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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lacyon" data-source="post: 4171833" data-attributes="member: 63046">This deserves a better response than I gave it last time, so let me attempt to do it now.I'm going to continue running under my assumption that the primary design purpose of the skill challenge system is to lay down an idea of what skill DCs and ratio of successes to failures required for 'success' are, in some sense of the word, 'level-appropriate'.This is exactly like a skill challenge except that the arbitray tally of successes and failures is replaced by the arbitrary whim of the DM, or the arbitrary whims of the players and DMs working in concert, or whatever other arbitrary convention you replace it with. Arbitrariness is not removed from the system.Meanwhile, if the system is well designed, the arbitrary tally of successes and failures conforms to a likelihood of success by characters of a given level, much like the CR system (or 4Es XP-based encounter-building system) is.Like the CR system, a well-designed skill challenge system (including, yes, an X before Y subsystem) can assist you in designing this narrative map as a level-appropriate challenge, as well as assisting you in adjudicating the results of 'winging it'.That doesn't mean that every path leading to overall success needs to require X successes if you've planned them out ahead, just like every encounter doesn't need to be EL = Party Level. But having a baseline to work from is better than not, and having some guidelines for how long to draw out the encounter when the players stray from the path is also handy.Yes. And many DMs don't need the assistance of the CR system to plan out their combats, but I would suggest that few of them begrudge its existence. Likewise, some will not need the assistance of the skill challenge guidelines to adjudicate noncombat challenges in a way that keeps their players entertained and involved, nor to give them a fair shake at success while keeping the threat of failure real and imminent.Yes. A set of guidelines that assists you in adjudicating overall success and failure is complementary to this, not antithetical.The skill challenge system still leaves a lot to GM judgment, and will almost certainly play out differently between groups.</blockquote>

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