NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5320569" data-attributes="member: 386">Yeah, it shuts down some input - but opens up more.  The stuff I care about!  I also like to be surprised as a DM, unsure how things will turn out.I find the skill challenge # of successes is a good pacing mechanic.  I am using them only for social challenges now, but when I look at the number of successes required I have a good idea of where to lead the NPC's action.One of the players - he plays Barkmourn, Baern, Xhiver, and runs Silverleaf (his henchman).  Silverleaf is the only character who's really used his "Triggered Powers".  The trigger relies on the NPC being distracted.  There are a lot of times when this player in particular asks if the NPC is distracted or not, and most of the time the NPC isn't.  It works because socially we understand where each other is coming from - he's trying to use his most effective attack, and I'm not trying to shut him down but just "maintain consistency of the game world."He also tries to use "The Order In All Things" - a skill that Divine characters can pick up - quite a bit, and sometimes I have to turn him down.  This is the same issue, though it's worse because the actual description of the skill and what the PC can do with it isn't very clear.One of the things I want the players to do, though, is to try and "spam" their best skills and powers.  That means that they'll be engaging the game world, and the more player skill they have the better results they'll get.</blockquote>

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