D&D 4E How did 4e take simulation away from D&D?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agreed.

I'm still disappointed with the most recent Medium DC chart. Someone is still smoking something.

At level one (it's often even easier for many PCs at higher levels):

best: +4 or +5 stat, +2 background or +2 racial, +5 trained = 100%
great: +4 or +5 stat, +5 trained = 90% or 95%
good: +4 stat or +5 trained, +2 background or +2 racial = 75% or 80%
decent: +4 stat or +5 trained = 65% or 70%
ok: +2 stat = 55%
bad: -1 stat = 40%
terrible: -1 stat, -4 armor/shield penalty = 20%

Although this seems like a reasonable range, it really isn't.

Virtually nobody with an ok or lower chance would typically even try it (unless they are the best in the party). They would typically attempt Aid Another if they were limited to using this skill.

So, I don't consider a range of 65% (75% with a single Aid Another) to 100% chance of success per check to be Medium difficulty tasks. Especially since many groups will have someone in the great category for many skills.

Smart DMs will rarely use Medium. It's STILL too easy.

In the context of SCs I think the numbers are generally OK. A typical SC might have 2 medium checks and 4 hard checks. So yes, the medium checks are generally going to be gimmies. Still, there are times when they won't be. The guy that is the ace on that skill is tied up with something else, etc. So a 90% chance of success on that last check you need can still be tense if it is the margin between success and failure. There are always group checks and such as well.

In general a medium check as a stand-alone skill check? Unless everyone or at least several characters have to pass it or it is a situation where a specific character needs to use an off skill it will be pretty much trivial. I'm not sure why I would for instance bother though with something like a medium DC lock or something like that where you know the rogue will just drop his big fat highly trained skill bonus on it. Maybe for color, but surely not as a genuine obstacle.

There will be some situations where some DCs won't really be that useful, but I think it is a system that is used in so many places for so many things that it is hard to create a one-size-fits-all chart. Obviously you can also up the level of the DC a bit though, so it can be pretty flexible.

 

[Greg K]

Yep, 4E does a pretty lousy job of simulating 3E, and vice versa. But wait, there's more! Both of them do a fairly lousy job of simulating 2E, 1E, Basic, or any other variation there of you could name. I'd say that 4E does a slightly better job of simulating Basic than 3E, whereas 3E does a slightly better job of simulating 1E or 2E--but both the later ones are still lousy at simulating the earlier ones.:

I disagree that 3e does a poor job of simulating 2e. I found that with several of the variants from the 3.0 DMG and Unearthed Arcana it does a pretty good job of capturing 2e how I ran it. Throw in a couple of additional house rules regarding equipment and spell recovery and two or three third party products (if one used Complete Psionicist and PO:Combat and Tactics (PO: Spells and Magic can be handled with 3.0 DMG variant spell lists and/or Unearthed Arcana)) and it does a very good job except for multiclassing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I disagree that 3e does a poor job of simulating 2e. I found that with several of the variants from the 3.0 DMG and Unearthed Arcana it does a pretty good job of capturing 2e how I ran it. Throw in a couple of additional house rules regarding equipment and spell recovery and two or three third party products (if one used Complete Psionicist and PO:Combat and Tactics (PO: Spells and Magic can be handled with 3.0 DMG variant spell lists and/or Unearthed Arcana)) and it does a very good job except for multiclassing.

I'm sure that there are individual exceptions all over the place. I even pointed out one, in that some of the ways that Basic were played were decently simulated by 1E or 2E. I personally find it very easy to simulate most of Basic with 4E (and the parts where it differs are features, not bugs, for me). So I'm sure that 3E did a good job of simulating the way you played 2E, just as you said.

If you look at 2E as a whole, and all the ways it was played, 3E does a lousy job of simulating it.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think using hard(er) checks makes sense when it's just a check, but in the context of a skill challenge, not so much.

It's trivially easy to accrue 3 failures if the numbers are too hard. I don't think it is the intent to make every skill challenge result in failure. Much the same as they are not all supposed to be "won".

Agreed.

I'm not sure what you expect from the skill challenge DCs. If, as a DM, you feel they are trivially easy at-level, you can always go higher up the chart.

How often do you feel PCs should be passing checks? Keep in mind that players who focus for a skill should be good at that skill. If even they must struggle to pull out a success in a skill challenge, those who didn't focus are just plain doomed to auto-fail.

I think the answer is different based on complexity.

Let's assume that the PCs have an average of 80% chance (good in my chart) in an all Medium DC challenge. Some could easily be at that 100% level, but others might be at 65%. That's actually a relatively conservative percentage since virtually no players would attempt it with a rating of ok or lower.

We won't add to this percentage due to Aid Another, but AA (and multiple AAs for a single roll) would be a fairly decent boost as well.

Complexity 1: 90% (calculated)
Complexity 2: 80% (calculated)
Complexity 3: 67% (rough guess)
Complexity 4: 50% (rough guess)
Complexity 5: 30% (rough guess)

DMs might not realize it, but the Complexity 4 and 5 checks are pretty much designed to be lost as often or more than they are won in this scenario.

But, players are adaptable as well. They will use Aid Another and Skill Powers and acquire items to increase their chances.

So, it's not unlikely for players to win Medium DC skill challenges a good 80+ or more percent of the time for Complexity 3 or lower. Complexity 1 is probably often close to 100%.

But, not all SCs are Medium only. Some have Easy, Medium, and Hard DC elements. The odds of winning these are probably higher because many players will attempt the Hard DC skill rarely and will attempt the Easy DCs if they think their odds at Medium DCs are low.

And, the penalty for losing skill challenges is often not that severe. Combat often has severe penalities for losing. SCs, not so much.


So, I think that WotC should give DMs a rough rule of thumb when using Hard DC skill challenges and also warn them about Complexity 5 challenges.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Agreed.

Hey! We're on the same page for once!

I think the answer is different based on complexity.

Let's assume that the PCs have an average of 80% chance (good in my chart) in an all Medium DC challenge. Some could easily be at that 100% level, but others might be at 65%. That's actually a relatively conservative percentage since virtually no players would attempt it with a rating of ok or lower.

We won't add to this percentage due to Aid Another, but AA (and multiple AAs for a single roll) would be a fairly decent boost as well.

Complexity 1: 90% (calculated)
Complexity 2: 80% (calculated)
Complexity 3: 67% (rough guess)
Complexity 4: 50% (rough guess)
Complexity 5: 30% (rough guess)

DMs might not realize it, but the Complexity 4 and 5 checks are pretty much designed to be lost as often or more than they are won in this scenario.

But, players are adaptable as well. They will use Aid Another and Skill Powers and acquire items to increase their chances.

So, it's not unlikely for players to win Medium DC skill challenges a good 80+ or more percent of the time for Complexity 3 or lower. Complexity 1 is probably often close to 100%.

But, not all SCs are Medium only. Some have Easy, Medium, and Hard DC elements. The odds of winning these are probably higher because many players will attempt the Hard DC skill rarely and will attempt the Easy DCs if they think their odds at Medium DCs are low.

And, the penalty for losing skill challenges is often not that severe. Combat often has severe penalities for losing. SCs, not so much.


So, I think that WotC should give DMs a rough rule of thumb when using Hard DC skill challenges and also warn them about Complexity 5 challenges.

Yeah, that seems fair. Given that the "penalty" for failure is not usually that severe, and you are still supposed to award XP for completing the SC, successful or not, I don't find those numbers to be terribly unreasonable.

And I also agree that for something that is supposed to be a major game mechanic and feature prominently in some modules and adventures, there needs to be more guidelines set forth in the DM books.

I mean, they tired to offset the difficulty of higher complexity challenges by providing Advantages, and threw out a couple rough guidelines for using them, but I don't think they went far enough in that regard, especially where it concerns how to use them.

I think another thing that could have helped SCs a lot would have been to encourage more "auto-success" scenarios that don't rely on dice rolls (necessarily). For example, if players do x, then it contributes an auto-success. It encourages them to think. If someone is clueless, you might have them roll, then drop a hint about the auto-success trigger, but don't give it away with just a roll.

I see a lot more auto-fail conditions (usually Intimidate), which is fair enough sometimes, but this doesn't encourage thinking your way through as much, it just feels like punishing someone for trying to contribute (even if it is admittedly a dumb idea they came up with). I think that's the wrong approach, personally.

 

[theNater]

I wanted to give an option that might help you rationalize this:

* Why can I only do this mundane (if highly skilled) move once an encounter or once a day - it makes no sense. If it is situational, tell me the situation even if it is really situational (target granting combat advantage, is immobilized and I get a critical) rather than giving me a bland once an encounter/day. For magical instances, encounters and dailies can be a little more suitable but other times are just as bad.

The situation is that the target must react in precisely the wrong way to a particular kind of feint your character makes. It is rare enough that a target will react that way to make rolling for it impractical, and DM fiat runs the risk of being(or even seeming) biased. So player fiat determines when the target does that, with a restriction to keep the player from abusing it.

Does that help, with attack powers at least?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Eh.

Powers aren't really meant to be a "simulationist" thing, no more then barbarian rages or paladin smites per day were.

 

[Dannager]

I wanted to give an option that might help you rationalize this:

The situation is that the target must react in precisely the wrong way to a particular kind of feint your character makes. It is rare enough that a target will react that way to make rolling for it impractical, and DM fiat runs the risk of being(or even seeming) biased. So player fiat determines when the target does that, with a restriction to keep the player from abusing it.

Does that help, with attack powers at least?

No matter how many times you explain how the abstraction can be easily translated into a narrative element, it's not going to change anything. They don't want to accept that this is what the system was designed for.

 

[theNater]

Eh.

Powers aren't really meant to be a "simulationist" thing, no more then barbarian rages or paladin smites per day were.

I know, but I like coming up with justifications for things. As a fun mental exercise.

No matter how many times you explain how the abstraction can be easily translated into a narrative element, it's not going to change anything. They don't want to accept that this is what the system was designed for.

Herremann the Wise did ask. And I've actually seen(in rare cases) people respond to a justification they hadn't heard before, or even just a rephrasing of one they had.

You can never tell what'll click for somebody.

 

[pemerton]

I think using hard(er) checks makes sense when it's just a check, but in the context of a skill challenge, not so much.

It's trivially easy to accrue 3 failures if the numbers are too hard. I don't think it is the intent to make every skill challenge result in failure. Much the same as they are not all supposed to be "won".

I think most skill challenges should have a chance of success at least comparable to that of most combats - that is, pretty good.

For a complex challenges, this requires that the players be able to make their way through it with most checks close to autosuccess.

And I also agree that for something that is supposed to be a major game mechanic and feature prominently in some modules and adventures, there needs to be more guidelines set forth in the DM books.

Yes. It's the most glaringly weak part of the rulebooks. And the RC has even less guidance than the PHB + DMG + DMG2, which is a bizarre step backwards. Does WotC think SCs are a serious part of the game or not?