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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8366845" data-attributes="member: 16814">You don't think this is what happens in 4e?  The very chart in 4e is built, from the start, that Easy checks are not able to be failed by focused characters.  Easy checks NEVER get easier for neglected skills.  In 5e, the focused character CAN fail at the start of their career, but can't really fail easy, even medium checks (depending on expertise) at the end.  The neglected skills stay the same.  Meanwhile, in 4e, neglected skills get priced out of hard checks relatively quickly.You're making an argument but half of it is based in not actually looking at how 4e does things with it's math!  If you neglect a skill in 4e, you're in the same pile of suck as you are if you do it in 5e.  If you focus on a skill, you get to the point that most DCs don't matter to you in both.  What you're describing is getting bonuses outside of the class structure in 5e, which are all either teamwork assists (bardic inspiration, guidance) or are granted by the GM (boons, magic items, etc).  For 4e, these are priced in -- another difference.I disagree with your odd false dichotomy, here.  I think 4e's a fine game.  I'm not trying to say it's bad or anything, I'm saying that the idea that 4e's +1/2 level bonus actually represents character improvement and 5e doesn't have this.  The reality is that the way 4e progresses DCs, this bonus is moot -- it's the baseline movement of DCs as well.  With this, if you look at how 5e does it, it's pretty much the same -- they skip the treadmill of +1/2 level to both skills and DCs, but the spread is the same.As for ignoring everything about skills, I'm not sure what you mean.  Almost all the skill descriptions say the GM will set the DC.  The advice to the GM is to use the chart to help set DCs.  The only real differences are the athletics skills, which, for some reason, stick to the 3e era fixed DCs.  Yes, they do.  If I want to forage with skills that allow it (Nature, Dungeoneering), I need a 15 for myself or a 25 for 2-5 people.  The GM can modify this +/- 5 based on the environment.  Of course, this suggests that I can forage for my entire party, finding food and water for the day, in the most desolate parts of the Elemental Plane of Parched Dryness on a 30.  Which I can hit as soon as level 1.Do go on about how the skill system in 4e that uses fixed DCs is somehow making a point?  Is it that a level 30 character with that has utterly neglected this skill can always succeed at finding a day's worth of food and water with an hour's effort in one of the most desolate and dry places in the multiverse?  Without magic, just mundane coolness.  The parts of 4e that use fixed DCs are largely broken messes that are legacies of 3e in a system that should have shed that.  I don't care that you're a demigod -- you should be able to die of thirst (or be rendered catatonic) on the Elemental Plane of Parched Dryness.I disagree, but it's a matter of interpretation of how both games do things.  I don't have a problem in 5e presenting fantastic locations and setting DCs that work out pretty well.  When you're 20th level and you go to do something, genre conventions suggest that range should be pretty epic.  It's the idea that everything must be grounded only in the bonus math -- that a 0 bonus means only mundane things are allowed.  That's not how 5e ability checks work -- you make an ability check when the outcome is uncertain, and it represents how you do at that task. If you have a 0 bonus and roll a 20 to pass a hard check, you don't just do it by the skin of your teeth, you do it.  Just like if you had a +17 bonus and rolled a 20.  The error in your argument is that bonus suggests range of options -- that you must have a high bonus to do something.  But this isn't anywhere in 5e -- it's a legacy concept that you've apparently drug into 4e as well.  The bonus doesn't matter -- it doesn't control what's possible.  It's only a feed into things that are uncertain.If Bob the Great, renowned Paladin, savior of the Kingdom, Hero of the Planes, approaches a guard who challenges him, his +0 on intimidate doesn't matter -- it's not an uncertain task that Bob identifies himself and the guard is cowed.  If Bob is leaning on the King, he might need to roll, depending on how and why.  This is because everyone knows the things Bob can do, so only things that can reasonably deal with those are likely to resist Bob.  When that happens, Bob has a poor track record of successfully talking things down, but a good track record of deal with it afterwards (he's alive).  There's quite  a number of fantasy heroes that fit this mold.</blockquote>

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