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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5437126" data-attributes="member: 3400">But that's exactly what a skill challenge is. You can stick your fingers in your ears and stop your feet all you want, but that's still exactly what a 4e skill challenge is.Sorry, man. Just trying to put it in an example you should be able to understand. My mistake.How about let's suppose it's something they actually want to do. Is that hard? Is it so hard to believe the players might actually be choosing to do something heroic and, given the situation, this is what they are attempting to do?And why do you assume that the successful use of skills would be arbitrary in a well-designed or executed skill challenge? Or that only a fixed set of skills would necessarily apply? One of the whole points is that there may be multiple factors that work together to advance the group to achieve a common objective - or through sufficient numbers of failures, leave group unable to achieve that objective or suffer some other cost. If the pilot blows his flying, the engineer can't coax more power, and the sensor operator fails to detect some hazard that may slow the ship, it won't matter if the navigator manages to plot a course that cuts a few hours off the travel time. It's too little to make the necessary difference. But if 3 of those 4 crewmen make their checks, then it's OK if the fourth fails. The successes of the 3 are sufficient to have the ship overtaking the tanker. That's the main thrust of a skill challenge - giving a DM structures upon which to adjudicate a more complex task than a single skill check.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 5437126, member: 3400"] But that's [b]exactly[/b] what a skill challenge is. You can stick your fingers in your ears and stop your feet all you want, but that's still exactly what a 4e skill challenge is. Sorry, man. Just trying to put it in an example you should be able to understand. My mistake. How about let's suppose it's something they actually [b]want[/b] to do. Is that hard? Is it so hard to believe the players might actually be choosing to do something heroic and, given the situation, this is what they are attempting to do? And why do you assume that the successful use of skills would be arbitrary in a well-designed or executed skill challenge? Or that only a fixed set of skills would necessarily apply? One of the whole points is that there may be multiple factors that work together to advance the group to achieve a common objective - or through sufficient numbers of failures, leave group unable to achieve that objective or suffer some other cost. If the pilot blows his flying, the engineer can't coax more power, and the sensor operator fails to detect some hazard that may slow the ship, it won't matter if the navigator manages to plot a course that cuts a few hours off the travel time. It's too little to make the necessary difference. But if 3 of those 4 crewmen make their checks, then it's OK if the fourth fails. The successes of the 3 are sufficient to have the ship overtaking the tanker. [b]That's[/b] the main thrust of a skill challenge - giving a DM structures upon which to adjudicate a more complex task than a single skill check. [/QUOTE]

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