Simple Skill Challenge Fix - The 1:1 System

[Brazenwood]

I'm not Stalker0, but skill challenges are just like any other encounter. PCs are about 80% likely to succeed at a combat encounter, why shouldn't they be 80% likely to succeed at an out-of-combat encounter?

Because Failure at a SKill Challenge leads to more dramatic storytelling than the heroes winning everything most the time.

The Skill Challenge system is great the way it is written, if you allow for degrees of success. If you get 4 out of 6 before "failing", hey the DM should reward you with 4/6 of the goods you would have received for total success. The math is meant to be what it is for dramatic storytelling. A party should rarely have complete success in a skill challenge. The essence of good novel writing lies in the hero having goals and then having to face setbacks to reaching those goals. It forces player creativity and striving which is cool!

 

[Asmor]

My fix is to make it a flat 4 failures, regardless of complexity, and leave everything else the same. Makes the simpler challenges easier and the more complex challenges more difficult.

 

[Tuft]

Because Failure at a SKill Challenge leads to more dramatic storytelling than the heroes winning everything most the time.

I'd say rather the opposite. Having a better chance at succeeding, gives you more room to be creative, and to dare to do things in any non-optimal way that is more true to the character.

In contrast, the "everything must be a challenge" mood has to me in the past seemed to nurture paranoia, with guarded play, only doing the safe thing, passing the buck to the group's designated scapegoat who's to blame for all failures, berating people for not acting "optimally", etc. Not for skill challenges as such, true, as those did not exist, but for other skill- and interaction-heavy game play.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I think that the basic idea of skill challenges was to let every character roll a die for each non combat encounter

so maybe instead of thinking how many skill rolls must succed before how many must fail we should think of

how many rounds of rolls must go on before the "skill challenge" ends

1 round of rolls is: a rotation of rolls for all the PC involved in the skill challenge

each character rolls what he thinks is the most appropriate skill for the situation (and make the roleplaying requirede, or use magic instead of the skill check if appropriate yadda yadda yadda) in order of initiative

THEN we can play on the ratio of success vs failures to determine the difficulty of the challenge

difficulty........Ratio
1..................Success > Failures
2..................Success > Failures*1,5
3..................Success > Failures*2
and so on

notice that allowing each character to roll before evaluing the success or failure of the skill challenge we also skip the problem of the first character to act is the worst one for that situation

thanks for all your inputs!