Rethinking Skill Challenges

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's interesting that you are only looking at it from a mechanical perspective. I think there are solutions from the colour side as well.

1. You don't do anything? Something bad happens. It might not be a mechanical failure, but it will suck.

You're running away from the dragon and you don't do anything. Fine, it eats you. You're supposed to be talking to the Duke and you don't say anything? He gets creeped out and thinks you have a secret to hide, so he starts talking to you. You still don't say anything? That's very rude; the Duke might throw you in jail while he finishes his talks with the rest of the PCs.

2. If you don't think of it in terms of "Intimidate" but instead "I put my sword to his throat and say, 'If you don't tell us who you're working for I'll gut you like a fish - and then my cleric buddy will heal you so we can find a new place to cut you.'" There is going to be a consequence to that action - indeed, there should be a consequence to any action. Play off the fictional reality of the action instead of "I roll Intimidate. Does 23 succeed?"

3. I don't think every PC should shine in every skill challenge.

4. Interesting.

Yeah, and let me reinforce that. A totally mechanical skill challenge, one where the action simply consists of a fairly static situation where the PCs are just make skill checks again and again to pile up X number of successes WILL be mechanical and probably uninteresting. At best it will be a spam fest. You can toss in a bunch of mechanical rules to defeat that, but it doesn't fix the basic problem, which is the SC very limited.

Now, there is a place for these kinds of challenges, maybe in combat or as simple 'speed bump' challenges that one or two characters quickly solve. Maybe a few other cases where the situation can be handled that way and be logical (say a race or a soccer game could work that way, though it might be more interesting done another way).

The challenge should present different 'tactical' situations. It should be built around the in-game action, not around the mechanics. Just make sure each evolving situation in the challenge requires a bit different tactics to beat.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

With my group, skil challenges are slowly getting more interesting. I use Stalker0's Obsideon method and keep it pretty freeform. The first time I ran an encounter, everyone spammed thier highest skill and generally stuck with 'I roll intimidate' as flavor text to thier attempts.
The second time it was better, altho they still focused on the mechanically high stats, so I tossed in some exclusions on the skills to force them to use thier off-stats.. which they did and they succeeded at the challenge.
Now, almost 10 skill challenges latter, the group is being descriptive and inventive with thier skills.

I have also implemented the increasing DC option instead of ruling specific skills out, basically any skill might be able to be used but the player has to sell it to me why it would help.

As such, I have seen a Rogue use Stealth successfully in an abandoned Elvish city/forest to track an assassin... he said he would look for the best way to move while staying hidden as that is where the assassin would have gone.

Here are some ideas I have learned to use:
- don't announce that its a skill challenge unless you have to.
- require a description and then you choose which skill applies
- allow players to not be involved, altho encourage them to try
- Use Stalker0's Obsideon system
- Failure costs. I generally use either a loss of a healing surge, hp damage, or difficulty later on {combat or non-combat}
- Be descriptive.. players have a hard time being inventive when you give them another 5x5 room and a door.
- Don't use skill challenges. No, seriously. Use complex skill checks, use non-mechanical/non-dice resolutions. Save the Skill Challenge for when its important {and worth the XP}

 

[Joshua Randall]

1. Incentivize don't punish
Problem: There's a disincentive to participate with low skills because failure is worse than inaction.

(emphasis added)

This is the number one problem with SCs. Solve it, and I think everything else falls into place.

I think it's a general truism that for the heroic style that 4e espouses, you never, ever want "I do nothing" to be the optimal move for the player.

Of course, how you solve it most effectively is tricky. Many proposed solutions, many good ideas.

 

[wayne62682]

Giving it some more thought I think the root of the problem is that EVERYONE, WotC included, tends to use SCs wrong. The original basis of the SC was that it was just a decision fork, and no matter what the outcome you ended up going to the same area, just something different might happen. For instance:

You're seeking an audience with the king to tell him of some cultist activity in the city and have to get past the guards. If you succeed on the challenge, you see the king, he becomes alarmed and commissions your group to root out the cultists, perhaps giving you some benefit later on or some reinforcments to make the final battle easier. If you FAIL, you still see the king, but he basically just says "I'm rather busy, handle this for me an we'll talk more". The same thing happens, but you don't get a bonus reward from the king, quite possibly someone is in league with the cultists and you get ambushed later on (to make up for the XP lost for losing the SC) and the final encounter is standard difficulty as you have no backup.

THAT, IMO is how to use a skill challenge. Far too often I see one where failure has an actual NEGATIVE impact. Even most of the WotC adventures do this - if you fail a skill challenge it has some major negative impact, when it's supposed to just alter something later. Take the very first skill challenge in KotS; perfect example of what I consider a very POOR challenge. Failure means a monster MUCH higher level than you will attack the party, which probably causes a wipe/TPK.

A good example of a skill challenge is in P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens (I think that's the name, been a while). If you fail, you get lost and end up with some extra encounters that make up for the XP you didn't get for winning the SC, but you end up back at your destination with no other repercussions other than being a little more beaten up from the fights.

In short: There's not supposed to be a blatant negative effect on an SC, it simply affects the route that you end up taking to the same point. It's a fork in the road, where Point A (success) is easier and Point B (failure) is harder, but both still meet up at Point C. Too often, however, I see SCs where success is the only real option, or things come to a halt, or worse where if you fail there's nothing to make up for the XP that you lost from it, when an SC is supposed to take the place of a regular encounter, therefore if it doesn't come through the PCs will be one encounter short of what they should be facing, and therefore their XP will be skewed.

 

[Quickleaf]

Great feedback all around @Dr Ruminahi ~ I like how the "gateway skills" could indicate what other skills might be useful if a PC continues down that track. It dovetails nicely with Firelance's idea of sub-challenges. @ Firelance ~ I liked your breakdown of skill challenge categories and especially how to incorporate sub-challenges. Actually this was the direction I was headed with SC templates, so a chase/race challenge would have a different mechanical structure from an investigation or "surviving" a storm at sea or negotiating. I also wonder if you would include any of these as independent categories: Prepare (eg. Get ready for war, plan assassination, setup ambush), Handle Fallout (eg. Rescue people from collapsing bridge, setup refugee camp, what to do with many prisoners, put out fire), Compete (eg. A jousting or archery tournament, gambling game).

 

[jbear]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickleaf
1. Incentivize don't punish
Problem: There's a disincentive to participate with low skills because failure is worse than inaction.

(emphasis added)

This is the number one problem with SCs. Solve it, and I think everything else falls into place.

I think it's a general truism that for the heroic style that 4e espouses, you never, ever want "I do nothing" to be the optimal move for the player.

Of course, how you solve it most effectively is tricky. Many proposed solutions, many good ideas.



I often avoid this by implementing group skill checks: You want to Bluff? Of cousre you do, with that +14 Bluff modifier you have you wiley old Warlock. And you think your grumpy dwarven fighter can sit back and twidle his thumbs? Wrong!

The Hobgoblin Captain of the Watch is no thickie! He has to deal with goblinoids all day long... not the most trustworth or honest bunch, now are they? He will of course talk to the Warlock, but he will also observe his companions and read from their body language to see if his words ring true.

Mechanically: Everyone except the Warlock rolls Bluff at the appropriate DC (usually medium, but good rp can reduce this to easy and dumb ideas can increase it to hard); any failure will increase the Warlocks Bluff DC by 2. Critical successes or brilliant ideas (instant success) can decrease it by 2.

Everyone is involved. Everyone is encouraged to RP.

Everyone has to get over the horde of army ants swarming the swamp floor? Why would only the Goliath Barbarian have to roll? How are the others going to get past? Piggyback? So you can climb through the trees using athletics or swing through the vines using acrobatics. So here's how I do it:

One person can choose to 'Lead' the check, usually at a Hard DC. Success means the others can follow at an easy or medium DC depending on the situation. If someone leads Athletics, this does not affect those who wish to use acrobatics and vice versa. Overall success is calulated so: 4/5 successes = 1 overall success
3/5 successes = 0 success (and usually leads to a slightly more compromised situation as the challenge continues)
2/5 success = 1 overall failure (and leads a highly compromised situation as the challenge continues).
If this is too harsh then you can do 3/5 is success, 2/5 neither and 1/5 failure.

Leaders can allow a reroll on a failed check 1/challenge (usually at the cost of a HSurge)

Any individual failures, whether overall success is achieved or not, have consequences related to the situation that have to be played out and resolved using secondary skills. Argghh, you've fallen and are hanging inches above the swarming ants... Failures here can lead to further loss of healing surges or other relevant penalties which will effect the continuation of the challenge.

I also have degrees of success on an individual check affect the rest of the group. After succeeding past the army of red ants the group stumble into an area riddled with quicksand. Lookout! The group's 'scout' rolls perception on a Hard DC. Failure means the warning comes to late and all party members make a SThrow with a penalty to the roll in order to avoid falling in. Success means the warning comes just in time. All make a SThrow with a bonus. However a success that is 5 or more above the required DC means the warning is so swift and effective that the danger is completely avoided. Those that fail their saving throws are sinking in the quicksand, and the group has to resolve the situation using secondary skills and 'good ideas'. Failure to do so is penalised with loss of Hsurges or other appropriate penalties that affect the continuation of the challenge.

I prefer danger to be an element of my challenges. I also want everyone involved whether they are natural athletes or complete incompetent fumblefingers. I want everyone to have their chance to lead/shine, but that doesn't mean everyone else can hide behind them in the shadows, disguising their own incompetencies.

Anyway, I find elements like these lead to very fun, involving, challenging and interesting cahllenges.

 

[wayne62682]

I like the above idea. It's still a bit too "Let's FORCE everyone to participate whether they want to or not" for my tastes, but is headed towards an interesting compromise where being forced has a very small impact on the overall success, it doesn't basically force a failure.

 

[jbear]

I usually reserve it for situations that I consider that everyone is forced to participate. If everyone has to climb over a wall, why wouldn't everyone have to roll. Either climb or come up with your own way around. But if you are finding other ways around things, then you're being involved as well aren't you? It's not something I do for every check in a skill challenge. But is usually a feature at least once or twice, sometimes more depending on the kind of situation.

I think it adds a dynamic element, whereby even minor failures that don't affect the overall challenge, do have an affect on the action, perhaps even changing the course and the PCs direction. I try and avoid situations where it feels like:'dang. a fail. careful only two more of those and something bad will happen' and carry on as if nothing was amiss. I prefer: 'oh crap... a fail!!!! Brace yourselves', and something changes, happens, goes awry and the PCs have to think on their feet to sort it out, in order to be able to progress any further. Once that is done, then carry on, but probably not the same way if there hadn't been a failure, because the situation has changed.

I tend to make up pretty elaborate flow charts to have a mental guide to the kind of things that could happen depending on the variious degrees of success and failure. I don't always stick to it religiously, as players can come up with stuff you hadn't taken into account. Still, it's usually pretty useful to plan for a little bit of improvisation ahead of time.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I usually reserve it for situations that I consider that everyone is forced to participate. If everyone has to climb over a wall, why wouldn't everyone have to roll. Either climb or come up with your own way around. But if you are finding other ways around things, then you're being involved as well aren't you? It's not something I do for every check in a skill challenge. But is usually a feature at least once or twice, sometimes more depending on the kind of situation.

I think it adds a dynamic element, whereby even minor failures that don't affect the overall challenge, do have an affect on the action, perhaps even changing the course and the PCs direction. I try and avoid situations where it feels like:'dang. a fail. careful only two more of those and something bad will happen' and carry on as if nothing was amiss. I prefer: 'oh crap... a fail!!!! Brace yourselves', and something changes, happens, goes awry and the PCs have to think on their feet to sort it out, in order to be able to progress any further. Once that is done, then carry on, but probably not the same way if there hadn't been a failure, because the situation has changed.

I tend to make up pretty elaborate flow charts to have a mental guide to the kind of things that could happen depending on the variious degrees of success and failure. I don't always stick to it religiously, as players can come up with stuff you hadn't taken into account. Still, it's usually pretty useful to plan for a little bit of improvisation ahead of time.

I on the other hand have concentrated more and more on description and less and less on SC mechanics. I'll write myself a note about anything appropriate, which may come out to be a decent amount for a complex SC, but mostly I want to describe things.

The question with something like everyone climbing a wall as part of an SC is what exactly is a fail telling you? That character didn't make it up the wall? Obviously everyone is going to have to be up the wall if the party needs to stay together. I'd prefer generally to have some rolls represent the team effort of getting up the wall. Failure is going to probably mean making noise, someone taking a fall and losing an HS, the climb taking longer than planned for etc depending on the SC. It COULD be a group check, which is usually reasonable for this sort of thing.

Mostly I'm starting to lose my liking for the template concept. To a certain extent its not bad, but there are such variations in even pretty straightforward challenges. Unless you're really aiming to set up exactly the same situation its tough to create generic SCs.

 

[jbear]

Ok, so a wall is not such a good example. Change the word wall for any cicumstance or obstacle that the entire group are faced with, and it is not realistic that only one of the group can take care of it by themselves.

What if we change wall for towering sea cliff face, sneaking past the slumbering dragon, knowingly swallowing the traitors laced wine after having lined the stomach with a counter-substance etc etc where failure, even by one of the players upon making a group roll should have a consequence. Not one that necessarily supposes a failure on the overall progression of the challenge, but at least a momentary set/back difficulty which branches off from the challenge and is resolved either mechanically, or by clever RP, or a combination of the two.

So your counter-venom has worked on the large scale (successful group endurance checks whose difficulty was set by the result of the creators nature check, for example), however Scraggly Mage doesn't quite have the stomach for it... [scraggly mage rolled a 2 and with his +2 modifier he couldn't make the easy CD required despite the rangers previous skillfull concotion of the counter-venom] so during the rest of the challenge, or at least for a while until the group resolve it with other actions that don't affect the continuation of the challenge, Scraggly Mage will occaisionally doze off without warning... which could complicate things depending on what they are doing at the time.

But lets see what we can do with a fail climbing a mundane garden wall: Splotch: Clumsy the Dwarf tumbles over the wall pulling Shaggy Shaman with him, unfortunately landing in a wheel barrow of ripe delicious looking tomatoes. When the mist of red tomato juice clears, all that is left is tomato pulp, much of which is splattered over the face and beard of an elder sage-like man who was kneeling nearby doing the gardening.

So 3/5: not a fail but not a success. You got over the wall, sure. But the person you sneaked in to see, whose passion happens to be his magnificent garden, is not entirely overjoyed to see you, shall we say. Let's see how the PCs wriggle their way out of this momentary complication. A fail, well, having got over the wall, the heavy footed group have smashed the Sage's gardens to pieces. and on a success of 4/5, well the set back is so minor that the Sage merely scowls at the heavy footprints left in his tomato patch, and warns the pcs to mind where they are treading with their big, stonking feet!

I'm not advocating: There is a wall. Everyone roll athletics. Ok, you two get over. You three fall. Lose a HealingSurge. That's the third fail. You lose.
That would suck.