Taking Skills beyond the Mundane


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Going through the skill section of the core books, the most difficult tasks seem to fall in the range of 35-40. The things at this level while very difficult tasks they are still things that fall in the realm of mundane and realistic.

however many literary and mythical heroes were capable of epic feats simply by virtue of being awesome. Holding up the sky, climbing a mountain of glass, Leaping Tall Buildings in a single bound, etc...

If we assume 40 is the highest DC for a nearly impossible but still realistic task, what would be wrong with allowing skills to challenge the impossible simply by setting even higher DCs.

Is it unreasonable to allow someone with, for example, a ridiculously high Escape Artist skill, to be able to escape from a Resilient Sphere or through a Wall of Force, by setting a DC well in excess of 40.

Could you see extreemly high skills to trump magic and other impossible things in a campaign.


http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicSkills.htm

3.5 had neat things like being able to balance on clouds, making even your worst enemies into the best of friends, and fitting into mouse holes.

You aren't trumping magic, but you're getting some magic-ish effects.


Considering this is how Legend does it "Yes". Why should a person with 15 ranks in Atheltics automatically make their saves against environmental hazards? And run faster. And be able to ignore weather conditions. Or a person with ranks in vigor be able to dump negative conditions and make their body tougher? Or using Heal to bring back the dead?

Shadow Lodge

Yup, and I'm polishing up a list of my own.

I recommend looking at the Tome of Prowess. It's a complete overhaul of the skills system, but includes some good ideas for high-level skill uses, including using Heal to bring back the recently dead and Linguistics ("Ciphers") to make linked pages for instantaneous communication.

Keep in mind though that with the large number of ways to get skill check bonuses in PF there's a big difference between the modifiers of moderately invested characters who just max out their ranks and those who out a skill, as described here. This can make it difficult to set DCs such that moderately invested characters can attempt really cool things, but highly invested characters don't gain access to those abilities at too low levels. For this reason, the Tome of Prowess uses a ranks-based system.

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