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Heavy Concrete Data on 4e's Skill Challenge System (long, lots of tables)
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<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4287117" data-attributes="member: 40961"><p>Hmm. I think its pretty clear there's a problem. Specifically, the problem has to do with the fact that a "medium difficulty" on a single d20 roll generates a "very high" difficulty when you have to make many d20 rolls. Even a "low difficulty" on a d20 roll produces a higher than expected difficulty if you have to do it multiple times.</p><p></p><p>That being said, I'll have to look more closely to see if I expect any real problems of my own when using the skill challenges. Take the Negotiation skill challenge from the excerpt. It has 3 skills which are recommended as "moderate," and one which is recommended as "easy." I will almost definitely be granting +2 bonuses for roleplaying, and the use of "aid another" is explicitly noted as a possibility (though not for Diplomacy, which I don't get, I'm assuming that's an oversight since using aid another for bluff makes equal sense as using it for diplomacy). There's also a note that the PCs might carry out tasks to obtain the NPC's favor, which in a way is a free success in the skill challenge.</p><p></p><p>Other skill challenges have similar matters which reduce their difficulty. For example, a skill challenge relating to physical activity is going to end up being a mixture of "easy/moderate/difficult" DCs, and objective DCs from the skill section of the PHB. The objective DCs could either increase or decrease the overall difficulty, but at least they give the players a chance to estimate the difficulty before deciding whether to go that particular route.</p><p></p><p>So... I'll have to read more carefully. It may play acceptably well. But I do agree with the OP that giving the players a bunch of tasks with a 60% chance of success on each individual one, then expecting them to attain 8 successes before 4 failures, is not a good idea at all.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 4287117, member: 40961"] Hmm. I think its pretty clear there's a problem. Specifically, the problem has to do with the fact that a "medium difficulty" on a single d20 roll generates a "very high" difficulty when you have to make many d20 rolls. Even a "low difficulty" on a d20 roll produces a higher than expected difficulty if you have to do it multiple times. That being said, I'll have to look more closely to see if I expect any real problems of my own when using the skill challenges. Take the Negotiation skill challenge from the excerpt. It has 3 skills which are recommended as "moderate," and one which is recommended as "easy." I will almost definitely be granting +2 bonuses for roleplaying, and the use of "aid another" is explicitly noted as a possibility (though not for Diplomacy, which I don't get, I'm assuming that's an oversight since using aid another for bluff makes equal sense as using it for diplomacy). There's also a note that the PCs might carry out tasks to obtain the NPC's favor, which in a way is a free success in the skill challenge. Other skill challenges have similar matters which reduce their difficulty. For example, a skill challenge relating to physical activity is going to end up being a mixture of "easy/moderate/difficult" DCs, and objective DCs from the skill section of the PHB. The objective DCs could either increase or decrease the overall difficulty, but at least they give the players a chance to estimate the difficulty before deciding whether to go that particular route. So... I'll have to read more carefully. It may play acceptably well. But I do agree with the OP that giving the players a bunch of tasks with a 60% chance of success on each individual one, then expecting them to attain 8 successes before 4 failures, is not a good idea at all. [/QUOTE]
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Heavy Concrete Data on 4e's Skill Challenge System (long, lots of tables)
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