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

[Ulthwithian]

On the point of Aid Another, a Half-Elf's social skills go up dramatically (NPI) if allowed. The +1 to everyone's Diplomacy helps everyone Aid Another on the Half-Elf's Diplomacy checks.

Twould be a nice insight (again, NPI).

 

[Morrus]

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.

I personally don't have a problem with that. I like the game to be cooperative. It's still not a reason to simply omit it from the mathematical model.

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.

But I'm disputing those figures - you can add a lot of bonuses in easily. Use equipment (+2), realistic assumption of highest possible skill (another +3, and then add more for racial mods and 20 ability scores), the figures start to skew massively.

Start adding in rerolls, use of powers, etc., (I admit I have not checked this - I'm assuming there are such powers, but correct me if I'm wrong), and I think that you'll find that the likelihood of success is a lot higher than posited.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I think that the poster to whom you're replying is assuming that the Aid Another has to be in lieu of a skill check.

The reason they might think this is because otherwise it would seem that Aiding Another will be used everytime to give a +8.

My view is that this worry is needless, because the constraint on excessive use of Aid Another will mostly not be a turn-based one (I have to forego an action to Aid Another) but a narrative one (I have to be able to explain what my aid consists in, within the context of the gameworld, and that will not always be possible).

But I think the DMG on p 74 does imply that Aiding Another is in lieu of one's normal turn in a skill challenge.

 

[Morrus]

But I think the DMG on p 74 does imply that Aiding Another is in lieu of one's normal turn in a skill challenge.

I'm not seeing that; the book certainly says you can use it "where appropriate", but as I read it there's nothing there to suggest it might be in lieu. For those that read it that way, then yes, I can see why it would be less fun!

However you read it, both options still only result in one success or one failure, as p75 states.

Whether in lieu or not is kinda redundant, because there's no limit to the number of skill checks you can make, only to the unmber of successes and failures. And everyone using aid another to help a lead character stil only tallies one success or failure; there's nothing to stop each of those people immediately making a totally different skill check of their own if they want to.

 

[Tervin]

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.)

Look at how much XP comes from difficulty, and how much from complexity, then you will see what I mean. A complexity 5 challenge is according to DMG p. 72-73 supposed to give 5 times the XP of a complexity 1 challenge of the same level. Increasing difficulty will instead add something like 25%.

 

[Spatula]

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.

*My* ideal, and what I thought was the goal of the skill challenge, would be for everyone getting to do something interesting with their character, and thus participate in the encounter and have fun. Which isn't supported by what's in the DMG, given the unforgiving nature of the skill checks.

Having just one person make checks is dull. Having everyone else simply enabling that one person to make checks via aid another isn't any more interesting, IMO.

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

I seem to recall the "pick a difficulty" option being mentioned in some of the DDXP reports.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Math. It does a body good.

Yes, I'll go on record as saying our 5 minute analysis is vastly superior to the design and playtesting that went into this system. Either that or we're GROSSLY misinterpreting things like what defines a successful check, what 6 successes before 3 failures mean, and why they literally write "add 5 to the DC of skill checks" at the bottom of the DC chart referenced by the skill challenge section (which, by the way, still doesn't address all the issues with this sub system).

That was my point. All the math and interpretations of books aside, the conclusions made by some people in this thread have two logical results: either several months of detailed design and playtesting of one of the most innovative and important mechanical elements of 4E is obviously flawed, or the people making conclusions are grossly misinterpreting things.

I will be blunt here. It is a LOT easier for me to believe that a few fans running the numbers for fun have made a mistake than professional game developers who devoted a lot of energy making a product they intend to sell.

Considering that I know there are skilled mathematicians at WotC (pretty much the entire development team exists for this one purpose), there is no way to argue that this is a matter of fans knowing more about math than the WotC guys (particularly since the math behind this is so simple).

I don't have the 4E books, so I can't look at the rules and numbers myself, but I am going to say that all of the people making bold claims about WotC's failings should take a minute to re-evaluate their assumptions and try to interpret the RAW in a different light. Instead of interpreting the text as you think it is supposed to be read and reaching a broken result, try to find a way to get a good result out of the math without changing much and see how that affects the interpretation of the text. If nothing else, it is more constructive and useful to your fellow gamers to see how to modify the RAW to get a good result without scrapping the whole system and creating a new one from scratch.

That is one reason I am more inclined to ditch the +5 that is being mentioned here, simply because removing it creates a reasonable result. Regardless of whether or not some line of rules text implies it should be included or not, if it works without the +5, then that is probably the way it was intended to be done. However, if there is some other way to modify the results, then those should be factored in as well. Morrus mentioned something about racial stats, skill kits, small boosts (like the Elf's boost to team Perception), and such.

Also, another thing to consider is that, since there are rules for Easy checks, then there must be some way for a player to take advantage of that, even for just a single check in a whole challenge. Would a mix of Easy, Normal, and Hard checks affect the math, compared to nothing but Normal checks? It seems like it would affect it greatly, especially for very complex challenges, since the Easy or Hard modifier might push the success rate above or below the line where added complexity (and thus the law of large numbers) favors or hurts the PCs, and the mix would do so in ways the current models might not predict.

 

[Morrus]

*My* ideal, and what I thought was the goal of the skill challenge, would be for everyone getting to do something interesting with their character, and thus participate in the encounter and have fun. Which isn't supported by what's in the DMG, given the unforgiving nature of the skill checks.

Having just one person make checks is dull. Having everyone else simply enabling that one person to make checks via aid another isn't any more interesting, IMO.

Using aid another to help someone else's check does not prevent you making your own skill checks. I think that's where our disagreement lies; if each aid another counted as a success or failure, then I'd completely agree with you. But they don't, and you can roll as many d20s as you ike in the course of a skill challenge as long as you don't don't rack up too many failures. the importan tpoint is that the aid another doesn't rack up a success or a failure, so is simply an additional action.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I took using Aid Another to be your action (in lieu of another attempt) to be understood.

Rereading, I think I'm understanding the issue involved with the skill table at least. It's to avoid the Take 10 issue. If a Moderate difficulty task were DC 15 at level 1, virtually anyone trained in that task, if allowed to Take 10, will succeed at that task. Therefore, when outside an encounter (with a skill challenge being considered an encounter), an Easy task is DC15 (meaning that anyone trained in that skill can succeed on it, barring an ability penalty), while a Moderate task is DC20.

With that, we can look at skill checks vs. attacks. An attack roll is normally Ability mod + other bonuses (+ Proficiency bonus if using a weapon, which normally attacks AC). With that, people generally have a 50% chance of succeeding at an attack, on average.

The +5 difficulty to Skill checks seems designed to offset the trained bonus for a skill, in the same way that your proficiency bonus with a weapon offsets the increased bonus to a monster's AC. This would seem to indicate that the notations on the table are indeed correct. This also makes sense, as combat can be seen, in a sense, of a race to generate a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures.

Morrus has a very valid counterpoint, however. With combat, you have a ubiquitous bonus to seek (Combat Advantage) to assist in overcoming what would otherwise be a random chance. To ignore it would seem to imperil the underlying basis of the math involved.

I would think that having a multi-channel challenge would be far better, to better mimic the combat analog. Keep the 'X successes before 2X failures', but allow for successes to be 'scored' against different people (e.g., the baron is one person, his spiritual advisor another, and his general yet a third). Thus, you can measure not only success and failure, but the degree of success. Perhaps you were able to convince the baron, but ignoring his 'cabinet' might have lingering issues in the future.

Etc. etc. I'll have to give this more thought, I'm sure.

 

[Morrus]

I took using Aid Another to be your action (in lieu of another attempt) to be understood.

And what's to stop you immediately making another attempt? I'm not getting where people are getting this idea that you only get X number of die rolls. The only limitation is X number of successes or failures; you can make a gazillion die rolls as long as they don't increase the sucess or failure count over the targets, and aid another specifically does not iterate that count.