Doh! Killed my party with a skill challenge

Quickleaf said:

The basic premise of creating a structured way to handle a non-combat challenge is totally sound.

However, the execution is not. The basic maths don't work, as expressed upthread. But more importantly, the premise may be flawed.

My basic rules of design for using "skill" challenges in my games are threefold:

1. Understand the situation fully, determine whether a "skill" challenge is the best method to handle it, and begin by defining the stakes & consequences for failure.
2. There is no one size fits all "skill" challenge. Instead thing about the specifics of your scenario and design toward that.
3. Don't fixate on the "skill" part of "skill" challenges. Instead focus on creating holistic scenarios which can be resolved through multiple avenues including roleplaying, expending other resources (spell, hit dice, class features, Inspiration), specialized gear, creative ideas, etc. This is why I put the "skill" part in parentheses.

You can see a recent example I crafted for an upcoming session in my Tomb of Annihilation campaign: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?834513-5e-Help-with-a-travel-skill-challenge

To apply these principles to your specific scenario.....

The Exploding Dungeon

Step 1: Knowing nothing beyond "exploding dungeon", I'd suggest clarifying the stakes first. Do you want it to be possible for a PC to die? All the PCs? I'd consider how much of the "exploding dungeon" was coming from what I wanted to introduce vs. consequences to decisions the players previously made. And I'd consider how much foreshadowing of the possibility for the explosion I'd done. IF this were a consequences for a previous decision where things went pear-shaped AND I'd done plenty of foreshadowing... only then would I consider death as a possible consequence.

Alternative consequences for failing the challenge completely might include the party getting separated, losing a NPC henchman/companion or an animal companion/familiar, suffering an enduring wound that only heals with downtime or the regeneration spell, losing precious items like spellbooks, becoming trapped in a very deadly dungeon that collapses on top of them, getting blasted by a magical explosion into another plane, losing Hit Dice prior to a dungeon where long resting isn't possible...

After deciding that, I'd consider how much "screen time" should be devoted to this challenge. Could it feasibly be resolved with a single action/check by a player in the party...for example, a high-level PC casting teleport or Otiluke's resilient sphere? Then it's handled and done. Or is it a small dungeon with the players rushing to get out and reach a rival who stole the Ruby of Xalmectur, likely leading to a new scene? In that case, a group Athletics check or a Constitution save might be sufficient, applying some damage and/or delaying those PCs affected before the combat with their rival.

Assuming that I think it merits a more detailed scene with meaningful choices for the players, I'd then proceed to the next step..

Step 2: Now you want to devise the mechanical structure for the challenge. I like to involve all the players, and one way of doing that is requiring each of them to engage with the challenge in some way. Another option might be to establish stages with stakes at each stage – for example, a collapsing stone bridge, a passage of collapsing statues, and a narrow squeeze to the exit. Another option would be a "time limit" expressed by placing a maximum limit on the number of actions/checks could work before the explosion.

One important note. In this case, I'd probably avoid the 3 failures rule... it's hard to imagine the players actions making their predicament worse...which is what the 3 failures rule emulates best.

All of this goes back to the narrative. "An exploding dungeon." Ok, what else? What specifically is causing this dungeon to explode? Is this a fiery gunpowder explosion? A collapsing mine? What sort of structural elements would fail and how do you imagine them failing? How are the dungeon inhabitants likely to respond?

And where does the conflict lie? Maybe the conflict isn't "can they escape in time"... Maybe the main conflict is getting chased by a monster while cave-in or explosion hazards are secondary? Maybe the conflict is "do they escape with the McGuffin or is it lost in the mad dash out, falling down into the darkness below"?

Step 3: The last step is imagining potential solutions to the extent that those can help you adjust your design toward the capabilities of the players and their PCs. You don't want lists of "accepted" or "likely" skills here (e.g. DC 15 Perception, Athletics, Acrobatics, Survival, Nature). That's the player's job. You want to detail challenges. For your scenario these might things like (1) evading falling debris, (2) ascending a sloped floor, (3) crossing crumbling stone stairs, (4) toppling statues, (5) erupting pockets of gas, and (6) a water-filled escape tunnel.

What's important to consider at this stage is are whether the challenges suit your party & the stakes you've set. For example, with #2 and #3, are you prepared to let PCs failing here fall down into the darkness and suffer those consequences (e.g. separation from the party)? Alternately, #6 would be a non-risk for a party of amphibious or otherwise water-breathing PCs.

And that's my basic approach!

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5ekyu said:

Given the stage that you mentioned this specifically called out collapsing bridges, passages with collapsing statues etc, you really have a hard time getting to see a failure at one of those as making matters worse?

How about "your attempt to cross the collapsing bridge failed and now you have fallen back down two levels that you have already had yo work up from once.

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Quickleaf said:

Here’s what I meant:

During a negotiation challenge, it’s easy to see a player’s failure make things worse for the whole group by straining the NPC’s patience or even offending them. There’s a clear sense that their actions have made it worse and a clear feedback the DM can provide to that effect.

Back to the exploding dungeon. Failing to leap a collapsing stone bridge and falling sucks, to be sure, but it doesn’t affect the overall collapse/explosion of the dungeon, it doesn’t make the structure any less structurally “sound” than it already is. It’s an exploding dungeon! That’s already pretty bad! And, really, it doesn’t affect the entire group...yes their friend is in danger, but that’s more of a complication to be dealt with creatively, not a scenario where “oh no, two more of us failed checks while rescuing Yurik and our actions have hastened the collapse!” That doesn’t make sense.

Also, you have to consider what’s fun for your group...I know if I described players constantly falling back down to a previous level (with the pressure of 3 failures = failing the challenge), it would quickly become an exercise in frustration for them, especially cause of the feeling of retreading old ground. There *are* tricks to handle that, but mostly a DM doesn’t want to resort to those unless there’s no other recourse.

Now, I want to caveat this that it does depend on the narrative — which the OP would do well to share more of — for example if this was more of a collapsed mine scenario, with the structure already having collapsed on top of the PCs/NPCs and they’re having to clear rubble to escape/rescue, then I could see 3 failures making sense (e.g. force magic like thunderwave or a ring of the ram could clear a path but could also cause more debris to come crashing down, risking sealing them off forever).

I’ve seen so many people fixate on the mechanics but neglect the underlying narrative/frame/stakes, that I’ve been considering referring to them not as “skill challenges” but as “story challenges.”

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S'mon said:

I think for future reference, you need to understand that DC 15 'moderate' means 'moderate difficulty within a character's area of expertise'. That might work if the players can choose their relevant ability and it is 3 successes before 3 failures, which is how I tend to run this sort of thing.

If you want most PCs to succeed most of the time you use DC 10 'easy'. Even at DC 10 I would not expect to see 10 successes before 3 failures, so it sounds as if the PCs had basically no chance.

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Nagol said:

Actually, if dropping the DC to 10 raised a single roll's success probability to 90% from 65%, then the overall rate of success jumps from <16% to > 88%. To get at least 50% requires over 75% single-roll success probability ( 75 is 39%, 80 is 55%). The system is very sensitive to change.

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By having set up a "combat" like you did, you are basically saying "Ok guys, we're going to completely ignore the fact that we are playing a roleplaying game, and we're going to just reduce the success/death of your characters to a small series of dice rolls. Basically, ignore everything you've done before with the PC's and we're just going to do some gambling. Hope you're feeling lucky!"

...

IMNSHO, a "combat" is an interesting idea for a GAME perspective. This is one of those things that I very rarely would use, and I would only use it in a completely non-life/death situation. I have used this to determine the results of a PC's hostile encounter. Generally speaking, I had the Player make rolls to hit, damage and save over successive rounds. The Player had to use his "spells", "attacks", or "other manuevers" once a turn, and their "defenses and HPs" to resist. The results determined if the PC killed the opponent or died.

Using a "combat" this way was a nice method of letting the Player roll some dice (who doesn't like to do that?) with the results being used for primarily role-playing additions to the session and character. No life/death was at hand...just a few coins and the possibility of RP'ing seeds later (e.g., if the PC failed all but one...he might get a "take lots of damage" or "use up lots or resources" or something).

Combat to add a bit of RP'ing "story seeds"? Sure! Combat deciding the life/death of the entire group? No. Absolutely NO.

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Blue said:

You have a very direct approach that I'd like to use as an example. I want to start with: I agree with you. And then continue with afterwards with: How do we improve on the mechanics of a skill challenge to make it more in-line with our other sub-system that we do allow to decide life and death.

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Combat is going away from the whole RP / skills approach to a mechanically heavy minigame where you roll dice for life and death situations. In other words, mechanically similar to a skill challenge in some ways.

But when you replace "skill challenge" with "combat", you get a description that doesn't fit most tables:



So why is it that one set of constrained mechanical effects are used extensively for life and death, and others is an "Absolutely NO"? I think it has to do with the options that a player has in combat, vs. the very limited scope in the mechanics of skill challenge the OP posted. But that's just on viewpoint.

I'd be interested in your (and everyone's) viewpoint on how to mechanically handle out-of-combat challenges to a degree where we are comfortable with the same range of outcomes we would get from combat.

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