@darkbard and I were having a conversation about his choice of Feat at level 4 for the present 4e PBP game we're running on here (we're well into at this point). He's deciding between Bard of All Trades (which is +3 to all Untrained Skills so therefore enormously useful to Secondary Skill Buffs and comfortably expanding his move-space for the large number of Medium DCs you face in Skill Challenges) and Bardic Knowledge. The latter's +2 to specific Skills (a few of which are his "Big Guns") is extremely appealing because "hitting the Hard DC is the biggest pressure point in 4e Skill Challenges" and its certainly amplified in the games I run as I tend to run a large number of up-leveled challenges (both SCs and combats).
That sparked my thoughts on the big Skilled Play components of 4e Skill Challenges (at their final construction) as I see it is (in no particular order):
1) Playing the fictional positioning appropriately including employing (success chance optimizing) Group Checks when its appropriate. The fictional positioning will be constraining to your suite of prospective declared actions. Maximizing and optimizing that space is key...but...
2) You cannot overoptimize for any given individual space (any singular "move made"). You have to consider that your downstream decision-space will be like-constrained by fictional positioning; this is like your total "line of play" in a hand of cards that features several passes/tricks. So if the fictional positioning is suddenly opened up to take advantage of using a Primary Skill that is naturally less "fictional positioning available," you need to consider carefully at jumping at the opportunity to deploy it right now (lest you "lose the opening").
3) Deftly marshaling Skill Challenge-specific available resources (Secondary Skills and Advantages). Over a longitudinal cross-section of play (perhaps half a Tier), this will be absolutely essential to success (particularly in up-leveled SCs). It can often be "the play of the game" to deploy an SS for a +2 buff and then either (a) wagering an Advantage on a Hard DC for 2 Successes where you have a BIG NUMBER to throw at the High DC or (b) down-throttling a Medium DC to a Low when you can strategically deploy an oft-used Skill (see 2 above) that isn't particularly high but its good enough to hit the Low.
4) Then of course we have deftly marshaling non SC-specific resources; +2 buff for gear, +2 buff for fictional-positioning appropriate Encounter Powers, throwing 1/10 item level Coin or = value item at it when its fictional positioning appropriate (see 2), Rituals or Dailies for auto-success particularly against High DCs (or buffs to hit them), and of course using Hirelings/CCs to expand your move-space.
Anyhoo, just came up as a topic of conversation.
@darkbard may want to unpack his thoughts on the subject further (or how they've manifested in our play thus far).
Finally getting a few moments to add my thoughts to this conversation. First, I want to preface them (for you, for any other readers) that my analysis and feelings here are in no way a criticism of our game in particular or of 4E generally--not because I'm afraid to ruffle feathers or hurt feelings but just because I love both very dearly and want to make that clear. Our PbB game is tremendous fun, and I have absolutely no criticisms of the amount of tension and challenge we've encountered. In fact, I may even feel a bit guilty at times as to how we leverage the mechanical aspects of play and so have never failed a skill challenge or combat. Yet. Dangerous words, I know!
Just about every combat encounter has been a rollercoaster ride from a) how will we possibly defeat this foe to b) we just got some good licks in! to c) holy crud, they hit hard; we're on the ropes to d) we've got this in the bag. And I think that's predicated on the excellent job of game balance the designers effected. And that game balance centers around the principle of hitting one's opponents roughly 65% of the time. The designers were very upfront about the math of the game, and that figure models accurately (to my eyes) the feeling of heroic fantasy--the good guys mostly succeed at what they try, though there is the occasional miss, setback, and so on.
Unfortunately, through its many revisions, the Skill Challenge math, while attempting to maintain this success ratio, fails, even in its final incarnation in the
Rules Compendium, which I will use as my reference here. In particular, the Hard DC math and its description don't line up.
P. 127
A hard DC is a reasonable challenge for creatures that have training in a particular skill and also have a high score (18 or higher) in the skill's key ability. Such creatures have about a 65% chance of meeting a hard DC of their level. A hard DC is the standard choice for a skill check that only an expert is expected to succeed at consistently.
The section on the Difficulty Class of skills is accompanied by this chart:
P. 126
Difficulty Class by Level
| Level | Easy | Moderate | Hard |
|---|
| 1 | 8 | 12 | 19 |
| 2 | 9 | 13 | 20 |
| 3 | 9 | 13 | 21 |
| 4 | 10 | 14 | 21 |
| 5 | 10 | 15 | 22 |
| 6 | 11 | 15 | 23 |
| 7 | 11 | 16 | 23 |
| 8 | 12 | 16 | 24 |
| 9 | 12 | 17 | 25 |
| 10 | 13 | 18 | 26 |
All the DCs scale by level and level-based adjustment, so the 1st-level value serves as a model here. A character with skill training (+5) and an ability-score modifier for 18 (+4) has a total modifier of +9, meaning they will hit that target Hard DC 55% of the time, not 65% as advertised.
Now, granted, there are indeed many modifiers open to PCs to buff that percentage (secondary skills, etc. as you note above). And deploying those strategically is part and parcel of the challenge of the SC--and quite a bit of the fun, at least for me.
Now, maybe one feels that 65% is too high a baseline of success for something deemed "Hard" by the game. But if the value is actually 55%, and over-leveling a prospective SC drops that number lower, to 50% or 45%, the expectation the game sets up as its baseline for success is perturbed.
So the end result is building a PC (even with a modicum of optimization, not the crazy OP levels that have PCs hitting on a 2 or 3 for every attack they make (and also sliding the enemy 5 and knocking them prone), etc) that tries to meet the 65% ratio as the game encourages, and then that PC basically autopasses Moderate DCs with the same skill, which is no fun either! It's this paradox that is my criticism: if one wishes to maintain the same math that the game encourages and explicitly spells out, the bulk of the challenge in SCs (ie, the Moderate DCs using primary-stat, trained skills) are no longer challenging.
