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<blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 4283088" data-attributes="member: 5890">Which a change to the maths won't help.I totally agree with you - if the DM has designed something down to that level, then it's crazy for a hole to suddenly appear due to a history check. If the cell truly has no history of being compromised, then I would expect a history check to tell me that. Making it an automatic failure however would be a bit silly though.That seems a little odd. I would have thought the goal would be &quot;get some information out of this guy&quot;. Making it a lot more focussed than that seems to severely limit what scenarios a skill challenge is actually any good for.Auto-failures aren't really working with the numbers. Personally I think they're a terrible idea unless they're incredibly well justified, for precisely the reasons that you suggest.Interestingly enough, the DMG1. Makes no mention in the text of skills that cause automatic failures, only in an example2. Seems confused as to whether a secondary skill should be harder, be only useable once or both (ie - one passage says that a secondary skill should be harder OR useable only once or both and gives an example of an easy check that's useable only once, while the other says it should be harder AND useable only once).3. Offers the possibility of a +/- instead of 2.4. Suggests that actions in a skill challenge should possibly have secondary effects (ie - learning extra information that was not specifically set up as the goal of the challenge)5. Suggests that ideas that line up with your preconcieved primary skills should probably get the same benefit.It seems to me that a DM who wants skill challenges to be fun will, according to the other DMG advice, go with the more lax options.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Saeviomagy, post: 4283088, member: 5890"] Which a change to the maths won't help. I totally agree with you - if the DM has designed something down to that level, then it's crazy for a hole to suddenly appear due to a history check. If the cell truly has no history of being compromised, then I would expect a history check to tell me that. Making it an automatic failure however would be a bit silly though. That seems a little odd. I would have thought the goal would be "get some information out of this guy". Making it a lot more focussed than that seems to severely limit what scenarios a skill challenge is actually any good for. Auto-failures aren't really working with the numbers. Personally I think they're a terrible idea unless they're incredibly well justified, for precisely the reasons that you suggest. Interestingly enough, the DMG 1. Makes no mention in the text of skills that cause automatic failures, only in an example 2. Seems confused as to whether a secondary skill should be harder, be only useable once or both (ie - one passage says that a secondary skill should be harder OR useable only once or both and gives an example of an easy check that's useable only once, while the other says it should be harder AND useable only once). 3. Offers the possibility of a +/- instead of 2. 4. Suggests that actions in a skill challenge should possibly have secondary effects (ie - learning extra information that was not specifically set up as the goal of the challenge) 5. Suggests that ideas that line up with your preconcieved primary skills should probably get the same benefit. It seems to me that a DM who wants skill challenges to be fun will, according to the other DMG advice, go with the more lax options. [/QUOTE]

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