[Skill Challenges] Did I miss something?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
themilkman
First Post
In the original DMG, the DCs were a bit high. For 1st level skill challenges, the DCs were 10/15/20. Then, WotC published an errata that lowered all the DCs. New first level DCs became 5/10/15.
So the challenges got easier and everyone liked them a little more.
So the challenges got easier and everyone liked them a little more.
WOTC did address some of the major issues with the system. That said, I personally think the core mechanic is still flawed (and unfortunately, its not something you can truly fix without some major editing).
Then again, I spent countless hours creating my own system, so I'm a bit biased
Then again, I spent countless hours creating my own system, so I'm a bit biased
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
I quite like skill challenges. In the hands of even a marginally competent DM, you can do some neat things with them.
-blarg
ps - Mercurius, the mods really don't like it when you try to wriggle around the profanity filters. Might be a good idea to edit your OP.
-blarg
ps - Mercurius, the mods really don't like it when you try to wriggle around the profanity filters. Might be a good idea to edit your OP.
And I ignored most of that effort because your posts seemed to be primarily focused on the DC problem - which I thought was simply due to the footnote and was easily corrected.
(And now I think that the errata was ill considered and should have merely stated that the footnote was for single skill checks only, not skill challenges and left the DC table alone. I think that both removing the DC table and reducing the DCs made the skill challenges into a joke).
But after the dust settled, I decided I preferred your system for other reasons that had nothing to do with the DCs. (I don't like systems that seem to reward avoiding failure through inactivity).
I still don't use Obsidian as written, but what I do do is far closer to your system than it is to what is in the DMG.
My latest wrinkle is that I am considering adding an 'assessment phase'. What I am trying to avoid is the degree of metagaming involved in getting the players to understand what types of rolls will be useful and (more importantly) what kinds of actions might be useful. It came about after considering a recent skill challenge in which I felt we had little guidance about what our goal was (and what the NPCs 'goal' was) and thus what kind of actions we might take/ what might be the 'right' thing to say.
Sure - some skill challenges allow the use of Insight and other skills to open up other potential skills - but only sporadically and almost as an afterthought. And using skills in that way under the Obsidian system takes away from potential victories and may be counterproductive. I wanted to encourage the use of skills to learn more about the subject of the challenge and reduce the amount of metagame description I had to do as a DM.
For example, in a social skill challenge this round of skill checks might allow insight or diplomacy to learn what the NPCs 'buttons' are and thus what the players ought to bring up in their later diplomacy checks, or it might include Streetwise checks to see what rumors they have heard about the NPC or History checks to see if anything is known of their past or the past of their family etc.
However, none of the rolls in this particular phase actually result in a success or failure - they only give the players information that they can use in the actual skill challenge. Successful checks may result in bonuses to the later rolls (assuming the players do in fact bring the information they learned into play) or open up skills that might otherwise not be available.
Or if I were to imitate 99% of the RPGA writers and made intimidate useless (pet peeve: in every single RPGA social skill challenge I have played in, with one exception, they decided that intimidate was an auto-failure. Ah, if only they hadn't done that in the DMG example so they wouldn't have felt so tempted to copy it) perhaps they might learn that at this point as well.
Of course - this is hypothetical at this point, it hasn't been tested yet. But since we broke off at the start of a skill challenge last time I'll hopefully get to test it soon.
Carl
Last edited:
Skill Challenges are a really neat idea. WotC just haven't found a good way to implement them yet.
So everyone is rolling up their own house rules for them and a good time is had by all.
One word: Obsidian. My group swears by it. It makes even my most roleplaying-averse slayer/player get excited when I say, "Okay, time for a skill challenge." I couldn't be happier with it.
My only complaint is that it means I need to rework each skill challenge I encounter within a published adventure. It's not a huge effort to do so, but it's enough to be a minor hassle. When 4E inevitably gets revised, I'd love it if WotC published Obsidian in the skill-challenge chapter of the DMG.
My only complaint is that it means I need to rework each skill challenge I encounter within a published adventure. It's not a huge effort to do so, but it's enough to be a minor hassle. When 4E inevitably gets revised, I'd love it if WotC published Obsidian in the skill-challenge chapter of the DMG.
James McMurray
First Post
Just check my profile James.
Just in case it wasn't clear: Yes, I did mean Stalker0's Obsidian. (I dunno, maybe there's another one?)
