Excerpt: skill challenges

[jaldaen]

I actually don't mind the automatic failure for Intimidate b/c I'm reading it as a sample skill challenge template and not a hard and fast rule for all negotions.

This particular sample has a duke who does not respond well to Intimidate. I think this opens up a lot of possibilities for building an NPCs personality into the skill challenges.

Another duke or important person might...
...be more easily intimidated by the PCs (Intimidate, perhaps opened up once a History or Streetwise skill check is made to discover something about his past).
...enjoy feats of buffonery (Acrobatics).
...be impressed with a display of athletics (Athletics).
...have a keen interest in religion (Religion).
...hate anything to do with the arcane (Arcane, automatic failure just for bringing up the subject in his presence)

There are all manner of ways to build an NPCs personality into these skill challenges... I really like it.

 

[Rechan]

Oh, and as for the non-primary skills? If my PCs come up with a good reason for why Acrobatics or Singing would help, I'd allow it with a moderately hard DC level, decreasing the DC if the PCs roleplaying and reasoning was especially good. If he just says "I use Acrobatics to, um, impress the Duke" then he's getting a failure and ridiculed by the NPC.

Right. I actually like the suggestion someone gave earlier: use the Acrobatics skill on the Jester to teach him a thing or two, win him over, and that either gives a bonus to another PC by the Jester backing them up, Unlocks another skill (the Jester giving them a tip), or some other beanie.

Just "I'll use my underwater basketweaving to get us out of this execution" doesn't fly. They need to think outside the box.

 

[MindWanderer]

Here's what worries me:

Say the party has a half-elf warlock with Diplomacy trained. That's probably about a +11 Diplomacy at level 1. The sample encounter is clearly a social skill challenge. What's to prevent a party deciding, "The warlock's Diplomacy check is the best relevant skill in the party here. We'll just have this whole challenge be based on that." And it's probably the best idea. If you have a tiefling rogue in the party with a +10 Bluff, that character still shouldn't bother participating unless you have some idea that bluffing will be easier in this case (like History is).

For module designers, it's great to come up with all these options, so parties are more likely to be able to give it a shot, but in a typical adventure, one person will probably be doing all the talking, all the time, with the best skill modifier. It discourages group participation most of the time (possible exception: the Bluff entry says "Characters can cooperate to aid a lead character using this skill." But that still encourages a single approach.)

 

[NebtheNever]

As far as barring skills in certain situations, this is another instance where I think clever role-playing on the part of the PCs could allow them to use a skill they wouldn't be able to use normally. (Since I just thought of this on the fly, this probably sounds similar to my previous example.) Instead of trying to intimidate the Duke (who's surely not going to capitulate in public with other nobles around), you could intimidate the Duke's wife. Tell her that if the Duke doesn't help, the monsters the PCs are fighting are going to overrun his territory and kill him. So she should really try to convince the Duke to help the PCs, for his own sake.

 

[jaelis]

if the Duke doesn't help, the monsters the PCs are fighting are going to overrun his territory and kill him. So she should really try to convince the Duke to help the PCs, for his own sake.

That sounds like diplomacy to me. I'd have thought intimidate would really involve threats from the PCs themselves.

 

[NebtheNever]

Here's what worries me:

Say the party has a half-elf warlock with Diplomacy trained. That's probably about a +11 Diplomacy at level 1. The sample encounter is clearly a social skill challenge. What's to prevent a party deciding, "The warlock's Diplomacy check is the best relevant skill in the party here. We'll just have this whole challenge be based on that." And it's probably the best idea. If you have a tiefling rogue in the party with a +10 Bluff, that character still shouldn't bother participating unless you have some idea that bluffing will be easier in this case (like History is).

For module designers, it's great to come up with all these options, so parties are more likely to be able to give it a shot, but in a typical adventure, one person will probably be doing all the talking, all the time, with the best skill modifier. It discourages group participation most of the time (possible exception: the Bluff entry says "Characters can cooperate to aid a lead character using this skill." But that still encourages a single approach.)

To prevent PCs from using the same skill over and over again in a skill challenge, all you have to do is role-play the scenario properly. The Warlord uses Diplomacy to explain to the Duke that it's in his best interest to help the PCs because sooner or later, the evil cultists the PCs are investigating might become a real threat.

After that the Warlord uses Diplomacy to... what? Unless the Warlord can think of another good application of the Diplomacy skill, the Duke responds with, "Yes, you already made that point!" which would count as no successes or perhaps a failure if the Warlord player kept going at it.

Mechanics-wise, this represents a fixed number of times a certain skill can be used in an encounter, which you write out beforehand and then adjust based on however the scenario actually plays out and what the PCs do.

Edit: You said Warlock, not Warlord. Whoops.

 

[NebtheNever]

That sounds like diplomacy to me. I'd have thought intimidate would really involve threats from the PCs themselves.

*shrug* I was envisioning the PCs cornering the wife in her room at night and demanding she talk to him or else.

 

[charlesatan]

Here's what worries me:

Say the party has a half-elf warlock with Diplomacy trained. That's probably about a +11 Diplomacy at level 1. The sample encounter is clearly a social skill challenge. What's to prevent a party deciding, "The warlock's Diplomacy check is the best relevant skill in the party here. We'll just have this whole challenge be based on that." And it's probably the best idea. If you have a tiefling rogue in the party with a +10 Bluff, that character still shouldn't bother participating unless you have some idea that bluffing will be easier in this case (like History is).

If as a player, I saw the GM's notes, that may be very well true.

But as a player, what's probably going through my mind is what skills can I use to help in this encounter?

Sure, the group might think "hey, let's use Diplomacy" at the outset and keep at it. But if the DC is too high, they might think "there must be another useful skill in this encounter or another skill that has a lower DC". Or sometimes, it's just variety ("let's give each player a chance to roll...").

 

[jelmore]

They addressed the issue of opposed rolls in social situations with passive Insight and Perception, I believe. Dumbed it down too much in my opinion.

Passive Insight and Passive Perception are just the "take 10" rolls for Insight and Perception; they still list the normal Insight and Perception modifiers, which implies they're there to be used.
I would be surprised if skill challenges use the Passive Insight or Passive Perception scores.

The passive scores are your "walking around" rolls; if someone is trying to sneak past the PCs in a crowd as they're walking through (that the PCs aren't explicitly looking for), the DM will roll a Stealth check vs. the PCs' Passive Perception scores. The same goes for the merchant NPC who's trying to sell the party's Wizard a bum potion; he'll roll a Bluff check vs. the Wizard's Passive Insight score, unless the Wizard has a reason to suspect the merchant is lying; in that case, it'd be an opposed check. (That's how I would run it as a DM, anyways...)

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

since this is a "negotation" template it makes sense that the intimidation don't work

if you want it to work you must use another template (or create another one) say the "interrogation", intimidation is more phisical and surely don't go the right way to get help from someone that must give order to his troops or followers to help you