Excerpt: skill challenges

[Andur]

Here is what I see:

1) A Skill ENCOUNTER should have as much (or little) preperation as a Combat Encounter.

2) Much as a Combat Encounter has rewards and penalties, so should a skill encounter.

3) Just as a Combat Encounter has a "ideal" solution, so should a skill.

4) The DM, not the players sets the DC's for different skill checks AND the results for skill usage. (For example, with the Duke, acrobatics is not listed, but as a DM I"d let a player attempt acrobatic check if it went along the lines of "Your Grace, if we say we can do something, we can do it, for example, I will jump over your throne, without touching neither the throne, nor the banner above it." Player makes a Hard DC acrobatics check and if he succeeds they get two successes. However if the Player just states, "I'll tumble around to show him we can be entertaining" would result in neither success nor failure unless he keeps trying.)

5) Intimidate : to make timid or fearful , neither of which is close to making trusting...

As a DM you can still have all the random skill CHECKS you want, but your Skill ENCOUNTERS, should be planned, have a purpose, and should count toward the "number of encounters for level progression" planning. So a "one level gained adventure" might have 2 skill encounters and 9 combat encounters, or vice versa, failing more than one encounter could result in that adventure not resulting in level gain. Failure of any encounter might result in the need for more encounters in order to conclude the adventure.

The fact there is so much fretting over a one page exerpt from an entire chapter shows that there are many people who just like to worry for worry's sake.

 

[Celebrim]

To me, convincing a single person to lend aid is poorly suited to requiring lots and lots of dice checks. Lots and lots of dice checks might still happen, but I don't see why they should be required.

My general approach would be:

1) Set some high DC on getting the Duke to provide aid to the players. Allow a single social check (diplomacy, bluff, or intimidate) based on this high DC and modified by the appropriateness of the player's role play.
2) Allow the DC of the social check to be greatly reduced if before making it, a second diplomacy check improved the Duke's reaction to the PC's to friendly. Modify this roll's DC by the suitableness of the player's role play as well.
3) Allow multiple chances for success (and multiple oppurtunities for role play) so long as the PC's haven't driven the Duke's opinion of the PC's sufficiently negative that he refuses to listen further or takes hostile action against them.

If I wanted to make this a particularly involved situation, I'd require that the PC's change the situational modifiers before recieving an oppurtunity to reroll the check - for example, they may first need to bring the Duke's senior advisor or wife on board or the Duke may need to be bribed before the Duke will seriously reconsider thier arguments.

If I wanted to make the situation the focus of a whole session or more, then I'd have a council of Nobles each of which would need to be persuaded in order to obtain a majority. To make it particularly difficult or involved, I might require such a resolution be unaminous to be binding. Or alternately, I could require the PC's to navigate thier way up a bureacracy before obtaining audience with the Duke (or anyone else).

In short, there are lots of ways of doing this very sort of thing with existing techniques which to my mind are less likely to create problems than arbitrarily requires 8 successes or some such.

 

[Cadfan]

Q. Why can't I use intimidate to get the Duke to do what I want??
A. This skill challenge only makes sense in the context of specific adventurers trying to convince a specific duke to do a specific thing. Maybe this set of PCs can't intimidate the Duke because he has a big army and will have them hung by morning if they convince him they're a threat.

Q. But what if I'm like, 25th level and capable of demolishing his entire duke-dom or whatever its called.
A. Then the skill challenge would be modified by your DM to match your specific situation.

Q. Why do I have to hear the Duke's comment before I can use my history skill?
A. You could conceivably use your history skill at any time. But you won't know the particular bit of historical information until your DM tells it to you, so you won't be able to use it in the conversation.

Q. But I'm trained in History! I should be able to roll to know any historical information I want.
A. Why? And how would you know to roll to find out this particular piece of information anyways? Nothing in this prohibits other uses of the History skill. This is just one bit of pc/npc banter that the DM has written up in advance in his DM-notes. Its not taking away other possibilities.

Q. Why can't I use skills that aren't listed? Like, umm, athletics!
A. You can. But you have to come up with an explanation for why it would help, and the DM might not agree.

Q. Why aren't there other possibilities besides just success and failure?
A. There probably are. For example, the use of one skill that can't create successes or failures might set you up for the use of another skill that can. But we don't know this yet.

Q. What if the party succeeds at 8 skill checks that make sense to be successes, but none of them "closes the deal?"
A. Two possible answers. The first is that what counts as a success may change as the skill challenge moves forwards. The second is that rules like "8 successes before 3 failures" are essentially guides to DMs to help them narrate. So if the DM is on the ball, he'll make sure that the deal is about to close after the 7th success or so.

Q. But isn't changing what counts as a success in order to force the use of a particular "deal closing" at the end of a skill challenge a sort of straight jacket?
A. No. Not if the way things changed is based on player actions. Suppose your skill challenge is convincing a street tough to roll over on his higher-ups. You've spent 7 successes worth of time moralizing to him, reminding him of the hard times he went through as a kid, and trying to convince him that he should reform his life and help prevent those things to happening to more innocents. You've just finished reminding him of his loving grandma, whom he hasn't seen in years. Then suddenly you try to get your 8th success by holding his face underwater until he begs for mercy. Your DM rules that your actions are counter productive, and undermine all the successes you've previously earned. Its not railroading to make such a ruling, since its a logical consequence of your own decisions. That's the opposite of railroading.

Q. But won't players just figure out the best skill they have available, then use it repeatedly?
A. Not necessarily. Again, as the situation changes, what helps you achieve your goals changes. If you're trying to evacuate a burning town, and you start by giving a speech to the fleeing townsfolk to convince them to start a bucket line from the river to the town, a second identical speech won't do any good after they've already been convinced. You'll have to find something else to do.

Q. But if you strip all of this down to its bare roots, its just a series of d20 rolls. There's no game here.
A. By that logic most RPGs aren't games at all. In this case, the roleplaying provides the game. You are correct in your belief that roleplaying a diplomatic encounter with a Duke is no fun if you skip the roleplaying, just name a skill, and roll a d20. That's why you're not supposed to do that.

 

[Deadstop]

The "duke doesn't take well to intimidation" example seems to be part of the new way they're "statting out" NPCs for use in social challenges like this one.

Look back at the "vampire caravanserai" Role vs. Roll article. All the NPCs are described in terms of which social skills work best on them, and which are more likely to backfire. As in the current example, non-social skills are also mentioned as handy ways of picking up information that might guide one's choice of social skills or even open up possibilities the players might not have thought of trying on their own.

I think that's the reason they made sure to keep Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate as separate skills, even while collapsing a number of other skills together. They represent three general "approaches" to social interaction. Thus, even a character who sticks to the straight social skills (instead of attempting to justify the less-obvious Acrobatics attempt, for example) has multiple possible routes to take, and different NPCs are noted as responding differently to each one.

I'll also jump on the bandwagon of folks pointing out that "Using Intimidate always adds a failure" doesn't necessarily mean "You can't intimidate this guy." It means that taking such an approach in a negotiation/entreaty with this particular guy is counterproductive and will push you toward the less-desirable outcome of the challenge. As others have noted, a strongly intimidation-based approach might even appear to succeed, but the "help" the duke gives under duress will turn into a hindrance somewhere down the road. That would be a failure of the skill challenge through apparent success on Intimidate rolls.

Even Escape from Sembia offered that kind of "you kind of 'succeed,' but badness comes later" consequence for failing the challenge. (It goes right along with the advice that failure on a challenge shouldn't bring the adventure to a halt.) IIRC, parties who failed the challenge in EfS still escaped, but were spotted enough times and left enough traces that there was now an ambush laid down the road.

 

[Derren]

Q. Why do I have to hear the Duke's comment before I can use my history skill?
A. You could conceivably use your history skill at any time. But you won't know the particular bit of historical information until your DM tells it to you, so you won't be able to use it in the conversation.

The entire point of rolling the history skill is to check if the character knows a particular bit of historical information. Such a setup defeats the purpose of the skill.

Q. But I'm trained in History! I should be able to roll to know any historical information I want.
A. Why? And how would you know to roll to find out this particular piece of information anyways? Nothing in this prohibits other uses of the History skill. This is just one bit of pc/npc banter that the DM has written up in advance in his DM-notes. Its not taking away other possibilities.

Why? Because thats what the history skill is for? Its needless railroading which takes away this particular possibility which is bad enough.

 

[Lizard]

Not much new info here, but this does at least tell us the Skill Challenge system isn't a silly "Roll high with a random skill and you succeed" system like some were suggesting. I also like the concept of certain skills opening up other checks, and certain skills being off limits or even detrimental in certain situations.

Yes, this is nice, and VERY different from "Escape from Sembia" info, which seemed to imply the main "challenge" was finding a way to make the DM let you get away with a ludicrous excuse to use whatever your highest skill happened to be. I like the 'flowchart' whereby some skills open up other skills, or reveal information. I also like the fact it seems that the results should be secret, otherwise, learning that intimidate==fail would be obvious the first time you tried it and the Insight result would not be useful.

My only complaint is that, right now, it seems to be almost non-interactive; the DM asks the PCs to roll dice, they do so, he checks off 'success' or 'failure' and they roll again until the end. Where does the role-playing fit into this model? What could be an entire session of intensive roleplaying seems to be reduced to just a few formulaic die rolls. How do you mix actual play into this framework?

My preferred style is to roleplay encounters and then roll skill checks at 'dramatic junctures', to help avoid DM fiat and to give players who invested in skills a reward for making the mechanics match their concept -- otherwise, the most charismatic/talkative *player* wins even when his characters is supposed to be unlikable and rude.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Q. What if the party succeeds at 8 skill checks that make sense to be successes, but none of them "closes the deal?"
A. Two possible answers. The first is that what counts as a success may change as the skill challenge moves forwards. The second is that rules like "8 successes before 3 failures" are essentially guides to DMs to help them narrate. So if the DM is on the ball, he'll make sure that the deal is about to close after the 7th success or so.

Third answer: Or maybe closing the deal require no roll at all. If you have earned 8 successes by use of knowledge skills, informing you of everything about a certain trap, you disarm it by flicking a hidden switch. No roll necessary.

 

[Propheous_D]

The entire point of rolling the history skill is to check if the character knows a particular bit of historical information. Such a setup defeats the purpose of the skill.

Why? Because thats what the history skill is for? Its needless railroading which takes away this particular possibility which is bad enough.

All ready dealt with this in my post. You can be a font of information knowing everything there is to know. However the real truth lies in a simple yet obscure thing we in this culture are too stupid to grasp. Knowing the answer is only half the equation. What is the question young padawan.

42 means nothing with out the question.

 

[Lizard]

This.

People are still, I guess, approaching this from 3.5 mindset.

I have no problem with "Intimidate==failure".

"Yo, Duke boy! Either give us some help, or we'll just lop your head off, grab the crown, and run this pissant little Dukedom ourselves, savvy?"

"Well, how can I refuse? Oh, Chancellor? These fine gentlemen need our help. Alert Alfonse and have him and his men meet them by the old north gate, then show them the shortcut to the Temple of Certain Doom they've been asking about."

"Right away, sir."

(Alfonse is, of course, the Duke's chief 'remover of troublesome problems' and his men are the toughest cut throats in the land. 'North gate' is a code word for 'kill these bastards and bring me their heads'.)

"Woo hoo! See, guys, THAT'S how you get help. None of this sissy 'diplomacy' crap."

 

[Propheous_D]

My only complaint is that, right now, it seems to be almost non-interactive; the DM asks the PCs to roll dice, they do so, he checks off 'success' or 'failure' and they roll again until the end. Where does the role-playing fit into this model? What could be an entire session of intensive roleplaying seems to be reduced to just a few formulaic die rolls. How do you mix actual play into this framework?

I am really curious as to how you get that from the skill challenge system. Its like saying there is no role-playing in creating my character. I roll my stats and use them to overcome obstacles. I don't need a personality because there is no were in the rules that implies I have one. I just have a bunch of stats that mean I do this well and not that.
Role-Playing is what you make of it. The book deals with the mechanics behind your role-play. I am sure like in all additions there will be circumstance bonus for things like knowledge and good role-playing.