Stealth roll: 2 Perception: 13 Intimidation: nat 20
Stealth check passed ✅
Funny meme, but a good example of why I actually don’t like contested rolls. I enjoy that in PF2e rolls are always made against a DC.
In our game, the DC is just the passive perception of the enemy, unless they are on active watch duty then they make a contested roll. That usually requires us fucking something up to put them on alert though.
A couple weeks ago, I had a (dnd 5e) barbarian who was supposed to wrestle some random fire shaman using a series of contested athletics checks. I had advantage due to raging, the Bless spell, and bardic inspiration, (and Powerful Build but that’s only thematically appropriate) and still failed three contests in a row, because the fire shaman never rolled under an 18. My DM just said, no flavor, “yeah this guy just beat you”.
Ah man, but tests of athletics are so fun to narrate! First roll: “Seeing your clear physical advantage, the shaman leaps toward you as soon as the competition begins, managing to work his way into an advantageous initial position.” Second roll: “Pressing the advantage, the shaman is able to weave between the arms of your stronger grab, heaving you up and down to the ground. At this point, there’s only one chance for you to recover.” Third roll: “It all happened so fast. Despite superior strength and every magical boon at your disposal, the shaman’s quick reaction and formidable skill at using his own body has managed to pin you just long enough to eke out a win. ‘A little overconfident, weren’t you?’ he says, offering a hand to help you up (or glaring down at you if he doesn’t like you).”
I thought it was funny in a campaign where I was my evil cleric who has a +30 to deception checks, kept having to roll against the paladin’s sense motive every time I would use my skill, because he was metagaming, when the only way he could have possibly won was if I rolled a nat 1.
Saving this one to use when this eventually happens again
“Must have been the wind…”
