Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[bardolph]

Tell me what makes it a 4e "skill challenge".

The core mechanic of the 4e skill challenge is the "three strikes and you're out" rule. If the PC's fail 3 times while rolling mission-critical skill checks, it's time for the DM to call it a failure and end the encounter.

It's actually a good guideline to follow. Even if the DM is totally winging it, he knows that 3 failures is the right time to "call in the guards," or invoke whatever penalty appropriate to the situation.

 

[billd91]

Perception can be used at a greater distance than encounter range. Staying vigilant and watching for trouble in the distance can alter your path. Another good reason why "choose your path" as presented by others is too limited. Continuous information could make the characters want to alter the execution of the plan midway.

If that's the way you wanted to make the skill challenge, I suppose. But I wouldn't do it that way. Looking at the example you link to in your sig, I don't think I'd be very satisfied with that skill challenge or that style of skill challenge. It looks to me like a combination of ways to avoid the bandits and simultaneously encounter the bandits with the goal being avoiding trouble and not necessarily avoiding the bandit encounter. The way I'd run a skill challenge would be in avoiding the encounter entirely. If they were then encountered and parley ensured, I might then have a different skill challenge for negotiating through the encounter and avoiding trouble.
The way I see it, these can be two discrete challenges, approached in substantially different ways. And any skill challenge(s) I would come up with would incorporate that. That's why perception would be pretty out for my first challenge, though I can see a place for it in the second if you successfully spot any hidden assets the bandits might be holding in reserve - forcing them to put their cards on the table as it were...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Not if the PCs trek cross country a little way to consult with the farmers a few miles away.

While there may be skill checks involved in doing this, choosing to do this is not a skill check.

If I were to accept your argument at face value, then I would also have to accept that the Grasshopper Bounder was perfectly correct, and it was just your failure of imagination that you could not see this. Likewise, if I tried Swimming, I am sure that there is a way that it could be made relevant, if only one didn't lack the imagination to make it so.

Or, for that matter, Banjo Playing and Nose Picking. What? You don't think Nose Picking is relevant? Shows your lack of imagination.

And, if the PCs go and talk to the farmers or whathaveyou, then their success or failure obviates the need for the skill challenge or does not, in exactly the same way as the scrying example.

Your response, AFAICT, is exactly what Ariosto is talking about.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

@VB:

I didn't disagree; I agreed. SC as a mechanic is best used when the players are unaware of it, and the DM is using it as a rough benchmark. Moreover, it is best used when "skill checks" are played through.

IOW, the less the skill challenge resembles the original presentation, the better it is. I will readily agree that good DMing can trump a bad mechanic.

However, that said, I don't think it is very good even as a rough benchmark, at least not based upon the presentation that I have seen, nor does it seem superior to the mechanics it replaced. What it seems best at is supplying the DM with the illusion of having a good benchmark. This in itself may be useful for some, of course.

OTOH, I haven't read the DMG 2, so perhaps the failure is in the examples I've seen, rather than in the (current) presentation.


RC

 

[billd91]

While there may be skill checks involved in doing this, choosing to do this is not a skill check.

Choosing to do this allows you to use Bluff and Streetwise in the bandit avoidance skill check.

If I were to accept your argument at face value, then I would also have to accept that the Grasshopper Bounder was perfectly correct, and it was just your failure of imagination that you could not see this. Likewise, if I tried Swimming, I am sure that there is a way that it could be made relevant, if only one didn't lack the imagination to make it so.

Or, for that matter, Banjo Playing and Nose Picking. What? You don't think Nose Picking is relevant? Shows your lack of imagination.

And this is just showing the failure of logic in this argument. Being able to imagine a decent way to use a skill in a challenge is not even close to being able to or required to incorporate them all.
There may be ways to use bounding like a grasshopper or banjo/nose picking in certain kinds of skill challenges, particularly ones that involve amusing the fairly easily amused like inbred kings and small children. But avoiding encounters with bandits, probably not. Though I'd be open to using them to amuse the bandits after they were encountered and thus avoiding a fight...

And, if the PCs go and talk to the farmers or whathaveyou, then their success or failure obviates the need for the skill challenge or does not, in exactly the same way as the scrying example.

It would be a piece of the information puzzle - but not necessarily deterministic of success/failure of the skill challenge. The farmer may know something about the bandit behavior from where he's spotted camp fires, how often they seem to move around, but he may not know exactly where they are either. But, putting his information together with what history and nature tell the PCs, they may be able to figure out a best course of action.

 

[bardolph]

Right. Let's play "guessing game". After all, it doesn't really matter what we're doing -- so why should we even know?

"Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic!"
"First you are swathed head to foot in the intestines of fresh killed owls."
"We go to the image expander; there we will explode the ghost to the macroid dimension."
"Until work has reached its previous stage nympharium privileges are denied to all."
"I become drunk as circumstances dictate."

"I rolled an 18!"
"For what?"
"How should I know?"

Hilarious.

Misses my point completely, of course. But funny nonetheless.

My point was that the DM doesn't have to lay the mechanics of the skill challenge out on the table. Take the "City Chase" example from the DMG (or DMG2, I can't remember off-hand), which lists Acrobatics as a key skill. Rather than telling the PCs ahead of time that Acrobatics is one of the skills in the challenge, wait until someone tries to take a short-cut to gain ground on the target, then call for an Acrobatics roll on the spot, recording the success or failure as appropriate.

No, it's not. It's similar to a DM who keeps secret the fact that he's "fudging" or "railroading". Or a DM who's so stoned he has no more idea of what's going on than the players have.

Again, funny, but no.

I can, but I won't. So, make a roll against "lock picking skill" or whatever. What's this got to do with 4e "skill challenges"?

I gave a specific example in the post that you're responding to. Go back and reread it if you'd like to know the answer to your question.

It's not an audition for Masterpiece Theater. I am not eager to sit through a thespian performance by someone whose fantasy is to have social skills -- any more than I want Fat Ninja Boy to demonstrate his character's martial arts technique. I just want to know what in blazes he's talking about. Is he diplomatically offering a large sum of money for a little favor, or is he diplomatically asking for a handout just because ... well, just because? It makes a difference.

Exactly.

If a dice-roll is called for, then the circumstances are going to affect the probabilities of different outcomes.

Again, what has this to do with a 4e "skill challenge"?

It has everything to do with it. Good creative imagination adds a bonus to the roll. This is explicitly stated in the DMG.

Adding quotes around the phrase "skill challenge" doesn't automatically invalidate the mechanics.

I've been playing games with "skill systems" -- starting in my case with Traveller and RuneQuest -- over a span of 30 years. They had nothing to do with a 4e "skill challenge" and I want nothing to do with it.

Clearly.

 

[bardolph]

OTOH, I haven't read the DMG 2, so perhaps the failure is in the examples I've seen, rather than in the (current) presentation.

WotC made a major revision between DMG and DMG2. In the DMG2 version, all complexity levels fail at 3 failures, and the number of successes required for each complexity level are adjusted downwards.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

If that's the way you wanted to make the skill challenge, I suppose. But I wouldn't do it that way. Looking at the example you link to in your sig, I don't think I'd be very satisfied with that skill challenge or that style of skill challenge. It looks to me like a combination of ways to avoid the bandits and simultaneously encounter the bandits with the goal being avoiding trouble and not necessarily avoiding the bandit encounter.

It's a sliding scale skill challenge. Instead of taking place all at once and only being surpassed when the number of successes or failures are reached, it takes place over the course of time and has measured levels of success or failure, not just the absolute win/lose. The inspiration came from a skill challenge in adventure P2 where [sblock]characters who attempt to move through a city of the dead incognito make checks over time based on their plans to blend in, each failure brings on a new penalty, enough successes means they've achieved their goal of trying to move through the city unnoticed.[/sblock]

I just took this further and granted bonuses on successes before reaching the ultimate number of successes.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

WotC made a major revision between DMG and DMG2. In the DMG2 version, all complexity levels fail at 3 failures, and the number of successes required for each complexity level are adjusted downwards.

I think he means the failure of the writer to create good skill challenges. I have to agree there were some stinkers early on, but I've seen nothing but improvement as I continue to see more of them.

 

[billd91]

I've been playing games with "skill systems" -- starting in my case with Traveller and RuneQuest -- over a span of 30 years. They had nothing to do with a 4e "skill challenge" and I want nothing to do with it.

You know, there are a number of multiple-skill situations in Traveller that could easily be presented as skill challenges. My classic Traveller stuff isn't handy, but my MegaTraveller stuff is, so that will be the basis of my examples:

Going into jump space - in MegaTraveller, it takes a navigation check and a couple of engineering checks. Could be combined into a skill challenge.
If we added in getting into orbit and piloting out to 100 diameters we can add a couple more skills to the mix. Too many failures = misjump or a more severe misjump.

Navigating within a star system - based on the Starship Operator's Manual, you can mix piloting, navigation, engineering checks to shave many hours of transit time by pushing the reactors, navigating best routes, and executing them well.

Finding a good speculative cargo - broker, admin, bribery skills could all be used to get a better price, cut through regulations, get special merchant kickbacks.