Combat Skill Challenge

The party has a monster-filled dungeon ahead of them with the BBEG at the end. However, the dungeon is basically a minor subplot to the whole of what is happening elsewhere. I would like to introduce a skill challege to plowing through the dungeon part (which lacks any single threats to the party) to get to the BBEG. I'd like the party to finally arrive at the BBEG, but perhaps not with all their healing surges & daily powers. So I walked through many of the available skill challenges on the Wizards site (I have a DDI account) and I didn't see anything at first scour.

I am imagining that nearly all of their skills might come into play, and with each success passing to the next part. Perhaps each failure could cost the main dice roller and any aiding-another at the time to lose a healing surge. And maybe a daily power use could be used to negate a roll or bypass a level, if the power is applicable.

Any help would be great!

Do you have any specific ideas in mind as to what is draining the PC's healing surges?

(Also, don't remove daily powers. That makes players cranky!)

I used skill challenges in an attempt to simulate the concept of moving through a warzone battlefield.

Instead of having them fight the "encounter of the moment" or sit there while I made multiple AOE attack rolls from siege weapons, I used skill challenges

Unfortunately since it was my first try, I was stuck on the skills to use - most of the challenges came down to Athletics and Endurance with Acrobatics and Nature as secondaries.

What I did find useful was that each "Step" of the overall challenge had both a group roll (3 failures and group penalty) and individual rolls each "round" of moving through the battle.

So for example in your case, set out your "rooms" as things to bypass. Then for example as a group they need to be Stealthy (3 failures and a monster hears them thus they lose a healing surge each since they got into combat).

Individually they may need Dungeoneering, Arcana, Perception, etc to move through the labyrinth in the most efficient manner. If they fail their individual roll you may assign penalties to each individual in the group roll, or take another surge from that player (they got hit more often in the encounter).

You should rate each "room" various difficulties thus they may lose more than just 1 healing surge.

Just some quick ideas. I've only tried this once - it worked okay but I think it needed more work.

D

If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying you are excited about pitting the players in a battle against a big bad evil guy, and it's only logical that this guy lives at the end of a dungeon filled with other baddies, but you have no interest in actually making your players fight through a bunch of little battles with those guys. Correct? You also want the players to arrive at the BBEG battle having depleted some of their resources, to reflect the fact that they've "fought through the other battles."

Sure, you could probably do this with a skill challenge, but you'd want to make sure your players are buying into the concept. Battling with skills rather than attack powers is doable, but it's not what the structure of D&D4e was built for. What skills do you use to win a fight? Well, it's usually your attack powers, defenses, hit points, etc.

If you tell the party, "You open the door to the next chamber and are confronted with a bunch of axe-wielding orcs who seem intent on killing you. What do you do?" The answer is probably going to be "Roll initiative!" That's not what you want this to be about, though, so you'll have to help your players along.

What are some acceptable alternatives to rolling initiative here? Endurance to shake off the axe strikes as they deal damage? Athletics to jump over the orcs and run? Dungeoneering to spot a fragile pillar that can be pushed over to collapse a ceiling on them? Diplomacy ("Hey guys, can't we just be friends?")? I don't know - that's up to you.

Keep in mind that most players enjoy combat. They WANT to use their cool weapons and attack powers to beat up bad guys. Doing it with skills might seem like less fun to them (though your party may be different).

If instead you envision them getting through the monster-filled dungeon by AVOIDING the monsters, I could see that working as a skill challenge. Stealth, Dungeoneering, Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, maybe some social skills, Perception... I could see them all coming into play. This would be more like "rebels infiltrating the empire base" rather than "adventurers plowing through a monster-filled dungeon," which could be just as much fun. In that type of skill challenge, it's completely reasonable to say, "Okay, your 12 Stealth is a failure. A party of guards hears you and comes in to attack you. You're able to handle them without letting them raise the alarm, but in the process they beat you all up a little bit and you each lose a healing surge." I can't think of a good way to deplete daily powers unless you want to allow the use of a daily to cancel a failure or something. If the goal is to really do some depleting, you'll want to use very tough DCs on the skill checks with the assumption being that the party is going to have many failures in order to deplete those resources.

Personally, I would run all of the combat encounters and let the players arrive at the BBEG naturally, with as many surges and daily powers available as they're able to salvage. But if you really want to take the skill challenge approach, consider the "avoid detection" structure, and be prepared to be very creative!

I agree with OnlineDM. If your players like tactics, they'll want to demonstrate them, and perhaps that'll let them win with fewer resources lost too. They should be rewarded for that kind of thinking.

"Okay, your 12 Stealth is a failure. A party of guards hears you and comes in to attack you. You're able to handle them without letting them raise the alarm, but in the process they beat you all up a little bit and you each lose a healing surge."

Click to expand...

Even that's unfair. Maybe the PCs could Bluff.

Assuming that what you wish to achieve is not primarily a way for you to save on preparation time, my suggestion would be the following:

Sketch out your dungeon loosely with different paths that lead to different areas. Each area would have a mini encounter that can be 'defeated' using skills which contribute towards the overall success of the challenge.

Actually imagine what the obstacles are in each area and how they can be surpassed. Imagine how these obstacles interact with some dangerous hazard, trap or denizen/s.

Prepare 'consequences' in each area in case the the party chalks up a failure. Resolving that failure should not contribute either negatively or positively towards the challenge. It just has to be resolved in order for the party to continue.

Include neat ways that secondary skills can counteract failures (not without some degree of personal risk involved if that aid should also fail).

Have areas where team checks are required. A success is determined by whether or not the majority of the group are successful. Partial success is also possible in this case. Someone strong in the area of skill required should be able to lead the group and make a harder check in order to significantly lower the degree of difficulty for their allies. Even if overall success is achieved, individual failure may lead to a complication in the party's current situation that needs to be resolved before they can carry on with the challenge.

Have degrees of success in each relevant area. 15 may be enough for a success but it leads the party towards a more dangerous or difficult part of the dungeon. 23 on the other hand, apart from being a success, if achieved, leads them down an alternative path, perhaps towards a 'benign' area of the dungeon where they can come across treasure, aid, healing etc. etc.

Doing what you suggest, I think can work really well. But for it to be truly challenging, memorable, exciting and fun requires a good deal of forethought, preparation and imagination.

Overall this BBEG, his stronghold, and the array of inhabitants is very much a sub-plot that would take a lot of combats with scads of encounters. The creatures are generally lower level than the party, but they are numerous and like any BBEG would do, put there to slow and wear out the party. The idea, from the higher campaign aspect, is to move the plot along each session, and not to get bogged down with having to wade through each and every encounter of a fully operational stronghold, let alone figure out what to do with a bugbear harem, etc.

More of what I am looking for: The skill challenges wouldn't be about the battles; they would be more about factors other than the creatures they are fighting: swim through underwater entrance (Endurance, Athletics), battle with terrain disadvantages (Athletics, Acrobatics), being surpised (Perception, Stealth), traps (Thievery, Arcana, Dungeoneering), vast numbers of enemies (Insight, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Streetwise to bottleneck them, etc.), interrogate for insight into the next challenge (Insight, Intimidate), secret passages (Dungeoneering, History, Perception), find & release prisoners (Perception, Nature), bypass guard animals (Nature, Stealth), acquire keys from cryptic puzzles (Religion, History, Insight, Arcana), hold open door for others long enough to pass through (Endurance, Thievery), finding spots for short rests between fights (Dungeoneering, History, Perception) and perhaps more.

On top of that, daily powers wouldn't be taken away, but reserved for the players to use if they see a way to simply get an automatic success (such as dropping an ice storm on a vast hoard of enemies).

With each check (or set of checks) there would be a primary skill roller and any who are aiding (using the revised rules for such). They would be ones at risk for taking some damage or shielding others from taking it (like a fighter protecting a wizard as she helps him jump over a chasm while taking fire).

Since there doesn't seem to be anything anyone has seen and read this thread, I may derive something and post it in the 4E creation forum for some feedback.