Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riastlin" data-source="post: 5715591" data-attributes="member: 94022">I thought this was one of the better L&L articles to date.  I do agree with the notion that the more detailed the rules are, the less wiggle room the DM has for making judgment calls.  Its not so much that the designers are saying "Hey DM's, you can't change our rules!"  Rather its the growing numbers of rules lawyers who are saying "Hey DM, according to page 137 of this book here, the DC is 10, not 15!"A lot of this comes from the social contract that is implicit at the table.  The rules are there to give a basis for the group as to what to expect.  The DM expects the players to choose only those powers and feats that actually exist as oppose to making their own.  At the same time, the players expect the DM to use the RAW.  Now, certainly, the DM is free to house rule.  However, it is again generally expected that if the DM is going to house rule, she will tell the group about said house rules in advance, otherwise, its presumed that the DM is using the RAW.As for the auto increase in skill modifiers, I'm actually fine with it.  As [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION] says, part of progressing up the tiers (or character levels in general) is seeing how much things change for you.  In other words, a PC who had difficulty climbing a wall at 1st level, will feel pretty accomplished when she returns to that same wall at level 15 and breezes up it.  Now I confess that the notion of "Swinging my sword makes me more knowledgeable about the various religions" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  However, I have also always thought that while its generally the encounters that grant XP to the PCs, there was far more to their lives than what actually comes up at the game table.  Maybe that trek through the woods that was summarized in about 10 seconds not only lasted 3 days, but allowed the PCs to get to know their mounts better, thus making them better at riding them.  In addition, maybe part of the two week journey from one city to another allowed the party to rest on the shore of a lake and they all went for a swim, etc.  In other words, there are just way too many things that go on in a person's life than can be summarized in a 4 hour gaming session.  That doesn't mean those "unimportant" activities didn't enable the PC to get better at something though.As for how does the barbarian become so knowledgeable in history, or how does the fighter learn so many details of the various religions?  Well, the easiest explanation is that during their travels over the last several years, they actually picked up a little bit on what the cleric and wizard kept talking about around the camp fire each night.  They still are not nearly as knowledgeable as their party mates, but some of it is going to stick over the years.</blockquote>

Verification