Melkor wrote:
P.117 does go a long way towards explaining that modifiers are up to the judgement of the CK, which captures the essence of what C&C should be about. That section is tailored to Combat, but could easily be worded in such a way that it is understood to clearly apply to all situations.
Unfortunately, P.117 states: "For tasks that are easy +/-5 modifier should be imposed. Difficult tasks would range from +/-6 to 10. and heroic acts would range from +/-11 or above".
For the purposes of Attribute Checks, the "difficulty" (as in Easy, Difficult, Heroic) are all factored into the Challenge Base + Challenge Level formula (with the Challenge Level actually being described in the book as a modifier based on the difficulty of the task instead of a modifier to the roll as it is illustrated on P.117).
That said, someone who has been gaming a while probably won't have a hard time using common sense to figure out that modifiers can be added to the character's roll (for actions that do require a roll outside of combat) after the Challenge Base + Challenge Level (difficulty) has been determined - to account for favorable conditions that add to the roll.
I believe that a simple explanation that this is a possibility, left to the CK's discretion, might especially help new players, or players coming to C&C from systems like D&D 3.5 / D20 who might be used to playing in a manner where dice are used to determine the outcome of the majority of character actions.
Sometimes it's difficult for people who never experienced how games were played in the 70's and 80's to 'get' that old-school gaming (which is what C&C was designed to emulate) generally required a lot more narrative and judgement because the rules didn't provide a way to handle many situations outside of combat.
C&C might even lose players from other systems when they read the rulebook without the background in 'old-school' gaming that some of us have, and see a structure where beginning characters can have only a baseline chance of success of 15% on actions that the rulebook deems "Easy".
Illustrating that C&C is designed to be played differently than D&D 3.5/D20 was the entire purpose behind why I started this thread (and the similar threads on RPG.net and Dragonsfoot)...all with the hopes that it might help people enjoy their games of C&C more.
I think the inclusion of a better explanation of the SEIGE Engine mechanic, and how it can be modified (even that there is a possibility of doing so), would help accomplish the same goal, and I am hopeful said explanation might make an appearance in the CKG.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion folks. It's been eye-opening if for no other reason than seeing all of the different ways people are playing their own games of C&C. It reminds me a lot of the different nuances every gaming group had back in the days of AD&D & AD&D 2E.
I've got an old-school C&C goldenrod character sheet I am designing that is calling my attention away from spending so much time on this thread.
Hey Melkor,
As a guy who has been tinkering with C&C I totally see where you're coming from with your breakdown of attribute checks and rates of success based upon task difficulty.
Keeping a balance between heroic action and gritty action is extremely important in keeping players interested and engaged in one's game. While C&C does a great job of stripping out much of 3.5's nonsense, it also makes attribute checks WAY too difficult for low-level characters.
I think your ideas for "correcting" the SIEGE Engines flaws are spot on. In fact, I've adopted them into my house rules for the game.
It seems you're getting some flack for trying to improve upon C&C when doing so is completely in the spirit of "old-school" D&D. It's what made Dragon such a great magazine "back in the day". The Great Gygax had no problems printing articles that showed better ways of resolving actions and game concepts than those that EGG provided within the PHB & DMG.
