New Legends and Lore:Difficulty Class Warfare

[Gundark]

Some sort of automated skill improvement ("learn by doing") should be built into the system. Say... everyone becomes a Novice in every skill (he is not already trained in) at 10th level and a Journeyman at 20th level.


Spend one or more action points to improve your ranking for one task.

The more I think about this system, the more it makes sense. Just ditch the unnecessary DC 15 check.

And adding more detailed math is easy, as I presented upthread.

gotta spread some more xp.

Yeah, the action point thing isn't a bad idea. I'm not so sure about ditching the dice roll, but...yeah at first I wasn't so sure abou tthis idea, but the more I think about it the more I like it. I really like rewarding clever play, and having action points to help as well

 

[LostSoul]

I'm thinking more along the lines of the Orc Horde is gaining on you, this cliff is in your way. You must climb it to escape.

There is a time pressure and there is a consequence to failing this or delaying this.

I think that if you have 1) enraged the Orc Horde, 2) failed to evade them, and then 3) ran into a box canyon, you've already failed.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The root of all mechanical evil in D&D is the love of combining everything important about a given task into a single roll.

Now, like the quote that is bastardized from, I'm willing to concede a lot of definitional and philosophical wiggle room due to exceptions, playability, etc. However, I still think there is a lot to consider along those lines with why things don't always work so hot. Turning "good at a task" into "+N every time you do the task" is definitely an area where the issue applies.

 

[AeroDm]

I realized an interesting progression.

3e introduced a rich design environment of skill points and DCs. You could simulate anything, but assigning skill points was a pain and assigning DCs could also be challenging.

4e simplified skill points into binary decisions that did away with the first problem. Assigning DCs remained a pain.

This variant makes assigning DCs easy. There isn't enough information, but I'm having a hard time seeing how it won't require skill points or something else that previous editions did away with for good reason. The other problem is that although assigning a DC is easy, there isn't a good way to know if it is an *appropriate* DC. In other games you can eyeball a number and have a decent idea if people ought to be able to meet it. But if you pick Journeyman for a Balance DC, there is no indication that characters can achieve that whatever their level. A 20th level character that never took ranks in Balance simply cannot pass.

 

[P1NBACK]

I'm thinking more along the lines of the Orc Horde is gaining on you, this cliff is in your way. You must climb it to escape.

There is a time pressure and there is a consequence to failing this or delaying this.

Don't run toward the cliff? lol

Seriously. Don't run toward the cliff.

This is called fictional positioning.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This variant makes assigning DCs easy. There isn't enough information, but I'm having a hard time seeing how it won't require skill points or something else that previous editions did away with for good reason. The other problem is that although assigning a DC is easy, there isn't a good way to know if it is an *appropriate* DC. In other games you can eyeball a number and have a decent idea if people ought to be able to meet it. But if you pick Journeyman for a Balance DC, there is no indication that characters can achieve that whatever their level. A 20th level character that never took ranks in Balance simply cannot pass.

IMHO this is a good thing. Being 20th level in itself is awesome there isn't a need to become a jack of all trades based purely on level. A physically weak wizard doesn't suddenly sprout a Mr. Olympia physique at high level.

Basic areas of weakness shouldn't dissappear due to level. It might be possible for a character to evenly distribute training across many types of skills being competent at many but master of none.

For this to be a worthwhile thing, adventures will need to feature a wide variety of challenge difficulties so that hyper specialization isn't considered mandatory just to be competent.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

IMHO this is a good thing. Being 20th level in itself is awesome there isn't a need to become a jack of all trades based purely on level. A physically weak wizard doesn't suddenly sprout a Mr. Olympia physique at high level.

Basic areas of weakness shouldn't dissappear due to level. It might be possible for a character to evenly distribute training across many types of skills being competent at many but master of none.

For this to be a worthwhile thing, adventures will need to feature a wide variety of challenge difficulties so that hyper specialization isn't considered mandatory just to be competent.

I disagree that basic areas of weakness shouldn't disappear due to level. I think that having some scaling of weaknesses going away due to level solves a lot more problems than it introduces.

However, I do think that if at all possible, such scaling should not be hard-wired into the system. Because it is really a campaign-specific or style-specific decision that the players and DM ought to make collectively, not something set by the rules. Obviously, I think basic weaknesses ought not be hard-wired into the system, either.

There are fully times when I want to feature those wide variety of challenges and have all kinds of weaknesses that the players must work around. And then other times when that isn't the point of the campaign, and I want everyone to be broadly competent at all the basics and distinguished by their specialties, so that I can get on with focusing on those specialties.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I disagree that basic areas of weakness shouldn't disappear due to level. I think that having some scaling of weaknesses going away due to level solves a lot more problems than it introduces.

However, I do think that if at all possible, such scaling should not be hard-wired into the system. Because it is really a campaign-specific or style-specific decision that the players and DM ought to make collectively, not something set by the rules. Obviously, I think basic weaknesses ought not be hard-wired into the system, either.

There are fully times when I want to feature those wide variety of challenges and have all kinds of weaknesses that the players must work around. And then other times when that isn't the point of the campaign, and I want everyone to be broadly competent at all the basics and distinguished by their specialties, so that I can get on with focusing on those specialties.

Well, basic strengths and weaknesses are the heart of a class based system. For a more broadly competent base character a brick by brick building system such as GURPS works nicely.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Well, basic strengths and weaknesses are the heart of a class based system. For a more broadly competent base character a brick by brick building system such as GURPS works nicely.

Yes, or Hero, which I have run quite a lot. However, that is a different issue than the one I was highlighting. GURPs or Hero are great when you want to set competence and then have it stay where you set it, without necessarily a lot of power scaling.

I boils down to this: In a game that scales from farmboy to competent to hero to epic hero, do you want to handle a weakness that hangs around forever (e.g. the 90lb weakling wizard)? Dealing with that takes some effort. Replacing it with a mechanic where the weaknesses are muted over time due to level scaling has other issues. Dealing with that takes some different effort. And I don't think anything a system can do can finesse this issue totally.

So I'll have to make an effort either way. But sometimes one effort is a breeze and the other is a slog. Other times, it flips. Since this is something that a lot of D&D groups are going to disagree upon (or like me, even change back and forth), I don't think either way should be hard-wired into the rules.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I actually like the method monte suggested, though I would really have tp see it in practice to be sure. Also, couldn't a simple skill rank cap get around the dc issue.