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Gralamin
2008-07-20, 11:10 PM
The newest update introduces some interesting concepts with skill challenges, which I have decided to ignore. I'm gonna go through the DMG update that regards it, and show my reasoning for each part.

Premise: An Easy check should be something someone trained would almost always get. A Moderate check should be something someone trained would get 50% to 70% of the time or so. A Hard check should be something someone trained would get 25% of the time or less. This leads to Level 1 DCs of about 10, 15, 20 for easy/moderate/hard respectively.

Page 42 update:
The change here simply changes the progression and base values of the table, while also eliminating the footnotes. I think leaving the skill footnote would be fine, as it seems the table had more or less had those values included in it. I think they are overcompensating for a problem.

Page 72, Step 2 updates:
All skill challenges now are X successes before 3 failures. This addresses the problem of Complexity 5 being easier then Complexity 1 a lot of the time, which is good. I think a better solution may be in order, because saying three wrong things to the duke before saying 12 is rather difficult. Perhaps a table such as this would address the issue?
{table=head]Complexity|Successes|Failures
1|4|3
2|6|3
3|8|4
4|10|4
5|12|5[/table]
The benefit of this table is it makes 2 more difficult then 1, 3 about as difficult as 2, 4 more difficult then 3, and 5 a bit less difficult then 4, while still giving PCs some breathing room.

Next, They changed Paragraph 5, so you now have the following level of skill challenges as a base: 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29. They then, however, chose not to remove paragraph 6. This means that the following skill challenges with their DCs are possible:
{table=head]Level|DC
1|5
2|10
4|15
4|7
5|12
7|17
7|8
8|14
10|19
10|10
11|16
13|21
13|11
14|18
16|23
16|13
17|20
19|25
19|14
20|22
22|27
22|16
23|24
25|29
25|17
26|26
28|31
28|19
29|28[/table]
In addition to a few others, not listed based on changing the amount of failures.
Which doesn't make any sense, at all frankly. I would suggest instead, following my idea of the footnote, replace Paragraph 5, and Paragraph 6 with the following:

To set a level for a skill challenge, turn to page 42. Use the Moderate DC of each level group (add in the Skill check footnote) as the DC for a Skill challenge of the midpoint of that level group. To increase the level of the Skill challenge, increase the DC by 1. To decrease the level of the Skill Challenge, decrease the DC by 1.
You may also adjust the level of the skill challenge by reducing the number of failures needed to end the skill challenge. Cut the number of failures needed in half (Rounding down), and increase the level of the challenge by two.
This will result in the following Possible challenges:
{table=head]Level|DC
1|14
2|15
3|16
4|16
5|17
6|18
7|18
8|19
9|20
10|20
11|21
12|22
13|22
14|23
15|24
16|24
17|25
18|26
19|26
20|27
21|28
22|28
23|29
24|30
25|30
26|31
27|32
28|32
29|33
30|34[/table]
In addition to a few others, not listed based on changing the amount of failures.
Which has no repeats, and grows nicely I think.

Running a Skill challenge Update
I think these two should be left in, and used at the DM's Discretion. A nicely worded request might be worth a +2 to the diplomacy check, while veiling insults might be worth a -2. There is no real reason to remove these.

Reward Clever Ideas Update
Making it not have to be a hard DC is fine.


What does everyone else think?

Dhavaer
2008-07-21, 04:56 AM
I think (and I originally thought this was how they actually worked) that it might be better if failing a Skill Challenge required you to fail, say, two checks in a row, instead of total.

Gralamin
2008-07-21, 09:36 PM
I think (and I originally thought this was how they actually worked) that it might be better if failing a Skill Challenge required you to fail, say, two checks in a row, instead of total.

Hmm has some possibilities. That's probably about as difficult. I'll consider this.