Skill Challenges : invisible ones ?

[superpriest]

Part of a skill challenge is supposed to be that everyone takes their turn. If you're running a challenge then it's obvious mechanically. You even roll initiative. People don't get to sit out.

I believe they changed the rules so that you do get to sit out. In my campaign, you do. Because of course you can sit out!

No, your cha 8 fighter can't sit out of the negotiations: think of a way to contribute!

If the fighter is likely to make negotiations go poorly (because he lacks social skills and/or the player roleplays him that way), the character could leave the room. There is no reason to make him roll in that case, and no reason for everyone to roll initiative.

Now, you can make a skill challenge where you roll initiative, but applying all the rules of a skill challenge to every skill challenge situation sometimes makes the encounter feel artificial (such as rolling initiative in order to talk).

 

[Dausuul]

That has certainly been my experience, as well. I was very excited about the concept of skill challenges when 4e first came out, but when played by the book they invariably turn into, "It's my turn? I roll my best applicable skill check. If I'm not trained, I'll aid another."

Yeah, this is what I've seen whenever a 4E DM openly runs a skill challenge. It's why I don't do it--it was clear to me from the start that if you ran a skill challenge "transparently," and ran it by the book, this would be the result.

My solution is to use the concept of a skill challenge as a framework for thinking about non-combat encounters, rather than a mechanic in itself. When I design a skill-based encounter, I first decide on the "measure of success"--what are the trigger conditions for "conclude with success" or "conclude with failure?" Then I look for skills that could be applicable, and decide how each skill can aid the party in moving the encounter toward a conclusion.

Here's an example I planned for my last session. The party is making its way through a secret passage built by yuan-ti. They have a talisman of the yuan-ti snake goddess that tells the guardians it's okay to let them through, but the magic of the talisman is weak and failing.

The final guardian is a hydra, in a large, multi-leveled room with narrow stairways, where statues of snake-maidens exhale clouds of corrosive, choking smoke at unpredictable intervals. The snake-maidens are positioned near the stairways. "Conclude with success" means all PCs reach the gate on the other side of the room safely. "Conclude with failure" means the hydra attacks.

So, the relevant skills and how each can contribute:

• Athletics: Climb a wall to the next level, allowing you to bypass a stairway.
• Arcana/Dungeoneering: Predict which snake-maidens will breathe smoke next round.
• Endurance: When caught in the poison smoke, keep climbing despite its debilitating effects.
• Religion: Use the talisman to keep the hydra passive. If a round goes by in which no PC successfully makes this check, the hydra becomes unfriendly and starts making opportunity attacks. If a second round goes by in which no PC successfully makes this check, the hydra becomes hostile.
• Thievery: Disable one of the snake-maidens.

If PCs come up with other clever ideas, I might allow them to provide a benefit as well, probably at a higher DC than for the listed options. For instance, a tough Intimidate check might be enough to keep the hydra at bay after botching Religion.

Now, is this a skill challenge? By the book, probably not; I'm not adding up successes and failures. But the basic principle of the skill challenge--define conditions for success, decide what skills can contribute and how--did help me plan out the encounter.

Edited to add: I think one of the biggest failings of skill challenges as written, and one I haven't seen addressed in most of the fixes, is that skills are mechanically interchangeable. DCs may vary, but otherwise every skill check has the exact same effect as every other one. I think it's important that different skills have different mechanical--not just narrative--effects on the outcome of the challenge.

 

[surfarcher]

Part of a skill challenge is supposed to be that everyone takes their turn. If you're running a challenge then it's obvious mechanically. You even roll initiative. People don't get to sit out.

What surfarcher describes doesn't, to me, fit what a skill challenge is. It's a series of linked encounters plus some time tracking. You don't have rounds, you don't have initiative and you're likely to end up with the scenes dominated by classes who have lots of skills or who's powers are classified as 'magic' simply due to the fact that they're the people with the most straightforward solutions, and therefore the people who act on those solutions and resolve the scene first.

To me the entire point is to go around the table and actively encourage people to join the narrative. No, your cha 8 fighter can't sit out of the negotiations: think of a way to contribute! No, your 20 cha bard can't do the entire scene: let the others engage in it too!

I don't really see how saying "this is a skill challenge" suddenly devolves the entire thing into dry mechanics any more than "roll your X skill" (followed by 4 cries of "I assist!") does.

From my point of view, my least sucessful skill challenge was when I tried to conceal the challenge. Half the party basically sat back (with an air of resignation) and let the half with obviously and directly applicable skills solve it.

Urm.... Have you read DMG2? Everything you say is DMG1 to the Nth degree. It's very interesting that you strongly oppose things very carefully outlined and discussed in DMG2.

 

[Rune]

Edited to add: I think one of the biggest failings of skill challenges as written, and one I haven't seen addressed in most of the fixes, is that skills are mechanically interchangeable. DCs may vary, but otherwise every skill check has the exact same effect as every other one. I think it's important that different skills have different mechanical--not just narrative--effects on the outcome of the challenge.

Interesting point. I find, however, that this is not a problem if you are only using the skill checks to resolve player actions, instead of the other way around, which pretty much, in my experience, means playing a looser challenge, and one that is not so obviously formulaic.

 

[surfarcher]

I believe they changed the rules so that you do get to sit out. In my campaign, you do. Because of course you can sit out!

If the fighter is likely to make negotiations go poorly (because he lacks social skills and/or the player roleplays him that way), the character could leave the room. There is no reason to make him roll in that case, and no reason for everyone to roll initiative.

Yeah there's a lot of great advice in DMG2 and much of it negates or contradicts what Saeviomagy posted... What he describes is considered the most basic form of SC, from the DMG2 perspective.

FWIW I just make sure everyone has specified their activity or lack thereof

Now, you can make a skill challenge where you roll initiative, but applying all the rules of a skill challenge to every skill challenge situation sometimes makes the encounter feel artificial (such as rolling initiative in order to talk).

I'd go a lot further than sometimes I'd say much of the time, or most of the time.

 

[surfarcher]

Yeah, this is what I've seen whenever a 4E DM openly runs a skill challenge. It's why I don't do it--it was clear to me from the start that if you ran a skill challenge "transparently," and ran it by the book, this would be the result.

The overwhelimng majority seem to agree with you. I certainly do. That said some groups seem happy to run that way.

My solution is to use the concept of a skill challenge as a framework for thinking about non-combat encounters, rather than a mechanic in itself. When I design a skill-based encounter, I first decide on the "measure of success"--what are the trigger conditions for "conclude with success" or "conclude with failure?" Then I look for skills that could be applicable, and decide how each skill can aid the party in moving the encounter toward a conclusion.

That's the kind of thing I am talking about as a "planning and accounting tool". If you also don't "announce" it and have the PCs roleplay it as it unfolds it can be very slick, flexible and enjoyable.

Here's an example I planned for my last session. The party is making its way through a secret passage built by yuan-ti. They have a talisman of the yuan-ti snake goddess that tells the guardians it's okay to let them through, but the magic of the talisman is weak and failing.

The final guardian is a hydra, in a large, multi-leveled room with narrow stairways, where statues of snake-maidens exhale clouds of corrosive, choking smoke at unpredictable intervals. The snake-maidens are positioned near the stairways. "Conclude with success" means all PCs reach the gate on the other side of the room safely. "Conclude with failure" means the hydra attacks.

So, the relevant skills and how each can contribute:

• Athletics: Climb a wall to the next level, allowing you to bypass a stairway.
• Arcana/Dungeoneering: Predict which snake-maidens will breathe smoke next round.
• Endurance: When caught in the poison smoke, keep climbing despite its debilitating effects.
• Religion: Use the talisman to keep the hydra passive. If a round goes by in which no PC successfully makes this check, the hydra becomes unfriendly and starts making opportunity attacks. If a second round goes by in which no PC successfully makes this check, the hydra becomes hostile.
• Thievery: Disable one of the snake-maidens.

If PCs come up with other clever ideas, I might allow them to provide a benefit as well, probably at a higher DC than for the listed options. For instance, a tough Intimidate check might be enough to keep the hydra at bay after botching Religion.

I'd actually free-form it a lot more than that. I'll make those notes like you list, but I don't restrict to that. As long as the PCs come up with something plausible, in character and tied to the current events I'll make a judgement call, decide on the DC and allow it. I'll also allow stuff besides skill checks to accumulate successes and Advantages.

Now, is this a skill challenge? By the book, probably not; I'm not adding up successes and failures. But the basic principle of the skill challenge--define conditions for success, decide what skills can contribute and how--did help me plan out the encounter.

I believe that your only departure from RAW according to DMG2 is that you aren't ticking off successes, failures and advantages.

Edited to add: I think one of the biggest failings of skill challenges as written, and one I haven't seen addressed in most of the fixes, is that skills are mechanically interchangeable. DCs may vary, but otherwise every skill check has the exact same effect as every other one. I think it's important that different skills have different mechanical--not just narrative--effects on the outcome of the challenge.

I'll echo Rune's sentiments here. They are interchangable if you use skills to drive the Challenge. If you instead drive the challenge through roleplaying and allow successes to accumulate from factors other than skills (as per DMG2), then this "issue" vanishes. At least that's been my experience.

 

[Pbartender]

I've tried skill challenges a lot of different ways, and have thoroughly mixed results all around. I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the problem is not any specific method of running them, but rather trying to apply the same method to every skill challenge. I'm finding that certain methods and styles of "skill challenge" (I find it hard to call them all that, since the methods can be so very different) are better for in some situations, but not others.

The trick is recognizing when to use which one.

Something I've considered recently is looking at skill challenges in the same vein as the Victory Points system that was used in Red Hand of Doom... That is to say, a climactic scene is approaching, and the PCs can proactively do things ahead of time to influence that scene for better or for worse.

In a nutshell, when the skill challenge ends would not be triggered by the number of successes or failures, but by some other event... A time limit, or by the PCs visiting a certain location, for example. Also, PC action earns successes, but not failures. Failures would instead be earned by the enemy -- the PCs fail to thwart an enemy action that gives the enemy an advantage. At the end of the skill challenge, successes and failures are tallied up, and the total of each determine the extenuating circumstances of the critical scene.

 

[Ajar]

My last 4E group was all newbies, so when the first skill challenge came up, I explained the mechanics to them explicitly. Other than that, I generally don't announce them, although if someone asks, I'm certainly open about it.

On their way back from routing the hapless Skull Kicker kobolds of Kobold Hall at the behest of the shadowy Bloodghost Syndicate, my PCs realized that they were being followed. They suspected a setup, since the Skull Kicker leader was in possession of ciphered correspondence bearing the Bloodghost seal, although as it turned out there was actually an internal power struggle going on within the syndicate.

In any case, through a combination of athletics, endurance, nature, perception, and bluff checks, they managed to lure their pursuers into an ambush. With the successes, they could have simply outrun or otherwise lost their pursuers, of course, but this was a fairly mercenary party that later named themselves the Organ Grinders.

The reward for succeeding on the skill challenge was that I let them draw the battle map. If they had failed, their pursuers (dragonborn from the Red Hand of Tiamat who had been sent to make contact with the Skull Kickers) would have caught up with them sooner and I would have drawn a much less favourable battle map.

They all got a big kick out of designing their ambush location, so I think it worked out pretty well.

 

[Dausuul]

I'd actually free-form it a lot more than that. I'll make those notes like you list, but I don't restrict to that. As long as the PCs come up with something plausible, in character and tied to the current events I'll make a judgement call, decide on the DC and allow it. I'll also allow stuff besides skill checks to accumulate successes and Advantages.

Oh, I don't restrict it to that either. Anything the players come up with, they are welcome to try. The list of options is just a starting point to address the obvious choices.

I'll echo Rune's sentiments here. They are interchangable if you use skills to drive the Challenge. If you instead drive the challenge through roleplaying and allow successes to accumulate from factors other than skills (as per DMG2), then this "issue" vanishes. At least that's been my experience.

I'll have to go see what the DMG2 has to say on the subject, then. It hasn't been an issue since I started adopting the looser approach I described above, but maybe WotC has some tricks I missed.

 

[surfarcher]

I've tried skill challenges a lot of different ways, and have thoroughly mixed results all around. I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that the problem is not any specific method of running them, but rather trying to apply the same method to every skill challenge. I'm finding that certain methods and styles of "skill challenge" (I find it hard to call them all that, since the methods can be so very different) are better for in some situations, but not others.

The trick is recognizing when to use which one.

Yeah the right Challenge for the scenario is definately the trick, IME.

Something I've considered recently is looking at skill challenges in the same vein as the Victory Points system that was used in Red Hand of Doom... That is to say, a climactic scene is approaching, and the PCs can proactively do things ahead of time to influence that scene for better or for worse.

I'm a pretty big believer in tinkering with Challenges and trying something new. Sometimes it doesn't quite go right but for the most part the variety and change works well... As long as it's thought through. I think experience is a big factor in getting this right too.

In a nutshell, when the skill challenge ends would not be triggered by the number of successes or failures, but by some other event... A time limit, or by the PCs visiting a certain location, for example. Also, PC action earns successes, but not failures. Failures would instead be earned by the enemy -- the PCs fail to thwart an enemy action that gives the enemy an advantage. At the end of the skill challenge, successes and failures are tallied up, and the total of each determine the extenuating circumstances of the critical scene.

That could work nicely sometimes. One of the advantages of running them quite loose and using the "mechanic" primarily as a measurement is you don't have to be a slave to the success/failure part of it. You can run that loose and Advantages loose and just make judgement calls. So you can upgrade or downgrade complexity on the fly and decide they've done really well and deserve early overlall success or exceptionally poorly and need to put in a little more effort.

Least, that's how it seems to me.