Adventure 1 (TIatAotW) Questions - SPOILERS

[Riastlin]

Alright, so I'm only through Act I, but just wanted to chime in to say that I really like the way the skill challenges are presented so far. I think doing the "round by round" format where you just need X successes -- irregardless of the number of failures -- is a pretty good way to go. The 3 failures can be harsh, but it seems as though so far at any rate, the SCs are set up such that you can potentially have more than 3 failures but still succeed at the challenge. It makes a bit easier to get everyone involved this way as you won't get "Well, we've already got 2 failures and I suck at perception, so someone else should probably look instead."

Additionally, I think to a certain extent you can flow into it a little more naturally as there doesn't need to be a "better be careful" tip off which often triggers players (in my games) to simply say "I roll athletics -- 19?" Its not so much that these players are not roleplayers, its more that they are more or less trained that in an encounter, its all about the numbers. At any rate, I am definitely liking it so far. Will try to finish the module this weekend.

 

[Colmarr]

My main concern with the skill challenges is the DCs.

The first challenge has a default DC of 18, which is one off the hard DC for level 1. With a DC that high, there is a very real risk that players will learn not to even try unless they're trained in the relevant skill and have a good modifier.

 

[RangerWickett]

WotC has a clear sense of what is an easy/medium/hard DC, and it works great for normal incidental skill checks that come up in the course of the adventure. But since I hate the "X successes before 3 failures" system, I used Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge system as a guideline. Because the party is limited by time, not failed rolls, DCs can and need to be higher in order to make the encounter actually carry a risk of failure.

Also, I didn't want players to think, "Oh, these skill checks are easy, so I can focus on putting everything into combat." I want the campaign to reward skill-focused characters.

 

[Mortagon]

WotC has a clear sense of what is an easy/medium/hard DC, and it works great for normal incidental skill checks that come up in the course of the adventure. But since I hate the "X successes before 3 failures" system, I used Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge system as a guideline. Because the party is limited by time, not failed rolls, DCs can and need to be higher in order to make the encounter actually carry a risk of failure.

Also, I didn't want players to think, "Oh, these skill checks are easy, so I can focus on putting everything into combat." I want the campaign to reward skill-focused characters.

This will please a couple of my players who always tends to play skill monkeys, but rarely gets to use their skills in any meaningful way. (we're playing the Pathfinder version btw)

My main concern is at higher levels. Magic always seem to trump skills when you get past certain levels.

 

[Riastlin]

[MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION]: Good point about time based vs. failure based skill challenges. If the party can absorb extra failures, then the DCs do need to be higher.

As for me personally, while I think the current DC table for skill checks/skill challenges is a big improvement on the earlier models, I still find it to be a tad off. For my players I find that the moderate DCs are pretty much auto-successes while the hard DCs will be too hard except for the one or two that are trained in it. Its weird and could just be an odd dynamic with my group. The easy DCs I don't even worry about because even untrained characters pretty much always make them. Again though, this is likely a combination of my party's dynamic and the fact that they are 13th level which has opened up stat increases, feats, magic items, etc. This is also probably made worse by the fact that I still don't think I do a particularly great job at running skill challenges.

 

[benfromidaho]

I'll certainly have to encourage my normally combat focused players to be a little more considerate with their skill points, but hopefully this will prevent the entire group from running into a room and saying, "We all search the room!" and each shouting out their Perception scores.

 

[Morrus]

I'll certainly have to encourage my normally combat focused players to be a little more considerate with their skill points, but hopefully this will prevent the entire group from running into a room and saying, "We all search the room!" and each shouting out their Perception scores.

I think out adventures train people out of that fairly well. Check out the preview of the last adventure of WotBS, where all their decisions throughout the entire adventure path come to a head and they really wish they hadn't alienated that guy back in Adventure #6. We're totally cool with the PCs losing at the end.

 

[Colmarr]

I used Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge system as a guideline. Because the party is limited by time, not failed rolls, DCs can and need to be higher in order to make the encounter actually carry a risk of failure.

18 just seems too high. Using the Crowd Security challenge as an example, and
assuming a trained character with a +4 attribute, they have a 60% chance at succeeding per roll. If every check in the challenge is made on that basis, the PCs get a total of 9 successes.

But once you take into account the PCs that aren't trained or that don't have +4 in a relevant attribute, the party's chance of success falls significantly, which is IMO odd for a level 1 challenge.

Of course, all of the above is just theorycrafting. I'll be running Crowd Security tomorrow night and will be happy to reconsider if I'm proven wrong.

 

[Riastlin]

18 just seems too high. Using the Crowd Security challenge as an example, and
assuming a trained character with a +4 attribute, they have a 60% chance at succeeding per roll. If every check in the challenge is made on that basis, the PCs get a total of 9 successes.

But once you take into account the PCs that aren't trained or that don't have +4 in a relevant attribute, the party's chance of success falls significantly, which is IMO odd for a level 1 challenge.

Of course, all of the above is just theorycrafting. I'll be running Crowd Security tomorrow night and will be happy to reconsider if I'm proven wrong.

The timing in terms of number of rounds will obviously make a difference, but don't forget too that certain races and backgrounds also grant bonuses to skills which can boost the odds even further.

 

[Ajar]

I wasn't planning to use backgrounds. Should I?

Edit: I just finished reading the first adventure (4E version), and I liked it quite a bit. The only place where I got a bit confused was the encounter with Asrabey; there's very little direction (and no numbers) for figuring out how feasible it is to talk him down. It says that a bold party might be able to, and a REALLY imposing party might be able to get him to give up Nathan as a hostage, but the DM is left to infer that this means Intimidate v. Will checks have an extremely small chance of success even when aided.

I'm not really sure how I'll handle this when I get to it. The low-level stats do seem like they'd facilitate a cool encounter, but I prefer the high-level stats from a "this is what would actually happen to a 20th level character assaulting a fortress" perspective. And I'd like it to be at least possible to talk Asrabey down even if I use the 20th level stats.

I currently plan to handle it through RP; depending on how things have gone up to that point, the PCs will hopefully have plenty of compelling legitimate reasons for Asrabey to stand down. But we'll see what happens!

Overall, though, the thought that came to mind most often when reading the adventure was "dang, I wish I was going to be a PC!" I'd be a gunslinger rogue/ranger or a technologist artificer, I think. But alas, I'm the DM. First session is this Saturday, and I'm hoping to at least get to the start of the Coaltongue sabotage.