D&D 5E Skill Challenges in 5e?

[Dausuul]

That doesn't actually illustrate a difference between "X successes before Y failures" and "X successes in Y passes". Bob the Silent could tag along with the first group (X success before Y failures) and not make a skill check just as easily as he could in the second.

Tagging along and not making a skill check is just another form of staying back at the inn. Bob is still not participating. He's shut out and has to stand there watching while the charismatic types carry the ball.

With "X successes in Y passes," Bob is an asset to the party, however small. He can participate. He has an incentive to do whatever he can think of to help the party. If all he can come up with is to stand there looking imposing, fine--he can try an Intimidate check at DC 15 to impress the king with his quiet confidence. He'll probably fail, but there's no penalty for failure except opportunity cost. Taking a long shot is better than doing nothing.

With "X successes before Y failures," doing nothing is better than taking a long shot. Bob's worth in the skill challenge is zero. The best thing he can do is sit down and shut up. If the king turns to him and asks him a question, his worth goes from zero to negative.

In the second (X successes over Y passes), if they need to get 3 successes out of 4 PCs on one pass, they still have to make 3 successes before 2 failures. 2 failures with 1 pass over 4 PCs means that they can't achieve 3 successes on the pass. If Bob the Silent tries to get a lucky roll and blows it, they're one failure closer to blowing the skill challenge.

Your logic is based on the assumption that all four PCs are participating in the challenge. Take that away, and it falls apart.

Let's say you need 3 successes on 1 pass. Which party members should participate? The obvious answer is "all of them," because you get 1 roll per PC. If you have three PCs involved, they all have to succeed. No one has any room to fail. If you add Bob the Silent, and one of the first three PCs fails, it's just possible that Bob could pull things out with a meaningful stare and a natural 20. The party's chances are better, if only a little.

Now suppose you need 3 successes before 2 failures. Which party members should participate? The answer, if you can swing it, is "Lucky the Loquacious, bard extraordinaire, and nobody else." Lucky has the best Persuasion check, therefore you should let her do all the talking and make all the rolls. She's almost certain to get 3 successes before 2 failures. Every other party member is a liability dragging Lucky down. If you can't convince your DM to let Lucky go it alone, then at the very least you should try to keep Bob out of sight.

 

[Beleriphon]

The number of passes depends on how much narrative weight you want to give the skill challenge. If you want to resolve things quickly and move on, 1 or 2 passes is appropriate. For something more dramatic, you can call for 3 or 4 passes. Suggested requirements for successes, assuming a party of 4:

• 1 pass: 3 successes required
• 2 passes: 5 successes required
• 3 passes: 8 successes required
• 4 passes: 10 successes required

You can reduce the required number of successes to make the challenge easier, or increase it to make it harder. You can also allow for partial victories or "stretch goals"--perhaps 8 successes will persuade the warlord not to attack, while 10 successes turns her into an ally.

[SIZE=-2]*Instead of having "X successes before Y failures," we have "X successes in Y passes" so that PCs without useful skills are not penalized for trying to contribute. For ploys that could backfire, use Risky Contribution.[/SIZE]

I like the idea of the strech goal, but I think a fixed number of passes with varying degrees of success might work better. That way the PC know exactly how long what they are doing is going to take.

I personally like the idea of five passes (largely because time is easily divisible by units of five).

For example is the DC 15 (medium as I recall) then half the characters should succeed each pass. This should be minimum number of So with a typical group of say four then the number of success to achieve the default is going to be ten. Thus we might have something like this:

Number of Successes	Result
0	You've failed to accomplish our goal, and it has cost you greatly.
1-2	You succeed, but at exceptional cost to the characters.
3-6	You succeed, but at great inconvenience to the characters.
7-9	You succeed, but the characters are minorly inconvenienced
10-11	You succeed at your stated goal.
12-15	You succeed exceptionally well at your stated goal.
16+	You succeed with success beyond your wildest dreams.

The example I'll use is the captain agrees to take the PCs to where they're going for free if they help repair the ship.

With 0 successes the captain thinks the characters are pirates part way through the voyage and locks them up to be turned over the authorities upon arrival at the stated destination. So they still get there, but the characters are in a bigger mess than when they started. Note that this type of result shouldn't stop the action outright, but somehow push the characters forward and at the same time make things worse. You might also make this the PC unintentionally cause a mutiny against the captain just for taking them.

A result of 1-2 the characters do horrible shoddy work, and the captain agrees to take them at triple the normal rate, and make them pay for their own food. The crew also hates them and refuses to do anything to protect them (should that be relevant). Some of them might even try to attack the PCs at night.

Results in the 3-5 range might make the PCs do something to offend the captain or crew, not enough to turn back on the captain's word, but enough that they will go out of their way to make life miserable for the PCs.

Getting a 6-9 might put off one NPC crew member who makes it his mission to hate on the PCs and do what he can to make their voyage horrible.

10-11 is the expected result. The PCs get a hassle free trip to their destination at no charge.

12-15 is a fantastic success. The PCs improve the ship in some way and get to their destination in record time.

16+ Same as 12-15 but the captain pays the PCs a stipend for the amazing work they've done.

The core idea here is that if every one of four PCs is successful every pass than they get 20 success. However, that's unlikely and combined with Dausuul's fluctuating success score the PCs are probably going to get somewhere between 6 and 12 with an average DC to beat.

 

[WizarDru]

Skill Challenges, when done well, can be really enjoyable. I had a massive pirate battle in 4E involving dozens of combatants and used a skill challenge to enact it. Combat focused characters could contribute using certain combat skills and certain tactics and tasks advanced the challenge. Successes and failures were more than just a simple skill roll and success and failure was tailored around consequences (save the town, pirates escape, how many guards survive, etc). It was a hoot and one of my favorite sessions of 4E.

5E has the nugget of Skill Challenges in the DMG in the form of Chases, which is basically a very simple skill challenge format. I used them in our game on Saturday and it was enjoyed by the group quite a bit. There is really nothing in 5E that prevents the implementation of a Skill Challenge. I think it's one of the three things I truly liked from 4E that I consider worth carrying forward. 4E is gone from my group; very soon we'll convert our characters to 5E equivalents and then close the books on 4E for good.

 

[billd91]

Your logic is based on the assumption that all four PCs are participating in the challenge. Take that away, and it falls apart.

No, it's not. Bob the Silent does not need to participate in either method. I'm not making the assumption he has to participate at all. But I take it you're defining the 3 successes in 1 pass as requiring multiple party member participation where getting 3 successes before 5 failures does not?

 

[txshusker]

If it is interesting enough to be roleplayed out, the skill challenge is a disservice to the players. And finally, if success is necessary for progression, the possibility of failure due to numbers on dice should not be entertained.

Totally agree. But if there are degrees of success, they can work. If a failure due to dice rolls still allows forward progression but creates a future problem, they can work. If the players fail because of poor roll-play and are penalized as they go forward, sometimes they understand and accept that more than the arbitrary decision of a DM who happened to like or dislike what the characters said during role-play. (see what I did there?)

On the Olmec/captain one... that's the type of challenge that I probably wouldn't use, though, unless I wanted to mess with the players. Simple sub-charisma skill should be sufficient. I call it micro-managed because unless the characters are the only people around who can fix the boat, that would be an SC encounter 4e module makers put in the module simply because they were told to put 1 skill challenge in every module and they couldn't think of anything more significant than to create one that saves the characters money - in a game where treasure was found simply by picking your nose.

 

[MechaPilot]

I didn't create the skill challenge in question, but I do disagree. That's the perfect scenario for a skill challenge. A complex but finite series of actions with a single goal that roleplaying would not improve and which is not mandatory to the storyline. If a series of actions is too simple a skill challenge is overkill. If it is too large, a challenge reduces too significant a portion of the narrative to a series of quick rolls. If it is interesting enough to be roleplayed out, the skill challenge is a disservice to the players. And finally, if success is necessary for progression, the possibility of failure due to numbers on dice should not be entertained.

I greatly like skill challenges, and I have devised several of my own. You can find them over at the WotC forums. . .

http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/2647831


Since I consider myself to be good at skill challenges, I'd like to tackle some of the things you mentioned.

Roleplaying definitely can affect the outcome of a skill challenge. This occurs in a couple of ways. First, the DM can award a bonus to a skill check for roleplaying it well; I often did this when implementing skill challenges. Secondly, not all of the successes in a skill challenge must come from skill checks. Offering a bribe, agreeing to perform a task for someone, and other things of that nature can easily be allowed by the DM to accrue successes.

If success is necessary, then it's necessary regardless of whether you're exclusively deciding success or failure based on roleplaying, the dice, or a mix of the two. Success being necessary paints the group into a corner where the PCs must succeed or else the adventure stops. That's just poor design regardless of how you handle the resolution of the encounter where success is necessary.

 

[Dausuul]

No, it's not. Bob the Silent does not need to participate in either method. I'm not making the assumption he has to participate at all. But I take it you're defining the 3 successes in 1 pass as requiring multiple party member participation where getting 3 successes before 5 failures does not?

3 successes in 1 pass means 3 successes in 1 pass. Each party member gets 1 skill check per pass; if there's only one pass, that means you get one check each. You can include as few or as many party members as you like.

If you include 2 party members, you've got 2 checks to get 3 successes. Failure is certain (unless you find a way to get more than one success out of a single check).
If you include 3 party members, you've got 3 checks to get 3 successes. You have to run the table. No one can afford to fail.
If you include 4 party members, you've got 4 checks to get 3 successes. You can afford one failure.
If you include 5 party members, you've got 5 checks to get 3 successes. You can afford two failures, et cetera.

The point is that you are always better off to add party members, because each PC is giving you another check. Contrast "3 successes before 2 failures":

If you include 1 party member (the bard, say) with a 90% chance to make the check, you're just about guaranteed to succeed. The odds of the bard getting 3 successes before 2 failures are better than 99%.
If you add a rogue with a 70% chance to make the check, your odds are still good, but they've fallen off sharply from before. You have a non-negligible chance of failure.
If you add a wizard with a 50% chance to make the check, your odds drop still farther.
If you add Bob the Silent with a 10% chance to make the check, you're more likely to fail than succeed.

Every party member you add beyond the bard is dragging you down, making your odds worse. Bob especially is a liability you want to get rid of if at all possible.

 

[Stalker0]

Well I would think 5es bounded accuracy would do well with skill challenge math...as the system magnifies variance greatly.

Even my own obsidian skill challenge system would have that issue when you had people of very wide differences in the same challenge.

So mechanically I think skill challenges would work just fine

 

[Stalker0]

Also on

x success vs y failure

And

X success after y passes.

It's true that in many cases they work out the same mathematically. However in play there is a definite perception difference between the two with players...and in an rpg that is just as important, maybe more so

 

[Fion]

The initial skill challenges presented on the core books was pretty boring but it got a lot more fleshed out and interesting. I've run them fairly regularly, sometimes as an active 'this is a skill challenge' way, sometimes as a secret skill challenge. I always try and diversify them, offer multiple routes to success, different 'tiers' of success, use primary and secondary mechanics that work off each other, etc.

It's on my list to 'convert' to 5e. Along with tiered Artifacts that get more/less powerful based on how the 'wielder' uses them. Such a fun system and it really lent well to RP'ing intelligent weapons. Oh and 4e Traps-as-Enemies system. I like 4e traps way better largely for that reason.