Strong Fighter, Wimpy Mage

[Nebulous]

Assume that a burly fighter tries to open a heavy, stuck door, and rolls poorly. It stays stuck. Then the 75 pound elven magic taps the door, rolls a 20, and opens it. Even though he shouldn't have been able to open it anyway with his strength and body mass. It should be physically impossible, yet the dice dictate otherwise.

Is there a rule somewhere that sets a minimum level of success? Meaning, you cannot even ATTEMPT to open the door, unless you have a 15 Strength. Maybe you can open it guaranteed if you have a 17 or higher, no roll needed? Maybe this should be in house rules...

This comes up in knowledge areas too. My highly trained magister in an AE campaign was just out-Knowledge Arcana-ed by our totem warrior who had just recently taken a single rank of K:A. He rolled high, and beat the DC to understand something that had no relevance to anything he had previously experienced. Yet my magic-intensive character, with +10 and 6 levels of mage, by virtue of the dice, came up clueless.

Is there a simple and logical way to prevent these little inconsistencies from happening, because they tend to take me out of the game. It shatters my sense of disbelief, and that ain't cool. I need my escapism.

I was just wondering what other people might do.

 

[Crothian]

Why does it shatter your sense of disbelief? I once answered a computer question the computer guy at my work didn't know. It happens, it's rare but different people pick up different piecves of information. It sounds like sour graps to me.

And the Gamers did the opening the door bit the best.

 

[hafrogman]

Obviously the fighter loosened it for him =)

The knowledge I find fairly easy to accept, it's generally random what you can remember about a given subject at a point in time. The Totem warrior doesn't have the breadth of knowledge that your magister did, but he just happened to remember this one pertinent fact from his recent studies.

The door is a little more difficult to explain, unless you want to imply that it wasn't how hard you could push, but knowing WHERE to push. Stuff can be explained, if you want to put the effort into it.

Other than that, I can't think of any recently written rules that cover this, but I seem to recall something from a 2nd Ed. sourcebook that described a wizard and a warrior arm wrestling. Basically the idea was to grant the higher stats more dice to roll in unhindered situations (for example, rolling 2d20 and keeping the highest if your strength was above a certain point).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Is there a rule somewhere that sets a minimum level of success? Meaning, you cannot even ATTEMPT to open the door, unless you have a 15 Strength. Maybe you can open it guaranteed if you have a 17 or higher, no roll needed? Maybe this should be in house rules...

Yes, but you need to set the DC to a certain value. If you want to require a strength 15 to open a particular door, set the DC to 22. No one with a strength less than 14 (unfortunately you can't distinguish between the two based on modifiers) can open the door without help.

 

[KarinsDad]

Other than that, I can't think of any recently written rules that cover this, but I seem to recall something from a 2nd Ed. sourcebook that described a wizard and a warrior arm wrestling. Basically the idea was to grant the higher stats more dice to roll in unhindered situations (for example, rolling 2d20 and keeping the highest if your strength was above a certain point).

Actually, the rules do address this:

In some cases, an action is a straight test of one’s ability with no luck involved. Just as you wouldn’t make a height check to see who is taller, you don’t make a Strength check to see who is stronger.

But, there are situations which this rule only sort of covers. I have had the following situation occur during a game:

A Troll is on one side of a door. Several strong PC Fighters are on the opposite side of the door. The Troll is trying to push his way in, the Fighters are trying to keep him out.

If you just roll dice, this does not really make sense. If the Troll is much stronger, he should be able to win. If the Fighters are much stronger, they should be able to win. It is only when their relative strengths are similar that randomness should come into play.

So, the rule covers when there is a big disparity. However, it does not state when to actually roll. So, if the Troll has a Strength of 23 and the Fighters have a combined Strength of 23 (i.e. two 18 Strength Fighters), then the dice should be rolled each round until the Troll finally wins.

But, what happens if the Fighters have a Strength of 17 and a Strength of 18. Do you still roll? Probably. What happens if it is 16 and 18? At what point do you just assume that the Troll is too powerful and will win right away as per the rule above? The rules do not really cover this unless you literally use the rule above to only roll when both have the exact same Strength and to always let the slightly stronger opponent win every other time right away. That seems a bit extreme.

 

[Sejs]

You can take 10 and 20 on ability checks just as you can with skills.

Burly fighter could just take 20 and his net result would be higher than what wimpy mage could possibly get even on his best effort.

The rule's already in place, there's no need to tweak anything.

 

[werk]

Is there a simple and logical way to prevent these little inconsistencies from happening, ...

Quit using dice.

Dice add a random element, and your post states that you dislike the random element. Say you need a DC 15 on a skill check, and you have +2 for stat and +2 for ranks...that's like 25% of what you need to succeed, so you rely on the roll for the other 75%...but the roll is between 6-133% modifier. At low DC the d20 dice is too big, it's too large a range...but it is the foundation upon which the whole game mechanic is based.

Instead of rolling a d20, just take a 10 or 12 on everything and throw the dice away.

 

[Nebulous]

Instead of rolling a d20, just take a 10 or 12 on everything and throw the dice away.

Yeah, the d20 roll is what is causing the problem. i've actually noticed recently that this happens a lot in our games. Removing that randomness and relying more on straight skill or modifiers would probably snip my inane whining.

 

[lukelightning]

The fighter was trying to push the door open, while the wizard notices the sign that says "pull."

 

[Wolfwood2]

Assume that a burly fighter tries to open a heavy, stuck door, and rolls poorly. It stays stuck. Then the 75 pound elven magic taps the door, rolls a 20, and opens it. Even though he shouldn't have been able to open it anyway with his strength and body mass. It should be physically impossible, yet the dice dictate otherwise.

Why did the big burly warrior try for six seconds and then give up? Why did he step aside for the 75 pound elven mage rather then keep trying on his own? If it's possible for the warrior to make the roll at all then he's going to get it eventually. The purpose of making the roll is to figure out how long it takes him to do so.

If it's physically impossible for the elven mage to open the door, then the DC should be high enough that he cannot succeed even on a 20.

This comes up in knowledge areas too. My highly trained magister in an AE campaign was just out-Knowledge Arcana-ed by our totem warrior who had just recently taken a single rank of K:A. He rolled high, and beat the DC to understand something that had no relevance to anything he had previously experienced. Yet my magic-intensive character, with +10 and 6 levels of mage, by virtue of the dice, came up clueless.

Is there a simple and logical way to prevent these little inconsistencies from happening, because they tend to take me out of the game. It shatters my sense of disbelief, and that ain't cool. I need my escapism.

Why should the results of his check be dependent on the results of your check? I'm not seeing the inconsistency.