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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinneus" data-source="post: 5656258" data-attributes="member: 48215">I'm going to be honest; this idea stinks to high heaven. Automatically succeeding is not an issue. If your modifiers are high enough, you can auto-succeed on a lot of stuff. I see characters auto-succeed on Athletics checks and Heal checks as early as 5th level. Auto-failing quite simply sucks. It's not fun, it doesn't make the game more interesting, and it's not going to lead to memorable stories. In the example of the tight-rope walker on a greased rope in the middle of an earthquake, they should still have a marginal chance of success, simply because this is a high fantasy game, the tight-rope walker is the Big Hero, and because it'd make a better story to say that she succeeded where a lesser man would insta-fail. Even an untrained tight-rope walker should have a chance of succeeding, because dumb, nearly-impossible luck plays a huge element in fiction. Most highly memorable game D&D stories I can think of have some element of dumb luck. Long odds are a staple of any good narrative. Rolling a natural 20 on that gelatinous cube or the drunken, level 1 Fighter busting out 19 Diplomacy check is what makes the game exciting. It's what makes the game fun and unexpected. Auto-success and auto-failure already exists in the game in the form of passive Insight and Perception. As a DM, I should be asking: "How hard is this trap to notice and find? What number best represents this difficulty?" Instead, I find myself saying: "Okay, I know that the best passive Perception among my PCs is a 21. So anything higher is failure unless the PCs choose to roll, and anything lower is an auto-success." It gives me a black-and-white option (do I screw the players? Or let them breeze on through) that sucks and is no fun for anybody. It's like plot railroading that's hard-coded into the game system. And now you want to do this with every skill in the game? The "benefits" are dubious at best. How long does a lone skill check take? How much time are we really saving by forgoing dice? We don't need "impossible baked right into the game." If a player tries to fly with an Athletics check, the DM can and will tell him he's an idiot at any sane game table in the universe. We don't need players to auto-succeed, even on things they're optimized for; luck is what makes the game interesting. And even the pros screw up when the pressure is on. In short: no. No thank you.</blockquote>

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