Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4162355" data-attributes="member: 4937">Saeviomagy:&nbsp; You seem to be of the mistaken opinion that if you could show that the scene could be arbitrated in a logical fashion according to the rules, that you will have done harm to my point.&nbsp; It can't be the fault of the DM's description, because the PC doesn't know what the stakes of the challenge is.&nbsp; The PC in my example is just doing what seems logical to him.&nbsp; My point isn't being made against the specific example.&nbsp; Rather I'm trying to show that the number of successes you garner isn't necessarily related to how far you appear to have gone towards solving the initial problem.&nbsp; The key clause is, &quot;we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge&quot;&nbsp; It should be obvious that in general, this can happen, and that preventing it from happening would make a skill challenge look increasingly like traditional D&amp;D challenge resolution.Irrelevant.&nbsp; At the end of the described scenario, the party is farther along toward disarming said dangerous still armed device than the party which per the rules cannot fail to do so.So what.&nbsp; My point is that the paranoid party had adopted a purely passive approach to the problem - they were just going to think about it.&nbsp; This thinking about it corresponds perhaps to the described events Insight, History, and Nature checks (and perhaps other similar ones).&nbsp; But the point is that they were going to continue to think about it regardless of how long it took.&nbsp; One party merely by thinking about it, solved the problem.&nbsp; Another party (perhaps the same party in a parallel universe), merely by thinking about it it, didn't.&nbsp; Yet both took the same in game physical actions, namely, none.&nbsp; It probably should, but that means that we've returned to accepting that some sort of finite set of relevant actions are required to resolve various problems.&nbsp; At that point, why bother having skill challenge mechanics?&nbsp; Likewise, if we are ever ignoring skill checks, haven't we returned to the case (whether this is a fair description or not) of &quot;an encounter just go on and on and on, giving the players no feedback about progress in the positive or negative, and in the end resulting in a boring time being had by all.&quot;?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4162355, member: 4937"] Saeviomagy: You seem to be of the mistaken opinion that if you could show that the scene could be arbitrated in a logical fashion according to the rules, that you will have done harm to my point. It can't be the fault of the DM's description, because the PC doesn't know what the stakes of the challenge is. The PC in my example is just doing what seems logical to him. My point isn't being made against the specific example. Rather I'm trying to show that the number of successes you garner isn't necessarily related to how far you appear to have gone towards solving the initial problem. The key clause is, "we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge" It should be obvious that in general, this can happen, and that preventing it from happening would make a skill challenge look increasingly like traditional D&D challenge resolution. Irrelevant. At the end of the described scenario, the party is farther along toward disarming said dangerous still armed device than the party which per the rules cannot fail to do so. So what. My point is that the paranoid party had adopted a purely passive approach to the problem - they were just going to think about it. This thinking about it corresponds perhaps to the described events Insight, History, and Nature checks (and perhaps other similar ones). But the point is that they were going to continue to think about it regardless of how long it took. One party merely by thinking about it, solved the problem. Another party (perhaps the same party in a parallel universe), merely by thinking about it it, didn't. Yet both took the same in game physical actions, namely, none. It probably should, but that means that we've returned to accepting that some sort of finite set of relevant actions are required to resolve various problems. At that point, why bother having skill challenge mechanics? Likewise, if we are ever ignoring skill checks, haven't we returned to the case (whether this is a fair description or not) of "an encounter just go on and on and on, giving the players no feedback about progress in the positive or negative, and in the end resulting in a boring time being had by all."? [/QUOTE]

Verification