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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KesselZero" data-source="post: 5843926" data-attributes="member: 6689976">You know what? I'm really impressed by this. NOW BEGINS THE NITPICKING. 1. In your bonus essay, you write,  I believe you mean 1-.5^2=.75, since he has two rolls with a 50% chance of failure. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> 2. I may have simply missed this in your OP, but how do you set the DC for a task? I'm not quite seeing the interaction between DC and Untrained/Competent/Expert/Master. Do you have... a. Low DC, lots of possible outcomes? So anybody can make the Untrained/Competent check, but the Expert and Master tiers have a hard restriction on who can attempt them? b. High DC, lots of possible outcomes? So anybody can try a check, but hardly anyone besides a high-tier character will get results, since they'll need the statistical boost of bonus dice to roll a success, even at the lowest tier? c. Low DC, few possible outcomes? So only a high-tier character can attempt it, but will have any easy time with it? d. High DC, few possible outcomes? So only a high-tier character can attempt it, and will have a high chance of failure? I actually kind of answered my own question by laying out what each possibility means. The answer is probably that you use different combinations depending on the challenge at hand. I might use (a) for climbing a wall, (b) for deciphering an ancient language, (c) for picking a lock, and (d) for controlling an ancient evil artifact. But I'm curious how you envisioned the system working along each axis. 3. The benefits that I see to the system, and that I really like about it, are... a. Levels of success, eliminating the pass/fail binary.b. Favoring training over ability modc. More flavorful AND more mechanically balanced Aid Another 4. What do you envision as the DC spread across all 20 (or 30) levels of play? You assign Competent a +5 to checks. Do Expert and Master get similar boosts? Or is the increase in likelihood of success handled purely through the bonus dice? 5. Maybe this is a feature-- "the specialist should have a way better chance"-- but it seems that at low levels the 4e problem of huge point spreads with binary outcomes still exists. If we expect a Competent, ability-synced character to have a +10 to the skill at level 1, DCs have to start around 15 or higher to have a meaningful chance of failure for a character who makes that skill a priority. This means that for a PC for whom that skill isn't a priority at all, at a +0, the same check is very difficult despite being an Untrained/Competent check for both characters. This goes away once we get to Expert level, but at first we still have something of an auto-success/fail situation. I suppose this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that a PC with any training can theoretically get an Expert or Master outcome IF he has a method by which to get extra rolls. Assuming this, we can lower all DCs and reward trained PCs with higher-tier outcomes. (The time-based mechanism for this is nice but I'm not sure it can be used in all situations [doing something under pressure/in combat/when a bomb is ticking/etc.]) In addition, by lowering the DC to give non-specialized PCs a chance, we make it much easier for the specialist to get those multiple successes, thereby returning to something of an auto-success situation. Going along with this, I think it might be easier to understand your system if you described it differently. Rather than saying "it takes two successes to get an Expert result, but Experts only need one success," you might explain it similarly to how you did your Master scholar making his checks, which really illuminated the system for me. "Competent ranking lets you roll one die for Competent outcomes. Expert ranking lets you roll one die for Expert outcomes and two dice for Competent outcomes. Master ranking lets you roll one die for Master outcomes, two dice for Expert outcomes, and three dice for Competent outcomes. Any single bonus (through one time increment, Aid Another, magic item use, etc.) gains you one additional die and access to the next tier up." (Like your apprentice taking extra time to roll one die for the Master outcome and one for the Expert outcome). You know, maybe it's just me. But that makes more sense somehow... So yeah, lots of really scattered thoughts on this, but overall I like the system a lot, and I think it addresses a lot of the issues that skill systems have. Aside from some of the nitpicky concerns my main worry is that it would put a large burden on the DM to come up with multiple tiered outcomes for almost every skill check (although the inclusion of the Skill Tricks thing cuts that down nicely). Hope any of this makes sense and gives you a +2 to Design Game Systems!</blockquote>

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