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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aoirorentsu" data-source="post: 5302932" data-attributes="member: 60129">Hi everyone,First off, thanks for the XPs and the comments.  Jhaelen and I will have to have a sort of Old Master vs. New Upstart battle for supremacy, which will start something like this.Aoi: when I started my own DC-crunching thread I was but a learner, now I am the MasterJhaelen: number-crunch me down, and I shall become more powerful than you can imagine.And then we'll both remember we're just trying to figure out DCs that some people completely disregard and everyone will know here in a matter of weeks, so it's all silly anyway <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    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.  ANYWHO, I do like these DCs better.  Under the previous DC system, I have never seen a group fail a skill challenge without rolling truly horribly, in which case it's the d20's fault anyway and the d20 should really know better.  Having each individual check be a bit more challenging (and Hard checks truly Hard from a mathematical standpoint) has some interesting effects on the game. For example, when assigning attributes, the 18/14/11/10/10/8 array may not be such a good idea.  You'd have to think about the marginal benefit of each additional degree of specialization.  Maybe 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 or whatever is better over the long run because you'll have some decent mods for untrained skill checks.As for how often a group "should" fail a skill challenge, that of course is somewhat arbitrary.  Personally, for the reasons others have cited (less deadly repercussions of failure & interesting complications with failure chief among them), I was glad to see the DCs get a bit of a boost, particularly the Easy and Hard DCs (which were meaningless and just inaccurate, respectively).  Also, I think the underlying math as discussed by Joshua Randall is a bit more sound and consistent than the previous numbers.The big thing that I think is missing from skill challenge creation guidelines is a general outline of when to use which difficulty level for which check.  This of course is necessarily vague to allow variance by situation, type of challenge, etc.   I am close to thinking, as a general principle:- Easy DC checks should provide a +2 bonus to a primary skill check (or check to nullify a failure) or open up a new option for a primary skill (ie, from the Dark Sun campaign setting, using Thievery to steal some clothes at an Easy DC opens up a moderate DC Bluff check to pass off the disguise).- Moderate DC checks in primary skills should primarily award successes in the skill challenge and move the party forward in the story.- Hard DC checks should nullify past failures or award success in the skill challenge or allow for some sort of "bonus" or "mega happy ending" as appropriate to the story.Then, trying to apply this framework might strain verisimilitude in an individual challenge and thus the DM might have to modify DCs under those circumstances.  Of course, "those circumstances" might really mean "all skill challenges" in practice, so these principles may not really work.  But, there you go.  Another question is do you give XP for failed skill challenges.  I say yes, because I like to run SC-heavy games and also like my players to level up occaisionally <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    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> , but how much to give?  Maybe at-challenge-level minion XP per success, plus the normal XP for the challenge if you ultimately succeed?  That will make SCs, particularly high complexity challenges,  provide a lot more XP relative to other aspects of the game (namely, quests and combats), but that's only a bad thing for some people.Sorry for going a bit off-topic on my own thread.Thanks for all the interesting discussion and feedback!</blockquote>

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