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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6239665" data-attributes="member: 6681948">He has  not indicated that any such variances are needed to balance spellcasters with fighters.Funny...these examples do not seem to suggest the wizard (or some other caster - now, you seem to suggest the problem is simply the spellcasters with broad spell selections) has the exclusive purview to impose his will on the game's fictional content.  I doubt very much that Ahnehnois would deny a player the ability to take any of these actions.  But I don't believe any of them fall into what most of us  consider "changing the gameworld's fictional content".  These hardly seem comparable with causing a wizard to spring into existence to purchase our loot, or to cause the snows not to block a mountain pass.This still seems a matter of degrees.  The players can, for example, say "The wizard is  not there to buy our loot?  Very well, we'll move on.  Let's head to the Palace and see if we can arrange an appointment with the Chamberlain."  In so doing, they shift the location of the action to the Royal Court.   It is only when they insist that no, the Wizard MUST be there, prepared to acquire our loot, that they lose their ability to direct the narrative.  If they direct that we deal with the loot now, then they have directed that sale of the loot is, in fact, where the action is.  The GM is determining the extent and nature of that action.  That is, he is now framing a scene based on the express desire of the players to sell the loot, and setting challenges to their ability to achieve the desired result.I don't find these comparable.  The character's combat skill directly influences whether he is able to deal with the slippery mud, or the wind conditions.  If he were more skilled (higher BAB), he would have compensated and still hit with that roll (assuming no "automiss 1").  However, no amount of extra skill at tracking and wilderness lore is going to stop the snow blocking off a mountain pass, and  no level of local knowledge will cause a willing buyer for our loot to materialize, so success at these tasks should not, in my view, be a function of the character's skill.  Similarly, the PC's skills do not influence the likelihood of a random encounter as they travel and - oh look - the probability of such occurrences is typically set at a flat likelihood based on time travelling, or distance travelled, or some other function, but not a roll influenced by the PC's skills, as their skills do not influence whether rats scurry by, or the orcs chose to stay in their village today.I suppose we could envision a game where things just "fall into place" more reliably for higher level characters, but even then this would reasonably be a function of the character's level, not of his specific skills.That would not prevent a system where the GM does not decide these events, but instead they are randomly rolled.  However, this would require some means of objectively setting the probability that this specific pass is  blocked at this specific time of year - how would these odds be set, if not by a GM based on the parameters established within the game world?</blockquote>

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