Skill Challenges for Dummies

[AidyBaby]

For the skeptics, I would be interested if any of you have actually tried running a number of skill challenges? It would be interesting to see how many groups have won the KotSF skill challenge add-on with the pregens at 3rd level (where they would be in level for the challenge). Presumably this is a reasonably 'default' party with appropriate gear (once they'd beaten the keeps denizens) and utility powers to make this skill challenge winnable to a reasonable success rate.

Personally, if an important skill challenge doesn't have a success rate of around 75%, I would dismiss it as unsuitable. Having half the failures to successes is where the whole system goes belly up.

 

[Harr]

For the skeptics, I would be interested if any of you have actually tried running a number of skill challenges? It would be interesting to see how many groups have won the KotSF skill challenge add-on with the pregens at 3rd level (where they would be in level for the challenge).

I have not played with KotSF skill challenge (still in the middle of the module), but I have run over 40 challenges in steadily closer-to-RAW variations since hearing about them from random DDXP rumors.

I can tell you as someone who is commited to remaining as true to the written and intended RAW as humanly possible in my games that if you want your challenges to remain dynamic and fun, it quickly becomes second nature to throw the DC and Complexities tables out the window and ad-lib it to where you know each check is having some 60%-70% chance (not hard if you keep a secret list of the party's skill bonuses ordered from largest to smallest) and playing it simply to where the general feeling is obvious that the challenge itself is met or not.

I love challenges, they revolutionized my games into something completely different. The actual DMG numbers... not so much.

 

[Spatula]

For the skeptics, I would be interested if any of you have actually tried running a number of skill challenges? It would be interesting to see how many groups have won the KotSF skill challenge add-on with the pregens at 3rd level (where they would be in level for the challenge). Presumably this is a reasonably 'default' party with appropriate gear (once they'd beaten the keeps denizens) and utility powers to make this skill challenge winnable to a reasonable success rate.

The wizard has a 45% chance to beat the arcana & religion DCs. Failing those checks will get you zapped for necrotic damage. The cleric has a 25% chance to beat those checks, the paladin has a 25% chance for the religion check (no chance on the Arcana), and the warlord has 20% for either. The other characters cannot beat the DCs.

The cleric has a 60% chance to make the Heal check, the paladin 50%, everyone else is 20-30%. This costs you healing surges and can only be done successfully twice.

The fighter has a 70% chance of making the Endurance checks, but they don't count towards anything. They just let the person take the damage from a failed arcana/religion check instead of the person who made the roll. The other characters have a 20-30% chance to make the Endurance check if they want the damage instead.

The challenge calls for 8 successs before 4 failures. It looks to be impossible. I'm not sure why it's using the 4th-6th level DCs when the PCs are only supposed to be 3rd level at that point (I believe).

 

[Leatherhead]

The original quote was concerned with a 50% failure rate yet never bothered with reading into the design of 4e as described in PHB, DMG, Races and Classes or Worlds and Monsters, which explicited stated that Items and Powers are part of every facet in 4e design.

You say this, but I seem to remember the exact opposite.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't one of the original design intentions of 4E to remove magic item dependency outside of weapon/armor/amulet?

Also could you point me to the parts of the books that say this?

 

[Harr]

The preview books actually celebrated and revelled in the fact that characters were NOT dependent or reliant on their items. Or at least to a much lesser degree than 3e. It was in fact one of the major selling points of 4e-preview marketing.

No offense to anyone of course, but I find that when someone uses the phrasing "explicitly something-something" in general it signifies that they have just a vague idea of that something-something and are relying on their 'declaration of explicitness' to cow other people from prodding them too much on it Given the OP's other general "I want to intimidate you"-type asides (neatly quoted-out in Plane Sailing's post #46) I have little doubt that this is in the ballpark what he was trying to do here. But hey, we all do what we can to win our point, after all.

 

[IceBear]

I'm not sure why it's using the 4th-6th level DCs when the PCs are only supposed to be 3rd level at that point (I believe).

Well, they do say it's a 6th level challenge. I suspect it's so high because if it was a 3rd level challenge it would be a lot easier than actually defeating the enemies in the final encounter.

 

[AidyBaby]

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't one of the original design intentions of 4E to remove magic item dependency outside of weapon/armor/amulet?

This has been bothering me. 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 crushing 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, surely the naysayers pointing to skill bonus items being one of the counters to the broken skill challenge argument is incorrect. I want transparency in the game., I want to know that an easy skill challenge will be easy for PCs and that hard challenges will be hard in the game. I don't want to discover during play that all challenges are next to impossible and are only marginally beatable if I have all the items I'm supposed not to need and I'm super buffed to boot!