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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RFisher" data-source="post: 3700741" data-attributes="member: 3608">Inspired by the "survival of the fittest" tangent: Does a rule's survival prove its value? Are criticals good because they have survived?But, most often in my experience, skills don't really provide a challenge for the player.I don't want myself as the player taken out of the equation. It's not satisfying to me to succeed at something because I sunk enough points into a skill. I want to succeed because of decisions. Decisions I--the player--make, not decisions simulated by my character's skill bonus.That's not to say that I want to eliminate chance from the game. I want many things to be decided by my decisions alone. For those fewer times when chance is involved, I want the ability to make decisions that will shift the odds in my favor. I want the ability to look for a different solution when I can't tilt the odds comfortably enough in my favor. It should be rare when I really step out on a limb. (Which is important to have on occasion as well.)Now, I don't think the trend I've seen of taking the player out of the equation is the fault of skill systems (& certainly I observed it long before 3e), but I don't think they are entirely unrelated either.Another thing that I've been thinking about recently is the difference between extended tasks & one-roll tasks. In combat, success typically depends on many rolls with decision points between them. Many other things are typically handled as one-roll, succeed or fail. These are very different, & I think the trend has been for there to be more & more one-roll tasks.Some combinations of options are better than others. This is a real strength of 3e: It replaces limitations with consequences.To some of us, those better combinations are fairly obvious, & we tend to be a bit blind to the myriad suboptimal choices. We automatically filter them out, & what we are left with is fairly well balanced.But to others, the PHB offers a dizzying array of options with very little guidance. It would take them effort to separate the better choices from the worse ones. (Perhaps it would be easier than it looks to them, but that is still a barrier.)Now, if the PHB can itself offer enough options to make people feel this way, imagine how they can feel in a group that adds even a single supplement to the mix. Or a group that cherry-picks from a wide range of supplements. (That can be even worse for this kind of person.) Not to mention that the more options you add, the more you increase the chance of the min/maxer being able to find a less well balanced option.I honestly don't think 3e caters to min/maxers, but I can see how others can have that perception. (But then, I don't really consider "min/maxing" to be a negative.)That's not even considering the fact that effective min/maxing varies from group-to-group. So it is possible for the same system to be a min/maxers dream under one DM but not under another.</blockquote>

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