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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 4284923" data-attributes="member: 996">I'm perplexed by the skill challenge system, and the 'math' threads.&nbsp; The math used is fine, even obvious - of course if you have a 50-50 shot at each check, you're not easily going to come up with 4 successes before 2 failures.&nbsp; That complex challenges actually got easier when your rolls were very good was interesting, though.&nbsp; Both point to the system being flawed, though.&nbsp; I think the examples in the DMG illustrated the problem, they were too abstract, too simple, and the idea of 'rewarding' the use of an unexpected skill with a /hard/ difficulty wasn't very helpful.D&amp;D combat manages to be exciting and avoid just being a simple hit-point removal game (at least, in prior editions), through compexity.&nbsp; If you could boil down a D&amp;D combat to doing X damage before taking Y damage (and the Skill Challenge system is even simpler than that), it'd be boring.&nbsp; Complexity is interesting.&nbsp; Combat has a lot of natural complexity, because it's resolved round-by-round (nearly, blow-by-blow), and because there are many powers and options.Skills actually give you a lot of options, but the Skill Challenges seem to restrict them.&nbsp;&nbsp; Reading the examples in the DMG reminded me of old text-based computer RPGs, where you advanced the plot with a conversation tree.&nbsp; The NPC said something, you picked a response, if you picked a series of right responses, you got to the next scene.&nbsp; Skill Challenges seemed similar, only you were rolling to see if you got the right response.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 4284923, member: 996"] I'm perplexed by the skill challenge system, and the 'math' threads. The math used is fine, even obvious - of course if you have a 50-50 shot at each check, you're not easily going to come up with 4 successes before 2 failures. That complex challenges actually got easier when your rolls were very good was interesting, though. Both point to the system being flawed, though. I think the examples in the DMG illustrated the problem, they were too abstract, too simple, and the idea of 'rewarding' the use of an unexpected skill with a /hard/ difficulty wasn't very helpful. D&D combat manages to be exciting and avoid just being a simple hit-point removal game (at least, in prior editions), through compexity. If you could boil down a D&D combat to doing X damage before taking Y damage (and the Skill Challenge system is even simpler than that), it'd be boring. Complexity is interesting. Combat has a lot of natural complexity, because it's resolved round-by-round (nearly, blow-by-blow), and because there are many powers and options. Skills actually give you a lot of options, but the Skill Challenges seem to restrict them. Reading the examples in the DMG reminded me of old text-based computer RPGs, where you advanced the plot with a conversation tree. The NPC said something, you picked a response, if you picked a series of right responses, you got to the next scene. Skill Challenges seemed similar, only you were rolling to see if you got the right response. [/QUOTE]

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