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<blockquote data-quote="Tervin" data-source="post: 4279033" data-attributes="member: 66491">Your post made me look closer at skill challenges, and regrettably you are right. As written they are a great idea that falls apart because of bad math. One simple house rule would be to allow taking 10 even though that is normally not allowed inside an encounter. That would take away some of the fun of the whole thing though.I like that you added bells and whistels to your system, but I don't think I will want those added features from the start. They can be something to add for players who like skill challenges and want to have more things to do in them. The rules as written have two big weaknesses: 1. Skill challenges are unnecessarily hard, punishing suboptimal party builds even more than battles do.2. The system for complexity is useless, as more complex challenges are easier than less complex ones if difficulties are set as easy, while more complex ones are harder than the less complex ones if the difficulties are set really high. Giving more XP for more complex challenges makes sense as they involve more roleplaying, on the other hand it has nothing to do with difficulty.I will have a closer look at your alternative system, but before going there I want to try a simple method: Being generous with RP bonus to skill rolls during challenges. If the players are reasonably imaginative in how they RP their skill uses I will give them +2-4 to rolls, which should make it possible to actually succeed (as long as they use &quot;aid another&quot; cleverly). This way they also have to work harder in a complex skill challenge, and thus deserve their XP.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tervin, post: 4279033, member: 66491"] Your post made me look closer at skill challenges, and regrettably you are right. As written they are a great idea that falls apart because of bad math. One simple house rule would be to allow taking 10 even though that is normally not allowed inside an encounter. That would take away some of the fun of the whole thing though. I like that you added bells and whistels to your system, but I don't think I will want those added features from the start. They can be something to add for players who like skill challenges and want to have more things to do in them. The rules as written have two big weaknesses: 1. Skill challenges are unnecessarily hard, punishing suboptimal party builds even more than battles do. 2. The system for complexity is useless, as more complex challenges are easier than less complex ones if difficulties are set as easy, while more complex ones are harder than the less complex ones if the difficulties are set really high. Giving more XP for more complex challenges makes sense as they involve more roleplaying, on the other hand it has nothing to do with difficulty. I will have a closer look at your alternative system, but before going there I want to try a simple method: Being generous with RP bonus to skill rolls during challenges. If the players are reasonably imaginative in how they RP their skill uses I will give them +2-4 to rolls, which should make it possible to actually succeed (as long as they use "aid another" cleverly). This way they also have to work harder in a complex skill challenge, and thus deserve their XP. [/QUOTE]

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