Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill Challenges in 5E
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 6177991" data-attributes="member: 2303"><p>Oneof the issues I had with skill challenges was this: If it was to be even possible to rack up X successes before 3 failures (where X >> 3), difficulties had to be low. Which turned the skill roll from "Yay, I made it" to "Shucks, why am I the one to fail?". High difficulties make successes exceptional, low difficulties make failures exceptional. On top of this, it encouraged players to simply not be present if they lacked the right skills, as to try and fail was disastrous. The mechanically best option if the DM allowed it was for everyone but the most skilled player to use "aid other", which was spectacularly boring.</p><p></p><p>My solution to this was to reverse the process; High DC, a number of rounds to the challenge, at least one skill roll had to succeed each round, failed rolls counted as assistance. This gave everyone an incentive to try. It was still far from perfect; the people with the highest interest in the skill challenge would usually want to take their rolls first, which meant that they didn't get any assistance bonus, which meant their rolls quite often failed. At this point in the skill challenge development process here, my players had had enough of skill challenges and I didn't try to improve them any further.</p><p></p><p>A skill challenge system for 5E would have to solve all these issues before I would see it as in any way positive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Starfox, post: 6177991, member: 2303"] Oneof the issues I had with skill challenges was this: If it was to be even possible to rack up X successes before 3 failures (where X >> 3), difficulties had to be low. Which turned the skill roll from "Yay, I made it" to "Shucks, why am I the one to fail?". High difficulties make successes exceptional, low difficulties make failures exceptional. On top of this, it encouraged players to simply not be present if they lacked the right skills, as to try and fail was disastrous. The mechanically best option if the DM allowed it was for everyone but the most skilled player to use "aid other", which was spectacularly boring. My solution to this was to reverse the process; High DC, a number of rounds to the challenge, at least one skill roll had to succeed each round, failed rolls counted as assistance. This gave everyone an incentive to try. It was still far from perfect; the people with the highest interest in the skill challenge would usually want to take their rolls first, which meant that they didn't get any assistance bonus, which meant their rolls quite often failed. At this point in the skill challenge development process here, my players had had enough of skill challenges and I didn't try to improve them any further. A skill challenge system for 5E would have to solve all these issues before I would see it as in any way positive. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill Challenges in 5E
Top