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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8293955" data-attributes="member: 7006">I'm of the opinion that no attempts to "fix" any of these systems in D&D will work so long as the game maintains its huge disparate leveling system and hit point allocation.You can't build an effective or universal "mechanical system" for climbing a mountain when the negatives results of that need to punish players the same way even if one has 8 hit points and another has 160 hit points.  The only way to do that is via "story"... the narrative decisions on what happens during the event, and then throw in the occasional bone to game mechanics (a DEX check here, an Athletics check there) to give the illusion that mechanics can impact this particular story beat.What else can you do?  If you want mechanical systems to make non-combat as hefty as combat is... you pretty much need a "Skills Manual" that includes the hundreds of different things D&D character will run into just like we do for monsters, while also making them viable "opponents" for when PCs are 1st level or 20th.  All of them needing a baseline mechanical heft, and then layered onto it all the "special attacks" that the event would need for it to be specific to that one particular type of encounter.  "Climbing a mountain" would have to be its own "monster" with all the mechanics listed for the special attacks and defenses required to make "climbing a mountain" its own thing.  "Brewing a potion" would have to be its own monster.  "Foraging for food", "browbeating a prisoner", "researching ancient texts", "travelling cross-country by horseback" all their own monsters etc. etc. etc.  Otherwise... without including the specific mechanics for those specific events, you just end up essentially with nothing more than your standard Skill Challenge-- where at the end of the day the generic mechanics basically devolve down to "make 6 successful checks before missing 3".D&D is built mechanically to be a combat simulator. That's all. That's why 75% of the character sheet is nothing but numbers and mechanics aimed towards combat, and why an entire book of the base three is nothing but specific combat challenges for every single level range in the game. It's what D&D is. And to think you can make it more than that without creating additional systems for all the types of non-combat activity just as mechanically hefty as combat is I think a fool's errand.This is why D&D for anything outside of combat is merely narrative improvisation and agreement.  The DM improvises narrative events... the players improvise narrative actions that agree with those events and then add to them with what they choose to do... then the DM agrees with those narrative actions and colors the results by having a die or two rolled for a "skill check" to vary up the results positively or negatively.  Those rolls then impact how the DM chooses to improvise the next step of the narrative event.  And then the cycle continues until both DM and players all improvise a conclusion together.  That's really the only way D&D handles non-combat action and activities.  Improvised story between DM and players, and the occasional mechanic thrown in merely to avoid requiring the DM to unilaterally decide which narrative actions had positive results or negative results.  Let the fickle finger of fate decide and all the players agreeing to go along with it.</blockquote>

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