[4e] Quick Skills Errata Question

[drawingfreak]

I was wondering if I need to apply the Essentials skill DCs to an Original4e or mixed party.

[gurban]

Use DCs you feel are appropriate. WotC guidelines currently have reset the DCs back to their original values, as found in DMG and on the DM screen, for quick reference. They change periodically due to user feedback, playtesting, influence from RPGA DMs, the wind blowing, the sun setting etc. I don't think that changing them around is wrong at all. The Skill Challenge is a very abstract thing being forced into a mechanic. A lot of the new adventures being published state, and I agree with this, is to award hefty bonuses for good roleplaying, and even automatic successes for very good roleplay.

[Shadow_Elf]

They're not Essentials Skill DCs persay, but just errata'd Skill DCs for the whole system. I calculated a skill DC table myself a while ago which I used in my game because I felt the Wizards' one was too easy. Their new one is much better, IMHO, so I'll be using the errata. YMMV.

[Kurald Galain]

There are two things two avoid.

The first is penalizing players for using a skill that the DM hadn't thought of. This is what is printed in the PHB/DMG, and removed by the errata.

The second is making failure too easy. If five players each have a 80% chance of success on their skill check, then the chance that all five of them make it is only 33%. This means that even a small chance of failure on each skill can lead to a huge chance of failure on the SC as a whole, especially if it's e.g. 12 successes before 3 failures.

The math for the second part really depends on your group's playstyle. Not so much their build optimization (there isn't all that much you can do to get better skill checks) but how likely they are to use their best skill all the time. If they don't do that, you need lower DCs.

[Sipex]

How I run it is if a single player (or each player individually) needs to make 5 seperate SUCCESSFUL checks to proceed, the DCs are lower.

If the party, as a whole only needs to make the checks (so characters can work together to get aid another bonuses, think up crazy solutions, use their best skills) then the DCs get set much higher.