Nytmare
David Jose
I'm not normally a fan of polls, but I was kinda interested in seeing how people arrive at the numbers they use for on the fly Difficulty Classes.
So, Bottom Up - A player is trying to climb a wall. You decide that the wall has a rough, brick-like surface (DC 20), and is covered with some kind of grody, slimy fungus (+5). The player needs a 25 to climb this wall.
Top Down - A player is trying to climb a wall. You decide that you want this wall to be hard to climb. The player is 14th level and you look at the Target DCs chart and see that a 25 is considered a hard DC for a 14th level character.
I'm not talking about standard DCs like stabilizing someone, or detecting a 10th level magic item on the other side of a wall. Also, no sitting on the fence and claiming that you always do an exactly equal number of both. You've got to have some kind of gut reaction as to what chart you turn to when a player throws you a skill check curveball.
So, Bottom Up - A player is trying to climb a wall. You decide that the wall has a rough, brick-like surface (DC 20), and is covered with some kind of grody, slimy fungus (+5). The player needs a 25 to climb this wall.
Top Down - A player is trying to climb a wall. You decide that you want this wall to be hard to climb. The player is 14th level and you look at the Target DCs chart and see that a 25 is considered a hard DC for a 14th level character.
I'm not talking about standard DCs like stabilizing someone, or detecting a 10th level magic item on the other side of a wall. Also, no sitting on the fence and claiming that you always do an exactly equal number of both. You've got to have some kind of gut reaction as to what chart you turn to when a player throws you a skill check curveball.
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