D&D 4E Heavy Concrete Data on 4e's Skill Challenge System (long, lots of tables)

[Contents May Vary]

In other words skill challenges where Aid Another is not a reasonable approach are those cases where we should have to accept the PCs are likely to fail, and that it doesn't matter because it is not as bad as losing a combat. Or at least that is what I get from your post. I think you can understand why I don't totally agree with that.

Moderate difficulty skill challenges (even complexity 5 ones) do NOT require a reasonably competent character to be aided by another character to have a chance of success.

Take a level 25 character with a skill of 22 (12 from level, 5 from training, 4 from ability mode - easily reachable). The DC for a moderate difficulty challenge is 28.

From my simulation program above, the chance of such a character succeeding alone is more than 75%.

Nothing is broken. Nothing needs fixing.

 

[Tervin]

I don't believe that the figures presented in the tables in this thread are correct.
/---/
Seems fine to me...

According to p 42 in the DMG (that you are referring to) you should add +5 to your DCs if you are doing skill checks, which you are.

 

[Contents May Vary]

According to p 42 in the DMG (that you are referring to) you should add +5 to your DCs if you are doing skill checks, which you are.

Ahh.

 

[Tervin]

Moderate difficulty skill challenges (even complexity 5 ones) do NOT require a reasonably competent character to be aided by another character to have a chance of success.

Take a level 25 character with a skill of 22 (12 from level, 5 from training, 4 from ability mode - easily reachable). The DC for a moderate difficulty challenge is 28.

From my simulation program above, the chance of such a character succeeding alone is more than 75%.

Nothing is broken. Nothing needs fixing.

If you read the whole thread, you might see that I made a little excel sheet that calculates the probabilities for those things. No need for simulations, as the math is easy enough to do straight.

The reason that I get a very different conclusion from you is that I included all the relevant info from p 42 in the DMG. The moderate DC for the challenge that you talk about is 33 according to the book (and according to the examples that WotC have published so far).

And the chance for success is the following:
Complexity 1 0,19
Complexity 2 0,14
Complexity 3 0,11
Complexity 4 0,09
Complexity 5 0,07

Edit: I realise that I sound a lot more harsh than I should. Sorry.

 

[Contents May Vary]

Yes, that gives comparable results now.

So - if we don't add the +5 for skill challenges, it works out ok.

 

[Tervin]

Yes, that gives comparable results now.

So - if we don't add the +5 for skill challenges, it works out ok.

On some levels for some parties on some complexities for certain kinds of skill challenges, it seems to work ok if you don't add that +5. The OP has done the math on that too - I can't remember if that was in this thread or any of the other two... (Edit: In table 3 of the original post)

The problem without the +5 tends to be that it ends up too easy in many cases, especially for high complexity challenges.

I (of course) prefer my own solution where I look at what a target PC's bonus would be (choosing a PC that is the weakest of those who are likely to try in this challenge) and then add 4-10 to that as the DC, depending on how easy or difficult I want to it to be and how easy it is to get bonuses from powers and Aid Another. Not perfect, but that way I think the players are more likely to enjoy the encounter.

 

[Hussar]

I respectfully disagree. A system that rewarded teamwork would reward a party that found ways to use their individual strengths in unique ways to solve a problem.

What you're proposing is: identify the character with the highest modifier for a primary skill in the challenge. This character rolls and everyone else assists them. I.e.: it isn't what I'd call good teamwork - it's a brain-dead "we win" button.

This is compounded by the fact that a party which doesn't exploit this "we win" button will most likely fail miserably. I don't see this as a masterpiece of design that rewards teamwork - I see it as a broken mechanic with an obvious exploit...

But, you are assuming that the skill challenge will only have one necessary skill to complete (not an unfair assumption, but not always true) and that all the other PC's will always be available to assist (not a fair assumption IMO).

Also, this entire discussion completely ignores magic items, rituals and class abilities. I think, right there, that's where the granularity you are looking for will come. In the assumption that characters will have various other options to increase their chances of success.

See, you're right, if a group completely fails to work together and help each other out, then they will indeed fail. However, many situations will occur at the table where it isn't feasible to get the +8 as well. Frequently, at the table, the action will be somewhere in the middle. With the addition of other elements like magic and the like, I think that the problem is being overplayed.

 

[AidyBaby]

I can't remember where it was stated (the magic item exerpt?) that the weapon/armour/amulet was the only 'needed' items. The rest could be ignored in terms of number crunching and succeeding in the game - they only give more options. In fact, as I recall, the weapon/armour/amulet set could also be dispensed with by giving an equivalent bonus based on level to create the low/no-magic system. If this is true, pointing to skill bonus magical items being one of the counters to the broken skill challenge argument is incorrect.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Very interesting thread, I have no argument with the maths but I wonder is the interperation of what a skill challange correct. One thing this thread has forced me to do is read the skill challange stuff a couple of times.
A couple of thoughts occur.

Use of secondary skills and good rp justification of the same should generate better bonus than simple aid another and the party should be spending most of its time generating these bonus to the actual attempts at the direct skill attempts.

Taking the negocation with the baron in the DMG, the situation should be outlined before they meet the baron and can generate bonuses at the start by swaying the Baron Guard commander of the viability of their plan. as well as the actions taken in the negocation.

I would really like to see, a blow by blow, round by round write up of a playtest of a skill challange.

 

[Inf Class]

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

What I gleaned from this was that DC's with less than 50% chance of success contribute to massive amounts of party failure while DC's with greater than a 50% chance of success give a reasonable chance of success. So if a DM wanted to create his own skill challenges, he or she would simply figure out a DC that gives his party, say, a 60% chance of success for the average member in order to have a pretty good chance of success. I believe that is what your new DC's did. (sorry, I don't have the time to read 11 pages =[ )

Thanks, either way, I actually plan on using your system until such time as the WotC system is proven to somehow work. I will be running BOTH systems in my next campaign (which won't be until July) just as a comparison.


Additionally, I would like to see your analysis of your new system, if it's not too much trouble (I'm sure you've done it already, I probably just missed where you posted it.)


Also, I previously raised the idea that the +5 was only for skill checks and not for skill challenges simply as a hypothetical. I emailed WotC and they said that you do keep the +5. Sorry if this has already been confirmed.



Thanks for all the hard work =)