3 Players
Complexity 5 – 8 Successes / 3 Failures
Complexity 4 – 6 Successes / 3 Failures
Complexity 3 – 5 Successes / 3 Failures
Complexity 2 – 4 Successes / 3 Failures
Complexity 1 – 3 Successes / 3 Failures

How does that look?

@Arcade
My group uses a lot of skill challenges (I’d suspect more than average) so I’ve had more opportunities to make changes on the fly. I agree that until DMs and players ramp up on the skill challenge learning curve they should probably stick to the rules as written in the DMG. My suggested changes are certainly not recommended for beginners. However, if you’ve tried skill challenges as presented in the book and you don’t think they’re working like you’d like them to; my changes to the reward system may be the answer you’re looking for.

I also agree that as we run more and more skill challenges they’ll end up being the correct complexity and the need to tweak the numbers and the XP will be less and less frequent.

Great feedback, thanks for the comment.

Personally, I don’t think it matters that much unless you find you are consistently finding your skill challenges becoming skill speed bumps. Just like combat encounters, sometimes they turn out harder or easier than you think. In general, they average out and you’ll learn how to find the sweet spot with time and practice. Good roleplaying and creative thinking should be encouraged and rewarded in both skill challenges and combat and the form of that reward is irrelevant- as long as it’s a reward. Players like it when their characters find something shiny- whether it be XP, magic items, gold, action points, an attack bonus or a mini candy bar thrown over the DM screen. It’s the recognition that they get which is usually worth more than the actual reward.

.-= David Dotson´s last blog ..You Must Gather Your Party Before Playing D&D =-.

@Jeffrey Petersen
By rewarding the PCs with additional success they will make out better in the long run with complexity 1 and 2 challenges. But when it comes to larger challenges and they come up with a Challenge Breaker I want to make sure that their ingenuity is appropriately rewarded.

I agree that if the PCs realize the complexity (and the XP rewards) will be greater if they participate more avidly that the game will be better and encounters a lot more exciting.

I welcome all feedback and criticism. My overall objective is to make D&D better and I find that these kinds of discussions are a great means to that end.

@Neuroglyph
I too am a big fan of awarding in-game bonuses (usually +2) for good role-playing and creativity. My motivation for providing additional XP came from my most recent campaign. The PCs are very skill-focused and we do a lot of skill challenges (mostly lower complexity). In some cases they accomplish a lot and don’t seem to be adequately rewarded. It’s almost like fighting only one or two monsters at a time over and over again. I’ve tried to keep things interesting for the PCs by letting them know that there’s more XP up for grabs the more engaged they are during skill challenges.

@Alvarlux
Excellent suggestions. As I mentioned in the comment above, my idea of giving extra successes and then awarding XP based on the total successes accumulated works best for low complexity challenges. I’ll admit that my revised reward system can still use some tweaking for higher level complexity challenges. I think that if the PC can come up with a Challenge Breaker then that should have a tangible benefit in the form of XP.

In the above case where you no longer set complexity, I’d reverse the reward for your groups. If they were creative and interesting enough to challenge break in 8, I’d give them full XP reward. If they just did what they had to to win without doing much in the way of RP or outside the box thinking, I’d use diminishing returns. Ie it took them longer then it should have so they get reward for skill checks required – 4 or something. I realize of course this would require knowing how long it would take and thus a complexity set to it but you get my point.

Alternatively you can reward players for challenge breakers or good skill ideas by counting them as multiple successes. So if someone had a really awesome idea and pulls it off, that counts as a major win and 2 successes. Challenge breakers count as “omgwtf epic moment” and add whatever the remaining successes required to complete the skill challenge. As DM you still get to make the call on whether something is in fact a challenge breaker so this couldn’t be abused.

I might even go so far as to say if they had a crazy idea but didn’t make the roll, it gives them a +2 to their next roll (tangible reward for trying harder). In this way that combat lover in the group who neglects skills can think/roleplay his way to success. Everyone wins.