Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
Instead of focusing on magical items, I think a better solution would be to fix the skill system. Right now, we use skills to represent things that are difficult, but not impossible, and they are still stuck behind a check that determines whether or not the skill does anything (which, as we've discussed, things like Mage Hand do not make those kinds of rolls).

For instance, you could say that having a skill is enough to automatically succeed on almost all mundane activities related to that skill (for instance, kicking down a normal door), and only have the player roll for things that are overtly heroic. Now players are automatically succeeding and rolling when it matters, just like when casting spells.

The tricky part is coming up with supernatural uses for skills, but it's not too hard as long as you're creative about it. Medicine can raise a Frankenstein, Stealth turns people invisible, Sleight of Hand catches an arrow right out of the air, that kind of stuff. Start at a DC 25 for Superhero, add DC examples for every 5 points until a DC 10 is something that a mundane person still wouldn't want to attempt but could if their life depended on it. For instance, picking mundane manacles should be a DC 10 for those with Thieves Tools or Sleight of Hand.

A lot of the problems go away if we just figure out how to make skills scale appropriately. The foundation's there, the system just doesn't make good use of it. Personally, I've always felt that we should feel challenged into making skills as overpowered as they can, as the game will feel more rewarding for everyone once you figure out how to do so. It's fixed a lot of my concerns with my games, anyway.

Sure, casters get skills, too, but simply giving everyone options is enough to make the angry mob dissipate. It's not necessarily about numbers, or how effective one class's feature is compared to another's, but that one subgroup of character options can do things that another can't really interact with, so it ends up feeling like half of the game can only be played by half of the classes. Even if Barbarians aren't very good at the Level 10+ meta-reality campaign stuff, it'd go a long way if they had something useful that the rest of the party leans on them for. 1/100 is a LOT more than 0/100.
yeah this is a benefit of basic system mechanics getting stronger, it makes everything better (at the cost of making classes less unique.)

Personally I don't think you can use the skill system as it is to be a really powerful thing. Other considerations aside, skills are just fairly simple and can't be interacted with that much, which conversely would make those few options too good. You'd have to rework everything from the ground up, which would cascade into a lot of other features, and... yeah, it would be a deep-seeded rework.

Personally I don't like the ability check system for a host of reasons. It doesn't scale, isn't customizable, and puts all t he work on the DM. Not a good system.