D&D 3E/3.5 [4e bits in 3.5 report] Skill Challenges

[Keefe the Thief]

So, i run an online game every Thursday using Maptool and Skype, set in the FR Moonsea region. I have two players, who are both The Dark Eye veterans and heavily into roleplay - some sessions see no combat at all. It´s a gestalt campaign - Dwarven Cleric/Knight and Moon-Elven Scout/Warmage, and the story and background are taken from the old Pool of Radiance Gold Box game.

The "group" went into the slums on a mission for a strange and somewhat befuddled mage named Ohlo. The spellcaster told them that he had lost "something" in the dreaded Old Rope Guild, and he would pay them handsomely if they retrieved it. Only, he forgot what "it" was.

They had heard about that guild before. One of the Council Proclamations warned that some "Giant Men" used the guild as a hideout, and that all bounty hunters who tried to overcome them had failed. Add to that the strange and disturbing rumor about the guild, and they crept stealthily* and slowly towards the entrance...

Now, IMC the Old Rope Guild is a nightmarish construction only a madman could devise, a jumble of houses, buildings, shacks and other stuff just shoved together and left to rot. Impossible to map. I use narrative maps a lot in this campaign, but felt that here some other method was called for.
Enter the Skill Challenge!

The players know that 4e is coming but, the challenge was new to them. I explained how it worked ("you think about interesting and useful uses of your skills and try to sell them to me, and you decide how hard you are going to make it for yourself - i resolve the whole thing based on your rolls, adding up successes and failures"), and secretly noted a 6/3 skill challenge with DCs of 15/20/25.

And off we went. The first try was pretty standard stuff: The scout searches for tracks and rolls a 23 - two successes, well done. I immediately saw that the players had a hard time to come up with creative uses of their skills. The dwarf player really had some good ideas, but it was hard work for them. I think, however, that one reason is that they do not have a lot of skills. I give 2 skill points more than written, but non of their classes is a total skill monkey.

Anyway, idea nr. 2 was the dwarf using spellcraft to "sense" his way through the guild. I would not have allowed this, but... well.. there WAS some remnant of the original Pool of Radiance hiding in this building, and why shouldn´t he pick up on that? So he rolled well, got another two successes, and we were up to 4/0.

The scout botched his next roll, and it earned them 2 misses (we´re at 4/2). Bad luck, narrowly missing the DC. He had tried to remember the lay of the building from an earlier aerial survey he did. I decided that he could use his K(Geography) for this, because he was trained in picking up "mental maps" of places fairly quickly as a scout. Anyway, the party was already scraping the bottom of the well here - new rules, not being used to these amounts of creative thought during skill use, not a lot of useful skills - it all added up. IMHO the main problem was the lack of experience - i´m pretty sure they are going to be much more effective next time.

Now they try two things at once, getting really creative. The Scout stays a little more conservative: he tries to use his Search skill to get any interesting documents which could give the party some pointers. He succeeds, and finds a letter from a Merchant´s wife, complaining about "that strange building" they are looking for (but i ruled that this attempt really burned a LOT of time). The cleric is really creative: he asks if he can use Spellcraft in combination with his Portal Master Feat! Now, i didn´t tell them about the Pool, but it IS some of the strangest gates in existence IMC, so.... He rolls, well, but not well enough. 4/4 - challenge failed. But i had ruled that the first fail of the challenge really let them "only" encounter some of the nasty creatures of the Guild. Enter M´rik, Ogre Fighter: TPK material, busily throwing a dead halfling against some wall for sport. Again they used a combination of their resources, good thinking and roleplaying to totally avoid the Ogre! I was pretty happy and ruled that the Dwarf was allowed a second go - he HAD picked up something, after all.

And this time (again rolling against DC 20), he succeeded, and they found the building they were searching for! Much rejoicing ensued, and the quest for the strange mage got stranger still.....

Conclusion:
Skill challenges are extremely useful, but both the DM and the players have to learn the right mindset in order to maximize their coolness awesomeness radness. You get the best results if you play the skill usage fast and loose, using the Horned Helmet of GM fiat a lot. If you consult tables in the PHB skill entries or restrict skill use to the mentioned examples, a lot of potential goes to waste. I´m pretty excited about this skill technique, and think about incorporating it somehow into my Earthdawn and TDE campaigns.


* Of course, the dwarf is wearing a Banded Mail, and his excellent stealth roll added up to -7. That lead to an encounter with a wounded Dire Wolverine which was - typically for the party - solved using some good skill rolls, a Cure Light Wounds spell and lots of roleplaying.

 

[Singing Smurf]

I've been thinking about trying out the skill challenge system in my 3.5 game. This is quite helpful. Thanks!

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Great post!

Love the actual in-game information and example.

Please, if there are others out there, post your results as well!

Vielen Danken,
Wis

 

[the Jester]

Question: Why were you giving 2 successes or failures per check?

That said, I've been using skill challenges a lot in my 3.5 games lately. Last night I just initiated the last of my groups that hadn't already been exposed to them. They were trying to find some fey that had kidnapped a baby and run off into the woods with her.

It was a "6 before 4" test- I wanted the pcs to have a good chance to feel the system out, and there were only three of 'em last night. First, the ranger did some awesome tracking and got them on the right track. Then, the monk used a Spot check to find some additional clues, and did so well that I gave him two successes (IIRC- it might have been another of the skill rolls that was that good; the dice really favored my group last night). The illusionist cast detect magic and used it and her Knowledge (arcana) to look for any clues regarding fey influence, finding occasional lingering enchantment and illusion auras. The ranger kept on tracking... and then the dwarf Searched out the door into the fey dwelling under the hills.

I've already started tweaking the skill test system a little, too. For instance, in my halfling campaign, the pcs are trying to win their way past various trials, the first several of which have been skill tests. Over the course of all the trials, they need to accumulate victory points in order to be allowed in. The first trial, the Trial of Eating, goes something like this:

 

[the Jester]

Question: Why were you giving 2 successes or failures per check?

That said, I've been using skill challenges a lot in my 3.5 games lately. Last night I just initiated the last of my groups that hadn't already been exposed to them. They were trying to find some fey that had kidnapped a baby and run off into the woods with her.

It was a "6 before 4" test- I wanted the pcs to have a good chance to feel the system out, and there were only three of 'em last night. First, the ranger did some awesome tracking and got them on the right track. Then, the monk used a Spot check to find some additional clues, and did so well that I gave him two successes (IIRC- it might have been another of the skill rolls that was that good; the dice really favored my group last night). The illusionist cast detect magic and used it and her Knowledge (arcana) to look for any clues regarding fey influence, finding occasional lingering enchantment and illusion auras. The ranger kept on tracking... and then the dwarf Searched out the door into the fey dwelling under the hills.

I've already started tweaking the skill test system a little, too. For instance, in my halfling campaign, the pcs are trying to win their way past various trials, the first several of which have been skill tests. Over the course of all the trials, they need to accumulate victory points in order to be allowed in. The first trial, the Trial of Eating, goes something like this:

The first trial takes place at noon, outdoors, under perfect weather. The Guide leads our heroes to an area that has a massive spread of food of all kinds and invites them to “eat as a halfling should! But first, release your weapons and armor; you shan’t need them here.”

The pcs don’t have to release their armor and weapons, but if they don’t, they suffer a -10 on all rolls in the Promised Land until they are returned after the Seventh Trial.

The pcs literally cannot hope to eat all the food. They can eat themselves nearly into comas, though. “Eating like a halfling” entails two aspects, in the context of winning one’s way to the Promised Land: eating a great deal, and eating the best stuff first. Any pc may eat enough to become fatigued, and will gain 1d2 lbs in doing so. A character eating beyond that may choose to take one point of dex burn to gain one additional pound. A character may do this as many times as she likes. If any characters eat until they are fatigued, the pcs gain a +1 bonus on their skill checks to pass this trial. If a pc takes dex damage to gain weight, the pcs instead gain a +2 bonus, and if a pc eats until her ability burn renders her comatose, the pcs instead gain a +5 bonus. Any pcs who make a point of seeking out the best stuff first get a +2 bonus.

Check: The pcs may make easy (DC 12) checks or hard (DC 20) checks. A failed easy check results in a -2 penalty on the character’s next skill check during this trial. A successful hard check results in a +2 bonus on the character’s next skill check during this trial. The pcs must accumulate 5 successes before accumulating 3 failures to pass this trial.

Victory Points: If the characters successfully pass this trial, they gain 1 victory point. If one of them went comatose with ability burn, they instead gain 2 victory points.

 

[Cirex]

I tried it the other day. I was going to start DMing and I thought it would be interesting, so in their path to a Breland town, I added a little town where the major had been assassinated and the crowd was kinda lost about what to do, so the PCs were offered a nice reward for discovering who was the murderer.

Only two PCs were there at the time, a rogue replicant and an orc druid. The druid started with a tracking check to find some clues. They made use of sense motive to discover that some people were protecting the killer, search to find more clues, spellcraft to discover rests of magic in the tavern, heal to discover the real cause of death of the major, etc.
It was 6/4 with a fixed DC (16) they did great. It was very fun and I really want to hear more examples.

 

[Dedekind]

Keefe, I think you are right about the poor skill selection of your PCs. IMC, I have 5-6 players every session and they have a pretty diverse set of skills. I haven't done a straight up skill challenge like this, but I have become really leniant on the use of the skills and found that the players are loving it. Most everyone has a skill that no one else has and that means everyone gets in on t some how.

Did you consider expanding the class skill lists and increasing the skill points for your players? That would be similar to the shrinking of the list in 4E and give them more options.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Question: Why were you giving 2 successes or failures per check?

Because - don´t ask me why - all the time the players were going for "medium" difficulty. I told them "you choose how risky your skill test is - do you want to play safe, or experiment? You tell me easy/medium/hard, and i set a (secret) DC."

So, 2 successes, when they succeeded, and two when they botched.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Keefe, I think you are right about the poor skill selection of your PCs. IMC, I have 5-6 players every session and they have a pretty diverse set of skills. I haven't done a straight up skill challenge like this, but I have become really leniant on the use of the skills and found that the players are loving it. Most everyone has a skill that no one else has and that means everyone gets in on t some how.

Did you consider expanding the class skill lists and increasing the skill points for your players? That would be similar to the shrinking of the list in 4E and give them more options.

I thought about it, but the characters are already very versatile - gestalt characters, 32-point-buy, and 2 additional skill points per level. I would have been happy if one of them would have taken rogue or bard as a second class, but drawbacks are drawbacks. And it makes them think really hard about adding a henchman...

 

[arscott]

Because - don´t ask me why - all the time the players were going for "medium" difficulty. I told them "you choose how risky your skill test is - do you want to play safe, or experiment? You tell me easy/medium/hard, and i set a (secret) DC."

So, 2 successes, when they succeeded, and two when they botched.

I think it's supposed to be one success/one failure on a medium difficulty roll. An easy roll is one success/two failures, and a hard roll is two successes/one failure.