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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7748739" data-attributes="member: 6873517">It's a delicate balance to strike. I get why WotC tried to &quot;DM Proof&quot; things and I do support having robust systems as opposed to no systems at all, but 3.X and 4E often went way too far. I think I said this elsewhere but I do like the idea of the skill challenge as a way to make non-combat more interesting. Unfortunately what often happened in play was that Skill Challenges turned into a &quot;OK time to go around the table&quot; in a fashion that felt very mechanical, which I think was one of the overall problems of lots of defined powers. I tended to find it more subtle not to tell the players that they were in a Skill Challenge and just occasionally call for rolls, keeping track of successes and failures. It kept things less mechanical and more oriented on the RP. In terms of combat I think 5E has mostly gotten it right, but I think some of the numbers in Skills and Saves are off---DCs are often too high---and I'd definitely like a bit more definition in terms of Skills, with more use of Y successes before X failures, which mimics the hit point mechanic. The save system would also benefit from having partial successes determined by having to make multiple saves. For instance, a spell that requires two saves, one to avoid damage and one to avoid a special effect, for instance, or two different types of damage. A good example might be Prismatic Spray, which as it stands is kind of underwhelming, whereas the 4E version was pretty cool because it attacked multiple defenses. That lets DCs and bonuses stay lower. I tended to find that we played 4E pretty close to RAW with way fewer changes than had ever been the case in prior games. Part of that was played inclination but a lot was how intricate things were. It was hard to hack.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7748739, member: 6873517"] It's a delicate balance to strike. I get why WotC tried to "DM Proof" things and I do support having robust systems as opposed to no systems at all, but 3.X and 4E often went way too far. I think I said this elsewhere but I do like the idea of the skill challenge as a way to make non-combat more interesting. Unfortunately what often happened in play was that Skill Challenges turned into a "OK time to go around the table" in a fashion that [I]felt[/I] very mechanical, which I think was one of the overall problems of lots of defined powers. I tended to find it more subtle not to tell the players that they were in a Skill Challenge and just occasionally call for rolls, keeping track of successes and failures. It kept things less mechanical and more oriented on the RP. In terms of combat I think 5E has mostly gotten it right, but I think some of the numbers in Skills and Saves are off---DCs are often too high---and I'd definitely like a bit more definition in terms of Skills, with more use of Y successes before X failures, which mimics the hit point mechanic. The save system would also benefit from having partial successes determined by having to make multiple saves. For instance, a spell that requires two saves, one to avoid damage and one to avoid a special effect, for instance, or two different types of damage. A good example might be [I]Prismatic Spray[/I], which as it stands is kind of underwhelming, whereas the 4E version was pretty cool because it attacked multiple defenses. That lets DCs and bonuses stay lower. I tended to find that we played 4E pretty close to RAW with way fewer changes than had ever been the case in prior games. Part of that was played inclination but a lot was how intricate things were. It was hard to hack. [/QUOTE]

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