hard check at 1st level will still be a moderate challenge at 15th.

Edit: I think 4e made a big mistake in tying DCs to PC level. It's not necessary.

 

[Tymophil]

I don't really understand this; in 4e the difference between 1st and 15th level is only +7 on the roll. A DC 20 that is a hard check at 1st level will still be a moderate challenge at 15th.

Edit: I think 4e made a big mistake in tying DCs to PC level. It's not necessary.

I think you did not understand the intent of this system. I have to admit though that the authors did nothing to make this clear...

If a Dungeon Master wants a task to have a certain DC, not depending on the level of the PC, it is entirely possible. The task will get easier when the PC's level will increase, and that's the way it should be. The DC by level will provide hints to the DM on how easy the task will get, and the amount of xp it could earn the PC.

The Player's Handbook provides such DCs for climbing.

On the other hand, if the Dungeon Master wants to challenge his players with a certain level of challenge (easy, moderate or hard), then the DM can do things the other way round. He looks at the level of the PC, then find the DC for a easy/moderate/hard task and describe the challenge to the player in order to make the DC believable.

For example, the Dungeon Master will describe the surface of the wall to be climbed as slippery, the climb is easier because of cracks in the stones, there is a storm making the task harder, etc.

It is a very clever system... Unfortunately the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide are so badly written that many people come to your conclusion on this system. Fourth Edition is plagued with such bad writing, and adventures did nothing to make good use of the strong points of the system.

It seems to me that the authors of Fourth Edition were (and still are) overconfident... Something like : "We have gathered the best authors, we cannot fail, there is not even any need for a review of our awesome work."

 

[pemerton]

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).

<snip>

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?

I "explain it away" by simply treating the +.5 level bonus, in many cases at least, as a mechanical artefact designed to support the encounter-building rules, rather than as a reflection of the fictional reality of the gameworld.

So while there is a general sense, over the course of the campaign, that the PCs are getting better, I don't feel any need to create an impression that (for example) twice as many hit points means twice as tough, or DC 20 for a wall means the same thing now as it did when the PCs were 1st level.

The same logic makes me comfortable enough to have level 10 minion thugs occupying much the same role in the gameworld now as did level 1 minion thugs back at the start of the campaign.

This does mean that the "reality" or "solidity" of the setting has to be conveyed in some other way than by reference to the numbers that define the challenges. I don't regard this as either a good or a bad thing - it's just a feature of 4e that I take for granted as part of running the game.

 

[Balesir]

A further, similar, artefact of the system I would point out is in the monster configuration. A level 10 standard monster has roughly the same XP value as a level 1 Solo, a level 6 Elite or a level 18 minion. The -9/-4/0/+8 array remains approximately stable throoughout the level range. This means that the same monster can be re-statted to fit comfortably into encounters over a 24 level range while still giving an "appropriate challenge" even though in different "roles". The 3rd level orcs met as standard monsters in heroic tier can make a reappearance as level 11 minions in low Paragon. To go even further, you can re-stat a group of them as a "Horde" or "Swarm" at even higher levels - but that is not quite so easy, since the Solo-Elite-Standard-Minion conversion information comes straight out of the original DMG.

 

[S'mon]

I "explain it away" by simply treating the +.5 level bonus, in many cases at least, as a mechanical artefact designed to support the encounter-building rules, rather than as a reflection of the fictional reality of the gameworld.

So while there is a general sense, over the course of the campaign, that the PCs are getting better, I don't feel any need to create an impression that (for example) twice as many hit points means twice as tough, or DC 20 for a wall means the same thing now as it did when the PCs were 1st level.

The same logic makes me comfortable enough to have level 10 minion thugs occupying much the same role in the gameworld now as did level 1 minion thugs back at the start of the campaign.

This does mean that the "reality" or "solidity" of the setting has to be conveyed in some other way than by reference to the numbers that define the challenges. I don't regard this as either a good or a bad thing - it's just a feature of 4e that I take for granted as part of running the game.

I would be really unhappy playing in a game I knew worked that way. I wonder how many players are fine with this approach?

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I thought this was one of the better L&L articles to date. I do agree with the notion that the more detailed the rules are, the less wiggle room the DM has for making judgment calls. Its not so much that the designers are saying "Hey DM's, you can't change our rules!" Rather its the growing numbers of rules lawyers who are saying "Hey DM, according to page 137 of this book here, the DC is 10, not 15!"

Less rules won't solve this at all I'm afraid. You will have rules lawyers telling you you can't do that because it's not in the book. Removing rules gives rules lawyers more ammo to use against you.

D&D doesn't need to change because of rules lawyers because as long as I've been playing this game, 26+ years, the DM has always had the options to add, remove or change any rule he wants. To handle a rules lawyer you just tell them to shut up or get out of the game. If they are correcting you on something you messed up on is one thing but if they argue with you over something you did on purpose then they are the ones that need to back off.

 

[pemerton]

I would be really unhappy playing in a game I knew worked that way. I wonder how many players are fine with this approach?

Even GMing Rolemaster - in which changes in the numbers really do correspond to changes in the fiction - I've always tried, in my games, to make "advancement" within the fiction more significant than numerical advancement.

In 4e, I can't see any other way of doing it. Compare, for example, the MM stats of a human guard to those of a drow warrior.

The drow warrior (+14 vs AC) hits the human guard's AC of 18 on a 4 or better. On the two rounds that the guard is subject to Darkfire, the combat advantage means the drow hits on a 2. Each hit deals 8.5 points of damage, +7 with combat advantage, and has a 9/10 chance of inlicting drow poison, giving the guard -2 to hit. Two rounds of combat advantage will deliver about 29 hp damage, leaving the guard with 18 hp. Two or three more rounds without combat advantage will whittle those away.

In that time, the guard will deliver, on average, about 3 hp per round (2 hp per round while suffering -2 to hit), meaning that the drow loses somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 or so of its 83 hp. Confronted by two guards, the drow could expect to beat both of them and take around 30 hp or so of damage. To have a good chance of beating the drow would, I think, require 4 or more guards able to attack at once. For a single guard to beat the drow it would have to survive more than 20 rounds in combat. This would require the drow to miss it (a 3/20 likelihood) at least 10 times, or at least every second round. I think the odds of that are (20 C 10) times 3 to the 10 divided by 20 to the 10. I make that to be odds of around one in 1000 - extremely unlikely!

And I just don't see generic drow as being that good - winning against a single human guard more than 90 times in 100! The human guard is hardly a slouch, after all, having a reasonable chance of holding his own against 5 2nd level human rabble.

The alternative is to do as I do, and treat the numbers overwhelmingly as a tool for encounter design - which, in combination with the published monsters, also produces a rough default storyline, of starting with goblins and ending with Orcus.

That default storyline also plays another role, I think, which is relevant to this post from upthread:

I know its nuts but:

Page 133 of the rules compendium lists "Slide down a staircase on a shield while standing (hard DC)" amongst others.
Page 126 tells you the roll for hard DC by level.

That is DC scaling of the same activity.

Although sliding down a staircase has a scaling DC, although it is the same task, if the game is following the default storyline in some rough fashion then the 1st level staircase is likely to be in an inn, and the 21st level staircase is likely to be in an ancient tower on the Feywild or in the Elemental Chaos. Although these different settings are in some sense merely colour, I think that colour goes a long way to making the scaling, and the general looseness of fit between mechanics and fiction, seem acceptable rather than misleading.

More bluntly: we don't have any precise mechanical measure of how much tougher a drow warrior is then a human guard, or how much more challenging a slide down an eladrin than a human staircase, but we know both are somewhat tougher/more challenging, and require more committed and powerful heroes to face up to them, and the changes in the number on my character sheet show that I'm a more committed and powerful hero!

And as far as the actual mechanical play goes, as long as the GM is reasonably upfront about the DCs of various things, the players can make their own calculations and take their own chances!

(Now suppose that you had the PC advance from 2nd to 3rd level - thus increasing the default DCs but not improving their skills - and they came back to the same inn and tried to surf a shield down the same staircase. Would I advocate making the DC higher without some clear ingame fictional explanation? No. But that is a corner case of a sort that as best I can recall has never come up for me in 3 years of GMing the game.)