recent d&d deathwatch data

[Swordslinger]

That is horse shit. If you can walk into the elder red dragon's lair and never run into the elder red dragon because you're 1st level and the difficulty always scales to you, then your choices don't matter. Smaug's lair has to have a genuine chance of having Smaug in it or low level parties will not fear it.

Yeah, you shouldn't force the players to go to the elder dragon's lair if they aren't high enough level to take it on. But you damn sure shouldn't edit the dragon out of the universe and then have it suddenly spawn when the PCs are high enough level to deal.

You know damn well that no DM with at least half a brain is going to write a high level monster out of an adventure if a PC is asking to die like that. As usual, you're making statements that are true, but at the same time are pointless because they apply to nothing anyone has been talking about anywhere.

4E makes no mention anywhere of saying you can't throw high level monsters at low level characters. It says you shouldn't do that, because they'll die (which is very correct), but you can do it if you feel it's warranted. 3E had encounter level guidelines too.

[mean_liar]

Acrobatics (Balance): Unstable surface is a Moderate DC
Narrow is Moderate, +5 if unstable
Very Narrow is Hard, +5 if unstable

Your 10th level character has a DC 18 to cross an Unstable surface. Your 25th level character has a DC 29. Nothing about the surface has changed.

Again you're assuming that the challenge level always equals the character level. That doesn't have to be the case, unless your DM is a moron.

Rules Compendium, p126:



Now, points for effort. They want a six-inch beam to be difficult for the entirety of the character's career.

But your belief that the DC is set by the challenge and not the level of the character is, in several demonstrable cases, a mistake.

[fectin]

That is horse shit. If you can walk into the elder red dragon's lair and never run into the elder red dragon because you're 1st level and the difficulty always scales to you, then your choices don't matter. Smaug's lair has to have a genuine chance of having Smaug in it or low level parties will not fear it.

Yeah, you shouldn't force the players to go to the elder dragon's lair if they aren't high enough level to take it on. But you damn sure shouldn't edit the dragon out of the universe and then have it suddenly spawn when the PCs are high enough level to deal.

You know damn well that no DM with at least half a brain is going to write a high level monster out of an adventure if a PC is asking to die like that. As usual, you're making statements that are true, but at the same time are pointless because they apply to nothing anyone has been talking about anywhere.

4E makes no mention anywhere of saying you can't throw high level monsters at low level characters. It says you shouldn't do that, because they'll die (which is very correct), but you can do it if you feel it's warranted. 3E had encounter level guidelines too.

"You know damn well that no DM with at least half a brain is going to follow the rules as written/intended" is not exactly a flawless defense of the rules as written/intended.

The short version of your screed beginning "As usual..." is Strawman Fallacy. Which clearly does not apply here, because Frank is instead providing an example of where your position (relative difficulty is good) is clearly wrong. You could argue that this is the accident fallacy instead, but "Dragon" is right in the name of the game, so I doubt you'll get much traction.

Also, complaining that the simple counterexample to your claims is too simple is just plain sour grapes.


And as a footnote, Bioware games have only very recently started having relative difficulty. I don't think it was even possible with the old Infinity engine. PS:T was great though; you started walking around with demons who could absolutely own you, and would do so if you tried talking to them. It was extremely satisfying to level enough to allow stabbing them in the face.

[Swordslinger]

Now, points for effort. They want a six-inch beam to be difficult for the entirety of the character's career.

Yes because the six inch beam gets increasingly more difficult surfaces. The base assumption is that challenges are going to be level appropriate. Which is a fine base, but it's not always the case (and shouldn't always be the case)

But your belief that the DC is set by the challenge and not the level of the character is, in several demonstrable cases, a mistake.

I have yet to see any example of a module with scaling DCs. Where it says: "If the PCs are level 5 use DC 18, if they're level 6 use DC 19."

If you can find an official module with scaling DCs, go ahead and show me. Otherwise, I'm going to assume you're reading the rules incorrectly (which you are).

[mean_liar]

Shit, man, if you want to add in all kinds of bullshit to the rules so that your rationalization sticks, fuck it, do it. But you're the one adding in words and meaning and all kinds of shit that straight-up doesn't exist in the rules.

I'm tired of quoting chapter and verse, since you don't care what it says anyway. You might want to actually quote something in defense of your own point, which is now basically a variation of LALALALA I DON'T CARE WHAT THE RULES SAY ITS NOT LIKE THAT LALALA.

I mean, the entire Skill section of the Rules Compendium is filled with shit like:

Improvising with Acrobatics
- Impress onlookers with an acrobatic performance (moderate DC)

The whole Improvising part of every fucking Skill has this shit in it, where it devoid of context. Those scaling DCs scale because the games wants them to, (and I'm quoting from the rules, rather than my ass): "a DC that scales with level represents a task that remains at least a little challenging throughout an adventurer's career". That's the same fucking task. Not a different one. Not a different audience or surface or whatever. It's explicitly designed so that you never really have a guaranteed success at impressing onlookers with an acrobatic performance, or walking across a thin beam unless you're spec'd for it.

Maybe that's a good thing, but if it is you have to wonder why they decided to add +1/2 level to the Skill checks.

[mean_liar]

If you can find an official module with scaling DCs, go ahead and show me. Otherwise, I'm going to assume you're reading the rules incorrectly (which you are).

Tell you what. You find a module with scaling levels (as in, "this module is written for levels 5-8" instead of the standard "this module is written for a party of 5 level 13 characters") that DOESN'T have scaling DCs. Try that instead. Or, you know, some written words that contradict the Rules Compendium.

[Shazbot79]

I don't own the Rules Compendium myself, so I can't investigate this in-depth, however it looks to me like the rules do say that some DC's are static (like climbing challenges should be) while others scale with level (like social challenges should).

Is there something egregious in the listed samples?

[Username17]

I don't own the Rules Compendium myself, so I can't investigate this in-depth, however it looks to me like the rules do say that some DC's are static (like climbing challenges should be) while others scale with level (like social challenges should).

Is there something egregious in the listed samples?

Absolutely. Balancing on a narrow beam and picking a lock scale.

Actually, a lot of climbing challenges scale too. The distinction is that anything that is "supposed" to be "difficult" remains "difficult" at all levels. Which means the DCs actually scale, which ironically means that it gets more difficult for non-specialists as they rise in level.

The things that have static DCs are the basic combat movement options. You can jump farther and climb faster in combat as your level goes up. But your ability to actually get to the top of a castle wall in a skill challenge stays static because those DCs scale with your level.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

I don't own the Rules Compendium myself, so I can't investigate this in-depth, however it looks to me like the rules do say that some DC's are static (like climbing challenges should be) while others scale with level (like social challenges should).

Is there something egregious in the listed samples?

Yes and no.

Absent their presence in a Skill Challenge, Perception, Streetwise, Acrobatics, and ANY Improvisation (ie, using a skill for something that isn't an explicit option) have self-scaling DCs, where your own level determines the DC. Most other tasks have either fixed DCs or DCs that are scaled off of your target rather than yourself. So barring those few skills or Improvisation, most of the game's skills work as you'd expect them to.

In Skill Challenges, most everything scales off of your level. If the Skill Challenge music is playing, convincing an NPC to do XXX is easier, DC-wise, when you're lower level than when you're higher level.

[Koumei]

...can you think of a system that would actually be less intuitive and more retarded than that?

[souran]

I don't own the Rules Compendium myself, so I can't investigate this in-depth, however it looks to me like the rules do say that some DC's are static (like climbing challenges should be) while others scale with level (like social challenges should).

Is there something egregious in the listed samples?

Absolutely. Balancing on a narrow beam and picking a lock scale.

Actually, a lot of climbing challenges scale too. The distinction is that anything that is "supposed" to be "difficult" remains "difficult" at all levels. Which means the DCs actually scale, which ironically means that it gets more difficult for non-specialists as they rise in level.

The things that have static DCs are the basic combat movement options. You can jump farther and climb faster in combat as your level goes up. But your ability to actually get to the top of a castle wall in a skill challenge stays static because those DCs scale with your level.

-Username17

Actually, this isn't defiantly not true either, at least for essentials.

The table in the Dungeon Masters Guidebook for Essentials gives the DCs by level and difficulty chart along with explanation.

The DCs per level are calculated as

Easy: An untrained, untalented (read as +0 from stat) has a 65% chance of succeeding.

Moderate: A trained but untalened character has a 65% chance of succeding.

Hard: A trained, talented (read +4 from stat) has a 65% chance of succeding

The chart follows these percantages rather strictly, never deviating by more than 5%, and when it does its usually at the hard level and its usually 5% in the PCs favor.

Additionally, the chart DOES NOT adjust for the fact that at level 21 players will have recieved +1 to every stat TWICE.

Therefore, at the epic level the game actually has 70% success rates in each category.

These facts should be more interesting than the ENTIRE static vs. scaling debate becasue it should be clear by now that you need some of both in order to have your game be both functional and immersive.

What is very interesting about setting a 35% failure rate is what it says about handing out bonuses.

Look at the Easy case:
Trained characters only have a 10% chance of failing an easy task before even including stats. Characers with a high stat (+4) are also failing less than 20% of the time.

That is ok, we don't want characters failing very much at easy tasks. However, remember all we have looked at are starting level stat modifiers and training. If players pick up +2 from equipment, +2 from aid another, and have a stat enhancer or items that provides a defacto way to increase a skill check "Easy" tasks become trivial.

All a moderate check does is "account" for being trained on the DC side of the equation.

So, now trained characters succeed 65% of the time without all including stats or equipment bonuses. Again, considering that equpment bonuses are usually +2, a player with a strong stat+ skill combination and "masterwork equipment" trivializes moderate checks as well.

"Moderate" checks really are only difficult if it is not an area of strength. On the other hand if you DO NOT have any emphasis in somethign (stat or training) relating to a moderate check then you have a 60% chance of failure.

"Hard" checks account for a +4 from your stat. They don't really appear to EVER account for more than a +4.

This is actually fairly stupid because it means that if its an area of strength for your chracter hard tasks become easier over time, while still be unbeatable for everybody else. Infact, considering that the DC is set up so that its 65% success for +4 stat +5 training at every level, a level 30 character will only have a 10% chance of failure in his focus stats for "hard" tasks and that doesn't include ANY magic items or feats or other ways of increasing your odds. That is simply putting every +1 to stat into a vital stat starting with an 18.

So even hard tasks are likely going to be "trivial" for the characters that are designed to face them while they should be almost certain failure for everybody else.

And we have hardly considered magic items, feats, or other misc. bonuses.

What this says to me is that the bonuses from equipment/conditions/feats need to be freaking tiny to not be overwhelming.

All, feats, equipment, and situational bonsues that provide +2 should be reduced to +1.

Magic equipment should add no more than +1 per TIER. Magic items that enchance a stat should really be limited to +2, and should begin showing up around the paragon tier.

Its good that they have the chart, and that they have figured out what kind of difficulty scale they want, but in order for it to work they have to be freaking brutal about handing out bonuses from to much stuff.

[souran]

In Skill Challenges, most everything scales off of your level. If the Skill Challenge music is playing, convincing an NPC to do XXX is easier, DC-wise, when you're lower level than when you're higher level.

Actually, when the skill challenge music is playing your percent chance of success is fixed with only your attributes/magic items having any impact (and even then if its a "hard" skill challenge your attributes have been somewhat accounted for).

Finding every fiddly little bonus is more valuable in skill challenges than in other tasks.

[Username17]

Actually, this isn't defiantly not true either, at least for essentials.

The table in the Dungeon Masters Guidebook for Essentials gives the DCs by level and difficulty chart along with explanation.

The DCs per level are calculated as

Easy: An untrained, untalented (read as +0 from stat) has a 65% chance of succeeding.

Moderate: A trained but untalened character has a 65% chance of succeding.

Hard: A trained, talented (read +4 from stat) has a 65% chance of succeding

I made a bunch of statements and you quoted them all. I'm going to assume that you were talking about my statement that scaling DCs made things more difficult for non-specialists. Because this is a complete non sequitur when applied to anything else I said.

But I stand by that statement, it's true. At 8th level, the difference between an "easy" test and a "hard" test is 12. At 11th level the difference is 14, and at 19th it's 16. You'll be confronted with a mixture of easy, medium, and hard challenges. So if you're a specialist, the hard challenges keep pace with you but the easy challenges don't. That would mean that the average was that things were easier, except specialists already don't fail easy challenges - so in reality it's no change. But for the non specialist, the easy challenges keep pace and the hard challenges pull away from it being difficult to it being impossible - the average is actually that things are harder to do when you're a non-specialist.

-Username17

[souran]

I made a bunch of statements and you quoted them all. I'm going to assume that you were talking about my statement that scaling DCs made things more difficult for non-specialists. Because this is a complete non sequitur when applied to anything else I said.

Maybe I should have been more selective with the quote, I considered going line-by-line but didn't need to.

Yes, I was talking about the gap for specialists and non specialists.

But I stand by that statement, it's true. At 8th level, the difference between an "easy" test and a "hard" test is 12. At 11th level the difference is 14, and at 19th it's 16. You'll be confronted with a mixture of easy, medium, and hard challenges. So if you're a specialist, the hard challenges keep pace with you but the easy challenges don't. That would mean that the average was that things were easier, except specialists already don't fail easy challenges - so in reality it's no change. But for the non specialist, the easy challenges keep pace and the hard challenges pull away from it being difficult to it being impossible - the average is actually that things are harder to do when you're a non-specialist.

-Username17

Is this from the essentials version of the table or the 4E version of the table?


The 4E table was put together badly and its accounting for stat upgrades was not done at the level at which the stat bonus could be achieved (meaning things get easier then harder).

The "hard" difficulty is specifically designed so that specialists have a certain chance of success. I don't have the essentials DC chart with me but when I was looking at it earlier it seemed that the DCs were set for the HARD column assuming +5 from trained and +4 from attribute. It did not appear that they accounted for the fact the specialist is going to be adding +1 to the stat ~ 8 times from levels 1-30.

The issue here is a damned if you do/damed if you don't one. If you DO NOT adjust for the stat ups that specialist players will be putting into their core attributes then they will quickly trivialize "hard" tests which are the only ones that are really designed with any signifcant chance of failure for them (and 35% is not a lot of chance anyway)

On the other hand if you DO scale to the specialist then yes hard tasks get more difficult.

The moderate difficulty chart should show the second situation when the hard one shows the first.

The moderate task difficulty is calculated as 13+level/2 (or 8 + 5 +level/2). It shouldn't ever make adjustments for stats . So with a 10 stat and a trained skill you have exactly a 65% success chance.

[Krakatoa]

I think one way to handle uneven skill tests is offer different tests to different characters. For example you might have a nimble human Rogue balance across a narrow beam with an Acrobatics check, but let the Dwarven fighter swing across with their grappling hook and the Eladrin Warlock teleport across with Fey Step. That way you can give everyone a Hard test in an area where they specialize (except in the case of the Eladrin, the knife-eared bastards)

[sabs]

Why do you have to give them a hard test at all?

The Rogue goes across making the hard test, carrying a rope, and pulley and some stuff.

The rest of the party comes across easily.

[Krakatoa]

You don't have to, but I've often found when GMing that everyone in the party expects their own unique abilities to come in to play.

[Swordslinger]

Tell you what. You find a module with scaling levels (as in, "this module is written for levels 5-8" instead of the standard "this module is written for a party of 5 level 13 characters") that DOESN'T have scaling DCs. Try that instead. Or, you know, some written words that contradict the Rules Compendium.

Keep on the Shadowfell. During this module, you're expected to gain levels, meaning that it doens't necessarily know what level you might be during any encounter. It may well expect you to be level 1, but you're level 4 by the end of it, and depending on the order of rooms you do, it doesn't know what level you are at any given room. But the DCs remain static.

[Swordslinger]

The issue here is a damned if you do/damed if you don't one. If you DO NOT adjust for the stat ups that specialist players will be putting into their core attributes then they will quickly trivialize "hard" tests which are the only ones that are really designed with any signifcant chance of failure for them (and 35% is not a lot of chance anyway)

On the other hand if you DO scale to the specialist then yes hard tasks get more difficult.

Yeah the majority of dudes here have decided they don't like 4E and equate anything 4E with automatically bad. If it was reversed, they'd still be complaining, because they'd be talking about how it gets too easy for the specialist. You could print a similar table of DC guidelines for 3.5 in the tomes and they'd think it was the greatest DM aide ever.

But it's published in the 4E books, so they're gonna be haters.

Despite having no existing example of auto-scaling DCs anywhere in any published adventure, the majority of dudes here will go Republican-style and just continue to believe what they want. Because evidence is for pussies.

[DragonChild]

No, you're just whining because someone said something bad about 4e, so you're all bawwwwwwwww. Let's look at how this conversation started:

-Username17 asserted that some challenges scale their DC to the PC level. Fact.

-Username17 asserted that this made things harder for the non-specialist characters to do tasks as they leveled up. Fact.

-souran claimed that this is damned if you do, damned if you don't thing, and Swordslinger decided that this is because "everyone here thinks everything about 4e is automatically bad". Bullshit.


IT IS BAD that a system makes it so it's *harder* for me to walk on the same surface as I level up. You are defending this. Were scaling DCs in place, this would not be an issue. This is the crucial thing you are missing, and what is making you wrong.

I have even posted a proposed system elsewhere where specialists and generalist had WILDLY divergent skills. Nobody thought this was "outright bad", because I wasn't retarded enough to have skill DCs scale with level.

Despite having no existing example of auto-scaling DCs anywhere in any published adventure, the majority of dudes here will go Republican-style and just continue to believe what they want. Because evidence is for pussies.

Since when does an adventure have a scaling ANYTHING? Can you provide an example of an adventure with scaling monsters, but no scaling skill DCs? Or scaling treasure, but no scaling skill DCs?

In addition, bitching when people provide actual cites from the rulebook that they have "no evidence", when you have no cites yourself is lame. Stop being lame.

[CCarter]

I hate scaling DCs as much as the next guy, but just for shits and giggles, here's Mike Mearls defense of scaling DCs from therpgsite (sadly he has not shown up there again in a looong time...before I found the place)
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.ph ... post215898

The DCs are generally level based, with the idea being that if something is important/hard enough to be worth a check, it should have a DC appropriate to the level. We don't necessarily proscribe DCs as an absolute measure of difficulty. For example, the Intimidate skill tells the DM to set a modifier of his choice as appropriate to the situation. The DC isn't always a creature's Will defense.

That said, our aim was to get rid of things like a DC 5 Climb check to scale a ladder. We'd rather just let the DM decide that, if a climb check should be hard for a 15th level character, set the DC, then come up with a reason why the DC is so high (the wall is coated in grease; it's an elemental barrier built from slabs of liquid water, etc).

[TheFlatline]

The issue here is a damned if you do/damed if you don't one. If you DO NOT adjust for the stat ups that specialist players will be putting into their core attributes then they will quickly trivialize "hard" tests which are the only ones that are really designed with any signifcant chance of failure for them (and 35% is not a lot of chance anyway)

On the other hand if you DO scale to the specialist then yes hard tasks get more difficult.

Yeah the majority of dudes here have decided they don't like 4E and equate anything 4E with automatically bad. If it was reversed, they'd still be complaining, because they'd be talking about how it gets too easy for the specialist. You could print a similar table of DC guidelines for 3.5 in the tomes and they'd think it was the greatest DM aide ever.

But it's published in the 4E books, so they're gonna be haters.

Despite having no existing example of auto-scaling DCs anywhere in any published adventure, the majority of dudes here will go Republican-style and just continue to believe what they want. Because evidence is for pussies.

Oh bullshit... here's the thing. Level-dependent DCs are very useful to fill in the spaces between known difficulties. As the core system it's bullshit.

If you read that Mearls quote above this post, you'll see that he's advocating a skill check not reflecting the game's reality, but altering reality to reflect the pre-determined whim of Mister Cavern. And this is coming from the dev of the system. Which is fucking stupid and bullshit and arbitrary and a built-in abuse of Rule Zero. It's saying that the normal wall there doesn't spout grease on it until someone either decides they want to climb it or they piss Mister Cavern off and he decides that wall is going to be a hard difficulty. It also *intones* that if it's a difficult climb, and a level 10 and level 20 person climb the same wall at the same time, that the wall greases itself for the higher level character.

He then goes on to say that a DC 15 check isn't more difficult in an absolute sense than a DC 13 check. Which means difficulties and the skill system in general devolves down into whether Mister Cavern wants you to succeed or not. That makes the system even more bullshit and arbitrary.

Also, according the *scanned passage* of the relevant book, Keep on Shadowfell or whatever the hell it's called is doing it wrong since it's not adhering to Rules As Written.

In other words, even the official published adventures realize this is bullshit and houserule the fucking rules.

[shadzar]

I hate scaling DCs as much as the next guy, but just for shits and giggles, here's Mike Mearls defense of scaling DCs from therpgsite (sadly he has not shown up there again in a looong time...before I found the place)
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.ph ... post215898

The DCs are generally level based, with the idea being that if something is important/hard enough to be worth a check, it should have a DC appropriate to the level. We don't necessarily proscribe DCs as an absolute measure of difficulty. For example, the Intimidate skill tells the DM to set a modifier of his choice as appropriate to the situation. The DC isn't always a creature's Will defense.

That said, our aim was to get rid of things like a DC 5 Climb check to scale a ladder. We'd rather just let the DM decide that, if a climb check should be hard for a 15th level character, set the DC, then come up with a reason why the DC is so high (the wall is coated in grease; it's an elemental barrier built from slabs of liquid water, etc).

And that is just so damn funny it isnt funny.

Congrats you have gained 14 levels and defeated many a mosnter and become a well-known adventurer. When are you ever going to use the motor skills required to climb a ladder like those kids rolling around in the hayloft?

Also his reasoning is about as dumb as he is. You don't want someone to climb a ladder and make it difficult to go up a floor or ascend something, just don't fucking have a ladder there for the to use in the first fucking place.

Mearls needs to go back and stay with his MMOs where they found his retarded ass.

[mean_liar]

The DCs are generally level based, with the idea being that if something is important/hard enough to be worth a check, it should have a DC appropriate to the level. We don't necessarily proscribe DCs as an absolute measure of difficulty. For example, the Intimidate skill tells the DM to set a modifier of his choice as appropriate to the situation. The DC isn't always a creature's Will defense.

That said, our aim was to get rid of things like a DC 5 Climb check to scale a ladder. We'd rather just let the DM decide that, if a climb check should be hard for a 15th level character, set the DC, then come up with a reason why the DC is so high (the wall is coated in grease; it's an elemental barrier built from slabs of liquid water, etc).

This is what Swordslinger has been saying all along, though its in contradiction to the Rules Compendium.

...and we've come full circle.

My only real complaint about the skill DCs is that there aren't any solid benchmarks. Without them, everything is fiat. With them, its just a mapping function and the scaling issue disappears.

[Username17]

Is this from the essentials version of the table or the 4E version of the table?

I'm talking about the ones in the DM Kit. I have no idea what you are talking about.

-Username17