Skill Chalanges are so not cool

[Bayuer]

Ok, so how does it is? My party is on 12lvl the esay DC is 10, moderat 16, and hard 21.
I make a skill challange for them so I should use the moderate DC. OK. But what the point if some of my players have a skill modifier at +16! So what the point of making SC!

I mean. Ok. Maybe the rest of the party don't have those skill so high. Some have only +10, +12. Ok. If i use hard DC theres almost 50% chance of failure when they use this. So the only player who don't even need to make throws will win SC for them. What a nonsens. Does anybody have some solution on this?

 

[PirateRob]

DC for an easy skill roll at 12th level is 17, not 10.
Moderate is 21, Hard is 25.

The table is on page 61 of the DMs guide. Subtract 5 from the values listed per the errata. The values are too high as printed in the manual.

Also, you should get the errata on skill challenges from the WotC website. It changes skill challenges to be a bit more realistic. As they currently are, they are much too likely to fail for an average player group.

Rob

 

[Bayuer]

I'm using the errata. Those DC you gave are without errata.



I think ther must be some mistake then, becouse errat says that the DC for Atribute and Skill cheks are the same...

 

[jensun]

You can set different DC's for different skills.

 

[PirateRob]

Yeah, I think the Errata has an error in it.. The DCs for a skill check should be +5 more than the DCs for an attribute check. The errata has them at the same level. I think the intent was to reduce the DCs by 5 across the board which gets you back to the DC levels I put in my post (except hard is 26 not 25 I guess.)

Rob

 

[Bayuer]

I'm looking at the SC from Dungeon #158 on page 78 and here are the DC for lvl 16 SC.
24 (moderate I think) and 28 (hard). When I look at the table from errata theres no such numbers. But in orginal DC here they are! So I don't get it. Is this errata wrong or something. Errata is dated at 8/11... So what DC are ok then? I think that for Abillity Checks I should use errated DC and for Skills the old ones but without +5 to DC from table on page 43. Why must this be so complicated.

@PirateRob
Thats makes sens to me. I will use the errated DC +5 for Skills and not modified for Ability cheks.

 

[PirateRob]

Just to throw another wrench into things

The skill DC mechanic is pretty close to 10 + 1/2 level of the challenge for an easy DC, 15 + 1/2 level of the challenge for a moderate and 20 + 1/2 level of the challenge for difficult.

The nice thing is that almost EVERYTHING else in 4th edition follows this rule. To Hits, Skills, etc. I find it much easier to just apply that rule to any skill DC and avoid looking up DCs in a table all together.

For skill Challenges, I simplified the rules. I only use the moderate DC and adjust the level of the challenge to suit my needs. So, If I want a fairly easy challenge, I would give my 10th level players an 8th level challenge which would have a 19 DC (15 + 1/2 * 8 = 19)

I also changed the complexity ratings. They are way out of whack even in the errata. I use the following rule of thumb. Player need 3 successes + the complexity rating before getting 3 failures. So, a complexity 1 challenge is 4 successes before 3 failures. Complexity 5 would be 8 successes before 3 failures.

I worked out all the math (its posted here somewhere) so that an 10th level, complexity 5 challenge has about the same difficulty to a 10th level party as a 10th level combat encounter. That way, I can effectively award 1 monsters worth of experience at the selected challenge level for each complexity level.

For example, a complexity 5, level 10 skill challenge is worth the same experience as a 10th level combat encounter.

It all works out pretty good and I think its what the original designers were shooting for anyway.

Rob

 

[Bayuer]

It's a good simplifiaction created in the orginal core rules on page 43. It's easy to rember. You can give DC from memory etc. I will look at this option too. For now on I just use errated DC +5 for skills and +2 whit attacks vs. AC. I will look at you complexity and will consider using it either.

 

[Baumi]

It's a good simplifiaction created in the orginal core rules on page 43. It's easy to rember. You can give DC from memory etc. I will look at this option too. For now on I just use errated DC +5 for skills and +2 whit attacks vs. AC. I will look at you complexity and will consider using it either.

I use exactly the same.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yeah, I think the Errata has an error in it.. The DCs for a skill check should be +5 more than the DCs for an attribute check. The errata has them at the same level. I think the intent was to reduce the DCs by 5 across the board which gets you back to the DC levels I put in my post (except hard is 26 not 25 I guess.)

It's not an error, I've had the verified by R&D. The idea was to lower the DC to the point where characters would have a hard time solving skill challenges with their poor skills, but have an easy time of it with their good skills.

You no longer add 5 for it being a skill.

The idea is that when you get into a skill challenge, you can't control what skills you use all the time, so you'll be forced to use a "bad" skill now and then. Plus, you have to keep in mind that the errata'd skill challenges also make it so that you need the same number of failures no matter the complexity.

So, if you have to succeed in 10 successes, it is likely that someone gets forced to use their bad skill a couple of times...and if you fail each of those times, you fail the skill challenge.

Skill Challenges are supposed to be a lot like combat...it's possible to fail them but rather unlikely. The original DCs made it very likely to fail if you made all "bad" skill checks. Plus, they had a weird side effect of making it easier to succeed the more complex the skill challenge.