Any New Info on Skill Encounters?

[jaer]

My only difficulty is envisioning what an easy, medium, and hard version of certain tasks looks like, and how to encompass failure. There may be rules for this, but I don't know them, and I'm not sure exactly what they'd be.

Lets say we have a wall. The fighter wants to climb the wall. Tell me if or where I go wrong.

Not that I know for sure, but I think your assumption that you can pick 3 DCs just to climb over the same wall is where you went wrong. If all you are trying to get over a wall, it's DC X as set by the DM in relation to the wall's characteristics. Not every skill check needs a level of complexity greater than "make the roll and either succeed or fail."

In the Escape from Sembia run, I would imagine the choice in DC denotes three different walls to climb: there is an Easy Wall, the Medium Wall, and the Hard Wall.

The Easy Wall has handholds and wooden supports you can grasp. Because it is an easy climb, if you failed, it must have been due to a disaster, such as one of the wooden beams breaking as you held it and pulled yourself up. You fall and are prone (and take some damage too), this is the "failue penalty" of not making the easy climb DC.

The Medium Wall is slightly higher and rocky. Failing it just means you did not get up it. Success means you are over it (or on it...whatever).

The Hard Wall is much higher and smoother, much more difficult to climb, but once you are up it, you have a good view of the city (+2 of perception check), can move more easily to the adjoining buidlings (+2 to jump the the next building over which is slightly lower), or end up meeting some other folks already up on that roof (as in my rogue example previously stated).

I can also see where it being the same wall matters in some way, such as in my previous example of the cruching wall trap earlier in this thread.

The easy DC means you climbed as high as you thought necessary in order to jump for the chain. In order to get the chain, you need the low DC climb and the low DC jump. This is for people who aren't athletic and think they will have more luck on two easy checks then one higher one. If you succeed both, you got the chain. Next round, you can make a strength check to pull it, or one of your companions can grab and pull it this round. Failure on either means you are back on the group and that ends your turn...the wall moves closer to splattering the party.

The medium DC means you got high enough to reach the chain. Make a str check to pull it. Failure means you slipped before you got there. Your round is over.

The hard DC means you got high enough to not only reach the chain to pull it, but wrap the length around your arm a few times and really get a good hold. +2 to the strength check to pull it and +4 to hold it. If you failed, you slipped down before you made it and your round is over (or perhaps allow for a dex check to grab the chain as you fell; success means you managed to grab the chain just like in option one and either a companion can pull it this round or you can pull it next round, no bonus on strength check).

In this case, it is the same wall you are climbing, but the DC varience represents a difference in the actual climb: your choice in how far up the wall. This choice also affects the outcome of your following action: grabbing and pulling the chain.

Just my opinion, but it doesn't seem necessary or streamlined to always have three difficulty options for a skill check nor to have set DCs for those options under all circumstances. I think that was all designed to make Escape from Sembia easier on players and DMs.

 

[mneme]

*sigh*

As LostSoul mentioned, it's a CONFLICT RESOLUTION system. Looks like a pretty good one, too.

In a task resolution system, the GM can run the game in circles as the PCs solve task after task, none of which, it turns out, are relevant to their actual goals. In a conflict resolution system, rolls relevant to the conflict contractually move the conflict forward or backward; it's not "unrealistic" -- it's the rules.

If the x vx y system is "unrealistic", so are hit points -- because both are conflict-resolution abstractions which sacrifice granularity for the ability of players to see how well they are doing and measure how much what they're trying will accomplish their goals.

If anything, Darren appears to be equating the system to a specific style of illusionism -- where if you make a skill check, the universe favors you, if you fail, it opposes you. In fact, however, that style of illusionism has always been around and is far -more- harmful without a structure like this. Moreover, it is entirely possible to run this style of system without any such illusionism, having current position indicate what is, and isn't an interesting skill check.

3.5, The players try to find a pie:
Illusionism: Players roll Knowlege(local) to find a pie. Since the GM doesn't want them having a pie, if they succeed, they'll find out there aren't any pies in town; if they fail, they can't figure out where the pies are (but the villains still get pie).
Detailism: The GM has decided there is no pie in town. If the players succeed, they find out there aren't any pies in town. If they fail, they get no useful info. Either way, it's a waste of time.

4e: the players try to find a pie:
Illusionism: Players roll Streetwise to find a pie. If they succeed, they get closer to the pie (the GM has accepted the challenge, so there must be pie as a possibility). If they fail, there is no pie where they're looking, and they waste time.
Detailism: There is no pie in town. If they players succeed, they get closer to finding the pie (ie, they learn there is no pie HERE and learn where pie might be, and can use appropriate skills (like riding) to progress further). If they fail, they waste time looking for a pie here, and the skills needed to find a pie remain approximately the same, as the situation hasn't changed.

In 3.5, succeeding on one part of a complex skill check means you've...improved things. Or maybe not, if the GM doesn't want you to. In 4e, you know how much you've improved things, and narration should move you that much toward your goal, or worstened things, and narration should move you that much further toward -failing- your goal. But it's just a rule -- like Hit Points.
Do you complain "Hey, that axe blow to the arm shouldn't have taken me toward dying -- all my other wounds were from magic which already disabled that arm, so it doesn't make any sense that I could still take damage there?"

 

[LostSoul]

My only difficulty is envisioning what an easy, medium, and hard version of certain tasks looks like, and how to encompass failure. There may be rules for this, but I don't know them, and I'm not sure exactly what they'd be.

Lets say we have a wall. The fighter wants to climb the wall. Tell me if or where I go wrong.

I'll tell you what I would do.

The first thing we need to know is why the fighter wants to climb the wall. If there's no conflict, then whatever. He succeeds. So let's assume there is a conflict: the Fighter wants to climb the wall because he wants to get away from the city guard.

If he says "easy," and succeeds, he clambers over the wall noisily, clumsily and slowly, but he makes it.

If he says "easy" and he fails, he can't climb the wall this round.

Looks good. I'd also throw something extra in there on a failure, describing how the city guard is getting closer to him, closing down his options. Something like, "There he is! Grab him!"

If he says "medium" and succeeds, he gets over the wall.

If he says "medium" and fails, what?

He doesn't climb over the wall. The city guard closes in on him, but it's not as bad - "As you slip from the wall, you hear footsteps of the guard coming from around the corner. 'I think I saw him go down here,' you hear one of the men say."

If he says "hard" and succeeds, he climbs over the wall with skill and panache.

If he says "hard" and fails, what? If he would have succeeded at a lower level, does he succeed anyways? Or is it considered that his attempts at skill and panache made him screw the whole thing up, and he can't climb the wall at all?

If he succeeds, I'd describe how he gains that much more ground. He climbs the wall, then spots the guard running down the street the wrong way.

If he fails, he doesn't climb the wall. Same deal as with the normal check failure.

What if the wall isn't an easy wall to climb? Am I expected to set a minimum DC?

I'd modify the DC that he's trying to hit - the harder it is to climb, the more the DC is raised.

I just don't get the wager system quite so easily, nor do I understand how DCs are set. I can envision tasks where it works well (Diplomacy- the difficulty you choose could be relative to what you're trying to negotiate out of the person), but I can also envision tasks where it does not because objective reality doesn't permit "easy" or for that matter "hard" versions of the task.

I am guessing that DCs are going to be set by the opposition. It's probably based on a Defense score or an opposed Passive skill (either of which should be easy to come up with once you decide what "level" the challenge is). That Defense is then modified for Easy/Hard checks - looks like +/- 4.

Then, when you get down in the nitty-gritty of the task (ie. the Climb check), you modify the DC based on the in-game conditions. If it's raining, and the wall is slick? Let's raise the DC by 2. If the wall is crumbling, full of easy handholds? Let's lower the DC by 2. You get the picture.

 

[cdrcjsn]

To me it seems that this conflict resolution system favors DMs who like to wing it.

DMs that like to have every detail written down will probably not like it.

Going back to 4E's stated goal of making adventures easier to create for the DM, I can easily see why they went this route.

Frankly, back in the days when I had hours upon hours to create maps, towns and NPCs, I wouldn't bother using this system. I would just ignore this rule option and play the game like I've always done.

Now that I don't have quite as much free time, anything that will shave time from planning an adventure is welcome.

However, I think this system will definitely penalize DMs who can't think quickly on their feet.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Now that I don't have quite as much free time, anything that will shave time from planning an adventure is welcome.

However, I think this system will definitely penalize DMs who can't think quickly on their feet.

Another way to look at it is that this system trains DMs to think quickly on their feet.

Derren isn't wrong that you could do the same thing in 3E. The difference is, in 3E absolutely no guidance or support is provided by the system. 4E holds the DM's hand and teaches him how to think on his feet by encouraging the players to come up with ideas (so the DM just has to say yes or no).

 

[Jhaelen]

*sighs* Now, wouldn't it be great if when I put someone on my ignore list then I also didn't see any posts quoting that person?

Anyway, I think the new skill resolution system will be just perfect for my preferred way of DMing the game. A city in my game consist of 3-5 sentences plus a short list of the names of important npcs. I don't have to 'change reality' when a character finds a hidden back alley because I never decided if there would be one or not!

I also firmly believe in rewarding ingenious ideas and good roleplaying. In fact, I remember having used a similar system in my 3E campaign twice in the past without thinking about turning it into a 'system'. Having some play-tested guidelines will make it easier for me to use it with more reliable results and better adjudicate the outcome without the danger of making an unbalanced decision.

If players surprise me with something I didn't think of, I go with it. If I believe that an approach has a reasonable chance of success, I'll let them give it a try and see where it gets them. If I believe something to be impossible, it'll still fail. But I will always try to give my players the benefit of doubt.
In other words: I try to be the DM I'd like to have when I'm a player.

I don't particularly care about a DM who isn't able or willing to improvise. A DM who is set on the decisions he made beforehand and will not waver from his pre-determined path discourages creativity in players and basically limits roleplaying to trivial situations. If I don't get to have a noticable effect on the storyline (except maybe by affecting the outcome of combats), I'd rather read a novel.

 

[Derren]

This "rule" is a good guideline when it has no mechanics attached to it, but as a rule it is simply silly. It might be a help for DMs who don't prepare but even when you wing it you can think about the situation logically instead of saying X successful rolls and the PCs achieved the goal no matter where those rolls would actually carry the PCs or are even appropriate. As soon as you start to say that some rolls are not appropriate then you can throw this system away and to it "manually".
Does this lead to railroading? Not when the DM stays neutral. The world exists the way it does because it makes sense no matter if in the actual situation it would favor or hurt the PCs. That way the PCs can influence and interact with the world better than with the X success system because then the reactions to what the PCs do are not influenced by any intention and the world around them reacts more "naturally" to the actions of the PCs.

That this seems to become a rule instead of a guideline imo shows how 4E is "dumbing down" D&D. Don't think what you should do to achieve your goal but instead just throw some dice and collect successes.

 

[Lackhand]

Derren: On the one hand yes, on the other hand no.
D&D has always had an issue with skill systems -- we accept the abstraction of random rolls and loose definitions of actual occurrences in combat, because there is a large element of luck there and the point of the game is to kill bad people and take their awesome stuff (and tends to be played in large part by nonviolent dorkytypes who wouldn't know a Beretta from a Belt Sander. This does not mean that they're the only type that plays, though!).

However, we tend to want to be able to play the skills directly (using our own knowledge), which interacts badly with the intelligence characteristics D&D characters have. This also interact badly with the definition of "roleplaying game"; in that my character knows more about skinning a deer than I do, more about courtly forms of speech than I do, and more about his home city than I do. However, I know more about how to drive than he does, more about the Java programming language than he does, and so on.

This means that we're schizophrenic, and on the one hand want to allow characters' skills to substitute for players' skills, and on the other want to allow players' roleplaying to be be encouraged (which means rewarding characters and players for the players' skills).

So: To escape from the city, you need to get outside the walls. Maybe the DM has a plan (there's a dungeon in the sewers OR a series of guards to bribe/sweettalk past OR an unmanned section of wall during a storm). Maybe the players want some agency. Maybe the players want to be able to contribute to the game, don't see the party mage as the wall-climbing type, or otherwise want to be able to play -- and roleplay their characters -- too.

This lets them do that, and encourages a lot more complexity of individual action and roleplaying than previous editions.

 

[RigaMortus2]

(Why should climbing a hard to climb wall give you a bonus to your next diplomacy check?).

Because once you get to the roof, you run into an NPC Rogue who was also hiding up there. Impressed with your skills at climbing, he offers to help you hide from the guards (this is where the diplomacy check comes in, +2).

To me, it seems like the skill checks remove the game map. Where a combat encounter basically forces you to use a battle map (with measurements in squares, strange and specific movement rules, etc.), the skill system seems to remove you from this and allows the players and DM to improv.

If you were still using that map, and using it to scale, there might not be an ally to duck into, because the map is not drawn with one. Making a hard Perception check, the DM can improvise and say you see an ally to your left, and you can duck into it to make your escape.

 

[TwinBahamut]

LostSoul, because of your descriptions and posts in this thread, I have gone from "mildly interested in the new skill challenge system" to "absolutely in love with the new system". Also, I have started getting countless ideas about how to put this kind of system to good use. Thank you.

Anyways, here are a few good examples I can think of for individual checks and situations:


Example 1: Player making diplomacy check with a guard who is supposed to be capturing you (maybe because the guard has been ordered to do so by a corrupt king?), to convince him that you are really the good guy.

Normal: The guard is a normal, dedicated guard, and a good man. Success means the guard is willing to let you escape, and you have one less guard chasing you. Failure means he continues to try to capture you, and more guards might come.

Easy: The guard happens to be a corrupt guard, and you have evidence that can prove his misdeeds. Success means that you blackmail him into letting you escape. Failure means that he becomes desperate to kill you and seize the evidence you hold.

Hard: The guard happens to be the guard captain, an honest man loyal to his king. Success means that he will let you escape, and the seeds of doubt in his king have been sown in his heart. Failure means he will continue to try to capture you.


Example 2: Player making a stealth check while running with his allies from a mob of guards.

Normal: You try to blend in with the crowd. Success means the guards begin to lose track of you. failure means they can still follow you.

Easy: You ditch your comrades and duck into an alley. Success means you hide from the guards. Failure means they spot you and you are now isolated from the group.

Hard: You jump out in front of the guards, shout "Try and catch me!", run away from the group, and then try to hide after luring some of the guards away. Success means you successfully hide, and many guards get lost in town chasing after your shadow. Failure means they continue chasing you and your team (maybe they just ignore you?).


Example 3 (Theoretical Modern edition ): You are trying to find information on some ancient relic using some kind of research skill, with some kind of time limitation (opposing group also looking for the same information?).

Normal: You look up some records at the local library. Success means you find reliable information, failure means you waste time fruitlessly.

Easy: You do an internet search. Success means you find a website with good information. Failure means you find spam and bad information invented by a twelve-year old (and believe it!).

Hard: You dig out the original manuscript of a text from a Library's special collections and re-translate it yourself. Success means you find good information. Failure means that you wasted your time.