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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7799792" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't see this. Most (all D&D except 4e with some very niche exceptions) D&D rules sets have no definition of the 'scope' of a success. I'm not sure of the exact wording in 5e, but 3e certainly lacks any requirement that a check 'advance the game state' or that a success should produce any specific increment of advancement in overall situational success. For example, to take [USER=82504]@Garthanos[/USER] specific example: There is no indication that a 'swim' check produce a result such as "survive the current episode of swimming or else begin drowning". Thus a GM is free to decide that any given arbitrary number of such checks are required. Often GMs attempt to follow "game rules as world physics" type logic and extrapolate from (or maybe the action is part of) a combat situation and require a check every round, with the character progressing some distance to his/her goal derived from a tactical movement system. Even if the checks are 95% success, the best possibility that leaves any chance of failure, 5 such checks in a row leaves a 12% chance of drowning. I think most GMs won't realize this and would think of this as a reasonable test for crossing 5 movement actions worth of water. Yet in 4e such a distance is only 150' for most PCs. This is basically a trivial amount of swimming which normal people can easily achieve with virtually no peril, assuming they are of average fitness. In 4e it would be cast (hopefully, if the GM is really following the spirit of the rules) in terms of an SC where it would represent a single check.Again, I'm not sure exactly how 5e couches this, but it did discard the SC system, which is, AFAIK, the only system that D&D has ever had for gauging the number of checks which should ideally result in the party advancing out of the encounter and on to the next 'scene'. Without that, or at least a Page 42-like mechanism to structure ad-hoc action, I don't really see how anyone can say that 5e is really facilitating this kind of play in the way 4e does. IME of 5e play, it doesn't. You really cannot rely on knowing how feasible IN ITS ENTIRETY something is until you start negotiating with the DM, and often you need to help them understand what exactly the consequences are of how they are employing the mechanics. The game really seems to give very little solid guidance here. It may relate the 'say yes' theory, but the theory by itself isn't enough for a lot of GMs.</blockquote>

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