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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8742386" data-attributes="member: 82106">My feeling is that this kind of argument is only meaningful in terms of discussing what are the actual rules of the specific WotC version of SC (at any particular point in 4e evolution I suppose). I'm not all that interested in dissecting the exact RAW and RAI (to resurrect the terms used back in the day) of the game. I think I, and I assume the OP, are more interested in how it CAN be played and what actual successful practice looks like (and maybe what the alternatives are and what SC's weaknesses are). So, I am not that much taken with your principles. Yes, I am playing fast and loose in some sense with the rules, but that is my prerogative and at most I am interested in how it may relate to the spirit of what was written.Well, I'm just saying that the ACTUAL WORDING of the DMGs is pretty vague as to what a ritual does in an SC. DMG1 p74 "Characters might have access to utility powers or rituals that can help them. These might allow special uses of skills, perhaps with a bonus. Rituals in particular might grant an automatic success or remove failures from the running total."Nothing in the above quote seems to definitely state a rule. Each statement is qualified with 'might'. In fact this text is asking the GM to consider what these might be and if they will be effective, and to what degree. All I'm saying is that I think the greatest weight is placed on the firmer and more definite parts of the text. It is CLEAR that an SC has a complexity-determined pass/fail condition at its core. It is also clear that there are a certain number of advantages and a certain number of checks of various difficulty (in the DMG2 write up, DMG1 didn't have this refinement). I'd mostly go with the DCs/advantages being fairly canonical, I believe they were intended to help tweak the overall chances of success in SCs, to 'tune' the system. However, because each SC is pretty situational I think they are more likely to see modification.I'd point out that in DMG2 there is actually an example SC on DMG2 P98 'Moving through Suderham', which uses TOTALLY different rules! I mean, its a stretch to even call it an SC in a sense, yet it is designed as such and presented as such. This illustrates that, certainly by 2009, the designers of the game thought that even the 'so many successes before 3 failures' core mechanic was fair game to be modified if it suited the GM. Now, honestly, I doubt I would do that except in a case where I wanted to create a mini-game of some kind for whatever reason (and I'm not super fond of that kind of thing, so I wouldn't, but if I did).OK, well, I think its a bit less nailed down in DMG1, which lacks advantages and is less specific about rituals. My feeling is that I'd just use the advantage rule, even though its complexity 2, and not worry about it. As I say, Mearls literally wrote an SC that changes ALL the SC rules, and its an example in DMG2, so giving the PC one advantage on a complexity 2 challenge when they use a VERY appropriate ritual seems rather appropriate to me.</blockquote>

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