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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6654503" data-attributes="member: 2067">Speaking in terms of default modes...A DC 20 obstacle has an inherent meaning in the fiction of 5e, across levels and adventures, that stays the same - it is always a Hard obstacle, in terms of the world. That means that if you have a 95% chance to beat that DC, then you are a MASTER at that task because you have reduced Hard actions to mere trivialities. Meanwhile, if you have a 5% chance to do it, then you have a long way to go before you can call yourself skilled at that task, son. In 4e, a DC 20 obstacle doesn't have an inherent meaning in the world, it is assigned meaning by the DM based on the circumstances it's encountered in. It might be hard for level 1 characters (DM: "Oh, it's an insidious dwarven design made from adamantium!"). It might be easy for a level 10 character (DM: "Oh, it's some rusty tin thing.") It might also have the same meaning (In both cases, the DM describes it as adamantium and dwarven), but that's only by fiat, according to what the DM wants, not inherent to the mechanics. It might also have wildly inappropriate meanings that are nonetheless relevant to the challenge (4e had examples of high-level "guards" and low-level "threats to the entire world" in its run).The latter design is greatly flexible, because its fiction is largely irrelevant - what matters to the game is the maths. The former design is not quite as flexible, but it grants that achievement-juice much more directly and with less reliance on individual DMs to patch it up. And it can be turned into the latter system with very little effort. I'm not sure how seriously to take this. Even in a fictionless system, that movement - from +3 to +9 against the same target number - shows at the very least that the player has done some action to move that bonus and has thus given their chance for success a meaningful boost. If a player cares about success (it's a game, roll more than 12), then that's going to be a reward for whatever action they've done, a feeling of accomplishment. It's a bit Skinner Box at that level (especially with the undefined action), but it is absolutely tied to ideas of flow and achievement and reward and success and all of that can be pretty dramatic. I mean, if they had to, I dunno, eat increasingly gross things to get that six-point movement, it would be an approval of their gastronomical bravery and their intestinal fortitude. It seems kind of baldly obvious to me that fiction isn't directly relevant for that emotional goal of achievement. IMXP, its systems as presented in the rulebooks rarely tolerate much of the unexpected. Indeed, I find more than a bit of a "tournament" mentality in a lot of 4e: make everything level and equal and remove many of the variables, keep everything smooth, all of those oddities are distractions. A change in narrative fiction can feel hollow and meaningless absent a mechanical relevance. And the change in narrative fiction between a balor and an orc has little mechanical relevance (more complex, but the same balance). That's not how the game works anymore.In 5e, you could take that balor on at level 10 and come away with your lives if you're clever about it. In 4e (and most earlier e's), you lack the prerequisites for that encounter, so it will simply crush you. That's one of the significant changes bounded accuracy brings in - it's not just bigger numbers and different powers, it's a true change relative to the campaign world according to the RAW. I don't think I do know what you mean. If the mechanics fall away, then they don't do much support, they just disappear and are subsumed into the fiction and thus become pretty meaningless. Mechanics that are generic to the point of supporting "many different fictions" are not good at evoking one specific fiction (and vice-versa). Fiction differences without significant mechanical relevance are at risk of being irrelevant to the players. If all the balor's aura is doing is making sure I'm of a requisite level to have a regen effect that counteracts it, it's a "different element" that doesn't actually do anything. +15 * 2 will counteract -30 and is different than +2 and -4+2, but if it's always going to come out to be zero regardless, that's just pointless fiddling. Not everyone experiences this (especially more narrative-focused tables), but you'd be wrong to assert that this kind of criticism is "nonsense" just because you're personally ignorant of it.</blockquote>

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