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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4620177" data-attributes="member: 710">But this is the cure, not the prevention! Trying to go online and ask someone else what you should play to not be gimped doesn't sound like an elegant method to me.One big advantage is: &quot;Predictability&quot; or the ability to determine the difficulty of the skill challenge. There is a big difference between a 3.5 Rogue with maxed ranks in Search, the same Rogue with a +5 bonus item, and a Int 8 Barbarian with no ranks. And the differences grow with level. I suppose a DM might be able to gather what skill modifiers are in play and can determine appropriate modifiers, but adventure designers are less lucky. The worst part of the difference growth is that at some (unknown!) point, the d20 cannot overcome the difference. The Level 10 Barbarian with his -1 modifier and the Rogue with his +23 (+2 Int, +3 skill focus, 13 ranks, +5 item)&nbsp; modifier. (I think from the d20 based games, only Starwars Saga edition &quot;fixed&quot; this before 4E.) Skill Challenges are designed as a group challenge (more like a combat then a trap). Many classes in 3E are &quot;gimped&quot; regarding social, perception or knowledge skills. If you do something in that area, it's easy to achieve a point where a character can't contribute. I don't think that's the simplest route yet. Because you still have to pick those feats and magic items. The simplest route would be eyeballing &quot;what would he need for stats&quot;. That gets a lot easier if there was a list of expected stats by level. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4620177, member: 710"] But this is the cure, not the prevention! Trying to go online and ask someone else what you should play to not be gimped doesn't sound like an elegant method to me. One big advantage is: "Predictability" or the ability to determine the difficulty of the skill challenge. There is a big difference between a 3.5 Rogue with maxed ranks in Search, the same Rogue with a +5 bonus item, and a Int 8 Barbarian with no ranks. And the differences grow with level. I suppose a DM might be able to gather what skill modifiers are in play and can determine appropriate modifiers, but adventure designers are less lucky. The worst part of the difference growth is that at some (unknown!) point, the d20 cannot overcome the difference. The Level 10 Barbarian with his -1 modifier and the Rogue with his +23 (+2 Int, +3 skill focus, 13 ranks, +5 item) modifier. (I think from the d20 based games, only Starwars Saga edition "fixed" this before 4E.) Skill Challenges are designed as a group challenge (more like a combat then a trap). Many classes in 3E are "gimped" regarding social, perception or knowledge skills. If you do something in that area, it's easy to achieve a point where a character can't contribute. I don't think that's the simplest route yet. Because you still have to pick those feats and magic items. The simplest route would be eyeballing "what would he need for stats". That gets a lot easier if there was a list of expected stats by level. ;) [/QUOTE]

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