Using Star Wars SAGA Skill Challenges in 5e

MarkB · Nov 30, 2018

Imaro said:
D'ope... I have always believed they were published in GoI before 4e...

Yeah, I had to look it up, though I do remember there being a degree of overlap timewise between the two systems. But just from reading the rules in your first post, it was pretty clear that they'd incorporated some of the refinements that 4e made through successive errata - such as the fixed number of failures at differing complexity levels.

pukunui · Nov 30, 2018

GoI was one of the last SWSE books. EDIT: The second-to-last in fact.

Imaro said:
D'ope... I have always believed they were published in GoI before 4e...

Blue · Nov 30, 2018

I've done two lengthy example posts about Challenges (nixing the word "Skill") this year, one just six weeks ago. Here they are:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-with-a-skill-challenge&p=7507743#post7507743

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?618220-Do-you-use-skill-challenges&p=7348264#post7348264

Sorry for just the link, but those are both loooong posts. Better to send you there.

Imaro · Dec 1, 2018

pukunui said:
Yeah, the GoI skill challenge rules were a refinement of the 4e rules (which were technically in the DMG, not the PHB).

That said, I remember trying to run a skill challenge in my SWSE game using the GoI rules. It didn’t work out so well in my opinion. Still felt too artificial. Have avoided skill challenges ever since.

This is all just theory at this point, since I haven't playtested using these rules in my 5e game... but would you care to elaborate what the issues were you ran into? Maybe it's something we can look to avoid here.

Zardnaar · Dec 1, 2018

SWSE had the 4E problem where you could have a +15 or so difference in skill levels reasonably early on perhaps even at level 1 (+5 trained, +5 expertise, 20 whatever vs someone else who lacked that). Certain skills were also heavily rewarded (eg piloting, use the force).

We tried the GoI rules once, thought it was kinda pointless and didn't add much to the game.

Jester David · Dec 1, 2018

Beaten to this comment. Ignore...

Imaro · Dec 1, 2018

Zardnaar said:
SWSE had the 4E problem where you could have a +15 or so difference in skill levels reasonably early on perhaps even at level 1 (+5 trained, +5 expertise, 20 whatever vs someone else who lacked that). Certain skills were also heavily rewarded (eg piloting, use the force).

We tried the GoI rules once, thought it was kinda pointless and didn't add much to the game.

Hmm... I'm thinking 5e's bounded accuracy would keep the disparity between skill values within a reasonable range... a little worried about expertise but I'm thinking even with that it should work better than 4e/SAGA.

Quickleaf · Dec 1, 2018

Imaro said:
Hmm... I'm thinking 5e's bounded accuracy would keep the disparity between skill values within a reasonable range... a little worried about expertise but I'm thinking even with that it should work better than 4e/SAGA.

Star Wars SAGA's approach was better but still had some underlying maths problems that made failure very likely & the 3 successes before X failures was not a model that fit all situations.

I made a "Skill" Challenge for an upcoming 5e game, and you can see my approach here: Crossing the Nsi Wastes - travel challenge. I put "skill" in parentheses because mine have run better since I stopped thinking of them as "skill challenges" following a mold, and more organically as "challenges" each with a unique structure/approach.

EDIT: One of the keys is that for each step of the challenge, I try to include 3 possible solutions and restrict myself to writing down only 1 skill check. I'm a big fan of clever role-playing/negotiation, creative spell use, and outside-the-box class feature use contributing toward success (without requiring a roll).

Laurefindel · Dec 1, 2018

Quickleaf said:
I made a "Skill" Challenge for an upcoming 5e game, and you can see my approach here: Crossing the Nsi Wastes - travel challenge.

Cool stuff you've got there [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]. I've been thinking about something like that for a while to spice-up the exploration pillar of the game, and hopefully make a generic "travel challenge/encounter" set of tables for different types of environments.

I haven't seen ToA, is this taken directly from the adventure, inspired by some elements of it, or completely made-up by you?

Quickleaf · Dec 2, 2018

Laurefindel said:
Cool stuff you've got there [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]. I've been thinking about something like that for a while to spice-up the exploration pillar of the game, and hopefully make a generic "travel challenge/encounter" set of tables for different types of environments.

I haven't seen ToA, is this taken directly from the adventure, inspired by some elements of it, or completely made-up by you?

I'll PM so as not to de-rail Imaro's thread!