Any New Info on Skill Encounters?

[Kordeth]

Depending on exactly how skill challenges work when you're actively competing against NPCs (like the "running from the town guard" example vs. "researching an ancient temple"), the increased-difficulty-leads-to-bonus might also represent your taking an action that makes your task tougher but also makes it harder for your opponent to follow you. The new World of Darkness system uses this sort of mechanic in its foot chase rules, where you can take a penalty on your roll to force the other person to take a like penalty on theirs, representing things like breaking stride to kick over a garbage can or slam a door behind you.

To use the wall example, maybe there's a market stall against the wall that provides handholds (Easy check). If you're feeling cocky, maybe as you clamber up the stall you deliver a few good kicks and partially collapse it. This ups the DC to Difficult (both because you're destroying your own handholds and because you're "losing time" breaking stuff instead of getting the Hells out of Hommlett).

Granted, that explanation makes more sense if a skill challenge involves opposed rolls, but if it is an abstracted system where only the PCs roll, then a bonus to your next check is functionally equivalent. Either way, I'm very interested to see the full text of this system, because it sounds like what we're hearing from D&DXP is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

[FadedC]

There was actually a sample 4e adventure involving vampires that WoTC released awhile back. It had very lilttle crunch and was mostly about roleplaying and interesting characters, but it did have some minor stuff on social skill challenges.

Each character had a couple skills that we considered apropriate to use against them in a social challenge. I think it was usually diplomacy, intimidate and gather info, but at least one character was hard headed and reacted very poorly to intimidate attempts I think. There may have been others with other restrictions.

So this implies that it's not just about making up whatever skill you want and using it to "change reality" or to climb up a wall to improve your diplomacy check. It's more about using the skills that are apropriate to the situation, which are presumably laid out in the module or by the DM.

Presumably a skill challenge could even involve a scripted set of taks and changing scenarios, which could even involve a mandaotry streetwise check to avoid that dead end.....

 

[Peter LaCara]

For the record, this kind of system isn't gamist at all. It is, in fact, a narrative system, which is probably why the simulationists are still reacting badly to it.

 

[Spatula]

3E provides no guidelines at its core in handling such an encounter neither does it provide a good way to estimate XP for said encounter, something that 4E likely does?

CR is actually a really good way to estimate XP rewards for encounters, combat and non-combat alike. The 2e DMG talked about xp rewards for completing goals and whatnot, but there was really no guideline there at all. 3e and 4e both have an average XP per encounter value that can be used. And I'll bet 4e's non-combat reward structure isn't any different from, say, giving players XP for defeating an equal-level encounter, adjusted up or down for the difficulty and/or importance.

 

[Artellan]

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.

I second that, LostSoul your posts in this thread have been pure gold!

 

[Spatula]

So, it sounds like 4e has a encounter design advice for skill-based, instead of combat-based, encounters. Sounds cool, not really anything new or something that you can't already do, but it should be helpful to newbie DMs. Derren's complaints are bit overboard - no DM, or very very few DMs in any case, has an exact map of everywhere the PCs end up, with precise notes on NPCs locations & attitudes, guard patrol paths, etc. You're always going to be winging things to some extent and inventing aspects of the gameworld in response to the players' actions.

 

[D'karr]

I played the "Escape from Sembia" adventure and the DM did a magnificent job of showing the strengths of the 4e system. The best part of this "scene" was that it was interactive and it required the involvement of the whole party. We were encouraged to play to the character's strength.

Our goal was to Escape from the town without getting caught. We were allowed to play the scene completely free-form.

We all rolled initiative and in initiative order each player decided which of the 3 paths to escape they would follow: Marketplace, Crowded Street, or Dark Alley. Once in their "path" they decided what they would do to get away from the guards without getting caught.

Our Ranger, Paladin, fighter and warlock decided to go for the marketplace, the cleric decided to head into the crowded street, and the wizard decided to use his racial advantages for stealth in the dark alley.

The paladin saw a man holding some horses and talked the man (Diplomacy) into allowing him to get close to the animals by getting in their saddle bags. The man laughed heartily but allowed the paladin to do so. So the halfling climbed into a sack and attempted to hide. He rolled pretty good and gained our group a success.

The ranger saw an open stall and stood on it yelled for the crowd, "fellow citizens, come see great feats of acrobatics!" Performed a somersault and as he landed tossed some coins into the street, catching the attention of the crowd and getting them all in the way of the guards. He aced that roll with a 29 (max). That gave him a success.

The warlock saw the opportunity and used the distraction of the crowd to attempt to conceal himself near a stall. He rolled well and the DM granted him a bonus due to the impressive success of the previous player in capturing the attention of the crowd (circumstance bonus).

The fighter used her strength to tip over a stall as she ran through and with the distraction of the crowd ducked into a nearby stall. She succeeded (STR check) and garnered us another success.

The wizard moved stealthily though the alley trying to avoid the guards. He also succeeded and got us another success.

Then it was the cleric's turn, he looked at his sheet and noticed that he did not have good diplomacy or bluff, so he asked the DM if he could attempt to gather support from the crowd by using Religion instead. The DM agreed and gave him a slight penalty on the circumstance bonus. The cleric rolled poorly in addition to the penalty and we got our first failure. He also angered the crowd making it more difficult for him to escape.

The paladin attempted to hide and failed. Second failure.

The DM used our passive perception scores to clue us in to the trouble in the crowded street nearby.

The ranger, warlock and fighter got some more successes. The wizard also noticed the problems in the crowded street and stealthily moved in that direction. The cleric attempted to convince the crowd that his god indeed did not suck and failed miserably again. Now the whole situation was turning sour. The group in the market place was going to escape but the cleric was going to be caught. The warlock used stealth and his powers to create fiery diversions for the cleric while hiding on a nearby rooftop. The rest of the party moved towards the crowded street to assist the cleric. The Ranger performed another sommersault held out his hand as if he was going to toss coins, yelled "come see my next performance in the crowded street!" and used his fey step to teleport enough to be out of view of the crowd. The crowd followed to the crowded street and the warlock was able to provide enough distractions for the cleric to get away.

That was a scene to behold and all the player's got involved. That right there sold me on this skill challenge mechanic.

We did not get to choose to do an easy, medium or hard task. We described what we wanted to do and the DM simply assigned a value, that we did not know, to the task. We also did not know how many successes we needed. We just knew that we wanted to have more successes than failures. In the end we had 10 successes and 4 failures and were able to escape the town.

YMMV

 

[Shroomy]

D'karr, that sounds awesome.

 

[D'karr]

D'karr, that sounds awesome.

The best part of that scene was that each player played off the scene using the interaction of the other players.

The DM also explained that this type of challenge can be tailored to accomplish scenes that you don't want to necessarily devolve into combat, though they can.

For example a country is about to be invaded by a marauding army of goblins and they are unsure of what course of action to take. You could use diplomacy to attempt to convince the ruling council that allowing the goblins any leeway would be disastrous. You could use bluff to speak about other incursions the goblins have been in (a lie). You could use perception to sense which of the councilors will vote against your recommendation. You could even have an opposing councilor countering your points. You could then use Heraldry to know that this councilor has a long history of allying with the goblinoids for profit. Use History to remind the council of what happened to the neighboring country when they allowed the goblins to advance. This could go on for as long as the DM wants to extend the scene.

In the end you might have convinced the council to follow your lead but made a powerful enemy in the process.

I really liked the framework of this mechanic. And more importantly I like that it tends to promote involvement by all the players.

 

[dblade]

I'm totally sold on this system as described. It will be interesting to see more of the details.