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In the 3rd lvl Merchant Prince game last night, I used the attached skill challenge to have seven PCs cross a narrow maze of stone walkways with lava on every side and magical walls of fire roaring through the maze. It was unusual in that each of the six PCs had to perform a separate type 1 (4 successes before 3 failures) skill challenge. I had to maintain tension and move them along quickly so people wouldn't get bored. I think it worked really well, though.
I handed out this sheet:
Skill challenge - Exit the Temple Hall!
Exit the Temple Hall!
You must navigate the walkways between pools of bubbling magma to move towards the temple’s exit – but this is complicated by sheets of fire that roar unpredictably along the stone, and by slippery coins scattered along the path.
Each person must complete a type one skill challenge: 4 successes before three failures. That means you have to make four skill rolls on the Primary Skills list below, before you fail three rolls. The DC you’re shooting for starts at DC 12 and increases by +2 every time you use the same skill more than once. A failure on one of these checks causes you to lose a healing surge as a wall of fire sweeps over you.
If you’re in the middle of the skill challenge, you can successfully use a Secondary Skill (again, DC 12) to give yourself +2 to your next Primary skill roll. A success here doesn’t count towards your overall successes for completing the challenge; a failure causes you to lose a healing surge as a wall of fire sweeps over you.
If you are not the person trying to complete the challenge, you can assist by using the Secondary skills. Shoot for a DC 12; success gives the person +2, failure gives them -2 on their next Primary roll. Every time you try to use the same skill to help the same person, the DC rises by two. (Example: Sarah wants to help Leominster avoid the fire, and she uses the insight skill to guess where the fire is coming next. The first time she tries, she needs to hit DC 12. The second time she tries, her target is DC 14.)
If you fail the skill challenge, you have slipped into the lava. This is bad.
Primary skills (start at DC 12): acrobatics, athletics, dungeoneering, insight. DC goes up by 2 every time the same skill is used.
Secondary skills (start at DC 12): arcana, dungeoneering, insight, nature, religion.
Special: While you’re performing the skill challenge, you can stop to scoop up treasure! Make one or more DC 17 Acrobatics or Thievery checks. Success results in treasure! Failure results in losing a healing surge as the fire sweeps over you. These checks don’t count towards your success, but they don’t get more difficult as you keep trying them.
Gathering all the treasure (5 successful checks) will lower target DCs by 2 for everyone coming after you, because the slippery gold no longer covers the path.
Some characters made it over with no problem at all. One PC was lofted in a fireman's carry by another PC (-4 to all his checks). The two clumsy heroes had real trouble and relied on assistance from the other party members in order to cross. Interestingly, the first two heroes across picked up all the treasure, lowering the DCs by two - and that made the difference between about four or five successes vs. failures. The rising DCs resulted in some meaningful choices by the players, instead of just relying on their standard skills.
I wouldn't want to do "every party member has a separate challenge" very often at all, but for this purpose (crossing the lava, with lots of individual risk) it seemed like the right choice.
I definitely like the explicit skill challenge more than the hidden one. Making them explicit and awarding successes has so far created more tension, and I think I've ended up with very focused players strategizing how to win, even while they're staying in character. They're a pain to build, though. I am hopeful that the DDI will end up creating a tool to make this easier.
Last edited by Piratecat; 15th July 2009 at 06:54 PM..
This seems really cool. My one concern is the failure outcome. As I read it, this is a succeed or die challenge. That worries me, because of the same reasoning that leads to the "don't build skill challenges you absolutely need the PCs to succeed in" maxim. On the other hand, succeed or one character dies is not an unusual occurrence in D&D-- most fights can be described in similar terms. (Technically, it's more accurate to think of fights on a sliding scale of degrees of success/failure, with more failure equaling more deaths, but...)
Anyway, I'm curious about your thoughts on the issue of "hey, I just rolled badly three times out of seven, now I'm dead."
It wasn't really. As much fun as it is to use Lava rules, I decided that three failures meant that a PC would take their starting base hit points in damage from the lava; so if you started with 30 hp, you'd take 30. That would suck if you were down below half your hit points when you failed the third check, because it would kill you, but any other result would leave you at negative hp, balanced on the narrow pathways, and dying.
This seemed like a good way to handle it because (a) the other PCs would be close enough that with a few skill checks they could get to you before you died, (b) skill failures were removing healing surges instead of hp (at least until you ran out of surges), (c) I wanted to encourage the other PCs to help you via aid another, (d) I knew there likely wouldn't be much other combat for the rest of the day, so losing lots of surges wouldn't make the pace of the adventure worse, and (e) I wanted it to feel deadly without being an automatic insta-kill.
In actual practice, the teamwork and aiding was good enough that we only had one or two failures total out of six PCs. There would have been more if they hadn't cleared off the treasure. I judged the entire skill challenge to be a little bit on the easy side (say, 4/10 difficulty) because the group used good teamwork; it would have been a little on the hard side (6 or 7/10) if they hadn't.
Ah, cool. That does eliminate my concerns. And I agree that there's no need to have spelled that out in advance-- letting the players think it's succeed or die, while then answering yes when they ask, "Is there any way we can save Leominster?" nicely increases the tension of the scene while avoiding the suck of a bad luck outcome.
I've toyed with the idea of implementing "diminishing returns" in my skill challenges too, so I would love to hear more of your thoughts on it. Do you think the cumulative +2 increase in DC was about right for this skill challenge? Do you think a single rate of DC increases could be generally applicable, or should the rate be challenge-specific (possibly making choosing the rate something of a black art)? Finally, for a group skill challenge, would you have increased the DC for each skill regardless of who makes the check, or would you make the DC depend on the PC (in which case I might implement it as a penalty to the roll, not an increase to the DC)?
Anyway, the challenge you ran sounds incredibly fun! I've been trying to make my skill challenges seamless (not spelling out the mechanics), but I may have to try the more transparent approach some time.
I noticed that one of your Secondary Skill for the challenge is Religion...
Is that just a heartfelt prayer?
In part! The challenge took place in the temple to Cenox, Duke of Hell and Lord of Pride and Vanity. . one of the fiends with whom the empire of Bael Turath bargained in order to become tieflings. A muttered invocation to Cenox could temporarily dampen the roaring walls of fire a bit, or make them turn to the side. I like the image and the consequences, and it opened up another skill to use.
Pseudopsyche, the increase of +2 worked really well. It's a penalty that becomes increasingly onerous in a longer skill challenge, so it'd be harsher in an 8/3 or higher challenge than it was in a 4/3. I'm comfortable making the +2 generally applicable. I'm not sure about how I'd handle it in a group challenge; I'll have to think about it.
If you fail the skill challenge, you have slipped into the lava. This is bad.
Primary skills (start at DC 12): acrobatics, athletics, dungeoneering, insight. DC goes up by 2 every time the same skill is used.
Secondary skills (start at DC 12): arcana, dungeoneering, insight, nature, religion.
I have a question that might not be asked if I had my books in front of me (to see all the skills), but did you make the skills above as the only ones they could use, or might someone with a creative mind been allowed to use a different skill if they could apply it?
__________________ Cavalry's here! Cavalry's a frightened guy with a rock, but it's here. - Xander
I have a question that might not be asked if I had my books in front of me (to see all the skills), but did you make the skills above as the only ones they could use, or might someone with a creative mind been allowed to use a different skill if they could apply it?
The latter. In fact, spyscribe (sitting in as a guest player) made a compelling case for using a different skill as well, and I allowed it. I think specifying the skills saves a lot of time so that the players have some guidance, but I'll always listen to a player who wants to add to them.
On a separate DM note: Inkwell Ideas has a really cool, free old-style hex mapping program. I'm in the process of mapping Capria. I'll post it once I do.
We play tomorrow. I have a skill challenge followed by a big encounter, where the encounter is significantly affected by how close the skill challenge comes; I'll be excited to see how it goes.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Played again last night run #18, I think. We're all 4th level. I'll leave the plot stuff to Piratecat and make some brief comments on the tactical stuff:
The game's action consisted of a large skill challenge, followed by a small one, followed by a combat vs. the Big Boss of the current plot arc.
The first Skill Challenge was a dash through the city streets, since we had discovered that our Arch Enemy was headed for our HQ, disguised as one of us. It was of middling difficulty 10 successes before 3 failures, and checks that weren't that difficult with others aiding. I thought it was Piratecat's best yet in terms of its mechanics, particularly in that the DC went up as we used specific skills more than once, and that there were certain skills that could only be used once as a group. Also, PC's had two options for aiding a generic DC 12 check, but using the same skill as the primary PC, or a DC 17 Perception check, no matter what skill the primary PC was using. The catch? A failed aid roll for the DC 12 version resulted in a -2 penalty to the check, while failing the DC 17 roll had no negative consequences besides the wasted action.
The chase was also fantastic from a cinematics point of view!
We won the challenge, getting 10 successes with only 1 failure. That got us to the tower, where we guessed (correctly) that our enemy, Aline, had gone to the basement to free her consort from the cells. She had barred the door into the cell area, so that was our second skill challenge to bust the door down. It was a barred door DC 20, and 2 PC's could assist the primary. Our Goliath Barbarian (guest player) had a 20 STR, so he was primary. The two 16 STR brawny rogues assisted, as we all slammed ourselves repeatedly into the door. It was 4 successes before 3 failures.
Some quick-and-dirty math: A PC with 16 STR can hit the DC 10 assist mark 70% of the time. So, the primary PC is getting a +2.8 bonus to each roll. Call it +3. A 20 STR PC will hit DC 20, with a +3 on his roll, 45% of the time.
In other words, we needed more successes than failures, on a roll we rated to make less than half the time. So the odds were against us, but it wasn't absurdly difficult.
We failed. What was galling was that we succeeded in our first three rolls, and then failed the next four! That had particularly dire consequences, as our delay gave Aline time to finish killing all of her hostages in some horrid necromantic ritual. The dead included not only our Commander Pikeline, but our kindly halfling cook and two of her kids! We were, as you can imagine, incensed!
So, the fight:
- Aline was a MM1 Rakshasa, scaled down to an appropriate level, made into a Solo, and with some tweaked abilities.
- Said abilities included powers that blinded, powers that dazed, powers that pushed and all of these seemed to come with large damage rolls. Worst of all was the power that caused hits done by the party to instead target and damage other party members. Ouch!
- Piratecat borrowed a technique I had used recently in my 3.5 game, giving his solo villain multiple turns per round. Basically she got two initiative cards. That (rat) bastard!
- Our rolling was utterly, utterly atrocious in this fight. Strontium's was especially bad she may have hit with 2 of her attack rolls (which included bursts, so we're talking lots of rolls) for the entirety of the combat. Also, as a group, we rolled 20 to hit AC (we needed a 21) at least a half-dozen times. Argh!
- Another strike against us: this was our second big fight of the day, and we had used up almost all of our dailies in the first fight. Argh!
- Aline was tough, but made the tactical blunder of forcing Toiva into a small dead-end feature of the tactical space. That meant she was essentially pinned between Logan (rogue) and Toiva (paladin) for much of the fight. Toiva had effectively goaded her into it by drawing the Big Magic Sword that we had recently acquired, and which she considered rightfully hers.
- Bramble (shaman) provided essential healing, and at least two of us benefited from the augmented Second Winds from being near her Spirit Companion.
- Of the six* of us, everyone but Strontium was bloodied at some point, and both the rogues were down to single digits at various points. By the end of the fight, both rogues were out of Surges for the day.
- The guest PC (played by Alomir's son) was a Goliath Barbarian with some funky weapon/feat combo that had him doing 6d6 damage on a couple of his powers. (Piratecat, can you elaborate?) We were in awe, and he ended up doing about 100 points of damage to Aline by himself over the course of the combat.
- We may have had to whittle a single enemy down from 200+ hit points, but it didn't feel grind-y at all. Rather, despite the fact that no one even went unconscious in the fight, it felt like we were on the verge of massive defeat until nearly the very end. She was one tough adversary -- one who, I'm happy to say, ended her day with a crushed windpipe and severed head.
Between the skill challenges and the boss fight, this was the most exciting and emotional run of the game so far.
* Doc Caldwell's player couldn't make the game. Piratecat cleverly removed him from the action during the first skill challenge.
Just a short note to say I love reading about this game because of the detailed plot, the way the mechanics is handled, and the insight into some of the more complex areas of the game.
Does anyone else feel the frustration with skill checks when the assist roll(s) is/are a natural 19 and the primary rolls a natural 3 (or substitute some other miserably low number than guarantees a failure).
Does anyone else feel the frustration with skill checks when the assist roll(s) is/are a natural 19 and the primary rolls a natural 3 (or substitute some other miserably low number than guarantees a failure).
Heh. I think almost everybody feels that frustration. I can say for sure that my players do.
The Ranger in our group went so far as to pick up the Crucial Advice power that allows another PC to reroll a check on a skill the Ranger is trained at.
We won the challenge, getting 10 successes with only 1 failure. That got us to the tower, where we guessed (correctly) that our enemy, Aline, had gone to the basement to free her consort from the cells. She had barred the door into the cell area, so that was our second skill challenge to bust the door down. It was a barred door DC 20, and 2 PC's could assist the primary. Our Goliath Barbarian (guest player) had a 20 STR, so he was primary. The two 16 STR brawny rogues assisted, as we all slammed ourselves repeatedly into the door. It was 4 successes before 3 failures.
Some quick-and-dirty math: A PC with 16 STR can hit the DC 10 assist mark 70% of the time. So, the primary PC is getting a +2.8 bonus to each roll. Call it +3. A 20 STR PC will hit DC 20, with a +3 on his roll, 45% of the time.
In other words, we needed more successes than failures, on a roll we rated to make less than half the time. So the odds were against us, but it wasn't absurdly difficult.
We failed. What was galling was that we succeeded in our first three rolls, and then failed the next four! That had particularly dire consequences, as our delay gave Aline time to finish killing all of her hostages in some horrid necromantic ritual. The dead included not only our Commander Pikeline, but our kindly halfling cook and two of her kids! We were, as you can imagine, incensed!
Shouldn't ability chekcs include the half-level bonus (+2 in your case) as well? In that case, the aiding Rogues would succeed on Aid 80% of the time each, and the Barb's base check would be +7. This would have increased your chance of succeeding on the skill challenge from about 25% to about 45%.
Shouldn't ability chekcs include the half-level bonus (+2 in your case) as well? In that case, the aiding Rogues would succeed on Aid 80% of the time each, and the Barb's base check would be +7. This would have increased your chance of succeeding on the skill challenge from about 25% to about 45%.
Huh. Yeah, looks like you're right. Though since Piratecat also was making the wrong assumption, he probably would have bumped the DC's up by 2 had we been using the rules as written.
Well, crap. That would have changed things a bit. That being said, the special nature of the Grey Guard tower is such that I feel no guilt assigning the internal doors +2 on their break DC.
I have some interesting observations on this game, and I'll post the skill challenge, but a bit later.
A couple of folks at GenCon swung by the ENnies booth while I was there, and I got in some interesting conversations about what people liked and didn't like about 4e. The biggest complaint I heard was that all of your "cool stuff" was dictated for you. It won't come as any surprise to someone reading this thread, but I'd definitely recommend reading page 54-55 of the PH (under "Flavor Text") and page 42 of the DMG (the stunt system, under "actions the rules don't cover.") Along with making it explicit that powers are effects-based and can have any description the player wants at the time, for me these opened up the game greatly.
Skill challenges are the same way. This last game had the skill challenge "get from the smokehouse back to the guard tower as fast as possible." That could have been absurdly boring: either just narrate it with no rolls, which removes control and most drama from the players, or do a skill challenge that was a series of flavorless checks. Instead I tried another explicit (printed out) skill challenge, and I really liked how it worked.
Skill challenge: wolf in the fold
Skill Challenge: Wolf in the Fold 10 successes before 3 failures
Runcible mentioned that he had seen Caldwell entering the Grey Guard tower a ten minute walk away. Is it Alene? Race across Floodford to try and arrive before something truly awful occurs.
If you win the skill challenge, you arrive quickly enough that you can affect whats happening.
If you fail the skill challenge, bad things happen.
Your ratio of failures to successes affects how quickly you arrive.
All skill checks are standard actions.
Every time you use the same skill more than once, the DC rises by 1.
For every round you choose to make no skill checks (either primary or secondary), you fall behind and arrive at the tower one round after the main group.
After the first round, anyone not on a mount or vehicle must make a mandatory Endurance check at DC (10 + # of rounds); failing this check doesnt give you a Failure, but does penalize your rolls for the round by -2.
Primary skills:
Acrobatics (maneuver through crowd) DC 17
Athletics (run) DC 17
Endurance (keep running) DC 12
History (remember the wider, most direct bridges and streets, usable once) DC 15
Intimidate (get the crowd out of the way) DC 17
Streetwise (know the shortest routes, usable once) DC 15
Thievery (steal transportation, usable once) DC 21
Acrobatics (steer cart or carriage, requires vehicle) DC 15
Athletics (ride or spur on horses, requires mount) DC 15
Secondary skills:
Perception DC 17 (give an ally +2 on any Primary skill check. Max of two people can aid an ally on any one check.)
Aid another DC 12 (give an ally +2 on the same skills check; failure gives a -2 penalty)
A few things about this mechanically. I don't require that the group move on foot, but I give a bonus for stealing horses or a cart, along with requiring an endurance check if you don't -- and I allow a skill check specifically to do so. This helps ensure that we can have a race through Floodford at high speed while I throw obstacles in the way, but allows hearty characters to avoid it and still reach the tower in time if they prefer.
In fact, the group stole (and destroyed) a noble's carriage, and "borrowed" a horse. I got to describe the successes and failures as they moved through town, trying to get through the crowded market place and trying to cross bridges that were too narrow for the carriage. It ended up feeling like a good chase scene should.
The fight against Alene, on the other hand, should have been a lot more deadly than it was. She made a bad tactical move when infuriated and didn't flee quickly enough. As an 8th lvl solo controller, I thought she would be able to kill a chunk of the group, but I haven't started compensating for the new shaman as leader; healing kept everyone on their feet, and her major damage spell was an encounter instead of a recharge. She was animating undead, but I gave them a 5-round time to come to unlife, and they slew her right at the limit.
So now my long-term villain has been smote nearly before she became a medium-length villain! That's excellent. Good for the party; they've done something impressive, and if Stron lives through his current visit to the sage, I'll probably level them next game.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
One other note about campaign design and plot arcs. If you think about a 30-lvl campaign consisting of six 5-level plot arcs, this one is nearing its end. Not the way I had expected, of course. We've seen the following adventures so far:
- Rescuing a baby from the dog-gobblers, sealing them back up in their unnatural lair
- Finding and defending a flooded tower of weapons from a lizardman army
- Revealing the mayor's assistant to be a lizardman spy
- Trying (and failing) to stop those weapons from falling back into the lizardmen's hands
- Reaching the Bubbling Fens, a profane place in the swamps sacred to evil swamp god Sklar
- Clearing out the hut and extradimensional sanctum of an evil spirit named Alene (and in doing so, thwarting the lizardman attack on Floodford)
- Returning an insane dragonborn named Xiras to Floodford
- Learning that Alene was trying to find the secret sanctum of a historically angelic protector of Floodford named Aleph
- Finding the undiscovered second lair of that sanctum, a place holy to the nature Goddess Demis.
- Fighting Alene herself, after she invaded their tower and killed people close to them
- Realizing that Alene the rakshasha was the deva Aleph, who has apparently fallen from grace.
Various sub-plots circulate around this as well:
- The country of Iskaine may have seceded from the Caprian empire. This would probably be a Bad Thing (tm). Certainly the Emperor's Peace seems to have failed.
- A continued rivalry with Runcible Parsons and the now-deceased Caducity Skirr. Is Caducity a deserter from the Grey Guard or really dead?
- Someone ordered all those lizardman weapons from a weaponsmith in Iskaine.. someone working for Alene. Someone rich.
- Dr. Caldwell is under some suspicion that he cheerfully brushes aside.
- Cobalt doesn't actually believe that he killed Sir Anders Riverlimb, half-elven diplomat from Croghan, in a barfight. He certainly doesn't remember it. This annoys him.
- Strontium the warforged is old, and has a history he no longer remembers.
- Toiva the paladin has been told that a wave of change is approaching, and it is up to her whether to embrace and guide it or be swept away under its power.
- There is something odd about the Grey Guard's witchwater towers. Why is no one allowed to take a mirror inside of them? Is it a symbolic restriction, as they have been told?
And a few themes:
- People die. People you care about. It's the cost of protecting those who can't defend themselves.
- Some really nasty people have entered the guard. It's the nature of the beast. Likewise, good people can fall -- and even evil people have the possibility of redemption. People, monsters and Gods are often complex.
- There are political struggles going on with Capria, Iskaine, and the neighboring countries of Skadderlin and Croghan that the PCs don't really understand.
You'll see what I'm doing: stacking up plot hooks that the players can follow or ignore, then fleshing out the ones that appeal to them.
or our older WizarDru's Story Hour? You Should.
I ain't linking to Piratecat's story hour...no sir, I just won't do it. He can just get the next half-million reads on his own.
Did I mention that I have a Livejournal? It's possible that I have.
, but I am. Did you get the PM I sent?
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