I think save scumming will be in any rpg anyways, its just up to you whether to do it or not.
I do save scum in some situations where I absolutely want something to happen, like saving that tiefling kid, otherwise I just roll with it. I think the dice rolls add a cool degree of randomness to the game and stay true to D&D. I've recently started playing the tabletop D&D with my friends who only heard about it from random mentions in movies and tv shows, and the amount of time my supposedly experienced and well-balanced character died, missed, and generally epically failed at everything because of the power of the dice was hilarious.
I've given up on the kid, I will probably get to see her live on sheer luck on all the new playthroughs I will be doing by the time full release comes out, but so far she has dies 3 times in a row.
I'm guessing the whole failed skill check thing will become better once we break a certain level, and it seems bad atm because we are stuck at level 4 failing the same checks over and over. Time will tell.
Nettie ending up dead is the result of the player making multiple poor choices, not dice rolls.
Unless of course you want to kill Nettie . . which is a valid choice.
Nettie really needs to die. Someone who poisons people without their consent when they ask for her help really needs a quick execution.
On the OP's point though, I somewhat agree, but not entirely. What we need is:
1. Better estimation of difficulty for the DCs. If it is a trivial(ish) task make the baseline very easy, e.g. a strength check of 5 so that anyone with a decent strength modifier is very unlikely to fail. (I think it is good to keep them though, because a strong character can fail a strength check on a 1, modelling them fumbling it.)
2. Keep it to one skill check per situation. I agree it is annoying to pass one skill check just to give us another.
Agree 100% You get into the grove, their leader kills a child and then another druid tries to kill you when you ask for help. Worst druids ever, would kill again/10.
