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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4940501" data-attributes="member: 710">I am not sure if you agree with me or not, but maybe I should rephrase it: The high likelihood of succes of the challenge is not the problem. We win combats all the time, too. Despite overwhelming odds and all.The problem is that each individual aspect of the challenge is too easy. It doesn't get exciting if you know there is little chance of failing each round. There is no tension. To create such tension, raising the DCs works. But it also means that challenges are far more likely to fail then combat. That is not, in my view, all that satisfying, and it doesn't make the decision-making process any more interesting, either.The trick is having the challenge succeed most of the time if the players work hard for it and feel smart. (And sometimes lucky.) This requires some "tactical"/"gambling" element. In combat, you risk resources like healing surges and powers and have to apply them at the right time. A good skill challenges need this kind of dynamic, too.They do not get more interesting just because there is a different chance of failure. They get more exciting if people have to think about how they can achieve access and avoid ways they can't. Based on their decisions, not merely their dice rolls. The trick is finding ways to make this kind of decision non-trivial. Using the highest applicable skill all the time is trivial. One way might be to have more complex outcomes than just "pass/fail" - the skills you have used determine the details of your success or failure. If you bluff your way through the guards it is different then using Diplomacy to make them your friends. If you use stealth to get buy that is also different.If you use an approach that raises the DC, my suggestion would be to add the ability to undo failures. But these "rescue-rolls" can't be used all the time. Maybe the guards will fall for the diversion represented by your Bluff check only once, so only one Stealth check is "free". I think some kind of "resource management" system is what skill challenges would need.</blockquote>

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