Excellent analysis of the system Alan De Smet. It is very helpful for us number crunching types.

There, that more explicitly states why I appreciate the analysis. It lets me set DCs based on how difficult I want the challenge to be, without re-writing the system.

I’m also uncomfortable with the rapid jumps in the odds when you’re in the 70ish percent range; the area I’d consider the sweet spot. A single point of difference can jump your chances 20% either way. It seems like if you’re in the sweet spot (wherever that is) you should have a few points of slop where the odd change, but not so radically. Unfortunately the very nature of having so many rolls tends to cause clumping.

Analyzing Stalker0’s two replacement systems
( http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=232340
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=230567 ) is next on my list. He approached the problem with very similar goals to me, and I’m interested in seeing if his rules work for me.

(Another goal is trying to make the page clearer. It’s jargon-o-riffic, doubly so since I invented some of the jargon.

I agree that it is a clusterf*ck (sorry, slipped into Army lingo there). I don’t know what WotC was aiming for, but instinct tells me to go for a sliding success rate of 75% at CD 1 to about 25% at CD 5. Per your table, that’s roughly where the DC is about 6 points higher than the skill modifier, or a character with a +9 Diplomacy trying to negotiate a DC15 issue. Given that a +9 modifier is possible for a first level “primary skill”, and DC15 is “hard, but possible” at first level, that actually sounds about right. I haven’t seen higher level characters, so I have no idea how that relationship scales.

Whew. Did I say, “Nice work”?

The steep slope of failure is shallower, but still problematically steep. And now instead of insanely hard as written, it’s insanely easy. For the arguably common case, you simply can’t fail at most levels.

It’s entire possible that it’s not broken, just poorly described. The errata is a very mechanical “change this number to this number.” We have never gotten a design overview from them that would help explain what they’re thinking. Such an overview would massively help. Indeed, I suspect the original system wasn’t broken for WotC because when they played the game, they drifted the system is small ways that didn’t get noted in the manual. Something as simple as “good ideas almost always earned +2 circumstance bonus” radically changed the results.

Ultimately the new system still has radical spikes in failure rates for relatively small modifiers, especially if you’re shooting for success rates in the 50-80% range.

My full analysis of both the old and new system, chock full of numbers: http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/skill-challenge-broken.html

I am really tired of the pseudo-intellectual overanalysis of games and mechanics, often by people who don’t even play the game. Before it was launched, I read that 4E was going to be everything from the Holy Grail of Gaming to a 40 lb Box of Rape. You’d think that this kind of worship/vitriol would have stopped once people actually played the damned game.

I know we’re geeks, but for the love of all that is holy, stop perpetuating the stereotype of gamers as argumentative overthinkers.

http://www.enworld.org/wiki/index.php/4e_MSE_Power_Cards