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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 6177998" data-attributes="member: 150">I think this is where some of the presentation of skill challenges has been mishandled, actually.  Here's the idea: The challenge, when you're in combat, is NOT REALLY who can roll better, but who can make the best tactical decisions -- maximizing chances to hit, using unexpected powers, taking advantage of the environment, and so on.  The same should be true of skill challenges.  The challenge for the players should *not* be rolling high enough (or consistently medium enough, when you need a lot of low DC rolls), but to come up with ideas for how best to handle the situation.  But when, as DMs (or adventure writers) we define skills applicable to a skill challenge -- and then explain exactly which skills can be used to the players as we describe the situation -- we really kill that potential for creative fun in the skill challenge, and it becomes just an exercise in rolling dice. AND this is where I think 4e -- as an edition of the game very much dedicated to spelling out rules and options very clearly -- hurts itself by applying the same method to skill challenges.  Which means that D&D next, which has ratcheted back that explicitness and detail in the rules and presentation, is actually in a much better philosophical place to handle those sorts of challenges than 4e was. It's going to be much easier to define a challenge (get into the Barracks to release a prisoner) and leave the players to come up with a plan. Once they've come up with a plan on their own, the idea that the skill checks are not incredibly difficult doesn't matter, because the fun of playing out the scene was coming up with the plan, not rolling the dice. -rg</blockquote>

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