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Fair enough. I don't think there is anything mechanically about 5e that would inherently prohibit going into "cinematic skill challenge mode" if the table wanted that in their game though. PF2e for instance would be a harder to do this in IMO because skills are much more explicitly defined...

Agreed. A lot of the WotC skill challenges had poor consequences/stakes. I'm pretty convinced that skill challenges should only be used when there are meaningful narrative consequence with some teeth. So you don't make it to the village you care about in time and it's sacked, you lose the...

Why do you prefer a different approach if you liked them in 4e? Seems like the 5e skill system is just as abstract (maybe more) then 4e and that it would work just as well with skill challenges (pending the right DCs)? I certainly understand not always using skill challenges as I think they...

It's likely different to serve it's purpose within the skill challenge and have the math work. On purpose-- The way I run skill challanges is in "cinematic mode". Different than combat enounter mode or general exploration mode. Skill checks represent "strategy actions" that get you...

As far as I know 5e doesn't include Skill Challenges which is what this thread is about? It's the math for single checks?

This is just ability mod + proficiency right? I have to admit I haven't been keeping up with all the 5e material. Is it still true that there are not many ways to increase these numbers with magic items and spells like Guidance and Skill Empowerment? Or are they more prevelent now? At what...

The DCs just need to be lowered. I'm trying to figure out by how much. Skill challenges are an abstraction anyway, so doesn't matter to me that they use a different scale than single checks.

Yeah, it may work well for single checks, but DCs likely need to be adjusted in a multi check encounter resolution system like traditional 4e skill challenges (X success before Y failures) and Obsidian skill challenges (at least X successes in 3 rounds). Hence knowing the underlying average /...

Has anyone done/seen a chart with average skill modifiers by level for a 5e character that has invested in a skill and not? How much can you expect to improve on the base from there in an encounter (through spells, etc.) if you decide to use resources? I am trying to run some 4e type skill...

Curious why you think PF2e is a better match than 4e? I think I agree as well, but can't quite put my finger on why I feel like that. Zeitgiest is certainly the best 4e adventure I have seen by a long measure as it really leans hard into all 4e strengths -- integration of Themes, heroic...

It's not just Hope. Most modifiers are now adding / subtracting d6. d6 is just such a chunky mechanism. It can be a ~20-25 percentage change in success per die! Or at the high ends, it ends up mattering much less/ not at all. The dice pool probability curve in 1e has the same...

Skill Endeavour / Council rules have broken math in that with higher dice pools it is actually easier to do supposedly harder (longer) challenges. Also the sweet spot of these challenges is fairly narrow so you can easily end up with very small odds or virtually automatic odds depending on the...

SoT is better but I think they are still a little trapped in prior addition thinking. SoT tends to have 3 types of set ups as far as I can tell: 1) non combat situations where you get some xp but often just 1 combat worth. These are fairly frequent but you could easily just up the XP and cut...

One of the benefits is that you can on rare occasion and for a change of pace have circumstances where there is a true doom clock and you can't take the 5 min. The default though is that most of the time you can.

I like 5 min short rests max 2, because you can narratively force it so you can't rest once in a while for a change of pace if you really want to -- back to back encounters, extreme time pressure. Another is you get short rest abilities x 3 (and sometimes can only spend up to 1/3 in a single...

So this is similar to O5e BM and others. So I'd say the issue is still there to some extent. Some mitigating factors for A5e mentioned in this thread though include: better encounter building so you can really challenge a party with lower expected encounters per day, say 2 or 3 encounters...

I've read the through the rules, but because there are so many tweaks, some very subtle, and no summary of differences it's kind of hard to easily digest the implications. Sort of the point of the OP! But in this case, I was more hoping for people that understand this issue in O5e and were...

Completely agree. The system should support all variety of adventuring days. It's a flaw in O5e that doesn't exist in 4e, 13th Age, and PF2e. 4e - is balanced around the encounter. Short rests are 5min and should be easy to take. all classes pre-essential share the same encounter...

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, this is a seperate issue, these power builds that exploit short rests. I'm interested in the dynamic of short rest abilities vs. long rest abilities on adventure pacing and relative power depending on the pacing. This is usually an issue of not getting enough...

Great maps! Love creating something out of old maps. Just make sure to 4e them -- don't put a full combat encounter for every numbered room, link together multiple encounter budgets across rooms so that when they are alerted they combine to form 1 encounter, etc.