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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5675979" data-attributes="member: 75065">I do group checks differently mainly because I think any failure should be meaningful.For example:The entire group has to walk across a wire to get from one building to the next, 4 stories up. 4 pass the check. The fifth fails. So what has happened? What does that failure mean?In the 50% is all good version of group checks precisely very little has happened, probably at best the DM will describe a sudden misstep which another PC has caught in time and you move on. So failure here is meaningless.But what if the DM instead takes the 50% rule means success, but a failure is meaningful and must be resolved approach, the approach I take. Well, I would perhaps rule that the player who failed has fallen from the rope but managed to get tangled in a clothes line a floor down. In all this I would have allowed one of the PCs to lead the group check, directing the others and able to counteract failures, but in the off chance this safety net fails than the dynamics of the situation have changed to a degree that a hurdle has been met and must be resolved before the group can carry on towrds their goal. Perhaps the clothes line has snapped and the fallen PC tangled in the clothes line has swung through the open window of the building where the group was headed and interrupted someone's intimacy who needs to be calmed before they alert anyone to their presence and then find their way stealthily back to the group, or climb back out the window and climb up the wall 2 foors to the roof or ... etc etc. In this case, the failure is meaningful. The group is successful, they've all reached the building they wanted to get to, but the individual has to face a new and possibly dangerous situation that needs resolution, which other members of the group can involve themselves with also, in order to proceed any further.I find this handling of the 50% group check success much more fun, dynamic and satisfying.</blockquote>

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