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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IanArgent" data-source="post: 3732089" data-attributes="member: 21673">I would love to see a saga-type system where skills scale with level. I could set an encounter on difficult ground that requires, say, a balance check every round (such as, I dunno, the deck of a tossing ship, or an slick/icy surface, etc) beyond first level and both challenge the fighter/wizard/cleric without making them suck, and at the same time not make it trivial for the skill monkey who has spent his time maxing his balance. I can't do this right now. There's an encounter in the "Shadows of the Last War" which takes place on a sheet of glass that requires anyone who moves to take a DC 15 or so balance check (I don't have the module handy). This is fine for a 2nd level encounter, the rogue who has been maxing Balance is +5 skill relative to the rest of the party (who hasn't) before stat and equipment adjustments. The rogue has an easier time of it, but the rest of the party isn't rendered ineffective.I could not run this encounter at higher levels; either the skill monkey isn't challenged at all, or the rest of the party is non-functional. There's a bunch of skills that this applies to, incidentally. And concentrating on the Wizards ability to use arcane magic to bypass environmental hazards doesn't help the Cleric, the mounted fighter who's been maxing ride instead of swim, or even the rogue who has been dumping skill points into social rather than environmental skills.From the behind-the-screen point of view; I have a lot more freedom in encounter design if I can assume there is a 10-point spread at most between the untrained and skill monkey characters (before stat adjustments).  Beyond that, Saga gives re-rolls (either pick the best or pick the last, depending) to increase the likelihood of the skill monkey making a check, without decreasing the probability that the non-skilled will make the check. Essentially, right now; no-one takes Balance or Swim, because outside of a few specialized situations, there's no way I'm going to set up an encounter for the party that uses those skills because it would hose the players who didn't take balance/swim. That's not fun. Really not fun, especially if the consequence of failing a check is DEATH. (Which shouldn't be a consequence of failing a single check ever, but that's a consequence of encounter design. No, I don't like save or die spells, either, why do you ask?  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> )</blockquote>

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