Recent content by Maxperson

Not without other information to go on.

I've never even heard of that one.

Not without looking at them and being able to read them. What they hope those pictographs say won't have any influence whatsoever.

I've seen games that tell you what results do and after the 12th time you trip on a stink bug it starts getting old. Games should tell you how you succeed or fail(skill, magic, luck etc.) and let the DM narrate the details of it.

What we call luck are generally those things that happen that are outside of our control. If youe PC falls because he failed to notice or test a rock to see if it was loose, that's a failure of skill. If he falls because a bird landed on a loose rock and it fell 100 feet and hit you in the...

Yes. Or at least I'm better at it than a pile of text. And no, I don't think an archeologist is better at figuring out what some random piece of writing is than I am without reading it first. That piece of writing could be a grocery list, poem, a request for aid or a billion other things...

The variability I'm talking about is lack of paying attention, not enough sleep, etc. Most of it can't or at least shouldn't be reduced to bad luck which is just random.

Er, you really expect the rule to include the millions of specific ways that you can fall? It is more than sufficient to just tell you that a failure of skill is how it happened. What you are looking for is a massive overstep by the rules. It's higly limiting on play and harms the game by...

All of them are viable in a general way is my point. Can it be your first example? If circumstances allow for it. Can it be the second one? If circumstances allow for it. The DM will narrate one response, but any of those that represent skill and fit the circumstances could be used. It's only...

In 5e it depends on what is being rolled for. For ability checks we are told what it represents and luck isn't on the list. For a luck reroll it's entirely luck. And so on.

Poor skill is still skill. Since the ability score = training and innate talent, even with an 8 strength you still have training. You just aren't very good at it. As for why retries work, have you never failed at something and learned from your mistake? Then the next time you tried you did...

Yes. And skilled enough means you were skilled enough to succeed or not skilled enough to succeed. All you need to know for a simulation is skilled enough to succeed or unskilled enough and failed. The specifics of how you messed up can be narrated and it doesn't matter what the narration...

In D&D strength = skill at climbing. It's literally the natural talent(skill) of the person climbing. The success and failure will always be because of skill. Failures are all because you are not skilled enough. Successes are always because you were skilled enough. Unless the DM goes rogue...

I don't have the 5.5e PHB. The 5e PHB rules are just as applicable thanks to backwards compatibility and the option to choose which rules you want to use. :)