Skill Challenges in Heathen (Dungeon)

[FourthBear]

The first 4e adventure of Dungeon, Heathen, is available for download. There are three places I found where skill challenge DCs are noted. Unfortunately, their DCs do not appear to be consistent with each other. All appear to use as a starting point the DCs on page 42. However, the first skill challenge adds 5 to the DCs for the checks, while the second one does not. The third one is a brief note of a possible improvised skill challenge in the final encounter that does not add 5 to the DCs.

Here's hoping that WotC clears up this issue with both their customers and internally quickly. It's definitely somewhat embarrassing. A further note is that the skill challenges use the word Difficulty for what the DMG calls Complexity. I assume that this was a term used in an earlier draft or simply sloppy editing.

Edited to change Heretic to Heathen

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The first 4e adventure of Dungeon, Heretic, is available for download. There are three places I found where skill challenge DCs are noted. Unfortunately, their DCs do not appear to be consistent with each other. All appear to use as a starting point the DCs on page 42. However, the first skill challenge adds 5 to the DCs for the checks, while the second one does not. The third one is a brief note of a possible improvised skill challenge in the final encounter that does not add 5 to the DCs.

Here's hoping that WotC clears up this issue with both their customers and internally quickly. It's definitely somewhat embarrassing. A further note is that the skill challenges use the word Difficulty for what the DMG calls Complexity. I assume that this was a term used in an earlier draft or simply sloppy editing.

It definitely looked liked sloppy editing. The skill challenges look just off. The ideas themselves are great, but the implementation is inconsistent and badly edited.

 

[Oompa]

Why is it sloppy editing, as an dm you can adjust the dc anyway you want..

 

[Vempyre]

Thinking in 3Eisms will not help here.

4E has no hard rules for setting DCs, monster stats and anything else. Everything is just guidelines, so a particular author is very well encouraged to change a few things as he wish for his adventure to play as he wants it to. So teh skill challenge deviates from the usual recommended DCs? If it makes the adventure behave like the author wants it to, it all fine.

So the greatsword for the paladin does D12. I bet it's not an error, but a feature specifically put in by the author. It's not a problem as long as it doesn't make the NPC into an unintended unstoppable monster. If the players use that same sword it will do D10, but when that particular NPC wields it it does D12. Remember that NPCs do not follow PC rules, at all, even for equipment.

The above is true for everything. in 4E, there can be no errors in NPC stat blocks unless it's something the author mistyped and the end results ends up different from what he intended. It's the same for skill challenges.

 

[IceFractal]

Just because creating custom monsters/items is possible, doesn't mean an error isn't an error.

For instance, in 3E, there was no specific rule that you couldn't have a weapon with a 19-20/x4 critical, which the Talenta Sharresh had as printed. This was, however, a mistake, and was later corrected.

Likewise, if I see a 4E monster that does 2d100+7 damage, I'm going to assume that the "d100" is a typo, rather than that this monster is supposed to do 10x the damage of any other.

 

[FourthBear]

Why is it sloppy editing, as an dm you can adjust the dc anyway you want..

Actually, the sloppy editing is both the confusion in the DC assignment, as well as using the word "Difficulty" when they mean "Complexity" in every skill challenge. It's not a crime and doesn't ruin anything, but it does look sloppy.

While the DC assignments for these challenges could be the result of a planned exception, it is quite a coincidence that these exceptions happen to exactly match in every particular what would happen if there indeed some confusion around when to apply the +5 DC to the standard DCs on page 42. I'll also note that they will result in wildly different success rates between the first skill challenges and the second, going from approximately 10% chance of success for the first to 75% of success for the second if I am allowed to reference Stalker0's tables.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=230357&page=1&pp=15

That's a pretty big change to not mention to the DM running the adventure. And if special multiple Aid Anothers are used to make the first skill challenge give a reasonable chance of success, success for the second is pretty much 100%. I may be wrong, but I think there is indeed some honest confusion on what baseline skill challenge DCs are.

 

[IanB]

It seems possible that the first few adventures we get will have been in the hopper since before the very last final form of the rules went to print. That is the case, for example, with the RPG blocks on the backs of the DDM stat cards for Dungeons of Dread and will also be the case with the cards for Against the Giants.

 

[ravenight]

I actually submitted this to wizards' customer service, and they say there will be errata about it "but for now, it is up your DM to decide what DC to use for skill challenges".

 

[gonesailing]

I read through the skill challenges and they do seem like good ideas. I will say this...WotC really needs to give us DMs some more guidelines about Skill Challenges. Seeing the DCs vary like that hardly gives me confidence using the system.
It's all fine to say that it was intended by the author, but I am scratching my head trying to figure out how he came up with the DCs.
Also, I am examining them and see that in B6 "Among the Wolves" it says that the party might attempt only moderate DC skill checks only there are none listed. All the Bluff, Religion and Diplomacy are listed with Easy DCs, and the Athletics is Hard (using the table from pg 42 of the DMG without the +5) Personally I don't see why Athletics is hard in this scenario, but that could be the author's decision.
On the skill challenge for F3, it does look like the table on 42 DMG +1, except for Streetwise the DC is 26. Wow! Assuming its trained (+5) at level 5 (+2) with 18 Charisma (+4) that is a 15 minimum roll. Aid another could help (a lot) on that.

 

[FourthBear]

I might note that I do like skill challenges and what I think they'll encourage in both prepared adventures and improvisational games. I am primarily concerned about this to make sure that new DMs to 4e don't have a poor experience with the skill challenge rules producing far too many failures and getting a negative impression. I do think it's important that DMs and players realize that skill challenges can result in failure, but I don't think failure rates of 70+% are going to be very encouraging to many tables.