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Skill vs NADs (fort,ref,will)
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5241248" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 5241248, member: 82106"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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