Sudden Death Skill Challenge System

[Starfox]

This `[Automatic aid other] is one thing I disagree with. I think the players should have to decide whether to Aid Another before rolling. It makes this a real tactical decision: do you go for a safe bonus or do you take a crap-shot to win the round. The "best" strategy isn't obvious. Making a roll automatically count as Aid Another if it fails removes this strategic element.

I added it to encourage off-beat options, Someone thinks it makes sense to use an oddball skill he's not very good, he's at least helping a little by supporting. I think its a better idea to increase the DC of the task rather than remove the automatic aid other.

As for the tactical choice, I prefer a role-playing choice where the mechanics (like choosing to aid or to act) in the background. But I can see the merit fo your idea.

Otherwise I've not got a lot to report here, I'll continue to try this out and let it simmer for a while while happily reading any and all comments here.

 

[Starfox]

Sorry about the thread necromancy, but I've been using this system for a while now and been very happy with it. I polished it a bit, making repetitive skill use possible at a penalty, mainly to avoid suspension-of-disbelief issues (why can I suddenly no longer use Diplomacy at all to try and be diplomatic?).

Here is the latest version:

Sudden Death Skill Challenge System
In this system, a skill challenge consists of only a few steps, but each step is difficult. The idea is to reward success rather than penalize failure. The overall chance of success is about the same as in combat of a similar level - that is you are almost assured of success, but there is some excitement on the way there. The penalty on repetitive skill use forces characters to diversify.

• Skills to Use: The skill challenge should have a few recommended skills that can be used, but if a player comes with a good explanation of how they use a different skill this should be allowed. It is also possible to use other values, such as attack rolls, where appropriate.
• Original DCs: The DCs are those given in the original table in DMG1, page 42, including the notes. All skills have the same difficulty, with the usual +/-2 skill modifier based on DM judgment.
• Standard Action: Making a roll in a skill challenge is a standard action. Sometimes you might need to move into proper position as a separate action.
• Accumulate Only Successes: To succeed at the skill challenge, the team needs a number of successes equal to the complexity of the task. Failures are not accumulated; see below for how skill challenges fail.
• One Success Per Round: A group can only score one success at a skill challenge each round. There is thus a minimum time to complete the skill challenge of 1 round per point of complexity.
• Initiative: The skill challenge has an initiative count just like a creature does but does not roll for initiative. It generally comes last in the round. If the actions of a creature started the skill challenge, its' initiative count is right before the instigator's (as if it has just completed its action).
• How to Fail: The skill challenge takes no actions on its turn, instead it fails if no success has been scored when the skill challenge's initiative comes up.
• Desperate Effort: Just before the skill challenge is about to fail, all characters can spend action points to take an action to make additional skill rolls on the challenge.
• Repetitive use of Skills: A character that has already scored a success with a particular skill in this skill challenge will find it harder to gain further progress, suffering a +5 DC modifier, cumulative with several successes. This is to prevent boring and repetitive use of skills, yet let specialized characters have the option of using their favorite skills again, if at a penalty. This does not impair your ability to Aid Others in this skill challenge.
• Aid Other: An attempt to succeed that fails but beats DC 10 (15 at paragon level, 20 at epic level) counts as an attempt to aid other, giving a cumulative +2 to later attempts to complete the task. This bonus resets each time a success is scored. You can perform the aid other action in a round where someone else has already scored a success; the bonus then applies to the next round.
• Complications: There should be some additional complication involved in the skill challenge. Maybe it attacks each round, or there is an ongoing combat. This is especially true if the skill challenge is of a level where the DC of the skill roll does not increase compared to lower levels.

Special Cases

• A "round" is an abstract measure of time in a skill challenge. Some skill challenges take place during combat, using normal combat rounds. others have rounds that are minutes, hours, or even years in length for momentous tasks. Short interruptions are acceptable in skill challenges with rounds of minutes or more.
• Powers and (where time permits) rituals an allow a character to use an unusual skill to aid the challenge, or might reduce the future DCs of the challenge by 2. In exceptional cases, such effects might complete the skill challenge right away, but this should be rare.

 

[eriktheguy]

Anything that takes a step or three away from 'before x failures' is definitely an improvement.
Requiring 5 players to fail in a single round seems way too easy. For example, at level 1, the players have 5 rolls with which to get a 15 or better. If we conservatively assume that 2 of the players have +8, 3 of them have +2, the chances of failure in a given round are less than 2%. If one player with a good skill spends an action point, this goes down to less than 0.6%.
Also, the chances vary wildly (up to double or half chance of failure) when the number of party members changes by 1.
Have your players ever failed a skill challenge?
Sorry, but I don't think that requiring at least 1 success to stay in the challenge is a good mechanic to replace 'before x failures' with.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I don't have time at the moment to work out the proper numbers, but what you could do is increase the number of successes needed to not-fail based on the size of the group. For example, 1-3 PCs might require 1 success per round, 4-6 PCs 2 successes, 7-9 PCs 3 successes, and so forth.

You could also approach it based on a single PC (in the above example, each PC would increase the the number of successes required by 1 per 3 rounds). This latter approach has the advantage that it should keep the odds fairly stabile, regardless of group size.