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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kaomera" data-source="post: 5468168" data-attributes="member: 38357">I wish you could do that in skill challenges (or do it more). They made a big deal of "siloing" the 4e design, but it doesn't seem to have actually panned out - different classes have different numbers of skills, and taking a cool SC-related power means missing out on something more useful in combat...But I find that when a player says "I call upon the power of Bahamut..." they have a specific power in mind that they're using, and they'll correct you if you get it wrong. Same thing with skill usage. I'm running a Dark Sun game and the PCs needed to get some info on some undead. Religion is the skill you would use for that, but this being a Dark Sun game no-one in the group has any real ability with that skill. So when I called for a Religion check my players "corrected" me that, no, they wanted to roll Arcana...And generally my players always want to roll Arcana or Nature. I've found that the way PCs are built they usually have really big bonuses at one or two things each, moderate ability at a small handful more, and not much more than +1/2 level at anything else. And they really don't want to make checks that they might fail... I think with the worst skill bonus possible my 13th level PCs are making easy checks on a 9+, but they never actually roll for it... And we have one character who can make a difficult DC on a 1+ if aid another is available (from the other PC with a bonus high enough that she can't fail at Aid Another...) and another who makes difficult Nature checks on a 4+ and gets to roll twice and take the highest... And the other PCs mostly don't ever make SC-type checks, deferring to the group "skill monkeys".So my players are "gaming" the skill challenges whether I tell them they're in one or not (and they've asked me not to). I don't think there's anything horrible about that - they made these PCs to be good at what they're good at because that's what interests them and that's where the PCs attention is going to focus. I'm planning on asking them to see if they can spread some of their bonuses, etc. around some (even if it means free retraining), I'm not too happy with them needing better than a 5+ for a difficult check with Aid Another...So what I was trying to do with my skill challenges was to let them use their awesome skills, but just not for every check. And I tried to set stuff up where they would at least be tempted to get some of the other characters / players rolling stuff, for Aid Another or whatever. The other players tend to just look over their sheets and say "well, there's really nothing I can roll..." because they might rack up a failure. I even tried making the "any other skill with a good explanation" checks at lower DCs to encourage them, but players just seem to like having the biggest numbers...</blockquote>

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