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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5510405" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think they are bad design choices. Depth in SCs isn't mechanical. It is provided by narrative supported by whatever appropriate bits of mechanics are needed. I'll echo what was said above, I cannot conceive of a set of mechanics which could even begin to address a small fraction of all the things I'd do with an SC. So for instance the PCs are climbing a cliff, one falls, another catches him. This might erase a failure, but leaves them in a precarious situation requiring a hard DC check to get out of. Or maybe the catch works with a medium DC but with a hard DC also provides a success (the catching PC slings the falling one back to a ledge). The player could creatively attempt that action, and the DM can respond. The narrative is the 'glue' of the challenge in all cases. The checks can push things down different branches, and/or the PCs can come up with new tactics which might do that and which could be entirely independent of any specific check. I'm just not convinced I could generate a set of mechanics that would reflect all the hundreds of ways that trade offs could be made in all of the situations where SCs are possible. I totally agree that an SC needs some 'tactical depth' and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some extra mechanics could exist in the rules that would be useful in a lot of places, but again I think the advantages are intended to fill that role. The players should be looking for ways to invoke them. It may have been a mistake for the rules to state that SC of difficulty X should always grant N advantages. I consider that more of a guideline as to how many opportunities to present for them to exist than anything else, and some of the specific ones aren't always very usable. Yes, and my engineering mind pretty much agrees with you. My story-telling mind simply isn't grasping what mechanics would do that in the vast set of potential situations that SCs encompass. Anyway, it is certainly something that could be explored in more detail. I've seen a few proposals, but they always seem either not very simple or not very widely applicable.</blockquote>

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