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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 5274486" data-attributes="member: 58416">I have a love/hate relationship with skill challenges.  I love the concept, but I don't always love how the concept is implemented in 4E.  I rediscovered this love/hate relationship while preparing for the campaign I'm running now; I basically rewrote the DC table and ended up with numbers which are quite a bit different than what is suggested.  Likewise, it takes quite a bit of work to blur the barriers between skill challenge and encounter.  The example given in DMG 1 of having a skill challenge to disable a trap in the middle of combat doesn't work out very well in actual play.  Most of the time, it's far more efficient for the PCs to simply bash the trap than for one of them to essentially be taken out of the fight for several rounds.  Over time I have learned to work with this and produce better results, but it requires that I go against a lot of the advice that I am given by the books.  One of my main complaints about the skill challenge system is also how binary it is.  This is also one of my complaints about 4E in general; I don't like how so many things are reduced to being either yes or no.  An idea I've taken from my experience from GURPS is measuring the margin of success and failure.  If the PCs need 10 successes and get 9, yes, that is a failure, but it should still produce some sort of result and be better than if they only succeeded 2 or 3 times.  Likewise, a highly skilled character should be rewarded for their investment and get something out of excelling rather than their success meaning the same thing as the untrained guy who does just enough to get over the DC hump.  When it comes to background skills and more in depth out of combat options, I'm not sure how much of a place they have in the grand scheme of 4E.  I am one of the people who complained about 4E not having such things, but, after having more experience with 4E, I've come to realize that 4E has ideas about what sort of game I should be playing when I pick my dice and roll for initiative.  While it is possible to go against those ideas, I probably won't get what I want when I do.  I've come to terms with what 4E does well and what it doesn't; when I want to play a different kind of game, I've found that I'm better off playing a different game than trying to go against the grain of 4E's design.    I do believe it would be possible to use skill challenges to resolve more in depth combat activities.  Being able to perform those activities isn't what causes the problem for me.  What causes the problem is not having a satisfying way to quantify the results of those activities in terms that are meaningful enough.  I in no way believe it's impossible to do something with any game system; I simply believe that certain aspects of gaming are more supported and/or less supported by different systems.  4E as a whole is the same way, and certain things are more highlighted and given more importance than others.  There are certain aspects that -if I want to highlight them- I'm better off playing a different game for.  Coming to realize this has allowed me to better enjoy 4E because I've stopped trying to work against the system and have learned to work with the system to better enjoy what it provides.  I'd love for WoTC to prove me wrong, and I wouldn't in any way be against bringing more elements in 4E and the 4E skill challenge system.  However, I'm not sure if those elements -even if added to 4E- would be as satisfying to me as what I've found in other systems.</blockquote>

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