Skill Challenge Overkill (mearls stuff)

[Spatula]

The thing is, most of those ways mentioned lack flexibility and practicality for anyone except the hellbent. The neat things about skill points were that they were a resource specifically for skills, and they didn't tread on other character options.

But that's also irrelevant to your point about feeling special or having a moment to shine. If you wanted to excel at a skill, you put max ranks into it - not a rare choice IME - which is functionally the same as being trained in 4e/SWSE. And maybe you would also spend feats, pick up class abilities, and use item slots to boost the skill further; but those aren't resources solely for skills. What skill points give you is the flexibility to dabble, which is to say, be somewhat decent at something without excelling at it.

No, Spatula. A character excels (or does not) is in relation to the difficulty of the challenges he's facing. Whether it's a trap, a hazard, a monster I'm playing who-gets-the-surprise-round with, or a ritual casting, my ability to excel beyond what the average character with the same race/class choice is capable of can make all the difference.

Is that average character playing in your group with you? If not, why does its theoretical performance matter?

 

[Felon]

Is that average character playing in your group with you? If not, why does its theoretical performance matter?

So, are we having a Spock moment here? You're curious for me to explain the concept of why it feels good to be extraordinary even when you don't have someone mediocre by your side? Can't be done. What makes some folks feel good seems irrational to others. That's just sort of how it is.

However, I can go so far as to say that the design for assigning the difficulty of a check at a given level is determined by comparing it to average characters of that level. The exceptional character feels like he's shining when he succeeds against a challenge against which the merely competent character would have failed. That's the woohoo moment, the once-in-a-while payoff for being the best at a skill.

 

[Felon]

Perhaps they mistook this for a discussion.

You've got a nice rolodex of forum cliches, I'll give you that, but I'm not sure how this one applies to me asking folks why they're pointing out things I've already accounted for. That's somehow tatamount to shutting people down?

So your enjoyment is pegged to some kind of hypothetical Bell curve?

By my reckoning, it goes something like this: my enjoyment can be tied to my kicking butt, and kicking butt can tied to the very real logistics of what constitutes a merely average character's change of succeeding or failing at a given challenge.

 

[MerricB]

But that's also irrelevant to your point about feeling special or having a moment to shine. If you wanted to excel at a skill, you put max ranks into it - not a rare choice IME - which is functionally the same as being trained in 4e/SWSE. And maybe you would also spend feats, pick up class abilities, and use item slots to boost the skill further; but those aren't resources solely for skills. What skill points give you is the flexibility to dabble, which is to say, be somewhat decent at something without excelling at it.

Or perhaps, more correctly, to suck at something whenever it actually matters.

 

[Cadfan]

No, Spatula. A character excels (or does not) is in relation to the difficulty of the challenges he's facing. Whether it's a trap, a hazard, a monster I'm playing who-gets-the-surprise-round with, or a ritual casting, my ability to excel beyond what the average character with the same race/class choice is capable of can make all the difference.

I don't understand this.

 

[TerraDave]

Lord knows skill challenges have problems, but there are few things more irritating than people who matter-of-factly state what the original intention of something was when in fact their assertion is pulled out of thin air.

Let's get the record straight: skill challenges were not intended to resolve silly actions on the fly. They were not intended to be uninvolved or accidental. From the get-go, the DMG says that skill challenges should receive the level of planning and attention that combat encounters should.

Thats a nice post felon. I always like being accused of things in threads I start.

Its not out of thin air. Like so many things, this was promoted as better, faster, stronger...actually to be fair, it came latter (at first it was just "social encounters"), and there was some hedging. But the "out of the blue challenge" was mentioned, I am sure of it, even if from memory. And I would still say that is the point of the examples in the DMG.

But your second part gets back to why I started this thread. I can come up with a combat encounter, with terrain, in 4E in like 10 minutes, or less. I might need to think a little more to get a really original set up. I guess I could also spend time making table-top props, if I really went crazy. But that is a once every few sessions sort of thing.

According to the DMG the challenge is an encounter. What mearls is describing in these articles is more like desinging an adventure. Its too much.

 

[the Jester]

But the "out of the blue challenge" was mentioned, I am sure of it, even if from memory.

And I am reasonably sure that it wasn't. Again, without a cite, I don't buy this.

And I would still say that is the point of the examples in the DMG.

Does something written in the DMG imply that to you? Or is it just your belief that the intent of the system is to allow for out of the blue challenges?

That said, I do wish that the DMG contained more skill challenge examples, advice and variants. I strongly suspect that this is an area that DMG2 will put a good amount of focus on; it's clearly one of the system's current weak points, yet very popular at the same time.

Now, granted, I haven't yet seen mearls' articles on skill challenges, so I'm talking in general terms; but I do agree that a good skill challenge can take longer to plan out than a combat encounter. But you can wing a skill challenge fairly easily if the DM has a good sense of the DCs involved and the nature of the challenge ("find the missing person" or whatever).

 

[Mallus]

I don't understand this.

Maybe Felon enjoys comparing his PC's to the badly-built examples found in WotC products?

My experience with is that character skills come in roughly three types:

• Maxed skill ranks and synergized out the wazoo
• Maxed skill ranks and not synergized out the wazoo (usually because synergies weren't available)
• I didn't put any points in them/I put a few because I had some left over

ie, it was a system that rewarded hyper-specialization to point where non-specialists need not apply. It's a more granular system than 4e's, but that increased granularity is functionally irrelevant.

So any two characters built to excel at the same skill tended to look the same, with roughly the same chance of success, the same as in 4e.

 

[Mallus]

... but I'm not sure how this one applies to me asking folks why they're pointing out things I've already accounted for.

Perhaps because your accounting didn't add up? For one thing, improving skills in 4e past the default doesn't require a player to be 'hellbent', it's not 'impractical' (because the relative cost for doing so is less than in 3e), it's not 'inflexible' as far as I can see. Do you want to address these points or am I mistaking this for a discussion?

my enjoyment can be tied to my kicking butt...

Excellent, mine too. Well, that and making nutty characters.

and kicking butt can tied to the very real logistics of what constitutes a merely average character's change of succeeding or failing at a given challenge.

So it is a bell curve thing... cool. I'm not criticizing.

 

[Felon]

I don't understand this.

Maybe Felon enjoys comparing his PC's to the badly-built examples found in WotC products?

Are you fellows being coy? Who needs examples? In 4e, the math for the baseline is cut-and-dried: half-level, a +5 if trained, and an ability score bonus. The only variable is the ability score bonus, and with 4e, ability score bonuses tend to be more prescribed than in 3e--not many 4e rogues are debating whether Dex or Int should be their highest stat. The only other freebie to add into the mix is a racial bonus, if any. Figuring an average characters' total bonus at a given level is easy; it's breaking away from the average that poses problems.

One distinction between 3e and 4e is that 4e's design goes to greater lengths to use the baseline total bonus of a given character at a given level to determine the difficulties of checks (in 3e, there were a lot of flat DC's, with many falling into the DC 20-25 area). If you manage to get ahead of the curve, you'll be able to handle higher-level challenges that by design a character of your level shouldn't be likely to succeed at. In the case of traps and hazards this is especially true due to their use of passive skill checks (which are flat-out pass/fail). It also shows against monsters whose level is higher than yours, and thus would also prove tough to beat (or impossible if employing take 10 or passive skill checks).

This is all stuff I've said already, and I'm not sure where our disconnect is.