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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 5657660" data-attributes="member: 1645">The core of the system, from the <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20110816" target="_blank">original article</a>:If your skill rank is greater than the task’s DC rank, you automatically succeed. You are so skilled that you can complete the task without any special effort. Think of a tightrope walker at the circus. She has enough training and experience that performing her act is an automatic success. It would take some outside factor, like a sudden injury, an equipment failure, and so on, to cause her to fall. On the other hand, as a sedentary game designer I wouldn’t even imagine trying to walk across a tightrope myself. I’d fall after a step or two. If your skill rank equals the task’s DC rank, you need to make a check with a result of 15 or higher to succeed. You’re skilled enough that you might succeed. In this world, skill checks use an ability score modifier (chosen to fit the task by the DM; a skill uses whatever ability is the best match for the actual action) with perhaps a small modifier based on feats or a skill bonus. Going back to our tightrope walker, perhaps an earthquake strikes in the middle of her act. As the rope sways, the DC shifts one category up. Now she has to make a check, perhaps with her 18 Dexterity for a +4 bonus as well as a +4 bonus from a feat or other benefit she took. That gives her a 65% chance to remain on the rope. If your skill rank is below the task’s DC rank, you automatically fail. Your training and experience are not enough to complete the task. Going back to the tightrope walker, let’s say that as the earth shakes she also steps on a length of the rope that her rival covered in grease. The difficulty shifts one more category up, causing her to fall to the net below.(First, I failed my save against pedantry and must point out that needing a 15 or higher on 1d20 is a 30-percent chance of success.  With a +8 bonus, it becomes a 70-percent chance, not 65 percent.)So, we divvy skill-levels and difficulties into a few named classes, compare them, and any task is either auto-success, roughly one-in-four chance of success, or auto-failure.  So each difficulty class is the equivalent +15 DC in 3E?  But characters can gain that much skill more easily?  And bonuses that help them on challenging tasks -- like those +8 bonuses above -- don't help at all on too-tough tasks?I'm not sure what problem this solves.</blockquote>

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