Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge System (NEW VERSION: 1.2!!!)

[dammitbiscuit]

Generally when I read people's posts I am watching for a few things:

1) How do they use the system? When I first created Obsidian I expected people to use it as I had wrote it, but more and more posts have convinced me that the majority of people use it as a framework to implement their own ideas. That's just fine by me, and that drives a lot of the work I do on it now.

When I consider new versions now, my main focus is maintaining that solid baseline while adding features that create value. Obsidian's greatest advantage is flexibility, you can add a +2 here or there and still feel like the system works.

2) How often are people succeeding at Obsidian? Basically...is the math working out to my expectations, and that has a lot to do with number 1. I mentioned in my previous notes that my party was succeeding with more regularity that I had anticipated, but that seems to be the way we play with the system. If others are doing the same, then it may call for a change in the baseline assumptions.

3) Do players enjoy the system...or even skill challenges in general? The whole concept of using set mechanics to determine what used to be wholly just roleplay talk is still a new thing for 4e...and ultimately the question becomes is it a good thing?

One thing I have learned from my experience playing and running Obsidian challenges is that I like my skill challenges to be infrequent and a big deal. I don't use them for regular negotiations or persuasion, I don't use them for general moving around the world. I only use them for a big chase, a very important negotiation, or a critical piece of information.

I hope that answers some of your questions about my answers to your answers

Indeed it does! Out of five stars, I rate this gratuitous ("given without recompense", not "uncalled for") response from you as "handy and succinct"! Cheers!

 

[SabreCat]

In my campaign, I've been using Obsidian 1.2 pretty much as-written. We still use original "X successes before 3 failures" Skill Challenges for anything done over a very long period of time: recruiting a faction, building an army, etc., where you make a couple skill rolls here and there until eventually finishing the task. But for anything on a scene-level time scale we use Obsidian.

The "momentousness" of these challenges varies. They have about the same variety of weight as combat encounters, ranging from "random encounter to build up XP" (crossing a chasm, catching a thief on the run) to "boss battle" (convincing an isolationist Elven kingdom to send an ambassador to a Human nation in need of aid). But the unifying factor is that they all require teamwork on some level; anything a single character can accomplish is either a simple skill check or an extended DMG Skill Challenge as above.

The party isn't very min-maxed, especially with regard to skill challenges. Usually there's only one character trained in the primary skill(s) for the challenge at hand, and the rest have to rely on their one-off creative skill uses or lucky dice rolls to contribute successes. However, we have found some fun uses of utility powers to improve the odds--physical skill challenges often benefit from a judicious use of the Jump spell! The result has been an even mix of full successes and partial successes, but no outright failures as yet.

 

[Black Plauge]

I'm running the Obsidian system pretty much as written and haven't had the party fail in 6 skill challenges (with party size ranging from 4 to 8). This is probably due to the fact that I'm a bit lenient on the use of non-standard skills (allowing them whenever a player can give me a good explanation) so I'm not too concerned about it.

There are three issues that have cropped up though:

1) I'm running the Scales of War adventure path and thus converting skill challenges written under the WotC rules into Obsidian. As is, this is hard because there is no guidance on how to translate the Complexity factor. If I simply ignore it (since Obsidian doesn't have one) then a Complexity 1 and a Complexity 5 challenge both convert to the same thing, which upsets my players when they are paying attention come XP time. As written, the Obsidian system seems to only be able to really convert Complexity 5 skill challenges (based on XP equivalency). Short skill challenges are probably a step in the right direction, but I haven't had the chance to try them out yet (and that would only really take care of one of the 4 other complexity levels). Larger skill challenges are for moving beyond Complexity 5 (since they tie together multiple full Obsidian challenges). It would be really nice to see a system for how each of the different Complexities should map into Obsidian style skill challenges.

2) Along the same lines, standard skill challenges generally list 4 or more primary skills, while the Obsidian system is setup to handle just one or two. How should the DM adjust the skill challenge in the Obsidian system to account for such a large number of primary skills? Also, what does one do with the Secondary (Other) Skills that are usually listed in a standard skill challenge? These skills don't contribute to success or failure, but provide bonuses on subsequent checks. Obsidian's round based system makes it nigh on impossible for this kind of thing to work because it's generally better to try the same check twice than to use a secondary skill to make it easier to succeed on one primary check.

3) Combat Skill challenges need some work. The information provided is only basic and lacks hard numbers. I would love to see something like page 4 for Combat Skill challenges. Also, there needs to be a provision for failure. In Siege at Bordin's Watch, for example, there is a Magic Crossbow Turrent trap that can be deactivated at the control panel by a successful skill challenge. However, there is a kind of built-in anti-tampering device in that the control panel explodes should the person playing with the panel fail the challenge. Obsidian's Combat skill challenges don't provide for this kind of dynamic. (I ended up resorting to the standard skill challenge for this one.)

 

[iwatt]

First of all: awesome system! Thank you very much for it.

The second: How decoupled is the level/difficulty table from the Successes table. The reason I ask is because I don't play 4E, I play True20, and if the tables are independent from each other, I could simply develop a DC table for equivalent True20 skill modifiers.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

First of all: awesome system! Thank you very much for it.

The second: How decoupled is the level/difficulty table from the Successes table. The reason I ask is because I don't play 4E, I play True20, and if the tables are independent from each other, I could simply develop a DC table for equivalent True20 skill modifiers.

WOO ANOTHER POST IN THIS THREAD!

Has anyone come up with a suitable process for converting a regular skill challenge a la published adventures over to Obsidian? I, too, tried to run Scales of War at one point. Like Black Plague, I didn't find converting the challenges to be all too easy to do.

 

[77IM]

iwatt, that is a fantastic idea! To answer your question, I think the way Stalker came up with his numbers, is that he determined which DC would produce the desired success rate for an individual check, and what success/partial-success thresholds would produce the desired success/partial-success rate for the overall challenge. So as long as your new table of DCs has the same success rate for individual checks as the D&D table of DCs, the table of success/partial-success thresholds should be the same for both systems.

You should start a thread about this on the True20 boards (if they ever come back up... ). The main issue I see is that in True20, the skill modifiers can vary a lot more widely than in D&D. For example, by level 7 (T20) you can have a +20 skill mod (10 ranks + 5 ability + focus + talented), while your teammate only has a +0 in the same skill. So against a DC 21 check, you succeed automatically and your ally fails automatically (it gets even worse if the Narrator allows you to Take 5). In D&D, getting a 20-point difference is difficult before level 15, and even then it requires a level of commitment that is a bit more expensive that in True20. So it's easier to have a one-size-fits-all DC in D&D than it will be in True20. You can probably account for this by having degrees-of-success or options like Going for Broke or some way for the +20 guy to help the +0 guy out. I am interested to see what you come up with.

-- 77IM

 

[iwatt]

Well, Expertise is the chance for Expert's to shine. A +4 to a skill for a whole skill challenge is a great equalizer. Conviction rerolls are more powerful than the going for Bold Recovery mechanic, given the way it works (d20+mod v/s d10+10+mod). That will give better chances at successes. Also, Skilly Mc-awesome can Go for Broke more consistently in True20, because of the spread of abilities.

I was going to present this idea in the true20 forums, but alas it seems it still is down. In any case, I don't think Stalker would mind his system been used in more gamesets.

I did some preliminary number crunching, using the max-skilled 4E dude (nut Not Skilly max-awesome), and comparing it to the DC table there's a constant difference between the modifier and the DC. The DC table assumes an increase at Level 8 of the applied attribute. Given the same, basis I used for True20 an assumed skill modifier of 3+Level + Abi, with Abi=3 for levels 1-5 and 4 for levels 6 and above. That produced the folliwing DC tables:

|	Level	|	DC	|
|	1	|	16	|
|	2	|	17	|
|	3	|	18	|
|	4	|	19	|
|	5	|	20	|
|	6	|	22	|
|	7	|	23	|
|	8	|	24	|
|	9	|	25	|
|	10	|	26	|
|	11	|	27	|
|	12	|	28	|
|	13	|	29	|
|	14	|	30	|
|	15	|	31	|
|	16	|	32	|
|	17	|	33	|
|	18	|	34	|
|	19	|	35	|
|	20	|	36	|

Now this is a first stab at it, and you are correct that there will be a much larger variance between max and min skills. How to handle this? Allow more creative uses of skills per challenge. Also, Conviction is a very powerful mechanic, that ought to give better chances to the players. I've already developed a challenge for tonight's game, based on this, and have True20ified it and Obsidianized it

 

[Stalker0]

I'm always interested in adapt my mechanics to a wider audience.

As for true20, I've never played the system. I will say that if it has a much wide skill variance than 4e my system is not likely to work well.

What 4e gives me is a pretty reasonable assurance of where a party's skills are going to be. Not perfect of course, but the variance isn't that large. You couldn't apply the same logic to 3e for example, where the skills can very by as much as 30 in some cases.

What would likely happen in a system with wider variance is that the higher skill guys would carry the party through the challenge, and the challenge would have to be tailored to them and not to your low skill guys.

Edit: Iwatt, I also read that skill challenge you posted in the link. It actually just gave me a very interesting idea on how to have a failure system that doesn't penalize players for participating. Unfortunately I get on a plane shortly so I won't have time to throw down some numbers, but it feels like a brain storm!!

 

[iwatt]

OK, the spread for True20 is larger than 4E, but much lower than 3.5E because:

1) No synergy bonuses
2) Magic items emulate feats, so no stacking
3) No infinite amount of bonuses (insight, morale, whatever)
4) More skill points per level, meaning a better chance at having a trained skill
5) A more condensed skill list

True20 also gives characters much more narrative control than 3E because of:

1) Conviction reroll: you reroll your check, but with the following ((d20+mod becomes d10+10+mod).
2) The Skill Monkey class has the possibility to gain +4 to a skill check for a whole scene by spending an Action Point
3) At any time a Hero can take a level of fatigue to gain a +2 to a skill check.
4) A Hero can spend Conviction to emulate a feat for one round, like skill focus or something else

These points allow heroes to shore up weaknesses, or temporarily become Skilly McAwesome for a scene.

True20 does have one advantage over 4E in the manner how it handles powers, something I discovered last night.

The Powers in true20 are handled using a power check, which is basically (3+Level+Ability), the same as skills.

This came in handy because the Adept last night wanted to use Teleport to help the Skill Challenge. I simply had him roll the DC with his Teleport Check, which was basically a maxed out skill.

In regards to last night's skill challenge, I can report the following:

The challenge was for 4 10th level PCs:

Skill Challenge DC 26

The Cathedral is in flames, and you hear those trapped inside calling for your help. The main entrance is blocked by the collapse of the marquee. You must somehow enter and get the people trapped outside.

Get inside (Segment 1)
Once the players have located endangered citizens, they need to get to them. The entrance is Blocked. The crumbling structure has created obstacles to getting in or out.

Primary Skills:
Athletics: Clear the rubble out of the way.
Notice: Find an alternate route.
Diplomacy: Does not count as a success, but allows you to enlist other citizens to help clear the rubble from the blocked path, giving a +2 on the Athletics check.

Roaring Flames. (Segment 2)
The flames leap out at you, threatening to singe you with each step.

Primary Skills:
Automatic Success: You run through the flames, ignoring the danger to yourself. Take +4 Damage, and make DC 15 Reflex save to avoid Catching on Fire
Acrobatics: You leap and twist out the way. If you fail, make a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid Catching on Fire
Notice: You find a way through the flames, towards the trapped people. If you fail, you take a -2 penalty in the next segment.
Knowledge (Nature): You understand how fire works and anticipate it’s movements. Does not count as a success, but grants a +2 to your Notice or Acrobatics rolls.

Special: The smoke and heat are exhausting. Everybody makes a Fort save DC 20. Failure means you take 1 level of fatigue, Failure by 5 or more means you take 2 levels of fatigue.

Rescue (Segment 3)
Now that you’ve come in, it’s time to get out.

Primary Skills:
Athletics: There’s no better way out of this than through sheer effort. You lift the fallen and make your way out.
Notice: You navigate the citizens out to safety easily.
Diplomacy: You are able to coordinate yourself and the those trapped. As a team, you exit safely.
Knowledge (Nature): Knowing how to work within the flames allows you to guide everyone out safely.

Special: The smoke and heat are exhausting. Everybody makes a Fort save DC 20. Failure means you take 1 level of fatigue, Failure by 5 or more means you take 2 levels of fatigue.

Victory: You rescue all 20 people trapped inside the cathedral.
Partial Victory: You only rescue half of them
Failure: They were already dead from smoke inhalation.

First of all, the encounter was awesome

Second, they succeeded completely, but it involved a heavy use of resources (Conviction and Fatigue), to the point that 2 of them passed out at the end of the 2nd segment. The fire came right after they defeated an attack, so they were already wounded.

Now the challenge was tailor made to their abilities, cause the idea was to showcase them as heroes. If I had thrown a Social challenge at them last night they would have sunk, cause their 2 social characters were not there.

In conclusion, I will run things with the DCs as shown below, and report further results.

 

[Silverwave]

This is by far the best Skill Challenge alternative system ! I'll use this from now on, with some tweaks, mostly on player's options (I'll use only bold recovery, critical succes).

I was wondering about something. I'm not sure if I like having to set a primary skill for the challenge (I better like a wider view on the possible use of any skill that would fit). What if I don't set a primary skill ? This mean players don't have the +2 for using the primary skill. What's the effect on the challenge difficulty/succes rate ?