D&D General Level Independent Challenges

[Lanefan]

Surprised nobody's mentioned mazes yet.

Mapping or navigating a maze of twisty passages all alike (or even all different) can be a challenge for any level. Just make sure there's a fat payoff in there somewhere, to make it worthwhile.

 

[Celebrim]

Surprised nobody's mentioned mazes yet.

Mapping or navigating a maze of twisty passages all alike (or even all different) can be a challenge for any level. Just make sure there's a fat payoff in there somewhere, to make it worthwhile.

Cast "Find the Path". Done.

 

[Salmakia]

One of my favorites is a sort of "morality test." I once had an NPC instruct the players to go pick a flower from the Tree of Law and bring it back to her to help prevent a catastrophe. I described the tree as one of the most beautiful, delicate, perfectly balanced natural phenomena they had ever encountered. Inscribed around the base of the tree are the words Beware all ye who walk the path of Law, for ye be not exempt from Evil. Do you follow the NPC's instructions and pick the flower or leave the tree in peace?

 

[Salmakia]

The classic is the Kobayashi Maru test from Star Trek. Although I don't love putting "unwinnable" situations into my games since those are, by nature, un-fun, so usually I'll do more of a "tricky" situation than an "impossible" one.

 

[Lanefan]

Cast "Find the Path". Done.

At high enough level, yes; but Find the Path to what (other than the way you came in) if you don't know what's in there?

 

[Quartz]

What are some challenges that can be presented in adventures that are "level independent" -- that is, not a function of hitting a certain DC, doing a certain amount of damage, or having just the right level gated ability.

Check out the Challenge of Champions adventures in Dungeon magazine.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Everything that does not require a d20 roll is level independent. Everything else is.

 

[Lanefan]

Everything that does not require a d20 roll is level independent. Everything else is.

It ain't quite so cut and dried.

The above ignores all the no-roll-required situations where a character's level either grants auto-success or enforces auto-failure.

It also ignores any challenges that deal damage enough to kill lower-level characters yet barely scratch high-level ones, falls being the most obvious among these.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What other sorts of level independent challenges are there?

Skill Challenges. The definition is getting X successes (however success is defined) before Y failures (ditto.) Chase scenes, ritual interruptions, hostage negotiations, all sorts of stuff becomes a simple and easily-applied framework.

 

[Pedantic]

If you're willing to write a scaling DC system, then literally any challenge resolved with skills. You can just pick your preferred chance of success and throw away the character sheets, or alternatively, replace your skill descriptions with a table of scaling adjectives (and you probably should, lest you mess up and describe this lock as finest dwarven engineering again, even though the player defeated a fine dwarven lock 5 levels ago and ostensibly got better since then).

I've spent a very long time screaming into the void that this is gross and you shouldn't do that. Let your players be good at things, and let them solve problems by being good at things.