At levels 1-3, the medium DC for a challenge is 20. At first level, a player will typically have a score of +9-11 with a trained skill (potentially +15 with a 20 stat and Skill Focus, but that's clearly an exception).

Consider the experienced gamer in a party of experienced gamers, where every player is playing a niche they like, and their characters' skills dovetail. That is, there aren't so many duplications of trained skills.

Add to that the minimaxing of characters, and it's not that uncommon to see a skill at +15.

I suggest everyone take a look at the official updates (in other words, the "eratta") to the DMG available here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates

For a party level of 1st-3rd, the recommended skill check difficulty classes are now 5 for Easy, 10 for Moderate, and 15 for Hard. There are changes for higher party levels as well. Also, the recommended numbers for failures allowed during a skill challenge have changed.

- Lewis

For a party level of 1st-3rd, the recommended skill check difficulty classes are now 5 for Easy, 10 for Moderate, and 15 for Hard. There are changes for higher party levels as well. Also, the recommended numbers for failures allowed during a skill challenge have changed.

I approve of the change to number of failures, but I'm very disappointed in the lowered DCs and probably won't use them in my campaign. I feel it's just taken things a step too far. As it stands, my 4th level Tiefling warlock can take on 10th level skill challenges without too much concern. In my opinion, the previous numbers encouraged players to take Skill Training, Skill Focus, and powers that enhanced skill use (Beguiling Tongue, Astral Voice) - placing strong weight on noncombat abilities, and encouraging people to come up with clever ways to apply their good skills to difficult challenges. With the new numbers, Skill Focus seems like a waste of time; at 8th level, +12 Diplomacy is fine for my cleric, and +15 is really overkill.

So, do with it as you will. I'll keep the three-failure system, but I'll be raising the DCs.

Good Day

Just wanted to share my new experience.

If your system denies to start due to an error related to missing HAL.DLL, invalid Boot.ini or any other important system boot files you can repair this by using the XP installation CD. Just boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console. Then run "attrib -H -R -S" on the C:\Boot.ini file and delete it. Launch "Bootcfg /Rebuild" and then Fixboot

Regards,
Carl

Hi Folks!

Windows vista is also causing lots of boot issues, so I often get questions like this:

I have a Dell Dimension, which won’t boot to Windows (Vista), and none the repair variants work:

Startup repair: Reports repair fail due to problem with registry

System Restore: Reports no restore points available

Windows Complete PC Restore: Reports no backups available

Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: No memory problems

Command Prompt.
Can’t think of any appropriate command to use here.

So I booted with the system DVD (as one would with XP) but the upgrade
option has been greyed don’t want to do a clean install. I want to repair existing
installation.

What should I do?

------------------------------------------------------------

And here is the answer:

You can't do a 'repair install' because you need to launch the Vista DVD
from within Windows, not, as you have been doing, booting straight from the
DVD; that is why the 'upgrade' is greyed out.

If you cannot launch Vista and none of the fix variants will work a clean
install is the only other option.

To save problems in future it is actually a good idea to image the hard
drive, using something like True Image. What I do is install operating system, download all updates, check system I working okay for a day or two, activate system, then create image of the whole drive/partition. Any time I get a problem I can re-image the drive/partition quickly and be up and running without much inconvenience. And minor fixes are done by using any registry repair software, there are plenty of them on the market today.

Cheers,
Carl

Note that this is for Intel based systems only (mainly laptops) and you would be well advised to IMAGE your disk BEFORE YOU TRY THIS just in case something happens and you cannot load your system (IMAGE, IMAGE, IMAGE!!!)

Once you have your disk images precede with the following:

Backup your registry or make a restore point just in case.

Under search: regedit
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\

Locate: folder "iaStor"
Under "iaStor" you will find a folder named "Parameter" > delete this folder

Locate: folder "iaStorv"
Under "iaStorv" you will find a folder named "Parameter" > delete this folder

Reload Vista


Regards,
Carl

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