Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyronus" data-source="post: 5693298" data-attributes="member: 93419">Because heaven above if we like the way things were and want to keep seeing more of the same. How close-minded and foolish of us.Or, you know, we've tried spinach, mushrooms, ten breads, and thirty sauces and found them all to be varying degrees of less satisfying, or, far better in a different context.Perhaps other connoisseurs should lay off making assumptions and wildly psychologizing about how and why other people came to like their spagetti, and making insinuations about their ability to understand or enjoy other meals.----Honestly this skill system is... o.k.. The big issue is, as others have pointed out, its not really new. It just abstracts the idea of DC vs. Modifier a step further, making it a purely narrative mechanic in all but a few cases. Instead of realizing you can't make the check on a twenty, or you can make it on a one, or more accurately, that you can only succeed on it if you roll 15+ or fail on a 4-. Your chances of success or failure are so large that, for practical purposes you might as well not waste time doing the math. The DM just skips that step and tells you you failed or succeeded outright. From the looks of it, it does narrow the swinginess of the d20, which may, or may not, be a plus. At the same time it thought widens the gap between skilled and unskilled. This makes balancing skill use in an adventure a whole lot harder. If the only character who is a Master lock-pick dies, there is no hope in hell his six apprentice buddies can do anything. At least in 4E you have aid-another. This also kills the idea of a skill challenge, since someone with Master in one or two relevant skills when the challenge is balanced around everyone else being Journeymen would basically make the whole thing a forgone conclusion and a waste of game time. Then again, in a party with high skill modifiers and good tactics, skill challenges do approach that. Despite that, I don't want to see them go, as they are a good idea that, when done well, add to the flow of the game. The system is more evocative than the DC one, but that's mostly a writing issue. One could easily write out the DCs in a flavorful manor to get the same ideas across. DC 10 Acrobatics is rolling under a low edge. DC 40 is traversing a swinging rope over space. Finally his whole point about how his system allowed for player cleverness strikes me as ignorant since I am almost entirely certain 4E ALLOWS AND ENCOURAGES THIS. I don't feel like looking for it, but I do distinctly recall there being a rule about circumstance bonuses, which players are awared an extra modifier for applying the skill creatively or having some expertise or circumstance enhancing the skill. For example a barbarian gets bonuses to intimidate by wearing the skulls of his enemies as part of his armor. There are items like crowbars and footpads in the PHB1 that do things similarly. I know flat out the skill challenge rules encourage a DM to allow players to try off the wall skills, if they can come with up a reasonable narrative for doing so.So, really, its the DC system, but more well written and most of its flaws amplified. Monte has not only remade the wheel, but he made it lopsided. It doesn't do much new or different, or really, anything at all. The only thing troubling about it is really the "old school is best school" vibe one could potentially get from the article, and the fact that Monte appears to have missed a chunk of the point of the DC system. Not a great start, but, we'll continue to wait and see.</blockquote>

Verification