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Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7334521" data-attributes="member: 6919838">See here is where we may differ.What i think the auto-success rules are doing is providing a **consistent** relation between "character abilities" and  the reasonable "has a reasonable chance..." present in two of your three cases Consider - the party needs to cross a 15' chasm  over water to string a rope for the group to cross. Consequence for failure - oh yeah.Chance of success and failure both exist and reasonable - well... it depends.For the fighter paragon with strength 16 - running long jump means no chance of failure exists since he has a base 16' jump. So barring some odd circumstance there is no check required.but for the STR 8 sorcerer, there is a definite "chance of failure" and perhaps even a certainty, depending on how much leeway the Gm gives the STR(ATH) check listed ability to jump unusually long distances. So, this is an example where it is gegerally accepted that the characrer abilities can and should be considered in whether or not there is a chance of failure/success. it is also a case where, i think, hardly anybody would see the party saying "let the warrior do it and succeed" would not be any sort of "downside" caused by player who chose to match the appropriate character to whatever check is needed, but instead would just see it as common sense. one can easily assume a time pressure added in - say a need to get everyone across inside say 2d6 rounds before bad guys catch up or even that every round spent something else bad happens the party wants to prevent.The rules for this challenge seem to embrace the concept that choosing the right character with the right character traits (not just the player-to-gm narrative of approach) can lead to certainty and no roll vs uncertainty and roll. (Note that the strength may be acquired by different means so it may not be a certainty when the scene is first encountered or described or even designed.)But, hey, guess what, there are no such "automatic" success opportunities for a great many other ability checks that have a *consistent* defined relate-to-character ability mechanic. Take a simple case of a locked door on the other side of the chasm. Figure we have a rogue with a 16 dex (same as the fighter had his strength give him an auto-succeed-quick jump) and proficiency in tools of course. Now with a +5 vs a lock of DC 10 and with time on the line many Gms would look at that and see:Reasonable chance of failure - 20% if we use the mechanics as presented so yeah.Reasonable chance of failure - 80% if we use the mechanics as presentedConsequence for failure - well, yeah, each round keeps others from going thru the door to stop that round by round bad stuff. So, drama round by round - just like there was the same drama for "how long to get across the chasm if we did not have an auto-succeed-quick-option."Now, the difference is there were no mechanics defined under pick locks and Dex and so forth for "auto-pick-locks" as opposed to the ones for jump which give you a miminum auto-success determined by CHARACTER stats and then a roll for "unusually long" in athletics.So, i do not see the auto-success rules by ability or proficiency vs DC as anything more than providing for Gms that want them and players that want them a consistent character stat related "minimum auto-success without extra time" just like they took the time to define for JUMP.Now, you know, maybe some Gms find the jump rules "drama killing" or some Gms increase the width of gaps because of the auto-success resulting in "gap expansion" as an attempt to beat the jump rules and maybe some groups will find it somehow a problem to match up "strong guys" to "jump tasks" but overall i do not recall seeing many threads about it and so i really doubt that the consequences of a minimal auto-success derived from character stats are necessarily that dire.So to me, the auto-success ability/proficiency rules are variants to treat other skills and tasks in much the same way as the "jump" task is handled in the rules - as a consistent character-driven break-point between auto-success and chance of fail/succeed.i mean, to some it might seem odd that the fighter with just 16 strength can look at the 15' gap and **know** he will make it in one try while the rogue with 16 Dex and proficiency can look at the easy lock (Dc10) and not be as confident. For those folks the auto-success rules put them on the same playing field as far as some rather obvious tasks are concerned.I personally have no problem with providing everyone a fairly consistent way to look at their character stats, look at an obvious  task and have a good idea of what will be good for auto-success in a quick need situation.but others might. Others might want that "auto-success" to be kept out of the player-stat realm and kept as "gm declares" some even without reference to character stats - well except for jumps that is.</blockquote>

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