Post play examples of your skill challenges!

I still stumble over skill challenges. I don't know why exactly as I do get the concept, it's just the implementation I can't seem to wrap my imagination around.

What I need, and what i reckon would help a lot of people, is examples of skill challenges in play. Sortof like an excerpt from a story hour. So I'm asking for people to post examples of skill challenges they've played through and how they played out and what people did, and how the DM managed them, etc.

I do not know if this will help, but else, feel free to ask questions. I will try to post another later on, when I have time to type it out.

Please note that we do not play in English, so this is just a rough translation from something that happened 6 months ago. It was our (my) first skill challenge.

The place is Keep of the Shadows, after Kalarel has been killed. The players are looking at the portal to the Shadowfell and have just decided that it would be a good idea to try to close it. Unfortunately, the guy playing wizard is sick that day
The cleric is trained in arcana, the fighter in religion.

Cleric: Is it possible to close the portal?

DM: (after the cleric has rolled an arcana check) Sure, but from your experience with manipulating magical energy, you would guess that there could be a risk.

Warlock: Isn't there always. I say that you try. Can I help you?

Cleric: Sure. We found those notes earlier, up in the study. Maybe you can find something in them that can help me.

Fighter: Hey, what am I? small potatoes?

Cleric: You are well versed in matters dealing with portals?

Fighter: Well my basic training at the church of Kord has taught me some things about religion, ceremonies and divine effects. Maybe it's a divine portal?

(Everyone looks at the rogue)

Rogue: I will just to guard to make sure no one comes by and ambush you guys

(I gave them a win for the rogue keeping guard. Not worrying helps you focus)

Cleric: Okay, let's close this portal. (looks at the DM)

DM: Roll an arcana check and an insight check (Cleric rolls two wins). Okay, as you focus your mind in on the arcane energies, you clearly see what needs to be done (Arcana or Religion skill check). You also understand that the work will most likely put quite a bit of strain upon you and whoever is nearby, helping with the manipulation (Endurance skill check).

Cleric: Okay, I continue (cleric rolls another arcana check for another win)

DM: So far, so good. You start manipulating the magical energies, trying to unbind them so that the portal will become inert. They are however, threatening to run wild, if you do not contain the magic. (DM points at the fighter and cleric) Roll an endurance check!

(Cleric rolls a win, fighter rolls a miss - score is at this point 5-1)

DM: While you haven't lost control of the magic yet, it's quickly slipping through your fingers, or rather, the fighter. If you abort now, maybe this thing will not blow up in your face. On the other hand, it might not be closable anymore.

Cleric: I keep going, trying to close the portal

Warlock: I try to help him, using the notes from Kalarel's study.

Fighter: Can I also try to manipulate the energy of the portal?

DM: Sure (smiles)

(Warlock aids the cleric, makes the roll, giving the cleric a +2 modifier. Cleric rolls a win, Fighter rolls a win. The score is now 7-1. They need 9 wins before 3 loses in order to close the portal)

DM: You are almost done. However, you are not out of the woods yet. While you at this instance have control of the flow, things could still turn ugly if you aren't careful

Cleric: I keep going

Fighter: Me too

Warlock: Me three!

DM: Roll an endurance check, both of you
(cleric rolls a 2, failing, fighter rolls a 1 - a fail also)

DM: Just as you almost close the portal, something goes wrong, and both of you fail to control the energy between your hands.

(DM rolls some dices)

DM: A sudden blast of magical energies propel you several feet away, and you feel as your whole body has been ripped apart. Everyone within 10 squares take 39 damage.

As you can gather, the skill challenge was a failure. The damage was not the penalty, merely a side effect. The real penalty was that the portal didn't close, so that something could (and would) come through. In fact, a big part of the paragon campaign will be to combat what came through the portal, once they have found out what it is.

Not everyone was greatly involved, but to me, that is not necessary. Sometimes, sure, but not always. For me, the biggest advantage of skill challenges are the fact that important events can be solved by something more than 1 die roll.

Thanks for the example.

I think I'm starting to see the problem I'm having with skill challenges already. They require good roleplayers like you have

I don't do skill challenges by-the-book (so many problems!), but I use them to resolve some non-combat things that are still important.

So, just today, the PC's wanted to interrogate some orcs, so I called for a skill challenge.

I did it like this:

"Tell me what skills you use to interrogate the orcs, and how, then make a check, and if you beat my (slightly arbitrary) DC three times before you suck three times, you will get their loyalty and whatever info you want out of them."

Later, the PC's went searching for a missing girl, and I set it up the same way: three wins before three failures = you find her.

Again later, the PC's wanted to manipulate two fey lords into fighting each other openly. Set it up the same way: three wins before three failures = they are manipulated.

We actually had more skill challenges than combat today. They could've turned those into overt combat if they wanted (like, if they would have found the girl, they would be fighting guards instead of at the fey banquet).

I'm fairly fast-and-loose, though, so I dunno how that matches up with what The Book Wants. And I don't really care.

The next example is from the last time we played. They are in the Feywild. The players have just killed the King of the Trollhaunt in the Warrens and been contacted by the leaders of Moondoor, a nearby Eladrin settlement that the trolls plot to attack in order to gain control of a portal opening right smack in the middle of the players' home town and capitol. It appears that the attack of the troll and goblin army has already been launched. The players port (linked portal) back to Moondoor, arriving in the portal house at the city gate. Everywhere there are goblins and trolls. They fight their way through the 40ish goblins and a couple of trolls, and now face a city where carnage reigns.

DM: So, whatcha gonna do? It seems no one is paying attention to you guys atm. But that probably will not last.

(after some debate)

Cleric: We want to get to the Council building, or wherever we think we can find those in charge. Preferably with as little combat as possible, as we haven't had a break since before we encountered the Troll King, and our warrior is very very tired. (No surges left and they have just had two back to back combats, at least for some)

DM: That sounds like a good idea. You are currently standing at the entrance. There are several streets branching out in different directions. Which way do you go?

Rogue: I took a walk the other day, looking for you know what. Maybe I can remember something about the layout of the town?

DM: Yes. Definitely. Roll a streetwise check
(rogue rolls a win)

DM: You feel pretty confident that you need to head down the second street, the one with the smithy on the corner.

Rogue: Okay, let's go then.

DM: Taking point, you lead your friends in between some of the many Eladrin towers. After a minute or so, the cleric suddenly hears voices. Some goblins and friends are coming around the next tower in a matter of seconds.

(Another win for the players - cleric's perception is freakishly high)

Wizard: Crap, I look around for somewhere to hide

DM: Roll perception

(wizard rolls another win)

DM: You quickly spot some boxes standing against one of the tower walls, maybe they will be big enough to hide you all.

Everybody: We hide

DM: Roll stealth

Fighter: Wait, I suck at hiding. I want to make sure I do not get spotted, can I do something?

DM: Athletics check please (instead of individual stealth rolls)
(fighter rolls a win and everybody hides - counts as two wins)

DM: As you hide behind the boxes, you can still see the goblins and trolls. They have stopped nearby, and seem to be debating which building to burn down.

Rogue and Wizard: I am going to distract them

Rogue: I grab a stone or something from the ground, and tosses it towards an alley.

Wizard: While he does that, I search my brain for any useful information about the Eladrins.

DM: Bluff and arcana please

(rogue rolls another win, so does the wizard)

DM: The noise from the stone makes the monsters run and investigate. As they run away, you recall that Eladrin towers are often connected near the top. Not all Eladrins move constantly via teleportation. Looking up, you see that this is indeed the case, and that the tower you are hiding next to, has a connection leading north, the way you were heading.

Cleric: Okay, lets go then.

(they run to the tower, door is locked)

DM: Thievery please

(rogue rolls a win and everyone enters the tower, score is now 8-0)

DM: As you get to the top, you see that the tower is connected with another tower nearby via a narrow wooden bridge. The street it crosses has several goblins and trolls walking around atm.

Cleric: I guess we have to get over there. We will sneak over.

DM: All roll stealth check

(cleric, wizard and fighter rolls poorly, and I count it as two fails. 8-2)

DM: Those spotted are bombarded with spears and other sharp things

(some damage is handed out).

As you get over the bridge, sounds originating from the tower you came from indicate that some monsters are on the way up. What do you do?

(after some thinking)

Fighter: I start chopping the bridge up.

DM: The monsters are now up top, on the other side. You look at the bridge, and there is no way you will get this done by the time they cross it.

Wizard: I cast wall of fire on it!

(I gave him a win for that, bringing them to 9-2, enough to win the skill challenge)

DM: The troll and several of the goblins jump 50' down, preferring taking their chances with that, rather than burn up. The rest of the goblins retreat back into the other tower. As you come out of the tower down below, you can see the Council building nearby. There are eladrin archers manning the towers on it. It seems you are almost home free.

On the home stretch, they will encounter some treant, troll and other fun stuff. They are however severely wounded. A loss in the skill challenge had resulted in them meeting a group of monsters that were less wounded. Of course, depending on when the skill challenged had been failed, it could have been another group of monsters, in a different place of the city. Had they failed at the beginning, I would have run the encounter, and restarted the skill challenge, which would give them yet another encounter. Usually, it's just more xp as they say, but in their condition, they do not yearn for any more fighting atm.

Anyway, thats how I run my skill challenges. I define a goal, and think about what skills could be useful. That's about it. For example, my notes for this skill challenge said:
"SC 9/3 - get from portal house to council house. Fail = encounter and restart challenge. Win = hard encounter but with very wounded monsters.
Arcana = layout of fey building"

Cheers

Thanks Jack, We are also stumbling on skill challenges, they are badly described in the DMG IMO..and examples like those are great

mach1.9pants said:

Thanks Jack, We are also stumbling on skill challenges, they are badly described in the DMG IMO..and examples like those are great

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Thanks. I have read the DMG and everything Mearls has written and said about skill challenges of course, but I am not sure I run it "by the book". I just go with whatever works for me and my players.

Glad if it could help someone.

Kzach said:

Thanks for the example.

I think I'm starting to see the problem I'm having with skill challenges already. They require good roleplayers like you have

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Nah, average guys like me and my players are sufficient.

I am currently running Thunderspire Labyrinth. The party has made an attack on a Duergar outpost, but had to retreat. This gave the Duergar time to reorganize their defenses, and they placed some Crossbow Constructs, two Spikefiends (or whats-their-name) and a Duergar mage to defend their entrance - with the benefit of there being a 100 ft wide chasm of undeterminite depth between them and the "road" to the now barred entrance. The PCs fought a little bit with them, but decided to retreat back to cover. Since the Duergar troops didn't follow them, they were stuck, and decided to check if there was an alternative entrance. (I expected as much - I basically had two outcomes in mind. Either they'd try to fight themselves through there and try to break through the barrend entrance, or would try to find an alternative route. But I didn't prepare the skill challenge in detail).

It was a Complexity One challenge (4 successes before 3 failures).
Skills used in the challenge where Perception (trying to find tracks), Dungeoneering (making sense of the maze), Intimidate (interrogating a Duergar from town) and Insight (only got the part a bonus, not a success, for checking the Duergars reaction).

It started with the Elven Cleric Perception check - he tried to find a possible route. He found some candidates, but eventually he got stuck, so they went back to town and the Barbarian grabbed a Duergar in town, intimidating him to spill out some information. The Duergar didn't know the exact route, but the information he knew helped them, so that going back to where they stuck, they went on. The Dwarf used Dungeoneering to make sense of the Duergars description, allowing him to find a tight passageway. From there, the Cleric searched for more tracks and nearly got stuck again (the Perception roll barely failed), but thanks to the Paladins previous Insights during the Duergar interrogation (I kept the +2 bonus "around" until they needed it), he remembered a detail that helped them to find the alternate passage. I remember that they also had one failure (I think it might have been Perception), but don't know when exactly.

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During Keep on the Shadowfell, I ran a very mechanical challenge, that I added to the encounter to give a small benefit to the PCs (there were only 4 PCs instead of 5)
In the final encounter versus Kalarel, I added the opportunity to make a skill challenge to close the portal. I don't remember the details of how it went during combat, but I used Arcana and Religion as primary skills, as well as Bluff and Intimidate.
I assumed that Kalarels rituals had already an effect on the Shadowfell portal, but as long as the ritual remained unfinished, it was also a liability.
With Arcana and Religion, the rituals energies could be diverted. On a successful check with these skills (with was a Hard DC), they could divert some of the energies both to close the portal as well as to hurt Kalarel. (it dealt low damage from DMG p.42). If they failed, the Arcana/Religion user would take the damage himself, unless someone had also made an Endurance check to channel the rituals energy to himself it was required (a great defender job).
Bluff and Intimidate where intended (but not actually used in play) to confuse Kalarel and weaken his hold over the portal. "Interesting. I think there is a small but critical flaw in your spell to control the ritual." A failed initial Arcana/Religion check would have given the "Bluff" option ("uh-oh, I have no idea what he's doing there, but let's pretend otherwise), while a successful check would have given the "Intimidate" option ("Hah, he's using Symbuls Magical Sequencer, but that causes a negative feedback in conjunction with shadow energies!")
If the challenge was successful, the portal was closed and the "Thing from the Portal" was rendered ineffective.
If the challenge failed, the party would have taken some extra damage and the Thing would have lasted (and if they'd still manage to beat Kalarel, his corpse and all his belongings would have been sucked into the portal.)

The following is from a session write-up/future Story Hour by our newest player in which our heroes first used a Skill Challenge to resolve a bold brash ill-conceived PC plan to delay a government official they believed hostile to their goals from taking office in their district.

The plan? Publicly accuse the official of pederasty and pin him in his residence w/an angry mob. The usual suspects include Odanais, a decadent young human mage, Asarlai, an elderly half-elven warlock, Heyoka, a canine-looking Longtooth Shifter fighter, and Yatagan a Dragonborn paladin with a questionable understanding of virtue.
________________________________

Yatagan stands before the crowd, suspended on a near-invisible and floating stage. Behind the reptilian warrior stands Odanais, while Heyoka and Asarlai are on the ground, among the crowd gathering around the platform.

“I have come before you all to reveal a most shocking thing,” Yatagan bellows in a theatrical voice. “Stephan Petard—your Magistrate—is guilty of … pederasty!”

He pauses, evidently trying to create a dramatic effect. The crowd simply stares.

“Stephan Petard,” Yatagan repeats, “is guilty of pederasty!” Again he pauses, but the desired reaction still doesn’t come.

Odanais whispers, “I think the plebeians don’t know what pederasty means.”

“Oh,” says Yatagan, only momentarily nonplussed. Grinning cheerily, he proclaims loudly, “I mean he touches your children in unfathomable ways! And he makes them touch both heads…”

Odanais whispers urgently, “Yatagan, humans only have one head… there.”

Yatagan frowns and whispers back, “Really? How… odd!” Then he shrugs and again addresses the crowd, “… the one head of his manhood!”

The crowd is really paying attention now. People whisper to each other. Did you know that, one person asks. In another corner, someone quietly says to the man next to him, Hmm. I always suspected there was something strange about him…

Excellent! Yatagan’s disconcertingly cheery grin widens as he explains the consequences of having a pedophile magistrate. “Think of your children,” he repeats over and over, subletly not being of the Dragonborn's strong points “Or, better yet, think of yourselves in their shoes—would you really like to touch Petard... there!?”

The League’s audience is strangely attentive by this point, some beginning to agree with Dragonborn rhetoric in disconcerting unison. But others clearly need more convincing, so Asarlai begins to speak, explicating the extent of Petard’s crimes via somewhat unconvincing “eye-witness accounts”. And then Odanais takes the stage, weaving an eloquent --albeit inaccurate and exaggerated-- account of magistrates and their deviant ways throughout the history of the Port. And when he is finished, Heyoka, whose knowledge of human anatory clearly exceeds that of the Dragonborn's, informs the crowd, goes into graphic detail of the magistrate's imaginary crimes, slamming his fist into his palm at appropriate moments and attempting once to illustrate the point by becoming overly... friendly with a bystander's leg.

When the dog-like shifter has finished (and the whimpering recipient of his attention has fled), Yatagan raises his hands above the crowd. “People of the Quadrille,” he bellows, “This is a new time in the Port. A time for a new morality. For the Radiant Seed of Justice to spread its sticky righteousness among you! A new god has spoken to me!” He grasps his nether regions in a gesture which only has real meaning to the other members of the League. “We must have justice!” Odanais gestures surreptitiously as the paladin poses dramatically and a halo spreads out behind Yatagan, illumining him in golden light. Cries of excitement and wonder arise among the crowd.

Grinning maniacally, the paladin jumps off the stage and begins moving through the excited people. “Now you know what must be done! Show Petard that he cannot get away with molesting defenseless children!” he bellows dramatically. “To the Magistrate’s mansion!” He waves a hand to indicate a direction, wavers and then pauses uncertainly, until Odanais’ stage whisper says in his ear, “It’s the big building behind us!” Unabashed, Yatagan turns and gestures, “Forward!”

There is a roar from the crowd and it surges forward, quickly transforming into an angry mob. The change is underlined by the almost immediate appearance of torches and pitchforks. Few in the mob stop to ask themselves where these objects came from, and why an old man with a cane and an especially hirsute shifter seem to have had an entire wagon full of them ready and parked nearby.

As the outraged mob start to swarm around the Magistrate’s home, the members of the League quickly slip away into the night.

Mallus said:

As the outraged mob start to swarm around the Magistrate’s home, the members of the League quickly slip away into the night.

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This would probably not get you another cup of tea at grandma's house, but very good nonetheless. Two questions: what skills were used, and did you, or the players, suggest them?

One theme I'm noticing from the examples so far, and this may just be an artifact of how they're written, is that the DM is suggesting skills rather than the players. This is contrary to the example in the DMG, but actually tends to be how challenges play out at my table as well. Is this a common theme for other people?

Edit: And by the way Kzach I sympathise. I don't quite seem to have got my head around skill challenges yet either. This thread is certainly helping.