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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DSRilk" data-source="post: 4282331" data-attributes="member: 35212">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).  I'm not saying that all armchair analysis on the boards is accurate -- quite the contrary from my experience.  However, there are some spots that are so obviously... whacky... that you simply have to assume something didn't go as planned in the design process.  Yes, I have great respect for the designers, there are many great and cool things that are in 4e.  However, someone either didn't do the math in a few areas or did it and didn't care.  There are powers that are literally flat out better than powers several levels above them in the SAME class.  Not a matter of one power gives you shift 2 and the other gives you an extra 6[W] damage where one could argue the value of shift 2 versus 6[W], but ones where there is NOTHING the higher level power does better and one or more things it's worse at.  And there are things like the skill challenge system.  Personally, I suspect there's a reason they kept it totally under wraps until the game was released.It could be that certain areas of the game took longer to develop than was planned. It could be that they ended up in too many corporate meetings explaining why they wanted to change things.  It could be play testers didn't hit certain areas often enough.  It could be that certain rules changed so many times that some stuff got lost over time.  It could be that requests came in for more higher level powers and it was judged that it was better to have a couple extra un-tested powers than to have too few.  Decisions like this are made every day in product development of all kinds.  It's not a lack of developer skill or care, it's just the practical facts of business life.  But whatever the cause, to pretend it's perfect is absurd.First, you're assuming several months of design went into this.  That's a large assumption.  Second, you're assuming that lots of play testing went into this part of the system; again, a large assumption.  Third, you're assuming that enough information came back from play test and early enough that the designers had time to implement it all.  Fourth, math doesn't lie.  It's really as simple as that.</blockquote>

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