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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Calibration of single character skill checks
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<blockquote data-quote="AtomicPope" data-source="post: 8426537" data-attributes="member: 64790"><p>I placed one vote in "Natural" and one in "Talented", because that's literally how I run my games. At lower levels, assume "Natural". At higher levels you have to assume "Talented" otherwise you're engaging in a worthless dice rolling exercise. High level characters have so many additional factors to that single d20 that's they're regularly hitting DC18+ on skills that aren't their best. So we have to consider the purpose of the skill check. Why are we making the players roll dice? If it's a big deal then the PCs should be leaning on Talented characters. If it's something minor then we're looking at Natural characters. As a DM, I see this as a means for the PCs to explore the world.</p><p></p><p>I use skill checks to engage the PCs with the narrative, that is from a point of strength or weakness. When the whole party is sneaking often I'll only make the loudest character roll a Stealth check. Sometimes the players need to be reminded that their PCs are not experts at everything and that's a very easy way to do it. It lets us tell the story from a point of view that we often don't hear at the table but should. Not to punish anyone but to remind them of the roles they chose. There's no need to shotgun blast every skill encounter with an entire party's worth of d20's.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AtomicPope, post: 8426537, member: 64790"] I placed one vote in "Natural" and one in "Talented", because that's literally how I run my games. At lower levels, assume "Natural". At higher levels you have to assume "Talented" otherwise you're engaging in a worthless dice rolling exercise. High level characters have so many additional factors to that single d20 that's they're regularly hitting DC18+ on skills that aren't their best. So we have to consider the purpose of the skill check. Why are we making the players roll dice? If it's a big deal then the PCs should be leaning on Talented characters. If it's something minor then we're looking at Natural characters. As a DM, I see this as a means for the PCs to explore the world. I use skill checks to engage the PCs with the narrative, that is from a point of strength or weakness. When the whole party is sneaking often I'll only make the loudest character roll a Stealth check. Sometimes the players need to be reminded that their PCs are not experts at everything and that's a very easy way to do it. It lets us tell the story from a point of view that we often don't hear at the table but should. Not to punish anyone but to remind them of the roles they chose. There's no need to shotgun blast every skill encounter with an entire party's worth of d20's. [/QUOTE]
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