Skill vs NADs (fort,ref,will)

[Larrin]

I've been DMing for the D&D encounters (more or less my first 4e DMing) and recently also ran the Free RPG day Dark sun module for some friends that I hadn't seen in a year. Both times it came up that they wanted to try something interesting and the most logical option was to make a skill check vs the monsters will or reflex. Now as neither character was trained in the skills they were trying, it had reasonable odds of success, but looking at even 1st level characters its possible to had +10 to a skill, which is quite high to be pitting against a monster's NADs, right? I know there are DC tables and such in the DMG for level appropriate stunts, but I really like using a monsters NADs to show that each monster is different etc.

For example: One character wanted to jump onto a large sized beetle, so I used acrobatics/athletics vs ref. He failed. But had he succeeded he wanted to try and ride it, I was thinking a nature vs will to try and move it or an intimidate vs will to try and 'ride it down' or otherwise cow its behavior. With a will of 13 and his training in nature and intimidate, he would have needed a 5 or less, where as a nontrained would need a 10. That seems like a big spread.

Further more:you get bonuses to skills from feats, race, items and whatnot but not any enhancement bonuses....how does skill vs NAD level?


So to summarize my actual questions:

1) Is skill training too high (esp. at level 1) to default to skill vs nads? Solutions?
2) Does skill vs nads remain constant throughout the levels?
3)Is my hesitation to type NADs a sign of immaturity?
4) Any experience from others using this sort of technique?

Thanks!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, this typically shows up in situations like escaping grabs. Say your level 1 PC has a +10 bonus vs your average level 1 monster might have a +3 to +5 (but if trained that comes out to +8 to +10) for an opposed check its maybe a 50/50 if you're trained. When you get up to 30th level the spread is huge though. A PC that had +0 at level 1 is likely now around +16. Your monster is now going to average something like +24, making it around 60/40 for a totally untrained guy. However the guy that started with a +10 is now at +25 (if he did NOTHING to increase it beyond natural progression) making it an automatic success.

So yeah, in general at higher levels PCs making opposed checks become easier and high bonus characters stop failing opposed checks on average around paragon tier. Of course there are plenty of monsters that have training and above average stats too, but with all the ways PCs can jack up most of the skills likely to be used this way overall opposed checks slant in favor of PCs more and more.

Now, opposing defenses is a BIT different. An intimidate check opposes Will by RAW, and a standard monster will have about a 13 Will at level 1. So an untrained PC will have less than a 50/50 and a highly trained one (+10) will succeed 90% of the time. Some monsters will do better of course. At 30th level your monster's will defense is now around +33 and your untrained PCs have been left in the dust, but the highly trained ones will still be doing OK (and again not assuming they actually blow resources on the skill in question). If a PC DOES toss some resources into his skill its pretty easy to drop another +10 on it by 30th level and make skill vs defense an auto-success.

The basic moral of the story is that skill bonuses spread wider and wider at high levels and thus for any scheme you come up with either untrained people have no chance or better trained ones can't fail. By 30th level the spread is AT LEAST 11 and can easily break the 20 mark at which point you're off the ends of a d20.

One solution is to rely more on ability score checks. Those spread a lot less, 6 points at level 1 max up to 10 points max at level 30. There are a few items that can give a bonus to an ability check, but not many, and no feats that I know of. Here though the PCs fall behind as monsters ability scores avg increase +1/2 levels. A 13 str level 1 monster will be a 28 str level 30 monster, the character OTOH goes from say 20 str to at most 30 str in the same period, thus losing 5 points against the monsters. Still, that's a lot better than the situation with skills. If its ability score vs defenses the math is pretty much dead even and works OK at all levels.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Since you want to attack a NAD lets compare skills to implement attacks.

Both get: 1/2 lvl + ability score.
Skill: +5 trained, + 3 skill focus, racial mods usually +2, background mod +1 to 3, item bonuses, etc.
Implement: +1 to 6 enhancement, +1 to 3 versatile expertise, +1 superior implement.

If you treat the skill use as an attack it should benefit from most buffs and CA as well, therefore, I don't account for them.

Skill mods are frontloaded, you can get 5 ability score + 5 trained + 3 feat skill focus + 2 racial + 2 background = +17 at level 1. You can get a +6 item bonus usually so that's the same as the +6 enhancement bonus for an implement attack.

As you can see you can reach higher numbers w/ optimized skills than with your implement attacks. Therefore, be wary what bonuses/rewards you grant by using skills as an attack. Using skills should never be better than using your attack powers all the time. They may fill some corner cases or be cool from time to time but they shouldn't be and are not meant to be your tools of the trade for combat purposes.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

If its ability score vs defenses the math is pretty much dead even and works OK at all levels.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. What I understand directly contradicts that implement attacks get a +6 enhancement bonus and a +3 feat bonus against NADs and weapon attacks and additional +2 to 3. So I fail to see how ability check vs DEF can ever work reasonably for a player char especially the higher the levels get.

 

[Jhaelen]

I know there are DC tables and such in the DMG for level appropriate stunts, but I really like using a monsters NADs to show that each monster is different etc.

I know that sweets are bad for my health, but I really like sweets!

Further more:you get bonuses to skills from feats, race, items and whatnot but not any enhancement bonuses....how does skill vs NAD level?

It doesn't. as you already noticed, skill bonuses are handed out like candy. If a pc chooses to focus on developing a skill, it's easy to auto-succeed after a few levels, even against the (level-appropriate) hard DCs in the DMG table.
I don't know if you remember 3e and the fiasco that was the Truenamer class from the Tome of Magic? If you don't: It was an attempt to create a class using a skill to work its magic. And it failed spectacularly, because there's no good baseline for a skill bonus progression. The variance is too high.

1) Is skill training too high (esp. at level 1) to default to skill vs nads? Solutions?
2) Does skill vs nads remain constant throughout the levels?
3)Is my hesitation to type NADs a sign of immaturity?
4) Any experience from others using this sort of technique?

1) Yes. Solution: Don't do it!
2) Nope. See above.
3) No, it's a sign of maturity
4) Skills are meant to be either opposed by skill checks or used against (level-appropriate) set DCs. Note, that it's widely acknowledged that the revised skill DC table in the DMG uses values that are too low to be challenging.
This doesn't matter a lot unless skills are used to affect the outcome of combats. That's why the combat use of Intimidate is a really bad idea. It's just like in 3e using the Diplomacy skill to avoid/end a combat was bad.

In a way, imho, skills are still the red-headed stepchild of the 4e rules. Skill bonus progression is not as strictly governed as other (combat-related) bonuses.

If you really want to use defenses as the target DCs for skill checks, don't let a single skill check decide the outcome. Turn these actions into mini skill challenges. Otherwise, you'll end up with too many auto-win situations. Alternatively let the monster make an ability check to oppose the skill check (e.g. use Wisdom rather than Will). In any case you may want to use circumstancial modifiers to make the skill checks more difficult, unless you really want them to succeed.

 

[jorwland]

1) Is skill training too high (esp. at level 1) to default to skill vs nads? Solutions?
2) Does skill vs nads remain constant throughout the levels?
3)Is my hesitation to type NADs a sign of immaturity?
4) Any experience from others using this sort of technique?

Thanks!

1) I would say no. However, think of the skill checks you are asking the players to make more along the lines of At-will powers. No at-will power allows you to do something for the duration of the encounter. Lets say the PC is trained in a skill and needs only a 5 or better to get on that beetles back. If I read correctly you feel like "damn! that's too easy!". And you'd be right if that is all it took to STAY on the lizards back. But have the PC make that check at the end of his turn to stay on or be thrown prone in an adjacent square. Same with the Nature vs will check to use a move action to move the creature. Failure meaning the creature moves in a random direction and distance (including not all). Now, riding the beetle is a lot more challenging, even with "only" needing a 5. Like as not, the PC will pull it off only for a round or two. Cool, but not game-breaking.

2) Abdul answered this one

3) Not at all. Very appropriate and shows you are thinking like a DM

4) In general, and a do mean general (lots of wiggle here). Easy, repeatable actions SHOULD be doable on a roll of 5 (trained) or 10 (untrained), regardless of all the modifiers. Sad, but true. No matter what level you are, or what the action is, if its easy and repeatable, a roll of about 5-10 should do it. Add 5 as it goes up in difficulty and/or permanence.

Easy tasks (like hopping on a beetle) should be easy. Staying on should be easy too. Just remember that it is a round by round task (because the beetle is trying to get you off every round) and needs to be repeatable, and even "only" needing a 5 means that within 4 rounds or so the PC will fail.

If, for example, it was a domesticated riding beetle, it wouldn't be a check at all. Move action to mount, minor to dismount, move action to move beetle. If it was a gargantuan beetle, maybe 10' tall, then I would still say "vs reflex" but give a +5 bonus if mounting it from the ground, but leave it the same if jumping down from a rooftop onto its back.


Welcoming to DMing...the world needs more DMs.

 

[Lord Ernie]

While Black Night Irios has the basic math down, you can also gain skill bonuses from other feats (that sometimes stack with focus), items, paragon paths, etc.

I have had the same problem in my party, where even between characters trained in the skill, there is sometimes a +5 or more difference between their checks, what with different ability score modifiers, racial bonuses, and armor check penalties. This makes it tricky to establish a good DC for skill challenges, since you don't want to punish the less skilled character, nor make it too easy for the one with the high modifier.

As for your problem, I think the main issue here is that you want to give monsters a different feel, so that the same trick is not the same DC versus every monster across the board. One way to handle this, and one that takes the difference between skills and attacks better into account, is to simply use the Skill DC table in the DMG, and use higher DC's for monsters with higher 'defenses' against a certain trick. That is mostly the reason why the DMG has easy, moderate, and hard DC's in the first place.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. What I understand directly contradicts that implement attacks get a +6 enhancement bonus and a +3 feat bonus against NADs and weapon attacks and additional +2 to 3. So I fail to see how ability check vs DEF can ever work reasonably for a player char especially the higher the levels get.

Check, my math, but here's the gist of it.

Ability score vs NAD at level 1 = ability bonus + 1/2 level bonus vs NAD. A monster has a NAD of around 13 at level 1. A PC with a 10 stat has +0, thus he needs a 13. At 30th level the same PC has a 12 stat for total +16 and a monster has a 42 defense. A PC that is pumping that stat will have a +25.

In my original post though I was suggesting opposed ability score checks don't slip behind much, not attacks vs NADs. Monster ability scores only increase by half level. So if you use a score-vs-score check then you actually get a pretty good system. I think I didn't make that clear in that part of my post (I was half asleep). The rules don't present this technique as an option, but it is one that actually makes pretty good sense. It will work well for situations where say you need to out muscle a monster with pure strength or outwit it in a contest of pure intelligence. The math here is really simple, monsters get +15 to stats over 30 levels and PCs get +9, so they lose 6 points, or 4 for some EDs. PCs good stats start out 2-7 better than the average for monsters or at worst about 1 worse to 4 better if its the monsters 'primary attack stat'. This means an 18 STR fighter vs a level 1 13 STR monster needs a 5, and the same fighter with 28 STR at level 30 vs a 28 STR monster is dead even. A PC that doesn't pump his stat and started with a 10 is now 12 vs 28, which is indeed hopeless, but presumably he's not going to attempt to arm wrestle a level 30 monster either (and expect a chance to win). Monster's do have a pretty wide variance on ability scores, so there will be a lot of situations where at 30th level it's impossible to win or impossible to lose, but its still a lot better than using skill checks where it hardly ever works right at high epic.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Check, my math, but here's the gist of it.

Ability score vs NAD at level 1 = ability bonus + 1/2 level bonus vs NAD. A monster has a NAD of around 13 at level 1. A PC with a 10 stat has +0, thus he needs a 13. At 30th level the same PC has a 12 stat for total +16 and a monster has a 42 defense. A PC that is pumping that stat will have a +25.

In my original post though I was suggesting opposed ability score checks don't slip behind much, not attacks vs NADs. Monster ability scores only increase by half level. So if you use a score-vs-score check then you actually get a pretty good system. I think I didn't make that clear in that part of my post (I was half asleep). The rules don't present this technique as an option, but it is one that actually makes pretty good sense. It will work well for situations where say you need to out muscle a monster with pure strength or outwit it in a contest of pure intelligence. The math here is really simple, monsters get +15 to stats over 30 levels and PCs get +9, so they lose 6 points, or 4 for some EDs. PCs good stats start out 2-7 better than the average for monsters or at worst about 1 worse to 4 better if its the monsters 'primary attack stat'. This means an 18 STR fighter vs a level 1 13 STR monster needs a 5, and the same fighter with 28 STR at level 30 vs a 28 STR monster is dead even. A PC that doesn't pump his stat and started with a 10 is now 12 vs 28, which is indeed hopeless, but presumably he's not going to attempt to arm wrestle a level 30 monster either (and expect a chance to win). Monster's do have a pretty wide variance on ability scores, so there will be a lot of situations where at 30th level it's impossible to win or impossible to lose, but its still a lot better than using skill checks where it hardly ever works right at high epic.

That makes a lot more sense. You shouldn't be writing half asleep. If you did that fully asleep I would be impressed but half...

 

[RHGreen]

Haven't read the rest so if I'm repeating - sorry.


The difference between attacks and skills is +5.
With skills if you are trained you get +5 to that skill.
Your attacks/defences do not get +5 for being trained.
All you need to do is add +5 to the defences when opposing a skill.


If you are rolling Acrobatics Vs Reflex just add +5 to Reflex.


Really if you were to create the system from scratch you would have

Defences +10 (take 10) +5 (training) +(1/2 level) +abil
Attack +D20 +5 (training) + (1/2 level) +abil


((SkillCheck +D20 +5 (training) + (1/2 level) +abil))


(You could even have PCs roll attacks for things they are not trained in such as other classes powers but without the +5)

As for DCs part of that, don't ask me, I imagine DCs should be comparable to enemy Defences.