Near-Epic Skill Results

[Anabstercorian]

What I'm more interested in is what kind of non-tracking Wilderness Lore fun he can have.

For example:
- What's the DC for hunting & finding food on the Elemental Plane of Fire? In the Abyss?

Elemental Plane of Fire:
DC 70 + 5 per additional person, off hand - All creatures there are elemental, so no meat, no plants can survive, and no water stays liquid...
Abyss:
DC 30 + 4 per additional person - And if you fail your check by 5 or more, all who you feed or quench are poisoned by the food, and must make a Fortitude save DC 20 or suffer 1d4+1 points of Constitution damage.

- What's the DC for finding your way around on a novel terrain? On a "magical" terrain? On a divinely morphic (and morphing) terrain?

Um.... Dunno... Sorry.

- What's the DC for sheltering yourself and your companions from hostile planar effects? Magical weather effects? Evil ("vile") weather effects?

For Energy types, I'd say DC 60. Magical weather, DC 40. Vile weather, DC 25.

Thanks, -- Nifft

Don't mention it.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Is it me, or does requiring a DC 60 to pick races seem a little bit ridiculous? I mean, all the standard races are significantly different from each other. Why is picking a dwarf from an elf that much harder than simply finding the dwarfs tracks on hard ground three days later after a hard rain that lasted 24 hours?

 

[Angcuru]

skills schmills. can he kill cthulhu's avatar in a single round?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Is it me, or does requiring a DC 60 to pick races seem a little bit ridiculous? I mean, all the standard races are significantly different from each other. Why is picking a dwarf from an elf that much harder than simply finding the dwarfs tracks on hard ground three days later after a hard rain that lasted 24 hours?

I'd certainly allow you to narrow it down at a much lower dc. a ranger would also have a good chance of picking out the tracks of his favored enemy.

 

[s/LaSH]

A bunch of small modifiers piled together can quickly add up. That said, I might relegate the 'distinguish race' thing to maybe just +20DC, and 'distinguish type' to +5 - it's really easy to tell the difference between a fire elemental's tracks and a horse's tracks.

Just a suggestion, though - completely off the top of my head. I don't really have much to add to the 'new abilities' side of things.

However, on the 'epic skill results' side of things: there is a level beyond which human skill cannot pass. There are no people in our world of six billion inhabitants who are regularly observed walking on clouds. Simply put, to give someone skill ranks beyond a certain level is to change them into something more than human.

IMC, I'd rule that this was due to constant exposure to positive energy (in the form of healing spells). Other justifications may vary. The fact remains, however, that these things are impossible. 'Balance on water', while it may sound cool, is physiologically impossible.

Or is it? I've seem photos of river lizards running across the surface of water (the Amazonian Basilisk - and this isn't an April Fools Day thing, it was in National Geographic a couple decades ago). Just because a human can't, doesn't mean a modified or supernaturally talented person can't.

So your monk can Balance on clouds. Why not? Maybe he's vibrating his feet a thousand times a second to stay aloft. It's not really magic, just supernatural talent. In similar fashion, why not let someone track a trail past 200 sheep? There could still be a whiff of scent that a delicate nose might pick up, or a particularly deep footprint that the sheep avoided out of fluke, or a scrap of thread lying in the mud, or even a trace of dye on a blade of dew-damp grass from the quarry's trousers - it may seem unlikely, but the truly, spectacularly talented tracker should have no troubles.

After all, I've read eyewitness accounts of an Australian aborigine tracking escaped convicts (about 50 years ago, this was). The tracker looked at the occasional twig, scuffs in the dirt, announced a few hours into the hunt that the quarry had sprained his ankle, and sure enough, they found him soon afterwards in poor shape. It's amazing what humans can do given sufficient training.

And can he defeat Cthulhu's avatar? Depends. Is he sleeping underneath a conveniently-placed yet extremely loose boulder of epic proportions, Wile E. Coyote-style? Good old rock. Nothing beats rock.

 

[Arthur Tealeaf]

Any ideas for my Dm? I have a 7th level halfling rogue w/ +29 on hide and +27 on move silently...

That means I can score 49 on my hide check

Gotta love that shadow armor and those boots of elvenkind

Sadly he can't do anything else Can't find traps, can't pick locks Therefore I'd like to get as much out of his hiding skills as possible! Yay!

 

[Zenon]

That means I can score 49 on my hide check

Gotta love that shadow armor and those boots of elvenkind

[edit - made this sound a little nicer] Have you checked the Shadow properties section under Armor in the DMG (or SRD)?

Shadow
This armor grants a +10 circumstance bonus to Hide checks. This bonus does not stack with the Hide bonus granted by a cloak of elvenkind or obscuring or blinding-based Hide check bonuses. (The armor’s armor check penalty still applies normally.)
Caster Level: 5th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, invisibility; Market Price: +1 bonus.

So you're down to a +19 on Hide checks, max roll of 39....

edit - hmm, reread it and it seems like I'm busting on you, that's not intentional. Just pointing out that your cloak and armor properties do not stack.

 

[Anthron]

Just pointing out that your cloak and armor properties do not stack.

That depends on if he has a cloak of elven kind not the boot he said he had.

I am betting the extra ten points he reported were from racial, size and stat bonuses.

 

[CmdrSam]

You remember things like in The Two Towers, when Aragorn put his ear to the ground and heard a band of thirty orcs a day's travel away? That's epic skill use right there.

--Sam L-L