Obsidian: DC adjustment if the PCs are always using trained skills?

[msherman]

We use Obsidian for skill challenges in my game. It turns out that the way I write skill challenges is a lot more open-ended than most people do. As a result, the PCs are pretty much always using trained skills, and they're doing a lot better than I think they're expected to in a stock obsidian challenge. I can't remember the last time a skill challenge in our game resulted in anything less than a total success.

How can I adjust things to account for this? My gut feel is that I should just bump up the DCs, but by how much? 5 seems too high -- that would make sense if the stock rules expected no-one to ever use trained skills. What's the right number? Or is there a better fix?

 

[keterys]

If you can find his original post, it talks a bit about his assumptions for bonuses. I suspect something like a +2 or +3 across the board would be about right. I think he'd assumed 1 great, 1 good, 1 decent, 1 bad, 1 awful or some close variation thereof and you're probably averaging about 3 less than that.

 

[Stalker0]

Keterys is likely spot on, a +2 sounds like a good change.

I really wouldn't go higher than that, as the success rate will start dropping more quickly and the individual DC starts looking too high. If you feel you still need more, it might be time to consider other avenues.

 

[Starfox]

If your players put a lot of feats into skills and thus have more/better skills, they SHOULD be succeeding more often - after all, they are less powerful in a fight. But if it is you who made challenges easier by allowing a wider range of skill options, a DC increase might be in order.

 

[Tuft]

If your players put a lot of feats into skills and thus have more/better skills, they SHOULD be succeeding more often - after all, they are less powerful in a fight. But if it is you who made challenges easier by allowing a wider range of skill options, a DC increase might be in order.

From the Players' perspective, its the usual problem with increasing the numbers you have; the DM has an infinite budget he can use in return.

If you increase your skills too much, the difficulties will rise to match; if you buff your fighting prowess, the monsters will just get level-adjusted to be tougher.

You may end up with players who feel that it's meaningless to improve anything on their character sheet...

 

[willows]

If your players put a lot of feats into skills and thus have more/better skills, they SHOULD be succeeding more often - after all, they are less powerful in a fight. But if it is you who made challenges easier by allowing a wider range of skill options, a DC increase might be in order.

Alternatively, you could write the skill challenges in the way that Obsidian expects (which, from context, I assume means that you have to specify which skill is appropriate for each step of said challenge)

 

[keterys]

From the Players' perspective, its the usual problem with increasing the numbers you have; the DM has an infinite budget he can use in return.

If you increase your skills too much, the difficulties will rise to match; if you buff your fighting prowess, the monsters will just get level-adjusted to be tougher.

You may end up with players who feel that it's meaningless to improve anything on their character sheet...

Depends - if they're getting more experience from facing more difficult challenges...