Stalker0 said:
Second, my group HATED the name Guiding Light. What I thought was a cool, heroic sounding name they thought was completely corny. I guess that's why I do math equations and don't create names
However, I did note the once per round aid was a bit of a problem, but not in the way I originally thought. Most of the time, people wanted to aid, not because they wanted to be helpful, but because they were unsure of what to do. People weren't sure of what skills to pick, or how to apply their best skills to a combat, so they looked to aid as a way to "bail them out".
While no one said anything, I could tell there were a few cases of "why can't I aid as well?" written on the players faces. Further, it got a little confusing when a person chose to aid, and then later on a person trying to aid, not remembering someone else had done it. The DM had to remind them of it several times, and then the player would sit trying to think of something to do.
If everyone wants the opportunity to aid each round, (which, from a roleplaying perspective, seems reasonable) couldn't you provide a remedy by allowing them to do so, but only allow one person to use their +2 bonus to assist someone else for any given check? As written, the guiding light rule seems to be a way for people to prepare for future skill checks; whether assisting someone on another check or rerolling your own. The only real problem from having multiple people use it each round is that you could then grant a character a massive bonus from multiple people assisting (which, as you mention, is the problem with the aid another rules as written in the DMG). So, since you still couldn't ever get more than a +2 bonus from aiding, it seems that the only real problem would be that there would be more skill rerolls. This might skew the math unacceptably; if so, perhaps limit the number of guiding light rerolls to 1x per character per challenge? That doesn't seem too different from what you'd get with the current rules, where you can get at most 1x per round. And heck, it makes it fit in with the encounter powers that players are familiar with already.
Perhaps as an alternate name, "Plan for the Worst". Or, if that's too negative, "Cunning Preparation". Or maybe "Spit in Murphy's Eye," if you want it to be light hearted.
In fact, writing it up as an encounter power might make it obvious how it works, and avoid player confusion. Much as how basic attacks are at-will powers that everyone has, or second wind. Something like the following:
Cunning Preparation
You think ahead, planning for the challenges to come, and skillfully lay the groundwork for future success.
Encounter
Standard Action - Personal
Effect: During a skill challenge, instead of taking your normal turn, you may roll an allowed skill check against a lower DC that does not count as a success or failure. If you succeed, you may do one of the following:
1) Provide another character a +2 power bonus to his or her next skill check.
2) Reroll one of your own skill checks later in the challenge, though you must take the new result.
If you opt for this route, it might make more sense to let the player choose which skill check to give an ally a +2 bonus on, rather than mandate that it be the next one. That way, multiple people can use the power on the same round and not have it be wasted. And, you're still only ever going to see a single +2 bonus for any given skill, because power bonuses don't stack.
EDIT: I was looking over your original system again, and I think that you could actually write up each of the new skill challenge options that your system provides as encounter frequency powers. This would let you clean up the wording to make them inline with the rest of the 4e ruleset, and potentially make the whole system a lot easier to grok. For instance, you could give the guiding light power a keyword, like "Simple," and the bold recovery a keyword like "Challenging". Then, you can just title each DC column accordingly, and know instantly which to use.
SECOND EDIT: Actually, looking at the current DC table, you could remove the two extra column entirely if you turned them into bonuses or penalties associated with the powers.
For example, for the guiding light power, you could just have them make the skill check with a bonus dependent on level:
Level 1-11: +4
Level 12-20: +5
Level 21-30: +6
(a little odd, since the bonus increases at level 12 instead of level 11, but workable. Or you could just make it increase at level 11 for sake of simplicity. Oh, I just realized you changed it TO its current form for simplicity; changing it back would make it more simple, AND more mathematically sound!)
For bold recovery, you could just have them make a skill check with a penalty dependent on level:
Bold Recovery:
Level 1-10: -5
Level 11-20: -6
Level 21: -7
(This one's even nicer, since it directly follows the tier structure!)
Then, you only have one DC column, no fuss, no muss. The DM doesn't have to worry about doing any extra bookkeeping; the players can adjust their bonuses accordingly (even noting them ahead of time), and roll against the same DC no matter what type of action they're taking. And, with the power rules as written, it should be extremely easy to follow.
What do you think?
