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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5322131" data-attributes="member: 75065">Skill challenges were a mechanic that I liked the idea of from the moment I read them. I’m not a mathematician so I didn’t see any inherent flaws, 4e was brand new and I hadn’t played the game yet, so  just the idea of having a system to reward players for being heroic outside of bloody combat instantly rang the ‘Fantastic Bell’ for me. I guess that was all the green light I needed, I finally had ‘permission’ to do something I’d wanted to be able to do since I began playing: Reward players for finding ways to avoid hacking things up.  So I jumped in with energy and without reserve, excited to see how that would work in actual game play.  The day of our first session arrived and I began reading through the adventure module I had at hand: ‘Escape from Sembia’. All my players were new to D&D except one who had played OD&D when he was a kid 1 on 1 with his brother (who from the sounds of it enjoyed killing his characters in all sorts of delightful ways). I was perusing through the first couple of encounters when suddenly I began to feel very unsure about the Skill Challenge which involved the PCs fleeing the town after an assassination attempt and an altercation with the town guards who were in on it. I couldn’t imagine exactly how it was meant to work. All the PCs actions had already been decided? They had to guess the right skill to use or I just told them and they rolled? None of these struck me as particularly good options. Besides, what if they chose to do something else or god forbid, actually want some kind of description of the city they were fleeing through. I had approximately 1 hour before people started arriving and I was pretty sure we would get that far even though it was the first session, so I took pencil and paper and started wrestling with my first Skill Challenge.I quickly sketched out a ‘map’ of the town. Maybe sketching is a little beyond what I actually did. I drew some forking lines to represent different roads of the town that lead to different areas where different skills could be useful and where different random events would occur. Some poor choices or Failures would lead to combat, and depending on the degree of Failure or poorly chosen course of action, the battle would be more or less perilous. With those few scribbled lines on a scrap of paper I felt like I had something I could actualize improvise off in game play, I could now imagine how to run the Challenge.So here is a rundown of the Challenge itself followed by a few comments on how it actually played out.Read the following: The trill of a whistle pierces the air. From down the street, you see a large group of guards moving quickly your way. For the moment, the path appears clear in the opposite direction. You’re going to need to make a break for it! Skill Challenge: Run!E n c o u n t e r L e v e l 1 ( 3 0 0 XP ) Complexity 3; 8 Successes before 3 Fails Setup The PCs engage in a skill challenge to try to escape the town before the guards get a good look at them. Scene 1 Running as fast as you can from the scene away from the guards, their whistles shrill and piercing not far behind you, you quickly come to a major intersection. Do you carry on North along this street or do you turn West towards the centre of town or East towards to main gate out of the city? Streetwise (DC 15): (1 Success)If successful then read:The Second Watch, alerted by the whistles is likely to be arriving from the North. The Main Gate to the East will have also heard the whistles. It is the shortest route out of the city but almost certainly the most heavily and well guarded. The road West will lead towards the busy Marketplace which may be an ideal place to get lost in the crowd. North leads to a Combat Encounter in the street; further rolls towards the challenge receive a -1 penalty until they achieve 3 successes they make a group Endurance check DC 12 to put some distance between the guards with a sprint: -    4 Human Soldiers (3 more arrive after 3 + 1d6 rounds) The PCs realize they need to get to a busy part of town to lose themselves in the crowd. If they are defeated then they are captured for interrogation.East leads to a deadly Combat Encounter at the Main Gate; 1 Auto Fail is achieved towards the continuation of the challenge and receive -2 to rolls until the achieve 3 successes or they make a group Endurance check DC 12 to put some distance between the guards with a sprint: -    6 Human Soldiers ( 3 more arrive after 1d6 rounds) -    3 Archers (Use Elves)If they survive this fight or find a way to get out of the gates and flee count the Challenge as a Fail but allow them to flee. If they are defeated then they are captured for interrogation.The Notes about combat were unnecessary. Due to the total inexperience of the players I used this Challenge as a chance to introduce them to their skills. Here I actually suggested they could use Streetwise to give them clues as to which one was the best road to choose. Otherwise they would have had no clue what Streetwise was even for. This wouldn’t be a problem for experienced players. They made the roll and headed off towards the Market Place.West heads them into town down the main road towards town. Read:To the left you see an alley crowded with crates and boxes piled almost to the roofs. The buildings on either side of the alley appear to be warehouses. To the right you spot a high fence that could be climbed to reach the rooves of the buildings Alleyway Path: Primary Skills: Athletics, Perception, Stealth, EnduranceSecondary Skills: Acrobatics, Thievery, Steetwise, HealClimb up stacked boxes onto Roof: Athletics (DC 12): Notice that a warehouse door is ajar and duck inside: Perception (DC 12): Hide amongst the Crates: Stealth (DC 12): Climbing the Fence Path: Primary Skills: Athletics, Perception, Stealth, EnduranceSecondary Skills: Acrobatics, Thievery, Steetwise, HealClimbing the fence to the Roof tops: Athletics (DC 12)Navegating the Old Roof Tops: Perception (DC 12) Creeping past above the Watch point: Stealth (DC 12)The Players chose to climb up the fence onto the roof tops of the buildings along the main street. I followed the suggestion that I read in one of the Core books to have only the player with the lowest score in the required ability make the roll. That felt wrong to me somehow, the PCs skilled in Athletics didn’t have a chance to shine, they just got up the roof but it didn’t matter; nevertheless I took the opportunity to introduce the players to the AID mechanic. I ruled that two 3 people could aid, one from below and two from above. The Ranger guided the others over the rooftops but the Warforged smashed a tile with his big metal foot as they tried to sneak past the Watch point that formed a bottle neck in the street below them. In the original format of the challenge there were consequences at each fail throughout the challenge. This was a dynamic I liked and would continue to develop over time. Here I had the Guards make a perception check to notice the PCs. I set it at a Hard DC because they had stopped traffic in the search for the PCs. An annoyed mobbed of townspeople coming to and from the Market had formed and noisily made their complaints about the hold up. So the noise of the Warforged’s misstep was drowned out and the PCs made it by unnoticed. Scene 2 : The Market Place:  Read:Down the street to the west you see a marketplace. Merchants are packing up their carts and putting their wares away in nearby tents as evening approaches. Surveying the Market Place: Perception (DC 12)Understanding what you See: Streetwise/Insight (DC 12)5 different paths lead out of the Market Place each bearing its own risk and advantage. As the PCs arrive a young stallion is rearing up wildly out of control causing chaos in the East of the Market Place. A rich merchant is shouting orders at his workers who are trying to get it under control. There is also a crowd gathered around a group of performers to the North of the Market. The PCs can use this to their advantage as well; however, a group of guards are very nearby on the lookout. The PCs wisely took time to survey the Market Place below them before carefully descending amongst the crowd. They also insisted in asking for further details and successfully received further details about their options. They decided to head towards the confusion caused by the stallion and then circled towards the exit to the North.Moving through the Market Place: Primary Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Stealth, StreetwiseSecondary Skills: Intimidate, Diplomacy, Perception, Thievery, BluffThe Direct Route: Endurance/Athletics (DC 12): To knock/push your way quickly through the surging crowdThe Subtle Route: Stealth (DC 12) to sneak amongst the carts and standsUsing your Charm: Streetwise (DC 12) to find the right person; Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate (DC 12) to talk him/her into helping you get through the market place unnoticed; Bribing provides a bonus relative to the size of the bribeMy players took the direct route the Warforged pushing a pathway through the crowd roughly and intimidating people to get out of their way. They went straight towards the chaos caused by the rearing stallion so I ruled that this didn’t draw attention to them. However, the rogue decided that it was a good moment to test out his pick pocketing skills. Hassled by his team mates that this wasn’t really a good time I stood up for him and said he could try and pickpocket the merchant whose horse it was and perhaps get some valuable documents they could use to validate their lies in the case they had to pretend to be someone else upon leaving the city. I wanted to establish early on that it was okay to take risks, and how to be creative with ideas and finding solutions. Unfortunately he rolled natural 1. Second failure and things all of a sudden went wrong. The horse turned into them just at the wrong time and the horse’s backside crashed into his back sending him crashing into the merchant with his purse in his hand. At this stage they had 6 successes and 2 failures and it felt right to put the pressure on to make the end exciting. So, all the commotion drew the attention of the guards. Scene 3 : A  Quiet Way OutThe PCs have managed to shake the Guards from off their trail for now, but now they need to find somewhere to lay low until night falls and find a quiet way out of the cityExits:  (use your judgment based on PC actions as to what skill checks are appropriate/valid)Graveyard Road: The safest route, which leads to the Old Town where the PCs can hide in a very quiet, rarely frequented Graveyard. The easiest way to get there is to make the most of the chaos caused by the young stallion. If PCs still haven’t achieved enough successes have them use their skills to find and enter their temporary hideout. When things have quieted down they will still need to gather information or find a quiet way out of the city.Tavern Road: A viable route, however it is very busy with people and so unless they play it cool they may draw attention to themselves. Have them use their social skills to blend in and not draw attention to themselves, avoiding any provocation by drunken louts. Remaining in a tavern is risky but a good place to gather information on how to leave the city unnoticed.Thieves’ Road:  Another viable yet risky route where PCs will have to do some fast talking in order to avoid being robbed or attacked. PCs should use their social skills to either be left alone or gain the assistance of the rogues that they have crossed. Bribery will help achieve the latter. Reward clever actions. Anything foolish on the part of the PCs will increase all checks to DC 19.Guard Post Roads: Bad options. Getting past alert guard post is no easy feat. Make all skill checks Difficult. A failure here will lead to combat which will quickly draw more guards to the scene.With the guards having spotted the PCs their way out was not exactly quiet. The Warforged scooped up the rogue and barged his way through the crowd, steamrolling men women and children on his way towards Tavern Road.  The others followed in his wake. I had everyone roll endurance to see how well they did on their foot race with the guards which saw them get a slight head start on them and lose themselves amongst the revelers and get into an old abandoned house through a broken window. And with that they achieved their 7th and 8th success. It was great to see them all doing voodoo upon the dice as a team to ensure they didn’t fail those last two rolls. They were set on finding a better hiding place as they could still hear the guard’s whistles close by and as they had succeeded on the challenge already I let them take some cross streets over to the Old Town where they jumped over into the cemetery to rest. When night fell the ranger and the rogue snuck back to tavern Road to make enquiries about how best to get out of town. They found the shadiest looking character in the tavern and he told them that there was a gateway called the Camel’s Eye which was used by important merchants to enter the city after sundown when the gates were closed. At midnight when the guards changed the gate would be momentarily left unattended; a chink in the city’s defenses that the thieves’ guild paid well for. And so they managed to leave town with only the most confused description of their appearance given by frustrated and exhausted guards and amused bystanders. Not a small feat considering the rather motley look of the party: a warforged fighter, an elven bow ranger, a drow rogue, a genasí swordmage and a dwarven cleric. Ending the Encounter Whether or not the PCs succeed at the challenge, they escape Saerb. What’s important is whether they were observed long enough for the guards to gain an accurate description of them. If the PCs succeed at the skill challenge, the guards didn’t get a good look at them. This makes the final encounter a little easier. If the PCs fail, the guards were close enough on their tail to get a good look at most of them and probably had a few scuffles with them. Each PC loses 2 healing surges. Their failure also makes the final encounter a little harder. Everyone enjoyed the challenge. I was pleased to have been able to make it dynamic and exciting. Between my scribbled map and the information given in the Skill Challenge itself, I had enough ideas rumbling around to be able to guide the new players and allow them to have some choice, or at least the illusion of choice, and still have enough room to improvise as we went along. To say the least I was very glad to have that map as it really helped me visualize things spatially which meant I could answer player’s questions and give them semi-accurate descriptions. Attached is a digital version of the map. God knows what I did with the scribbled one. What I disliked was the idea of the worst player rolling when the entire group was being challenged. That was something that would never happen again.</blockquote>

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