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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Skill Challenges in D&D 3.5
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<blockquote data-quote="Teemu" data-source="post: 7348135" data-attributes="member: 30788"><p>Ok, let’s consider a couple of examples.</p><p></p><p>You have a 3rd-level party with the typical warrior, skill-user, arcane caster, and divine caster. They’re facing a social type skill challenge where the most relevant skills would be things like Bluff, Diplomacy, Perform, Sense Motive, and maybe some Knowledge skills. A 3rd-level PC’s best skills would probably range from about +8 to +14 (7 ranks, +1 to +4 ability modifier, synergies, possible skill boosting feats), and their worst skills would be anywhere from -1 to +4. </p><p></p><p>Let’s assume the appropriately challenging skill challenge uses DC 15 as the baseline for “moderate” checks (or whatever word you want to assign). If you’re good at social skills (skill-user most likely, warrior possibly one and maybe none, casters could have one or two), you’re going to pass those checks about 70% to 100% of the time, and if you’re bad at them, you have about 25% to 50% chance of succeeding on the checks. And if you’ve put some ranks and maybe have an okay modifier, it’s anywhere between those probabilities. </p><p></p><p>That’s a fairly balanced range of successes there. Obviously the best social adepts will be trying to make most of the checks, but even if your character lacks pertinent skills, you could still roll well and contribute to the challenge.</p><p></p><p>Let’s suppose a higher level party, this time at level 9 with the same group. A level 9 character’s best skills could range from about +13 to +29 (12 ranks, +1 to +6 ability modifier [items, leveling], synergies, feats, class features, magic items, etc.), and their worst skills would still be around -1 to +6 (ability boosting magic items more likely). </p><p></p><p>How do you keep the characters with no relevant skill training active in the skill challenge? What’s a good “moderate” DC that’ll keep the best from auto-succeeding yet still offer some chance of success to the non-specialist? DC 15 is pretty okay for the untrained ones, as they can succeed on a good roll – but it’s absolutely trivial to the characters who specialize in those skills. DC 25 would be a lot better considering the skill bonuses of the PCs who’re good at social challenges, but then the characters with no or few ranks in the relevant skills would either never succeed or have about a 5% to 10% chance of success. </p><p></p><p>The same party at level 15 would have characters that can never succeed on skill checks that the other party members auto-succeed.</p><p></p><p>Hence, it’s nigh-impossible to set the skill check DCs in a 3.5 skill challenge. At low levels it works pretty well, but the more levels the party gains, the more difficult it becomes to create appropriate challenges.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Teemu, post: 7348135, member: 30788"] Ok, let’s consider a couple of examples. You have a 3rd-level party with the typical warrior, skill-user, arcane caster, and divine caster. They’re facing a social type skill challenge where the most relevant skills would be things like Bluff, Diplomacy, Perform, Sense Motive, and maybe some Knowledge skills. A 3rd-level PC’s best skills would probably range from about +8 to +14 (7 ranks, +1 to +4 ability modifier, synergies, possible skill boosting feats), and their worst skills would be anywhere from -1 to +4. Let’s assume the appropriately challenging skill challenge uses DC 15 as the baseline for “moderate” checks (or whatever word you want to assign). If you’re good at social skills (skill-user most likely, warrior possibly one and maybe none, casters could have one or two), you’re going to pass those checks about 70% to 100% of the time, and if you’re bad at them, you have about 25% to 50% chance of succeeding on the checks. And if you’ve put some ranks and maybe have an okay modifier, it’s anywhere between those probabilities. That’s a fairly balanced range of successes there. Obviously the best social adepts will be trying to make most of the checks, but even if your character lacks pertinent skills, you could still roll well and contribute to the challenge. Let’s suppose a higher level party, this time at level 9 with the same group. A level 9 character’s best skills could range from about +13 to +29 (12 ranks, +1 to +6 ability modifier [items, leveling], synergies, feats, class features, magic items, etc.), and their worst skills would still be around -1 to +6 (ability boosting magic items more likely). How do you keep the characters with no relevant skill training active in the skill challenge? What’s a good “moderate” DC that’ll keep the best from auto-succeeding yet still offer some chance of success to the non-specialist? DC 15 is pretty okay for the untrained ones, as they can succeed on a good roll – but it’s absolutely trivial to the characters who specialize in those skills. DC 25 would be a lot better considering the skill bonuses of the PCs who’re good at social challenges, but then the characters with no or few ranks in the relevant skills would either never succeed or have about a 5% to 10% chance of success. The same party at level 15 would have characters that can never succeed on skill checks that the other party members auto-succeed. Hence, it’s nigh-impossible to set the skill check DCs in a 3.5 skill challenge. At low levels it works pretty well, but the more levels the party gains, the more difficult it becomes to create appropriate challenges. [/QUOTE]
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