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<blockquote data-quote="BASHMAN" data-source="post: 5966864" data-attributes="member: 8277">GM's did not treat it as &quot;optional&quot;.&nbsp; They treated it as some ham-fisted way to make a fighter's player do logical gymnastics to explain away why they could use Endurance to do everything.&nbsp; Wizards tried to fix them, but it was not a very good fix.&nbsp; The idea of skill challenges: having non-combat rolls that played out over an extended period of time: that is a good idea. The implementation &quot;fighter must explain why he can use Intimidation to find a secret door&quot; was not. I myself (before 4e I might add) included something called &quot;Extended Checks&quot; in the BASH! Ultimate Edition rules that were designed to fulfill this function.&nbsp; I think the key difference here is that you need to vary things by type.&nbsp; Some &quot;extended checks&quot; are cooperative: like looking for a secret door.&nbsp; Others are more like a &quot;race&quot; where you are trying to get from point A to point B before someone else.&nbsp; Others are individual tasks (like disarming a trap before it explodes) where others may be able to assist or not. Skill Challenges made everything collective, which does not always make sense. Another key was making the effects cumulative rather than success/fail.&nbsp; If you have a cumulative check where the group needs a 50 to find a Secret Door, and the fighter rolls a 5, he still contributed +5 towards that 50 (10% of the goal). The thief may get +25, but the fighter still did his bit. In a success/fail mechanic, the fighter's player either had to come up with a reason why he could use Endurance/Intimidation to find the secret door, OR go and take a rest-room break and conveniently miss his turn during the skill challenge OR be a near automatic Fail for the group.&nbsp; For the fighter's player, none of those options was very fun.&nbsp; When they changed the rules and declared Skill Challenges were optional and that the fighter did not have to take part, that still was not a great solution because now the fighter is just sitting there. Now for people who like skill challenges as they are in 4e, I've got an excellent solution: Use them in your own games.&nbsp; That should be super-easy to tack onto 5e if you want to; or you could even keep playing 4e.&nbsp; Who knows, WOTC might even make something like Skill Challenges available as an optional module at some point in the future.&nbsp; But many of us feel that the entire purpose of 5e is for it to NOT BE 4E.&nbsp; I'm pretty sure Wizards' sales department is also of this opinion. Thus, the insistence of many 4e enthusiasts to make 5e be similar to 4e does not make sense. Nobody is going to stop them from playing 4e once 5e comes out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="BASHMAN, post: 5966864, member: 8277"] GM's did not treat it as "optional". They treated it as some ham-fisted way to make a fighter's player do logical gymnastics to explain away why they could use Endurance to do everything. Wizards tried to fix them, but it was not a very good fix. The idea of skill challenges: having non-combat rolls that played out over an extended period of time: that is a good idea. The implementation "fighter must explain why he can use Intimidation to find a secret door" was not. I myself (before 4e I might add) included something called "Extended Checks" in the BASH! Ultimate Edition rules that were designed to fulfill this function. I think the key difference here is that you need to vary things by type. Some "extended checks" are cooperative: like looking for a secret door. Others are more like a "race" where you are trying to get from point A to point B before someone else. Others are individual tasks (like disarming a trap before it explodes) where others may be able to assist or not. Skill Challenges made everything collective, which does not always make sense. Another key was making the effects cumulative rather than success/fail. If you have a cumulative check where the group needs a 50 to find a Secret Door, and the fighter rolls a 5, he still contributed +5 towards that 50 (10% of the goal). The thief may get +25, but the fighter still did his bit. In a success/fail mechanic, the fighter's player either had to come up with a reason why he could use Endurance/Intimidation to find the secret door, OR go and take a rest-room break and conveniently miss his turn during the skill challenge OR be a near automatic Fail for the group. For the fighter's player, none of those options was very fun. When they changed the rules and declared Skill Challenges were optional and that the fighter did not have to take part, that still was not a great solution because now the fighter is just sitting there. Now for people who [i]like[/i] skill challenges as they are in 4e, I've got an excellent solution: Use them in [u]your own[/u] games. That should be super-easy to tack onto 5e if you want to; or you could even keep playing 4e. Who knows, WOTC might even make something like Skill Challenges available as an optional module at some point in the future. But many of us feel that the entire purpose of 5e is for it to [i]NOT BE 4E[/i]. I'm pretty sure Wizards' sales department is also of this opinion. Thus, the insistence of many 4e enthusiasts to make 5e be similar to 4e does not make sense. Nobody is going to stop them from playing 4e once 5e comes out. [/QUOTE]

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