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Message: <blockquote data-quote="abeattie" data-source="post: 4285351" data-attributes="member: 61684">Here's my problem with this thread.People said -- well, if you drop out the +5 it works better .. NO! We can't do that.People said -- well, if you aid another to cover the +5 it works better... NO! That's boring!People said -- we need to run skill challenges with easy and hard skill checks... NO! That's not the basic situation.=-=-=Now -- having read the section a few more times, I want to point out the following.The default bonus for a skill in the pc's racial focus is around +11 (assuming 3:16 build, +2 to the attribute for the race, +2 to the skill for the race). Now -- that means that a moderate skill check for the one or two players with that skill is at a 60% pass rate.In all of the examples given there is at least one easy skill which grants a +2 -- its usually perception or insight. So -- every group ought to have a perception or insight (trapspotter) adventurer. That person may not have a racial bonus linkage, dropping a high bonus down to around +9 -- at target 15, 70% passage rate, counts as a success, and nudges the skill monkey up to a 70% passage rate.Now -- what about aid another. If aid another is "I roll to help out" that's boring, if aid another is players actively bolting on other points to the lead PCs act "My lord, it is only just that we do this!" says PC1, PC2 nods, interjecting "and its what your grandfather would have wanted you to do boss"  --  man -- how boring. That +2 drives success rate up to 80% against a moderate challenge -- at level 1.=-=-=-=PCs should lose skill challenges -- not all of them -- but look at the emphasis in the text on limiting the harm caused by failure. In most of the examples failure results in an extra combat encounter (hey.. that would get me my xp I lost by failing the challenge too!) slows down progress, but doesn't toss the players off the trail. I don't know if I would run it that way, or if that is a great system, but I do not agree that we can ignore the balances inherent to the system in declaring it broken. That seems, to me, inherrently unfair. At level 1 you have always needed to play the game tight to the wire to get by, why should skill challenges be any different. Except now, instead of rolling through packs of 1st level PCs, we just suffer the agony of losing face a few times before we get our big-boy pants and show the world what a paragon hero can do to a skill challenge.--- 2c</blockquote>

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