Skill Challenge Depot

It is a very rare occasion that I formally write up a Skill Challenge (in 4e style) during prep. I only do this when I have a combat that is all but guaranteed to turn out in the locale that I expect it (eg a Dragon's Lair) and I need to formulate a clear, coherent framework for addressing/dealing with a non-combat element of the encounter (eg destroying a portal/artifact that is making the encounter difficult/unwinnable). Under those circumstances, I need Action Economy notated (and explicated to the players) clearly and the Action Economy of each action needs to be balanced with what a player could typically deploy with a Standard/Move/Minor so they will engage with the challenge. Under those circumstances, I will work it up and make things clear to the players via props/flash cards.

So then. Under pretty much all other circumstances, what I do for session prep is:

- Consider what scenes may follow naturally from the aggregate of the campaign generally and last session specifically.
- Consider what thematic cues arise naturally from the players that are underway or have yet to be fully engaged; PC build, Quest, backstory cues specifically. Scene "Bangs" (openers that put the PCs directly into thematic conflict) for a great many things will have been considered well in advance of the current session and I will have solicited the same from my players (a wishlist in the same way that people use magic-item wishlists)
- I take notes on my thinking and develop tags, distinctions, tropes that will help guide creative thinking (for both myself and my players).

Then we play and see what happens (and do the same for next time).

So, given that, for much of my Skill Challenges, they are basically rendered impromptu in real-time using only the mechanical framework (eg 8 success vs 3 failures + 2 advantages w/ 6 moderate and 2 hard DCs and advancement of DCs with multiple usage), of-level DCs, devised (and clearly explicated) stakes, and props (dice for rolling and counters + flashcards). The Scene Bang occurs and I put pressure immediately on a player and they either commit to an Action (primary skill) or a Support Action (secondary skill) and we move around the table, pacing the narrative in accords with dramatic structure with reference to where we are the continuum of the mechanical framework. Scene then resolves itself with finality at success/failure threshold and the fiction is determined as a result of what has just transpired.

Given my "off the cuff" way of handling normal Skill Challenges, I typically try to draw upon good instruction (and practice) on devising conflicts and appropriate complications. I feel that, along with pacing, thematic complications are the key element in a coherent/functional Skill Challenge). I've included other bits of rules text here and there in various threads. Here I'm going to just jot down a few pieces of sound advice from Dungeon World. In Dungeon World, you are "Making Moves" against the PCs when you are placing them in a challenging situation or you are evolving the shared-fiction by complicating their adventuring lives with conflict. Your players are then Making Moves in response. You are basically doing the exact same thing in a Skill Challenge. So then, onto Dungeon World's advice:


Dungeon World RPG Chapter 13: GM Principles, p 161

Make a Move that Follows



Dungeon World RPG Chapter 13: GM Moves, p 163 and 164

Moves

Choosing a Move

Great advice for Skill Challenges and if I were to compose a shorthand bit of advice for running impromptu Skill Challenges, the above would be as good as any.

Feel free to discuss how that maps to your Skill Challenge renderings either in prep or in play.

Let's resurrect this thread! It's too awesome to let fade away

Piggybacking on [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] 's use of skill challenges in combat, here's one I did a while back that was totally impromptu and inspired by the players, and was ridiculous fun!

Kick Troll Ass (level 11; complexity II, 6 successes before 3 failures)
The PCs are assaulting a keep overrun with trolls, who've taken the humans hostage and have swayed some of the guard to serve them. They need to move swiftly between three encounters without any rest to take out the troll warlord in charge of the keep. Moving swiftly against regenerating brutes is next to impossible mechanically...so this skill challenge lets player creativity at troll killing downscale trolls to50% HP, or even to minion status!

6 successes: All non-named trolls are treated as minions so long as the killing blow (or immediate followed attack) involves acid or fire. Once all the troll warlord's henchmen are dealt with he will surrender when bloodied.
4-5 successes: All non-named trolls have 50% HP.

Failure: A failure can be accrued either by a PC failing at a skill check pertinent to the skill challenge, or if any combat takes longer than 3 rounds. At 3 failures, the troll warlord executes the hostages and breaks the morale of any guards the PCs allied with.

Strategies: Since this was an impromptu skill challenge, I'll just describe what my players did: Getting the human reeve to buy them some time with innuendo (1 success). Cceative use of the portcullis and a wall of fire to pin trolls under and burn them alive (2 successes). Casting visions of avarice on a group of trolls, then some great bluffs to convince trolls to attack each other for the pot of gold (2 successes). Masterful use of a pit and forced movement powers followed up with burning oil (1 success). They then trapped the troll warlord in one of the crow cages he was fond of using and torched him alive.

Good stuff @Quickleaf ! I like the minionizing trolls so long as the attack does acid/fire damage. That is deft GMing. I've found the Skill Challenge framework has a lot of combat uses as well. In this PBP thread there is one combat Skill Challenge (Quinn's) and another intra-combat Skill Challenge to reform the primary antagonist. There is also the complexity 5 Skill Challenge that was the point of the thread.

if play continues past the ultimate resolution of the present scene (which seems a bit questionable at this point), there will likely be a few upcoming combat Skill Challenges related to repelling the siege of the city.

I figured I'd relay this recent Skill Challenge that came to be in my current home game that was somewhat riffed off of the "Adjure" Ritual. There is another that took place with the Rogue (Darklord) in my game where he is gathering/recruiting a Shadow Army (Army of Darkness?) for the coming invasion of the Abyss but I will include later. However, it works off the exact same archetecture as the one detailed below:

This one was initiated by the player of the Druid, a Ritual Caster, in my level 28 home game. She wanted to perform a "Spiritual Sojourn" and commune with the Elder Spirits. In order for her to cross over into the spirit realm, she had to spend 1/10 the cost of a magic item of her level. Within the fiction this was the expenditure of the material components required to enter the trance necessary to invoke the gatekeeper of the "Gate of Dreams", the Great Elder Spirit "The Soul Serpent." He admits worthy spirits into the spirit realm where they may commune with the other Great Elder Spirits. The legend of the Great Elder Spirits are briefly outlined in 4e's Primal Power. Very good book.

So:

1) She enters her trance to transcend her mortal form which involves the 1/10 cost of a 28th level (her level) item.

2) We roleplay the meeting with the gatekeeper to the Gate of Dreams. The Soul Serpent tells her of the difficulty and dangers of what is to come (such as a fall in the spirit world will hurt her body in the mortal world - eg Healing Surge loss), etc, etc. She accepts the risk and the spirit admits her.

3) She engaged in a series of thematic trials with each of the Great Elder Spirits that she invokes. She is seeking a boon and some information that she may act upon in the Abyssal conflict to come. More than anything, she is seeking the means to transport herself and the Rogue to The Abyss and reunite with their companion (the Bladesinger who willingly entered Juiblex's domain in a fight to the death in order to save the Paladin NPC after the Bladesinger failed the exorcism ritual). As outlined above, the Skill Challenge was somewhat riffed off of the Skill Challenge that takes place in the "Adjure" Ritual. Each of these trials would be a nested challenge that could (at the player's request) include a Secondary Skill Check (at the Easy DC) to augment (or hinder on a failure) a Primary Skill Check (at the Hard DC) that would dictate the outcome of the trial with the specific Great Elder Spirit. Except for the success with the Fate Weaver, each success in these nested challenges earned her a + 3 (Consumable - No Action) untyped bonus that she could invoke as an open-descriptor resource when taking any action that that is thematically relevant to the trial with the respective Elder Spirit. The legend of the Fate Weaver (or Grandmother Spider) is that she spun the web that bound all of the planes together. As such, success in her trial earned the Druid a magical strand of (Consumable) spirit world silk that would allow the Druid and Rogue to transcend their corporeal form, transverse the silken web that binds the planes, locate the pathway to their companion in the Abyss, enter and assume their corporeal form. The way back would have to be of the PCs' own devising. Each failure (such as falling on an unclimbable mountain in the midst of an earthquake, being the hunted rather than the hunter and ultimately consumed, and losing a reincarnated battle) of the nested trials would accrue a failure in the challenge, abruptly end the trial and start the next trial as if waking from one dream to the next, and would cost the Druid a Healing Surge. Upon 3 failed nested challenges, the communion would end abruptly and she would be shunted back into the mortal realm and lose 2 Healing Surges.

4) What transpired is:

4a) She succeeded at her trial with Fate Weaver by unraveling her mysteries and riddles. This earned her the afformentioned spirit silk to transit to the Abyss.

4b) She failed at her trial with The Monster Slayers when she lost the reincarnated battle of when the demonic incursion ocurred orginally and the Slayers beat them back. Healing Surge loss.

4c) She succeeded at her trial with Stormhawk, who fought in the initial battle witht he Gods and Primordials, for possessing the wisdom and instinct to come in peace but the resolve to end conflict with decisive fury when the enemy will not accept your offer. She earned a + 3, open-descriptor consumable relevant to this trial (as above).

4d) She succeeded at her trial with The Deep Winds by successfully navigating the dark, endlessly winding corridors of the underworld. She earned a + 3, open-descriptor consumable relevant to this trial (as above).

4e) She failed at her trial with The Primal Beast when she turned out to be the hunted rather than the hunter and was ultimately consumed. Healing Surge loss.

4f) She succeeded at her trial with The World Tree when she displayed how all things are connected in the natural world, death and life, civilization and wilderness. She earned a + 3, open-descriptor consumable relevant to this trial (as above).

4g) She succeeded at her trial with The World Healer when she provided food, sustenance and healing for a war-ravaged world (people, flora, fauna), as The World Healer did after The Dawn War. She earned a + 3, open-descriptor consumable relevant to this trial (as above).

4h) She failed at her trial with Stoneroot after failing to climb a nigh-unclimbable mountain in the midst of an earthquake. The fall from the mountain cost her 2 Healing Surges and ended her Spiritual Sojourn as her spirit was shunted back into her corporeal body in the mortal realm.
This is 4 Healing Surges total worth of damage (effectively her HP pool) so, in the fiction, the trials almost claimed her life. The trusted NPC that watched over her during this transit nurses her back to health in the coming day.

I like the Adjure Ritual and I found that this usage of the Skill Challenge framework did a good job in handling this sort of conflict and its output/fallout (and the "gather an army" conflict by the Darklord as well).

Here's one that was part of a low epic slog through 100 miles of Underdark to confront Torog. Well, it ended in confronting Torog, but they really just wanted to put an amulet around the neck of the Final Phoenix, which Torog keeps in a cage. This skill challenge is kind of interesting in that the party's marching order matters in the first check. Anyhow, extracted from my notes:

...3 miles after area 16, the air starts to smell sulphurous. After one more mile, the party enters an area where bubbling pools of mud and steaming flows of water become increasingly common. This area has a number of dangers related to the geothermal activities here, and navigating the area without harm requires a skill challenge that takes place in several stages. The skill challenge covers three miles of travel, but takes a minimum of nine hours.

Total Distance from Gear Complex: 16 miles to smell; 17 miles to geothermal areas
Ceiling Height: Varies; average 20'.

First Stage (Scalding Eruptions): As the party proceeds, they enter an area containing several hot geysers about to erupt. Characters in the front rank may make Dungeoneering or Perception checks, DC 26, to notice this hazard in time to warn the party to stay back. Failure indicates that each party member suffers an attack from the geysers: +24 vs. Reflex; Hit: 4d10 fire damage; Miss: Half damage. If the party is forewarned, they take no damage here.

Navigating through the geysers requires each character to make three checks of some sort, even if they avoid the worst of it (i.e., the attack listed above). Characters might try to suss out the geysers' timing (Dungeoneering DC 19 or Perception DC 26), scamper past using Acrobatics (DC 30), just try to bear the heat (Endurance DC 26) or run through as quickly as possible (Athletics DC 35). Each failed check results in 20 fire damage. Powers that grant fire resistance that last until the end of the encounter only apply to damage from one of these checks, as the entire ordeal is spread out over several hours and the checks are at different points along the route. Alternatively, a power that lets a character teleport at least 10 squares counts as 1 success for that character; sufficiently powerful magic may let the party bypass this section entirely.

Second Stage (Poison Gas): The characters next pass through an area saturated with toxic gas. Each character must make three Endurance checks, DC 19, 26 and 35. Each failed check costs the character a healing surge; if the character has no remaining surges, he or she takes damage equal to his surge value. This is a poison effect.

Third Stage (Minor Eruption): Finally, in one area, a section of wall has broken away and lava is spattering out from it, raining down on a section of the cavern. To get by safely, characters must make an Acrobatics check, DC 29; failure indicates 25 fire damage. Again, clever use of teleportation magic will allow the pcs to bypass this area.

The pcs are still in the geothermally active area when they enter encounter area 18, but it is less dangerous; though there are terrain hazards, the pcs are not in automatic danger.