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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7791156" data-attributes="member: 16586">Here's my particular concern when it comes to making judgement calls based on shifting genre concerns in a play environment where spells have a dramatic impact outside of combat: How do we do it hygienically?What I mean by this is as levels raise how do we keep our rulings consistent and fair in a way that guarantees we are acting as referees rather than game designers when we make our judgments? Is there a means or mental framework that allows us to ensure that a high level fighter can consistently do the things a high level fighter should do while low level fighter or high level wizard cannot do the same without us meaningfully designing the game in motion?Basically how can we attach our decisions to things that are true in the game state without meaningfully making a determination based on things like game balance or narrative outcomes? Fourth Edition offers us things like Tiers, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies to use as touchstones. Still making consistent decisions can sometimes be somewhat difficult. This is slightly helped by the fact that magic use outside of combat is also mostly a matter of fictional positioning. There is also the DC by level chart. Generally I am mostly fine with determining difficulty by how difficult should it be for this person, but nailing down what a 17th level character should be capable of isolation rather than a holistic range can be difficult.Fifth Edition also offers us Tiers, Proficiency, and Expertise. The tiers are less defined however. Proficiency is pretty binary and applies to low level PCs just like high level ones. I would love to use Expertise as a separate touchstone except Rogues get it from day one and most classes get it not at all. If I could change one thing about Fifth Edition it would be to grant Expertise to every class and have Rogues and Bards be more broadly skilled and not deeper skilled than other classes. There is also the DC chart. Generally the issue I have is that judging based on the every man is not very useful to me when it comes to characters that should have long ago left that stage in life.As someone who prefers to approach active play as a referee both are largely unsatisfying to me for Step On Up or challenge oriented play. I largely do not want to be concerned with game balance or outcomes in the middle of play. I want to set a challenge and leave it up to the PCs to accomplish it however they want to. Game design considerations are something I view as a between session activity.I find B/X adequate mostly because by limiting it to only Basic and Expert I can keep a consistent milieu. Stars Without Number and Godbound (B/X clones targeting other genre) both have largely contained bands of efficacy.I am hoping that Pathfinder 2 will be better. Simple DCs are not determined based on the every main, but based on who can accomplish a task. Can someone who is Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master or Legendary at this accomplish this task? It also has the option to lock certain tasks off to level of proficiency. So knowing something about the nature of this spell might require Master level Arcana or holding up a mountain might require Legendary Athletics. It also provides a DC by level table, but it is about affecting something of that level. So if the PCs are trying to sneak past some guards and you don't have stats you decide the guards are probably level 3 and then make some other adjustments based on the fiction.</blockquote>

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