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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5703444" data-attributes="member: 2011">Yes, I consider it a feature. I'm fairly good at my job at work. Every once in a while, I come up with a really good idea. Every once in a while, I foobar big time.I don't see why someone heavily invested in a skill should be unable to fail on even somewhat easy tasks. It happens in the real world.The problem with the "always succeeds" concept is that it doesn't match people's expectations of plausibility or verisimilitude. Always fails does, but not always succeeds (shy of simple tasks that nearly everyone always succeeds).For example, a real life person is climbing a wall. He doesn't know it, but the wall above him is weak and crumbly (i.e. the randomness of rolling a 1 on a climb skill). He grabs it, it breaks and he falls. If there were auto-success in real life, the auto-success person grabs the same wall, it breaks, and he not only doesn't fall, but he continues moving up the wall at the same speed as if nothing happened. And, he does this with a single rank of training.Btw, your math was fine. Your math illustrated exactly what their concept does, but with actual DC rules.It's their concept that is unnecessary.Often? 25% * 10% = 2.5% of the time or 1 time in 40. That's often? Against a given skill, that could be once per 20 or more gaming sessions. The last time that happened could have been last Spring. And like I said before, if this frequency is too high for someone, they could house rule roll 2D10 for skills. Course, easy stuff is almost always accomplished and hard stuff is rarely accomplished with 2D10.And yup. The +25 History PC just doesn't know that the Earl of Sandwich had a mistress, but the +12 PC does.The +25 Trickery PC hasn't encountered a lock where you have to put the tools in upside down, but the +12 PC has.How many times have you heard the phrase "Everybody knows that" and you happened to not know it, even if you happened to be fairly fluent in the topic at hand? How many times have you been walking up or down a flight of stairs and stumbled?Sorry, but an auto-success system is just excessive unnecessary rules. If something is an auto-success, it should be the DM just hand waving away the skill check and there is no need for a bunch of rules for it. A suggestion in the DMG is sufficient for this. Same for auto-fail.Good DMs already do this. We don't need explicit rules for it and we especially don't need rules that make the skill system even more the purview of only trained PCs. Mike and Monte have been around long enough to know this, but they seem to have their brainstorming design ideas hats on instead of their gaming common sense hats.Even a DC suggestion in the DMG would be fine. I had a DC 10 rope climb situation in my game just this last week and I said that anyone with a +4 or higher Athletics would eventually succeed, anyone with +3 or lower would need to roll. In reality, +9 or higher is auto-success right away and +4 or higher is auto-success eventually. They were not in a time crunch, so I used the lower number. +3 or less could result in a fall. The game already has the auto-succeed concept.And your 2.5% of the time example can actually be a lot of fun in the game. Nodwick figures out the simple way past the trap while Artax's complicated solution fails. The players remember and laugh about that beyond just this session. Even well trained people can over analyze a situation and screw up.</blockquote>

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