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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 3686714" data-attributes="member: 172">In Spycraft 2.0, which leverages the skill system strongly, one common class ability model is the so called &quot;flawless X&quot;. The sleuth class gets it for Investigation and Sense Motive, the Snoop gets it for Analysis and Search, and the Explorer gets it for Athletics and Culture. There are others.What these class abilities do is, unless you really screw up, if you fail a roll, you are considered to have succeeded if the DC is less than 20+class level.As a GM, I find the presence of these abilities a major boon when designing a mystery. It lets me put clues out there than people would normally need to roll for that I know will be crucial to the game. There's no risk of missing the clue, but the player involved feels like their character contributed in an important way.More generally, though, my two philosophies behind making sure PCs can credibly solve a mystery in the presence of clues that could get missed (either because of rolling or because the players themselves fail to put 2 and 2 together) is:1) Have the rolls give you EXTRA information beyond what is required, for extra benefits. For example, anyone who tries might get enough clues to stop the evil mastermind's plot, but those who get the extra clues can find out who the matermind is and put him away for good. Tiered goals, I guess.2) Put in 3 times as many clues as the players need. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Psion, post: 3686714, member: 172"] In Spycraft 2.0, which leverages the skill system strongly, one common class ability model is the so called "flawless X". The sleuth class gets it for Investigation and Sense Motive, the Snoop gets it for Analysis and Search, and the Explorer gets it for Athletics and Culture. There are others. What these class abilities do is, unless you really screw up, if you fail a roll, you are considered to have succeeded if the DC is less than 20+class level. As a GM, I find the presence of these abilities a major boon when designing a mystery. It lets me put clues out there than people would normally need to roll for that I know will be crucial to the game. There's no risk of missing the clue, but the player involved feels like their character contributed in an important way. More generally, though, my two philosophies behind making sure PCs can credibly solve a mystery in the presence of clues that could get missed (either because of rolling or because the players themselves fail to put 2 and 2 together) is: 1) Have the rolls give you EXTRA information beyond what is required, for extra benefits. For example, anyone who tries might get enough clues to stop the evil mastermind's plot, but those who get the extra clues can find out who the matermind is and put him away for good. Tiered goals, I guess. 2) Put in 3 times as many clues as the players need. ;) [/QUOTE]

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