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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elric" data-source="post: 4987473" data-attributes="member: 1139">When characters have different chances of success on skill challenges, these probabilities become more complex.  On the WotC boards, Elder Basilisk used an approximation based on the geometric average of each party member's chance to succeed on a roll (<a href="http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75854/19397178/Skill_Challenges_How_have_you_handled_them?post_id=329852434#329852434" target="_blank">Skill challenges</a>).  I'm pretty convinced that this systematically underestimates the chance to succeed on the skill challenge as a whole (<a href="http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75854/19397178/Skill_Challenges_How_have_you_handled_them&post_num=165#329852694" target="_blank">my reasons here</a>), while using the arithmetic mean would lead to results that could be above or below the true probability.  That said, his  <a href="http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75854/19397178/Skill_Challenges_How_have_you_handled_them&post_num=165#329852694" target="_blank">basic points</a> hold up fine: Characters with weak skills should never try to roll them on a skill challenge; the best strategy is to declare you're using your best skill, giving some possibly ridiculous explanation why it's relevant, or else to avoid participating at all for fear of being called on to use a weak skill (since participating is typically optional).  Characters should also use Aid Another as much as possible, which combined with the other suggestions could make skill challenges trivial.  A naive strategy of "rolling for it" without using "Aid Another" works on easy challenges, but is unlikely to work on tough ones.A sophisticated programmer could probably find a good way to "brute force" these calculations; simply running 100,000 simulations for each set of values is also a valid approach.</blockquote>

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