Rob's Simple Skill Challenge Rules.
1) All skill rolls for a skill challenge should have a DC equal to 15 + level/2. For example, a level 4 challenge should have skill DCs of 15+4/2 = DC 17. The level/2 rule is everywhere in DnD so why not here? In fact, as a general rule you can set any skill DC as follows. Easy DC = 10 + level/2, Avg DC = 15 + level/2, Hard DC = 20 + level/2. The key here is that Skill challenges should always target an Average DC and I will explain why in a moment. All mention of levels here is in relation to the level of the challenge NOT necessarily the level of the characters. Treat a skill challenge just like an encounter. A Level 2 skill challenge would be appropriate wherever you would place a level 2 monster encounter. Treat complexity as you would the NUMBER of monsters in a particular level challenge. Therefore, a Level 2 Skill Challenge of complexity 5 would be the same experience value as a Level 2 Combat encounter with 5 level 2 monsters.
2) Use the following chart to calculate the number of successes and failures for a particular skill challenge.
Notice that this is significantly lower success requirements that the DMG calls for. This distribution along with the DC guidelines above produces skill challenges that approximate the same success / failure rates of a similar level Combat Encounter.
3) The best way to adjust the difficulty of a skill challenge is to do the same thing you do in a combat challenge. Increase the level of the challenge rather than changing the base DCs from Avg to Easy or Hard. This has the added benefit of making it real easy to figure out the appropriate XP award. Just award the players the XP for the skill level you chose. Simple. As an example, a party of 5 level 4 characters could reasonably tackle a Level 6 complexity 5 skill challenge (about a 65% success rate) and if they succeed they should be awarded the same XP as if they defeated 5 level 6 monsters.
Now, here is why changing the DC from Easy to Avg to Hard is a no no for skill challenges. The standard difference between these is 5 points... thats 10 LEVELS of difference from the characters perspective. So, a level 1 HARD challenge is the same difficulty as a level 21 EASY challenge. (That's EPIC level folks.. not good for the noobs) or level 11 AVERAGE challenge. Needless to say, using Easy / Average / Hard DCs is NOT the way to balance a skill challenge. Its much better to stick with Average and adjust the challenge level instead of the DC numbers.
Also be aware that every +1 bonus or penalty is equivalent to 2 levels of challenge difficulty. Try and keep the bonuses to +2 / -2 for situational bonuses and keep the assist others down to a maximum of 2 other players (if it makes sense to do so. Some skill rolls may not make any sense to have assist others available).
The Files
The RTF file is basically the same as what I just wrote above. Only prettier and I have included some statistics charts with % success rates for various scenarios.
The XLS file has the calculations I used. Its Office 2003 format. First tab has the general DMG skill challenges numbers. The second tab has the workup on the numbers I came up with.
Rob.
1) All skill rolls for a skill challenge should have a DC equal to 15 + level/2. For example, a level 4 challenge should have skill DCs of 15+4/2 = DC 17. The level/2 rule is everywhere in DnD so why not here? In fact, as a general rule you can set any skill DC as follows. Easy DC = 10 + level/2, Avg DC = 15 + level/2, Hard DC = 20 + level/2. The key here is that Skill challenges should always target an Average DC and I will explain why in a moment. All mention of levels here is in relation to the level of the challenge NOT necessarily the level of the characters. Treat a skill challenge just like an encounter. A Level 2 skill challenge would be appropriate wherever you would place a level 2 monster encounter. Treat complexity as you would the NUMBER of monsters in a particular level challenge. Therefore, a Level 2 Skill Challenge of complexity 5 would be the same experience value as a Level 2 Combat encounter with 5 level 2 monsters.
2) Use the following chart to calculate the number of successes and failures for a particular skill challenge.
Code:
Complexity Successes Failures
1 4 3
2 5 3
3 6 3
4 7 3
5 8 33) The best way to adjust the difficulty of a skill challenge is to do the same thing you do in a combat challenge. Increase the level of the challenge rather than changing the base DCs from Avg to Easy or Hard. This has the added benefit of making it real easy to figure out the appropriate XP award. Just award the players the XP for the skill level you chose. Simple. As an example, a party of 5 level 4 characters could reasonably tackle a Level 6 complexity 5 skill challenge (about a 65% success rate) and if they succeed they should be awarded the same XP as if they defeated 5 level 6 monsters.
Now, here is why changing the DC from Easy to Avg to Hard is a no no for skill challenges. The standard difference between these is 5 points... thats 10 LEVELS of difference from the characters perspective. So, a level 1 HARD challenge is the same difficulty as a level 21 EASY challenge. (That's EPIC level folks.. not good for the noobs) or level 11 AVERAGE challenge. Needless to say, using Easy / Average / Hard DCs is NOT the way to balance a skill challenge. Its much better to stick with Average and adjust the challenge level instead of the DC numbers.
Also be aware that every +1 bonus or penalty is equivalent to 2 levels of challenge difficulty. Try and keep the bonuses to +2 / -2 for situational bonuses and keep the assist others down to a maximum of 2 other players (if it makes sense to do so. Some skill rolls may not make any sense to have assist others available).
The Files
The RTF file is basically the same as what I just wrote above. Only prettier and I have included some statistics charts with % success rates for various scenarios.
The XLS file has the calculations I used. Its Office 2003 format. First tab has the general DMG skill challenges numbers. The second tab has the workup on the numbers I came up with.
Rob.
