4e Skill Challenge playtest

[Storminator]

OOC color! I'm good with the stated rules. I think the double failures for Easy is a good idea. It prevents people from going outside their shtick unless it really matters. Initiative I could care less about. How are we doing dice rolling? Are we grown up enough to roll our own dice and just post the results (my preference), or do we need an online roller?

PS

 

[LostSoul]

1. I think we should skip rolling intitiative.

We can cut initiative. I do want to make sure that every player getrs a chance to act once per round.

2. I don't think that "easy" checks should involve two failures. If they're easy then missing the check is penalty enough (given that we have to get a finite number of successes in a limited time). I'm pretty sure that a +2 for a hard check isn't comisserate with two failures anyway.

My thought - from what I've read - was that Easy checks were worse to fail. You'd rather try to get an Easy check, but if you roll a one it's bad. So it's still a gamble that way. I don't know if the math works out at all, though.

Are you saying that we shouldn't differentiate between success or failure - only the DC is different? If the DC is hidden from the players, that's cool with me.

I appreciate what you're aiming for with the clearly stated results section I think.
The wotc page seems to focus on the idea that even failure doesn't "end" the game, so I think that even if we fail then we should still author an ending of some sort (even if it's a significant setback).

I think he's talking about times where failure = the game ends. An example of this is when you need to get a specific clue to tell you where the evil cult gathering to end the world is, and without it the PCs just wander around with nothing to do. Another example is a wilderness trek to get to a dungeon. You can't fail and not get to the dungeon if the whole night's adventure was in the dungeon!

What you do in these cases is change the goal slightly. "Do you get the clue in time to be prepared, or are you rushing?" "Do you make it through the Blood Fens without incident, or are you attacked by monsters, cut, poisoned, and diseased?"

That really isn't the sort of skill challenge we're doing here, though, so we're okay. I have no idea what failure will mean right now, but I will try to make failure escalate the conflict instead of the opposite.

 

[LostSoul]

How are we doing dice rolling? Are we grown up enough to roll our own dice and just post the results (my preference), or do we need an online roller?

PS

I was thinking everyone would roll on their own and just post the results.

 

[LostSoul]

Here I'm going to post the skill challenge in the format that was suggested by the excerpt. This is "secret DM stuff", so it will be sblocked. I'm doing this for other viewers, and for the players after we finish.

[sblock]Setup: For the PCs to corner Shalminsar and stab him in the face, they need to track him down and get the jump on him.

Level: 1. I'm going to set the DC at 15, 11 for Easy, and 19 for Hard.

Complexity: 3 (requires 8 successes before 4 failures). This sounds good. Complexity seems to be a pacing mechanic as well as a difficulty thing. Since this is all we're doing, this one skill challenge, I'd like it to last a little longer than 6/4.

Primary Skills: I have no idea. I really don't want to know, either. I'm making a concious decision to not come up with any primary skills. This will let the players surprise me and guide play in whatever way they want.

I'm also not going to say "This skill results in an auto-failure" beforehand. I don't know at this time. I'd much rather base "auto-failure" on role-play.

Success: The PCs corner down Shalminisar and we go straight into combat. I imagine at this time that "better" success will mean they catch him with his pants down.

Failure: The PCs don't track him down - he gets away again. Other than that, I have no idea. The skills the PCs use and the role-play provided by the players will colour failure.[/sblock]

 

[LostSoul]

Another rules issue I meant to put in:

Powers. I'm thinking right now that players can choose to use a power instead of a skill in order to get a success. The mechanics will be the same as skill checks in cases where the power calls for a roll. When a power doesn't call for a roll, I guess I will have to use my judgement to decide if it's a success or a failure (fiat).

I'm also going to allow only one use of per-encounter powers for the entire skill challenge, no matter how much rest the PC gets in between.

 

[jelmore]

Now that I've had a chance to read the article...

I agree that rolling for initiative doesn't necessarily make sense. We could just go around the virtual table in turn.

The way the skill challenge example was written, it's proposed as a potential obstacle to our eventual goal. In our hypothetical scenario, it seems like skill challenges would be part of meeting the objective, not the objective itself.

For example, a skill challenge would consist of trying to identify which town resident the skinwalker has duplicated. Success means we have a name and (possibly) a face; failure means we need to either try other means of locating the shapeshifter, or worse, the shapeshifter has figured out we're on the trail and will either assume another form or flee the town.

Another skill check could take the form of trying to convince the local sheriff that the local village elder/priest/blacksmith is a shapeshifter and needs to be arrested, or attempting to break into the mayor's estate to apprehend the skinwalker without raising attention. Success means we're one step closer to catching the monster; failure means we get the local constables on our case.

I don't mind calling out the skill check I want to make, but if I want to free-form it, the DM can decide what skill check applies. I'm OK with rolling my own dice, but I can use an online dice roller; I'm in this for the learning experience and don't feel the need to be a munchkin.

 

[Graf]

[sblock=This post is all OOC]
Sorry. I'm testing out Firefox Beta and I can't seem to select anything... little bug there.

My thought - from what I've read - was that Easy checks were worse to fail. You'd rather try to get an Easy check, but if you roll a one it's bad. So it's still a gamble that way. I don't know if the math works out at all, though.

Are you saying that we shouldn't differentiate between success or failure - only the DC is different? If the DC is hidden from the players, that's cool with me.

I certainly didn't intend to say that success is the same as failure.

With regard to easy/hard.... to my mind if something is easy then it's easy. If it's hard then it's hard. Making something sort of easy but not really because there is a two tiered conflict resolution system that punishes you for failure strikes me as weird.

It seems to me that the "easy" checks either need to be "unlocked" (which I like because it lets you set up a momentum sort of thing) or are for "unattractive skills".
I"ve played, am now playing 3.5 characters with ranks of knowledge in things like history and nobility. While I love doing it it's a really really suboptimal choice. As the only one with rogue levels I'm denying my party access to other important skills (the character has 7 ranks in knowledge and no disable device... obviously a "good party member" wouldn't do that).
The thing with this mechanic, as I see it, is that it tries to reward you for taking skills like history by giving you an "easy" success.

Think about it: Easy is really just a lower DC.
So if you're a perceptive character you can probably hit a high insight check; but if you're a fighter who's trained in history? An "easy" DC may still be pretty challenging for you.

I wouldn't on top of having had that poor fighter "waste" a feat to get a new trained skill, try to brutalize them for trying to use that skill by saying "sure, you can make the roll Mr. Int 9, but if you mess up you've eaten up half of the 4 failures your group can get".
It just doesn't seem like a fun mechanic to me.

And, I haven't seen anything that suggests that WotC is pushing that "failing an Easy check deserves an extra lump of coal".

To my mind the system shouldn't punish failure to the point that that only sane choice from a probability standpoint is to play conservatively.

I will try to make failure escalate the conflict instead of the opposite.

Very cool.

I agree that rolling for initiative doesn't necessarily make sense. We could just go around the virtual table in turn.

Generally speaking in PbP (as everybody knows) people post "when they can".

And certain actions will take less time than others.
If someone wants to use intimidate to bully the local priest 'cause they think they're hiding someone and someone else wants to spend a few hours at the local inn picking up rumors, one is just going to happen more quickly than the other.

I think that if we create an initiative system and try to bolt it onto the skill challenge mechanic it'll get weird. And I think that it'll get even weirder online because people can't usually post consistently.

I am not, btw, and do not mean to be, excessively obnoxious or aggressive. I'm just trying to wrap my head around a new system and I do it by pushing hard and "taking a side" on an issue and arguing about it.
I fully concede that it may be that initiative and/or hidden DCs and/or penalties for failing "easy" checks may be the best.
I just see arguments against those that I wanted to bring up and think about collectively.[/sblock]

 

[LostSoul]

The way the skill challenge example was written, it's proposed as a potential obstacle to our eventual goal. In our hypothetical scenario, it seems like skill challenges would be part of meeting the objective, not the objective itself.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Is there a problem with how we've set up our skill challenge so far?

I don't mind calling out the skill check I want to make, but if I want to free-form it, the DM can decide what skill check applies. I'm OK with rolling my own dice, but I can use an online dice roller; I'm in this for the learning experience and don't feel the need to be a munchkin.

Either way will work; if you want to use an online dice roller, go for it, and if not, just post your rolls.

 

[LostSoul]

Hey Graf;

I have been swayed by your arguments and will change that rule post to reflect it.

Changes are:

• No need for init, though each person will act before someone goes twice
• Failure and Success are the same through Easy/Medium/Hard DCs

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

Does this mean everything has been worked out and we are ready to go?