Skill Challenges for Dummies

[Wolfwood2]

Should 4e also have rules that award more XP if players can come up with enough ways to spin "I hit him with my sword" that aren't keyed off a power's flavor text?

Alternatively, should 4e have rules that award more XP if players find new ways of using attack actions that go beyond "I attack my opponent"?

"Should" is a value judgement. There are systems that do such a thing and integrate it deeply into the combat mechanic. Exalted comes most immediately to mind. A PC who stunts will far outperform an equivalent PC who doesn't, and that's just the way players seem to like it.

The D&D 4E combat system isn't really set up to handle integrating a narrative bonus/requirement, but the 4E skill challenge system runs on different mechanics and can easily accomodate a narrative bonus/requirement. Skill challenges seem designed to slip easily into and out of the "exploring the world" aspect of D&D. I am completely comfortable with penalizing players who can't do good description by limiting their ability to keep rerolling the same skill.

 

[Tervin]

Trying to approach the entire discussion from a strictly mathematical perspective is, frankly, silly.

Speaking for myself and my group, we'll use the rules as written and see how they come out for us. If they're not quite on spot, we will tweak them. I know that probably sounds stupidly simple to some of you, but I've found, for all of our efforts to forge ideal approaches to problem solving, trial, error, and playtesting are ultimately the most effective.

Thanks for your input.

First of all I will make a confession. I am not and will never be a mathematician. My expertise is teaching English as a second language, but I happen to have a bit of math experience (which my employers have tricked me into using quite a bit) - and somewhat of a knack for exactly the type of math involved in this discussion.

I can't speak for the other math-heavy posters, but I know that I turned to math this time because the rules felt ambiguous, inadequately explained and not that well thought out. What I wanted out my math experiments here is to find how to use the system so that it actually works as intended. Trial and error would be another method, but as I felt that the rules needed an interpretation in order to work at all, it seemed just as well to try and calculate a good point to start from. As it is I feel that I have now got a good idea of how I want to run skill challenges - which of course will change if it ends up less fun than I hope it will be.

To get to sort of a point: Just because people use math to solve or illustrate a problem it doesn't mean that they have a "strictly mathematical perspective". Math is simply a tool to turn to when a system feels incomplete or broken, or when you feel that it can be improved and you want to see what different choices would lead to. We are all after the fun play experience, and we use the way to get there that we are best at. No need for put downs or generalisations.

 

[Dave Turner]

Theory is fine and certainly a solid perspective on the subject, but the end result is that each DM should always expect some amount of playtesting and tweaking when introducing a new role-playing system to their group. A perfectly balanced system, speaking mathematically and making no conjecture as to the system at hand, may well be a superior system in many cases, but the simple fact is that the rules, as written, are going to work just fine for many and not as well for others. There are so many factors involved with how an FRPG system plays out that have nothing to do with math... Trying to approach the entire discussion from a strictly mathematical perspective is, frankly, silly.

Any voice of moderation is a welcome one, but I think you might be overly generous to the RAW. If you read the math thread, you’ll see several anedoctal reports from people who have used the RAW skill challenge system. Most of the reports are negative, reflecting complaints raised by the math in the thread: the party struggled to succeed with what should have been appropriate skill challenges for their level. There’s probably a certain amount of selection bias in these reports. People who are disgruntled by the probabilities of the RAW skill challenge system are probably more likely to speak out against it.

Moreover, your assertion that a strictly mathematical perspective is silly is too broad. As players, we should expect that, all else being equal, the math in 4e “works”. I want to know that, when WotC gives me guidelines on how to build my own monsters, those guidelines are going to be appropriate for my needs. Similarly, I should expect and prefer a system that is reasonably balanced. I don’t expect WotC to hire a PhD for one year to crunch through probabilities. But from what I can gather from the math thread, the math involved in analyzing the RAW skill challenge system isn’t particularly advanced. I doubt that Stalker0 spent more than a day or two performing the math. I DO expect WotC to hire someone with sufficient mathematical proficiency to conduct a few days’ worth of analysis on their skill challenge system. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

The DMG is written mostly towards newbie DMs. Newbie DMs, moreso than veteran DMs, depend on what WotC has presented to make sure that the game runs smoothly and entertainingly. If it turns out that WotC is killing the fun in the RAW skill challenge because of faulty math, then the newbie DM is likely to simply discard the skill challenge system, rather than tinker with it. He’ll probably think “Well, I can’t make it work and it’s frustrating my players. I’ll just chuck it.”

There’s no advice in the DMG regarding the “many factors involved with how an FRPG system plays out that have nothing to do with math”. What you’ve said is a euphemism for “the DM should stand ready to step in and tweak the rules when they seem to be broken”. It’s hardly the sentiment we’d expect to see in the 4e DMG and, to my knowledge, it’s not in there. By not including a mathematically-rigorous RAW skill challenge system, WotC undermines confidence in their new game and does a disservice to the newbie DMs that it is purporting to assist in the DMG. After all, if I need to constantly fiddle with the skill DCs in order to get amy RAW skill challenge to work, then I didn’t really need WotC’s table of difficulties in the first place.

The DMG clearly states that complexity isn't a measure of difficulty. It is a measure of significance to your adventure. Choose a complexity 1 challenge for barely significant (or something that should be resolved quickly as part of another challenge like combat) challenge. Choose a complexity 5 to 8 challenge to replace a whole encounter. Very the complexity according to how much time and importance you want give to this non-combat encounter.

Difficulty is measured by the challenge's level and it's number of failures needed to loose the challenge. The challenge's level (see skill DCs tables) determine the DCs and the math of that table takes into account average items, powers and skill synergies that is possible to achieve in DnD

Complexity equals not difficulty. It works as intended.

A careful reading of this thread would show that I already addressed this point by hong soon after he made it. Perhaps you could include my response to him rather than ignoring it?

 

[Tervin]

It is just flat plain impossible to apply simple (or more advanced) maths to DnD skill challenges so therefore useless to discuss it.

No it is not. By setting up general formulas and simulation tools it is very possible to test a lot of different cases. It is is also easy to see and analyse trends.

Being good at maths will not make you a better DM, assuming everybody can determine adding 100+150 = 250 or that 500/4 is 125.

I will agree that this is how it should be. And D&D 4th edition is in most cases excellent at this. I like the game a lot, which is why I feel that it is extra important to sort out weaknesses.

I don't go to D&D to solve math problems. Regrettably sometimes rules are bad or ambiguous, and then mathematical analysis is a really good tool in finding where the problem is and coming up with possible solutions. As written the skill challenge system is not clear enough, and has some unfortunate mathematical weaknesses. What to do then is to try and find the best way to use the system, and to make sure that the weaknesses don't come into play in a significant way. Some people would playtest their way to the improvement, I choose to use math first and then test. We simply use the tools we have.

Luckily for people who are not math inclined the Internet will be their friend, and they can see how other people have created solutions to the problems that they run into - that way it is still not needed to be good at math to be a DM, even when the system is not up to par.

When it comes to skill challenges I think what is needed is guidelines on how to set the right DCs, and tips on how to make complex challenges into great encounters where the players really feel that they deserve the rewards they get for success, without making it too hard. And much as I like the game, it falls short in how that chapter is written.

 

[diamabel75]

Was the possibility of one or more people having under/over 50 % chance of succeeding in each group taken into account in the math solution? I noticed that odds of completing a task were greater with the increased complexity. But there are so many variables that it can't accurately be determined.

Example: If the level one complexity rules are used (4 successes before 2 failures) and the first four who do a skill check have over a 50% chance of succeeding based on the skills used, then the chances of success are greater. However, if the first 2/3/4 have less than a 50% chance of success than it's more likely it will fail.

Also, in a level five complexity (12 success before 6 failure) if you have 5 players and 2 of them have less than a 50% chance of success with each skill check, then chances are that 2 out five rolls will fail. If this is the case, then after 10 rolls there will be 6 successes and 4 failures. Right there it's looking like it's going to fail, but even that may not be true.

Point is, there are way too many variables to assume that the math formula is a 100% accurate description of what will happen. Initiative order will play a factor, as will skills available, as will spells and powers, as will bonuses and negatives to rolls, as will the optional (if used) critical failure and success rolls.

 

[Dave Turner]

On the other hand, if you know you have insufficient skills for an upcoming skill challenge, wouldn't it be nice to be able to default to a support roll, rather than be the one that is responsible for blowing it for the team? Remember from the DMG: "In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter."

Why is the DM presenting skill challenges in which one or more PCs have insufficient skills? I agree that it's avoidable in some cases. It might stretch believability that every king with which the PCs negotiate has a fondness for Acrobatics that can influence his mood. It's a bit silly that someone could use Diplomacy to get out of the way of an avalanche.

Further, I do appreciate that sometimes a player can come up with a spontaneous suggestion for an applicable skill which the DM and players really like. I'm the last person to suggest that a DM should rigidly fold his arms across his chest and deny the clever player his due.

But skill challenges are supposed to be dramatic, as dramatic as any fight. Where's the drama in being a torch-bearer in a fight? Where's the excitement in being the guy who trumpets battle commands to troops? Players want to be amongst the troops, laying waste to their foes, being active, meaningful contributors to the outcome. Relegating "unskilled" characters to support positions robs them of the opportunity to engage with the drama of the skill challenge. A well-designed skill challenge system (like Stalker0's alternate system found in the 4e House Rules forum) is designed so that every player feels like he has a reasonable chance of being part of the action, rather than a supporter or observer.

I don't see how anyone could prefer being a torch-bearer over being a knight.

Being good at maths will not make you a better DM, assuming everybody can determine adding 100+150 = 250 or that 500/4 is 125. If you can't do that, sure a little simple maths would help. Otherwise DMing is all about intuition and knowledge of the context, it's about experience. An attempt to analyze skill challenges in general via maths is therefore useless for DMing as none of the general formulas will apply to the skill challenge you are building for your next encounter.

This is absurd. No one is suggesting that, in isolation, mathematicians are better DMs. What is being suggested, however, is that by understanding the math underlying 4e's rules systems, you might become a better DM. How?

The purpose of the DM is, above all else, to ensure that his players have fun. Fun in 4e is, in part, a function of the mathematics embedded in the rules. Why isn't it fun for a 1st level party to fight Orcus? Because the math works against the players and frustrates their desires to have an entertaining battle against Orcus. This is an embedded principle of every version of D&D every created. Any RPG which relies on numbers and dice has an explicitly mathematical foundation. 4e players and DMs are buying books by WotC because, in part, they expect that the WotC designers have done enough math to make sure that the game is fun. After all, I could design my own RPG if I wanted to do all the math myself. But I rely on WotC to do that work and, in exchange, I pay them for their efforts. Any DM worth her salt must be concerned about the math in her game.

So assuming we have a conscientious DM who wants her games to be fun for the players, we have a DM who is keen to make sure that the math generally works out for her players. She's not interested in an inadvertent TPK because some designers at WotC thought that labelling a monster with 40 AC as "Level 2" was a good idea. But our conscientious DM knows that WotC designers are human and make mistakes. It's in her best interest, and the best interests of her players, to seek out mathematical analysis of 4e's systems. After all, if she knows that WotC made a serious mathematical mistake, as the appear to have done with the RAW skill challenge system, she can correct for the problem and make sure that her players have fun.

Better knowledge of the underlying math (i.e. greater rules transparency) always benefits a DM who's interested in making sure that her actual games are fun for everyone involved. Contrary to your assertion, knowledge of the math can only help the DM, not hurt her. It's far from "useless" in DMing.

To go a bit further, do you agree that WotC should not have included rules for DMs to create their own monsters? After all, the rules there explicitly lay out the mathematics used to create monsters. Will a DM be better off ignoring those rules and mathematics and using her native cunning when designing custom monsters? Perhaps your DMing skills are up to the task. But since the DMG seems to be aimed for the newbie DM, your advice is hardly of much help.

 

[Dave Turner]

Was the possibility of one or more people having uner/over 50 % chance of succeeding in each group taken into account in the math solution? I noticed that odds of completing a task were greater with the increased complexity. But there are so many variables that it can't be accurately be determined.

Surely you've read the math thread and can answer your own question?

EDIT: This response was too quick and glib.

There are valid questions to be answered about whether things like initiative order or powers or items provide bonuses or advantages which undermine the analysis in the math thread. However, I don't think that any of the math critics of the RAW skill challenge is claiming that their results are 100% accurate. They, perhaps better than most, understand that we're dealing with probabilities. Probabilities, by their nature, reflect merely the likelihood of something occurring. I have no doubt that different mixes of items, powers, and skill levels will produce variations in the results. Certain mixes will probably tend to succeed more than other, less optimal mixes.

But the beauty of a probability seems to be that it accounts, if only roughly, for that variance. The math-types will likely be the first to confess that their results are only to a certain degree of certainty. But when their results indicate that there's only a 25% chance of succeeding in a level-appropriate skill check, I think it's fair to assume that WotC didn't intend that level of success. Maybe the hidden variable is that, as I pointed out earlier in the thread, WotC expects every party to contain a Divine Oracle (a cleric paragon path) so that they can have a 50% chance of succeeding in any given RAW skill challenge. Does that sound like a legitimate design goal for WotC?

Stalker0 has admitted in this thread that he needs to be a bit more rigorous in how he takes powers and items into account in his mathematical calculations. I'm confident that he'll honestly report the conclusions and, if need be, reverse his earlier pronouncement that the RAW skill challenge has deep mathematical problems.

 

[Vempyre]

But that's hardly intuitive from the RAW, is it? Without the benefit of the math that was crunched in the other thread, I don't think that this is a natural conclusion to draw. The hidden trap in the RAW is that a DM who assigns skill challenges based on how long it will take to perform a task isn't making a choice based on how hard the task should be. Ideally, I think that the DMG should help DMs choose tasks that are properly calibrated according to the likelihood of success. The RAW gives no indication that a Complexity 3 challenge is actually easier than a Complexity 1 challenge. So our poor newbie DMs (and many math-challenged veteran DMs) are trying to design challenges that won't frustrate their party and being mislead by the RAW.

So the argument here is that in the math thread ppl prove that complexity does affect the difficulty unlike what's stated in the DMG? I happen to be good in maths. Had 95 to 100% yearly averages all through high school and college (didn't go to university). Now there is two things about the maths thread for me.

1) I don't like maths as I used to like them, things for me changed when I realized most of that advanced was barely usable in my life to a few rare exceptions, all because of context in real life changes everything. Simple maths can often be useful in daily life though. So for me analyzing the analysis to see if the math guys in that thread did or not an error is useless for my DnD sessions.

2) I have enough experience in maths to know most mathematicians coming up with formulas on short notice usually fail to take many variables in consideration (myself included, when I liked maths, despite my success).

When the math thread is 4 months old and almost all of the context have been accounted for in the calculations (making the calculation itself incredibly complex, mind you), maybe the result (if it's condensed into an useful single post) will be worth reading, analyzing and thinking about. Until then, it's not. My experience with maths tells me that until it's been analyzed over n over again for months by dozens of different ppl, that thread doesn't prove that complexity does affect difficulty in an average DnD game's skill challenge, considering the hundreds of variables it can entail.

-----

So?

Does complexity really affect difficulty in a meaningful way as in does it affects if the characters will succeed if I choose complexity 1 or 6? After reading the math thread it seems obvious to me that some variables are still missing in there.

My personal experience of applying maths to real life (I do that often for the business in the planning and budget yearly phases of management) where social factors have to be considered in says that when your math formula differs, in results, from your guts feelings, use your gut feelings because the math probably didn't take into account a very important factor that you instinctively know is there but can't just pinpoint with accuracy because it's part of your general knowledge of the system, it's synergies, and such.

When I read the math thread my gut feelings tell me the same thing : something's missing in all those "calculations". And since I have the 20 years experience of DnD to back me up, I will trust my gut feelings more than those maths. And in my business, when I trust my gut feelings instead of the mat formulas in the planing phases, it's always been the right choice in 7 years of management and planning. Your mileage may vary. Mine might after a while too after I accumulate more experience specifically with 4E.

But for now that's where I stand. My gut feelings look at the skill challenges chapter, computes the numbers unconsciously while thinking about various situations they could happen in, and it feels "right".

 

[diamabel75]

Surely you've read the math thread and can answer your own question?

Not the entire thing, no.

 

[Eldorian]

No, what the math calculates is the probability that a certain sequence will take place before any part of it happens to take place. The math is not wrong in that context.

Where the math does not tell the whole story, what it is dismissing, is the fact that each die roll is an independent and unrelated occurance. The result of one die roll does not dictate the probability of the next die roll.

Dude. You have NO idea what you're talking about. None. Everyone in that thread who performed correct math (including me, the OP, and a guy who ran some probability trees) was using Bernoulli processes, which EXPLICITLY take into account the fact that each die roll is independent of all others.

From wiki: In probability and statistics, a Bernoulli process is a discrete-time stochastic process consisting of a sequence of independent random variables taking values over two symbols. Prosaically, a Bernoulli process is coin flipping, possibly with an unfair coin. A variable in such a sequence may be called a Bernoulli variable.

Do you even have any training, formal or otherwise, in counting and probability? I'm guessing the answer is no.



For the OP of this thread. You're wrong. The OP of the other thread gave every roll a +10 at first level. That is a corner case favoring the players. Your typical PC party isn't going to have every character having a +10 in a relevant skill to the challenge. It gets worse as players level up and the discrepancy between their primary two stats and the rest of their stats increases. Even if a party member has a power or item that helps for the challenge, unless he does EVERYTHING for the challenge, all he does statistically is bring his party closer to the corner case of everyone having a relevant skill with a max stat.

Even if you allow very odd usage of skills to help, I fail to see how the typical fighter helps resolve a diplomatic exchange unless he can succeed without using his primary stats. Athletics, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate, and Streetwise. The last two are for skills that are based on a stat he does not need for anything else, and are the only two that might help when talking to the duke, for example. Unless the duke is impressed by his jumping or climbing ability or something... "Hey look, Your Grace, if I can hold my breath for 3 minutes, you have to help us, right?"


Personally, I'd like it to be that if a character uses a power or item to help with the challenge, then that player is almost guaranteed to provide only successes, rather than just go from a 50% failure rate to a 25%.