Stalker0's Alternate Core Skill Challenge System: FINAL VERSION 1.8!

[Stalker0]

How about allowing Aid Another but making the DC equal to the "EASY" test at the given level, and setting a cap at 3 players aiding the Lead roller. With each Aid giving a +1. Might be a bit arbritrary, but 3 sounds like a fair number. To many Cooks in a Kitchen ruins a Cake so to speak.

The thing about aid another is its not the bonus that makes it so strong, its the fact that a person with a low skill can take themselves out of the skill challenge.

At the most powerful, a team of 5 with one guy having a very high skill, every other player "drops out" effectively and the one guy makes all the rolls. This actually has a tremendous impact on a party's win rate. Even with only letting 3 people aid, you still have that huge effect.

 

[Gwarh]

The thing about aid another is its not the bonus that makes it so strong, its the fact that a person with a low skill can take themselves out of the skill challenge.

At the most powerful, a team of 5 with one guy having a very high skill, every other player "drops out" effectively and the one guy makes all the rolls. This actually has a tremendous impact on a party's win rate. Even with only letting 3 people aid, you still have that huge effect.

Fart, I knew you'd say that and it's as I thought. But this leads me to another question about your Skill Challenge systems. How do they handle "AGAINST THE CLOCK" challenges.

That is to say if the challenge has a time limit. Not real world time but game time, say in 3 rounds a party of 4 must acheive 7 sucesses before 5 failures. So in this scenario it would make sense (time wise) for each party member to roll for a success each round to try and reach the goal before time runs out, (and the Temple guards come round the corner)

In the above scenario, they could though use the "Aid Another" option but at there own peril. As sure it will increase the likelyhood of sucesses vs. failures, but also they are drastically reducing the chance at multiple sucesses in the time they have.

I'm guessing the entire Time thing is Abstracted in the first place so this might all be moot. And I totally understand the cause and effect by removing a party members from the rolls and how this effects the PWR, but it just rubs me wrong that more than one can't Aid Another. Or the idea some people seem to have that Aid Another may not even be allowed at all in Skill Challenges.

IMO Aid Another should be allowed (within reason, even if it's an arbitrary limit) but there should also be consequences for to many Party Members not making there own rolls as well. I'm sure you've Grok'd this all before Stalker0. It just seems natural and intuitive to me some party members would be allowed to assist another in a sense.

One More Question though.

If I was to allow up to a max of 3 party members to "Aid Another" with each garnering a max of +1 to the aid (and an overall max of +3) the +3 part of the bonus doesn't throw the equation out of whack right. It's the fact that now 3 not just 1 are not rolling that throws off the math. I guess in a vs. Time & Successes scenario as opposed to a vs. Successes scenario I don't mind the math being thrown off a bit, cause there are consequences for said choice.

 

[Stalker0]

Fart, I knew you'd say that and it's as I thought. But this leads me to another question about your Skill Challenge systems. How do they handle "AGAINST THE CLOCK" challenges.

I'm sure you've Grok'd this all before Stalker0. It just seems natural and intuitive to me some party members would be allowed to assist another in a sense.

As you said, aid another is not as big a deal if time is a factor, in this case, you could easily allow an exception to the aid rules, as the real enemy at that point is the clock.

If you prefer "against the clock" challenges, you may wish to look at my Obsidian system, as that is designed specifically as an against the clock style. Check my sig for that link.


I understand your concerns about aid another. I'll be honest with you and everyone else, this is the biggest flaw in my system. I could not find a good way to keep aid another in and allow it more freely, its just so strong a driving force in the skill challenge. Take it out, low skill people drag the party down too much. Allow it more freely, parties that use it will win far far far more than parties that don't.

 

[Keenath]

This is how I explained it to my party:

You really can't use Aid Another in a skill challenge. When you do that on a normal skill check, it means you're working together to accomplish the goal, whether that's lifting a rock or intimidating some thugs.

When you're doing a skill challenge, you're all working together anyway. You can't decide to use Aid Another to help MORE; whatever you do is already trying to help. A skill challenge doesn't restrict Aiding; it assumes that everyone is Aiding all the time and provides rules for how to determine whether the task is getting closer to completion or total failure.

Each turn, one person can concentrate on actually helping somebody else with their specific task, and that's the Assistance action (my name for Guiding Light), but that's only helping in a very limited way that doesn't meaningfully contribute to the group effort.



Stalker0: So, what do I do if one of the players decides to "sit this one out" or "hang back this turn"? Does he earn an automatic failure each round, as if he'd tried and failed?

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

Stalker,
Being an engineer and all, I have to say how awesome it is to see a quantitative design method applied to game design. I can't wait to use this system! Don't concern yourself with altering guiding light (at least not yet). Have faith in the mathematics.

(I also have to say how disappointed I am that WoTC, who have been touting the math behind the 4E system, missed this one)

I'd like to echo the above poster from a different direction.

How does your system tolerate other party sizes?
Alternately,
How do I accommodate a party with more players?

Finally, this is an absolutely superlative effort. Kudos to you for developing a solution instead of simply talking about a problem.

 

[blashimov]

Great job Stalker0! I wanted to say that what's worked well for is self-regulation. Parties I've played with simply don't aid unless it makes good sense in the characters descriptions of actions, or especially when someone has low skills. This happens all the time because we avoid repeated the same skill like the plague, as it requires a new description of what you are doing. In addition, aiding doesn't take time - you can aid and still make a roll when your turn comes up. You tables on the core system match what I've experienced with this - parties often have a range of 5-12 at first level of skills they are attempting (12 is still rare), and the occasional aid makes up for people not using strong skills. Examples: Player almost never aid on perception when they don't describe their action as "searching". They might aid on a climb with rope - but not a jump, or when trying to dig your way out of cave. We've hit about 80% success - maybe a little higher.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Just a point of clarification: is this system intended to function in more or less the same way as the standard challenges--i.e. roll for initiative, each player must choose a skill to roll each round, etc.? If that's the case, when do the players pick that round's Guiding Light?

The way I read this, if only one player is allowed to be the Guiding Light each round, then a player declares himself GL on his turn, and stays GL until the beginning of his next turn. So then, he could declare himself GL again, or roll against the challenge, freeing up the GL position. Now, let's say the next player in the initiative order wants to be the GL. He stays that way for a round, and then goes back to rolling normally. But now the first player wants to be GL. So for the rest of the round until the first player's turn comes up, there's no GL, and nobody is getting the bonus, due to the initiative order. Is this the intention, or am I reading it incorrectly?

 

[Stalker0]

But now the first player wants to be GL. So for the rest of the round until the first player's turn comes up, there's no GL, and nobody is getting the bonus, due to the initiative order. Is this the intention, or am I reading it incorrectly?

The intention is that the party picks the guiding light at the beginning of the turn.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Is your system still necessary after the errata to the Skill Challenge system? Did that errata make skill challenges work?

 

[Stalker0]

Is your system still necessary after the errata to the Skill Challenge system? Did that errata make skill challenges work?

A good question.

I think overall WOTC made some good changes to its system, but there are still flaws. Now the rules encourage players to drop out of the challenge and let the skilled people do it, which is counteractive to the original point of the challenge. Further, it has now become much easier with utility powers to autosucceed at skill checks by gaining skill bonuses.

That said, the math is more solid (though the high variability is still there). The failure rate is now acceptable...imo, its a workable system. If this had been the system I had been originally presented with, I would never have taken all the time and effort to develop two systems on my own.


I think there is still a place for this system, it still offers a lot of benefit, but the gap has been narrowed.