New DCs for skills

[Ruin Explorer]

I looked for an official Skill Chalange fo KoTS. It's 6 lvl chalange with primary DCs at 22 (in old). With the errata it should be 12. Let's make some calculations. +4 INT +5 Trainded +3 lvl and you already have 12!

Why are you adding +3? That skill challenge occurs when the PCs are level 1 or 2, so it should be +0 or 1. Not all the characters will have appropriate trained skills, or maxed linked attributes, either.

 

[Zsig]

Changing the +5 to a +3 might make sense, as then being trained would at least be a genuine advantage.

That makes sense. It doesn't really need to be +5.
I guess we gotta wait for the math people to evaluate the new way, and see what's the best way to do it.

 

[Bayuer]

Why are you adding +3? That skill challenge occurs when the PCs are level 1 or 2, so it should be +0 or 1. Not all the characters will have appropriate trained skills, or maxed linked attributes, either.

Well that realy don'y matter. It was just a simple example. This DC is for characters on lvl 4-6.

 

[Paul Strack]

They effectively dropped the DCs by 10 when they should have only dropped them by 5.

I think they fixed the DC progression, though. The increase between levels feels right to me now (+2 per 3 levels). At the moment I am planning on using the errata charts but adding +5 to all the DC.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

In the new model, he only needs to roll a 4 (4 DEX 5 TRAINED 2 RACIAL). That means only a 15% chance of a failure. That seems... wrong. Very wrong. Something that's really hard to do should be... oh, I don't know.... HARD to do?

Yes (and I agree with others that they overcorrected), but you're missing a point: those skill DCs are not for static tasks. Those skill DCs are the DCs you should use when you design a task you expect to be difficult for the PCs, not the DCs you should use when the PCs decide to do something random. The difficulty of a wall-jump doesn't vary with level (nor does the difficulty of any given climb or acrobatics check); instead, you are expected to give higher level PCs more challenging targets for their skills.

 

[pukunui]

Now, individual skill checks are vastly too easy (except that traps, monster entries, diseases, etc. remain unchanged and still old-style)

Look again. DCs for diseases have all gone down ... although I note that they errata'd the mummy rot DCs in the DMG but not the ones in the MM. Also, while they haven't changed individual monster knowledge DCs in the MM, they have decreases the general knowledge DCs in the PHB, which suggests that the MM DCs should decrease as well ...

I'm thinking I'm really going to have to buy a 3rd or 4th printing of these books so I can have all these rules changes added to the text. My 1st printing books are not looking so hot anymore what with all the changes I've done with a pen and some whiteout.

 

[JGulick]

Restoring "the footnotes" blindly makes no sense as one of them is completely unaffected by these changes (the AC-related one). Why would you reinstate a change that isn't a double-change?

Why don't you think it's a double change? The base went down (except for the highest level of Hard) *and* the footnote went away. That's two changes.

Don't think of it as a DEX roll, think of it as a DEX attack, where this table sets the base Defense. Those defenses are now lower by a significant degree, especially if it's a Weapon attack against AC, which is now advised by this page (thankfully, the later monster design advice is unchanged) to be the same despite Weapon attacks being inherently 2-3 points easier.

Per the revised table, the proposed improvised AC for Hard targets at 1-3 is only 15. Yet we know from the MM that 17 and 18 is where the actual numbers often lie. That's what putting back the +2 footnote would restore.

Per the revised table, the proposed improvised DC for a Hard skill check at levels 1-3 is 15. Yet a character with no mods at all has a 30% chance of succeeding at that target, and anyone trained at all is over 50%. That's not anything I'd call 'Hard'. Restoring the +5 footnote would make the improvised Hard DC 20, which is much more in line with its purpose. Now, as we go up the table, Hard will move out of the range of the no-bonuses-at-all character, but I have no real problem with that, because it's the definition of "Hard". Especially since the skill challenge rules no longer over-use Hard checks.

Am I 100% sure that restoring the footnotes is a perfect fix? No. But I'm rather convinced that adjusting the table *and* removing the footnotes has resulted in Defenses/DCs that are too low in easily observed scenarios.

 

[JGulick]

Look again. DCs for diseases have all gone down .

Not the ones in the Monster Manual. I should have been more clear where I was indicating a lack of change. My diseases comment was really a sub-point of my monster entries comment.

 

[pukunui]

Not the ones in the Monster Manual. I should have been more clear where I was indicating a lack of change. My diseases comment was really a sub-point of my monster entries comment.

Ah ok. But as I pointed out, Mummy Rot has changed, if only in the DMG ... which means there is now more than one version of the disease.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Better, but they need to try again, and fast (before they publish it in errated books.)

IMHO:
1) The pendulum swung too far and now the DCs are too low.
2) Letting characters not participate at defeats a major purpose of the challenge. (For that matter, I don't think Aid Another is appropriate for skill challenges.)

While I have only read it, I think Stalker0 nailed the correct way to do a skill challenge in his Obsidian system. Every character makes the same number of checks. # of failures doesn't matter, instead the total number of successes determines the overall level of success.

WotC would do well to adopt that system (or at least the framework) and give him credit (just like the credited the dude who owns the 'Shadowfell' website.)