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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8367350" data-attributes="member: 82106">Just need to add. I am looking at the DC chart in my Essentials Rules Compendium, the most updated version of the DCs. A level 1 Easy DC is 8. A level 30 Easy DC is 24. This is a delta of 16 points, which means that a level 30 PC (+15 level bonus) is perfectly capable of passing this check about 65% of the time (you get at least an increase of +1 by Epic in all ability bonuses relative to level 1). So, PCs never 'fall off the wagon' WRT Easy checks in 4e. Moderate checks increase by 20 points (from 12 to 32), which means they WILL be roughly equivalent to a level 1 Hard check (a bit easier) for a level 30 with just baseline advancement in a skill. Hard checks increase by 23 points, so they go from "Only on a 19" for the talentless PC to mildly impossible. Merely gaining proficiency in the related skill will MORE THAN correct for this difference. So, really, considering other likely smaller bonuses many PCs get over 30 levels to many skills, most characters will either slightly improve, or stay the same, on most checks when they didn't invest in the skill.Essentials gets a little 'weird', there are a couple sentences in the RC that almost seem like they are trying to say that every DC "Just magically increases" to match your level. I don't know if that was bad editing, or what. Other parts of RC are pretty much consistent with the Original PHB1/DMG1 rules though. Frankly, though I think some parts of the Essentials rules are a genuine improvement (Skill Challenges basically) I'd ignore a lot of the rest of it. It either misstates several things, or states them in ways which simply don't make sense, usually in a misguided attempt to 'simplify' something (falling, flying, and mounts for instance, just use DMG1).Honestly, I am not really concerned about the whole issue anyway. 4e could have NO defined 'objective' checks at all, it wouldn't change my opinion/interpretation of it at all. In fact I would not, and haven't, used any of the 'fixed DC' stuff in ages when running it. AT MOST I would consider those DCs 'advisory', that is they are more useful to a GM when building an adventure in order to understand the sort of thematic material that the designers considered appropriate at whatever level you are playing at. So, if you are playing a level 1 adventure, then 20' leaps are challenging but quite doable with a running start, for a talented character. Put those in. For Epic characters you want at least 30' or even 40' leaps. Likewise you would describe a strong door as 'wooden' at level 1, and 'adamantium' at level 30. Noting that if the PCs haul that adamantium door back home and sell it to the dwarves, it is worth a big pile of coin! So the fiction really does care.</blockquote>

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