Skill Challenges: How Much Have They Improved?

FireLance · May 31, 2010

This thread is in response to an issue raised by xechnao: here: exactly how have skill challenges improved since they were first introduced?

While a lot has been written about skill challenges by a number of people (including, I should mention, myself

), I'm going to focus on the additional tips on running skill challenges from the DDI articles by Mike Mearls and the skill challenge chapter of DMG2 (which actually reproduces most of the key information from the DDI articles).

So What's New?

Certainly a lot has been written about skill challenges since they were first introduced. The DDI articles comprise slightly more than 90 A4 pages in 12-point Times New Roman font.

Collectively, the articles and DMG2 cover several issues, including:

1. When not to run a skill challenge, i.e. when the subject of the skill challenge is too dull, when the skill challenge is too easy, when the situation in question should be handled with one or two individual or group skill checks or roleplaying, and when there are no consequences for failure.

2. The math behind skill challenge DCs and ways to challenge PCs with high skill modifiers.

3. How to run interesting skill challenges. On a personal note, I particularly like the following two pieces of advice: you need a variety of options to make a skill challenge interesting, and each skill check in a challenge should do one of the following: introduce a new option that the PCs can pursue, a path to success they didn't know existed; change the situation, such as by sending the PCs to a new location, introducing a new NPC, or adding a complication; or grant the players a tangible repercussion for the check's success or failure that influences their subsequent decisions.

4. Ways to get more players involved in a skill challenge, e.g. mixing a skill challenge with combat, splitting the party and capping the number of successes that can be earned from a specific skill.

5. How to deal with issues that arise in play such as recovering from a boring skill challenges and when not to roll the dice.

6. Several sample skill challenges that contain a variety of new approaches and mechanics, including group skill checks and random events.

So What's Still Missing?

At this point, I still have two key criticisms of the additional material on skill challenges:

First, most of what has been written has been in the form of DM advice or sample skill challenges. While the sample skill challenges can sometimes be used without modification, in many cases, setting up a good skill challenge will be more labor-intensive for the DM than picking a group of monsters out of a Monster Manual. It is probably even more work than creating a unique monster with unique powers. Hence, while the DM has been given more advice on what to do and what not to do, coming up with a good skill challenge is still quite a complex task. However, to be fair, it may be impossible to come up with simple rules to develop a good skill challenge due to the nature of non-combat challenges, which tend to be more open-ended and complex than combat.

Second, while it has been touched on in a paragraph on time limits and a few sample skill challenges, I feel that not enough attention has been paid to presenting alternate failure conditions apart from the "three failures" model. IMO, the "three failures" model is one of the key factors that discourages players from participating in skill challenges since a failed skill check often results in an actual setback rather than simply a lack of progress.

What are your thoughts?

AbdulAlhazred · May 31, 2010

I think for the majority of DMs the concept that SCs should be dynamic and presented in the same fashion as any other sort of RP situation (in general) still hasn't been emphasized enough. Even DMG2 and all the stuff Mearle's wrote really didn't address PRESENTATION, and this seems to be the major pitfall most DMs run into.

As for alternative mechanics, there are good examples of that, but the problem is its an infinite subject. There are basically unlimited possible ways to structure it. I think a repository of challenges, basically the SC equivalent of the monster builder is what would be good there.

In the long run people just have to decide they are going to master SCs and do it. The tools are THERE in general. I doubt they will ever be as simple as combat encounters (and those aren't always simple to design well).

LostSoul · May 31, 2010

I have some questions about how you make skill checks. Where are the rules for these:

When does the DM call for a check?
How do you pick the skill that's used? Who decides?
What does that check resolve? What does success or failure mean? Who decides and how?
When you do apply a modifier to the check? How do you decide what the modifier is?
How do you set the DC?
How do those tables in the PHB for common skill DCs interact with skill challenges?

Rechan · May 31, 2010

Someone in another thread said that one initial criticism of SCs that is no longer relevant is "The player justifies how his highest skill is usable in the scene".

My question is, how was this resolved? How do you Avoid that? It seems that SCs just select some skills that apply - well it's likely that either one PC isn't going to have any more than one of those skills that's awesome, the PC has none, or the PC has several. Usually it's going to be lopsided (so one player has all those social skills in a negotiations SC, while the warden or the invoker is high and dry).

AbdulAlhazred · May 31, 2010

Personally I think there are two answers.

One is that it doesn't always matter. If the challenge takes up a fairly short amount of time then maybe only one or two characters provide most or all of the successes for that challenge. As long as everyone gets their shot on a regular basis its OK.

Second is the standard advice, make sure there are more than just a couple of skills that are relevant.

Another point goes back to what I said about integration. If you introduce a skill challenge with "OK, players, now there's an SC and it goes like this and X, Y, and Z are the relevant skills" then of course you'll get skill spamming. Instead the players should have to figure out what's going on. They may not KNOW right off that they're engaging in a challenge, they may not know all of the elements that it entails. They're just attempting to solve whatever problems come up and the environment is reacting and their selecting another skill to apply or a power or whatever. They will probably get that they're moving through a challenge and there should be some feedback on how the situation is progressing, but they won't know precisely what comes next or what skill will help in the next check until they work it out.

There are a few times when laying things out ahead of time is the best choice, but its not the typical situation I see.

MatthewJHanson · May 31, 2010

FireLance said:
Second, while it has been touched on in a paragraph on time limits and a few sample skill challenges, I feel that not enough attention has been paid to presenting alternate failure conditions apart from the "three failures" model. IMO, the "three failures" model is one of the key factors that discourages players from participating in skill challenges since a failed skill check often results in an actual setback rather than simply a lack of progress.

This is my biggest issue. I really dislike game mechanics that encourage a character to do absolutely nothing.

I've experimented with some alternative in my own game. In one the characters have a set number of rounds to achieve a certain number of successes. In another they need to reach a target number of successes before the opposing NPCs do. In either circumstance a failure does not hurt any more than doing nothing.

Kingreaper · May 31, 2010

MatthewJHanson said:
This is my biggest issue. I really dislike game mechanics that encourage a character to do absolutely nothing.

I've experimented with some alternative in my own game. In one the characters have a set number of rounds to achieve a certain number of successes. In another they need to reach a target number of successes before the opposing NPCs do. In either circumstance a failure does not hurt any more than doing nothing.

I did a variant on that sort of concept recently. Going in rounds, with each player declaring what they were doing to help the situation, and me picking easy-medium-hard dependent on how RELEVANT the skill was, if a player failed then they had a new situation to deal with, with a skill check picked by me (based on their justification) to get back to status quo.

Their aim was to hide out for several days. The number of rounds they went without double-failing= number of days spent hidden. (which was very important because they'd just negotiated a truce with the Small Bad Evil Guy, in exchange for a powerful artifact, and he was withdrawing his armies while they waited for a chance to kill him.)

Markn · May 31, 2010

We do things by rounds too. We roll init at the beginning of some skill challenges and go in that order. Delaying and/or skipping your turn is not an option. Situations change (and available skills) based on what has succeeded and failed prior to your turn. If a skill is used more than once, its DC increases by 2 making it harder to succeed (I think this idea came from Pcat's thread and it has worked really really well).

Basically, we make sure everyone is involved and for the most part, assisting is not an option. Some skill challenges break this mold but this has worked for us.

FireLance · Jun 1, 2010

LostSoul said:
I have some questions about how you make skill checks. Where are the rules for these:

I'm not sure that there are actual hard rules, but here's my take on your questions.

When does the DM call for a check?

In general, when the players want to do something and there is some doubt whether or not they will succeed. The same approach applies to skill challenges. Sometimes, the players can come up with an idea that, in the DM's judgement, will certainly succeed or certainly fail and there is no need for a check (at least, from the perspective of that DM). However, most times, there will be varying chances for success and failure and the DM should call for a check.

How do you pick the skill that's used? Who decides?

The DM, with inputs from the players. The DM should have a general sense of the skills that would be useful, but the players may be able to think of an approach that could plausibly work (again, in the DM's judgement) that the DM had not thought of previously, and the DM should then decide on the appropriate skill to use.

What does that check resolve? What does success or failure mean? Who decides and how?

As with the skills used, the DM should have a general sense of what a successful check or a failed check means, both in terms of the individual check, and in the broader context of the skill challenge. This includes issues such as whether a successful check results in a single success for the purposes of the skill challenge, no successes but grants some other advantage, or results in two or more successes, and conversely, whether a failed check results in a single failure for the purposes of the skill challenge, no failures but imposes some other penalty, etc. In cases where the players come up an approach that the DM has not considered, he will have to make the decision on the spot. As for how, it all comes back to DM judgement again.

When you do apply a modifier to the check? How do you decide what the modifier is?

You guessed it - DM judgement.

How do you set the DC? How do those tables in the PHB for common skill DCs interact with skill challenges?

DM judg- oh, wait. Here there are two basic approaches. If the DM has already established the in-game difficulty of a task (for example, by looking up the tables of common skill DCs in the PH) he can use that to set the level of the skill challenge. Alternatively, the DM can select the level of challenge and change the DCs to make them fit with the suggested DCs for a challenge of that level. If this makes the DCs different from the suggested DCs in the PH, the DM should also come up with a plausible in-game reason for why the task is easier or harder than normal on this specific occasion.