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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 4163172" data-attributes="member: 5100">Wow.  I would walk away from a game that worked as you described it.  Seriously.  I cannot put into words how distasteful that system would be.  Fortunately for me, I don't think the 4e skill challenges will work like that -- mostly because I think the developers are better than that.Don't get me wrong.  I very, very much would like to see some added structure to puzzle solving and social encounters.  Solving a trap should be more than having the rogue PC roll one or two checks against a single skill, but it also shouldn't be a simple flurry of any old skill checks, either.  In this case, not all skills are created equal.  Disable device is simply more appropriate to the situation (as is Healing, and maybe Diplomacy, depending on the defined scope) and that needs to be reflected in the mechanics.My hopes for the skill challenge rules they, first of all make a significant non-combat encounter feel significant by expanding the scope beyond a single roll by a single character.  They should also reward appropriately prepared parties by favoring the most applicable skills (maybe success and failure with disable device counts double toward the scenario).  But, no challenge should shut out parties that don't have the exact right skill (it is a game, after all).  Nor should a challenge restrict action to a single character (again with game and group activity).So, I'd like to see things handled in such a way that a perception, healing, or knowledge(history) check would give the PCs notice that the body is trapped and count as the first success.  Disable device is the obvious choice for fixing things, so I'd count a success or failure as double value, and I could see the same argument for healing.  Since that doesn't hit the 6 success threshold set for the challenge, I might require another disable check (or alchemy, etc.) to deactivate the trap.  On the other hand, it might convincing the dryad to let the PCs close to the tree before they can even attempt to disarm it.  And there are some other factors that could probably be addressed, too.That takes us to a place where a skill challenge is something of a mini adventure in itself, with somewhat amorphous flows.  That'd be fine so long as the system accounts for PCs occasionally taking a passwall-like action that "crits" the encounter (or fumbles it, as the case may be).  The system had better help DMs structure these encounters, too -- I don't want to spend an entire evening mapping out the vagaries of a single encounter.  And, I hope that it handles checks that are passive -- the samurai shouldn't have to say "I think about history and how this applies", though it's fair for the player to remind the DM about certain skills or suggest applications.That was a lot longer than I'd meant it to be, and shouldn't be taken as my interpretation of how I believe things will be handled.  It's just a train-of-thought blurb on how things could be handled and/or some of what I see as being issues that need to be addressed for the system to be worthwhile.Celebrim does have some extremely good points and concerns about what we know about the challenge system.  I'm looking forward to 4e and I'm to give the benefit of the doubt that it'll turn out reasonably well in this area.  I'm not exactly reassured by what would apparently please some people, though.</blockquote>

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