[Rules Compendium] Degree of Success/Failure Informs the Narrative

[Justin D. Jacobson]

I might just have to get this book, if it has useful gamecraft stuff like that in there.

For my new Pathfinder campaing (starting Saturday, yip!), I'm using these additional rules cribbed from the design notes:

Skill Scores / Taking 10: This is why I need all of your final skill bonuses. (Dave already sent his.) Basically, if Taking 10 would result in a successful check and it’s not a stressful situation, I’m just going to say “success”. I.e., you don’t have to think to Take 10; I’ll do it for you. (Of course, if I don’t think about it, feel free to propose it.)

Hidden Hit Points: Not from me -- from each other. I.e., you can’t tell each other how many hit points you have left or what your negative score is. You can yell to the cleric “Heal me” but not “Ouch, that puts me at -8.”

Alternate Turning Effect: Instead of fleeing in fear, turned undead suffer a -4 penalty to all rolls and may not approach within 10 feet of or attack the turner unless they make a Will save (DC 10 + max HD affected) for a number of rounds equal to turning level + Cha bonus. (slightly tweaked from the suggestion in the book)

And there are a host of other neat suggestions: Appraise specialization, ditching Use Rope altogether, etc.

 

[Merova]

Varying Degrees of Success

Addressing narrative technique isn't a common concern in the D&D ruleset, so it's nice to see a bit of attention directed that way. However this doesn't seem to be much more than a slight elaboration on the "Degrees of Success" technique from the DMG, which is mentioned above. In 3.0, the DMG gave slightly more info on adjudicating the situation.

In the 3.0 DMG, on page 91, there was a chart (Table 3-20), which set out three stages of success:

DC or above: Success
DC +10 or above: Greater Success
DC +20 or above: Perfect Success

There was no explicit suggestion on how to incorporate narrative qualities into the task resolution. Moreover, there was no suggestion as to how a "Perfect" success differed from a "Greater" or even a normal success in terms of mechanical implementation. It was left for the individual DM to adjudicate as desired.

In regards to degree of failure, again, I'm not seeing much innovation. The section in the 3.5 DMG entitled "Describing the Action" (p.16-17) gets a similar intention across. However, it's nice that descriptive narration is being encouraged.

Good Gaming!