In many games I have found various skill checks that the game runs un-opposed to be much to easy.
acrobatic checks to maneuver in combat seem almost impossible to fail making battle line control nearly impossible.
diplomacy checks, intimidate and especially in relation to the antagonize feat are quite literally a trifle.
and thats not to mention things like the static DCs which are ballanced for first level commoners but pretty much a joke for any one else.
am i wrong about this or does any one else find this to be true also.
Um. Aren't acrobatics checks made against the opponent's CMD? And Diplomacy/Intimidate likewise made against target numbers determined by the opponent's statistics?
I find the vast majority of DCs to save vs. poison ridiculously easy, even for mid level characters.
For acrobatics against enemies (ie moving through their square/threatened areas without provoking) I thought you had to beat their CMD (still trivial for an acrobatics based character). Is it still officially a static number?
Intimidate is insanely easy. Diplomacy is easy but flat out doesn't work when someone wants to kill you.
Acrobatics gets tough against larger, stronger opponents. If someone is lightly armored enough to slip past your polearm wielding fighter they're probably in for a world of hurt when the meatshield and cleric start up a flank sandwich.
Intimidate is insanely easy. Diplomacy is easy but flat out doesn't work when someone wants to kill you.
Acrobatics gets tough against larger, stronger opponents. If someone is lightly armored enough to slip past your polearm wielding fighter they're probably in for a world of hurt when the meatshield and cleric start up a flank sandwich.
I believe going absolutely by rules there is an option to roll to change attitude of the NPC, a half-elf has a bonus to that and could turn a hostile enemy into a neutral creature.
Problem with trying to influence someone who wants you dead is that you need 1 minute of continuous (preferably non-violent) interaction with them in order to try to change their attitude.
Ryu, but not his 4 other friends.
In any event, you are big damn heroes. What is troubling to others is cake for you.
I personally don't have an issue whereby if someone specializes in a skill then they are very very good at it. Thats rather the point of specializing in a skill. If someone takes traits and/or feats and lots of skill points and makes a point of getting synergies setup so that they are the bee's knees at something then.. well- yeah. They are freaking good at it.
This also means that someone who has the skill trained but who hasn't gone arse backwards about getting super-man level with it still has a shot (though by no means guaranteed) to do it too.
And I'm fine with that.
-S
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No I don't find them at all too easy, because I don't always roll well and we fail them all the time. At high levels, at low levels. It feels like most of them are just right, or perhaps a little too high in some cases.
If it wasn't for the ability to take 10 we wouldn't get anywhere in some adventures.
It has been my experience that there are a surprisingly large group of gamers out there who've decided to not even glance at the rulebook and have no idea how most of the skills in the game actually work. Handle Animal, Diplomacy, Intimidate. It's like no wants to read anything.
There are too many players out there I have to deal with who think that because they played 3.5 D&D they know what all the skills do without checking them, which is aggravating because they were wrong back then to start with.
At the same time, I see rarely any acrobats and GM-s often ignore Diplomacy/social rolls (what I don't agree with, as a player may be a terrible social conversationalist but his character could still be based on background and skill level be the best negotiator and envoy for a nation)
I see players use acrobatics all the time. it makes battle lines impossible, tactics and defending the squishy literally cant be done.
as for diplomacy/intimidate the roll is too easy and the effects too strong for a GM to use them as written. An entire campaign can be derailed by a single dice roll because the rules say that if your intimidate roll is higher than the opponents 10+HD+wisdom you get to essentially control them. By the rules its more powerful than any spell and nothing modifies it so a half dead PC brought in chains before a king in his throne room surrounded buy guards can be intimidated into being "friendly" for a time. An NPC who holds his boss in higher regard than his own life will say "oh yes sir mister adventurer. your dice roll indicates you have said something uber intimidating will now hand you a key, give you the secret password and let you walk away"
and dont get me started on the antagonize feat
Interestingly enough I find intimidate used in combat to be too weak ^_^
the rules should say in the first line of instruction under these skills "THIS SKILL IS ENTIRELY UP TO THE GM DISCRESSION OF HOW THEY SHOULD BEST EFFECT THE GAME AT ANY GIVEN TIME, THE FOLLOWING RULES INFORMATION ARE MEARLY SUGGESTIONS"
the rules should say in the first line of instruction under these skills "THIS SKILL IS ENTIRELY UP TO THE GM DISCRESSION OF HOW THEY SHOULD BEST EFFECT THE GAME AT ANY GIVEN TIME, THE FOLLOWING RULES INFORMATION ARE MEARLY SUGGESTIONS"
You mean like the fourth paragraph of "Getting Started?"
The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
This is a question that a fellow DM posed to me as well but statistically speaking its not the case at all. Sure if you use Monk or Rogue as your example every acrobatics, climb, etc check appears to be super easy... But these are lightly armored characters that lend themselves to skills.
Ask the Paladin wearing full plate and rocking the tower shield how that swim check feels.
What has been said before is true if a character takes a bunch of points in a skill then he should be good at it. But for most physical skills those armor check penalty's coupled with low skills and little to no intelligence makes even simple checks very difficult.
I believe going absolutely by rules there is an option to roll to change attitude of the NPC, a half-elf has a bonus to that and could turn a hostile enemy into a neutral creature.Intimidate is insanely easy. Diplomacy is easy but flat out doesn't work when someone wants to kill you.
Acrobatics gets tough against larger, stronger opponents. If someone is lightly armored enough to slip past your polearm wielding fighter they're probably in for a world of hurt when the meatshield and cleric start up a flank sandwich.
Here's the kicker
Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future.
So if the DM has planned a combat encounter and wants it to be a combat encounter.. its a combat encounter.
if no professional troops are trained to stop acrobatic movement with some feats and actions of their own, if they don't keep formations, then is not the fault of the player who uses his own skills to his advantage, the problem lies with not getting a proper opposition
wrong.
the game essentially does not allow any one to react to a successful acrobatics check to stop battle field movement. THERE IS NO REASONABLE WAY to stop some one from moving acrobatically.
even if some one spends 2 feats on combat reflexes and stand still they are only able to make an attempt to stop some one from moving past them if the person would provoke an attack of opportunity.... which they dont on a successful acrobatics check.
the only way for a GM to make any form of battle lines possible is to say that all terrain is difficult, every NPC has combat reflexes, stand still and coordinated defense and they are surrounded by caltrops. in other words there is very little practical way (by the rules) to defeat a simple skill check which often comes with 3 to 9 bonus points on top of actual ranks. (not to mention other feats and abilities applied)
On a side note, feats should not be used to give people the ability to do mundane things. there should not be a feat for a wild strong swing (power attack) there should be no feat for blocking a guy from moving past. If feats are the solution they should instead be set up in such a way that the ability to move around the battle field with supernatural ease should probably require a feat to overcome the natural ability of any one with sufficient BAB.
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in other words there is very little practical way (by the rules) to defeat a simple skill check which often comes with 3 to 9 bonus points on top of actual ranks. (not to mention other feats and abilities applied)
Held action.
Trip.
You're a wolf! That trick is in your DNA.
sure... give up your turn to set up the readied action to trip any one who attempts to move past me.
works... but i would not call that practical.
Spending an action to force you to go prone and waste a movement to get back up isn't practical?
Jesus, I guess I am terrible at this game :)
On acrobatics: say 10th level, we have a decent acrobat (a mobile fighter, maxed ranks, dex 18, acp 0) with a +14 bonus and an optimized acrobat (rogue, maxed ranks, dex 24, skill focus, +4 item, acp 0) with a +30 bonus.
In my opinion, the decent acrobat should have a good chance (about 50/50) to succesfully avoid aoos on most basic tasks such as a single cr10 monster, should more or less autosucceed against easy tasks such as two 1st level town guards and have a small chance at something hard such as a cr14 enemy, a focused tank or doing a basic task in difficult terrain.
A specialist in acrobatics should imo more or less autosucceed on simple tasks such as those mentioned above and have a good 50/50 at difficult tasks.
Im on a phone so i cant make a proper comparison at the moment, but color me unimpressed. Cr 10 black dragon = cmd30. Clay golem =30. Rakshasa =29.
This gives the decent dodger about 1/4 chance to succeed at a basic task, and the focused one about 4/5. But say you needed to pass at full speed - which is often needed when its a creature that threatens several spaces - and even the rogue has to roll a 14 or better.
And thats not taking environment into account.
If you have truly ridiculous stats it could get a lot easier for these things as well.
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I think they work good as a baseline if you add situational modifiers. Even a difference of 4 to the DC can bring it back into the realm where something is still riding on the dice, and the players don't balk too much at this.
Perhaps. If you want to tumble I run it check vs 15 + bab to get around them and flank, 20 + bab if you want to go through the square. I find fails happen, especially against very good opponents. That is also one reason I stick with the knight class and merge it into my games. The knight has a very early ability that ups to the tumble dc to 20 + bab (because their squares become difficult terrain, lowers the amount they can move too) and later can do a few more things as well on this issue.
For pathfinder, yep, acrobatics around is easy.
Wu sees it. If stats are lower, things get a bit more difficult. No one has 18 dex, well, there is your problem. :)
I believe going absolutely by rules there is an option to roll to change attitude of the NPC, a half-elf has a bonus to that and could turn a hostile enemy into a neutral creature.Intimidate is insanely easy. Diplomacy is easy but flat out doesn't work when someone wants to kill you.
Acrobatics gets tough against larger, stronger opponents. If someone is lightly armored enough to slip past your polearm wielding fighter they're probably in for a world of hurt when the meatshield and cleric start up a flank sandwich.
Here's the kicker
Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future.
So if the DM has planned a combat encounter and wants it to be a combat encounter.. its a combat encounter.
Yep, and even if they give you some time to speak, they can always break the spell as it were, walk off or attack during the diplomacy.
Exactly. Fails do happen against tougher enemies. Why shouldn't you get to auto succeed if you outclass your opponent? Let the acrobatic guy tumble away, he invested in it, and eventually he will run into someone he can't get past and that will be memorable.
As for intimidate/diplomacy it's nice to have reasons not to dump Cha. The GM just has to make rulings that in some situations it just won't work.
And all of this does start to work a lot better if you don't have ridiculous point buys. For 25 point buy games, you wanted to play a superhero so play a superhero.
Yep rabbit man, the system feels very different if the ability score average is 13 compared to if the average is 17.
If 18s are really common, saves follow suit and stay high. If you can't have all save stats high, then every char will have a save weakness of some sort (unless they are monks or pallies with feats on saves, which means weaknesses elsewhere).
sure... give up your turn to set up the readied action to trip any one who attempts to move past me.
works... but i would not call that practical.
I was also just to suggest readied actions/turns, there are many things that can make this choice worthwhile, and by now, multiple abilities/feats also benefit from it
I don't have any problems with skill DCs being where they are at. Here's why:
1) Low level characters are very squishy and even at 4 or 5 encounters per day, they may not survive if those are combat/trap encounters. Skills provide a practical way to bring in other encounters that don't necessarily put the character's life at risk. As the characters level, they can still use those skills but are also able to handle a wider variety of encounters better.
2) It encourages spending skill points on a variety of skills. Instead of having to spend a limited (for some classes a very limited) set of skill points, you can spread them out a bit more and still be relevant with those skills. Unless the skills are opposed checks or trained only, which is what the higher skill point classes can shine with.
3) It makes some tasks trivial but also makes the character feel special. I know that some people might disagree, but for me when I have a character that can easily handle things like using Diplomacy or Acrobatics against opponents that he once had trouble with, it feels like the character has improved and grown.
I do wish that Pathfinder had kept the table that was in 3.5 that explained how tough a DC should be based on difficulty.
I should take a look at that table.