Please cure my 4e illiteracy

[Filcher]

Edited for Grammy.

 

[Cadfan]

For the OP: The flaw in Imaro's reading of Page 42 is that he's using it as an absolute guide instead of a set of guidelines for ad hoc stunts and new skill uses.

Here's what he's referring to:

The table gives example skill DCs in case your PCs come up with a skill use not covered by the rules. These skill DCs don't cover anything in particular: they're just examples. The idea is simple: the PC comes up with an idea not covered by existing skill DCs. The DM decides if this should be "easy, medium, or hard" for the character to accomplish. Then he looks at the character's level, and sets the DC according to what is known to be "easy, medium, or hard" for a character of that level. That's it.

Some people go into a sort of rage over this because they feel that it implies that the DC of a task goes up as the PCs advance in levels. For example, a level 1 PC might want to leap from a building onto the back of a galloping horse, and the DM might call that a hard athletics check, and assign a DC of 25 based on the page 42 chart. That's going to be nearly impossible for a level 1 PC. Many sessions later, a level 11 PC might want to do the same thing, and critics worry that the DM will assign the level 11 "hard" DC to the task, resulting in a DC of 30- a skill DC that rose based on nothing more than the character advancing in level.

The flaw in that reasoning is in not understanding the purpose of an "action the rules don't cover" section. The goal is to provide fast DCs calibrated to the player's level and applied BY THE DM AS HE DEEMS FIT. That's why there isn't any guide for what counts as easy, medium, or hard. ITS JUST A CHART OF DIFFICULTY CHECKS. If your DM decides that a task is "medium" for a level 1 PC, and gives it a skill DC of 20, and then later forgets and redecides that its an "medium" DC for a level 8 PC, that's really his problem, not the chart's.

The chart isn't rules! Its guidelines for how to make ad hoc rulings, and everyone should be judging according to the criteria on what makes good ad hoc rulings. NOT on what makes good permanent rules.

 

[malraux]

Malraux, I'm curious do you ever use the DC's in the PHB or do you only use page 42? If you use both how do you reconcile the fact that a PC of 10th level only needs to roll a 20 or higher to identify the name, type, keywords & powers of a monster he's never seen before but has to roll a 21 or higher to find his way from being lost...regardless of the fact that 5 levels previous he still had to roll a 20 to identify the monster but only had to roll a 17 in order to avoid getting lost. One has gotten easier and the other harder... both objectively and in relation to each other. Honestly this causes a bizarro world reaction in me when I look at it. And I'm wondering how others reconcile this weirdness.

There are DCs in the PHB? Unless they are also on the DM screen I probably don't use them (speed is more important that accuracy for me).

Anyway, what I try to do is actually to use the level of thing to set the DC. In practice, this is always about the same. ie, the cavern that level 5 characters are likely to explore is probably about a level 5 cavern, with monsters of about level 5. Five levels later, the caverns the party are exploring are deeper underground, with more twists and turns, weirder geology, etc, so it makes sense to me that the difficulty should go up.

 

[Imaro]

For the OP: The flaw in Imaro's reading of Page 42 is that he's using it as an absolute guide instead of a set of guidelines for ad hoc stunts and new skill uses.

Here's what he's referring to:

The table gives example skill DCs in case your PCs come up with a skill use not covered by the rules. These skill DCs don't cover anything in particular: they're just examples. The idea is simple: the PC comes up with an idea not covered by existing skill DCs. The DM decides if this should be "easy, medium, or hard" for the character to accomplish. Then he looks at the character's level, and sets the DC according to what is known to be "easy, medium, or hard" for a character of that level. That's it.

Some people go into a sort of rage over this because they feel that it implies that the DC of a task goes up as the PCs advance in levels. For example, a level 1 PC might want to leap from a building onto the back of a galloping horse, and the DM might call that a hard athletics check, and assign a DC of 25 based on the page 42 chart. That's going to be nearly impossible for a level 1 PC. Many sessions later, a level 11 PC might want to do the same thing, and critics worry that the DM will assign the level 11 "hard" DC to the task, resulting in a DC of 30- a skill DC that rose based on nothing more than the character advancing in level.

The flaw in that reasoning is in not understanding the purpose of an "action the rules don't cover" section. The goal is to provide fast DCs calibrated to the player's level and applied BY THE DM AS HE DEEMS FIT. That's why there isn't any guide for what counts as easy, medium, or hard. ITS JUST A CHART OF DIFFICULTY CHECKS. If your DM decides that a task is "medium" for a level 1 PC, and gives it a skill DC of 20, and then later forgets and redecides that its an "medium" DC for a level 8 PC, that's really his problem, not the chart's.

The chart isn't rules! Its guidelines for how to make ad hoc rulings, and everyone should be judging according to the criteria on what makes good ad hoc rulings. NOT on what makes good permanent rules.

And yet nowhere do you address the disparity in set DC's vs. dynamic. If you're skill getting better is represented by an increase in your ranks... why does a task then have to be adjusted by the DM to be easier? Case in point on page 41 of th DMG under search DC's... it uses the chart and this is not an ad-hoc action. It gives examples of easy through hard and then tells you to use the chart...

So for example...

Easy : Anything valuable in a chest full of junk

referencing the chart like it tells you to do it never get easier for a character to find something valuable in a chest full of junk. It's like even though his ranks go up...he never gets better, and in fact can get worse at finding relatively simple stuff.

1st level 10 or higher
5th level 13 or higher
13th level 18 or higher
20th level 22 or higher

I really think the designers should clarify in what situations and how the chart is suppose to be applied.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For the OP: The flaw in Imaro's reading of Page 42 is that he's using it as an absolute guide instead of a set of guidelines for ad hoc stunts and new skill uses.

Here's what he's referring to:

The table gives example skill DCs in case your PCs come up with a skill use not covered by the rules. These skill DCs don't cover anything in particular: they're just examples. The idea is simple: the PC comes up with an idea not covered by existing skill DCs. The DM decides if this should be "easy, medium, or hard" for the character to accomplish. Then he looks at the character's level, and sets the DC according to what is known to be "easy, medium, or hard" for a character of that level. That's it.

Some people go into a sort of rage over this because they feel that it implies that the DC of a task goes up as the PCs advance in levels. For example, a level 1 PC might want to leap from a building onto the back of a galloping horse, and the DM might call that a hard athletics check, and assign a DC of 25 based on the page 42 chart. That's going to be nearly impossible for a level 1 PC. Many sessions later, a level 11 PC might want to do the same thing, and critics worry that the DM will assign the level 11 "hard" DC to the task, resulting in a DC of 30- a skill DC that rose based on nothing more than the character advancing in level.

The flaw in that reasoning is in not understanding the purpose of an "action the rules don't cover" section. The goal is to provide fast DCs calibrated to the player's level and applied BY THE DM AS HE DEEMS FIT. That's why there isn't any guide for what counts as easy, medium, or hard. ITS JUST A CHART OF DIFFICULTY CHECKS. If your DM decides that a task is "medium" for a level 1 PC, and gives it a skill DC of 20, and then later forgets and redecides that its an "medium" DC for a level 8 PC, that's really his problem, not the chart's.

The chart isn't rules! Its guidelines for how to make ad hoc rulings, and everyone should be judging according to the criteria on what makes good ad hoc rulings. NOT on what makes good permanent rules.

I've also posted a blog entry on how to use these very DCs to support consistency. http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/...nsistent-d-d-worlds-possible.html#comment2931

 

[Raven Crowking]

Never mind.

 

[Imaro]

There are DCs in the PHB? Unless they are also on the DM screen I probably don't use them (speed is more important that accuracy for me).

Anyway, what I try to do is actually to use the level of thing to set the DC. In practice, this is always about the same. ie, the cavern that level 5 characters are likely to explore is probably about a level 5 cavern, with monsters of about level 5. Five levels later, the caverns the party are exploring are deeper underground, with more twists and turns, weirder geology, etc, so it makes sense to me that the difficulty should go up.

See I can get behind this you've set it up where the chart is used and the DC's in the PHB aren't thus attaining consistency. I just wish the corebooks did a better job of conveying the assumptions of which is the way it was intended to work. Thanks for your answer.

 

[The Shaman]

Thanks for all the replies.

At its heart, boiling everything down into the essential bits, all a skill challenge is, really, is the group accumulating so many successes on a series of skill checks before accumulating three failures.

Is it always three failures?

Could you have a 4/2 skill challenge, or a 2/4 skill challenge?

The chart isn't rules! Its guidelines for how to make ad hoc rulings, and everyone should be judging according to the criteria on what makes good ad hoc rulings. NOT on what makes good permanent rules.

Guidelines on making ad hoc rulings that are written into the rules are still rules by any definition with which I'm familiar. Broad rules subject to interpretation by the referee, but still rules nonetheless.

And if ad hoc DCs don't map well to DCs established in skill descriptions, well, I can see how that disconnect might bother people.

I like rules light systems that rely on referee adjudication, but there is a burden on the referee to be consistent. In more rules intensive systems, then the both the rules and the ref need to be consistent. In my experience, of course.

 

[malraux]

Easy : Anything valuable in a chest full of junk

referencing the chart like it tells you to do it never get easier for a character to find something valuable in a chest full of junk. It's like even though his ranks go up...he never gets better, and in fact can get worse at finding relatively simple stuff.

1st level 10 or higher
5th level 13 or higher
13th level 18 or higher
20th level 22 or higher

Why do you assume that level 1 characters and level 20 characters are looking through the same chest full of junk? Shouldn't it be easier to find the valuable things in a goblin's rickety box compared to an elder black dragon's chest full of hidden compartments, intricate locks, false baubles, etc?

 

[Imaro]

I've also posted a blog entry on how to use these very DCs to support consistency. http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/...nsistent-d-d-worlds-possible.html#comment2931

After a quick glance seems like a nice set of variant rules and I would even go so far as to say it's a shame no examples like that are in the DMG because then maybe some people wouldn't have the problems they have with them. Also let me say I admire the fact that instead of denying there is a problem (perhaps just for some people) you actually did something about it rather than just deny it. I'll be looking over those in depth a little later.