What are your favorite Skill Challenges.
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
Another Question what are the best guidelines for Skill Challenges.
here are some Obsidian Rules I found.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5JTuApKBFavX3QwbFhkMzVDQVk/view
The Skill Challenge Handbook.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5k1Bo0pV5ilWFQ2dVZhb0dUdUE/edit?pli=1
or finally The Rules Compendium
here are some Obsidian Rules I found.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5JTuApKBFavX3QwbFhkMzVDQVk/view
The Skill Challenge Handbook.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5k1Bo0pV5ilWFQ2dVZhb0dUdUE/edit?pli=1
or finally The Rules Compendium
I've used skill challenges for resolving social tension, interrogation, traversing the Abyss (that one wasn't my best), sneaking through an enemy camp, cleansing corrupted angels, taming a bear and dispelling a water weird, trashing Torog's Soul Abattoir, surviving an audience with Yan-C-Bin and then persuading some maruts that it's not the end times, and other stuff too.
It's a versatile framework. The thing any GM can always work on is thinking about how to keep the pressure on the PCs (and thereby the players) in a way that respects the fiction. The need for pressure is fundamental, because only the players are declaring actions and rolling dice (very different eg from 4e combat or HeroWars/Quest extended resolution). But equally fundamental is the need to honour the players' successful checks on the way through - not such a big deal if the challenge is complexity 1, but a very big deal if we're talking complexity 12 and so having to narrate up to 11 successes while leaving the possibility of overall failure still open.
EDIT: That should be complexity 5 (12 successes required)!
It's a versatile framework. The thing any GM can always work on is thinking about how to keep the pressure on the PCs (and thereby the players) in a way that respects the fiction. The need for pressure is fundamental, because only the players are declaring actions and rolling dice (very different eg from 4e combat or HeroWars/Quest extended resolution). But equally fundamental is the need to honour the players' successful checks on the way through - not such a big deal if the challenge is complexity 1, but a very big deal if we're talking complexity 12 and so having to narrate up to 11 successes while leaving the possibility of overall failure still open.
EDIT: That should be complexity 5 (12 successes required)!
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heretic888
Explorer
The DMG2, by a wide, wide, wide margin.
heretic888
Explorer
Absolutely yes to all this. As much as we've enjoyed the combat stuff, skill challenges are by far my favorite part of 4E. Their absence in 5E is a major part why I never much bothered with that system.
In my opinion, Complexity 5 challenges are best reserved for multi-stage challenges like the river example in DMG2. That way, the fictional parameters and pressures change every 3 or so successes so there's less need to constantly improvise ongoing pressure for 12 skill checks.
I combine these with the clearer mechanical structure of the Rules Compendium.
The idea of multi-stage can be adapted/generalised, I think - as the situation unfolds, the fiction changes in such a fashion that certain past states are now guaranteed to be in the past (eg in the negotiations, it's clear that the major NPC is no longer going to believe XYZ about the PCs), and the parameters for future states have been changed or at least narrowed (eg now the question is whether the NPC will ally with the PCs or simply send them on their way).
darkbard
Legend
I'm kind of divided on this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree that the Skill Challenge must be dynamic, flexible, malleable; that the fiction (and attendant pressure) must morph to accurately represent the PCs' progress towards their goal. However, on the other hand, I've always tried to adhere to the advice given about SCs (and similar mechanics in other games) to make sure the terms of success and failure are clearly articulated and agreed upon before engaging the mechanics. It therefore becomes a very delicate balancing acts at times to adhere to both of these precepts.
Ultimately, I don't think it's a bad thing if during the course of a SC it becomes clear that the preset stakes and outcomes need to change to reflect the emergent fiction, so long as all parties agree to said change. Thoughts?
I think that upfront stakes when it's something like cross the river or persuade the corpse to talk to you via Speak wtih Dead is fine. But when the challenge is more complex in the fiction - eg a somewhat open-ended negotiation - and is meant to involve many checks (complexity 4 and 5 is probably my "many checks" as opposed to "few check" zone), then I think more capacity for evolution of the stakes is needed. Just as might happen in combat.
I think without the possibility of development there is the risk of the dreaded "dice rolling exercise" to choose between two pre-determined paths.
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