I just reread the rules for skill challenges and realized I had been playing this way all along in many of my 3.0/3.5 games.
Basically, with anything complex actions the PCs are seeking to accomplish, I have rarely adjudicated it on just 1 die roll. Negotiations for example, by the very nature demand several skill checks and any 1 failure won't doom your negotiations. But several successes in a row will definitely have the NPC starting to see your point of view.
I generally feel like for 3.5, you can throw out a lot of what the skills specifically say you achieve and just make it up as you go along. I guess I never worried about what the PHB said, and just did what makes sense.
This is an aspect of 4th that I can easily applaud.
It was also implemented in a very similar form in Spycraft 2.0 several years ago as complex skill checks.
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Complex skill checks were a part of Alternity and were ported over to 3.xx in Unearthed Arcana. They make for some exciting role/roll-playing!
This is why I favor lots of relevant skills for each class.
I've only browsed the 4e books but the scuttlebutt around the FLGS is that the mechanic is broken or doesn't work the way it was written or intended to work. I'll wait until Service Pack 2 before I bother to upgrade to 4e (if I bother at all) so I can't comment on the current truth or untruth of those allegations.
My .02 ISK.
SM
Complex skill checks were a part of Alternity and were ported over to 3.xx in Unearthed Arcana. They make for some exciting role/roll-playing!
This is why I favor lots of relevant skills for each class.
I've only browsed the 4e books but the scuttlebutt around the FLGS is that the mechanic is broken or doesn't work the way it was written or intended to work. I'll wait until Service Pack 2 before I bother to upgrade to 4e (if I bother at all) so I can't comment on the current truth or untruth of those allegations.
My .02 ISK.
SM
They put out service pack two a couple of days ago. At first glance it looks like they have fixed the math.
Anyway I don't really see the base mechanic as new per se. What I think is new is that the class system for skills know supports the base mechanic. The most important aspect of this is that any skill challenge designed for a party of a specific level should work well with any other party of that level. Essentially whats different now, at least in D&D, is that skill challenges are being worked into professionally created adventures.
Certainly, in 3.5, I could make a good diplomacy style skill challenge for my home group. But it made a huge difference if my group did or did not have a bard. Something designed to be fun and challenging for my players with a bard might be nearly impossible if your group did not have a bard or vice versa. My 3.5 Skill Challenge worked only with my party because I new their strengths and weaknesses. It was hard to make good ones for some unknown party so they rarely came up in professional adventure design.
Skill challenges have been in games forever. Fasa and White Wolf both used them in their main systems for ever, and I think both called them 'extended tests'. It's not a new idea, just new to core D&D and long overdue :)
Torg had something similar in Dramatic Skill Resolutions.