[SUGGESTION] Skill checks - add difficulty slider

[Fluff]

Though i understand this is a vital part of the game, but some of the skill check requirments are really overtuned. Especially athletics / mobility.

And if in real life Dungeon Master can give you chance to do smth if you fail, not with a natural one, here - if you roll 25/26 needed - you just fail. There is no difference between failing with 5/26 or 25/26 as far as i observed. And sometimes it can almost wipe your party when they just climb a small rock.

On top of that, may be it's me unlucky with this game, though i doubt that much, there are enough feedback like that already, - when my skill modifier is very high, game rolls dice just fine. But when my skill modifier is not high enough for 90-100% skill check - game rolls 1-4 on dice VERY often.
I roll a 1-2 on skill check. I reload, i roll 1-2 again. Then i roll 3. Then 1-2. Then i roll <6. This happened so many times during 1st playthrough and it happens now again during 2nd.

It just promotes safe/load a lot.
Party IRL would not take 100 dmg from falling 2 meters down from the rock, especially when some of them can Fly, Leap, Levitate, etc etc etc.

also - https://i.imgur.com/YP6jljX.png

[Fluff]

Or please make it a way Pillars of Eternity did - another person with 2-nd highest skill modifier can help you 1-st highest skill person with a check by adding half of their modifier to the result.

So you don't have only 1 person per skill, and others are completely useless and can't help at all even if their skill check modifier is almost the same.

[Raigavin]

Install Toy Box and make Skill Checks auto pass.

[Fluff]

Originally posted by Raigavin:

Install Toy Box and make Skill Checks auto pass.

That is not a solution. The problem i describe is a bit different than cheat everything and more specific, to those 2 categories particularly.

[Raigavin]

Originally posted by Tusk_Luv:

Originally posted by Raigavin:

Install Toy Box and make Skill Checks auto pass.

That is not a solution. The problem i describe is a bit different than cheat everything and more specific, to those 2 categories particularly.

How is it different, you always want positive outcome and that's the best way to use it now.

Will you not reroll to a save if the checks fail?
Will you not buff up your character so that the checks won't fail?

What should be the check failure conditions then, since you wanted 1x1st + 0.5x2nd highest skill check to be additive? when should the checks fail?

[Fluff]

Originally posted by Raigavin:

What should be the check failure conditions then, since you wanted 1x1st + 0.5x2nd highest skill check to be additive? when should the checks fail?

I'm talking about the exact game mechanics, not cheats to overcome it. And the things devs need to address , not players ignore them and bypass with cheats.
So we'r talking about 2 different things.

When you have maximum possible for the time of skill check skill modifier (for Mobility e.g) and you still have 40-60% chance to fail it. With maximized modifier possible for character level. And there are like 5-10 checks you must pass in a row, for example, in Drezen.

The skill check slider is almost must things for balancing the game further alonside many other sliders like enemy stats (AC particularly) that people've being asking for a lot.
So this topic is to ask for that, not to talk about way of cheating around it. I use ToyBox and other mods for QoL things like faster World Map and Exploration movement, auto-win Crusade battles without 2 loading screens and tons of time waste, since i already finished the game once, and so on. Turning on and off it for skill checks is nearly same as save load, just a bit less time wasted, but does not solve a problem.

And about Pillars of Eternity - yes it's smth like you assumed. So you don't have "only 1 person should learn 1 skill". It's much more logically also, since in most skill checks another person could and should help you IRL to make things easier in situations like these.
Also in PnP , D&D there is a help for advantage with such rolls from another person, so twice logically.

[JustSmile]

Originally posted by Tusk_Luv:

(...)Especially athletics / mobility. (...)

And if in real life Dungeon Master can give you chance to do smth if you fail, not with a natural one, here - if you roll 25/26 needed - you just fail. There is no difference between failing with 5/26 or 25/26 as far as i observed. And sometimes it can almost wipe your party when they just climb a small rock.(...)

And in a real tabletop session you would roll for every separate character for that mobility or athletics, not just the absolute best in your group. There are concessions both ways.

[Fluff]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

Originally posted by Tusk_Luv:

(...)Especially athletics / mobility. (...)

And if in real life Dungeon Master can give you chance to do smth if you fail, not with a natural one, here - if you roll 25/26 needed - you just fail. There is no difference between failing with 5/26 or 25/26 as far as i observed. And sometimes it can almost wipe your party when they just climb a small rock.(...)

And in a real tabletop session you would roll for every separate character for that mobility or athletics, not just the absolute best in your group. There are concessions both ways.

It would be totally fine, you would not have DCs of >30 to roll to climb the rock. Also as i wrote and you didn't read obviously - there are much more ways to bypass a lot of things in tabletop session including usage of spells you have (except dimension door) that don't work here because it's a coded game and technologies won't be anywhere close to simulate irl in next ~500 years as minimum.

In real tabletop game you also don't need everyone to roll for all World and Knowledge skill checks. Same for persuation, magic devices etc.
SO it brings it only to those 2 skills i mentioned, again.

[The Konrad]

Somewhat unrelated, but my Bulwark Mammoth by the name of "Caesar" is the one responsible for Athletics and Mobility skill checks.

With him the skill-check fails are far more believable. When a Mammoth fails to climb up a ladder and when it is the least clumsy and most acrobatic of the team Rolling Natural Failures become instantly more relatable and believable.

So I hate to say it, but maybe you are playing it wrong. Nah, you do you.
This game is meant to be utterly reloaded every 6 seconds.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2605762796

[Sador]

Why does "I can't do something" always equate to "it must be unbalanced / overtuned / broken"? Why can it never be "hey I struggle with this, how can I do better?"

Most of the times, especially with mobility / athletic skill checks, you know ahead of time that they're coming. Use buffs, spells, gear etc. to make them easier to pass. A fortune hex from Ember can make most skill checks significantly easier already. Make sure that every party member is maxing out at specific stats so all checks are covered. Most of them really aren't that hard and the ones that are, are entirely optional.

[Fluff]

Originally posted by Gottkanzler Konrad:

Somewhat unrelated, but my Bulwark Mammoth by the name of "Caesar" is the one responsible for Athletics and Mobility skill checks.

With him the skill-check fails are far more believable. When a Mammoth fails to climb up a ladder and when it is the least clumsy and most acrobatic of the team Rolling Natural Failures become instantly more relatable and believable.

So I hate to say it, but maybe you are playing it wrong. Nah, you do you.
This game is meant to be utterly reloaded every 6 seconds.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2605762796

That's a nice screenshot :D

Yeh i miss my Bear from the 1st playthrough, it had the highest Athletics and Mobility, also Strengh modifier higher than any of my companions in that playthrough :s

That is a good legit way for now to deal with it btw.

Originally posted by Sador:

Why does "I can't do something" always equate to "it must be unbalanced / overtuned / broken"? Why can it never be "hey I struggle with this, how can I do better?"

May be because in the case of current state of this game it's exactly Overtuned.
Read to learn please, not just express your thought without reading full text. I wrote exactly why it's overtuned (max possible bonuses = near 50% success only with dice weighted to more <10 rolls, if breifly).
It's also written with buffs in mind and a bit of min max, +10 str +7 dex act 2.
It's fine to fail some checks even with maxed stats and skill modifiers.
it's not fine to fail 4/5 of them in such conditions.

Also if you like to waste your time or play with difficulty you find fair, not overtuned - feel free to. I don't see the reason for you to say anything against such a slider, coz it changes nothing for you personally though.

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Tusk_Luv:

May be because in the case of current state of this game it's exactly Overtuned.
Read to learn please, not just express your thought without reading full text. I wrote exactly why it's overtuned (max possible bonuses = near 50% success only with dice weighted to more <10 rolls, if breifly).
It's also written with buffs in mind and a bit of min max, +10 str +7 dex act 2.

Also if you like to waste your time or play with difficulty you find fair, not overtuned - feel free to. I don't see the reason for you to say anything against such a slider, coz it changes nothing for you personally though.

There are things in this game that are arguably overtuned, but skill checks aren't one of them. The dice aren't weighted at all.

[Fluff]

Originally posted by dulany67:

There are things in this game that are arguably overtuned, but skill checks aren't one of them. The dice aren't weighted at all.

I wrote you exactly why they are overtuned instead of "fart they'r not".

Spell Resistance is the one things that is not overtuned in the game , but is the thing the most people complain about it though you can easily overcome it during the whole game from act 1 to 6. And they refuse to take Spell Penetration and proper feats, gear.

And dices weighted also, not new in games, XCOM etc salute you.

[Edstyles]

It sucks ye. Im planning possibly making a bard Next due to being a skill monkey.

The difficulty slider should also affect enemy resistances . You could be playing easy but the resistances on mobs dont go down

[Mr Fred]

Sound like someone with no skill monkey in his team that is getting filtered. The story difficulty was made with people like you in mind...

[PinkPanther]

Skill checks do get better later on.. it's just the earlygame that's a bit annoying on some passages. But nothing gamebreaking.
Want to pass every check legally? Get 5 hired companions from the pathfinder society and fine tune them to be perfect.
Boring? Well, yes, but you asked for it :P