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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5745871" data-attributes="member: 42582">A "Save My Game" column earlier this year explicitly canvassed "let it ride" for 4e. And it's something I'm doing my best to implement, together with BW-style "say yes".Skill challenges have a certain degree of "focus scaling" in virtue of the intersection between level and complexity. So if a challenge is harder but minor you can make it slightly higher level but keep the complexity low. Whereas if you want a challenge to be a bigger focus you up the complexity.This doesn't work perfectly, or course. First, there are some odd interactions with the XP rules. Doubling the complexity, for example, doubles the XP. So does holding the complexity constant but going from Level N to Level N+4. My gut feel, though - I'll let someone else verify the maths - is that the chance of succcess is much more severely hit by increasing the level than increasing the complexity.Second, increasing the complexity affects the likelihood of success. I don't think the effect, in actual play, is as severe as it looks when you sit down and do the raw calculations, because in a more complex skill challenge the players will bring more resources to bear (daily powers, utility powers, rituals, encounter powers etc) that will boost their skill rolls, and also will work harder to move the fictional positioning in a way that lets them exploit their advantages (be those mechanical or fictional).But it's still a long way from perfect.I'm not 100% sure that I actively want "combat" to be genericised in D&D, because I'm a bit traditional in that respect - I'm very comfortable with combat being given special mechanical treatment - but I'm not hostile either, and if designers are prepared to do the work I'll happily look at what they come up with.</blockquote>

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