Ability Check variant

[Heretic Apostate]

(Bear in mind, don't have either the Dragon article nor the PHB in front of me at this moment...)

I remember, in an OLD dragon (old enough to be on the Archive, perhaps?), reading about an ability check variant to solve the ridiculous problem of STR 3 characters succeeding at breaking chains, after the STR 18/00 characters just failed.

The rule was: Number of successful rolls out of so many rolls.

So, for instance, if you set a STR check, you might say, "succeed 3 times." Then, if you succeed three times, you've done it. The lower your STR score, the harder it is to succeed.

Argh. If anyone can post the gist of an ability check, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, I'll just wing it.

I'm assuming this is how ability checks work. There's a DC. You roll d20, add your ability bonus/penalty, and hope you beat it. Based on this assumption, here goes nothing.

Let's say you have a DC of 15. Rolling d20 for a STR 10 or 11 character, that's 30% chance of success. For a STR 16 or 17 character, that's a 45% chance of success. For a STR 4 or 5 character, that's a 15% chance of success. If you have to roll twice, that means that the STR 16 character, that's just over 20% chance of success. For a STR 4 character, that's just over 2% chance of success. Thus, the chance of success has changed from 3:1 to 10:1.

Would this work?

 

[twjensen]

The hole in check rules

Checks and skill rolls work best in very chaotic situations where it is within the realm of possibility for *anyone* to succed and also for *anyone* to fail. Even an experienced rogue might fall off a narrow ledge in the middle of a fight. Even a complete klutz may find some way to hang on for a round with the incentive of the fall to improve his balancing ability.

In less chaotic situations, it starts to be silly. There isn't a 2% chance, 1% chance or even .001% chance that *I* could personally bend an iron bar by raw strength (under normal conditions). But there are people who can do this. And maybe I could do it given enough adreneline (I try to avoid life or death situations involving bending iron bars in real life). So here's my house rule:

In any stressful, dangerous situation, use checks.

In non-stressful conditions, simply decide if it is reasonable that the character can do this, and then say how long it takes. So if a str 18 character is trying to bend bars and by the rules has a 10% chance, say that it takes him 10 rounds. But if the character has a str of 16, maybe he just isn't going bend this bar without some high stress incentive.

 

[Steven McRownt]

DC checks rules IMHO as twjenses said. They are something more than skill at work, they're even luck, failure or succes to concentrate your abilities or just your adrenaline in something at the edge (and perhaps over) your abilities.
The idea of non-chaotic situations are somewhat too simple. I have to "bend an iron bar" it is almost for escaping death, not for pleasure, so it should fall again on "chaotic" situations.

If you, Heretic Apostate, find uncomfortable with too simple DC, you can just have higher DC, or use a d10. In this way -i can assure that it works- luck has much less effect. Skilled (or strong, in your example) people can overcome luck, and still viceversa, but it's much more difficult to be extraordinary lucky and do better than a skilled person.

Steven McRownt