D&D 4E Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken (math heavy)

[Spatula]

1) You can use it for any skill check; i'ts thus an integral part of the number-crunching. Not ncoprprating it into your model doesn't provide a result which accurately reflects 4E D&D, merely one which reflects a similar system you've based on it.

2) In addition, there's nothing to stop PCs choosing "easy" for every single check.

What you've done is identify one disadvantaged strategy for the PCs, assuming they do nothing to help themselves. In which case, yes, the odds are against them.

Sorry Morrus, but the section on building skill challenges in the DMG doesn't really jive with what you're saying. Maybe the DMs at the demo games are running it differently, but Stalker0 is just going by what's in the books.

1) Aid another is mentioned in the skill challenge chapter, but only for certain kinds of challenges - "group skill checks." "Sometimesa skill challenge calls for a group skill check" and it uses a cliff-climbing challenge as an example. So it seems using aid another is meant to be something inherent to particular challenges.

But even if aid another was a vital part of the challenge structure... that wouldn't be fun. Everyone making DC 10 checks except for the one person with ranks in the proper skill? That's not interesting, it's not imaginative, and it's not engaging. It's just tedious.

2) The players can't choose the difficulty of their checks. The easy-moderate-hard is set by the challenge itself, per skill. You can see that in the templates in the DMG, or here's the Negotiation one:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080505a

And here's the bonus skill challenge for KotS:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20080522b (which clearly includes the +5 boost to DCs)

 

[abeattie]

1) Assumes that the character's prime stat AND racial bonus apply to a skill they trained,m and that this skill will always be useable in every skill challenge. That's hardly a safe assumption. In fact I would go so far as to declare it unlikey.
.

Sure -- however it is the same assumption that was put out in the first post of this thread (that every character will get to use their best skill), which is why I carried it over.

2) Further assumes that this character also got their racial bonus. If the stars did align to not only allow this but also to let this happen in a skill relevant to the current challenge, then I'd expect that character to have a far, far better than 60% chance of success. 80% sounds better (95% with +3)

And it ignores that having a single skillful character make all the rolls is exactly what the skill challenge system is meant to be avoiding.

Racial bonuses are not conditional -- if you have a bonus to that skill you have a bonus to that skill. I've noticed that the race/skill bonues do tend to overlap (Other than humans: eladrin get +2 to int. +2 to two int based skills, likewise with their respective attributes for dwarves , elves, and halflings. The rest have a single skill overlap Dragonborn charisma/intimidate, half-elves get charisma / diplomacy. )

So -- yes, that kind of double-dip is not only likely but almost certain.

There are not so many skills that dms should be denying uses for thievery, bluff, or intimidate whenever they want to drop a diplomacy challenge unless the dm wants to star a single character and have them make all the rolls. Therefore -- I suggest -- that as often as not, those characters that do roll will be doing so with an attribute / skill overlap -- at least until utility powers and other modifiers start to kick the odds in the favor of anyone with training and a 14 in the related attribute.

 

[Morrus]

1) Aid another is mentioned in the skill challenge chapter, but only for certain kinds of challenges - "group skill checks." "Sometimesa skill challenge calls for a group skill check" and it uses a cliff-climbing challenge as an example. So it seems using aid another is meant to be something inherent to particular challenges.

I disagree with you; there's nothing preventing Aid Another that I can see.

But even if aid another was a vital part of the challenge structure... that wouldn't be fun. Everyone making DC 10 checks except for the one person with ranks in the proper skill? That's not interesting, it's not imaginative, and it's not engaging. It's just tedious.

As opposed to everyone making NO checks except for the one person with ranks in the proper skill? I'm afraid I can't see how the former is less interesting than the latter; but tastes differ.

2) The players can't choose the difficulty of their checks. The easy-moderate-hard is set by the challenge itself, per skill.

Re-reading - you're completely correct. In fact, I don't know where I got that idea - perhaps some early pre-release interpretation?

However, I do maintain Aid Another can be used; and even if, as you say, it's only in certain situations, it still can't be ignored in the model. But I disagree that it cannot be used a any time.

The model still fails on two of my three points.

 

[gribble]

As opposed to everyone making NO checks except for the one person with ranks in the proper skill?

No, as opposed to an interesting skill challenge system that works mechanically. This is exactly what ended up happening in the skill challenges we played, and it wasn't fun - it was like 3e diplomacy.

Seriously, isn't this *exactly* the sort of 3e skill use that skill challenges were supposed to fix? If the answer to making skill challenges work is "make it just like 3e diplomacy", then I'd consider that a fail...

 

[Morrus]

No, as opposed to an interesting skill challenge system that works mechanically. This is exactly what ended up happening in the skill challenges we played, and it wasn't fun - it was like 3e diplomacy.

Seriously, isn't this *exactly* the sort of 3e skill use that skill challenges were supposed to fix? If the answer to making skill challenges work is "make it just like 3e diplomacy", then I'd consider that a fail...

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at. Two situations:

1) A character makes a skill check. Pass or fail count +1 for the challenge.

2) A character makes a skill check. The others use aid another. Pass or fail count +1 for the challenge.

You're saying that #2 is intrinsically less fun for you?

I'm never going to tell you what you enjoy is "wrong"; for me, allowing the other characters to add in an aid another doesn't have any fun-decreasing factor. In fact, at least they'r emaking a roll and not twiddling their thumbs.

Eh, tastes vary; but whether you feel that allowing aid another makes things less fun is just that - a taste thing. We're talking about a mathematical model here; if you're leaving out sections of it for reasons of personal taste (which is totally fine - your game), then, sure, it's gonna skew the model.

 

[Tervin]

The model still fails on two of my three points.

If you look at a few more posts in this thread, for example mine, and use the tools people have made to calculate probabilities you will see that even if special bonuses of different kinds (which is what your points are about) make the skill challenges less ridiculously hard you will still end up with the weirdness of chellenges with high complexity being easier than challenges with low complexity, and still giving out a lot more XP.

The only way I can see to use skill challenges as written is to make sure that the players have on average 65% chance of making every roll, and then encouraging them to work out ways to get that chance up to 75% for individual cases. That way they have to work harder for more complex challenges, and have a good chance for success.

If that method doesn't work out in play, I will try something more like the OP's suggestion.

 

[FireLance]

However, I do maintain Aid Another can be used; and even if, as you say, it's only in certain situations, it still can't be ignored in the model. But I disagree that it cannot be used a any time.

The problem is not that Aid Another cannot be used. It's just that from the math, it looks like the average low-level group will have to use Aid Another to have a decent chance of beating a standard difficulty skill challenge. However, judging from the sample given in the DMG, this is not how skill challenges are supposed to play. The emphasis there seems to be on the characters making individual skill checks. Unfortunately, if a trained character has a 50% chance of making a successful skill check and an untrained character has a 25% chance of making a successful skill check, the party is far more likely to rack up enough failures to lose the challenge than it is to obtain the necessary number of successes to win.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Whereas I can't speak for the D&D designers and their math abilities, I do know, for certain sure, that some WotC employees (most of the older Magic R&D people, at the very least) are math nuts, and I cannot imagine, in the least, that they let something like this out without checking to make sure that the theoretical probabilities were in-line with what they wanted.

Having said that, there are at least two distinct possibilities from the data at hand:

1) The model does not reflect the realities of WotC's system. This would likely be due to some kind of editing error in the books (e.g., the +5 DC issue shouldn't apply). While there is some kind of issue with more complex challenges being more probable to solve than less complex challenges, this may have been deemed worth the otherwise elegant system. This brings to mind the Storyteller system's early issues with the fact that a 'critical miss' was more likely rolling two dice than only a single die.

2) The model is correct. In that case, WotC intentionally wishes skill challenges to be difficult to 'win'. A few comments regarding this. Other have observed that the penalties for failing a skill challenge are not as severe as the penalties for failing a combat challenge. (No one should face death, for instance.) In this view, skill challenges fail gracefully, while combat challenges fail catastrophically, and so skill challenges can be made more difficult. Another point to make is that adversity generally allows for better characterization than success. If WotC used this thinking in their general design of 'how to drive character development', it would make sense to make the better chance of failure (and thus adversity) fall on the challenge that fails more gracefully; that is, skill challenges.

As for myself, since my players have by and large gone the '3 16' route in making their characters, I will cheerfully ignore the ambiguous-to-some +5 DC for skill checks and use WotC's system.

Morrus: Early skill challenge reports had mentioned that you could choose the difficulty. I thought that was silly and am glad that WotC moved away from that.

Hmmm... maybe I should make a .sig... 'D&D 3:16 - I just characterized your ***'. Hmmm.

 

[abeattie]

If you look at a few more posts in this thread, for example mine, and use the tools people have made to calculate probabilities you will see that even if special bonuses of different kinds (which is what your points are about) make the skill challenges less ridiculously hard you will still end up with the weirdness of chellenges with high complexity being easier than challenges with low complexity, and still giving out a lot more XP.

The only way I can see to use skill challenges as written is to make sure that the players have on average 65% chance of making every roll, and then encouraging them to work out ways to get that chance up to 75% for individual cases. That way they have to work harder for more complex challenges, and have a good chance for success.

If that method doesn't work out in play, I will try something more like the OP's suggestion.

Complexitiy isn't difficulty, it's length.

There are rules in the system for increasing difficulty. The text suggests that the use of complexity is to guide length of the encounter, not challenge. If you want to ramp up the challenge the text suggests a few ways to do that. (decreasing failure tollerance, increasing DCs, etc.)

 

[pemerton]

I disagree with you; there's nothing preventing Aid Another that I can see.

I agree. Let's look at the rules text.

In the DMG at page 74, under the heading "Running a Skill Challenge", there is the following sentence:

They [ie the PCs] can also decide, if appropriate, to cooperate with another character (see "Group Skill Checks," below).​

Page 179 of the PHB, under the heading "Cooperation", says:

In some situations, you and your allies can work together to use a skill...​

So the question is: who gets to decide what situation is appropriate for cooperation? Consistently with the rest of the Skill Challenge chapter plus the "say yes" advice, I think that this is in the hands of the players, provided that they can make a narrative case for it.