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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles JG" data-source="post: 5655863" data-attributes="member: 61501">I was messing with a system like this for Call of Chthullhu where it always annoyed the heck out of me that an expert in some field would still probably only have a 60% chance of success at any task. I was looking at automatic success - 5/6 - 3/6 - 1/6 - automatic fail as tiers - +2 on a d6 = about +7 on a D20 or half Mearls bonus. It also reminds me of the Gumshoe sort of philosophy where if a clue is there it will be found. Clues would always have find difficulties that make success automatic.  I believe it is better suited to a levelless system than D&D but maybe in 4e terms the tiers would set the default difficulty - a master task at paragon is routine at epic & almost impossible at heroic. Really demi tiers would be a better level of granularity. I have also been looking at numberless D&D using a dice with faces that say* things like :-success; fail (unless you are very skilled); success (unless your target is hard to hit).  It's an intellectual exercise just now as it's a bit confusing but it made me think of abilities in a different way. In 4e abilities are pretty much tiered - good, attack stat, OK secondary stat or dump stat. This works fine in my numberless system as a good stat can turn a hit into a miss on one face one the die & the opposite with a bad stat.  It also works well in Mearls skill system where a character can have an ability where he is particularly apt at a skill, neutral or be inept. Each one could move the difficulty tier one step (though ideally you would have narrower tiers - +5 on a D20 is the right sort of level like skill training is).  This moves ability scores away from numbers the same way that skills have gone in this model. You obviously lose granularity but I would get this back with limited use (per day/encounter session/adventure) bonuses. Ie a big bonus some of the time rather than a small bonus all the time. In 4e all that high abilities really do is make you better at certain sets of "skills" including initiative, basic attacks & HP. *using Icons - what it gains in conceptual elegance it loses in trying to figure out the pictures.</blockquote>

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