Two Example Skill Challenges

[Vaeron]

No, I'm not looking at it from a "3.5 perspective"...I'm looking at it from a logical perspective. Even if a PC has a 10% greater chance (2 points higher than another) it still makes more sense to let him try to amass 4 successes at 70% than for me to try and get one or two at 60%...it's plain probability. He has a better chance of not amassing a failure than I do. That has nothing to do with 3.x, it's about math.

As to your second point...those skills won't necessarily apply to the situation so it is still possible a PC doesn't have a way to deal with the situation through his "good" skills. And it still does nothing to solve the question of why the highest ranked in appropriate skills shouldn't make all the rolls so that failure is minimized.

The last paragraph is (if true) a very heavy handed way of slapping a band-aid on the whole "spotlight on one character" problem they were trying to fix.

In Escape from Sembia, a skill challenge was shifting a very heavy bookcase in front of a door. The two strongest characters got to be "in the spotlight", with two other characters providing an assist. Kathra easily made her skill check, but Riardon failed his. Riardon's assistant failed theirs, providing no bonus, though Kathra's succeeded. One success, one failure. The bookcase only partially obstructed the door, buying the PC's 1 round of time. However, it took a round for them to accomplish this. The net gain? A wash.

Skill Challenges can be dialogue based, trap based, strength based, perception based... There's plenty of opportunities for everyone to be in the spotlight. I think you're mistaken in your belief that 4e attempts to remove possibility for characters to be in the spotlight. That would be bad game design. Players like it when their characters pull something impressive off.

 

[Asmor]

I like it in concept, but as others have noted, mathematically speaking the optimal choice is for the single best PC to make all the rolls. This could potentially be aleviated somewhat by requiring different types of rolls, such as a Thievery roll, Athletics roll, Knowledge Arcane roll, and Knowledge Religion roll, but that seems to be negating one of the cooler aspects of the skill challenges (i.e. that people can basically decide how they're helping, instead of being told what they have to do to help).

The first example, with the crushing stone wall, seems particularly egregious. The best thing for the PCs to do is let the skill monkey sit there for a minute or two and make all the rolls. Even more bizarrely, if the fighter tries to hold the wall back and fails, his failure essentially "speeds the wall up" so that the end comes sooner than if he'd never tried in the first place.

In this case, I think a flat time limit would be the best option, with no general penalty for success or failure.

For example, give the PCs 4 turns before they're crushed to death. They need 5 successes.

Round 1: Notice (success), thievery (2 successes). 3 rounds left.
Round 2: Knowledge (3 successes), thievery-- failure, accidentally speeding up the trap so they lose a round. 1 round left.
Round 3: Thievery (4 successes), Athleticism (push back wall, not adding successes but gaining a round). 1 round left.
Round 4: Notice (5 successes, see trap door, escape just before the rock wall crunches everyone).

Then there's the cases where it doesn't make sense to have a time limit (at least, not one measured in 6-second rounds). In those cases, I think a failure threshhold makes more sense.

 

[Imaro]

In Escape from Sembia, a skill challenge was shifting a very heavy bookcase in front of a door. The two strongest characters got to be "in the spotlight", with two other characters providing an assist. Kathra easily made her skill check, but Riardon failed his. Riardon's assistant failed theirs, providing no bonus, though Kathra's succeeded. One success, one failure. The bookcase only partially obstructed the door, buying the PC's 1 round of time. However, it took a round for them to accomplish this. The net gain? A wash.

Skill Challenges can be dialogue based, trap based, strength based, perception based... There's plenty of opportunities for everyone to be in the spotlight. I think you're mistaken in your belief that 4e attempts to remove possibility for characters to be in the spotlight. That would be bad game design. Players like it when their characters pull something impressive off.

I was under the impression that one of the goals of the new skill system was to eliminate the everyone stand around while the rogue disarms a trap complaint (of which I will note was never a big deal to me). The only thing I see happening (from the way you and Delgar described skills) is that aid another is being used by other characters. Am I missing something...what's the difference?

 

[Propheous_D]

No, I'm not looking at it from a "3.5 perspective"...I'm looking at it from a logical perspective. Even if a PC has a 10% greater chance (2 points higher than another) it still makes more sense to let him try to amass 4 successes at 70% than for me to try and get one or two at 60%...it's plain probability. He has a better chance of not amassing a failure than I do. That has nothing to do with 3.x, it's about math.
As to your second point...those skills won't necessarily apply to the situation so it is still possible a PC doesn't have a way to deal with the situation through his "good" skills. And it still does nothing to solve the question of why the highest ranked in appropriate skills shouldn't make all the rolls so that failure is minimized.

Correct me if I Am wrong but isn't 4E pretty much removing the whole idea of the skill monkey?

Also, while this work through metagaming, its not that easy to pull off through RP unless the skills come up repeatedly in competitions. Your party will eventually get into a state of "oh I think we should ask bob becuase he knows everything about nature" or "I think Alex could make a jump to the top of the wall", but it doesn't happen overnight. I don't have a sheet that says I am better then you at this and you are 10% better then me at that. I do have my strong points though and I do use them like anyone else.

I would also say that given the flavour and the spirit of 3E vs 4E your attitude of min/max and 10% difference is in the favour of 3E. 4E while it can never get away from your logical arguements, it can present a different package were those goals while valid, may not need to apply. Failing is not all ways a bad thing. Figuring that out is the first step to really enjoying Role-Playing.

 

[Vaeron]

I was under the impression that one of the goals of the new skill system was to eliminate the everyone stand around while the rogue disarms a trap complaint (of which I will note was never a big deal to me). The only thing I see happening (from the way you and Delgar described skills) is that aid another is being used by other characters. Am I missing something...what's the difference?

Well, Kathra was a fighter. Riardon a ranger. The assistants were a paladin and a wizard. While they were pushing the bookcase, the warlock and cleric were getting the back door open so everyone could escape, since a large group of city guards were only 2 rounds away from mobbing them.

No rogues involved. Everyone was doing something. If you don't see how that's different from waiting around for a rogue to disarm a trap, there's nothing I can say that will convince you.

 

[Lacyon]

I like it in concept, but as others have noted, mathematically speaking the optimal choice is for the single best PC to make all the rolls. This could potentially be aleviated somewhat by requiring different types of rolls, such as a Thievery roll, Athletics roll, Knowledge Arcane roll, and Knowledge Religion roll, but that seems to be negating one of the cooler aspects of the skill challenges (i.e. that people can basically decide how they're helping, instead of being told what they have to do to help).

The thing of it is, everyone will have at least a few trained skills, and (presumably) within those skills have a pretty good bonus - if not equal to the highest bonus in the party, at least competitive enough that participating shouldn't feel like a screwjob. So people basically decide how they're helping, instead of being told what they have to do, and as long as they help by attempting something they're good at, there's no reason to stand back and let the skillmonkey solve everything.

In some cases, only a few skills make sense. If you're in a situation where it makes sense to put some time-pressure on, go ahead and use the skill challenges, and let the players know that giving up your action is worth maybe half a failure due to lost time since you're just waiting for other characters to solve instead of pitching in - if you're REALLY bad at all the skills that are useful for the current task, it makes sense to butt out, but otherwise you're still better off participating.

If you're really in a situation where it makes sense for one PC to just keep hammering at the problem with one skill (or a small set of skills that are concentrated on a few PCs), just make a roll or two and move on - no need to bring out the full skill challenge system for that.

 

[hbarsquared]

No, I'm not looking at it from a "3.5 perspective"...I'm looking at it from a logical perspective. Even if a PC has a 10% greater chance (2 points higher than another) it still makes more sense to let him try to amass 4 successes at 70% than for me to try and get one or two at 60%...it's plain probability. He has a better chance of not amassing a failure than I do. That has nothing to do with 3.x, it's about math.

Imaro, you are correct. It is absolutely true, that in some situations there is no reason to not have a particular character "roll all the checks." If the rogue is the only one with training in Thievery, with the highest bonus to that skill, going up against an open lock, why not have the rogue be the only one to roll the check, if the other characters are more likely to result in failures (in comparison to said rogue)?

Here is my response:

1) Go ahead and have the rogue roll all the checks. Or even just consolidate it into one check. Why not? Part of the beauty of 4E's Skill Challenge system is that it still allows for 3.x-style skill checks. If the party doesn't want to deal with a challenge, there is nothing that prevents the rogue from rolling one Thievery check against a static DC.

2) The system is in place for players that want to play. The designers determined that, overall, having the rogue roll one Thievery check to open the door is boring. Having all the players participate, each rolling checks according to their characters, is more fun. Sure, the probabilities might be lower by having all the characters participate in a skill challenge, but it's more fun.

3) The penalties for failure are dramatically reduced, anyway, to allow the players to have more fun with a challenge. Consolidation of skills, more "trained skills," 1/2-level modifiers, stacking effects... All this has helped to create a system where having one character with the highest skill modifier to the single applicable skill will rarely, if ever, happen.

Hope I made sense. That's why the Skill Challenge system works so well.

Oh, and Delgar - You are = You're != Your

 

[Vaeron]

If you're really in a situation where it makes sense for one PC to just keep hammering at the problem with one skill (or a small set of skills that are concentrated on a few PCs), just make a roll or two and move on - no need to bring out the full skill challenge system for that.

Thank you for pointing that out... there's nothing that says anything HAS to be a skill challenge. A rogue can still just disarm a trap, a fighter can still just try to bash down a door. These skill challenges just provide a fun way for the entire party to get involved.

 

[Vaeron]

The problem with letting one character do all the skill checks, as I described in my previous postings, that there is often a time limit to a skill challenge. Being noticed by guards, blocking a door before a baddie can get in. I suppose if you wanted to wait around for 3 rounds while a rogue/fighter/etc. did all the work by themselves you could... But in the case of the first example (the walls closing in) or my example (the city guards only 16 squares away, and running) I don't think that'd be the optimal use of time.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I like it in concept, but as others have noted, mathematically speaking the optimal choice is for the single best PC to make all the rolls. This could potentially be aleviated somewhat by requiring different types of rolls, such as a Thievery roll, Athletics roll, Knowledge Arcane roll, and Knowledge Religion roll, but that seems to be negating one of the cooler aspects of the skill challenges (i.e. that people can basically decide how they're helping, instead of being told what they have to do to help).

The first example, with the crushing stone wall, seems particularly egregious. The best thing for the PCs to do is let the skill monkey sit there for a minute or two and make all the rolls. Even more bizarrely, if the fighter tries to hold the wall back and fails, his failure essentially "speeds the wall up" so that the end comes sooner than if he'd never tried in the first place.

Good point. I suspect that the 4e crew accounted for that, so we may be working with incomplete information.