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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8368040" data-attributes="member: 82106">Right, so maybe my approach is a bit 'in between'. I would say "A small rough cliff face with many ledges and a good bit of plant growth" is probably a level 1 challenge to climb (maybe not even, but with a time constraint or under adverse conditions, etc.). We can spend an SC on this. The level 8 party won't do that, they are not really challenged by it, maybe it warrants a check as part of some SC regulating whether or not they cross the overall region swiftly enough to catch up with their quarry. So, there's an 'objective cliff' there, which presumably was established in the fiction by something at or before the level 1 scene where it was climbed. It will still be 'just as hard' to climb now, but its narrative function will change, and thus different mechanics are engaged.Yeah, again, agree that there's nothing non-arbitrary about DCs in 4e, or any other game! 4e also has a fuzzy side in which you can ask if a DC is a Hard level 1, or an Easy level 21! They are the same number (19). The columns skew exactly 1 tier (10 levels) per 'rank'. So, you COULD leverage this in the sense of "This cliff was hard to climb at level 1, which translates to a medium level 11 difficulty, and an easy level 21 difficulty." I'm not sure this was really the intent of that mechanism though. I prefer the idea of 'narrative significance' and tying that to types of mechanics, or the framing of the related SC.So, when low level PCs face a certain challenge, it is narratively significant. Climbing that daunting cliff is how the level 1 PCs get out of the ravine before the flood which is coming sweeps them away. Its tough, the SC covers that, and its a big narrative, probably one of 4 or 5 action sequences in a game session. At level 11 the PCs are chasing some bad guys and have to decide if they will climb it, which is just an Athletics or Nature check or whatever, vs the Wizard casting a Phantom Steeds and dicing on getting flying mounts that will just waft them across. Some of the climb checks were hard at level 1, the same 19 DC at level 11 is medium, the default for an SC. Not really crazy different DCs.</blockquote>

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