I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.Then it shouldn’t take a Roll.
When there are no stakes the game should assume a baseline.
Simmer down now.
I'm just telling you what I think is the theory behind it. I didn't express one way or the other how I felt about it.
but so you would just as soon keep the take 10 rule then aye?
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Vid, the book already says not to roll if the DC is below a certain amount.
And that amount is usually higher than Assurance.
Vid, the book already says not to roll if the DC is below a certain amount.
And that amount is usually higher than Assurance.
I guess that would make it a useless feat then eh? so why the discussion?
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Because as useless as it is, it’s an option. A clearly bad option, that however some players will end up finding on their character due to their background or simply bad choices.
Also, because in principle, a feat to ensure basic competence on a chosen skill is a good idea. If it works.
Because as useless as it is, it’s an option. A clearly bad option, that however some players will end up finding on their character due to their background or simply bad choices.
Also, because in principle, a feat to ensure basic competence on a chosen skill is a good idea. If it works.
that would be why the thread is made sure but why is their back and forth on it? Like why do others think it is fine as is? If the rules specifically say that you can already succeed on easier checks then it should be apparent that it needs to be changed yes?
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Because they haven't read table 10-2 on p.337 "Skill DCs per level".
(edit: I feel like this statement can sound a bit dickish. However, it fits way too well with the avatar and I'm just gonna leave it as is)
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I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.Then it shouldn’t take a Roll.
When there are no stakes the game should assume a baseline.
Simmer down now.
I'm just telling you what I think is the theory behind it. I didn't express one way or the other how I felt about it.
but so you would just as soon keep the take 10 rule then aye?
I apologise if my tone was brusque or rude, definitely not my intention. I was trying to make a point using your post as a baseline is all.
But in answer to your question, yes I would keep the take 10 rule because it flags what is and is not challenging to the GM and to the players.
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Because as useless as it is, it’s an option. A clearly bad option, that however some players will end up finding on their character due to their background or simply bad choices.I wouldn't label it as clearly bad.
I mean, OK it's clear the feat is bad when you look at the DC table.
You don't need the table to realize it's clearly bad, all you have to do is look at your character sheet. What would you need to roll in order to achieve a 10 with that skill?
Is it less than 5?
Yes? Then it's bad. Very bad.
My 4th level character has the following skills at Trained (and could thus take Assurance):
Arcana +6
Crafting +6
Diplomacy +8
Lore +6
Medicine +7
Religion +6
Society +6
Meaning, at best, Assurance is letting me skip out on the 15% chance to crit fail and offering me a failure instead. At worst it's letting me auto-crit-fail.
A feat that lets you do something you could already do is bad. A feat that lets you be worse at something is terrifyingly awful (see also Caustic Slur and Monkey Lunge).
While the DC table for level-equivalent challenges yes, doesn't match for Assurance. A number of DCs are flat set, and Assurance's 10, 20, 30 auto do actually beat these DCs for consistent success. As Natural 1s are not always purely critical failures (sometimes being just failures if your modifier is high enough), they still represent a 5% chance of failure.
The example from my first post here was Battle Medic. Many of the Ordinary Tasks as well have their failure chance removed by Assurance. Falling while climbing is a big one.
Concerning Battle Medic specifically though, if Assurance was any more powerful you're looking at automatic critical success in most cases. As this is a first draft Playtest, it is very likely we will see changes in many areas before the end. It's very likely that Assurance was drafted up along with feats and class abilities and then when they added level to everything and drafted up the DCs for GMs to use it wasn't considered.
Failing a climb check doesn't make you fall.
Critical Failure You fall (see page 310). If you began the climb on stable ground, you fall and land prone.
5% chance.
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Concerning Battle Medic specifically though, if Assurance was any more powerful you're looking at automatic critical success in most cases.
What? To crit succeed on Battle Medic with Assurance, you'd have to be Legendary in Medicine (DC 30). To even succeed you'd have to be Master (DC 20). If you're Expert, you'll fail. If you're Trained, you'll critically fail and kill your patient.
You can't even succeed to perform First Aid with Assurance unless you're Expert (DC 15).
For that matter, what are these fixed DC skill checks that Assurance's DC 10 result can make? The only ones I see are pulling an arrow out of a wall, Long Jumping 5 feet, Recall Knowledge to recognize a Legendary Performer or Professional and Aid if it's "a particularly easy task." That's it.
Assurance feat does have a use. If you take a skill to Master or legendary that keys off a dump stat it is useful. My stats at level 20 without stat boosting items are 22, 19, 18, 18, 16, and 12. Listed from highest to lowest. A legendary skill for the dump stat would have only a +24, and only a plus +19 at level 15.
Assurance makes you not bad at a skill would be bad at other wise. This feat would be alright if it was not in the core rules and it was clear that it was to be used to make skills you would be bad at or alright.
This kind of corner case feat is not a good fit for the core rule book I think. The effect needs another name. The name is miss leading as the feat is not.
Concerning Battle Medic specifically though, if Assurance was any more powerful you're looking at automatic critical success in most cases.What? To crit succeed on Battle Medic with Assurance, you'd have to be Legendary in Medicine (DC 30). To even succeed you'd have to be Master (DC 20). If you're Expert, you'll fail. If you're Trained, you'll critically fail and kill your patient.
You can't even succeed to perform First Aid with Assurance unless you're Expert (DC 15).
For that matter, what are these fixed DC skill checks that Assurance's DC 10 result can make? The only ones I see are pulling an arrow out of a wall, Long Jumping 5 feet, Recall Knowledge to recognize a Legendary Performer or Professional and Aid if it's "a particularly easy task." That's it.
To use either of Battle Medic's high up skills you need to be Master or Legendary in Medicine... This is what I am referring to. If the 20, or 30 were any higher, or added additional bonuses you are looking at pure crit success.
Another legendary example is the Rogue's Sabotage. A thievery check with against the target's Reflex DC. They would need a +20 to Reflex Saves (doable, certainly but anything max level without Dex isn't going to hit that) to avoid it.
While yes, 10 is low, if you are taking Assurance on something you aren't going to invest into, it's likely not a very good use of the feat. The feat though does have a variety of late-scaling uses with other abilities.
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and Assurance's 10, 20, 30 auto do actually beat these DCs for consistent success. Many of the Ordinary Tasks as well have their failure chance removed by Assurance.
What flat DCs? There are almost none of them, and those that do exist are frequently above 10. We don't even have the DC for "grab the edge of a pit while falling." It's all GM guesswork with no guildlines other than table 10-2 where Assurance fails against trivial tasks at nearly all levels.
And again, "ordinary tasks" are exactly the ones that don't require a roll.
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Assurance feat does have a use. If you take a skill to Master or legendary that keys off a dump stat it is useful. My stats at level 20 without stat boosting items are 22, 19, 18, 18, 16, and 12. Listed from highest to lowest. A legendary skill for the dump stat would have only a +24, and only a plus +19 at level 15.
Assurance makes you not bad at a skill would be bad at other wise. This feat would be alright if it was not in the core rules and it was clear that it was to be used to make skills you would be bad at or alright.
This kind of corner case feat is not a good fit for the core rule book I think. The effect needs another name. The name is miss leading as the feat is not.
Question: why is your best skill (because let’s be serious, you don’t bring many skills to Legendary) dependant on your dump stat?
In any case, if you have no items that boost your best skills (you normally do by the time you’re lv10 - i got two different stacking +2 to my main skill without even trying when building an npc. Might have been lucky) then Assurance grants you a roll of 6... good feat.“A skill you would be bad at” is usually something that stays at Trained, not one of the top three skills you have as a character overall. There was this rumor initially, but if, one wanted Assurance to ‘patch up’ a bad skill, it would scale with level, not rank.
Assurance feat does have a use. If you take a skill to Master or legendary that keys off a dump stat it is useful. My stats at level 20 without stat boosting items are 22, 19, 18, 18, 16, and 12. Listed from highest to lowest. A legendary skill for the dump stat would have only a +24, and only a plus +19 at level 15.
Assurance makes you not bad at a skill would be bad at other wise. This feat would be alright if it was not in the core rules and it was clear that it was to be used to make skills you would be bad at or alright.
This kind of corner case feat is not a good fit for the core rule book I think. The effect needs another name. The name is miss leading as the feat is not.
Question: why is your best skill (because let’s be serious, you don’t bring many skills to Legendary) dependant on your dump stat?
In any case, if you have no items that boost your best skills (you normally do by the time you’re lv10) then Assurance grants you a roll of 6... good feat.“A skill you would be bad at” is usually something that stays at Trained, not one of the top three skills you have as a character overall. There was this rumor initially, but if, one wanted Assurance to ‘patch up’ a bad skill, it would scale with level, not rank.
Fighter/Rogue. Needed some more healing in the party. Use Assurance to use the Trick Magic Item feat to use low level staff of healing. Expert lets you use level 3 staff of healing, Master lets you use level 7 staff of healing and legendary lets you use a level 11 staff of healing. A caster can charge the staff during down time. Like I said a corner case.
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A caster can only charge a staff that they attune with. So why is the caster not the one using the item?
The caster has their own staff. The charges do not go bad. A level 3 staff of healing has three charges. The higher the level of the staff the more charges.The caster can attune a different staff each day during down time.
This is a work around to a problem in the system. Would use the heal skill instead but as it is now this bad option is the best without forcing a player into playing a healing cleric.
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The caster can attune a different staff each day during down time.
This is the key point:
You can invest only one staff at a time. If you invest
another staff when you have another one currently
invested, you must expend a number of charges equal to
your highest-level spell slot, as transferring your personal
spell energy is taxing. These charges can be divided in any
way you choose between the two staves.
It's a bit sad to see that to give a good example of usage of Assurance you had to make up a convoluted workaround.
It's... confusing... that the workaround does not work. I suppose it's a good thing for balancing, but for Assurance, it spells Charlie Romeo Alpha Papa.
The caster can attune a different staff each day during down time.This is the key point:
You can invest only one staff at a time. If you invest
another staff when you have another one currently
invested, you must expend a number of charges equal to
your highest-level spell slot, as transferring your personal
spell energy is taxing. These charges can be divided in any
way you choose between the two staves.
Vesting only last a day. That rule is for switch in the same day.
Vesting only last a day. That rule is for switch in the same day.The caster can attune a different staff each day during down time.This is the key point:
You can invest only one staff at a time. If you invest
another staff when you have another one currently
invested, you must expend a number of charges equal to
your highest-level spell slot, as transferring your personal
spell energy is taxing. These charges can be divided in any
way you choose between the two staves.
So... your workaround for making Assurance useful... involves... in order:
-Expert in a magical skill
-Assurance in the same magical skill
-Trick Magic Item
-A friendly spellcaster and downtime activities, or
-A friendly spellcaster with all his items fully charged and no reason to want to use them
-Nominally optional: said magical skill should be a signature skill and maxed out
and gets you
-The ability to not need to roll a very easy check when using one specific magic item of level 3 or lower (non scaling)
-Nominally optional: If you maxed out your magical skill, you can use items up to level 7 (from lv7 onwards, non scaling) and up to level 14 (from level 15 onwards, non scaling).
...really? Just roll it. It's called an easy check for a reason.
I already found another work around, I was just saying there is a use for the feat. It is a poor feat.
So what would be the fix just increase the number so instead of 10 its 15 and then continue to scale accordingly?
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I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.
Then why are we expected to blow our precious feats on it?
If assurance allowed you to take 10 (or 15 or 20 or 30) whenever you wanted on a certain skill check, then I would pick it up in a heartbeat.
If assurance allowed you to take 10 (or 15 or 20 or 30) whenever you wanted on a certain skill check, then I would pick it up in a heartbeat.
I'm not sure about "in a heart beat" but I'd at least consider it.
I'd also just like to point out for the record that you can only use battle medic once per day per party member, as your target is bolstered to it, pass or fail.
Its once per day per party member per player with the feat.
Specifically:
Regardless of your result, the target is bolstered to your use of Battle Medic.
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Just to throw it in here, I found an unexpected use for Assurance (Expert). It lets you automatically aid in skill checks.
That was a nice buff for the row of survival checks on DD2.
Not exactly awe inspiring, but nice. No Chance of critfailing and making the Situation worse.
It's pretty rare that the character has invested a lot in a skill ( expert and assurance so a skill raise AND a skill feat) is going to be aiding as opposed to being the primary.
And, at least for me, pretty unsatisfying too. I'm the fantastic skilled guy who, uh, aids?
Just to throw it in here, I found an unexpected use for Assurance (Expert). It lets you automatically aid in skill checks.
That was a nice buff for the row of survival checks on DD2.
Not exactly awe inspiring, but nice. No Chance of critfailing and making the Situation worse.
*Looks at the numbers*
4th level
+1 expert
+2 wisdom (I mean, honestly)
Total (4+1+2): 7
DC 15
Crit-fail threshold 5
You can't crit-fail. You'd have to get a natrual -2.
ok, ok, fine, maybe you don't have a 14 wisdom. If you have a 10 you...
Uh, still need a natural 0 to crit-fail.
I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.Then why are we expected to blow our precious feats on it?
If assurance allowed you to take 10 (or 15 or 20 or 30) whenever you wanted on a certain skill check, then I would pick it up in a heartbeat.
We are past that try to keep moving forward.
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I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.
The same checks the book flat out says you shouldn't bother rolling anyway?
I think assurance is made just to work with lower level easy skill checks that people feel they shouldn't have to roll.The same checks the book flat out says you shouldn't bother rolling anyway?
Sigh KEEP READING DON"T JUST REPEAT WHAT EVERYONE ELSE HAS SAID!
I think take 10 does not play well with the current design intent. It would work fine if proficiencies gave a bigger numerical bonus, but as it stands now the result of take 10 of an untrained and legendary character would be too close to each other.
What we have now (from page 338) is an implicit rule that says a DC of level+8 is always an auto-success. I think at least it should be extended to level+10+proficiency modifier.
Now, this would make Trained Assurance obsolete at least. So perhaps the least disruptive way to fix that would be to say that with Assurance you receive a result equal to High DC of the level when you normally get the proficency. So for Trained it would be 14, Expert 17, Master 23, Legendary 35. This progression would mean that if you keep investing your skill increases, the only way Assurance can be worse than rolling is if you have the max ability score and/or item bonuses for that skill.
Now, another way which I personally like more but that sits somewhere in between the current design philosophy and the old take 10/20 would be something like this:
1) A special acivity (let's call it Perform a Routine) allows you to take (7+Proficiency modifier) instead of rolling a skill check when not in combat or otherwise under threat of imminent harm. This takes 3x more time than normal. The result cannot be a critical failure or a critical success.
2) A skill feat (let's call it Combat Assurance) feat lets you do it with one skill even in combat as an action taking the normal time.
3) In downtime, you can use the Perform a Routine activity taking 10+(2xProficiency modifier) by spending a lot of time.
4) Another skill feat (let's call it Assured Success, must be an Expert) allows you to add your proficiency modifier once more when forgoing the roll and allows critical success on the activity.
a) For take 10 it is more serious than in general. In general it is mitigated by the crit system giving more weight to the pluses and also by proficiency gating skill uses. But with take 10 you will never have a situation where a legendary character critically succeeds where an untrained one would fail.
b) I suspect the designers purposefully do not want normal bonuses to apply without rolling (again to prevent people from bypassing or exploiting the crit system). But I think if we at least set a low result it should be OK. Subtract 5 from your proposal and then it's unlikely to break the game while removing a good chunk of meaningless rolls.
