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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7936311" data-attributes="member: 29398">Huh - maybe what I'm thinking of is a houserule that's existed since before I started playing, but we've always had touch attacks ignore some aspects that go into one's AC.Absolutely.And where is it again?  The DMG, you say.  Good place for it, I suppose, for when players decide to try something outside the box.But the tone of the PH* - the player-side info - in both 3e and 4e is "here's what you're allowed to do, and here's where the borders are".  There's no real encouragement to try anything else because it's presented as if there's a rule for everything.The other editions aren't presented thusly; it's fairly clear that what's given is only a framework.* - PH1 in 4e; which in tandem with a DMG1 and MM1 one in theory ought to be able to play the game from.Maybe that explains why every time I ever went to one of those things I came away feeling less empowered than when I arrived: I'd just been told how to do something I was probably already doing just fine, only now I was supposed to do it in certain ways.Power = freedom.Narrator is more or less equivalent across all editions (though maybe not so directly spelled out).Referee isn't.  In a rules-heavier system like 3e the referee is merely enforcing what's on the page.  In a rules-lighter system like 0e or a more kitbashable system like 1e, the referee also has the power to determine what those rules are.  4e, despite the above, comes across in tone of presentation more like 3e even though the system isn't quite as rules-heavy.RE: thievery checks by FightersIt empowers the DM to make whatever ruling she wants when (not if) a player tries something off the farm, and - more important - it implicitly* empowers the player to go ahead and try stuff.* - or even explicitly; I seem to recall a passage in the how-to-play part of the PH saying words to the effect of "Try what you want, the DM will sort it out" but don't have a page number handy.I'll be the first to admit that 1e's RAW way of handling this specific example isn't great at all.  It's the same problem that happened with climbing: before the Thief was introduced anyone could try it, but once the Thief came in then only Thieves (and Assassins, and Rangers to a point) could try it, and that's poor design.But 1e is both malleable and forgiving when it comes to kitbashing and rulings. It's the one true advantage of what I call its underlying mechanical chaos.We long ago ruled that in this situation a non-Thief is free to try and pick a lock, but at terrible odds (often as low as 1%) and with a much higher chance of messing it up e.g. rendering the lock unopenable even with the key.  Same as anyone's free to try climbing a wall but unless you're trained in climbing the odds of reaching the top are very much not in your favour.It's simple realism: if we had to, you or I could try picking a lock even though neither of us (I assume!) are professional lockpickers or thieves, and there's always a tiny chance we'll actually succeed along with a much greater chance we'll mess it up badly.Giving even a raw Dex check in 4e seems on the surface much more generous. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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