Imagine you have an attack score of +15. Your opponent, a savage brute, has an AC of 20 and his companions all have ACs between 10-15. Does this fight even interest you? You’d hit with almost every attack. It might be ok if this was a rare, one-off situation, but imagine that this was how combat shaped up every single time. Personally, I’d lose interest.
Yet this is exactly what’s happening during skill challenges at gaming tables everywhere. We’re so concerned with being really, really good at a couple of skills that when it comes time to use them we are almost guaranteed automatic success. Using Stealth to move undetected or using Athletics to climb any wall under any circumstance can be very cool and a lot of fun, but training the skills we’re already good at just makes using those skills a bore.
During character creation you get to train 3-5 skills. In most cases we train the skills we think we’re going to use the most often or the ones that we already have a pretty good score in. But the more I’ve been thinking about this approach the more I see it as making the wrong choice.
By selecting training in the skills that we’re already good at we’re just punishing ourselves. The thing that we need to be most mindful of when we’re choosing which skills to train is which skills are tied to our best ability scores. If you’re class focuses on Dexterity then your starting Dex is likely to be pretty decent. And every time you can increase an ability score you’re likely to add points to Dex since it’s the one you use most often. By increasing your Dex you’re also increasing all skills that use Dex. So why taking training in Dex-based skills?
Let’s assume that at level 1 your highest ability score is (at least) an 18. That means that any skill tied to that ability starts off at 4. Assuming that you don’t have any other modifiers from your race, feats, equipment or magical items that 4 still gives you a 50% chance at succeeding at a hard DC (since a hard DC for level 1-3 is 15).
By the time you’ve reached level 8 you’ve most likely improved your best ability score by two points (+1 at level 4 and +1 at level 8). So in addition to the +1 for half your level you’ve just received another +1. So a skill that was only 4 at level 1 is now at 9 at level 8. Now you’ve got a 55% chance of making a hard DC (since the hard DC for level 7-9 is 19).
Don’t forget that in both of the above examples the moderate DC is 5 less than the hard DC so you’ve got a 75% chance of success at level 1 and an 80% chance of success at level 8. These are really good odds, all things considered.
If you’ve likely to achieve success 50% of the time do you really need to take training in this skill? Adding the +5 means that you’ll automatically make a skill check of moderate or easy difficulty. It also means that you’re unlikely to fail a hard check.
What we need to do is close the gap between our best skills and our worst skills. We need to look at the skills that rely on our worst ability scores and shore them up. Skills that rely on ability scores of 8 or 10 need all the help they can get. By taking skill training you’re improving your chance of success by 25%. These low ability scores are not likely to get improved as you level up so if you don’t taking training in them they’re never going to get any better. The odds will never be in your favour during a skill challenge if you need to rely on these skills. And the gap between your best skills and your worst skills will continue to widen as your best attributes continue to improve.
So the next time you’re creating a character don’t automatically take skill training in the skills that already have the highest numbers, try training the skills that need the most help. It may not mean automatic success in your best skill, but it will mean that you’re more likely to succeed when rolling on many of the others.
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@Andrew Wade
I'm all for tying your skills into your character's back-story. But if you're playing a Fighter with a starting Str of 20, your Athletics will already be 5 at level 1. You automatically make easy checks, have an 80% chance of making moderate checks and 55% of making hard checks. If your background is all about how athletic you are, you've already got that covered by your exceptional Strength. Adding +5 to the skill by training it doesn't really give you any additional in-game benefit. You're still going to be awesome at Athletics whether you train it or not. So why not train a different skill, like Streetwise which is tied to a lower ability score (because you know that most Fighters have a low starting Charisma).
My group [I'm DM] is filled with power players. They are motivated by power, and greed [within the game.] They are "good" in a way, but for the most part it's all about getting as powerful as possible for them.
And why not? If the rule books allow it, they expect me to allow it.
It's becoming more and more challenging to build the game; because it's not always challenging for them.
To me this is a wizards of the coast problem, and should not be my problem.
If I start telling my players what abilities scores to pick, it will feel like less of a game to them.
I understand that this article is directed at the players, but it's not their fault the game works like this.
The more I play D&D 4th [first D&D I've ever played] the more I realize the rules have holes that make the game un-fun. I am a Magic the Gathering player, and I have to say that Wizards is no where near as good at communicating D&D rules as they are with Magic rules [but I guess this is somewhat understandable].
Maybe I'm over reacting and maybe my group [me included] are misunderstanding the rules in some way, but we had a session last Saturday and I was really dissapointed. After I carefully followed the DMG rules to create "Hard" challenging encounters [combat and non] the players still managed to breeze through them with ease. I mean I'm all for the PCs succeeding but when it's too easy the game sucks.
Sorry but needed to vent a little.
I don't understand why Wizards ever lowered the skill challenge DCs, I'm following the original scores and still having a hard time coming up with new and interesting challenges.
Sorry to go meta in the comments but I have something for Chase Dagger.
You need to remember whose game this is. It isn't WotCs game its yours. You are the one putting in the time to run the game and if isn't fun for you then change it so it is.
There are many ways to amp up the danger. First remember that rests both short and long are a luxury that may not be available. So they are breezing through your pack of goblins. The last little one gets away and brings back Daddy and his buddies. Once the dailies and encounters are gone the tension goes right up. Maybe the first two in the party fall down a chute and trigger a pack of gnolls so they spend a whole encounter running for their lives. Everyone in the party deals big damage and has huge AC then bring the mind flayers or ice demons. Look at their stats, hit the holes, no PC can be protected against everything.
It is your game, the books are just guides. Make sure it is fun for you and the fun will follow for your players.
Thank you ung, that is encouraging. It's true that it's my game and I should be able to do whatever I need to do to make it fun. As a rookie sometimes I make epic mistakes, I need to take responsibility for that. Here's an example of how quickly my idea of fun turns into boring.
When I saw the Dark Sun Hazards PDF on Wizard's site, I thought, sweet this will spice up an encounter. I put all 3 plant obstacles in the same encounter, I had a cave with 3 entrances, I put different plants in front of each entrance [multiple dew frond and spider cactus per entrance.] I reviewed the plant levels and my PCs levels, and I made the encounter suitable based on DMG. Because of all the plants xp I didn't have very powerful monsters around, and they died quickly. Then the PCs just used ranged attacks to destroy the plants. There was no danger at all really.
I can take partial responsibility; but as DM you are pretty busy most of the time planning what's next; so I should have thought the battle through a little more. I still feel the makers of the game still set me up for failure: I trusted the guidelines at face value.
So as much as I agree with you and appreciate the comments, I think it sucks that Wizards is making me do more [un-fun] work when really I shouldn't have to.
I'm ruining this blog and I'm sorry for that. I wish Dungeonsmaster had a blog where readers could ask questions and share information outside of the articles. I realize they provide links to these kinds of sites, but I really like this site.
I don't think you're 'ruining' this blog at all! I know I'm learning from this conversation as a potential future DM.
I like this idea, except that some powers require training in a certain skill. It might make more sense to change those to "requires a +X bonus in skill" instead of trained in this case.
There's also Rituals, which I believe require training in the key skill.
Thanks Andrew; I'm glad that someone else can also get value out my rantings. BTW - I'm not sure how long you've been coming to this site, but I have found it very helpful as a rookie DM.
I think it really depends on the skill challenge DCs. Playing a LFR it feels like I usually see DCs of 15 for skill challenges for first level characters. Sometimes it's something like a 13 or a 17, but most of the time 15. I actually ran a mega-skill challenge in TYMA 1-1 where I GMed, and the low-tier skill challenge difficulty was mostly 16! The problem is, to pass a Complexity 2 skill challenge (6 successes verses 3 failures) requires a 70% skill success rate, which correlates to succeeding on a 7 or higher on the die. That's a tall order. So to win a skill challenge more than half the time, you need to have an average of 8 for a character that uses it in a skill challenge. Hence, training the skills where the PC already has an advantage. Now I know the DMG erratad the skill challenges to make them way easier, but that's often not how the LFR mods read.
I suppose the alternative is to spend the entire round going, assist him, assist him, assist him roll, but that's just really clunky and unfun. We all tend to bring a large number of the take 10 player rewards cards ("That'll Do") to push our way through the skill challenges. My biggest complaint with skill challenges is that a) I often have no idea what my character is supposed to be doing, and b) There's usually no strategy involved, since no-one knows anything about the mechanics of the specific skill challenge. I get that it's supposed to be role-playing intensive, but that goes pretty fast if the DM is set on the mechanics in the mods, since if I can't guess correctly the skills in the mod, and come up with ideas that aren't in there, I'll give upon role-play pretty quick.
@Chase Dagger
Welcome back, Chase Dagger. It's been a while since we've seen you post a comment. You were missed.
You and I seem to be drawing the same conclusions. The point I'm trying to make in this article is that if you train you best skill the numbers will be so high you'll never fail. Where's the fun in that. Conversely when you have to use the other untrained skills, they're so low that you really need to roll high to make the check. By leveling out your skills a little bit and training the ones that aren't so great you actually have a chance to fail your best skill (albeit a small chance) and you have a prayer of making the checks based on your poor skills.
Like you, I've tried to create encounters that challenge the party, but there always seems to be one PC who can overcome the obstacle of the night because he's absolutely maxed out one skill or power.
I've found that you need to come up with a way to force the PCs to work together and let everyone chip in to overcome a problem. Letting one guy make all the perceptions checks because his score is 15 higher then everyone else is boring. For him and the rest of the group.
@ung
I couldn't agree more. Use the rules as a guideline, but from time-to-time feel free to break them in order to try something fun.
@Chase Dagger
You are not ruining this blog. In fact you've posted a lot of great comments over the months since we began and we appreciate it. The whole reason we started this blog was to generate discussion. The fact that you and others post your thoughts and feedback means we're doing something right. Keep those comments coming.
@Andrew Wade
I'm happy you're reading and I'm even happier that you feel that you've gained something from the experience.
@Swordgleam
Excellent point. There are going to be times when training in a skill, even if it's already your best skill, is necessary to take a power, paragon path or feat to build the PC you want to play. I have no issue with that.
@Chase Dagger
We're here to help.
@math_geek
When I've played in LFR games I found the biggest problem with skill challenges is the lack of control from the DM. Everyone is calling out "I assist" and then rolling. I prefer to give each PC an opportunity to decide what they want to do before any rolls are made. If someone wants to assist, I want to know how. If you can't give me a good explanation of what you're doing to help, I overrule the assist. And if your assist roll fails, I often add 1 to the DC for the primary check. If you're going to act there needs to be some consequence for failure.
From the player's point-of-view I think we need to be imaginative and creative during skill challenges. Then it's up to the DM to "say yes" and set an appropriate DC. This is of course assuming you have a clear understanding of the objective. If you don't know what the purpose of the challenge is then you're kind of left fumbling in the dark.