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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5046517" data-attributes="member: 80487">DM fiat is exactly the recommended procedure in 4e! &quot;Set the complexity based on how significant you want the challenge to be.&quot;The only distinction Gimby drew was that in AD&amp;D the odds are based on the DM's judgment of the players' plans. That is indeed the advice given. It is also true that the instructions for a skill challenge in 4e start a priori with the DM specifying the overwhelmingly decisive factors: The DCs and numbers of rolls.By definition, &quot;when an obstacle takes only one roll to resolve, it's not a challenge.&quot; Ergo, neither is resort to no rolls at all. It requires a minimum of two rolls to fail a challenge, at least four to pass.The DM also determines which skills apply. Given the standard, that is relatively trivial in terms of probability variation. &quot;Give some thought to which skills you select here, keeping in mind the goal of involving all the players in the action.&quot; Note that it is DM selection of factors -- not awaiting a player plan -- that takes priority, and that &quot;the action&quot; is defined as making those dice-rolls.There are several pages of advice, quite excellently suited to the stated goal -- and to the mathematically evident goal of making outcomes conform to an expected distribution. The challenge procedure meshes with the character construction rules in the PHB and with the other encounter, experience and &quot;page 42&quot; material in the DMG.Might a DM allow a player plan to &quot;spoil&quot; a challenge? Perhaps, but if there is any mention of the possibility of aborting the procedure then it is well buried. What is suggested is that, &quot;if a player wants to use a skill you didn't identify as a primary skill in the challenge, however, then the DC for using that secondary skill is hard. ... In addition, a secondary skill can never be used by a single character more than once in a challenge.&quot;Love it or not, the character of the undertaking is very hard to mistake. The clear methodology is not surprisingly in keeping with the explicitly stated ends. The 4e DMG is no anthology of abstruse High Gygaxian!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5046517, member: 80487"] DM fiat is exactly the recommended procedure in 4e! "Set the complexity based on how significant you want the challenge to be." The only distinction Gimby drew was that in AD&D the odds are based on the DM's judgment of the players' plans. That is indeed the advice given. It is also true that the instructions for a skill challenge in 4e start a priori with the DM specifying the overwhelmingly decisive factors: The DCs and numbers of rolls. By definition, "when an obstacle takes only one roll to resolve, it's not a challenge." Ergo, neither is resort to no rolls at all. It requires a minimum of two rolls to fail a challenge, at least four to pass. The DM also determines which skills apply. Given the standard, that is relatively trivial in terms of probability variation. "Give some thought to which skills you select here, keeping in mind the goal of involving all the players in the action." Note that it is DM selection of factors -- not awaiting a player plan -- that takes priority, and that "the action" is defined as making those dice-rolls. There are several pages of advice, quite excellently suited to the stated goal -- and to the mathematically evident goal of making outcomes conform to an expected distribution. The challenge procedure meshes with the character construction rules in the PHB and with the other encounter, experience and "page 42" material in the DMG. Might a DM allow a player plan to "spoil" a challenge? Perhaps, but if there is any mention of the possibility of aborting the procedure then it is well buried. What [i]is[/i] suggested is that, "if a player wants to use a skill you didn't identify as a primary skill in the challenge, however, then the DC for using that secondary skill is hard. ... In addition, a secondary skill can never be used by a single character more than once in a challenge." Love it or not, the character of the undertaking is very hard to mistake. The clear methodology is not surprisingly in keeping with the explicitly stated ends. The 4e DMG is no anthology of abstruse High Gygaxian! [/QUOTE]

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