All About Skill Challenges
- Thread starter Rechan
- Start date
Our group has had generally positive experiences using several variations on the Skill Challenge rules (original, Stalker0's Obsidian, and errata'd). We had the best times during impromptu Skill Challenges used to resolve spur-of-the-moment PC 'plans'.
In one, the party convinced a crowd of people a new city Magistrate was a pederast. We 'won' the challenge, which resulted in a delay of the Magistrate taking office. The challenge also resulted in the party later being confronted by the Magistrate and placed in his debt, in lieu of being executed for slander and inciting a riot.
In the other, we attempted to move a feral dire boar sow across town in order to secure a blessing for it at the temple of a dog god. We won that one too. In the process, though, we convinced a crowd of curious onlookers that the sow was, in fact, a god. Which later turned out (became?) true.
Skill Challenges can be a wonderful tool for adjudicating the oddball plans any decent D&D party will spring on the DM without warning or mercy...
In one, the party convinced a crowd of people a new city Magistrate was a pederast. We 'won' the challenge, which resulted in a delay of the Magistrate taking office. The challenge also resulted in the party later being confronted by the Magistrate and placed in his debt, in lieu of being executed for slander and inciting a riot.
In the other, we attempted to move a feral dire boar sow across town in order to secure a blessing for it at the temple of a dog god. We won that one too. In the process, though, we convinced a crowd of curious onlookers that the sow was, in fact, a god. Which later turned out (became?) true.
Skill Challenges can be a wonderful tool for adjudicating the oddball plans any decent D&D party will spring on the DM without warning or mercy...
Personally, I prefer it when skill challenges are transparent -- by that I mean, I prefer it when it isn't announced "you're doing a skill challenge" nor do I like to be told what skills to use. I like it to just happen naturally (perhaps even unplanned by the DM -- it is just something that "works" for the situation we got ourselves in so we do it).
On the flip side, I don't like it when it just becomes one person doing everything and everyone else aiding or waiting. So I like it when there is a reason (such as time urgency, or varied enough skill spread) that others get involved.
when i'm dming, any skill challenge i've ever planned, never actually happens (PCs find a way around it in the first place) or it just doesn't feel "right" in the moment at the table so I bypass it... the best skill challenge we've had so far when i dm has actually been one i did not plan for though only loosly considered as a possibility so i knew what i expected as the difficulty ahead of time. the players/pcs just naturally cut in with appropriate skills or actions and i interpreted the type of skill or if it would be better as an aid for someone else's, etc.
On the flip side, I don't like it when it just becomes one person doing everything and everyone else aiding or waiting. So I like it when there is a reason (such as time urgency, or varied enough skill spread) that others get involved.
when i'm dming, any skill challenge i've ever planned, never actually happens (PCs find a way around it in the first place) or it just doesn't feel "right" in the moment at the table so I bypass it... the best skill challenge we've had so far when i dm has actually been one i did not plan for though only loosly considered as a possibility so i knew what i expected as the difficulty ahead of time. the players/pcs just naturally cut in with appropriate skills or actions and i interpreted the type of skill or if it would be better as an aid for someone else's, etc.
FireLance
Legend
Another reason why I recommend breaking up a complex skill challenge into stages and running each stage as a less complex skill challenge.
darjr
I crit!
I love mixed mode encounters, combat concurrent with a skill challenge.
Out side of combat I run them much as I've ever run non combat encounters. However now I have a framework to hang them on and figure out XP.
I'll describe the situation and try to subtly show, not tell, the players what is going on and how they might affect things. Then ask them what they are going to do. To provide some tension if they don't act I'd start to move on and describe what goes on during their inaction.
I'd allow for creative use of other skills or out of the box thinking. For instance, in one challenge, where the players had to use endurance to hold their breath and athletics to swim going through submerged catacombs, a player used the water breathing ritual to short out much of it.
I would not tell them they are in one, nor if they succeeded. I'd show the consequences of their actions.
Out side of combat I run them much as I've ever run non combat encounters. However now I have a framework to hang them on and figure out XP.
I'll describe the situation and try to subtly show, not tell, the players what is going on and how they might affect things. Then ask them what they are going to do. To provide some tension if they don't act I'd start to move on and describe what goes on during their inaction.
I'd allow for creative use of other skills or out of the box thinking. For instance, in one challenge, where the players had to use endurance to hold their breath and athletics to swim going through submerged catacombs, a player used the water breathing ritual to short out much of it.
I would not tell them they are in one, nor if they succeeded. I'd show the consequences of their actions.
Ycore Rixle
First Post
I run Skill Challenges in our 3.5e game quite often. I really like the idea of them. They're my favorite part of 4e. However, I run them almost completely like they were presented in the previews of 4e. That is, very narrativistic.
Last week, we had a skill challenge where a solar was guarding a gate that the PCs needed to get through. We simply kept roleplaying, me doing the solar's lines and actions, and the PCs doing theirs, as normal. Then one of the PCs made a great remark, something to the effect of holding up a trophy-head of a hezrou (she has the Trophy Collector feat from PHB II). I said roll Diplomacy, +4 for the head of the hezrou. She rolled, got over 20, and I said out of character, "All right, that's one success." Everybody knew then that we were on a skill challenge, and we always run them 4/2.
So then we just kept roleplaying. The ranger's sorcerer cohort sweet-talked the solar with some story using his Knowledge: Outer Planes skill instead of diplomacy, and someone else used intimidate or perform or some other skill, I don't remember but it wasn't diplomacy or any of the usual ones.
That's how we do it. Narrate what you're doing and how it relates to the situation, then roll the appropriate skill for the narration. It's been great. Like I said, it's probably my favorite new thing about 4e.
Last week, we had a skill challenge where a solar was guarding a gate that the PCs needed to get through. We simply kept roleplaying, me doing the solar's lines and actions, and the PCs doing theirs, as normal. Then one of the PCs made a great remark, something to the effect of holding up a trophy-head of a hezrou (she has the Trophy Collector feat from PHB II). I said roll Diplomacy, +4 for the head of the hezrou. She rolled, got over 20, and I said out of character, "All right, that's one success." Everybody knew then that we were on a skill challenge, and we always run them 4/2.
So then we just kept roleplaying. The ranger's sorcerer cohort sweet-talked the solar with some story using his Knowledge: Outer Planes skill instead of diplomacy, and someone else used intimidate or perform or some other skill, I don't remember but it wasn't diplomacy or any of the usual ones.
That's how we do it. Narrate what you're doing and how it relates to the situation, then roll the appropriate skill for the narration. It's been great. Like I said, it's probably my favorite new thing about 4e.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Rather than track # of successes or failures, I've taken to visualizing a "meter" in my head. It starts at zero. Each failure makes it drop by one and each success it goes up by one. If it get to X then they succeed and they fail if it gets to -Y.
Tonight I ran an impromptu Skill Challenge that the players unknowingly suggested. One of them said, "It sounds like we're about to do a skill challenge" and I thought to myself, "That's a GREAT idea!" So I made one up on the fly. It worked out pretty darned well.
My players come up with creative ideas pretty well. I think that may have to do with how I described Skill Challenges to them at the outset of the campaign. It's a description that I paraphrased from a (sadly) forgotten ENWorld poster. Basically I told them: "Skill challenges are where you trick me into letting you use your really good skills to solve the problem at hand by coming up with creative ways to apply them."
My other favorite thing about skill challenges is using them to navigate through sections of the game where I don't want to have to roleplay through a long, complex series of events to get from A to B. That can sometimes bog the game down. So instead doing it as a skill challenge lets me break it into chunks and give them hints leading from one part to the next by way of successful skill rolls.
A good example of this might be them investigating a murder at the king's castle. What you want is for them to eventually find their way into the dungeon below and deal with the Wererat Cultists. But you can run a skill challenge where they use Insight to notice the Prince acting mysteriously. Then a Diplomacy roll lets them discreetly ask the Queen about the Prince's behavior. She tells them that he spends a lot of time locked in his quarters ever few weeks. A Thievery roll lets the PC's gain access to the Prince's rooms where they find some strange robes hidden in the back of the closet. A Religion roll reveals that these have symbols of a ancient cult on them. A Perception roll allows one of the PC's to recall having seen a similar robe on the desk of the Captain of the Guard. An Intimidate check allows them to bully their way into his office and reveals that the robes were found down in an older section of the dungeons and they go there to find a secret door.
My point is that waiting for the players to ask the right people the right series of questions in order to unlock this mystery might take several hours of roleplaying. But by using successes from skill checks as an "excuse" to give them hints then you guide them along the path to where the main part of the adventure is. And of course you can throw them a few red herrings along the way to account for their failures as well. It seems to be a really useful narrative tool to me.
Tonight I ran an impromptu Skill Challenge that the players unknowingly suggested. One of them said, "It sounds like we're about to do a skill challenge" and I thought to myself, "That's a GREAT idea!" So I made one up on the fly. It worked out pretty darned well.
My players come up with creative ideas pretty well. I think that may have to do with how I described Skill Challenges to them at the outset of the campaign. It's a description that I paraphrased from a (sadly) forgotten ENWorld poster. Basically I told them: "Skill challenges are where you trick me into letting you use your really good skills to solve the problem at hand by coming up with creative ways to apply them."
My other favorite thing about skill challenges is using them to navigate through sections of the game where I don't want to have to roleplay through a long, complex series of events to get from A to B. That can sometimes bog the game down. So instead doing it as a skill challenge lets me break it into chunks and give them hints leading from one part to the next by way of successful skill rolls.
A good example of this might be them investigating a murder at the king's castle. What you want is for them to eventually find their way into the dungeon below and deal with the Wererat Cultists. But you can run a skill challenge where they use Insight to notice the Prince acting mysteriously. Then a Diplomacy roll lets them discreetly ask the Queen about the Prince's behavior. She tells them that he spends a lot of time locked in his quarters ever few weeks. A Thievery roll lets the PC's gain access to the Prince's rooms where they find some strange robes hidden in the back of the closet. A Religion roll reveals that these have symbols of a ancient cult on them. A Perception roll allows one of the PC's to recall having seen a similar robe on the desk of the Captain of the Guard. An Intimidate check allows them to bully their way into his office and reveals that the robes were found down in an older section of the dungeons and they go there to find a secret door.
My point is that waiting for the players to ask the right people the right series of questions in order to unlock this mystery might take several hours of roleplaying. But by using successes from skill checks as an "excuse" to give them hints then you guide them along the path to where the main part of the adventure is. And of course you can throw them a few red herrings along the way to account for their failures as well. It seems to be a really useful narrative tool to me.
jbear
First Post
My most exciting and memorable skill challenges have had combat going on at the same time. Actually the last one had 2 challenges going at the same time as well as combat. This makes sure that everyone has something to do, focussing their attention on one or the other. It was also nice to see how on some occaisions, people were taking actions they weren't trained in, just because it was appropriate, or they were nearest to the situation, as opposed to the person with the highest score in that skill alays taking the action.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
I ran my first skill challenge last week, which I think went fairly well. I decided that rather than try and coax the PCs into a transparent version, I'd go with the Mini-Game approach, which seemed to work fairly well.
I announced the Skill Challenge, along with the objective of the challenge and the penalty for failure. I then left it to the players to determine what skill they would use, and how that would work towards the stated objective. The only catch was that each PC was only allowed to use each skill once. Naturally most of them tried to find a way to use their best skill in a creative way to work towards the goal.
I was pleased with the challenge overall. It allowed each PC to come up with his or her own way of justifying their favorite skill, and some of the rationales were very entertaining, as well as prompting some fun RP as they acted them out.
I'm finding the most challenging part of designing a skill challenge is incorporating combat into the scenario. The combat needs to be necessary, but not so lethal that the PCs feel they need to focus on it exclusively as opposed to making relevant skill checks.
I announced the Skill Challenge, along with the objective of the challenge and the penalty for failure. I then left it to the players to determine what skill they would use, and how that would work towards the stated objective. The only catch was that each PC was only allowed to use each skill once. Naturally most of them tried to find a way to use their best skill in a creative way to work towards the goal.
I was pleased with the challenge overall. It allowed each PC to come up with his or her own way of justifying their favorite skill, and some of the rationales were very entertaining, as well as prompting some fun RP as they acted them out.
I'm finding the most challenging part of designing a skill challenge is incorporating combat into the scenario. The combat needs to be necessary, but not so lethal that the PCs feel they need to focus on it exclusively as opposed to making relevant skill checks.
Not to distract from your point, which is good. But, I want to ask you some specifics about this.
When you do this, how does it look in OOC talk at the table? Is it just:
"I use Insight."
"You notice the prince's mysterious behavior."
"I use diplomacy."
"You ask the queen about the Prince's weird behavior."
What if someone wants to use Diplomacy BEFORE they make the insight roll, etc?
In other words, can you provide a transcript of a sample skill challenge at your table.
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