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View Full Version : Exploiting the Vulnerabilty of Strengths [4e]



Shatteredtower
2010-12-29, 08:10 AM
The rule books argue that you should not punish players for maximising particular talents. I don't dispute this. I do, however, believe that maximised talents can deny players opportunities. Do we play for the challenge or not?

Take Perception, for example. It takes no great effort to get that modifier high enough to track invisible foes with passive checks, easy pickings for area or burst effects. Scaling the DC on checks higher may bring challenge back to this player, but puts it well beyond those who focused on other talents, sometimes so punitively that the party feels it must all achieve high Perception modifiers.

But what if, every once in awhile, the heightened Perception worked against you? Imagine haunted places, in which the more sensitive individuals are constantly barraged with mad, hateful whispering weakens their defenses. There should be ways to neutralise the effect, of course, ones rarely so drastic as the need for deafness.

Thoughts?

Jay R
2010-12-29, 08:45 AM
There are easier ways to accomplish the same goal. Just as infravision doesn't work when you're in a party using torches, heightened perception doesn't work when overwhelmed by stronger sense impressions.

Player: "I'm on guard, using all my heightened senses. What do I detect?"
DM: "The dwarf in your party snores like a buzzsaw, the rogue wears way too much perfume, and you're getting a headache from the fact that the fighter hasn't bathed today."

Tengu_temp
2010-12-29, 08:47 AM
It's an interesting thing when used well and very annoying when not used well. You're also bound to piss your players off if you constantly use their strengths against them, so exert moderation.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-29, 08:51 AM
I'd be hard-pressed to find any other examples than perception. Even with perception, it would be rather weird (and potentially annoying) if it is ruled that only people with a lower perception can notice something.

Grogmir
2010-12-29, 09:30 AM
"It takes no great effort to get that modifier high enough to track invisible foes with passive checks, easy pickings for area or burst effects"

Can you take passive scores in combat? I don't use the Passive scores anyway - I might as well decided if the party see's it or not - as I know what the highest score is - so its just working out the same - Role and lets see how the story goes.

- - -

As for the idea itself I like it - though as others said - this seems to be a unique to perception case.

But can be used in a few different flavours - for example a Cuthulu take would be - role perception please - everyone that succedded - you see *Indiscribable horror* Attack Vs Will to see if take any 'pyshic damage' or some such thing. But it would be a trick i would use ofther. Maybe once every dungeon tops.

Kylarra
2010-12-29, 12:17 PM
I'm kind of curious which ones other than perception you'd use with this.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-29, 12:27 PM
Actually, here's one I used years ago. The party was hungry and decided to go hunting. Since none of the party was proficient in archery, they decided to use evocation magic for this purpose.

Um, yeah.

I ruled that if you do several times its max HP in magical explosive damage to a little rabbit, then there won't be enough left of it to cook for dinner.

Suedars
2010-12-29, 05:06 PM
But what if, every once in awhile, the heightened Perception worked against you? Imagine haunted places, in which the more sensitive individuals are constantly barraged with mad, hateful whispering weakens their defenses. There should be ways to neutralise the effect, of course, ones rarely so drastic as the need for deafness.

Thoughts?

If this is done sparingly and isn't crippling it'd probably be ok. I'd tack on some benefit too (maybe the hauntings give clues in to whatever the party is investigating) so that it doesn't seem vindictive.



There are easier ways to accomplish the same goal. Just as infravision doesn't work when you're in a party using torches, heightened perception doesn't work when overwhelmed by stronger sense impressions.

Player: "I'm on guard, using all my heightened senses. What do I detect?"
DM: "The dwarf in your party snores like a buzzsaw, the rogue wears way too much perfume, and you're getting a headache from the fact that the fighter hasn't bathed today."

This isn't really the way above average senses work though. A master chef with an extremely refined palate will be able to taste minuscule things that most people would never be able to. That doesn't mean that their palate is overwhelmed by every dish they taste though. Above average senses are about noticing the .5s on the 1 to 10 scale, not magnifying everything 10x so that the .5s becomes noticeable 5s and the 10s become 100s and knock you out from sensory overload.

Gwillednt
2010-12-29, 05:18 PM
I'm kind of curious which ones other than perception you'd use with this.

DIPLOMACY!!!

"You rolled so well that Dippy the Diplomatic Diplodocus showed up and well, everyone got really distracted and annoyed."
\


In other words, I would avoid doing this.

Fortuna
2010-12-29, 05:27 PM
Knowledge skills are another potential problem, since if something is not what it seems then having a firm idea of what it must be can be a liability. But other than those and Perception, I can't think of anything that could be turned backwards like that.

erikun
2010-12-29, 05:35 PM
Why not allow the strengths to be strengths, just not as all-encompassing as the player might like? To use your Perception example, why not have, rather than one invisible opponent, a dozen invisible minions? Sure, the one character can determine where they are, but that won't help the rest of the party in fighting invisible opponents - they'll need to rely on the hyper-perception party member to point out where all the opponents are.

Perhaps you could even grant mechanical benefits if the character decides to spend their time watching for invisible threats rather than fighting. Such as: if the character chooses to spend their Standard action telling his allies where the invisible opponents are rather than attacking, all allies can ignore the -5 penality for fighting invisible opponents.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-29, 05:38 PM
if the character chooses to spend their Standard action telling his allies where the invisible opponents are rather than attacking, all allies can ignore the -5 penality for fighting invisible opponents.

Considering talking is normally a free action (or at worst a minor), it seems to me that, rather than allowing strengths to be strengths, this is allowing strengths to arbitrarily remove your attack action.

Suedars
2010-12-29, 05:49 PM
Why not allow the strengths to be strengths, just not as all-encompassing as the player might like? To use your Perception example, why not have, rather than one invisible opponent, a dozen invisible minions? Sure, the one character can determine where they are, but that won't help the rest of the party in fighting invisible opponents - they'll need to rely on the hyper-perception party member to point out where all the opponents are.

Perhaps you could even grant mechanical benefits if the character decides to spend their time watching for invisible threats rather than fighting. Such as: if the character chooses to spend their Standard action telling his allies where the invisible opponents are rather than attacking, all allies can ignore the -5 penality for fighting invisible opponents.

The problem with the minion solution is that you want to be using bursts to take out minions and bursts ignore penalties for invisible foes (assuming the burst isn't limited to enemies you can see like many of the weapon based close bursts).

OracleofWuffing
2010-12-29, 06:02 PM
Actually, here's one I used years ago. The party was hungry and decided to go hunting. Since none of the party was proficient in archery, they decided to use evocation magic for this purpose.

Um, yeah.

I ruled that if you do several times its max HP in magical explosive damage to a little rabbit, then there won't be enough left of it to cook for dinner.

Well, years later from that, you can just declare that killing blow knocked out but didn't kill the little rabbit.

Though, why you'd do that is beyond me, everyone knows how dangerous those things are.

erikun
2010-12-29, 09:06 PM
Considering talking is normally a free action (or at worst a minor), it seems to me that, rather than allowing strengths to be strengths, this is allowing strengths to arbitrarily remove your attack action.
Talking is a free action, but keeping your eyes on twelve foes and letting each party member know when one is nearby and from what side is not. At least, I don't forsee many DMs allowing all the penalities associated with invisibility to be cancelled simply because one character has True Seeing and a big mouth. (There is a difference between just mentioning what is happening, and giving a constant up-to-date report for every ally throughout the turn.)

Plus, the one character is effectively giving a +5 to hit (ignore invisibility penality) and a +2 to defenses (ignore CA granted by invisibility) to all party members for their standard action. Plus, if spending a standard action effectively negates the opponents' invisibility, then classes like the Fighter can still fight at full effectiveness. How valuable is this? Warlords are the only class who can grant such bonuses, and they are considered the best leaders because of it.

Of course, it should simply be an option for the uber-perceptor. Are they the party Wizard? Then they would probably be better with just AoEing the invisible minions, as Suedars points out... unless the minions snuck up on the party are nearby allies. Then, suddenly, dropping area spells isn't such a good idea and pointing out invisible targets to allies is.

Shatteredtower
2010-12-30, 12:12 AM
Suedar, that's exactly the sort of idea I had in mind: rarely used, and always with the idea of operating other doors to opportunity. Thanks.

Erikun, that suggestion is far too generous. You just need to compare it to aid another to see why.

As for other skills, consider how dangerous Insight can be around Lovecraftian horrors. Awareness of a cultist's self deception is fine, but listening to the ravings of someone claiming to channel Tharizdun, for example, can be devastating if you can discern that both the claim and the ravings are true.

Diplomacy? Sycophants and other stalkers. Knowledge skills? The unsettling realisation that this particular owlbear devoured a prominent hero, or prophecy declared this given demon's to be one with that of a great kingdom. The result can be a small combat penalty, but the significance of revelation can lead to bigger things. Bluff? What's the line about lies that get halfway round the world? Intimidate? Informant with bad heart, involuntary shriek, or weak bladder.

Shatteredtower
2010-12-30, 12:57 AM
Sorry, reached message size limit. Here are a few more.

Stealth: Allies may also lose track of you. It's hard to find advantage in this, but let's not rule that out. Ah, right... it's less likely they'll know where to drop area spells, but you needn't worry about dominated allies attacking you or anyone giving away your position.

Athletics: seldom an issue, and overjumping is too likely to be punitive instead. Ditto injuries caused to those you aid or displays of perfectionism that extend a move action to standard. All are possible, but only if it leads to open doors.

Acrobatics: See Athletics. Both can be exploited to encourage the highly talented to take a normally unpassable route, rather than the faster, more accessible one, changing the flow and nature of further challenges for good and possibly bad.

Thievery: You have me there. Streetwise could occasionally oblige you to stay for a few more drinks, but this may earn you favours in the long run, should you play it right. (out of space)

Jay R
2010-12-30, 01:53 PM
This isn't really the way above average senses work though. A master chef with an extremely refined palate will be able to taste minuscule things that most people would never be able to. That doesn't mean that their palate is overwhelmed by every dish they taste though. Above average senses are about noticing the .5s on the 1 to 10 scale, not magnifying everything 10x so that the .5s becomes noticeable 5s and the 10s become 100s and knock you out from sensory overload.

Don't be silly. Try tasting a subtle wine right after a swig of bad whiskey. A master chef cleanses his palate of other tastes before sampling a fine dish.

You can't hear an elven footfall fifty feet away if your companions are talking, and you can't smell the approaching monster if you're in the middle of a cesspool. The solution I was proposing is to have distractions at the moment that you need to frustrate the super-senses for plot purposes.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-30, 01:59 PM
Erikun, that suggestion is far too generous. You just need to compare it to aid another to see why.

That's not such a great comparison, considering Aid Another is pretty much always a waste of your action. You should compare suggestions to average options, not to way underpowered options.

Shatteredtower
2010-12-30, 06:32 PM
That's not such a great comparison, considering Aid Another is pretty much always a waste of your action. You should compare suggestions to average options, not to way underpowered options.

I knew you'd be the one to make this observation. Please be assured that it's not an insult.

My point is, whether or not you consider it a bad option, it is among the core defaults. Any action that exceeds what it does without involving at least a class power or feat cannot be recommended. Anything of the sort that exceeds what it does by 150% of benefit, for more allies against more enemies, within a wider range, is clearly broken in comparison to the default options.

Cog
2010-12-31, 01:24 AM
Don't be silly. Try tasting a subtle wine right after a swig of bad whiskey. A master chef cleanses his palate of other tastes before sampling a fine dish.
Yes, the whiskey imposes a circumstance penalty when you're tasting the wine, but I don't see why the penalty should be any greater for the master chef versus the average joe.

Suedars
2010-12-31, 03:06 AM
Yes, the whiskey imposes a circumstance penalty when you're tasting the wine, but I don't see why the penalty should be any greater for the master chef versus the average joe.

Exactly. Both the chef and the average person will be hindered at picking up subtle notes (if the average person even could in the first place), but the chef will still be much better off.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-31, 05:10 AM
I knew you'd be the one to make this observation. Please be assured that it's not an insult.
I don't mind.

But I do disagree. When you create e.g. a new Ranger at-will, you shouldn't compare it with Careful Attack to check if it is balanced, and it doesn't follow that it's "broken" if it's much more powerful than Careful Attack. This is because CA is one of the weakest at-wills in the game.

Conversely, when you create a new feat, you shouldn't compare it with Staff Expertise to check if it is balanced, and it doesn't follow that it's "useless" if it's much weaker than Staff Expertise. This is because SE is one of the strongest feats in the game.

Outliers do not make a good baseline.

Shatteredtower
2010-12-31, 08:06 AM
Aid another isn't an outlier. It is one of the basic actions available to everyone. Making a Perception check to locate an invisible foe is another, because it can be done untrained. It is unlikely, but it's possible. If that doesn't exceed the benefit of aiding another in combat by negating a -5 penalty (and letting your allies target something if you can meaningfully communicate location), then a particularly good Perception modifer shouldn't be enough to do that either, especially against groups. It's enough that it can let you offer directions for someone else's area attack.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-31, 08:54 AM
Aid another isn't an outlier. It is one of the basic actions available to everyone.
It's an outlier because it is so rarely used in practice; in fact, I've never seen anyone use it in combat. This is because it's a really bad tradeoff.

There are rules that are so rarely used that people tend to forget they exist, and that might as well not be there because they don't add anything to the game. This is an example thereof, and that's why it's an outlier. How would the game play differently if the Aid Another action wouldn't exist? The answer is that it wouldn't.

Shatteredtower
2010-12-31, 06:45 PM
If my character is weakened and blinded for a turn, I'd rather have aid another as an option than a lot of other choices.

If the rogue has no surges left and the cleric can't get over there, but can provide surgeless healing with a successful attack, my fighter is going to take an option that makes that more likely to happen. It's better to waive an attack than leave another player sidelined, no matter what some people claim about tactical priorities.

If we need the wizard back on that ledge, aid another. If we need the cleric revived, aid another. If the rogue wants to draw the opportunity attack to trigger the fighter's combat challenge while moving for a flank, aid another.

There are no better choices. There are just different ones that do different things.

tcrudisi
2010-12-31, 11:53 PM
Take Perception, for example. It takes no great effort to get that modifier high enough to track invisible foes with passive checks, easy pickings for area or burst effects.

Thoughts?

Yep. I did a quick search for all instances of the word invisible and I didn't catch this, so if someone's already said it, my apologies.

Tracking invisible foes is incredibly easy to do in combat. Take a Fighter with a Perception modifier of -1. Heck, let's say he's been blinded and the DM wants to throw some arbitrary penalty at you. For purposes of argument, I'll say the DM is especially mean and gives you a -9 because of some arbitrary house rule. That gives you a Perception score of -10 and a Passive Perception of 0. Now, how hard is it for the Fighter to find the invisible foe in combat?

It's still easy. You succeed automatically. Congrats, you know what square the invisible creature is in automatically!

What you are talking about is the hidden condition. That is far, far different than simple invisibility. It is a bit complicated, so rather than try to explain it here, I'll cheat and give a link to the charop thread which explains the differences. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/25474357/The_Rules_Of_Hidden_Club:__Targeting_things_you_ca nt_see_in_DD.)

byers2142
2011-01-01, 01:00 AM
My DM took a rather unique approach to this problem in our face-to-face game; make personal DC modifiers to the skills that target those characters that are highly proficient, because they are highly proficient. The example was my half-elf Warlord, whose Diplomacy score was frankly obscene. I used this to my advantaged for 12 levels, and the DM was helpless to stop it. Lovecraftian horrors? I schmoozed them. Invading hordes? Followed my lead when I pointed out tastier targets. It was impressive.

And then he got the idea that people would notice this. Huron (my character) was a smooth talker, and because of that in situations that mattered I started getting penalties because everyone knew it. You can take this as an personal attack, but I didn't. It was a natural extrapolation of how things had gone. If everyone knew I could talk my way out of murder, they would start to doubt they could trust everything I said when the next body showed up.

The same can apply to any skill, really. High Perception? Then the Big Ba knows what character he needs to pay special attention to when hiding things. Insight? People know what character to play to. Thievery? People learn the patterns of the rascal and take precautions against his specific tendencies. As long as you're clear to the players that these reactions are because people are responding to in-game actions their characters have taken, they shouldn't be upset. Personally, when I started getting nerfed Diplomacy rolls, I saw it as a challenge. And talked a king into giving up part of his country to me by sending an envoy whom I instructed in exactly what to say.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-01, 07:49 AM
Now, how hard is it for the Fighter to find the invisible foe in combat?

It's still easy. You succeed automatically. Congrats, you know what square the invisible creature is in automatically!

Stealth is part of movement. The invisible target, having total concealment, can make a Stealth check even if it doesn't move. It can only do this on its turn and with a move action is available, but if it turns invisible next to the fighter and has a move action left, a successful Perception check is needed to determine if it moved.

I've heard people argue that this fighter would be blind with respect to the target, but what matters is that he's not blind to the target's passage. Circumstances may change that, but you can't even bet on staying still for so much as a -2 on the check. Also, anyone that does locate you should be able to do so for the team. It still doesn't remove the -5 penalty on ranged or melee attacks.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-01-01, 02:29 PM
The rule books argue that you should not punish players for maximising particular talents. I don't dispute this. I do, however, believe that maximised talents can deny players opportunities. Do we play for the challenge or not?
This never ends well.

Players maximize their abilities to be very good at something. If the DM continually contrives situations where they are not very good at that one thing then they get annoyed. The Player (rightly) sees the DM as using his Fiat to invalidate a Player choice - i.e. his autonomy; maintaining Player autonomy is key for most - if not all - forms of game play.

ADVICE
For D&D4 in particular, I find the system works best if you let maximized Players have some "gimmes" - but limit the amount of times those gimmes are very important. For example, if you have a Max Perception Player, don't design your games around finding secret doors and avoiding ambushes; throw in the occasional secret door or "it's a trap" but spend more of your time using challenges that require other skill checks to succeed.

The distinction is subtle.

A game where the Party is trying to locate secret doors in a haunted mansions to find the Lost Treasure is going to either be boring or frustrating for the Party with a Max Perception Player. It will be boring if you play by the RAW and none of the door are really "secret" 'cause they can be found via Passive Perception - finding secret doors was the main challenge in this scenario, after all. But it will be frustrating for everyone if you either buff the DCs so that only the Max Perception Player can hope to find anything (no one else can even help) or if you have some situational effect that prevents the Max Perception Player from using his Perception; it's like sending a melee-only party against flying enemies in an open field.

Now, what if you did the same game but rather than having a lot of secret doors to find, the problem with the haunted mansion is that you need to figure out how to break the haunting. Sure there are secret doors and hidden clues, but the party will need to use a variety of skills to actually solve the mission. The Max Perception Player has fun being told "hey, you notice that one of the bricks on the wall is loose" but everyone else can contribute to solving the real adventure.
In short: as long as you give the Maximized Player opportunity to "flex his muscles" from time to time he'll be happy. Just don't design your encounters to cater to his strong suit all the time.

On a related note: the true problem with skills is defining the limits of what can be done with them. Never assume that a skill lets you do anything given a sufficiently high check; that just allows maximized Players to ruin campaigns (see Diplomancers).

ADVICE
For Insight and Perception checks, the main issues arise with liars and traps. Liars because a sufficient Insight basically destroys any whodunit and most double-cross stories; traps because noticing a trap exists is usually enough to negate the trap. My earlier advice still applies, of course: if you must do a "whodunit" make it more a matter of gathering evidence than fingering the liar; for traps, make them traps that must still be bypassed even when you notice they're there - or traps that may be triggered in the course of combat.

But even here, some RAI may be helpful. My personal RAI is that Insight will merely tell you whether someone is lying or not - not what they are lying about or even what the truth may be. It gives impressions, not certainties. Unfortunately, I still don't have a way to deal with Insight v. Illusions - by RAW, practically any Illusion will be noticed by a Max Insight Player.

For Perception, I only allow Perception to notice things - not give answers. So you may notice that there is a pressure plate in the hallway, but not know what that means. I usually swap the "Perception for identifying traps" entry on the Trap Card with a Dungeoneering or Arcana check. Likewise, you can't use Perception to see the imperceivable; my party was recently foiled by a tapestry that completely obscured a close door because nobody thought to look behind it - much less physically search the room.

Also: Don't worry about Max Perception foiling invisible opponents in combat. As that helpful link notes, they still have Total Concealment. If you don't like your party being able to pick out Invisible Opponents so easily, equip some enemies with "flashbangs" - attacks that Blind & Deafen a single target (Save Ends). After all, the Max Perception fellow needs to point out the Invisible guy to his allies - making him a prime target for an assassin to neutralize :smallamused:

Shatteredtower
2011-01-01, 05:16 PM
You misunderstand the point, Oracle Hunter. This is not about denying players the choice to be outstanding at something. It's about acknowledging that, as per Sun Tzu, every virtue provides a target. The goal, however, is not to defeat the PC (as noted before, this is not punishment), but to create opportunity by exploiting the problems that come with too much of a good thing.

Outstanding Endurance? Make the PC an unaffected disease carrier sometime. Perhaps delay the results of a condition for a turn at the cost of a healing surge or even second wind...but rarely, and only when the short term break would be critical.

Kurald Galain
2011-01-01, 05:54 PM
My DM took a rather unique approach to this problem in our face-to-face game; make personal DC modifiers to the skills that target those characters that are highly proficient,

It seems to me that doing so makes skill training and skill focus worthless, because whenever you boost your skill rank, the DC goes up by the same amount. In other words, every character, regardless of attributes or training, has a ~70% chance of succeeding at every task.

If a character is dominating the campaign with diplomacy, the solution is not to arbitrarily raise the DCs for him only; the solution is to occasionally give the party problems against which diplomacy doesn't help, and where a different approach is needed.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-01-01, 09:37 PM
You misunderstand the point, Oracle Hunter. This is not about denying players the choice to be outstanding at something. It's about acknowledging that, as per Sun Tzu, every virtue provides a target. The goal, however, is not to defeat the PC (as noted before, this is not punishment), but to create opportunity by exploiting the problems that come with too much of a good thing.

Outstanding Endurance? Make the PC an unaffected disease carrier sometime. Perhaps delay the results of a condition for a turn at the cost of a healing surge or even second wind...but rarely, and only when the short term break would be critical.
Yeah... this still feels like the DM punishing Players for breaking his game.

If you don't tell the Players this from the start, they're going to feel put upon when you say "oh, the light is so bright that only you - Mr. Max Perception - are blind!" Or "well, Mr. Max Endurance, it looks like while you were immune to the disease that crippled the party, you brought it home with you to your friends and family."

If you do tell them, then you'll end up with everyone asking you "well, how much is too much?" - a rather backhanded way of imposing build constraints.

What I'm saying is that there's no good reason to punish Players for maximizing their builds in a game that emphasizes Character Building as part of the game.

EDIT: If you really want to go Sun Tzu on these guys, I'd recommend picking a RP trait of the PC to target. That way, rather than picking on a mechanical choice you're having an in-game villain target an in-game feature of the character. So, if a PC is very proud of his ability to break into anything have a villain lure him into a situation where his pride will lead to his downfall.

jseah
2011-01-01, 10:13 PM
With respect to the max perception player...

It is likely that the party trusts his "perception" and ability to spot things.

BBEG takes note of this and places a "trap" just outside normal spotting range and lets the high perception player notice it.
As the party prepares an ambush against the "trap", a much higher DC hide specialist strike team comes around the back and both the "trap" and the strike team hit.

Simply use the fact that they rely on him, and the all too likely player reaction of "oh, I must have seen everything" once he spots the "trap".
Know that he is using perception and have the hiding strike team take total cover/concealment in the mean time.

Ytaker
2011-01-01, 10:51 PM
Take Perception, for example. It takes no great effort to get that modifier high enough to track invisible foes with passive checks, easy pickings for area or burst effects. Scaling the DC on checks higher may bring challenge back to this player, but puts it well beyond those who focused on other talents, sometimes so punitively that the party feels it must all achieve high Perception modifiers.

So just, rarely have especially high DC checks. When you do the player who gets them will feel special and happy that you rewarded him. Besides, why do the other characters need high perception checks when they have a spot bot?

Different advantages are good. It means different players get attention.


But what if, every once in awhile, the heightened Perception worked against you? Imagine haunted places, in which the more sensitive individuals are constantly barraged with mad, hateful whispering weakens their defenses. There should be ways to neutralise the effect, of course, ones rarely so drastic as the need for deafness.

Thoughts?

The player inflicted with this will hate you for it, and it won't want to play with you any more.

Trying to get revenge on your players is rarely a good plan.

Edit.


Outstanding Endurance? Make the PC an unaffected disease carrier sometime. Perhaps delay the results of a condition for a turn at the cost of a healing surge or even second wind...but rarely, and only when the short term break would be critical.

I can imagine how this would go.

"Your outstanding endurance means you have infected the entire party with a disease. The squishy wizard died."

Wizard player. "I hate you utterly. Every character you ever have, every game we' play, I'll hate you."

What better way to improve a skill than making a character involuntarily betray the party by houseruling in revenge and causing intraparty conflict.

Generally one of the expectations that players have of dms is that they will obey the rules. Smooth things over if there's a difficulty, house rule if necessary. Be the final adjudicater, yes. If you actively decide for some reason to make rules up you should always do so while consulting with players.

You should never ever in any scenario whatsoever make up rules to punish your players. I can't imagine many worse things for a dm to do than actively cheat to kill you. That is the sort of thing I'd leave a campaign over.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-02, 03:38 AM
You're still not getting it. This isn't about punishing players any more than including a couple of higher level brutes, that can conceivably drop one PC from full hp in one turn, in a challenging encounter is. The odds favour you heavily, but sometimes you're going to have to think at the table.

Take the maddening whispers case, easily addressed with a simple skill challenge: religious litanies, mild medicinal aid, distracting talk... and that doesn't cover what you learned, details that may require insight, a keen sense of history, familiarity with several languages and maybe a few martial practices. (Athletics has no place in research challenges? Think again.)

Back to the carrier--an excellent opportunity to use Heal investigatively, at which point treatment is easy. Could the PC have been the target of some plague cult, selected for hardiness? Is there a risk of public hysteria, targetting people of certain regions or races?

Get it yet? It's about dynamic treatment of static benefits.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-01-02, 04:28 AM
Get it yet? It's about dynamic treatment of static benefits.
From the DM's perspective, perhaps.

The Player will see it as "the DM is picking on me for building my character well."

Furthermore, your proposal basically inverts a shared assumption about the game you're playing: it is good to be good at something. There are some systems which balance power and risk - allocating "too many" dice to a roll in Bliss Stage can lead you to an early grave - but D&D4 is not one of them.

If you want to go with this, explain it to your Players before character generation. It will save everyone from having an awkward time later on.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-02, 05:19 AM
Good grief. This does not change the core assumption. It is still good to be good at something. It is good to be smart, popular, strong, beautiful, and skilled.

This merely recognizes that even the good often comes with internal drawbacks, in a manner that still puts something more into the game. As long as it meets the status quo for simulated adversity, it's an enhancement.

Think about Superman's senses as an example. They've been used against him a few times over the last 60 years, but never to the point that you'd question their worth. This is no different. Heightened sensitivity does come with increased vulnerability. Scents and sounds you or I would fine tolerable can be painful to a dog.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-01-02, 05:54 AM
Good grief. This does not change the core assumption. It is still good to be good at something. It is good to be smart, popular, strong, beautiful, and skilled.

This merely recognizes that even the good often comes with internal drawbacks, in a manner that still puts something more into the game. As long as it meets the status quo for simulated adversity, it's an enhancement.
That's not what I heard from you before.

What you're saying here is "every rose has its thorns" : anything that is good in the abstract can still be used against you.

What I read before is "it's good to be good, but not too good" : at some point your training reaches a super-sensitivity that can result in bad things. This goes along with the Superman reference you made at the bottom of that post.

I'm telling you that, from a game design perspective, this second point of view is non-intuitive based on the given assumptions of 4E. If you want to put it in your game, that's fine, but I doubt your Players will like it and I'm certain they'd like to know about it beforehand.

Some advice I gave earlier:

If you really want to go Sun Tzu on these guys, I'd recommend picking a RP trait of the PC to target. That way, rather than picking on a mechanical choice you're having an in-game villain target an in-game feature of the character. So, if a PC is very proud of his ability to break into anything have a villain lure him into a situation where his pride will lead to his downfall.
It's not that I don't understand what you're saying; I'm saying that you're going about it the wrong way. If you want to, for example, have a villain whose shtick is using a PC's strengths against them, then I recommend you stick with strengths that are revealed in-game as opposed to on a character sheet. This will go over better with your Players and require less futzing around with game mechanics.

olentu
2011-01-02, 05:56 AM
Good grief. This does not change the core assumption. It is still good to be good at something. It is good to be smart, popular, strong, beautiful, and skilled.

This merely recognizes that even the good often comes with internal drawbacks, in a manner that still puts something more into the game. As long as it meets the status quo for simulated adversity, it's an enhancement.

Think about Superman's senses as an example. They've been used against him a few times over the last 60 years, but never to the point that you'd question their worth. This is no different. Heightened sensitivity does come with increased vulnerability. Scents and sounds you or I would fine tolerable can be painful to a dog.

I would think punishing the players for being skilled is a bad idea because of the subjective nature of the situations. Like alignment there is likely to be differing opinions of what would be appropriate and without agreement you often get annoyed players when punished for something they do not think should have happened. I mean I would not like it if the DM arbitrarily decided hey player x, you are so good at skill x that you get a disability just because but since I do not think the situation merits player y getting disabled for skill y he is not especially without forewarning.

Kurald Galain
2011-01-02, 06:24 AM
You're still not getting it. This isn't about punishing players
Yes it is: you are making a task harder for certain party members, but not for others. A better comparison is to give those four brutes a higher AC against specifically the rogue's attacks only. Try explaining to your players that they are AC 20 against the fighter, AC 24 against the rogue.


This merely recognizes that even the good often comes with internal drawbacks,
It seems to me that "the good" comes with the internal drawback of not actually being good any more. I don't like it if having a high perception comes with a penalty to perception checks. I'd say that all of the examples given in this thread fall somewhere between "flimsy excuse" and "not making any sense in the first place". Because yes, someone who is good at bluffing can still bluff people who know he's good at it. It happens in real life all the time.

Now a related thing that does work is the Red Button Trick (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchmuckBait): put a bright red flashy button somewhere in your dungeon, and penalize the character who pushes it. Of course, this penalizes the curious and impulsive character - but the point is that it his his decision to open that Eldritch Tome Of Darkness when his teammembers were asking him not to.

(edit) Also this:


I'm telling you that, from a game design perspective, this second point of view is non-intuitive based on the given assumptions of 4E. If you want to put it in your game, that's fine, but I doubt your Players will like it and I'm certain they'd like to know about it beforehand.
I agree that this goes against the spirit of 4E. Also, if you tell players about it beforehand, you can bet that nobody will be interested in Skill Training, Skill Focus, or those backgrounds that give you extra skills.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-02, 01:42 PM
"If you did everything you could to maximise an ability, you should never have to give it thought again," is the best there is to offer?

What a waste, throwing away the opportunity to truly make full use of what a character is. Greatness comes with a price. Cuchalain knew that, giving up long life for it, but any PC made to follow his lead would only do so because "the game will be over before that becomes an issue"?

Target strengths for the same reason you target weaknesses and create every obstacle and reward: to enhance the game, its challenges, and its characters. The game loses so much when everything is only, "Your skill must be THIS tall to ride."

It's only punishment when the advantage is replaced by liability. Introducing the occasional hazard as part of another opportunity isn't that.

Kurald Galain
2011-01-02, 02:03 PM
"If you did everything you could to maximise an ability, you should never have to give it thought again," is the best there is to offer?
No, and nobody is suggesting that, either. Just because you have e.g. a great perception skill doesn't mean that you're now omniscient, nor that perception is going to help in every situation you're in. However, telling a player that his high perception doesn't count with a nonsensical excuse like "the BBEG is hiding things explicitly in places where you wouldn't look but other people would" is just lame.

If you want to challenge characters, you have to start with situations that make sense, not with arbitrary penalties. Don't use fake difficulty (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty) in tabletop RPGs.

Hal
2011-01-02, 03:16 PM
My general approach to this sort of thing is to go around player strengths at times.

See, that guy who chose a specific race, background, and spent 3 feats to get +30 to one of his skills probably doesn't have much else going for him. He'll have chances to be awesome at that skill, sure, but have skill challenges or other situations where he needs to roll other skills.

I think those situations can be the most fun, partially because it can be interesting when you have to make the most of your limited skills and resources. But then also because SOMETIMES PLAYERS ROLL 4 ON THEIR STEALTH CHECKS.

Swordguy
2011-01-02, 03:58 PM
Yeah... this still feels like the DM punishing Players for breaking his game.

Maybe if the players didn't make the decision to break the game in the first place, this sort of thing wouldn't be necessary. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Every action should have a chance of failure. I've taken to putting caps on the TOTAL bonus to a skill, by level, not just upon the skill ranks by level. It doesn't matter how you get to the cap, only that it then becomes impossible to max-out a skill so far as to guarantee success, which is the real problem with maxed-out skills.

It's the GM's job to challenge the players in the interests of creating a shared story. When via exploitation of game mechanics it becomes impossible to do so, he is well within his rights to do what is necessary to ensure that the players can be challenged. Whether that's through skill caps, or unintended consequences, or what-have-you, he is doing his job. The GM's job is NOT to sit back passively and let the players do whatever they want through virtue of mechanical optimization/exploitation. If it doesn't create a better shared experience for everyone (including the GM!), then it's the GM's job to limit the player's actions. And having the players max-out any given skill or ability so that to challenge them, the GM must fundamentally screw over the remainder of the party is precisely that - impunging on the shared experience of everyone else.

There's better ways than brute-force to do this, granted. If a player had maxed out, say, Pick Locks to such a degree that I'd be having to throw triple-digit DCs at him to challenge him even slightly, then yeah, there's going to be some...inconveniences. Such as word of his legendary skill getting around, and the locksmith guild taking out hits on him to ensure he can't teach his secrets to others, or a local lord impressing him into service to pick the lock open on the "unpickable" treasure vault door his rival just installed (just to make the rival look bad). Preferably the vault door the rest of the party was just hired to guard. Or the bard with the insane Perform skill has to give a gratis command performance for the King...who expects a freshly-written and rehearsed show completed in only three days. Or yes, even the Perception Monkey has everybody and their brother coming up to him in bars and taverns begging him to find things for them - and woe to his reputation if he turns everybody down. There's some weeks he won't get a moment's peace having to do these things for everyone.

These aren't "penalties" - they're inconveniences that are a natural part of having legendary skills or abilities. It wouldn't make any sense in a consistent gameworld if, once word got around about what you can do, you didn't end up having this sort of thing happen every now and again. The downside of having the Wisdom of Solomon, after all, is that everybody else comes to YOU with their problems, and they may not be happy with their answers.

Hyooz
2011-01-02, 04:12 PM
Certain strengths lend themselves to vulnerabilities, I'll give you, but artificially creating situations so that someone with lots of ranks in X skill will suffer for it seems... silly.

For example. In one campaign I was playing in, we were flying over Xen'drik when the DM asked for Listen checks. Those of us who invested in it and/or rolled highly heard music, and had to immediately make will saves because guess what we just heard a siren's song. (Well, not a real siren, but hypnotizing music nonetheless.) It's a natural thing to have happen, and doesn't scream artifice to a player who falls into the trap.

Another example: we found a cool looking staff on an altar in a death god's temple. My character, who was well trained in UMD (this was 3.5) activated it blindly to find out what it did. Turns out it put a Death Ward effect on the activator, but also hit everyone in a certain radius with a death effect. It was pretty stupid to randomly activate a device in a temple like that, and if I hadn't been trained in UMD, it wouldn't have happened, but I didn't feel cheated because I invested in UMD. I felt foolish for using my skills so flippantly.

You should never penalize someone because they're X good at Y skill. Penalize how they choose to use their skills. The siren example is good because anyone in the party could have heard it, the DC wasn't that big a deal, and it was all of our choices to try to listen harder anyway. The staff example is good because it wasn't there just to punish me for being good at UMD, it served a ritualistic purpose to the owners of the temple, and just firing it blindly is pretty stupid. Carrying a disease home because they have good endurance? That's iffy, and screams "this is what you get!"

Plus, even people with really high Perception bonuses don't have to use them all the time. Someone with a high enough perception to passively hear ghastly whispers that drive him mad can choose to stop listening passively. Eagles have amazing eyes but don't find themselves blinded by the sun because they can adjust what they're doing at any given time. Penalizing being good at something just doesn't make sense.

Penalize choices, not expertise.

Kurald Galain
2011-01-02, 04:26 PM
The downside of having the Wisdom of Solomon, after all, is that everybody else comes to YOU with their problems, and they may not be happy with their answers.

I like this approach. The difference is that what you describe are, indeed, natural in-game consequences of being famously good at something. On the other hand, what other posts in this thread describe are arbitrary dice roll penalties that only apply to one character.

That's a pretty big difference.

Hyooz
2011-01-02, 04:52 PM
I like this approach. The difference is that what you describe are, indeed, natural in-game consequences of being famously good at something. On the other hand, what other posts in this thread describe are arbitrary dice roll penalties that only apply to one character.

That's a pretty big difference.

I like that approach too, because by and large, they seem like boons for being awesome at something rather than the kind of consequences the OP is talking about. The king wants me to do something for him? Awesome. We get in good with the king, get access to people and places we probably couldn't before, and get to do our own "work" along the way. I highly doubt the guy with lots of perception will somehow get famous for finding things... that seems REALLY unlikely, but hey, is he really going to care if his reputation as a "find my lost keys"-for-hire is hurt when he turns down some shmuck in a bar in the middle of his own agenda?

Ytaker
2011-01-02, 05:07 PM
Maybe if the players didn't make the decision to break the game in the first place, this sort of thing wouldn't be necessary. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Every action should have a chance of failure. I've taken to putting caps on the TOTAL bonus to a skill, by level, not just upon the skill ranks by level. It doesn't matter how you get to the cap, only that it then becomes impossible to max-out a skill so far as to guarantee success, which is the real problem with maxed-out skills.

It should be noted that being exceptional isn't weird. Lots of people in real life want to try and break the game. There are many people in real life who are so good at picking locks that no lock could ever block them for long. Many people have such good perception that you just can't surprise them no matter how hard you try. Myth is filled with tricksters who tricked the god into giving them amazing gifts with really high diplomacy rolls.


And having the players max-out any given skill or ability so that to challenge them, the GM must fundamentally screw over the remainder of the party is precisely that - impunging on the shared experience of everyone else.

This is the thing. GMs seem to think, this person has a high skill, so he must fail. Diplomacy is inherently broken since it's not a contested check, so that doesn't apply so well here. But for everything else, it's reasonable that if a person trained heavily in some skill that they would be successful at tasks involving that skill. Although I like the guy's response to the problem. The response involves things they can refuse.

Swordguy
2011-01-02, 06:00 PM
It should be noted that being exceptional isn't weird. Lots of people in real life want to try and break the game. There are many people in real life who are so good at picking locks that no lock could ever block them for long. Many people have such good perception that you just can't surprise them no matter how hard you try. Myth is filled with tricksters who tricked the god into giving them amazing gifts with really high diplomacy rolls.
...
This is the thing. GMs seem to think, this person has a high skill, so he must fail.

No, he must not fail. He must have a CHANCE to fail. Mathematically, game-mechanic-wise, being able to AUTOMATICALLY succeed at non-trivial tasks hurts the verisimillitude of the game. Ulysses didn't "automatically" succeed at Bluffing the cyclops - even though he was one of the slickest guys around (legendary Bluff, that man had). He won, but barely made it. Likewise, the best stories are about folks who do crazy legendary things and either fail and have to come up a new plan on the spur of the moment, or just make it through by the skin of their teeth.

If the purpose of the game is to tell good stories in a cooperative setting, the limiting the amount of things players can be automatically successful at will only help achieve this. Auto-success removes drama, and without drama, what's the point? I do suppose that if the main reason one is playing is to go on what amounts to a power trip where you're (not you personally - the generic "you") special and you can lord it over everyone else, then being about to auto-succeed at stuff would be very much in demand...but that's not a good story, that's a good power trip.


I like that approach too, because by and large, they seem like boons for being awesome at something rather than the kind of consequences the OP is talking about.

They are boons...but they're burdens also. That command performance with the king? Perhaps it's happening while you're on a time-sensitive quest. The bit with the vault and lock-picking? As I mentioned, it's the vault the party was just hired to guard. They CAN be boons, but they also make life difficult for the character as a direct result of his decision to manipulate of the game system. What happens when you fail one of these "boons"? Oh, the King's annoyed at you, or your rep takes a big hit, or you're now the laughingstock of the kingdom until they find somebody else. These aren't "mechanical" penalties...but they're roleplaying-based opportunities to hinder a player who has made a direct goal of, in Oracle_Hunter's terms, "breaking the game". Had he not done so in the first place, he might not be hounded day and night by people (powerful people) who all want him to do things because "he's the best".

I'd prefer it if players DIDN'T break the game in the bloody first place (quite seriously, as a general rule I draw the line at a steady 85-ish% success rate in the face of level-appropriate odds; if you're better than that, you need to spread out your PC's focus somewhat), but if they absolutely HAVE to, even after I've specifically instructed them not to, I'll take it out of their hides via logical and consistent roleplay. Where choices (such as the choice to break the game) have consequences. Mechanical penalties for stuff like this is easy, lazy, GMing. I can totally understand the appeal. But this way, you get to hold your PC over a barrel and do it from a position of being "in-game", rather than an arbitrary, OOG penalty. Same result, different methods.

Suedars
2011-01-02, 06:39 PM
Maybe if the players didn't make the decision to break the game in the first place, this sort of thing wouldn't be necessary.

Having an incredibly high perception score doesn't break the game. It just means the DM needs to find a way to challenge the party other than traps and hidden enemies. Your character still has numerous other areas that he isn't superhumanly talented in.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-02, 07:17 PM
I have not once argued for a higher skill to fail. Please stop going after an argument I never made.

Stop listening to maddening whispers? That's like trying to follow the "Don't think of elephants," instruction on a checklist. It can be done, but it takes effort.

Try another one: a blind dragon possesses the Lens of Kegel, said to contain the last essence of a dead god. Her blindness makes her immune to its effects, at the cost of being unable to use it. Only the most perceptive can use it to gain a fragment of the god's power at a price. The price is NOT a penalty to Perception checks, but it could be as severe as granting combat advantage when bloodied, if the payoff is big enough.

As for the carrier problem, it's a good way to determine who is behind the current hostility toward dwarves. Think about it.

When players come to accept that strengths can also lead to burdens, they're almost ready to acknowledge what real weaknesses offer to them.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-02, 07:37 PM
Having an incredibly high perception score doesn't break the game. It just means the DM needs to find a way to challenge the party other than traps and hidden enemies. Your character still has numerous other areas that he isn't superhumanly talented in.

So what you're saying is that a high Perception modifier is a player's way of saying, "Don't use traps or hidden enemies in this game," while a high Diplomacy modifier says, "And no social challenges either."

If exceptional talent means leaving things out of your game, something is wrong.

olentu
2011-01-02, 07:55 PM
So what you're saying is that a high Perception modifier is a player's way of saying, "Don't use traps or hidden enemies in this game," while a high Diplomacy modifier says, "And no social challenges either."

If exceptional talent means leaving things out of your game, something is wrong.

Er I would think a high perception modifier is the players way of saying this character is good as noticing things. Now then something may be wrong with the system but trying to fix it by arbitrarily punishing the players whenever they do what is perfectly reasonable does not seem like a good idea. Especially if they are not warned ahead of time that being to good at something is actually bad.

I mean if you want to cap the skills just cap the skills or something instead of stealth nerfing being good at things.

Swordguy
2011-01-02, 07:57 PM
Having an incredibly high perception score doesn't break the game. It just means the DM needs to find a way to challenge the party other than traps and hidden enemies. Your character still has numerous other areas that he isn't superhumanly talented in.

Why do you HAVE to have as close to a 0% failure rate as possible? Is the game suddenly unfun because you might fail at something? The average seems to be about a 55% success rate for a level-appropriate challenge...if you've bumped yourself up to that 85%-ish rate of success, isn't that enough? Doesn't succeeding/winning all the time get boring?

Don't be afraid to fail every now and again. It keeps things more interesting. And keeps your GM from even feeling the need to do this sort of thing. Maxing stuff out engenders and arms race between the player and the GM. One that will end with the GM winning, the GM quitting, and/or the player walking out. How can that be avoided? By the PLAYER not starting the arms race in the first place.

Talk to your GM. If a really high skill or ability is part of your concept, ask the GM how high he's comfortable having the modifier. Then abide by that ruling, or don't play in that game in the first place. A player doesn't have the right to any given number on a sheet. You DO have the right to be proactive and ask how good the GM would like you to be, and the right to leave if that doesn't meet with your approval. That's it.

Zaq
2011-01-02, 08:13 PM
Why do you HAVE to have as close to a 0% failure rate as possible? Is the game suddenly unfun because you might fail at something? The average seems to be about a 55% success rate for a level-appropriate challenge...if you've bumped yourself up to that 85%-ish rate of success, isn't that enough? Doesn't succeeding/winning all the time get boring?

Don't be afraid to fail every now and again. It keeps things more interesting. And keeps your GM from even feeling the need to do this sort of thing. Maxing stuff out engenders and arms race between the player and the GM. One that will end with the GM winning, the GM quitting, and/or the player walking out. How can that be avoided? By the PLAYER not starting the arms race in the first place.

Talk to your GM. If a really high skill or ability is part of your concept, ask the GM how high he's comfortable having the modifier. Then abide by that ruling, or don't play in that game in the first place. A player doesn't have the right to any given number on a sheet. You DO have the right to be proactive and ask how good the GM would like you to be, and the right to leave if that doesn't meet with your approval. That's it.

If a player being good at a single skill means that they are suddenly an unstoppable god, then you're letting that skill count for too much—in which case there would be problems no matter what the player's mod is. If the player chooses to spend his or her resources on being good at something, especially something as harmless as a skill (diplomacy abuse excepted, a single skill is very rarely game-breaking), I don't see any problems with letting him or her be good at it. You said yourself that "if you're better than [arbitrary success rate], you need to spread out your PC's focus somewhat," so why not let the PCs have their fun and challenge them in areas that might not hinge solely on their favorite skill? They clearly had to give up something to achieve whatever level of focus they desired, so surely you can find something else to do. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should just make whatever skill they like irrelevant, but it means that you might want to to shift the focus a bit. Why is that a problem? If Player X is good at finding and disabling traps, you'd be right to say that it would be boring to send them to The Pit of Traps With Nothing Else in It, but that doesn't mean that you can't scatter some traps around another dungeon. Maybe put some in a room with some enemies (who, naturally, have ways to ignore or avoid them). Then Player X can disable the traps to make combat easier, or they can try to focus on their enemies who are trying to kill them, or whatever.

Honestly, if I want my character to be a fantasy version of Harry Houdini and I'm willing to make an investment to make that happen (at the most basic level, ranks in Escape Artist are skill points that aren't going elsewhere, and this continues with everything that gives me a bonus of some kind), I don't see why I should be shut down and told that I can't be The Man No Bonds Can Hold just because. Everyone has plenty of places where they can fail. That doesn't mean that they have to be in the area in which they specifically tried to be good. If they want to focus on it that hard, I don't see an issue.

Ytaker
2011-01-02, 08:15 PM
No, he must not fail. He must have a CHANCE to fail. Mathematically, game-mechanic-wise, being able to AUTOMATICALLY succeed at non-trivial tasks hurts the verisimillitude of the game. Ulysses didn't "automatically" succeed at Bluffing the cyclops - even though he was one of the slickest guys around (legendary Bluff, that man had). He won, but barely made it. Likewise, the best stories are about folks who do crazy legendary things and either fail and have to come up a new plan on the spur of the moment, or just make it through by the skin of their teeth.

He beat the cyclops with circumstance bonuses. Wine, and such.

They do crazy things and they succeed because they're good enough at other things. Combat, treasure, danger, doing impossible things- they make a good campaign.


If the purpose of the game is to tell good stories in a cooperative setting, the limiting the amount of things players can be automatically successful at will only help achieve this. Auto-success removes drama, and without drama, what's the point? I do suppose that if the main reason one is playing is to go on what amounts to a power trip where you're (not you personally - the generic "you") special and you can lord it over everyone else, then being about to auto-succeed at stuff would be very much in demand...but that's not a good story, that's a good power trip.

Autosuccess in combat removes drama. Failing a roll on perception just means the players miss out on some content, or miss an ambush. I wouldn't call that a lack of drama.

Each of the players should have chance to have their own power trips. Just as a mage can have power trips when their spells automatically prove effective. I don't feel you should negate the effectiveness of a tactic too much. It's likely to lead to player frustration since you probably won't be negating the effectiveness of other player's specializations, because those combat specializations are expected.


They are boons...but they're burdens also. That command performance with the king? Perhaps it's happening while you're on a time-sensitive quest. The bit with the vault and lock-picking? As I mentioned, it's the vault the party was just hired to guard. They CAN be boons, but they also make life difficult for the character as a direct result of his decision to manipulate of the game system. What happens when you fail one of these "boons"? Oh, the King's annoyed at you, or your rep takes a big hit, or you're now the laughingstock of the kingdom until they find somebody else. These aren't "mechanical" penalties...but they're roleplaying-based opportunities to hinder a player who has made a direct goal of, in Oracle_Hunter's terms, "breaking the game". Had he not done so in the first place, he might not be hounded day and night by people (powerful people) who all want him to do things because "he's the best".


They're challenges. Boons if you succeed, hinderances if you don't. It's based on your mental aptitude rather than DM fiat. That's why I like them.

Yes, and being hounded is flattering. It gives you the spotlight, which is fun.


I'd prefer it if players DIDN'T break the game in the bloody first place (quite seriously, as a general rule I draw the line at a steady 85-ish% success rate in the face of level-appropriate odds; if you're better than that, you need to spread out your PC's focus somewhat), but if they absolutely HAVE to, even after I've specifically instructed them not to, I'll take it out of their hides via logical and consistent roleplay. Where choices (such as the choice to break the game) have consequences. Mechanical penalties for stuff like this is easy, lazy, GMing. I can totally understand the appeal. But this way, you get to hold your PC over a barrel and do it from a position of being "in-game", rather than an arbitrary, OOG penalty. Same result, different methods.

It's just, very logical for them to try and break the game. If they fail to spot a trap they die. The real problem comes with the speaking skills. If you can just chat to thor and ask him to fight for you every part of the game becomes worthless.


Stop listening to maddening whispers? That's like trying to follow the "Don't think of elephants," instruction on a checklist. It can be done, but it takes effort.

And they are especially skilled at that. One of the skills of a person with high perception is focusing on one thing in particular, not another. So they can hear the subtle sound of someone ambushing them while a dragon attacks them and roars. According to the dnd wiki, that's a +20 to the difficulty.

Kurald Galain
2011-01-02, 08:21 PM
Maxing stuff out engenders and arms race between the player and the GM.
While there are several arms races in D&D, I hardly think that "optimizing a skill" qualifies. For example, it doesn't take a genius nor an optimizer to come up with an elf ranger with skill focus (perception). That adds up to a straight +14 at level 1, where the average party member would have +2 or so.

And yes, that does mean that if the average party member has 65% chance of making an average check (40% for a hard one, both according to the errata'ed DC tables), then the ranger has a 100% chance at both. Mind you, this is picking an obvious feat and skill for a common character trope, using only PHB1 (which also has an obvious item for +2 more, if you're so inclined; and it's not like skill focus is a powerful feat).

That's straightforward character building; any competent DM or adventure should be able to deal with that without having to arbitrarily nerf the ranger.

Kylarra
2011-01-02, 09:09 PM
While there are several arms races in D&D, I hardly think that "optimizing a skill" qualifies. For example, it doesn't take a genius nor an optimizer to come up with an elf ranger with skill focus (perception). That adds up to a straight +14 at level 1, where the average party member would have +2 or so.

And yes, that does mean that if the average party member has 65% chance of making an average check (40% for a hard one, both according to the errata'ed DC tables), then the ranger has a 100% chance at both. Mind you, this is picking an obvious feat and skill for a common character trope, using only PHB1 (which also has an obvious item for +2 more, if you're so inclined; and it's not like skill focus is a powerful feat).

That's straightforward character building; any competent DM or adventure should be able to deal with that without having to arbitrarily nerf the ranger.Adding to this, my elf druid had a +12 perception at level 1 without any specific building towards perception other than choosing the skill to be trained.

tcrudisi
2011-01-02, 09:36 PM
Stealth is part of movement. The invisible target, having total concealment, can make a Stealth check even if it doesn't move. It can only do this on its turn and with a move action is available, but if it turns invisible next to the fighter and has a move action left, a successful Perception check is needed to determine if it moved.

I've heard people argue that this fighter would be blind with respect to the target, but what matters is that he's not blind to the target's passage. Circumstances may change that, but you can't even bet on staying still for so much as a -2 on the check. Also, anyone that does locate you should be able to do so for the team. It still doesn't remove the -5 penalty on ranged or melee attacks.

Sorry for the slow response to this; I was gone all weekend and just got back home.

Let's say the monster has a power that allows it to go invisible as part of it's attack. Now it has a move action left to go hidden with, yes? How hard is it for that Fighter to find him?

He still knows exactly where the monster is. Why? Because the monster rolls stealth to become hidden at the end of its move action. What does this mean? It means that yes, the monster is hidden, but by golly, unless he has a second move action up his sleeve, you can be sure he's in that square right over there.

Basically - you have the order of operations mixed up. The target goes invisible. Everyone still knows where he is, because invisible != hidden. Then he spends a move action to go hidden. However, he goes hidden at the end of the move action, so everyone knows where he ended up before he became hidden. Sure, he's now hidden, but unless he's able to take another move action, it's safe to say that he's in the same square (because he will be).

Suedars
2011-01-02, 11:58 PM
So what you're saying is that a high Perception modifier is a player's way of saying, "Don't use traps or hidden enemies in this game," while a high Diplomacy modifier says, "And no social challenges either."

If exceptional talent means leaving things out of your game, something is wrong.

Actually now that I think about it, you can still use traps. Go for magical wards that require arcana to sense rather than perception (and of course a healthy mix of mundane traps so that the high-perception player doesn't feel like you're cheating him).

And a high Diplomacy modifier can't single handedly subvert social challenges. That's the entire point of skill challenges. Honeyed words alone won't get the King to send his army against a distant formidable threat. You'll need to threaten him with the danger they pose to his kingdom, lie and downplay their strength, bring up a long forgotten slight the enemy delivered to his nation, or appeal to his sense of religious duty.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-03, 12:58 AM
Ytaker, being able to hear whispered conversation past the roar of a dragon doen't make you oblivious to the roar.

Basically - you have the order of operations mixed up. The target goes invisible. Everyone still knows where he is, because invisible != hidden. Then he spends a move action to go hidden. However, he goes hidden at the end of the move action, so everyone knows where he ended up before he became hidden.
You read too much into the order. Stealth is rolled at the end of the move to prevent metagaming based on the roll. What you describe means that PCs obscured from sight can make a Stealth to go unnoticed, even if they run, but not if they move one square into dim light. You could argue that enemies would still know where the runners are, based on the sound, but that gets silly when they vanish completely on the next move action, or are can be located effortlessly by a deafened foe in a lightless room.

More options to come.

tcrudisi
2011-01-03, 01:21 AM
You read too much into the order.

No - I simply follow RAW since I primarily play LFR. When I'm not playing LFR I am running games and I use RAW.


Stealth is rolled at the end of the move to prevent metagaming based on the roll.

Objection: Speculation! You are speculating on the intent of the rules.

I have my own bit of speculation: the rules are written as they are because hidden is very hard to overcome. Invisibility is not so difficult. Sure, melee and ranged attacks take a -5 to attack, but it's not as if they are guessing where to attack. With the hidden condition, they are guessing where to attack and with a -5 to attack on top of it, the chances of actually hitting someone are low indeed. Guessing where to attack is both "not fun" and "unbalanced", hence why I believe the rules are the way they are. Of course, that's all speculation as well, so it doesn't really matter.


What you describe means that PCs obscured from sight can make a Stealth to go unnoticed, even if they run, but not if they move one square into dim light.

When you say "obscured from sight", I assume you mean "total concealment" so that our PC has effective invisibility against the target. Sure, a PC could make a stealth check, but they do so at the end of the movement. Even if they run (-10 to stealth if memory serves me correctly). However, the good news? It doesn't matter if you move into dim light during the move, so long as you end your turn in total concealment. (Side note: this changes if you were hidden, then took a move action into dim light but ended your turn with superior cover / total concealment again, as you would have lost hidden and tried to regain it during the same action. This is a rules violation as you cannot lose and regain the hidden condition with the same action. As long as you were not hidden during the move which you become hidden and you end your turn with superior cover or total concealment, you can make the stealth check to become hidden at the end of the move.) Of course, per RAW, you went hidden, but everyone still knows where you are... unless you spend a move action to move again.


You could argue that enemies would still know where the runners are, based on the sound, but that gets silly when they vanish completely on the next move action, or are can be located effortlessly by a deafened foe in a lightless room.

My rebuttal to this is shamelessly stolen from LordofWeasels thread on clearing up the confusion about invisible vs. hidden.

Q: But I'm invisible! My enemies can't see me! They should have to guess where I am!
A: You may be invisible, but you're not inaudible, unsmellable, undetectable (think Predator), and you're not Hidden. Since you haven't put the work in to become Hidden, THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

Q: But I'm invisible AND they're Blind AND they're 30 squares away AND I'm downwind AND there's a giant roaring waterfall next to me! Shouldn't they have NO CLUE where I am?
A: Not if you're not Hidden. By the way, I'm counting something close to a +30 situational bonus there - take your NO ACTION and ROLL STEALTH at the end of your next move. Sheesh!

Q: Can I "move 0" and become Hidden?
A: Yes, if you used a Move Action. Same with standing up - any Move Action, or any action that lets you Move.

Q: Doesn't all this make Hidden REALLLLLY hard to get and maintain?
A: Kind of, yes - but that's intentional. Being Hidden isn't just about Combat Advantage, it's about virtual immunity to attack. As long as you're Hidden and can get away from your last known location unfollowed, you are almost completely immune to attacks and anything targeting you is almost certainly going to miss, outright, without a roll.

This is very, very powerful. And so it's hard to do. If you're just going Hidden to get Combat Advantage, it's actually a lot easier - but you don't get the immunity to attacks that way.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-01-03, 01:54 AM
A point of clarification:
I don't think that you can "break the game" by maxing out Skills in 4E like you could in 3.X. The 4E Skill System lacks the RAW that made things like 3.X Diplomacy broken; there is no suggestion that a Diplomacy check of any value is going to stop a rampaging horde of orcs from attacking you. Yes, this comes at the cost of having a less detailed skill system but at least the RAW isn't fighting you.

However, I know the feeling that, even in 4E, someone "auto-succeeding" on a check is ruining the game. I've seen it on DMs I've played under (my first PC was a Elven Cleric) and I've experienced it as a DM (a Sorcerer-Bard team-up :smallsigh:). But dealing with this feeling is mostly a matter of adjusting your feelings as a DM, not re-working the system.

Y'see, not every skill check has to be dramatic. It's OK for buff Fighters to scale mountain cliffs without fear; for pretty Bards to seduce ladies of influence; for nimble rogues to skitter across catwalks. Players maximize skills so that they can do just those things. As a DM, it's your job to make sure that the Players are having fun. Give them these things freely.

But don't make them the cornerstone of your campaign!

When you're designing a campaign, make sure that you place the PCs in situations where the outcome is uncertain. If you know that your PCs have certain maximized skills, try not to design "dramatic" situations where the application of this particular skill is going to guarantee success. Those situation won't be dramatic, so don't make them the focus of the game.

This is one reason why balance in combat is so important. D&D has long (always?) presumed that combat was the source of the greatest uncertainties; the greatest drama. This is why all editions of D&D have lavished more attention on combat mechanics than on any other portion of their play-space. "Balancing" the combat system is another way of saying that the combat system is designed to preserve sufficient uncertainty to make it exciting.

On topic
I've really said all I can say about the OP's topic. At this point, I'm not certain what he's looking for. If you want to tweak your Players about being "too good" at something, try to tie it in through RP rather than mechanics. If someone is bragging that they can steal fire from the gods, it is justified for the gods (or someone) to make their life difficult for it; it is less justified for the gods to pick on the humble lockpick who just so happened to have maximized his Thievery skills.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-03, 10:18 PM
I am looking for a system in which players are challenged. Right now, no monster with decent Stealth can be expected to go undetected by a party of comparable levels. If I play to Tcrudisi's interpretation, invisibility just means it's time to use the close and area attacks, with those can't see either aiding the attack or taking their chances on a -5 penalty. Hit and run? Not for monsters.

This is not about requirements. It's about relevance. Attack rolls are relevant because there is always a chance to suceed or fail. Skills don't run that way after a point.

One more case: a slowed monk makes a check to jump with crane's wings and rolls high enough to move 6 squares, impossible by the rules. But I don't want to deny a player what was earned, and so there's a price...

Gralamin
2011-01-03, 10:32 PM
One more case: a slowed monk makes a check to jump with crane's wings and rolls high enough to move 6 squares, impossible by the rules. But I don't want to deny a player what was earned, and so there's a price...
If you jump more then your speed, you fall (PH 182). So it's simple: They move two and immediately fall by the rules. Saying they have "earned" the six square movement is silly, as it's saying the roll is the ultimate decider of whether they have earned something or not. Luck doesn't "earn" you anything.

Ytaker
2011-01-03, 10:38 PM
Ytaker, being able to hear whispered conversation past the roar of a dragon doen't make you oblivious to the roar.

That's normally what it means in reality. If you focus on one sound you hear the other less.

The fact that the person with high perception is better at focusing should make them more able to focus their limited attention away from threats, if anything. I'm saying that the reading of the rules, where it's used to penalize the players for trying to make their character stronger, is a questionable reading.


I am looking for a system in which players are challenged. Right now, no monster with decent Stealth can be expected to go undetected by a party of comparable levels. If I play to Tcrudisi's interpretation, invisibility just means it's time to use the close and area attacks, with those can't see either aiding the attack or taking their chances on a -5 penalty. Hit and run? Not for monsters.

Yes, actually. You should design your encounters to beat your player's strengths, not try to negate your player's strengths so your favourite sorts of challenges are more effective.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-04, 07:03 PM
If you jump more then your speed, you fall (PH 182).

It was quite clear from my post that I already know that rule.


So it's simple: They move two and immediately fall by the rules. Saying they have "earned" the six square movement is silly, as it's saying the roll is the ultimate decider of whether they have earned something or not.

Yes, it does. A character with no training in Perception and a Wisdom of 8 still tends to have at least a 5% chance of succeeding on a hard active Perception check for his or her level.

The rules exist as a baseline. Add whatever adds something to the game. If that player is slowed and needs to move more than 2 squares to avoid a power's effect for Lethal World of Hurt, I'd hope you could be a little more flexible than is required to shrug and say, "Hey, rules are rules, dude."


Luck doesn't "earn" you anything.

Refutation: even if you have so much as a 5% chance of hitting a creature without the automatic success rule, you've scored a critical hit.

Player characters are lucky by design. As a team, they're created with more options than anything they face and the whole world is balanced around favouring them in every single "challenge". Their healing and lockdown options are better with the justification that it would be less fun if they were not. This is before magic items come into the picture.

So here you paid for your high Athletics modifier, and suddenly, for the first time anywhere in the skill rules, there's a cap? Huh. No, you'll have to pardon me for telling the monk:

"Look, I'll give you a choice: you can accept the two square limit or you can get up to two more squares in exchange for being treated as though you'd taken the run action this turn. Two more and that penalty applies until the end of your next turn. What'll it be?"


That's normally what it means in reality. If you focus on one sound you hear the other less.

The fact that the person with high perception is better at focusing should make them more able to focus their limited attention away from threats, if anything.

What you're saying, then, is that animals with good senses should be able to ignore the debilitating effects of sensory overload from things we humans cannot perceive.

That is not how reality works. The same teenagers that can pitch their cell phones to be inaudible to their teachers have been targetted by systems that project sounds uncomfortable to them, but not to those with a lower audible range who are more desired by the shops using such methods.


I'm saying that the reading of the rules, where it's used to penalize the players for trying to make their character stronger, is a questionable reading.

Making an option irrelevant is not a strength.


Yes, actually. You should design your encounters to beat your player's strengths, not try to negate your player's strengths so your favourite sorts of challenges are more effective.

No strengths are being negated here. You still have the bonus, even if doing so can put you at risk in unusual circumstances. Anyone who's ever greatly exceeded the norms for strength, flexibility, or concentration understands that. You can pay dearly for such things in ways that are directly relevant to what you gained. If anything, reality is far less forgiving to such efforts.

Gralamin
2011-01-04, 07:20 PM
It was quite clear from my post that I already know that rule.
Actually, it wasn't. Clarity would be saying "couldn't, because of the athletics rule that places a cap on squares you can jump."


Yes, it does. A character with no training in Perception and a Wisdom of 8 still tends to have at least a 5% chance of succeeding on a hard active Perception check for his or her level.
Due to the way I personally handle a lot of challenges when I DM, I use slightly different DCs, so I forgot about that.


The rules exist as a baseline. Add whatever adds something to the game. If that player is slowed and needs to move more than 2 squares to avoid a power's effect for Lethal World of Hurt, I'd hope you could be a little more flexible than is required to shrug and say, "Hey, rules are rules, dude."
Run is an action that allows you to move further even while slowed. That said, if you need to jump out, because you have gotten trapped, then why allow the PC to just completely avoid the trap?


Refutation: even if you have so much as a 5% chance of hitting a creature without the automatic success rule, you've scored a critical hit.
A necessary concession to keep the rules simple, combat going, and give players a chance.


Player characters are lucky by design. As a team, they're created with more options than anything they face and the whole world is balanced around favouring them in every single "challenge". Their healing and lockdown options are better with the justification that it would be less fun if they were not. This is before magic items come into the picture.
This once again, depends on exactly how you run your game. I often find players are more involved in the game if you use level+2 encounters frequently. Their healing and lock-down options are measures of skill, not luck.


So here you paid for your high Athletics modifier, and suddenly, for the first time anywhere in the skill rules, there's a cap? Huh. No, you'll have to pardon me for telling the monk:

"Look, I'll give you a choice: you can accept the two square limit or you can get up to two more squares in exchange for being treated as though you'd taken the run action this turn. Two more and that penalty applies until the end of your next turn. What'll it be?"
An interesting houserule, and definitely in the realm of Actions the Rules don't handle. But it isn't the only way to handle this situation: Not allowing it, forcing the character to use additional actions, etc. are also valid ways of handling it. If a player offered me this exchange, I'd let them do it, but I probably wouldn't approach the situation in a way that this would be the first thing to come to my mind, just because of a difference in styles. IE: It's players responsibility to come up with actions the rules don't handle to help them. If they come up with something I'll let them do it, if they don't, the baseline of rules exist for a reason.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-04, 07:37 PM
Actually, it wasn't. Clarity would be saying "couldn't, because of the athletics rule that places a cap on squares you can jump."

It was clear by the fact that I wrote it was "impossible by the rules."


Run is an action that allows you to move further even while slowed.

Sure. The thing is, however, that a "running start" for a jump isn't the same thing as taking a run action.


That said, if you need to jump out, because you have gotten trapped, then why allow the PC to just completely avoid the trap?

For the same reason I'd allow a player that didn't have a high enough passive Perception check to avoid a danger to do so with the use of a minor action and a high enough active Perception check.


A necessary concession to keep the rules simple, combat going, and give players a chance.

In your experience, how often is it that they need that chance? Even a blinded character that knows where the target creature should hit it on something lower than a 20. The automatic miss rule is more likely to be relevant in this regard, disregarding the issue of critical hits.


I often find players are more involved in the game if you use level+2 encounters frequently. Their healing and lock-down options are measures of skill, not luck.

It takes very little effort for a five-player party to surpass the requirements of an encounter rated two levels above them. The healing and lock-down options are a measure of luck because player characters will be better at them than a group of NPC opponents of the same races and approximately the same roles.


IE: It's players responsibility to come up with actions the rules don't handle to help them. If they come up with something I'll let them do it, if they don't, the baseline of rules exist for a reason.

Having seen players familiar with the rules limit themselves to what they offer, I prefer to be a bit more generous with the nudgery. ;)

Ytaker
2011-01-04, 07:56 PM
What you're saying, then, is that animals with good senses should be able to ignore the debilitating effects of sensory overload from things we humans cannot perceive.

That is not how reality works. The same teenagers that can pitch their cell phones to be inaudible to their teachers have been targetted by systems that project sounds uncomfortable to them, but not to those with a lower audible range who are more desired by the shops using such methods.

No, what I'm saying is that animals, or teenagers as you call them, with a high perception

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Perception

"Your senses allow you to notice fine details and alert you to danger. Perception covers all five senses, including sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. "

Would be better able to ignore soft sounds since as noted in the example they can do the same to loud sounds. What you are talking about is a character with an ability to hear more in the ultrasound region. I'm not sure how you read the above as "able to hear in ultrasound". High perception increases your ability to note fine details. It does not increase the potency of your hearing, or the range of frequencies you hear.


Making an option irrelevant is not a strength.

It's irrelevent in terms of challenging the players. However, they will be happy that they succeed, and so you have the strength that your players will be able to go into more dangerous situations and survive.


No strengths are being negated here. You still have the bonus, even if doing so can put you at risk in unusual circumstances. Anyone who's ever greatly exceeded the norms for strength, flexibility, or concentration understands that. You can pay dearly for such things in ways that are directly relevant to what you gained. If anything, reality is far less forgiving to such efforts.

So, will you be introducing similar risks for those with high strengths, high escape checks, and those with high concentrations? Say, they have a 5% chance of breaking an arm if they swing a sword with too high a strength? Maybe if a mage makes too many concentration checks they have a mental break down?

This is the thing. You will be negating their strength by making it hurt them based on arbitrary reasoning and probably not negating the strengths of those who chose to specialize in other things like magic or swinging swords. That makes it unfair. And there's no real reason why you should pay dearly for perception.

Gralamin
2011-01-04, 08:14 PM
Sure. The thing is, however, that a "running start" for a jump isn't the same thing as taking a run action.
Of course not, running start alters how jump works slightly though, and the run action is an alternative to trying to jump out.


For the same reason I'd allow a player that didn't have a high enough passive Perception check to avoid a danger to do so with the use of a minor action and a high enough active Perception check.
Assuming they actively try to check for the danger yes. But if they get themselves trapped, they can feel free to escape it, but it shouldn't be the DM's job to help them escape. That's just a DM style thing though.


In your experience, how often is it that they need that chance? Even a blinded character that knows where the target creature should hit it on something lower than a 20. The automatic miss rule is more likely to be relevant in this regard, disregarding the issue of critical hits.
Very rarely indeed. The automatic miss gives a chance of failure which is meant to nudge the PCs in check a bit, and occasionally give them a lucky break. (Probabilistically, PCs will roll a lot more 1s because they make a lot more rolls)


It takes very little effort for a five-player party to surpass the requirements of an encounter rated two levels above them.
Depends on the encounter. In a standard fight though, you are correct. I often like my encounters too be more then that though.


The healing and lock-down options are a measure of luck because player characters will be better at them than a group of NPC opponents of the same races and approximately the same roles.
But as characters level they get better at healing, their lockdown abilities improve, they have more options to do it... Are they getting "Luckier" then? That is silly to me, since it would seem they are becoming more skilled to me.


Having seen players familiar with the rules limit themselves to what they offer, I prefer to be a bit more generous with the nudgery. ;)
Probably a good idea. But I'm a DM who often is playing with new ideas to throw at players different then what they've seen. I probably wouldn't remember to nudge them. :smallwink:

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-01-04, 08:28 PM
I actually find the idea of playing off of strengths to cause complications to be rather interesting. It reminds me of more "indie" games like FATE, which uses Aspects for both positive and negative effect with regards to a character. You get special points for playing up to the negative side of your Aspect, and spend those points to use your Aspect for a bonus.

In D&D, I wouldn't use this all the time. But, for instance, having the Cleric with a really buffed Religion being able to identify exactly what evil spirits are haunting the mansion...that's not always something which will be 100% beneficial. The Cleric, for instance, now knows exactly what sorts of horrors await those consumed by the phantoms.

In fact, this really works well for information-gathering skills. Nature, Arcana, Perception, Streetwise, etc. But there has to be a big and terrible threat looming about. Then, knowledge of this threat can provide a peril to the character. For instance, knowing that you've come face-to-face with a dread horror that you only knew from your textbooks...that's likely to shake you up a bit. Or, perhaps, your very successful Streetwise checks have gotten the attention of people who you really wish hadn't noticed. Or maybe the suspicious Baron you're asking is lying...you can tell that with a major Insight check...and it's because he's scared stiff of something or someone.

With skills that do something, like Diplomacy or Athletics, I suppose you could use the "too much of a good thing" paradigm, like attracting a follower who goes on to manipulate people and harm them, when you wanted those people to be your allies. Or the aforementioned Stealth expert who loses the rest of his party.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-12, 08:10 AM
Ytaker, high Perception is solely a matter of, "You see it." It contains no ability to "unsee". That relies on other means.

This is what you expect from players. Flying is a strength, but there are ways to use it against monsters. Powers are strengths until you goad monsters into wasting an action using them against unsuitable targets. (Monsters rarely get the knowledge checks necessary to anticipate fey step or item-based energy resistance.)

Players aren't satisfied with success if it comes without sense of accomplishment. God moding an option gets boring fast. I've already given you examples that bring more to the game as relates to other abilities.

Game designers have already provided the tools necessary to easily best several higher level challenges with no more than a short rest between them and keep introducing new options to make it easier. You have to ensure players haven't trapped themselves into playing boring, invincible heroes, even as you allow them options that normally lead to such fates.

Ytaker
2011-01-12, 12:20 PM
Ytaker, high Perception is solely a matter of, "You see it." It contains no ability to "unsee". That relies on other means.

Conceptually, they would have a greater unsee ability than other players. As such your argument that they should be penalized for trying to avoid having large spikes rammed into them is false.


Players aren't satisfied with success if it comes without sense of accomplishment. God moding an option gets boring fast. I've already given you examples that bring more to the game as relates to other abilities.

A trap is still there after being detected. Random monsters can still try to force you onto it. The person with high perception, as such, isn't god modding.

Being able to detect traps is good anyway. If players don't detect them and there are a lot of them the game will often get bogged down in endless searching of every square to avoid having boiling acid spurted at their face.


Game designers have already provided the tools necessary to easily best several higher level challenges with no more than a short rest between them and keep introducing new options to make it easier. You have to ensure players haven't trapped themselves into playing boring, invincible heroes, even as you allow them options that normally lead to such fates.

Then adjust the difficult level and the rewards as appropriate.

And a person with high perception is not boring or invincible. The trap is still there. It can still hurt people. It also adds ambident background to your dungeon.

Shatteredtower
2011-01-14, 08:58 PM
Perception is about what you sense, not what you can ignore. That is the domain of a Will defense or Endurance, if anything.

Your trap argument is meaningless, because it's just as true as it would be for a trap a blind fool would notice. If no check is necessary, there is never cause to hide anything. If there's no point to hiding things, Perception becomes worthless...unless the observant might sometimes wind up at risk.