Post/Author/DateTime	Post
StormKnight 01-31-05, 04:48 PM	I've noticed that while there are many, many things that work well in RPGs, there are some that just don't work well at all. One of the big categories of these is "physical obstacles" of the sort that one commonly sees in Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider style situations; traps or obstacles that require great physical agility to get past. Consider any of the following: * Walking through a hallway trying to watch carefully for the tiles that will fire darts at you. * Fighting in an area that is breaking apart due to an earthquake, with many chasms forming and widening that combatants must jump across. * A trap in which rotating statues quickly revolve, fire a magical blast, then rotate back into the wall, giving you only a few moments to stop where the attacking is coming from and destroy or avoid it. Any of these situations work great in a video game. They look fine in a movie. But in an RPG, they just come down to "roll a die, see what happens", with no player influence at all. Has anyone found a good way of taking situations and challenges like this and resolving them in an interesting manner?
Ibbins 01-31-05, 06:07 PM	Ad hok Adjudicating. These instances would (ideally) each only occur once in any campaign(otherwise it gets old and annoying), and thus arent worth the effort of making rules for. Just make up rules as you go, but most important in these cases would just be the DM's description of whats happening.
Kyaran 01-31-05, 09:36 PM	I don't know how you can resolve these "in an interesting manner" without first figuring out who will make it or not. After that, the description is what makes it interesting. Don't reduce everything to "make a Reflex save", "dodge the darts", "fall in a pit". Inject the suspense. ;) If you're worried that some PCs will get slain by their lack of physical skills, then do a little suspenseful fudging. Have everyone make several saves, skill checks, and/or ability checks beforehand, then reduce the consequences for the ones that would be fatal for no reason other than one bad roll. If you handle the rolls, it's even better. You can mostly let the dice do as they will, but when that 3rd critical roll comes up a 2 you can look up and go "Whew, just made it." Just for kicks, rules (sorta) applying to your scenarios: • Walking through a hallway trying to watch carefully for the tiles that will fire darts at you. Spot and Dex checks, DCs increasing with speed. Maybe an occasional Jump check. • Fighting in an area that is breaking apart due to an earthquake, with many chasms forming and widening that combatants must jump across. Any character that fails a Balance check because of a fissure opening underneath them (rolled randomly) falls down at the edge. If they fail badly, they fall in with a (easy, hopefully) Reflex save to grab the edge. Other characters can come help them out, or they can make Climb checks. Failing a Climb here could be bad. Also Jump checks, obviously. • A trap in which rotating statues quickly revolve, fire a magical blast, then rotate back into the wall, giving you only a few moments to stop where the attacking is coming from and destroy or avoid it. Reflex saves? Ready an Attack? Disable Device? Stand off to the side and zip past right after it attacks?
Nightgaunt 01-31-05, 11:16 PM	Any of these situations work great in a video game. They look fine in a movie. But in an RPG, they just come down to "roll a die, see what happens", with no player influence at all. I guess that is the meat and bones of your question right? You want the Players to actively commit to some type of logical course of action instead of just rolling balance checks, jump checks, or Reflex saves. Well, you could try some traps that are set with two separate dangers and then give the party choices. For instance you could have whirling levitating stones of varying heights and sizes as well as a number of creatures to do battle with in the room. Then the characters can choose from negatives and positives, faster moving stones allow an AC bonus or concealment from range due to movement but may give negatives to hit or spell casting. Slow moving stones may allow for less negatives to hit but you are also a greater target. Also jumping from stone to stone would be the only way to get to friends and allies to heal or to enemies who are attacking at range. Similarly you could combine your Dart trap with the earthquake where the characters can try to run as fast as possible to get away from the falling earth, try to defeat the traps at each step to avoid getting hit, or any combination of the two. Ultimately the players can only interact if they have a choice, if the trap is static (a boulder is rushing at you, you have to do checks to escape it in time) it allows for no player input. If the trap has options (a boulder is rushing at you, you could attempt to go down a side passage that is unexplored, try to out-run it to the pit you crossed earlier, or try to get up to the high shaft right above you before the boulder comes. -Hope this is moderately helpful-
MortalPlague 02-01-05, 01:56 AM	You could also make up some rules for dealing with things like balance and jump checks. For instance, if the floor is breaking, the PC can take a round to steady themselves, granting a +2 bonus on their next jump or balance check, but eating up valuable time for their escape. Or when fighting, the PC or the villain could try to throw one or the other into the path of one of the chasms with a trip check. Things like that might help to achieve the suspense you're looking for.
StormKnight 02-01-05, 02:13 PM	Well, thanks for the comment so far...still, these mostly address how to make an interesting encounter. What I'm really looking for is some sort of mechanics ideas to actually make this sort of thing interesting as is. So far, it doesn't seem to be something that any mechanic in any RPG system can really handle. But I refuse to accept that its impossible!
Thoronmir 02-01-05, 03:39 PM	Well, thanks for the comment so far...still, these mostly address how to make an interesting encounter. What I'm really looking for is some sort of mechanics ideas to actually make this sort of thing interesting as is. So far, it doesn't seem to be something that any mechanic in any RPG system can really handle. But I refuse to accept that its impossible!You're original post complained about such encounters being reduced to a roll of the dice. You now ask for mechanics. Mechanics usually consist of rolling dice. Unless you play a free-form game, everything else is simply narrative. I'm not sure what kind of "player influence" you're looking for. The player decides how his PC reacts to the situation ("I try to tread carefully across the remaning portions of the floor" versus "I try to jump from safe spot to safe spot across the floor" versus "I have no clue what do so I'll just stand here until the ground swallows me whole"). Once the player makes his choice, the game mechanics take over and provide a framework for determining the PC's success. Asking how to make these types of encounters "more interesting" without resorting to dice is like asking to make a melee attack more interesting without making an Attack roll. In both situations, the dice determine success or failure, but it's up to the player and the DM to breathe life into the situation. If you're reaction to a successful Jump check is to tell the player, "Okay, you made the DC ... who's next?" then you're short-changing your players. DMs ought to make such scenarios come alive for the players ... and the players ought to help. The RAW enhance adventure, not stifle it. So, to set forth the "mechanics" of how to handle these situations, I offer the following: To overcome the corridor trapped with South American poisoned darts: If the party is trying to find and disarm the trap, it works just like Search and Disable Device always have. This type of trap is nothing new to D&D … we had them back in the days before AD&D (back when Thieves had the FART skill … Find And Remove Traps). The game mechanics are pretty basic under 3.x. Now, if the party doesn’t have time to Search for traps because the big boulder is rolling down on top of them, there are two options. If the PCs know which tiles are safe and which aren’t, they can make Balance checks to make sure their feet land on the safe tiles. If they don’t know which tiles are safe, then you can probably assume that they trigger the trap (or you can set a random chance that they trigger the trap). Remember that such traps are considered “Readied” actions, designed to trigger upon a specific condition (in this case, stepping on a bad tile). So, if my Movement Rate is 30 and the trap is set 15 feet down the hall, I can’t escape the trap just because I can move past it this round. If I trigger the trap along the way, you treat the situation just as if a monster had Readied his action waiting on me to enter a specific square. So, the trap springs even if it means interrupting my movement. Assuming one or more party members trigger the dart trap, the next step is the Reflex save to avoid the dart. That’s all the ducking and weaving Indy did in the movie. Make the Reflex save and you’re home free … until you have to use your whip to Jump over the pit (and, yes, that would be a Jump check using the whip like a rope). Surviving the disintegrating floor caused by the German chick hauling the grail past the seal: It’s up to you to decide where and how rapidly the floor opens up. You can either decide on a set pattern in advance (e.g., starting is squares furthest from any structural support) or just leave it to random chance. We can assume that the areas of floor that remain intact are moving. You need to read the rules for Balance and Concentration, for both will apply. The PCs will need to make Jump checks to leap across the chasms and will need to make Reflex saves to avoid getting swallowed when the ground opens up beneath their feet. Anyone failing their Reflex or Jump check gets a Climb check to catch the edge of the crevasse. Conquering the “Rotating Fire-Breathing Statues”: From a game-mechanics perspective, this is the simplest situation by far. Unlike the dart trap, this type of trap would not qualify as a “Readied” action since the flames erupt regardless of any trigger. So all I need to do is run past it. Granted, I need to study the trap and time my movements appropriately. Any miscalculation on my part requires that I make a Reflex save for half-damage.
StormKnight 02-01-05, 04:48 PM	Thoronmir - perhaps I am not explaining what I mean by "interesting" well enough. Combat, if it simply is "roll attack, see if you hit. Repeat until opponent is dead." is NOT especially interesting. (Well, maybe to some people it is, but not to me). Combat IS interesting because you can maneuver, choose different options/tactics (fight defensively, power blow, grapple, trip, charge, etc), retreat, use spells, use the terrain to your advantage, etc etc. All of the things I listed, which are just meant by way of examples, are easily resolveable mechanically - as you describe - but none of those resolutions are particularly INTERESTING for the players. They have no control over the outcome, they cannot apply clever tactics to improve their chances, and so on. What I'm trying to come up with is some mechanic system that would give players a measure of control over events like this and make them interesting and worthwhile to add to a game.
Nightgaunt 02-01-05, 06:39 PM	Consider any of the following: * Walking through a hallway trying to watch carefully for the tiles that will fire darts at you. * Fighting in an area that is breaking apart due to an earthquake, with many chasms forming and widening that combatants must jump across. * A trap in which rotating statues quickly revolve, fire a magical blast, then rotate back into the wall, giving you only a few moments to stop where the attacking is coming from and destroy or avoid it. I see, I was answering the wrong question... Let's see. Alright, so what you want is "combat style" choices applied to traps and obstacles. Tricky. The problem is your scencarios can all already be handled in a lot of different ways and there are already a number of rules written about how to deal with all those ways. To some degree that does exist in the game. For example, the "darts" trap could be resolved in a number of different ways, once the trap is recognized they could try to remove it, fly over the obstacle, spider climb the walls, teleport to the other side, dimensional door, set up a series of ropes and levers, slowly set up pitons, carry shields on either side of them to try and "block" the darts with concealment, set off the trap by throwing heavy objects, attempt some sort of fancy pole-vault maneuver to get past the area, attempt to catch the darts in air, or perhaps even a series of tumble checks (Charlie's Angels). That seems like quite a number of different options to me. ;) The fighting while breaking apart ground concept does work and has worked in the past. If you use a battle map it is pretty easy to change the design of the ground each round, and movement does become crucial since the ground can quickly expand to a point that even a good Jump check won't save you from the fall (although you could extend the reach by another player attempting a check to grab hold of a character who is attempting the jump check). Also a person with the proper knowledge skills (Architecture and Nature maybe?) may be able to predict the movement and damage allowing the PC's to try and make smarter decisions as to where they go. Both of the above scenarios still have Dice Rolling involved but it seems like the PC's certainly have a number of interesting choices to make. Now, on the other hand, if the PC's choose not to do anything interesting and to just take the path of least resistance on every trap or obstacle (I roll a search check, I roll a disarm check, I roll a reflex save) then there isn't much you can do except make it more difficult to disarm the trap. 3) Your third scenario sounds more like combat with a stationary fire-breathing creature then it does like a trap. I would say handle the trap like normal combat. Give the "trap" a fluctuating initiative monster statistics and perhaps a hardness count. If you want to be clever about it you can give the trap a pattern of attack (if there were four of them maybe they attack like this 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 4, 2, 1 and then repeat the pattern). This gives the players more of a chance to apply tactics, hold actions for attacks, defensively move away from the next one to flame (for weaker members) or stand in the way of a blast for stronger members. Also if these are rotating and moving statues I may try to climb on one to avoid being hit, jam up the works if it is mechanical, or attempt offensive spells like Rock to Mud. I still don’t think I’m completely sure of what you are asking. You seem to want a set of rules you can rely on for these types of encounters, but the rules already exist. There are certainly a horde of possible ways to deal with the situations you described, if your PC’s are only choosing one way maybe what you really need is a way to get the PC’s to try and think things through differently then they have been before. If you really still need a different kind of help I think I need more clarification from your question.
Vharuck 02-01-05, 06:57 PM	Thoronmir - perhaps I am not explaining what I mean by "interesting" well enough. Combat, if it simply is "roll attack, see if you hit. Repeat until opponent is dead." is NOT especially interesting. (Well, maybe to some people it is, but not to me). Combat IS interesting because you can maneuver, choose different options/tactics (fight defensively, power blow, grapple, trip, charge, etc), retreat, use spells, use the terrain to your advantage, etc etc. All of the things I listed, which are just meant by way of examples, are easily resolveable mechanically - as you describe - but none of those resolutions are particularly INTERESTING for the players. They have no control over the outcome, they cannot apply clever tactics to improve their chances, and so on. What I'm trying to come up with is some mechanic system that would give players a measure of control over events like this and make them interesting and worthwhile to add to a game. You're kidding, right? Players have no chance to come up with and use clever tactics? That's a problem with your players. I don't have that. My players, when given rope, will find a way to do *everything* with rope. When given a zombie arm (yes, they took it), they *used* it, gosh darn it. Dice and skills are not the initiaters of action; ideas and player decisions are. As to your boulder encounter, there are so many paths one can take: pure running (Dex check), running while keeping an eye open for any nooks to leap into (a Spot check followed by a Ref save, with a penalty to the Dex check for outrunning the boulder as you're somewhat distracted), turning around and trying to stop the boulder with brute force (a Str check), or using an object to wedge in between the boulder and the floor to stop it (just creativity here, no dice necessary).
SearcherOmega 02-01-05, 10:00 PM	I tend to handle traps in a much more 'freeform' way in my own games, but I'll be the first to admit that my games have strong narrativist leanings and are a lot more roleplay-oriented than combat-oriented anyway. The way I work it out is prettymuch using common sense. A swinging pendulum trap you spot? Brace against the walls, trigger the trap, run past as it undergoes its reset cycle (assuming it's even auto-reset). Winging it can give you a real cinematic feel. Also, you are free to interpret just what it means to 'save' a throw or 'fail' it, narratively -- whether it's barely clutching to the edge and pulling yourself up (mechanically, in a small enough amount of time for it to not matter), or rocketing skyward, doing a twirl in midair, and landing in a dramatic pose. I tend to give my campaigns dramatic flair, and the players like it, even if the mechanics don't change in the slightest.
Alynn 02-01-05, 10:24 PM	Add the element of surprise and if they are ready to roll... I did something like this to a high level rogue that would normally have no problem avoiding it, however I did something along the lines of. You walk carefully through the hallway, then suddenly a blade springs from the wall and heads straight for your abdomen, roll for reflex." He went to get his twenty but took a bit to pick it up just as he rolled I said, "Your brief moment of indecision has cost you greatly." *his die leaves his hand lands on a 15* "15 points of damage." Ive done the same with battles, someone taking too long to decide what they are going to do means they just stood there deciding what to do next, it's good for people that slow down battle by thinking too much.
Lun4r 02-01-05, 10:47 PM	One cool idea I came up with to add a visual aspect to the fissure room, would be to lay out a large sheet of paper and have the players place their characters on it. Then, you could either roll randomly or choose certain pieces to cut apart after every certain number of rounds (or have it be random) with a razor blade. Then you can move the pieces around and have certain ones "fall through the floor" and other interesting things. Or for the dart trap area, set up something similar with numbered plates which a rogue can attempt to identify as trapped or not and if he thinks they are then put green dots on those plates. Then let him try to pick out which plates he wants to step on, and use whatever system you like for traps attached to the various stones. Use a little creativity! The players will no doubt appreciate this, however I don't think this should be the normal way to handle such actions because it just gets tedious. Remember, the special effects people who put togethere the Indiana Jones traps had a lot more time and money than we do, and watching such a scene is no doubt much quicker and easier than putting one together.
StormKnight 02-02-05, 12:08 PM	<Pounds head on keyboard> :D Somehow this just isn't leading down the path I'm trying to figure out. I blame myself for a poor explainer. Yeah, of course players can do creative things to defeat obstacles and traps - and of course they will. Given time and a few resources, just about any trap can defeated in some clever way. But that's not the point!!! Its just that when the decision gets made to fall back and rely on the character's physical abilities and skills, it just comes down to a die roll. Even if you've picked something you are incredibly good at as a way to handle the problem, you just roll the die to see if it works. Hmmm...ponders...shall contemplate and see if I can rephrase this whole thing to make it make more sense.
Kyaran 02-02-05, 01:10 PM	So... you're concerned that characters that are 'good' at something still rely on the dice to succeed? That's kinda how the game works. ;) If you have a Dex-y elf and a Con-y dwarf, which do you think is more likely to nimbly escape the poison darts firing across the passageway? Get hit by a few darts but suffer no ill effects? Leap away from opening cracks in the floor? Would you expect these characters to always succeed at these things? You're not making a decision to "fall back on" the characters physical abilities. There's an in-game problem that generally relies on certain abilities. If the player comes up with a way for his character's strengths to apply, that should be fine, but if a player comes up with a way for the player's own abilities to apply... that shouldn't usually work. If the wizard has high Int and no Dex, Str, or Con, do you think he's going to try to run across the collapsing floor and somersault himself to freedom, or would you expect him to stay along the walls (where the floor is stronger) and pre-calculate any jumps he's forced to attempt? Which would you like to see your players do? Would you let the raging barbarian follow the wizard because his player knows it's smart? The skill/ability checks are simply the method used to see precisely how good you are at something on that attempt. Sometimes PCs screw up. When it's bad, you roll new ones. :D
Nightgaunt 02-02-05, 01:50 PM	<Pounds head on keyboard> :D Somehow this just isn't leading down the path I'm trying to figure out. I blame myself for a poor explainer. But that's not the point!!! Hmmm...ponders...shall contemplate and see if I can rephrase this whole thing to make it make more sense. It'll be alright, no need to get frustrated. Um is an answer you are looking for more like this. Why not allow the characters to more specifically discuss what actions they want to take and then apply bonuses or negatives based on the ability of those actions to bypass the obstacle at hand? I guess it would be more like Role-Playing an encounter instead of just using a Diplomacy or Bluff check. If that is what your looking for all I can say is good luck, that is a very free-form style of play and not easy to write rules for it. Heck the whole idea for it is to bypass a lot of the rules to play the game another way. -Granted I'm not so sure this is really a game mechanic but you could do something like this, or start larping. :D Well that's all I got at any rate.
Thoronmir 02-02-05, 02:13 PM	<Pounds head on keyboard> :D Somehow this just isn't leading down the path I'm trying to figure out. I blame myself for a poor explainer. Yeah, of course players can do creative things to defeat obstacles and traps - and of course they will. Given time and a few resources, just about any trap can defeated in some clever way. But that's not the point!!! Its just that when the decision gets made to fall back and rely on the character's physical abilities and skills, it just comes down to a die roll. Even if you've picked something you are incredibly good at as a way to handle the problem, you just roll the die to see if it works. Hmmm...ponders...shall contemplate and see if I can rephrase this whole thing to make it make more sense.Yeah, no offense, but I think we’re having trouble identifying the problem you’re trying to solve. You cited to a players multitude of options in combat (fight defensively, grappling, etc.) that make combat “interesting” for players. I don’t see why the scenarios you’ve posed can’t be just as interesting, using the mechanics already in place. As with combat, the player must first decide how he wants to overcome a situation. Deciding to use a Sneak Attack is no more “interesting” than deciding to Tumble my way past the dart trap. Also, as with combat, some situations do not allow the full breadth of options a player might choose. Perhaps it might help if I share how I deal with these types of scenarios, since I encourage my players to buckle their swashes whenever the mood strikes. The collapsing floor is a good example. Once I describe what’s happening, it’s up to the players to tell me how their PCs react. I don’t just announce, “The floor is crumbling, everyone make a Reflex save or fall into the abyss!” I tell them, “The floor in crumbling (though I give a lot more detail), what do you do?” The players decide how they want to confront the challenge. Once they make their choices, I turn to the RAW to adjudicate their success. I honestly don’t believe there’s any more that can be done to make it “interesting” for the players. Some might consider it the game’s fundamental flaw, but, eventually, success or failure in D&D always resorts to a PC’s abilities and a toss of the dice. Roleplaying is really just narrative describing the dice results … though I’m quite prone to give away Circumstance bonuses like candy when good roleplaying accompanies the dice.
eudas 02-02-05, 03:37 PM	i think basically what you're complaining about is that you have a great scene set up in your head, and a planned outcome for it, like in Indiana Jones, but there's one key difference: Indiana Jones succeeded because he was meant to. the script was written so that he succeeded. there was only one possible outcome -- he was going to succeed, because it was dramatic, and that makes for good adventure movie fare. on the other hand, with RPG's, you have options: success or failure. and often, success or failure are determined by a roll of the dice. this is not the problem, though: the problem is not that RPG's allow for failure; the problem is that you have a preconceived notion of how a scene should play out. if something is supposed to only go one way, then just narrate it. it can still make for good story. but you might enjoy it more if you learned to allow for both story paths. eudas
Defcon4 02-02-05, 04:33 PM	I think it's kind of amusing that someone by the name of Stormknight Started this thread. Let me expalin. There actually was a game that succeeded in providing the kind of fluid trap/obstacle challenge you described. It was called Torq and it was put out by West End Games. The story was these different realities, spanning from (land of the lost, lovcraftian horror, blade runner, cybernetic/papacy, sword and sorcery, all the way to pulp/wierd science) all came to earth and took over parts of it for some complicated reason i wont go into. The game mechanics was basically the same for every region with the exception of sub rules or "world laws" which represented how reality worked in that specific place. A gun wouldn't fire in the land of the lost place because it was beyond that realities tech level. People in the area would also change to reflect that reality. All except a few who somehow could retain there own reality even though they were cut off from it. They could operate their native equipment, abilities, powers, magic, etc. no matter where they were. The ones who chose to fight for earth or against their native reality were dubbed Stormknights because the clashing realities caused massive storms on the regions borders and they could travel thru them without being affected. Well anyway, The pulp fiction reality had world laws which enhanced the entire challenge scenario. You would get the Indiana Jones style "obstacle stacking" and the back and forth "fickle hand of fate" between hero and villian. The thing is, it was a balance between game mechanics and quick witted game mastering. Torq also used a card system to enhance the game. a card was flipped every round which resulted in different game effects fro the heroes and villians. Whether the results were even handed or set against the heroes was dependent on whether the scenario was a "standard" situation or a "dramatic" one. The Game Master would have to take a situation, apply the game mechanics and then apply whatever storytelling that needed to be done to explain it. A "heroes setback" result for Indiana Jones was when he was poisoned in the beginning set piece of Temple of Doom and the vial of antidote was being kicked around by the panicked crowd. The GM would apply the penalty he gets for being setback on his actions to get the vial, but create the scenario of the crowd kicking it about. I guess the point is there is no total mechanical way in which to do what you want. Torq had rules within the system that made GMs create on the spot changes in the environment, so althogh one had the ultimate destination planned, the road to get there was winding and uncertain.
StormKnight 02-02-05, 05:06 PM	i think basically what you're complaining about is that you have a great scene set up in your head, and a planned outcome for it, like in Indiana Jones, but there's one key difference: Indiana Jones succeeded because he was meant to. the script was written so that he succeeded. there was only one possible outcome -- he was going to succeed, because it was dramatic, and that makes for good adventure movie fare. eudas Not what I'm referring to :) I think it's kind of amusing that someone by the name of Stormknight Started this thread. I really need to pick up a stray copy of Torg with as much as I get asked if I got my username from it. :D I think there is a new version coming out from WEG. Ok, let's break down and analyze this here. (I'm sort of brainstorming here, not writing this all down from a plan) The comment was made that in combat it all comes down to a die roll as well, regardless of what tactics the PCs use. This is true. So why is it different? Hm...probably because combat does not normally come down to ONE die roll, but many. As PCs use different options over the course of the combat, they gradually influence the outcome and feel that they decide the outcome more than the dice do. By contrast, most physical actions succeed or fail based on a single die roll - thus, regardless of your choice, it feels like your fate is in the hands of the dice rather than in your own hands. In fact, its generally best to AVOID any action that comes down to a die roll like this, no matter how good you are at it or how much its integral to what your character does, because it puts everything in the a single roll of fate. Each action in the course of dealing with such an obstacle, unless it is one with obvious consequences, would be handled by the physical senses and abilities of your character. Do you notice the tell tale signs of pressure points on the floor? Can you get weave past them? If you accidentally step on one, can you get out of the way on time? Is just having the decision you make determine what sequence of die rolls is used to resolve the action? Possibly, depending on how it plays out, but I don't think it neccessarilly would. Is there a mechanic that can allow something than all/nothing success and failure for situations that are very all-or-nothing? Some degree so that you don't immediately trip an alarm or fall into a pit of lava, but are sweating a lot more than you were a moment ago and are a lot closer to having things go bad? Is there a mechanic that can contribute more player control and decision making to actions that are purely decided by dice mechanics? <ponders, ponders>
eudas 02-02-05, 05:47 PM	Sure... it's called Take 10 or Take 20. eudas
Phrennzy 02-02-05, 06:02 PM	There is - it's called failing by 5 or more. Kinda like when you are disarming a trap. If you fail the disarm, but by less than 5 points, it doesn't go off. If by more than 5, it detonates. You can apply that to some of those traps. The ground breaking apart - with the reflex roll, if they succeed, they jump out of the way, if they fail by 4 or less, they fall into the pit but are hanging onto the side, and if they fail by 5 or more, down they go. With the darts, apply the same thing. 4 or less and they just nick you, giving partial damage. That kind of thing.
Tiruvel 02-02-05, 06:15 PM	I agree with Phrennzy. Another thing you can do, though in the same vein, is dividing the "obstacle" into more parts, basically an enhanced version of Phrennzy's idea. Make them do a saving throw, then another based on if they failed or succeeded the previous and how much altered the situation became. I'm a bit tired so I don't have a good example of this just now, but I hope it's somewhat clear. Something a little on the side, but relevant to Indiana Jones anyway: The INVISIBLE bridge. You know the one in The Last Crusade that Indy discovers using sand/dust. Have any of you done it? I've put it in a few of my adventures, and my players have NEVER discovered it, and thereby never found out how to get across the deep and terrifying chasm.. :rolleyes: It's slightly annoying, hehe. Well, I guess I'll keep using it now and then, some day they have to find it? Or maybe I'll just throw in the towel.... :D