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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 2303722" data-attributes="member: 29252">Yes... a couple of hundred years ago.... on the way out of the Dark Ages, in which much, much knoweledge was lost to the vast majority of people.  Highly campaign dependant.That's not quite what he did - he came up with a model based on observations that fit all those observations - and continued to do so until someone came up with some very, very accurate observations; it was not a proof.  Of course, his model really only broke down when people were managing to measure things with an accuracy in the neighborhood of 1/10th of a degree of arc, and five feet (targeting a square) over the course of 800 feet is about a third of a degree of arc ... above the needed accuracy threshold for dismataling Ptolemy's model. One might wonder what insanity decided that such a thing needed to be legislated...Sine, cosine, and tangent?  Probably not.  The fact that you can glean the distance and location of something by a couple of displaced sightings on it?  Sure - it's a basic mapmaking skill.  He had Geography, too.  Do you have any idea of the tolerances on a Roman aqueduct?  The angle involved was such that water traveling along it would neither speed up nor slow down.  They had to be above the area they served, people needed to be able to pass beneath them; they were pillared and arched.  Those things are actually quite the architectural marvels ... and he is defined as having studied them.  Sure, he may not no every detail - but considering that the "average" venerable old man (level 1 expert, base int 10, +3 Int from age, 4 ranks) only reliably (take 10) makes DC 15, and this guy, as defined, can reliably (take 10) make DC 22.  Does he know every detail?  No, but quite a lot.  A technique pretty much required to make accurate right angles?  Sure, easily. At DC 40, you are talking an impossible task at most levels (need a net +20 for taking 20 to succeed) when, even with a two degree margin of error, at a max range of 800 feet, you are only talking about 28 feet off in any given direction - at that level, he would have a chance of arriving on (or near enough) target (e.g., at worst, a roll of 20 would still succeed).  He didn't specify the actual distance involved; if the BBEG was only 100 feet deep through the wall, it's a much easier proposition - you only need accuracy in the neigborhood of two or three degrees to pick your combat square.At the extreme end of DD range, that's true. Of course, at this point, we are talking highly campaign dependant stuff, and so there's really not all that much point in debating it in a rules forum.</blockquote>

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