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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6094517" data-attributes="member: 82106">ALL the math in 4e is done before play. I know exactly what my characters total skill bonus is for every skill all of the time and it doesn't change, aside from some situational modifier or something, but those will always potentially exist.In DDN this is not true. When a skill check is called for the DM must first determine which skill is being used, and which ability score is relevant, then sum those factors. The player will never be sure enough of what the bonus is to be able to just snap off checks, it requires stopping, negotiating, and then rolling. The math itself is trivial, the fact that it involves 'run time' decision making that is unrelated to the narrative is both disruptive to some people's play and slows things down. I don't understand your reasoning at all. In 4e a level 1 lock is simply not intended to be a challenge to a level 20 PC of ANY class. It will never appear in-game in the context of being such a challenge. Thus there is no issue at all. Tasks become harder for high level PCs because the things they face are literally more difficult. The 20th level wizard will NEVER ENCOUNTER a level 1 lock as a challenge. The only sort of scenario where it would even show up would be some character doing some non-adventuring sort of task around town or something like that and encountering a lock. Now, think about this, why is the DM putting a lock there? If he wants to avoid a problem, then simply don't put a level 1 lock there. If you MUST put a lock there and want it to be impossible to pick then simply state "this lock is level 20" or "this lock requires training to pick" etc. Alternately if the wizard decides to pick the level 1 lock you still illogically decided to challenge them with, AND you refuse to use the above solutions OK the wizard 'picks' it, which can easily be passed off as "you make a quick prayer to Ioun and the lock is magically deactivated" etc. This is NOT something that happens again and again in a campaign. In fact in 5 years of running 4e it has never happened to me yet even one time.The thing is such a trivial corner case objection seems like a terrible reason to condemn a skill system that in every other respect kicks the ass of what we're debating instead. Really, was it worth it? IMHO no, not at all.</blockquote>

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