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<blockquote data-quote="Spatula" data-source="post: 4289200" data-attributes="member: 2198">Well, they're actually improving their odds from 10-20%, not 50%. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />How you see it all depends on what you want out of skill challenges.&nbsp; The DMG doesn't present a solid explination of what they're supposed to achieve.&nbsp; To me, based on what was said about the system over the past several months, skill challenges are a way to engage the whole party in a skill-based encounter, rather than everyone sitting around while one guy makes his checks.&nbsp; To that end, everyone aiding another for that one guy doesn't change anything.&nbsp; In a way it's worse because it's just busy work for the other players.&nbsp; &quot;Here, make a trivial DC 10 check while someone else does the fun stuff.&quot;&nbsp; That sort of limelight-hogging, I feel, runs very counter to the overall 4e design goals, so I do not think that it's what was intended.&nbsp; I also find it a little bizarre for anyone behind the goals of 4e's design to be sticking up for &quot;everyone get a snack while Joe makes his rolls&quot; gameplay.Naturally if you don't have a problem with using skill challenges like that, then it's a feature.&nbsp; As long as everyone can aid another, anyway, since if a few of them can't they're very likely to fail.&nbsp; &quot;Uh oh, Bob isn't here this week... can we just roll his aid checks for him?&quot;EDIT: just to give a better idea of where I'm coming from, when I think back on the reports from DDXP and other demo games about the Escape from Sembia skill challenge, never once did I hear anyone mention aid another actions being used.&nbsp; Each character was doing something particular to their character in order to advance the group's goal of evading the guards.&nbsp; That formed my impression of what skill challenges are supposed to be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Spatula, post: 4289200, member: 2198"] Well, they're actually improving their odds from 10-20%, not 50%. :) How you see it all depends on what you want out of skill challenges. The DMG doesn't present a solid explination of what they're supposed to achieve. [i]To me[/i], based on what was said about the system over the past several months, skill challenges are a way to engage the whole party in a skill-based encounter, rather than everyone sitting around while one guy makes his checks. To that end, everyone aiding another for that one guy doesn't change anything. In a way it's worse because it's just busy work for the other players. "Here, make a trivial DC 10 check while someone else does the fun stuff." That sort of limelight-hogging, I feel, runs [b]very[/b] counter to the overall 4e design goals, so I do not think that it's what was intended. I also find it a little bizarre for anyone behind the goals of 4e's design to be sticking up for "everyone get a snack while Joe makes his rolls" gameplay. Naturally if you don't have a problem with using skill challenges like that, then it's a feature. As long as everyone can aid another, anyway, since if a few of them can't they're very likely to fail. "Uh oh, Bob isn't here this week... can we just roll his aid checks for him?" EDIT: just to give a better idea of where I'm coming from, when I think back on the reports from DDXP and other demo games about the Escape from Sembia skill challenge, never once did I hear anyone mention aid another actions being used. Each character was doing something particular to their character in order to advance the group's goal of evading the guards. That formed my impression of what skill challenges are supposed to be. [/QUOTE]

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