D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

For folks interested in skill challenges --

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:

[sblock=Skill challenge - 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.[/sblock]

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.

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?

tallyrand said:

I noticed that one of your Secondary Skill for the challenge is Religion...
Is that just a heartfelt prayer?

Click to expand...

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.

(sorry to keep spamming the thread...)

Piratecat said:

Hey, Vic! So good to see you. It's been forever; give me a holler if you're headed to GenCon this year.

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Hey!
It has been , but I am. Did you get the PM I sent?

-VIC

Piratecat said:

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.

Click to expand...

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?

jydog1 said:

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?

Click to expand...

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.