Originally Posted by Milkfred
I think Nettie's a fine encounter, but a lot of people use it as an example of a bad one. The question is why they do and why they don't feel it works.


I think that has been answered pretty convincingly. It's that you are given a check to pass, and if you pass it, you 're given another check, pass it and you're given another, and then a fourth. Fail any one of them and you're kicked onto the fail path. If you're trying to hit a goblin, the game doesn't go "did you really hit the goblin? Roll again", and make you roll a total of four times before it'll say "okay, I guess you did hit it after all".

The laws of probability mean the chance of passing four checks in a row is a lot worse than of passing one. It's clear that the developers really don't want you to be able to pass that check. The solution is equally clear: Make that into one check with a very high DC.