4e - Help me cook up a skill challenge

[Saagael]

My players (a group of six level 9 PCs) are searching for a McGuffin, and their search takes them to the lair of a brown dragon. They've recently fought and defeated a few dragons, so I want this encounter to be more unique than a fight to the death.

After reading over brown dragons in the draconomicon, I really like the brown dragon's unique affection for exotic foods, so I want to focus a skill challenge around the players convincing the dragon to give up a bit of information by cooking the dragon a meal.

Since this takes place in a desert oasis, there's not a whole lot of room for foraging or hunter for a meal, but the dragon provides the players with some meat it had stored, giving the players a basis for their meal preparation.

What I would like help with is defining the skills the players would use. I'd like to run this as two complexity 1 skill challenges: one skill challenge for the PCs who want to hunt/forage in the area, and the second for the group doing the cooking.

The only skills I'm fairly sure I want to use are Stealth and Nature for hunting and foraging, respectively. Everything else is subject.

Any ideas? You can build on what I've said, or offer a completely new scheme. Thanks.

 

[Quickleaf]

What signals will the PCs get that this is a non-combat encounter? I ask because they have a history of dragon-slaying. Will it be how you role-play the brown dragon? And by "exotic" I'm assuming that's non-local food, foods the dragon wouldn't be accustomed to?

TEAM FORAGE
Athletics: Squeeze into a gulch the dragon could never fit into to retrieve a rare desert spice.
Endurance: Dive into the oasis pool to retrieve a type of freshwater clam.
Nature: Realize areas of the oasis which haven't been ecogically devastated by the presence of a dragon - areas which smaller humanoids could reach but a dragon couldn't.
Stealth: Lie in wait by a vole/mole hole and catch 10 to 12 voles per hour!

TEAM CHEF
Alchemy/Brew Potion: PC could attempt to slip an alchemical mixture or potion into the dish.
Creative Idea: PC comes up with creative use for an ingredient they are carrying - consider this an automatic success.
Diplomacy: Talk up the flavors of the food, letting its aroma drift over to the hungry dragon.
History (or whatever skill is appropriate IYC): Recall a piece of dragon etiquette regarding meal times.
Insight: Educated guess about what this particular dragon likes to eat.
Nature: Season the food to perfection.

 

[Saagael]

What signals will the PCs get that this is a non-combat encounter? I ask because they have a history of dragon-slaying. Will it be how you role-play the brown dragon? And by "exotic" I'm assuming that's non-local food, foods the dragon wouldn't be accustomed to?

Good question. First off, we use a virtual table top, so the players will be able to see the HP and defenses of the monster (I do this because after 10 levels of adventuring, characters should be good at sizing up opponents). I'm going to up the dragons level to be fairly threatening, though the players will still have a chance in combat (not a good one). Basically, I'm making the players think that the encounter would be a really hard one.

Also, before getting there, they have to travel through the desert. This will wear them down considerably (Another basic SC, but I'm guessing the group will lose somewhere between 3 and 5 surges during this 5 day desert hike), along with a standard encounter at the end for good measure.

Lastly, my players are very good RPers and have taken multiple opportunities to try and communicate reasonably with not only dragons, but with other enemies. As the DM, I'm the one that had the dragon attack the PCs due to circumstance. The brown dragon will not be initially hostile, though definitely annoyed.

TEAM FORAGE
Athletics: Squeeze into a gulch the dragon could never fit into to retrieve a rare desert spice.
Endurance: Dive into the oasis pool to retrieve a type of freshwater clam.
Nature: Realize areas of the oasis which haven't been ecogically devastated by the presence of a dragon - areas which smaller humanoids could reach but a dragon couldn't.
Stealth: Lie in wait by a vole/mole hole and catch 10 to 12 voles per hour!

TEAM CHEF
Alchemy/Brew Potion: PC could attempt to slip an alchemical mixture or potion into the dish.
Creative Idea: PC comes up with creative use for an ingredient they are carrying - consider this an automatic success.
Diplomacy: Talk up the flavors of the food, letting its aroma drift over to the hungry dragon.
History (or whatever skill is appropriate IYC): Recall a piece of dragon etiquette regarding meal times.
Insight: Educated guess about what this particular dragon likes to eat.
Nature: Season the food to perfection.

Great ideas, especially for the Team Chef challenge. I hadn't thought about including presentation/diplomacy for this challenge, but those will definitely be good to fit in all the characters. One of the characters has a magic cask of alcohol which I'm sure they'll use and was planning on rewarding them appropriately.

Thanks for the input, I'm glad someone wasn't stuck on "what skill would be best to resemble cooking" like I was.

 

[LostSoul]

I would take a slightly different tack.

For the foraging I'd draw a quick, rough map and figure out what kinds of things were out there, generally speaking*. Over here is a herd of wild hortan gungabeasts, growing on the underside of this rock by a wet bit of sand (near an underground river) you have some rare desert mushrooms, there's an oasis with exotic fruits, a group of nomads makes a milk from weenga beetles, etc.

Some checks immediately suggest themselves:
-Figuring out what the dragon likes (Nature, Diplomacy)
-Figuring out where certain things might be, getting the lay of the land (Nature, Perception)
-Actually finding and procuring the different ingredients (skill use varies upon the method and whatever opposition there is)

Here's a key point: make some of the choices seemingly one of the other. The herd is moving fast to the south-west, and the nomads to the north-east, so if the PCs want to grab the meat or the milk they'll have to make a choice. (Some ritual use or other smart actions will mean they can cut this Gordian knot.)

You could also add in some moral choice by making the dragon like things like "8 pints of fresh blood from a child with magic-using potential". Or other stuff like that.

I'd make this first challenge set the difficulty for the cooking one so that the two play off of each other.

* - "Generally speaking" meaning that you have an idea of what exists, but it's not 100% clear-cut; anything that makes sense and fits with your pre-drawn ideas that comes up during the game should also exist.

 

[Gilladian]

Another thing you might do is foreshadow the dragon-cooking epic challenge, by having the PCs meet some NPC who tries to sell them rare herbs and spices, or fancy cheeses, or dried exotic fruits. Not that he or she knows anything about the dragon, but it puts food on the PCs minds.

Or have them attend a great feast somewhere, or anything food related. Give them some chance to pick up some tasty edible ahead of time, without any awareness that it might play into the future of the story.

Later, they'll be sure to put the pieces together and be pleased or dismayed that they did or did not take advantage of the opportunity.

 

[fba827]

you could also just use plain old ability checks instead of skill checks.
intelligence for 'recipie book' recall cooking (well venison usually cooks extra dry so if i add two cups of oil in the broth like i saw the chef do when cooking rabbit at the palace...). or wisdom for 'intuitive' cooking (pinch of this might work with a heaping spoon of that ...)

but in sticking with skills, nature comes to mind easiest for cooking, and maybe diplomacy for the dish presentation

i can't think of anything that hasn't really already been said by other postings above though...

 

[Saagael]

Thanks for the input. I'll definitely add in some food related encounters before hand.

Right now I'm thinking of doing three separate skill challenges for the entire encounter, each complexity 2 (6 successes before 3 failures) and succeeding each individual challenge will give bonuses to the others, or certain aspects of the other challenges. Depending on whether the players succeed at all 3, 2, 1 or none of the challenges, the dragon will act appropriately pleased or displeased. I'm really trying to play up a dragon who has lost any reverence for Tiamat and her greedy ways, and lives by dealing with traders and merchants, buying (perhaps sometimes raiding) from caravans to try new foods. The players have had enough with all the bloodthirsty villains, it's time for some minor comic relief before I ratchet up the tension for their journey to paragon (this encounter will be 2 or 3 encounters before they level up to 11).

The three skill challenges will be: Diplomatic Measures, Foraging and Hunting, Preparing the Meal.

Diplomatic Measures:
The players enter the cave and must convince the dragon not to eat them. The players will attempt to get the dragon to let them see the item their looking for. Diplomacy, and Bluff can be used here to sweet-talk and downplay their strength to seem less threatening. A clever player can use insight or history to learn that brown dragons have a certain fondness for food, while perception will allow a player to smell spices wafting from the treasure horde. At the end the dragon will challenge the players to prepare him a meal. Success with this challenge means the players are trusted and get a +2 to all checks when presenting the food.

Foraging and Hunting:
The players begin their meal preparation. Perception, Nature and Insight will reveal different options to find food and will open up various other skills: Athletics to subdue a macetail behemoth from a herd nearby, Endurance to find water plants and shellfish at the bottom of the oasis spring, Acrobatics to climb trees and pick citrus fruits, Stealth to ambush small burrowing critters and any other creative ideas the players might have. A success in this challenge confers a +2 bonus to all cooking related skills in the Preparing the Meal challenge.

Preparing the Meal:
The players can start off by using insight or history to either recall or guess what the dragon might like specifically (in this case, gratuitous use of spices and wine). Obviously nature will be used to cook the food, though dungeoneering can be used at a higher DC (they're essentially the same knowledge base but for different environments, and cooking is universal, so I don't see why not). Any creative ideas like adding personal stores of alcohol or potions to the recipe will be an auto-success. Once the cooking is done, the players can use diplomacy or bluff to play up the food as it is presented.

That's it for now; the area the PCs are in is pretty isolated (forgotten ruins) so there's not a lot of chance to interact with other people. And there will be a time frame, so the players can't just go through skills as they please, or they'll not complete the challenge in time. I'm thinking of each skill taking a half hour and there being a 4-5 hour time limit so the players are forced to pick and chose their skills and not just aiding another the whole time.

Does this look interesting, manageable and complete?

 

[Gilladian]

It absolutely looks fun! I'm thinking I may steal the general idea for my own dungeons under Ptolus. It could be very funny if the PCs know ahead of time that a particular monster in a particular area can be bought off by offerings of food, but they get the WRONG info (perhaps given to them deliberately) about WHAT it likes to eat.

Hmmm....