What's a 4E skill challenge?

Post by **fbmf** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:33 am

I do not own and have no desire to purchase any 4E rulebooks, most especially because my group plays a 3.5/Tome/Houseruled Hybrid and we see no reason to change, but as I am more or less obligated to (eventually) read every thread, I'd like to have some idea what you guys are talking about.

Little help?

Game On,
fbmf

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:52 am

The concept is that there's a problem the party is facing. The party members all team up and roll their applicable skills to solve the problem. It needs X number of successful rolls in all to win the challenge.

I guess they were thinking some cinematic movie scene where everyone does something awesome to accomplish their goal. Or a video game quick-time event to pull off some spur of the moment junk.

But they never found a decent way to do that. Either people who didn't have skills applicable to the problem stayed out and let everyone else do the work (which was deemed an unacceptable way to do it), or they were impossible to win or impossible to lose, depending on which revision you use, which tried to tweak the rules to make it harder/easier, made everyone participate/allowed someone to sit it out. Except they released, in all...what, a dozen revisions of it?

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:56 am

At it's most basic, Skill Challenges were originally printed like this:

So let's say you want to do something "big", like charm the King into giving you his army. This would be a skill challenge, rather than just one role. The intent is for everyone at the table to roll skills, counting either successes or failures. If you get X successes as a team, grats, you win. If you get Y failures as a team, you fail whatever it is you were trying to do.

Sounds simple, but there were some problems:

-Originally, skill challenges made you roll initiative and FORCED you to participate. So even if you had nothing to do, you'd just be getting a guaranteed failure. Not good.

-The numbers were originally borked. The DCs started out WAY too high... then too low. And they kept moving around.

-How many successes/failures you need does not impact the difficulty in a set way. People who are very good at whatever want to need lots of successes/failures, people who are bad want to need very few (this is assuming that successes/failures scale linearly, that is, 2/1, 4/2, 6/3, etc).

-Skill challenges as written said that if you come up with a skill the DM didn't think of using, it should be at a higher DC than all the other skill uses. This is bad.

-All it was was just "roll a lot of dice" ANYWAY, no real decisions to it.

-Modules often had skill challenges in really, really stupid ways. A WOTC adventure is what got my group with the wonderful quote "I DIPLOMACY THE WATER!" (it worked).

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:19 am

DragonChild, could you elaborate on the "I diplomacy the water" incident? That sounds hilarious.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:25 am

DragonChild, could you elaborate on the "I diplomacy the water" incident? That sounds hilarious.

I can't speak for his specific example, but it probably related to this:

-Skill challenges as written said that if you come up with a skill the DM didn't think of using, it should be at a higher DC than all the other skill uses. This is bad.

Basically the skill challenges as written encouraged players to think of stupid off the wall shit and convince the DM it works in some magic tea party mini game, to make it so people who don't have the relevant skills can still try to do something. So if the skill challenge was say crossing a raging river, one player may have come up with some way to convince the DM that he should be able to roll his diplomacy check to progress the challenge.

Basically, the skill challenges were more about "get these successes" than "do what you think makes sense", which leads to some really weird shit.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:37 am

So it was for the PHB2 release adventure, I think. We were on a skill challenge that was essentially a raft ride down a river. We get to a part where the DM describes the water raging and sounding like angry spirits, blah blah.

The cleric player, having like a grand total of three skills; diplomacy, endurance, and religion, is getting a little frustrated at his uselessness, and shouts "I DIPLOMACY THE WATER!"

Well it turns out the river actually DID have raging spirits.

So the cleric diplomacied the water.

That brought us to part two of the skill encounter, where a bunch of ghosts stop our wrath, say they're the guardians of Whatsitcalled, and we need a pass to pass.

The adventure provided absolutely no detail at all about Whatsitcalled, what the pass is/was, or so on. There was NO background information. However, I was playing a rogue, and jokingly said I was just going to use Forgery to make a pass, despite having NO IDEA what a pass would be like to appease these ghosts of a long-forgotten kingdom.

This Forgery thing was one of the *easy* attempts for that skill challenge.

So my rogue used her forgery skill while rafting on a raging river in front of a bunch of ghosts of a long-forgotten kingdom she had never heard of, to make a pass they would gladly accept. I assume she used crayon, just for that extra effect.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:43 am

Take the complex skill checks from Unearthed Arcana, here. That's your base, because that's the core of the 4e skill challenge system. No really, it's literally the core mechanics of the skill challenge system in a 3.5 book.

Mix in magic tea party so players can bullshit or coerce the DM into letting them use their highest skill over and over rather than having it make any sense by using a skill or skills related to the challenge. I.e. rather than pick the lock using Disable Device or Open Locks or whatever, some player convinces the DM that Diplomacy works for some pants on head retarded reason to open a lock. Hence the Diplomacy water incident.

Now, screw the math up so much that it takes 4 (more?) revisions to even have some semblance of working, and that's the 4e 'skill challenge' system.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:20 am

Skill Challenges in 4e are a minigame that is supposed to be broadly applicable to a wide variety of noncombat challenges.

In the original (4e DMG) version, they worked so that when the group entered a skill challenge, each player at the table rolled a skill check in turn, with successes accumulating towards a pool of required successes for the group to succeed at the overall Skill Challenge, and each individual failure on a skill check counted towards the limited number of failures that the group could accumulate before the group as a whole failed the skill challenge.

There are a large number of problems which should have been immediately obvious with this approach:

In 4e it's possible for two PCs (or one PC with two different skills) to have a +18 divergence in skill bonuses at level 1 and the likely divergence increases with level. For example: A character with Str as a dump stat might have an untrained Athletics of -1, yet they could have +5 from their 20 Cha, +5 from Skill Training, a +2 racial bonus from being a half-elf, a +2 background bonus for being from Waterdeep and a +3 feat bonus adding to a Diplomacy of +17 at first level. Then as they go up in level, they gain plus item and power bonuses and their primary stat rises notably faster than their dump stat.
The skill challenge success/failure numbers were originally set up so that supposedly harder challenges were not harder - just longer and therefore more likely for the mathematically average result to occur.
If a player character ever had to roll a target number of 8 or higher on the d20, the mathematically optimum thing for the player to do was provably to avoid making the roll - either by trying to con the MC into allowing a different roll or by using their action to Aid Another or just being out of the room during the skill challenge (bathroom, beer run, etc). So the system actually rewarded players for finding ways to avoid using the system.
It was unclear exactly how relevant skills should be selected. If the DM picks them, PCs without high bonuses in relevant skills are a detriment to the party effort in a mathematically probable way. If the player picks them, then the optimum thing is for the player to always BS his character's highest skill into being relevant. If it's some sort of compromise between MC and Player(s) choosing relevant skills - both of those can happen at the same time. Even if "inappropriate" skills are penalized, remember that the variance between skill bonuses can be larger than the RNG - so that penalties smaller than the RNG are not necessarily disincentives. Remember that half-elf from Waterdeep - well he's at leat 18 points better at diplomacy than Athletics, so he's better off trying to "diplomacy the water" than "to swim" at anything less than a -18 penalty.
It was also unlcear if Aid Another is meant to be prohibited or mandatory during skill challenges. If the regular skill rules applied, then that's a difference of +8 in bonuses which is a pretty big deal on a d20 roll.

Then we got gems like Keith Baker defending the original mechanics, by ignoring the mathematical arguments and explaining how it wasn't a problem since he used stealth houserules is his group that fixed everything. Yes. Really. and endless errata and fan houserules none of which quite behaved as intended.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:34 am

Then we got gems like Keith Baker defending the original mechanics, by ignoring the mathematical arguments and explaining how it wasn't a problem since he used stealth houserules is his group that fixed everything. Yes. Really. and endless errata and fan houserules none of which quite behaved as intended.

Wow I hadn't seen that before. That is hilariously bad.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:40 am

Though reading his house rules, I fail to see how they improve anything. It seems he has some sort of gentleman agreement with his players to not do stupid stuff with skill challenges, and so it works for him. Great for him. Unfortunately as a game designer his focus really should have been wider than his own group.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:51 am

DragonChild wrote:So it was for the PHB2 release adventure, I think. We were on a skill challenge that was essentially a raft ride down a river. We get to a part where the DM describes the water raging and sounding like angry spirits, blah blah.

The cleric player, having like a grand total of three skills; diplomacy, endurance, and religion, is getting a little frustrated at his uselessness, and shouts "I DIPLOMACY THE WATER!"

Well it turns out the river actually DID have raging spirits.

So the cleric diplomacied the water.

That brought us to part two of the skill encounter, where a bunch of ghosts stop our wrath, say they're the guardians of Whatsitcalled, and we need a pass to pass.

The adventure provided absolutely no detail at all about Whatsitcalled, what the pass is/was, or so on. There was NO background information. However, I was playing a rogue, and jokingly said I was just going to use Forgery to make a pass, despite having NO IDEA what a pass would be like to appease these ghosts of a long-forgotten kingdom.

This Forgery thing was one of the *easy* attempts for that skill challenge.

So my rogue used her forgery skill while rafting on a raging river in front of a bunch of ghosts of a long-forgotten kingdom she had never heard of, to make a pass they would gladly accept. I assume she used crayon, just for that extra effect.

That has to be the most awesome thing I've ever heard.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:00 am

People have touched a bit on why Skill challenges are bad, but let's focus in a bit more on what they are. A skill challenge is a series of skill rolls made by the team as a whole that gives the outputs of success or failure. Seriously, they only give the outputs of success or failure.

Here's how it works: there is a big task and skill rolls are made sequentially, tracking successes and failures. As soon as there are enough successes, the skill challenge ends in success. As soon as there are enough failures, the skill challenge ends in failure. So even though you're rolling dice a bunch of times, there are still only two possible outcomes: success and failure. Because you stop rolling dice as soon as you get either of the two possible outputs.

Now the way this is supposed to be different from "roll diplomacy twelve times!" is that you can actually use different skills, and the DM (or the challenge writeup) will determine which skills are "easy", "medium", or "hard" - which sets different DCs for the rolls. Ideally this means that people will be tempted to try different shit to get an easier DC, but of course once you have an easier DC, there is no incentive to do anything but repeat actions.

The fundamental flaw, and the reason that they have overhauled these fucking things thirty times without ever getting a satisfactory result is that the core math simplifies to your entire party collectively making a total X+N-1 rolls (where X is the success threshold, N is the failure threshold, and 1 is 1). Success is granted only if you get less than N failures in that pool of rolls. So not only is there a disincentive for taking any action that isn't the best pair up of skill vs. DC available to any of the characters in the party, but that's literally the only concern that actually makes any difference to the success chances of the team.

So they keep introducing various weird patches to try to encourage or force people to take different actions over the course of the challenge, but this is basically some dumb motherfuckers trying to iceskate uphill. The entire core mechanic is exclusively a negative incentive to take suboptimal actions. Period. Every action that is taken uses up one of the actions allowed to the team, and every die roll only contributes a failure chance. Failures and total actions are the only things that are tracked, so it's basically Jenga where the whole team loses if the tower collapses in a set number of turns.

Worst skill system ever printed. And I mean that.

-Username17

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:15 am

FrankTrollman wrote:The entire core mechanic is exclusively a negative incentive to take suboptimal actions.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:31 am

Most RPG systems are a positive incentive to take non-negative actions. If you are attacking enemies in D&D combat with suboptimal options, you are still advancing goals (albeit not as well as you could be). In Skill Challenges, the contribution of any suboptimal action is literally negative.

It would be like if the players were required to make a certain number of attacks against the other players before they won by default. Making a larger attack against the team hurts the team more and making a smaller attack hurts the team less. All the incentives go the wrong way.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:04 am

I think the fundamental flaw about skill challenges is that they never figured out whether it was supposed to be a framework to use off-the-wall skills in new and exciting ways or just be an extended skill test that everyone was supposed to participate in.

Because of this, even if they fixed the numbers, even if they fixed the skill spread, even if they fixed the motherfucking acting at cross-purposes part, it still would have deeply offended people. Partly because about half of the playerbase gets angry at the thought of diplomatizing the water, partly because about the other half of the playerbase thinks that tossing dice round-robin to get something done is a waste of time. I'm personally in the latter category. I think that extended tests in Shadowrun were a neat idea and should be ported into D&D, but only as a time management game. People who jeer at the idea of not wanting to use Forgery to cross a river makes me wonder why that shit is even in the game. I mean, really, if people are only supposed to use skills that make 'sense' to get through a skill challenge, why not just discard that whole shitty system and used the default system?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:48 am

skill challenges are a device created to allow socially inept people to be able to do things within the game, such as the combat system lets people fight the monsters and stuff, without being held back by their own limitations.

it is basically a non-combat combat system.

this "opens" the game and lowers the entry level of it to people and allows more to play without being insecure in their own abilities or having to rely on complete DM fiat, or to "force" them to play Magic Tea Party.

it is a lollipop given to players throwing a temper tantrum, because it isnt fair they cant do something good because the DM doesnt let them, so they will be quiet.

an attempt to challenge the characters rather than the players, is one way it has been described. but it extends beyond social and envelopes all situations outside of combat itself.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:04 pm

Another major problem is that the system is so opposite the normal combat model that it becomes incompatible with it; even worse than oil and water because you can make an emulsification of the later if you shake really well.

Why is it a major problem? Well in the "as advertised" cinematic model of D&D you were supposed to have the rougish guy try to solve the puzzle to open the secret door, at the same time the battle is going on. I'm pretty sure that was the example I heard when they gave the orginal BS speach to the very not convinced crowd many Gen Cons ago when they first proposed this crap.

We concentrate on diplomacy as a skill challenge, but that was only one element of the skill challenge system. So on every measure of the cinematic model of 4E the system is an absolute failure; it doesn't integrate well; it breaks the notion of time as a unit of suspense; it is very (and I mean very) easy to collpase into a non-in-character experience. And to add insult to injury; it flat out doesn't work.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:29 pm

I'm not a big fan of "skills as minigame", since (as noted) you either end up with a minigame where only one person participates while everyone else takes a nap, or you end up with bizarre situations where you use Diplomacy and Forgery on white water rapids.

I prefer the "simulationist" version of skills: they're there in case a PC wants to jump over a pit or climb a wall or forge a document in the course of a regular adventure, not because Jumpy McJumperson is an awesome idea for a PC.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:08 pm

tzor wrote:I'm pretty sure that was the example I heard when they gave the orginal BS speach to the very not convinced crowd many Gen Cons ago when they first proposed this crap.

i do NOT want to look at Mike Lescault's other videos, but here is the 4th edition trailer and you can click to get to gaermzer0's uploads and find the 4th edition presentation with Bill and the other guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbbqMoEwDqc

might refresh your memory, or bring up bad memories, but i just present the link for reference purposes, your viewing of these videos is at your own risk.

NOTE: troll grappling is NSFW

Yep · Post by **Yep** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:44 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]In 4e it's possible for two PCs (or one PC with two different skills) to have a +18 divergence in skill bonuses at level 1 and the likely divergence increases with level. For example: A character with Str as a dump stat might have an untrained Athletics of -1, yet they could have +5 from their 20 Cha, +5 from Skill Training, a +2 racial bonus from being a half-elf, a +2 background bonus for being from Waterdeep and a +3 feat bonus adding to a Diplomacy of +17 at first level. Then as they go up in level, they gain plus item and power bonuses and their primary stat rises notably faster than their dump stat.

Uh.... okay? A guy who sticks everything into skills and min-maxes for one particular skill will be best at that skill. What are you pointing out? That skillmonkeys are skillmonkeys and some people aren't skillmonkeys?

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]The skill challenge success/failure numbers were originally set up so that supposedly harder challenges were not harder - just longer and therefore more likely for the mathematically average result to occur.

This is what I love; you've heard this, it must be true, no you don't have to do research about it.

Skill challenges RAW are messed up, but are either longer, with higher DCs, or with fewer failures all presented as methods to change the difficulty. The formulas in place were just weird, though. Also, standard play like LFR has the worst skill challenges, period. They can't be tailored to a party, so they're either laughably broad or they do things like one game I played in where only one person had good athletics/acrobatics so during the final encounter the rest of us flopped around trying to get at some evil tree heart. Standardized play is dumb like that, and skill challenges only exacerbate the situation when a writer expects a certain group makeup for success.

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]If a player character ever had to roll a target number of 8 or higher on the d20, the mathematically optimum thing for the player to do was provably to avoid making the roll - either by trying to con the MC into allowing a different roll or by using their action to Aid Another or just being out of the room during the skill challenge (bathroom, beer run, etc). So the system actually 1rewarded players for finding ways to avoid using the system.

So, if I'm ever in combat and I need to roll an 8 or higher to hit, the optimum choice is to go to the bathroom or aid another because I might as well not even try to contribute; that's my reward.

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]It was unclear exactly how relevant skills should be selected. If the DM picks them, PCs without high bonuses in relevant skills are a detriment to the party effort in a mathematically probable way. If the player picks them, then the optimum thing is for the player to always BS his character's highest skill into being relevant. If it's some sort of compromise between MC and Player(s) choosing relevant skills - both of those can happen at the same time. Even if "inappropriate" skills are penalized, remember that the variance between skill bonuses can be larger than the RNG - so that penalties smaller than the RNG are not necessarily disincentives. Remember that half-elf from Waterdeep - well he's at leat 18 points better at diplomacy than Athletics, so he's better off trying to "diplomacy the water" than "to swim" at anything less than a -18 penalty.

You didn't actually read the DMG did you. It's cool, you can admit it.
"Certain skills lead to the natural solutions to the problem the challenge presents. These should serve as the primary skills in the challenge. Give some thought to which skills you select here, keeping in mind the goal of involving all the players in the action. You know what skills your player characters are good at, so make sure to include some chances for every character to shine."

So, yeah, it's pretty clear that a DM sets the skills and is instructed to give every character something to do. Also you're being hugely disingenuous in your half-elf example. He's good at diplomacy, awesome, and he'll naturally try to use his best skill in applicable circumstances, but no he's not better off trying to diplomacy the water because, barring a DM call stating that there are actual entities in the water that you can negotiate with, it won't work and it's not even anything reasonable to expect in any edition.

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]It was also unlcear if Aid Another is meant to be prohibited or mandatory during skill challenges. If the regular skill rules applied, then that's a difference of +8 in bonuses which is a pretty big deal on a d20 roll.

RAW, you actually can't, which makes the instructions for the GM to tailor the challenge to their group even more important. Dunno what the official errata is, but I see it happening tons in LFR so there's that.

So, basically, skill challenges are a mechanic in 4E to try and circumvent some of the negative aspects of skill use in 3E, but it puts too much of an onus on the DM to actually make an interesting set of skill uses for the whole party while simultaneously having classes like Cleric and Fighter who don't get many skills at all to contribute with.

Also I am seriously chuckling IRL at people bitching about trying to convince the DM to be able to use a skill for a challenge because yeah that never happened in 3E, but when it's actually admitted to be something that happens in 4E welp Magical Tea Party up in here.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:07 pm

Yep wrote:Certain skills lead to the natural solutions to the problem the challenge presents. These should serve as the primary skills in the challenge. Give some thought to which skills you select here, keeping in mind the goal of involving all the players in the action. You know what skills your player characters are good at, so make sure to include some chances for every character to shine."

So, yeah, it's pretty clear that a DM sets the skills and is instructed to give every character something to do. Also you're being hugely disingenuous in your half-elf example. He's good at diplomacy, awesome, and he'll naturally try to use his best skill in applicable circumstances, but no he's not better off trying to diplomacy the water because, barring a DM call stating that there are actual entities in the water that you can negotiate with, it won't work and it's not even anything reasonable to expect in any edition.

And that's precisely why skill challenges suck. If you're going to declare ahead of time that only certain skills are going to get you anywhere, why not just not have the challenge and just have the individual rolls? In my opinion the only reason to have skill challenges at all is to provide a mechanic that lets the players suspend their disbelief and allow you to climb a mountain with your diplomacy or use acrobatics to convince the Orc King to accept a peace offer.

Now D&D could use something that's time-limited like determining how far you can run in five minutes or how long it takes you to disarm a complex trap. But those would be extended tests, not the skill challenges.

That's just my opinion, though. I personally like being about to diplomatize the river but I understand that a lot of people don't to have a mechanic that encourages that kind of thing. But if you don't want that, if you really think that the DM is supposed to come up with a list of skills that will work ahead of time and then penalize players for not taking the obvious course of action--why have them in the game?

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:09 pm

So, if I'm ever in combat and I need to roll an 8 or higher to hit, the optimum choice is to go to the bathroom or aid another because I might as well not even try to contribute; that's my reward.

I think you misunderstood this complaint. If you need a 8 or higher to hit in combat, that's fine. If you miss, you don't bring the party and closer to losing, and if you hit, you help. So it's a no lose situation to take an action, you always want to at least try to do -something-

With a skill challenge, if you roll without having a good chance of succeeding, statistically you are actively contributing to your party's loss, rather than its success.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:49 pm

What is a man4e skill challenge?! A miserable little pile of secretsdice rolls! But enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!!!

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:37 am

Uh.... okay? A guy who sticks everything into skills and min-maxes for one particular skill will be best at that skill. What are you pointing out? That skillmonkeys are skillmonkeys and some people aren't skillmonkeys?

I'm pointing out that the difference between two skill bonuses in the same party is greater than the entire range of results on a d20.

If you have a skill challenge mechanic where PCs need to roll against a DC 20 to succeed, a guy with a -1 skill bonus cannot succeed at that skill challenge, and a guy with a +19 bonus cannot possibly fail. This makes it impossible to set a DC for a challenge where both of those characters have a chance of success and a chance of failure. If a task is possible for the low-bonus character, then it is trivial and non-challenge worthy for the high bonus character. If it is challenging enough that the high-bonus character can fail, then it is actually impossible for the low-bonus character to succeed.

This is what I love; you've heard this, it must be true, no you don't have to do research about it.

In the original system (page 72 DMG) the needed successes were always twice the number of allowed failures for all complexities.

Here's the "research" you wanted:

Consider someone rolling a fair d20 inside an original version skill challenge who needs to roll an unmodified 8 or better on the die to succeed at their check:

On a 1 they fail
On a 2 they fail
On a 3 they fail
On a 4 they fail
On a 5 they fail
On a 6 they fail
On a 7 they fail
On an 8 they succeed
On a 9 they succeed
On a 10 they succeed
On an 11 they succeed
On a 12 they succeed
On a 13 they succeed
On a 14 they succeed
On a 15 they succeed
On a 16 they succeed
On a 17 they succeed
On an 18 they succeed
On a 19 they succeed
On a 20 they succeed

So before the die is cast, that roll has an expected value of 7/20 (0.35) failures and 13/20 (0.65) successes.

The expected value for successes is LESS THAN TWICE the expected value of failures. Yet, to win the challenge, the PCs need TWICE as many successes as failures. So rolling the die at all is expected to move the PCs closer to overall failure than success.

Now I really don't want to go through exhaustive listing for all target numbers, so I'm gonna fail back on good old mathematical induction: When the target number goes up, the expected value for successes goes down by 1/20 for each point and yet the number of possible rolls doesn't change (there are always 20 rolls totaling to a sample space of 1.0), so the the expected value for failures goes up by that same 1/20

So for all target numbers greater than 8, the expected value of successes is LESS THAN the expected value for successes with a target number of 8. LESS THAN LESS THAN TWICE is LESS THAN TWICE by the definition of the less than operator itself.

So, if I'm ever in combat and I need to roll an 8 or higher to hit, the optimum choice is to go to the bathroom or aid another because I might as well not even try to contribute; that's my reward.

Now this is totally different than combat - because in combat there are a very large number of ways for characters to contribute other than rolling attacks, yet in skill challenges the only way to contribute is by rolling skill checks. In a fight a character who never lands a single blow can soak up enemy attacks, provide healing and buffs to teammates, create terrain and positioning that favors their team, or make non-attack skill rolls that help their teammates.

You didn't actually read the DMG did you. It's cool, you can admit it.
"Certain skills lead to the natural solutions to the problem the challenge presents. These should serve as the primary skills in the challenge. Give some thought to which skills you select here, keeping in mind the goal of involving all the players in the action. You know what skills your player characters are good at, so make sure to include some chances for every character to shine."

So, yeah, it's pretty clear that a DM sets the skills and is is instructed to give every character something to do.

Well it has been over a year since I looked at 4e, but

DMG, page 73. two paragraphs after your citation wrote: When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge,
go for it. 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.

So, uh, yeah, you know my above points weren't precise in their wording nor as concise as they should have been on their focus on various different iterations of skill challenges.

But rather than correct those in elucidating ways, you decided to demonstrate your own failure at comprehending game fundamentals, math and reading - all while having the audacity to accuse me of doing the same.

And just in case anyone else missed it:

but no he's not better off trying to diplomacy the water because, barring a DM call stating that there are actual entities in the water that you can negotiate with, it won't work and it's not even anything reasonable to expect in any edition.

You're not honestly argue that a player using their highest skill bonus when the skill is seemingly absurd isn't a problem with the ruleset because the DM will veto it ?!?

Because we have a name for that sort of thing around here.
And while I can't speak for anyone else, I personally have rather strong opinions about people who make such arguments. Rather than go into detail on those opinions, I'll keep it short: We have a winner and you can go onto ignore.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:25 am

What's a 4E skill challenge?

a miserable pile of dice rolls