If you want a very good (albeit mostly positive) review of the 4e Core books, look no further than Martin Ralya’s. I don’t think I can beat it in terms of depth, style and entertaining values, but I’ll do my best to share my thoughts on the book in my own rambling style.
The latest edition of the Dungeon Master’s Guide has in common with its progenitor (Gygax’s lovely and quirky’s DMG) its title only.
Everything in the 4th Edition is focused on one thing and it’s DMing.
I have to agree with Martin that it is, bar none, the best DMG ever written and it’s a must read for all new or recent DMs.
As I was reading, I divided the book in 5 parts:
- DMing
- Encounters
- Adventure/Campaign/World design
- DM tools
- Quickstart World
On Dming
The first part covers pretty much everything I have ever read about being a DM/GM. From definitions, to prepping, player types, pacing, improvisation and so on.
When I first read that part, I was rather annoyed and irritated by the style and content of it. Then, after reading Martin’s raving review, I picked up the book and started reading again from page one, challenging my perception of reality.
The second pass wasn’t so bad and most of the stuff here is pretty good.
Only, it reads like so many GMing blog entries and GMing books I have read already. I can’t even say it’s written as well as some I’ve seen. For instance, I largely preferred Robin Laws book, Monte’s 3.0 DMG and the first section of the 3.5 DMG II.
So bottom line, solid DMing tips, on par with the internet ‘knowledge base’ but not mind blowing if you already are an avid GM Blog/books reader.
On Encounters
Given that D&D 4e is almost all about encounters, the next section delivers in spades. The combat encounter section covers most everything a DM needs, from determining monster readiness to handling poison.
By far the best part of the whole section in Page 42’s “Action the Rules don’t cover”.
If my 1st Edition DMG has yellowed Combat charts and my 3.0/3.5 DMGs have frayed XP charts, I assure you that page 42 will suffer a similar fate.
I’m so going to scan, print and plastify this page (including the “DC and Damage by Level” table) and put this in my DM screen. This one page allows you to rapidly adjudicate pretty much everything not already in the rules and make it feel natural.
The book then covers building combat encounters. It describes the whole ‘XP budget’ concepts with very well defined guidelines about number of monsters and suggested acceptable level ranges. This is pure crunchy blueprinting. No more CRs, Weee!
One thing that bugs me in that part of the book is in fantastic terrains. Some terrains calls for a DC check when entered. Instead of suggesting static DCs, the book tells you to set a DC according to the Tier the PCs are.
What that means is that not only are character Epic… the Cave Slime they step in becomes Epic as well and the DC goes from 20 at level 1 to 33 at level 30.
That does bother me a bit as it forces a DM who likes consistence to set the DC when PCs first encounter said terrain and then keep it as is later. Alternatively, the DM may change the name of the terrain (Cave Slime, Dire Cave Ooze, Dread Ectoplasm, Infernal/Fell Goo…) as he increases DC. (Why am I thinking of Killing boars all of the sudden)
It’s no biggie as I understand the thinking behind the concept, but this is a change that created significant cognitive dissonance in me.
Follows then the section on Non-combat encounters, including the already infamous Skill Challenges.
That’s where the book falls flat on it’s face. As I was reading the actual Skill challenges mechanics for the first time, I couldn’t help finding that the description didn’t fit at all with how I imagined Skill Challenges.
The writing is exceedingly dry and initially devoid of examples, the maths are hard to grok and it totally fails to bring out the true potential for such rules.
I really felt there was a disconnect between what it was the book wanted to say and how designers wanted skill challenges to be used. It seems I’m not alone in this, even WotC realized something was wrong.
In fact it’s only in the examples (after all the rulesy stuff) that you get a glimpse of how cool skill challenges can be.
Here’s to hoping that an Errata/Web Enhancement fixing this comes soon as it is the worst part of the book (and negatively affects the game as well).
The section on non-combat encounters also covers Puzzles, Traps and Hazard, which are very well described. The part on puzzles describes how they challenge players rather than characters and advises to be careful about using them (no bottlenecks and refrain from using with a table full of slayers and power gamers).
On Adventure/Campaign/World Design
The next section describes how to adapt published adventures or create your own. It touches on the key lessons of adventure designs: Adapt to player tastes, avoid bottlenecks and so on. All very good stuff.
Rewards come in 4 types. Experience Points for combat, Quests (Major and Minor, inspired from CRPG), Milestone (gain Action points to compensate for used Daily powers between rests) and treasure.
As many have pointed out after WotC previewed how loot worked in D&D, monetary serves to create/purchase level-equivalent Magic Items (and bring back PCs to life). More powerful Magic items are obtained by adventuring in excruciatingly defined parcels.
Once again, you get a “budget” to spend, this time you are expected to spread it over the 10 or so encounters needed to level up.I have been doing something similar in 3.5, but at least I had random Magic Item tables to spice things up a bit.
I understand the why of it, which is to limit randomly determined vendor trash, but boy does it feel formulaic! I’ll need to try it before stepping off the fence on this one.
The book then touches on campaign-types and a very high level description of the D&D default game world, complete with some awesome sentient artifacts!
On DMing tools
This is the book’s second high-point.
You get the full mechanics behind customizing and creating monsters. Monster templates are introduced and take mere minutes to apply. Classes can also be added to monsters by applying a template and picking a subset of a class’ power, creating a monster that feels and acts like the class it simulates.
You also get instructions and tips for creating NPCs (i.e don’t stat up the blacksmith unless he fights) and a whole sub-section on creating House Rules.
Now I couldn’t help but notice that for the first time in the history of the DMG, you have to get to page 189 before getting told that you as a DM are entitled to do away with rules you do not like. Rule 0 does makes an appearance, with the caveat that you need players’ buy-in before you House rule.
You have the authority to do whatever you want with the game, but your efforts won’t help if you have no group.
Yup, typical 4e DMG. 
Still this section on House Rule is solid.
On the Quick Start World
I skimmed the last part. It’s basically a mini-setting based in and around the city of Fallcrest. It includes description of key locations, a few NPC stats, a regional map that shows Fallcrest in relation to the Keep on the Shadowfell (Adventure H1) and the Thunderspires (H2).
The book concludes with a short level 1 adventure (featuring the exact same creatures as the first part of Keep on the Shadowfell… Yawn).
This is a good primer and is quite sufficient to kick start a new campaign.
Verdict
As mentioned before, this is the best DMG ever written.
The Good: Page 42, DM Toolbox and most of the Encounter Section
The Bad: Skill Challenges need a rewrite.
Near-Miss: The Dming section. If you are a crusty old DM and /or been actively trying to get better by surfing GMing ressoources, there is better out there.
Completely agree…I was looking forward to implementing some awesome skill challenge action, but when it comes to using it with roleplaying, I’m not sure it’ll pan out…unless you’ve got players who want to roll dice rather than talk with NPCs…I can still see it working in other respects though…I think what they need is some immediate +/- that comes with each success/failure…
Actually Keith Baker (Eberron guy) nails it perfectly here:
http://gloomforge.livejournal.com/12135.html
Skill challenges can be the bee’s knees of social encounters and be as interesting as combat. The rules just completely miss the boat about the narration and back and forth of players finding clever ways to use skills and narrating how they do it (I use Sleigh of Hands to distract the Guard to aid my friend’s Stealhty entrance while the Paladin discusses the finer points of Heavenly ethics…)
I have high hopes it will be better explained. But when you read around you get enough to get the idea on how to do it.
I agree that action skill challenges are easier… Social encounters and rules have rarely gone hand in hand in D&D and often degenerate in Dice mini games.
I was going to point you to Keith Baker’s essay, but it sounds like you’re already on it. The best suggestion I like from the thread was making them branch in interesting ways. Definitely more difficult than the rules as written, but probably better in play.
I’m with you on the DMing advice in the DMG. I’m glad it’s there for new DMs, but I can’t even read it straight through since it’s so old hat to me now.
I find the treasure parcels difficult to understand, and I’m not sure about implementing them either. I wouldn’t be surprised to see alternative rules in the upcoming Adventurer’s Vault.
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Chatty, yesterday I was thinking to myself “Self, I should point Phil et al at Keith’s gameplay posts. Specifically that one. ” Guess I don’t need to.
I have been doing something similar in 3.5, but at least I had random Magic Item tables to spice things up a bit.
Seriously?
When was the last time you rolled on a random magic item table and kept the first result you came up with?
I bet it’s been a while. You’ll roll, not like that result, reroll, and continue until you get a result you like. Aka: until you get the result you’re looking for.
And what did the random chart actually add to this process?
In any case, however, the treasure parcels make finding items to put in treasure easier. You know what level of item you should include, so instead of digging through chart after chart of all the items in the game, you just look at the level 4 (for instance) items. Cut your list to look through down by 30.
One of the few thing I like about 4E is the skills challenge. Our Star Wars Saga GM has implemented the skills challenge in to our Star Wars game, everyone loved it. I will be dewing the same in my 3.5 games.
Oh good, it wasn’t just me! I started reading the skill challenges with some anticipation. I ended imagining a skit between the world’s worst, flat actors. I was planning a question post about the darned things in fact.
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I’m still pretty hesitant on the Skill Challenges. As you mentioned, the examples clearly show how they can be pretty cool, but some of them (sneaking into a castle, manipulating the duke, whatever) are things I’d rather spend a good chunk of a session on. In the end, I suppose it would largely come down to dice rolls and clever skill applications either way, but…I dunno. I suppose I’ll need to actually try a few in my game, and see how they work.
That said, being a rusty and generally disorganized Dungeon Master, I loved the “How to DM” parts. There’s nothing groundbreaking, but the reassuring and encouraging tone was pretty comforting.
And the new system for awarding magic items is a godsend. For whatever reason, I could never get treasure distrubution in my 3.0/3.5 games right; now, finally, my players will be balanced with their enemies. This kinda stuff, which allows me to be lazy while still looking like I know what I’m doing? It’s awesome.
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Just to repeat what’s already been said: Wizards’ should take Keith’s blogpost about skill challenges and post it as a web enhancement to the DMG. It does a far better job of clarifying the whole thing than anything they could put out as a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints.
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@Dave: I suspect that Treasure Parcel is another of those “it feels bad on paper and plays like a charm” concepts.
@Graham: Yes Seriously dear doubter. Since there was just so damn many, I would roll from the Magic Item Compendium for them and take the results more than 80% of the time (I’d drop the ones that were tied to a character class that no-one played).
The treasure parcel idea works (it gives treasure the players want and need in their hands) no doubt, but it’s yet another paradigm shift I need time to learn to deal with. At least it’s a lot better described than the Skill Challenges
@Loky: Great idea… I’d actually apply them to all d20 games. And even ready to suspect that many DM who created skill based mini games already did something similar.
I sure did when I wrote rules for a rooftop chase a few years ago.
@Heather: I’m glad to see that my sentiment was shared… for a minute (before I started reading the various forum posts on the subject) I thought I was just too thick skulled to ‘get it’
@Kavonde: Oh, the DM tips are fine. One’s appreciation of it is probably inversely proportional to their exposition to other similar texts in Role playing manuals and websites.
@Greywulf: Well at least they should inspire themselves from Keith’s grasp of the subject.
“I have to agree with Martin that it is, bar none, the best DMG ever written”
I agree! While not a new DM I’m definitely not an extremely experienced on either and I’ve found reading through the DMG (though similar to Dave I can’t read it from front-to-back straight through) an excellent and enlightening experience!
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Toward your comments on fantastic terrain. A possible house rule to managing that might be to do the check against level 1 no matter what level the PC’s are instead of having to scale the check up to the pc’s level each time the run into that type of swamp, ice shelf, etc.
Of course not having actually played yet, this may be just as much a hassle.
On fantastic terrain: Or you simply do not consider these terrain challenging anymore. You’ve done it so many time that it’s no longer challenging. Now walking on the floating chunk of rock in a lava river that might still be challenging while it was outright impossible for an heroic tier hero…
I think that is in part what contribute to make the primordial chaos and the astral sea more for the paragon/epic tier. These kind of landscape will be far more common over there…
On parcel: I must admit that I really love the way the parcel works. I’m currently preparing my homemade adventure and it works really well. There is plenty of combination option to prevent the feel of déjà vue in your treasures.
On skill challenge: I’ve made one in my adventure… I’ll truly see how it goes on my game this sunday… Keith Baker advise are really worth reading, my gut feeling was pretty close to his description. The aid other and bonus for secondary skill is definitely something that’ll come up frequently in those challenges…
“That does bother me a bit as it forces a DM who likes consistence to set the DC when PCs first encounter said terrain and then keep it as is later. Alternatively, the DM may change the name of the terrain (Cave Slime, Dire Cave Ooze, Dread Ectoplasm, Infernal/Fell Goo…) as he increases DC. (Why am I thinking of Killing boars all of the sudden)
“It’s no biggie as I understand the thinking behind the concept, but this is a change that created significant cognitive dissonance in me.”
I didn’t look at it this way. I looked at like this: some stuff is slippery. It’s slippery if you’re a first level character and it’s slippery if you’re an epic level character. Thus, the chance of slipping is constant regardless of level and so the check must adjust accordingly.
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On Fantastic Terrain:
I’m bothered with the constant scaling of a given terrain as it basically says that skill is irrelevant to deal with them and I find this troubling.
However, I think fantastic terrain is something that you do not deal with repeatedly. You hit a patch of X in Adventure Y and you almost never see it again. In that context, a scaled DC is logical and no one has to know.
In fact I’d do what Yan proposes and say that once dealt with successfully in adventure X, all later appearance of said terrain becomes trivial.
Of course, over a long campaign, using scaled DCs is simpler… Once again hope that no one goes to the Fridge and ponders about it during the game.
Chatty-
I haven’t read it yet so I’m not sure how it scales. Does the DC scale with Level/2? If so, then it really isn’t saying that skill is irrelevant, it is saying that the difficulty vs your basic competence is fixed. Then any additional skill bonuses you may have picked up as you gained those levels come into play, making your actual skill the only thing that matters.
The scaling thing bothers me not just with terrain but also with skill checks. I’m not talking skill challenges. That’s a whole other issue.
DC’s are not flat. They all scale. The example they give is jumping onto a chandelier and knocking an ogre into a braziere. By the book, it scales with your level. If the skill DC increases at the same rate as your skill increases, then unless you are also boosting with feats, your likelihood is always the same.
Your term, “cognitive dissonance” seems appropriate here. I feel the same way about skills.
The scaling of DCs:
That is only one of the issues I had with 4E. At 1Lv you brake in to a castle, you chose to climb a wall to get in…10 levels later you get a quest to brake in to the same castle so you chose the same way you took last time, the DC gos up according to your level, regardless if is the same wall you climbed at 1Lv. If you are are higher level you should be bettor at Athletics so there for it should be easier but unless your STR MOD is higher or you took feats to make your Athletics bettor, the same wall is going to be just as hard to climb as when you were 1Lv and a rookie. =/
Yes, LokyCat (et al), it is. If you haven’t boosted your Str or taken a feat to get better at Athletics, you’ve gotten better at killing things, but probably haven’t trained on wall-climbing much.
The way it’s done, killing things doesn’t make you better at walking a tightrope.
Yet this causes cognitive dissonance? And somehow killing things making you better at tightrope-walking doesn’t?
That said, the scaling isn’t exact anyways. For one, you will boost your ability scores. Every skill will be at least 1 point easier by the time you hit level 21. But there are also skill-boost items and feats that people will usually end up taking, as the combat feats aren’t “you need this” powerful any more.
Graham, I think its important to remember that killing things isn’t the only way to get XP. Trying to associate the level process into something sensible is probably a recipe for frustration though. It’s an abstraction, not a simulation.
Scaling DC’s in such a manner makes increasing your skill by level meaningless. You gain skill bonuses equal to half your level. The DC goes up at the same rate for the same task. Leveling up is meaningless for any of the scaled DCs. For the few flat DCs in the game, you will of course be a better performer as you rise in level.
It seems to me that everything about the skill system is inherently flawed. Reminds me of the one thing that bugged me the most about Elder Scrolls Oblivion. The monsters scaled with you so as to always provide a challenge. Somehow the same bandits that wore furs and beat you with clubs now carried around mythical armor and magical greatswords, all because you leveled.
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Let’s look at the numbers a bit before we degenerate to name calling.
A hard challenge is a DC 20 at level 1.
So a level 1 (+0) PC with 18 (+4) in the appropriate stat, trained in the skill (+5) and having taken the Skill Focus (+3) feat has a +12 bonus and succeeds 13/20 times or 65% of the time…
Another level 1 PC (+0) with 12 (+1) in the appropriate stat and untrained has a 5% chance of success.
At level 30, a hard challenge has a DC of 33.
Our #1 PC, at level 30 (+15), assuming he maxed the appropriate stat to 26 (+8), remains trained (+5) and has kept the skill focus (+3) has a +31 bonus. So success for a hard challenge is 90%
PC #2 at level 30 (+15), boosted the key stat only when forced to, has a Score of 14 (+2) for a total of +17. So he succeeds on a roll of 16 or more. That’s a 20% chance of success.
So the game doesn’t scale in a linear fashion. All PCs get better and training in a skill stays significant throughout the game.
I don’t think the skill system is flawed but rather, like monsters, skill DCs are a rules construct totally that’s different from 3.5 and that was created to make sense only in regards to giving PCs a challenge. It wasn’t made to fit to a fixed game world standard.
What I have a hard time warping my mind around is how you judge a challenge to be easy/hard…
Do you take the level into account (i.e. Ice is always hard to walk on) or do you judge in regards to the group’s perception of heroic difficulty (i.e walking on ice is easy to trivial at level 30).
That’s what I get for not checking the math first. *kicks himself for knee jerks*
In retrospect, I kind of like that. Its still hard to walk on ice but you are more successful at it.
The example they give seems to leave easy – moderate – hard up to DM fiat. I kind of appreciate that. If it’s something I want to encourage, I’ll make it easy. If I want a challenge, I’ll make it hard. If I don’t care, I’ll go with medium.
Michael Siglers last blog post..More 4e Utilities
That, I feel, is the essence of what the Rules parts of the DMG are about…
It justs isn’t spelled out all that clearly in places and many people won’t ‘get it’.
The example they give seems to leave easy – moderate – hard up to DM fiat. I kind of appreciate that.
Yeah exactly. I like that DCs aren’t set, that even the category of DC (Easy, Medium, Hard) isn’t set. It strikes me as very situational how easy or difficult a given task will be. If you want an example, think of walking along a narrow path. I can easily stroll down a path half a meter wide and never deviate a hair from the center, but make that path a stone bridge with a 30 meter drop below it, and suddenly I am unsure of my balance, and I have to take it more carefully. If I’m crossing a frozen pond and all I have to do is cross the frozen pond, I can build up a shuffling gait that will let me cross the ice quickly and without mishap. But if I have to worry that someone might be following me or for some other reason I need to hurry, it will be considerably harder to maintain the same gait. (I’ll probably try to use a hurrying walk, which doesn’t translate to a proper slippery surface walk unless I am very careful to start out right in the first place, even if the pond’s ice is identical in both situations.
> Do you take the level into account (i.e. Ice is always hard to walk on) or do you judge in regards to the group’s perception of heroic difficulty (i.e walking on ice is easy to trivial at level 30).
I go with the latter, and so, I suspect, does 4e. Something that’s Hard to do at 30th level has to BE hard to do at 30th level. That wall which was a DC30 climb at 1st level is now little more than a descriptive line of prose unless it’s been seriously beefed up. It’s now a Wall of Demonic Souls coated in razorglass shards, covered in everburning oil and is encased in an anti-magic shell.
The examples don’t scale because, by design, they shouldn’t scale as the stuff you’re doing at the different tiers changes. Those wooden doors you had to knock down at the start of your character’s careers are now platinum-iridium force doors designed to inflict insanity on anyone touching them. At least.
The challenge numbers reflect a learning curve in the game too – at lower levels (as per CDM’s own math) there’s a roughly 50/50 chance that a lone character will succeed on a given DC 20 task without aid, equipment or magic. Ramp up the levels and they’ll quickly discover that Aid Another (read:teamwork!) is essential for pretty much any challenge. First and foremost, 4e is a game which rewards teamwork.
If you focus on a handful of skill specialities (your PC#1 example) you’re rewarded by being able to do the Hard stuff pretty regularly, though even the untrained-but-heroic has a chance of success. Again, Aid Another comes in – that 30th level Climbing expert could manage that DC30 Wall of Demonic Souls reasonably well, then use Aid Another (dropping a rope from the top, say), make a DC10 check in his sleep and help Noggin the Bumbling non-Climber make the ascent (+2 to Aid Another, +2 for braced rope).
I quite like that Hard stays Hard in 4e, but what’s Hard changes. Insert your own viagra joke here. I’m too lazy.
Wow. I’m arguing pro 4e and CDM’s findin’ fault. The world’s about to end! Run for the hills!
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Nice counter analysis Greywulf and I agree with the way to wing it.
It’s not so much as finding fault. It’s more my own flavour of Change Resistance.
But yeah, if true balance exists, I should be stark raving against 4e while you are stating Care Bears (Controllers) and Flying Unicorns (Brutes)
@Graham:
In 3.5 there were skill points which represent you training at particular skills. In ShadowRun there is skill points that are Dice in metagaming, the dice represent you training in certain skills. In DeadLands there are also points that turn in to dice that represent your training in a skill. StarWars D6 and D20…. StarTreck….. GURPS…. Heroes….. Vampire Mascaraed…… World of Darkness….
Yes, you are right, killing duos not make you bettor at any one thing(not to mention that there are many other ways of gaining XP other then killing, like Skill Challenges which make you use skills), but just because you are higher level duos not mean that wall should be just as hard to climb as when you were 1Lv.
Is a stupid mechanic for GMs that don’t know how to challenge the players. Want to make it harder? Make it winter so if there is not ice there is mold from the rain. Make it the same Athletics DC to climb the wall as before so is a bit easier to climb but give him a surprise when he gets up to the top, like added security.
The PC changes, the wall stays the same.
It really is about the game’s philosophy and how you feel about it Loky.
I have since embraced it. I’m for the ‘let’s gauge difficulty as it comes up and according to how hard I perceive a task to be for level X PCs) and I’ll play it from there’ approach.
You know what, chances are players will never, ever notice it.
This is Rule of Fun territory. On the other hand, I will allow players to invoke the Rule of Cool and will give generous bonuses if they wow me with their creative skill use and description.
Yes, Loky, in 3.5 there are skill points.
In 4e, however, everyone has a certain base level of competency. As you get to higher levels, you’ll probably be able to try a wider variety of things, but unless you improve the skill (skill points in 3.5, feats, powers, and ability score raising in 4e) you will still have moderate difficulty walking that tightrope.
Then way do the skills go up if is always going to be challenging?=/
In Star Wars Saga the skills work more or less the same but the game system accounts for the realism that the wall will never change, the PC is the one that changes not the wall or the tight rope.
I guess I’m bitter because I REALLY WANTED to like 4E. I was really looking forward to it and it was a big let down. =*(
I really like Star Wars Saga system. I cant figure out how I can dislike 4E so mush and like Saga so mush when the systems are so alike. =/
@Loky: Maybe you’re just crazy? (Just kidding!)
It’s all just a question of presentation and perception.
I mean if you want to make the DC for the wall climbing stay the same go ahead it won’t brake anything in the system. Just don’t consider it a challenge anymore and award XP for it. Then again their is plenty of way to make it harder and still make it a challenge while keeping the realism. “They knew you’d come they’ve put blade protruding out from the wall and covered it with grease now the DC is X”
This is the back bone system, fluff it up like you want, those number are just their to give you an idea of what is considered a challenge for a level x character.
my 2 cents
I am currently looking for posts about gamers thoughts on the new 4E of D&D. Anyone who participates will get credit for their post. It is just put in a blog carnival format. If you would like to participate please post your blog here http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_4487.html.
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I have to say, the measure of a good DM’s manual is what it brings to you, the DM, in terms of perspective and utility. When I first saw the 4th Edition DM’s guide, I laughed at the fact that there was no lists of magical items, and shook my head. But I’d paid good money for the book, and I sat down and determined to read it cover-to-cover (which I have still never done for the 3.0 and 3.5 DM’s guide, which I found only useful for the tables). What I read there, even early on, challenged my way of DMing and my perspective on what made a good game good. True, there are standout tables (page 42, I’m looking at you), and there is a bit of fluff that isn’t as necessary, but for the most part this Guidebook is one of the most solid pieces of gaming literature I have ever read. I agree with all your praise above.
Regarding the Skill challenge system, I regret that it probably is a system that only works in 4th Edition D&D. The system itself allows it: you get a bonus to your rolls equal to half your level, and training gives you a flat +5 bonus to rolls means everyone has a viable chance to contribute. Perhaps not always a great chance, especially if the skill challenge begins to slip away and the penalties begin to accrue, but my experience has always been to bemoan that all games have “skill-haves” and “skill-have-nots” (often the guys who are really good at killing things). So you have the skill people sitting out on the body-count competition, and the killers looking on when the time for negotiation or city-time involves more than wenching and drinking. Part of that is on the players, but part of it is on the systems, too, ever since we took as fact that wizards were scrawny twerps in robes who die from the first touch of a weapon and fighters were laconic idiots whose idea of a conversation is limited to “I like swords!” I know, this is just stereotyping, but the systems enabled it. 4th Edition is purposefully trying to smooth everything out so no one has to miss out on any aspect of the game. Ambitious? Heck yeah! But it’ll have some flaws until it’s perfected, and the skills challenge section has a few rough spots in what is an incredible idea.
I’m confident that the skill challenge will get enough fan/designer attention to become what it needs to be… consider this a bugged feature to be ironed out in a patch (FAQ, Dragon Mag article)
“That is only one of the issues I had with 4E. At 1Lv you brake in to a castle, you chose to climb a wall to get in…10 levels later you get a quest to brake in to the same castle so you chose the same way you took last time, the DC gos up according to your level, regardless if is the same wall you climbed at 1Lv. If you are are higher level you should be bettor at Athletics so there for it should be easier but unless your STR MOD is higher or you took feats to make your Athletics bettor, the same wall is going to be just as hard to climb as when you were 1Lv and a rookie. =/”
That is not at all how scaling terrain is suppose to work. If the players go back to the “same castle” the wall climbing DC should not scale, it stays the same, the wall hasn’t changed. The idea is that as players level up they go into places with harder to scale walls, more deadly traps, etc. The idea makes sense, as the reviewer mentions it’s a good idea to change the descriptions of the challenges as they are getting harder. It’s not the same stuff the characters are encountering.
Thanks for the review ChattyDM. I was looking to pick up this DMG this weekend and you cemented the decision to do just that. Great blog by the way.
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