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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 4366616" data-attributes="member: 3146">Here are a few things to consider before ninjaing the 4e skill challenge system.1. There are a few mathematical problems inherent in the 4e skill challenge system. Stalker0 explored them in the excellent threads referenced above, but to give a preview, I think the most persuasive problems that he presents are:a. A character without an appropriate skill harms the party by participating. (If three failures before six successes loses you the skill challenge, then every time Joe the barbarian without any (appropriate) good skills attempts to participate, he is likely to fail (because his skills are not good) and harm the party (because they can't afford failures.b. The RAW encourage every player to try to finagle a way to use their good skills to solve every problem. The fighter has a really good athletics but no diplomacy? He impresses the king by flexing his biceps? The wizard is running away from the guards in Sembia? His athletics is garbage, he doesn't have any streetwise, and he doesn't have the endurance necessary to succeed. So, he tries to find a way to use history or arcana. (Apparently, he spent his time as a child reading the "Guiness book of most useful secret doors in the Realms"... and they all happen to be in Sembia).Now while I haven't played it, Stalker0's thread convinced me that the mechanic can be (and probably has been) fixed.But there's a bit more work necessary to adapt in to 3.X or Pathfinder because there is a much larger difference between the abilities of a poor character and a good character. To illustrate that, let's take the example of athletics. In 4e, a strength focused melee ranger with skill focus athletics might have an athletics check of +13 at first level (+5 str, +5 skill training, +3 skill focus). More reasonably, it would be +8 or +9 depending upon amor check penalty. A very aggressively charisma focused paladin might have an athletics check of -5 (-1 for an 8 strength, -2 for heavy shield, -2 for plate armor). That's a potential difference of 13 points. At level 21, the difference would not be that much different. The typical melee ranger has +10 from level, +8 from strength, and +5 from skill training: +23. The paladin has +10 from level, +0 from strength, and -4 from armor check penalty. Total +6. That's a difference of 17 points. A bit bigger, but not too much.Now, look at that example in 3.x and we'll use Climb since it follows a more typical skill progression than Jump. Character 1 is a lightly armored fighter. He starts out with an 18 strength and puts max ranks in climb because he has nothing better to do with his ranks. At level one, he has +8 to climb. Character 2 is a grey elf wizard. He has a 6 strength and no ranks. -2. A difference of 10 points. Pretty similar to 4th edition at 1st level. But up the level to 16 (perhaps the equivalent of 4th edition 21st level) and things are dramatically different. The fighter now has 19 ranks, +9 from strength, +1 from a luckstone, and +2 from his armbands of might for a total of +31 to climb. The wizard still has no ranks and still has a strength of 6 but he also picked up a luckstone. So he has a total bonus of -1. That's a 30 point difference in ability. The fighter can strap on fullplate and take the penalty to climb at double speed, roll a 1, and still succeed at a task that the wizard can't succeed at even on a 20. (Which is why wizards have spells like spider climb, fly, and dimension door).In short, while 4th edition has a fairly consistent difference between characters who are good at skills and those who aren't, 3.x enables characters who are godlike in combat or one skill to be no better than your typical first level commoner at other skills. Just because you can kill a gargantuan black dragon singlehandedly doesn't mean you can weave a rug or lie your way past the palace guards.That poses a problem for the skill challenge mechanic because if you adopt a fixed DC for everyone, by mid levels it will simultaneously be automatic for some characters and impossible for others. (In a home game, careful design of the challenge can accomodate this since you should know the characters' abilities; writing for a con game or publication does not afford you that luxury). My experience writing RPGA mods suggests that for 3.x, you're probably better off using a complex skill check mechanic and providing multiple skills that give you different paths to your goal, some of which may be better than others.</blockquote>

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