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Conflex: an alternative skill challenge system [v0.2]
Conflex is a skill challenge system I've been working on, and have been using in a game I'm DMing. I think I've gotten it to a point where it could be useful to others, and I would be interested in hearing thoughts and opinions from others.
The system is build around the notion of conflicts. Basically, a conflict is some force in the world that would cause the characters problems if it's not dealt with -- something that stands in the way of their goals. The players can roll skill checks to handle those conflicts, but the conflicts periodically get a chance to respond.
Some major design characteristics:
Each skill check goes against multiple DCs. The higher the DC met, the more progress made
Every skill check has a decent chance of helping at least a little. Someone with the worst skill modifier possible has about a 25% chance of hitting the lowest DC
An individual skill check cannot cause failure of the skill challenge -- it can only fail to help address a conflict as much as it could
There is, at least supposed to be, a significant amount of decision making involved with winning or losing. I've often felt, in other skill challenge systems, that a loss was primarily due to poor die rolls, not bad decision making.
Fair warning: the system is significantly more complicated than other skill challenge systems I've used. It uses a worksheet (page 2 of the PDF) which really must be printed out. However, I've been able to run Conflex successfully without explaining much of the mechanics to my players -- I just explain their situation, and some of their options, in in-game terms, and things worked out pretty well.
Thanks to Stalker0 and his Obsidian skill challenge system. I've found it useful in my DMing, and continue to use it for things Conflex is not designed to handle. My design goals were heavily influenced by his work.
First of all, I'm honored someone's work has been inspired by my own
Let me start of by saying: I'm extremely impressed at first glance.
I have been thinking about various tweaks to Obsidian to incorporate some of the things your system has done naturally. The highlights:
1) DM vs Player skill challenges: The fact that you let the players "fight" the DM by escalating the DC is a simple but powerful way to go.
2) Adjustments for secondary skills: Your -1 SP idea is a great way to handle secondary skills.
3) Adjustments to higher skill checks. I really like how you account for higher skill checks with more successes. In a way it rewards better skill...but it also contains that power with a large gradient of successes.
4) Variable challenge: I like how your failure system can make different parts of the system come back to bite the players. Like the tribal one, the party is doing all sorts of religious negotiation and suddenly a slip in the basic lingo sets you all the way back.
5) Variable complications: They set to really differentiate the challenges nicely.
6) Complexity in the right places. Your system is definitely more complex than mine, but I think you put it mostly on the dms shoulders, and allow the players to interact without a whole lot of mechanical knowledge.
Now my critiques:
1) Insight system seems like a needless addition: Currently I feel the insight area is a way to tell the players things most DMs would just tell them anyway, and it feels like rolling for rolling sake. With the amount of complexity you are going for, I think you can clean up your system a bit by taking this aspect out.
2) No partial successes: Probably the biggest praise I've gotten from my system is the addition of partial successes. I see no reason your system can't incorporate them and I highly encourage it.
3) Need gameplay examples: I'll post my notes below, but right now for me some of the language is pretty confusing. Even one example that details all of the rolls and decisions of a skill challenge goes a long way to clarifying the bits that language sometimes leaves unclear.
My confusions:
1) Conflicts handled together or all at once? I believe the answer is every conflict is handled in each segment, but its confusing because you start out talking about how each conflict is handled in order.
2) How many checks does each character roll? I gathered that its 3 checks per conflict per segment....regardless of the number of players? So if I have 4 conflicts that's 12 checks...so if I have 5 players....an average of 2 checks a piece with 2 players making 3. Is that correct?
3) The -5 rule. So if a character makes 2 checks in the same challenge, he gets a -5 to the second. If he uses the same skill, is that a -10? If two characters both use the same skill in a conflict, is the second one at a -5? If a character uses the same skill in two different conflicts, is he at a -5 to the second conflict?
4) Spend a surge to stop failure. What does "one last check to stop the failure" mean? Does that mean I'm trying to boost the failure DC high enough to stop the failure? Or perhaps that I'm opposing the role?
5) Should failure checks be rolled in order? Since I can only get one failure per segment, should I roll failure on conflict 1 then conflict 2, etc...or can I pick the order?
6) Complication - So any time a failure is received someone must immediately spend 2 surges or the challenge is over right? Does it have to be someone participating in that conflict? Also as a note, not a big fan of always using surges, I could see times when surges might not make sense.
7) Individual - Does every player roll a check on an individual challenge every segment or can only 3 do so since its normally 3 checks. Also for failure rolls, so I roll once but apply the failure to every players DC who is low enough correct?
The math: Ultimately I love the form of your system, but its got to past the ultimate test....how does the math pan out. However, I'm so interested in your mechanics that if you'll correct my confusions I would like to do so math modeling and see how it looks.
1) Insight system seems like a needless addition: Currently I feel the insight area is a way to tell the players things most DMs would just tell them anyway, and it feels like rolling for rolling sake. With the amount of complexity you are going for, I think you can clean up your system a bit by taking this aspect out.
I can see what you mean. I added it because I often felt that insight was not a particularly useful skill. In practice, I've been satisfied with the results, but I could see running the system without it.
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2) No partial successes: Probably the biggest praise I've gotten from my system is the addition of partial successes. I see no reason your system can't incorporate them and I highly encourage it.
I'm not very explicit about it, but my version of a partial success is where a third failure on one conflict doesn't cause the skill challenge to fail entirely, but reduces the benefits of success. The labyrinth example uses this on the fourth conflict. Do you think I should have something more?
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3) Need gameplay examples: I'll post my notes below, but right now for me some of the language is pretty confusing. Even one example that details all of the rolls and decisions of a skill challenge goes a long way to clarifying the bits that language sometimes leaves unclear.
I will add an example in the next version.
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My confusions:
I'll update the document soon, but for now I'll clarify below.
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1) Conflicts handled together or all at once? I believe the answer is every conflict is handled in each segment, but its confusing because you start out talking about how each conflict is handled in order.
Simultaneously. The players must choose which conflict to roll against, and which skill to use. I simply meant that because of the way failure checks work, it's usually wise to handle them roughly in order. That probably doesn't belong in that section.
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2) How many checks does each character roll? I gathered that its 3 checks per conflict per segment....regardless of the number of players? So if I have 4 conflicts that's 12 checks...so if I have 5 players....an average of 2 checks a piece with 2 players making 3. Is that correct?
The players collectively can roll 3 checks per segment against a conflict of their choice -- each segment ends with a failure check. In theory, the skill challenge could go on forever, segment after segment, if they continually roll poorly, and the failure checks never cause any failures, but the chance of that is very slim.
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3) The -5 rule. So if a character makes 2 checks in the same challenge, he gets a -5 to the second.
Yes; only if they're both among the 3 checks within a single segment.
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If he uses the same skill, is that a -10?
Just -5; will clarify in PDF.
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If two characters both use the same skill in a conflict, is the second one at a -5?
No; the penalty is there to discourage the player with the highest skill from being the only one to ever tackle a particular conflict.
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If a character uses the same skill in two different conflicts, is he at a -5 to the second conflict?
Yes
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4) Spend a surge to stop failure. What does "one last check to stop the failure" mean? Does that mean I'm trying to boost the failure DC high enough to stop the failure? Or perhaps that I'm opposing the role?
The former -- treat it as a normal check, and adjust the conflict defense (i.e., the failure DC) accordingly. If this beats the DMs initial roll, the failure is annulled.
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5) Should failure checks be rolled in order? Since I can only get one failure per segment, should I roll failure on conflict 1 then conflict 2, etc...or can I pick the order?
In order -- and stop once one failure occurs.
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6) Complication - So any time a failure is received someone must immediately spend 2 surges or the challenge is over right?
If it's the Confrontational complication.
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Does it have to be someone participating in that conflict?
No; could be any party member (assuming that they are all present)
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Also as a note, not a big fan of always using surges, I could see times when surges might not make sense.
There could be another complication that requires expenditure of a daily attack power, I suppose. But, I like surges because they are a daily resource which the players have reason to ration, but loss of one or two in a skill challenge isn't too major. If a skill challenge is supposed to have the same weight as a combat, it should have similar resource management requirements.
Furthermore, a surge could represent many things, such as physical strain, mental strain or pure luck.
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7) Individual - Does every player roll a check on an individual challenge every segment or can only 3 do so since its normally 3 checks.
There is one "global" instance of the conflict, plus one "personal" instance for each player. One player, as one of the three checks in a segment, rolls against the global instance as normal, but also applying the check result to his/her personal instance (find highest DC beat, award SPs). Each other player gets a free check against his/her personal instance only. These checks do not count against the three per segment.
Victory relies only upon the "global" instance being handled.
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Also for failure rolls, so I roll once but apply the failure to every players DC who is low enough correct?
Yes.
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The math: Ultimately I love the form of your system, but its got to past the ultimate test....how does the math pan out. However, I'm so interested in your mechanics that if you'll correct my confusions I would like to do so math modeling and see how it looks.
Indeed -- I'm not sure how the math works out. So far, I've run the four example challenges, and my players won each of them, but with a few close calls. But that's also true of the combats I've run -- I think it's a question of whether the system is compelling enough that running it, even though the players will probably win, is satisfying.
I really like the idea behind this system, but some of the rules were a little hard to grasp, as Stalker0 said. I suppose that may help with trying out the system. Keep in mind I haven't had a chance to look over version 0.2 (except for the gameplay example), so this might be clarified in the new version.
One thing that bugs me however, is that not everyone needs to participate if they don't have any skills suited towards any of the challenges. It is not as bad as the original Skill Challenge system which move the group towards failure on a failed roll, but when you only have three checks per round, it is best to let the player with the best check modifier roll.
Of course, the GM can make sure that each conflict benefits a different player, but it: a) may not always be possible to do this
and b) just means that some players will "shine" in the beginning of the challenge and others later in it.
It might be nice to see some "complications" that was to the benefit of the party.
I would actually like to work a little on the system, perhaps trying to change it so each player makes a skill check per segment. Would that be alright?
I have been looking for a good skill challenge system for a while. I have been trying to find something that is as engaging as combat for non combat scenarios, I really want the players enjoying non-combat and investing into non-combat abilities (want more flavour in the game).
That said, I print out your skill challenge system and read through pretty thoroughly.
* Love the success point bit.
* Love the fact that you break a skill challence down into sub part with various skills required.
...and then. Complicated. I tried putting together some scenarios and playing through with my parties characters, and pretty quickly hit the "Wha? wall".
Im still going through it, but my problem was that if I hit the wall, I can guarantee my players will just not lock on to this (1 in the group is a powergamer, the others are more casual), and that is an important facet. One of the things that is that makes combat fun is transparent to the player with dynamics and interplay, and my fear is that to make this transparent would end up in alot of head scratching.
I think you are on the right track, but as far as my group is concerned, I would focus on
1) Simplify
2) Build in controllable dynamics
That said, this did inspire me. I am coming up with my own skill challenge system and some things I am putting in :
a) Treat the challenge like a solo monster. It is there to be defeated. It has powers (yes, I put encounter powers with triggers in....) and weakness that can be exploited. Let the players know that they are up against a "foe", even if that is an abstract foe. Gives em a kick when they beat it.
b) Your design had the keywords with consequences built in. I would be more tempted to tie consequences to the aspect of the challnce that is actually being tested. Leaves the GM more room to get creative
But again I do stress, this is about the group you are in, and it is hourses for courses. Well done on some good ideas and well done also for applying yourself to this important, but all too often secondary, part of the game.
I really like the idea behind this system, but some of the rules were a little hard to grasp, as Stalker0 said. I suppose that may help with trying out the system. Keep in mind I haven't had a chance to look over version 0.2 (except for the gameplay example), so this might be clarified in the new version.
I did change things quite a bit, so hopefully it'll be clearer now
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One thing that bugs me however, is that not everyone needs to participate if they don't have any skills suited towards any of the challenges. It is not as bad as the original Skill Challenge system which move the group towards failure on a failed roll, but when you only have three checks per round, it is best to let the player with the best check modifier roll.
Of course, the GM can make sure that each conflict benefits a different player, but it: a) may not always be possible to do this
and b) just means that some players will "shine" in the beginning of the challenge and others later in it.
I don't think it's really as essential to have all players directly involved in a skill challenge as it is in a combat, mostly because SCs take so little time. Your b) seems like a perfectly fine situation.
In practice though, I've never had a player not roll at all. Usually there's at least a logical secondary skill for everyone.
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It might be nice to see some "complications" that was to the benefit of the party.
Good point... any ideas?
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I would actually like to work a little on the system, perhaps trying to change it so each player makes a skill check per segment. Would that be alright?
Originally, I had four checks per segment. After running it like that, I felt like there was too much lag between the players' actions, and the world's reaction. Three seems like the sweet spot in my experience, so I'd be reticent to change that. But if you'd like to try it out, I'd like to hear how it turns out.
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Originally Posted by BobTheNob
...and then. Complicated. I tried putting together some scenarios and playing through with my parties characters, and pretty quickly hit the "Wha? wall".
Difficulty understanding the rules, or difficulty telling a coherent story that follows the rules?
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Im still going through it, but my problem was that if I hit the wall, I can guarantee my players will just not lock on to this (1 in the group is a powergamer, the others are more casual), and that is an important facet. One of the things that is that makes combat fun is transparent to the player with dynamics and interplay, and my fear is that to make this transparent would end up in alot of head scratching.
I'd suggest trying it with the worksheet in the open. The system is certainly a lot less complicated than the rules for 4E combat.
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I think you are on the right track, but as far as my group is concerned, I would focus on
1) Simplify
I could trim the Insight part, perhaps move it to an "advanced options" section, but I'm not sure what else. Any suggestions?
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2) Build in controllable dynamics
Do you mean incorporating run-time DM decisions, like running monsters in combat?
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b) Your design had the keywords with consequences built in. I would be more tempted to tie consequences to the aspect of the challnce that is actually being tested. Leaves the GM more room to get creative
Are you referring to Complications? I'm not sure what you mean.
It might be possible to reverse some of the complications (for instance, if we inverse the "2 Healing Surges required on a failure", it would be "no healing surges"). I don't have any new or unique ideas right now, but that is mostly due to an exam looming over my head. So I may give some more suggestions in a couple of days.
In regards to 4 checks per segment:
You could possibly split it up so a player makes a check, then a single conflict checks for failure, etc. Though it would need a fair way of doing this, as players would attempt to make checks towards the conflict that would be checked next. Either take them in order, GM's choice or just check the conflict with the highest chance of failure.
The gameplay example is useful but I think it may contradict some of the core rules.
From what I understood, the party is suppose to roll for each of the 4 conflicts...and then you do the failure rolls. In your example, the do the first one and then get a failure roll on both the first and second conflict, before they have even made checks on the second one.
Also, I think the action phase needs a little more clarification as far as how many skill checks to roll. I think your intention is that every challenge needs 3 checks, that can be made by any of the players (with the appropriate penalties for rolling the same skill and the like) but that is not coming across to me in the description.
Also, when they spend a healing surge to try and negate a failure...do they get to keep the successes they made from that checks...or is that simply made just to negate the failure?
I'd suggest trying it with the worksheet in the open. The system is certainly a lot less complicated than the rules for 4E combat.
Thats for sure!
What I actually have is an application I wrote. It does mapping and handles combat and runs of the internet, so when we play the information I want to present to the player is on a widescreen tv on the wall. As such, I am actually designing the next facet which is skill challenge support, I just need a skill challenge system I am comfortable with.
When I need transparency, I would achieve through this.
But the importnt aspect of it is that by making these things transparent to the players, you shed a little light on the impact their characters abilities have. Its so cool when a power you possess has a profound impact on combat and you understand how and why....I want the same thing for skill challenges.
Last weekend I read your System and I think it has some really nice ideas. The expend of ressources is much more like in a real fight. The rolls for failure give some elements of tension. The different consequences make it easy to design skillchallenges with different feeling.
But there are some things I think one should look at:
- First is a question: you say your players made all skillchallenges - but at what cost? Did they loose about 1 surge the whole party or more about 10 surges?
- You say: 'I don't think it's really as essential to have all players directly involved in a skill challenge as it is in a combat, mostly because SCs take so little time.' I have to agree and disagree at once I agree that it is not nescessary that everyone must have a meaningful role in every skillchallenge. If it is a mainly social SC my Int 8-Cha 10-Fighter wouldn't be of much help and it is good not to force him to try. But on the other hand you only make a SC if the situation is important for the party - so it is not much fun to sit there and can't do anything. I think you need s.th. like the 'guiding light' from Stalker0's Cores System. S.th. to roll but not as important as the main-rolls...
- What is about other ressources? Give them some interesting options: Action Point: spend an AP to get an additional roll this segment; daily Powers: mark an daily Power of your choice as used and get 3 additional SP on the next roll
- think about a longer list of 'official' consequences: pressing: you have one roll less on the next segment, instabil: the primary skill changes (diplomacy-bluff-intimidate, athletics-acrobatics), minor important: 3 failures doesn't loose the SC but you only have a partial success.
- make two kinds of consequences: one which is an effect on a failure (distracting, tiring) and one kind changes the overall rules or has an effect on three failures (individual, partial,...). Every Conflict can have one consequence ofg each type
- give the DM some meaningful decissions: perhaps he can choose each time which conflict will first test for failure (so he can try to inflict maximum surges damgae or can concentrate on denying a full succes by rushing the partial conflict...). Or he has some other minor toys to play with (like heroes can use APs or Powers). Perhaps here is a point where the players who had no roll this round can do s.th. by cutting down the options of the DM a bit.
- if you have some experience with other number of plaers than 5 pleas tell it
How do you decide the amount of EXP the players get when they succeed in the skill challenge? or when they score a partial success?
I assume that making a conflict harder by adding a complication to it, like confrontational, would provide more EXP for the party.
This system made me though about an alternative. I'm not huge fan of using spread sheet to manage my skill challenge, so here a "light" version of this system.
This system is based on 5 characters group.
- For the skill challenge, the DM choose 3 objectives. For example, in the labyrinth skill challenge the 3 objectives could be : 1. find your way 2. bypass traps 3. don't get caught by the monter patrols
- For each objective, you choose a negative effect. For example, it could be 1. find your way : the party gets +2 to all DC for the next turn 2. bypass trap : each character loose a healing surge 3. don't get caught by monter patrols : an encounter of the party's level (or each character loose 2 healing surges if you don't want to throw a fight)
- Each turn, every player have to make a skill check. The player decides wich objective he will try to get progress in.
- If in a turn (one turn ends when each players have rolled) there's not at least on sucess made in one or more objectives, the group takes a negative effect based on the objective(s). Penalties can be cumulatives (if there's no sucess in more than one objective).
- The DC are those at p.42. However, the DM choose if the DC is easy, medium or hard based on the player's description. If the player describe a nice and original way (or a very good idea, a good interpretation, etc) to use his skill, the DM will select an easy DC to oppose his check. On the other hand, if the description is basic, unoriginal, not very clever or not really appropriate, he will select the hard DC. That way, a very good role play or clever idea from a character with an average skill bonus still have a very good chance of suceeding.
- The challenge is completed when the group accumulated a number of successes. This rule make failure nearly impossible, pretty much like in combat. You expect the party to win.
- You can had the use of action points and critical hits (natural 20) in the same way has in Obsidian. An action point let you reroll, a natural 20 gives you 2 sucesses.
I recently used a mash up of this idea, obsidian and my own quirk and used it with pretty good success.
Three obstacles or agents of failure to overcome.
DC is set per Obsidian with a quirk that the force/obstacle rolls a d20 to see if the DC changes by -2, 0, +2. (This is more to make it an dynamic rather than a flat static DC).
Players all roll once against each obstacle/force. One skill is primary and adds +2 to the roll.
Total successes overall are what matter and used Obsidian recommended success numbers. Partial successes would have resulted in lost surges or extra encounters. I award XP based on quest so there's no 'farming' of encounters for xp using a challenge result.
There was no question they'd make it to the lair, just what shape they'd get there in.
Example:
Find the swamp lair.
Obstacles/Forces Against the Players -
Find the trail.
Avoid the dangers of the swamps.
Approach undetected.
A handwave of the success count on the three obstacles would have resulted in non-hardcoded results. Example if they got the fewest successes on the find the trail check then they arrived later with bad consequences. Fewest on the avoid the dangers and they show up with fewer surges. Fewest on the approach undetected and lair guards know they're coming or they run into an unecessary fight (patrol) that saps their resources.
__________________ Player: "What are you going to do us next?! Key our cars after the session?!"
The problem I often see with skill challenges is when you resolve one objective... then what.
I mean, if the players work toward finding the way, once they succeed at the nature check, well... they did find the best way. But you still have to wait until the challenge is completed to tell them. There's no immediate effect to suceeding one objective. It feels a bit flat and the player's don't have the feeling of influencing the events.
I too love this idea and would greatly like to see it developed into a completed system! I like how each conflict can be countered simultaneously instead of the effect of a good or bad roll happening immediately after. I do have some critiques of it, but only a few.
First, the players should get to make a number of checks each round equal to the number of conficts in the challenge. My reasoning is that this way, each of the conflicts can always be addressed. For example, in the labyrinth challenge, I don't see why one player could navigate, one player disarms traps they come across, one player is focusing on distance travelled efficiently and the last is focusing on the group's stealth, all at once.
Second, the DCs seem too difficult. Each player should be able to participate, plus the easy DC for level 1 is 5, where you have the lowest DC resulting in a success being 14. That's even higher than average! I think the DCs should be adjusted per the updated DC guide.
Lastly, you need a way to address experience received from the skill challenge. My suggestion at first glance would be XP for a standard monster for each conflict completed. However, with some thought, this seems like a bit less than it should, as a challenge with 4 conflicts is average, but would only give 400 XP, which is less than a standard encounter.
Take a look at Althai, my D&D 4e campaign setting, and The_Heroes of Althai, the dramedy of the heroes who did and will affect Althai. (Both on the backburner for now.)
After a wee bit of testing, I have some more ideas:
Instead of insight revealing conflicts, reveal all conflicts at the beginning and tell the players the primary skills they can use. Don't reveal secondary skill options; let the players come up with those themselves. They aren't as good as other skills, anyway. However, add a complication to the list, called "requirement" or something. Add this to a conflict to tell the DM to not reveal it at the start of the encounter until a certain condition is met.
For example, I created a skill challenge once that had the PCs trying to find where a certain dragon's lair would be. They knew the dragon's name, but nothing else. The first conflict would be to find out what kind of dragon it was, by looking up the name with the aid of History. Once they figured it out (it's a grey dragon), they would need to research where it might live using Nature. They would find that it lives in mountains, and hey, there are mountains nearby! So they need to do research on those specific nearby mountains using Dungeoneering. Each of these would be a conflict (what kind of dragon, dragon's habitat, and mountaineering) and the latter two would require that the earlier ones handled before they can be attempted.
I mentioned DCs yesterday. The problem is that if they are too high, characters without good skills can't contribute to the challenge. They should at least be getting 1 or 2 successes. However, you still want to reward players with high skills for using those skills, so how about this table? It keeps 5 the same, but lowers the others a bit so nontrained players can contribute.
About the number of checks, maybe equal to the number of players? Otherwise, the players with the highest skills will be doing all the work and the others will just sit out and watch the entire time. It evens out because when there's more players, they make more checks, so it's easier, but they each get less XP because it was easier.
Which brings me to XP. Here's a starting point. Each conflict is worth XP of a standard monster at that level. If there are two primary skills, it is worth half XP. If there is a secondary skill, take away XP equal to a minion for that level from the conflict for each secondary skill useable. If there are complications, increase the XP earned by an amount of minions depending on the number and difficulty of each complication. There can also be reverse complications: rewards the players get for not getting a failure in a reaction round. These would decrease the XP.
I really like this system, and I think that by the finished edition, it could be used as the only skill challenge system a campaign needs.
Take a look at Althai, my D&D 4e campaign setting, and The_Heroes of Althai, the dramedy of the heroes who did and will affect Althai. (Both on the backburner for now.)
I hope you don't mind my obsession with this, but I am so inspired by this that I hope to use it in my own D&D game, and incorporate it into a game I'm creating, if that's okay with you (it's not going to be published, just made and shared)!
I came up with a few more ideas to extend the versatility of the system. You could have a system similar to the complexity to determine how many checks can be made per action round. 1 is the most difficult, as it means only 1 check can be made per round. It increases from there, and can help determine how many XP the players get in the end.
Also, the complications should come in helpful versions as well. These helpful complications would activate when the DM makes a failure check and it comes up lower than the target number. They can be things like revealing other conflicts, revealing secondary skills available, giving a bonus to skill checks, adding success points to the next round of skill checks, removing failures, rolling twice and using the lower result for the attack, requiring more failures to fail, and more. I also thought of a new negative complication: Detrimental. It's usually last, as Fundamental is usually first, and when a failure occurs in this conflict, it removes successes from all the previous conflicts!
Another idea, though this is a bit of a stretch as it goes against the idea that player's checks don't contribute negatively to the challenge, is negative skills. When you use this skill, you lose previously gained successes in the conflict. You compare your check to the table as normal, but inverse the SPs. So, say you make a check that would normally give you 4 SPs. It turns out to be a negative skills, so instead you lose 1 SPs. Inversing the SPs also inverses where the 0 is. The 0 is at the top now, so you have to count backwards for the SPs: equal to or over the highest number is 0, equal to or higher than 4 SPs is 1 SP, and so on. If you get lower than the lowest target number, you lose 5 SPs in that conflict.
I transformed the Negotiation skill challenge from the DMG into a Conflex skill challenge, to test out some of my ideas. It could work with more testing and tweaking. It uses the assumption that the DM tells the players the goal of each conflict and the primary skills of each conflict (except for Conflict 4, because it has the Unapparent complication, so it isn't revealed until the players are Enlightened of it).
Negotiation with the Duke The duke sits at the head of his banquet table. Gesturing with a wine glass, he bids you to sit. "I'm told you have news from the borderlands."
Complexity: 3 Conflict 1: We have the same goals. You must empathize with the duke to encourage his assistance.
Primary Skills: Insight
Secondary Skills: Streetwise
Complications: Fundamental, Enlightening: Conflict 2 (this means that a success causes the DM to tell the players everything about Conflict 2 that they didn't previously know, i.e., that Intimidate is a negative skill. A success refers to the DM rolling a failure check and not meeting the target number). If you don't understand who you're talking to, you'll eventually realize that you've been getting nowhere when you thought you had progressed. Conflict 2: Surely you can see the sense of that. You must entreat the duke for aid in your quest through diplomatic procedures.
Primary Skills: Diplomacy
Negative Skills: Intimidate
Complications: Enligtening: Conflict 4. The duke refuses to be intimidated by the likes of you. Conflict 3: It's worse than it seems! True, the goblins don't plan on attacking the duchy. But the duke doesn't have to know that.
Primary Skills: Bluff
Complications: Precarious, Detrimental. The duke does not take kind to being lied to. Conflict 4: History is doomed to be repeated. Remembering about bloody battles of the past, you can warn the duke not to make the same mistakes as his predecessors.
Primary Skills: History
Complications: Unapparent. Helpful: +2 (this gives a +2 bonus to the next character's skill check). When the duke reveals that he has participated in battles in the past, someone with knowledge of those battles warns the duke that more bloodshed could be avoided if he gives them aid.
Of course, this is your system, not mine. If what I'm saying goes against the goals you had in mind when designing the system, feel free to ignore me! I am personally looking for a skill challenge system that encourages DMs to give players more options than battle after battle.
Take a look at Althai, my D&D 4e campaign setting, and The_Heroes of Althai, the dramedy of the heroes who did and will affect Althai. (Both on the backburner for now.)
I wouldn't be worried about players who can't contribute to the SC. Usually there are 4 different main-skills so the cahnces are good that each player has at least one of it trained. (usually you should try making up SCs which cover at least two of the areas social/knowledge/physical so that a char who is a total looser in one part still has a good chance to cover one skill.)
In addition you can - depending of the situation you try to simulate - allow the skill of a handled conflict be secondary for all/some other conflicts.
And finally there is still the fact that you have less rolls per segment than players - so it is ok if one player can't contribute.
If you don't want some players become passive spectators make following changes:
- the 3 main rolls have to be from different heroes
- each hero who has not rolled a main roll can try to protect some conflicts from failures by doing a protection roll - this roll is just like a normal skill roll but it don't add successes to the conflict. instead the defense of the conflict is increased as if there had been added the aprropiate number of successes. This protection-bonus vanishes at the begin of the next segment.
- for balancing out this increased defense allow up to two failures per segment instead of stopping after the first on.
- to make it ballanced for any number of players you should adjust the number of successes needed to handle a conflict. For each player above 5 add one box, for each player below 5 start with one success per conflict.
(I haven't playtested it yet, but I think it should be more or less balanced.)
![Conflex: an alternative skill challenge system [v0.2]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/iconimages/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/conflex-alternative-skill-challenge-system-v0-2-a_ltr.gif)
I agree that it is not nescessary that everyone must have a meaningful role in every skillchallenge. If it is a mainly social SC my Int 8-Cha 10-Fighter wouldn't be of much help and it is good not to force him to try. But on the other hand you only make a SC if the situation is important for the party - so it is not much fun to sit there and can't do anything. I think you need s.th. like the 'guiding light' from Stalker0's Cores System. S.th. to roll but not as important as the main-rolls...
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