Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6652953" data-attributes="member: 82106">The point is, you all seem totally fixated on DCs. Yes, you can have a pretty close to, or entirely, impossible DC that acts as a spur to some sort of action which makes that DC not be an obstacle anymore. However, character build isn't the process for doing that, because it happens on a totally different time scale than a challenge in an adventure. (as an aside, I guess you could have a sort of "Inigo Montoya Scenario" where the character's ENTIRE GOAL is to get his DC high enough to carry off some check that his life is centered around. In that case though a DC seems like a poor mechanic to use). In any case, you want resource management, clever use of environment, resources, manipulation of opponents, or possibly other clever tactical/strategic actions to be key here.So again, the use of a single high DC for this purpose, it is at best crude, and you cannot measure the difficulty of a scenario by probabilities of passing checks, its a meaningless measure unless your RPG is just a game of craps wearing fancy pants.I just addressed that above, you're operating on the wrong scale. Nor does 5e offer you such a possibility except over the scale of the entire campaign! At least in 4e you could do it say in the course of a tier. I entirely disagree, not when its presented in terms of something like "OK, make this Athletics check to catch yourself" or something like that.I didn't say consequences had to be removed. There may be inherent consequences in the original failure, and a 'save' doesn't have to obliterate the failure (admittedly it does so in classic D&D, often). The fact that I'm now dangling from a rope 500' above the ground is usually significant enough and a lot more fun than 'oops your a splat mark down below'. This was rather aside the central point anyway. It was just illustrating where high DCs may actually be fun.Or you can have a lock that indeed does gate off necessary content, but it is accessed through a high complexity skill challenge that has a lot of fun elements to it. I mean, granted, you probably want to make failure a resource cost vs a total dead end, but at least there were a bunch of checks involved and various points where the players got to use strategy. 5e doesn't help you really at all with this kind of situation. There's no SC mechanism, and many classes lack any sort of resource they can expend.How does 5e's system facilitate this? It doesn't. I can achieve this exact effect trivially in 4e. Again, I have a whole SC system I could deploy if I wished that would make it an interesting mini-game if I want.But there are 2 problems here. 1st 4e never says all DCs have to be in some fixed range. You can set a DC to be as high level as you wish, and the thing is, that numerically informs you as the DM that you have made something out of the PCs league, its utterly clear from the very nature of the DC selection process. And secondly, you very often DO want to make DCs that are in a certain range. In fact the vast majority of DCs should be easier than 60%. 5e's check system and improvising write up seem to directly ignore that reality.</blockquote>

Verification