Any New Info on Skill Encounters?

[Ingolf]

The players should not add to the game world. That is the DMs job.

The players might not be able to add to your game world, because you have decided that is your job and yours alone. That's not how it has to work, and I think for the majority of posters in this thread, it's not how we feel it should work either.

Further - why so hung up on whether or not a particular dead-end alleyway has a sewer grate or chink in the fence or other avenue of escape that isn't on the map or in your adventure notes? Is this alleyway crucial to the plot of the larger adventure? Is it someplace that you plan to revisit again and again? If it's a crime scene or the location of the entrance to a secret forbidden temple or something, perhaps so. But if it's just an obstacle in a chase scene or some other "throwaway" location, what does it matter? As an obstacle to be overcome, it should provide a moment of dramatic tension and then the scene moves on - perhaps complicated by the outcome of a die roll, perhaps not.

How does it hurt the game for the player to suggest some aspect of the scene you hadn't included, and then let the dice influence the outcome? Notice I said "influence" and not "decide" - this system seems to leave ample room for DM interpretation.

 

[jaer]

But then you are limiting character abilities by player skill. If the character has a killer streetwise he wouldn't run down that dead-end alley in the first place, even if the player doesn't think to invoke a check. This would be a circumstance where you as DM would hear what the player wants to do (run down an alley and escape) and mandate what skill is involved (streetwise to pick the correct alley) rather than letting the player pick the skill.

Indeed it is limitind a character by player ability. And in the case of someone who did have a killer streetwise (which I might concede to a 1st lvl character with streetwise trained and skill focused and who had a high stat for it), I would have them roll the check before heading down the alley. I would do the same for a high level wizard about to fireball a fire-subtype creature; before the action, have them make the check and if they succeed, tell the they are fighting a fire subtype.

But at first level, I don't see the characters having the experience to have that sort of insight. Just like I don't remind players they are within a creature's reach when they decide to cast a spell not on the defense.

If you like doing it the other way, having player knowledge/skill determine what the character does even when the character should know better then you'll have to come up with other justifications than I will in order to use this system.

If you consider that the encounter isn't over until the characters have escaped the city, then space the checks further out. Have one check every 5 minutes or so. Or have one encounter being escaping the chase, and a second getting out of the city, somehow.

--Penn

Indeed, I might have broken this down into a few phases were I running it my way. But we are all critiquing a particular template in this case. There are many things abiout the Escape from Sembia that are very different from how I would run it.

 

[Seule]

As long as we all understand exactly where we differ, and why, and that there are multiple valid playstyles, there's not a whole lot left to say.
Thanks for disagreeing with me with style and thought, jaer.

--Penn

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Action Resolution vs Goal Resolution

You're right - it's a matter of order. Jaer prefers the players make a decision first and they deal with the consequences. Any skill checks are based on "the player performed this action".

It looks like 4th Edition is goal-based. The player says "I am looking for an alley to escape through" and, based on their roll, gets them closer or further from their goal. I envision it more like this:

Thiefy McThievesalot is madly dashing through the market away from the guards and makes a streetwise check. He rolls poorly and goes down the <already pre-defined> dead end on your map. It's not like the marketplace is clear and the guy isn't distracted already. Maybe he could have been headed for the correct alley, but was cut off. It can be anything that thwarts the PC from achieving his desired goal.

A high check of another kind doesn't let him make a secret door where the GM clearly defined there was not one, but may allow him to:
Hide long enough to give him a chance to make a break for the correct alley
Start scaling one of the nearby buildings
Break into one of the buildings making the alleyway

There is nothing that I've seen that forces the GM to automatically make stuff up that he doesn't want to have. Furthermore, you can provide lower difficulties for rational or ingenious solutions to the problem and make it more difficult or nigh-impossible for solutions you consider silly or impractical. A successful roll doesn't have to mean "they've gained a success versus my static number", but it could give them time or a bonus to something else.

Example:

Thiefy has gone down the dead-end alley because of his poor Streetwise roll. The guards are nearby and one spots him, getting his buddies to pin him in.

"We've got you now", they say, grinning to themselves as they advance.

Our thief, clearly out of options, tries to talk his way out of it. Using bluff (modified by the actual role-playing), he may give himself enough space to make a break for it.

"Wanna see a magic trick?" Thiefy McThievesalot says hastily. The guards hesistate for a moment, unsure of themselves. "Just close your eyes and count to ten and I'll disappear". One of the slower guards looks at him with a confused expression, clearly not getting the joke. He glances at his comrade, who immediately guffaws at the situation. Seeing his chance, Thiefy makes his break.

At this point he makes his Athletics (or whatever) check, probably with a bonus due to the distraction, to see if he can escape immediately and continue the chase.

At least, that's how I see it.

 

[jaer]

That's where our styles differ. I think what you are describing is not using this system; instead, you're using a system where the DM decides if the PCs get out or not, and the dice don't come into it. A player could roll a success on 20 checks, and end up in prison. Or the other way around - he could roll 20 failures, but still make it out.

Your way is probably better if you do take the time and care to build such an intricate chase scene! My only advice would be to make sure the players know how things work - that is, "The only way your PCs will get out of the city is if they get out of the city - successes on the dice may help, if you choose the right actions, but they won't resolve if you get out of the city or not."

Not my style, but if it works for you, go for it.

You may have just nailed it. I would have the success of player's actions determine the effect of those actions on the guard, but unless they take advantage of those actions and continue to move out of the city or to some other safe place, then no number of successful rolls will get them out. They can dodge guards all day long, but until they leave the city...they haven't left!

I've been playing with the same group for over ten years now. They know my style pretty well. And I think if they managed to get out of the city without playing it all the way through, they'd sit there going, "WTF? How are we in the clear? Aren't the guards still chacing us?"

 

[Insight]

I know I'm a little late to the game here, but I'll throw in my 2 cents about the skill challenge system as I experienced it during the preview.

Our DM posed us the scenario: "Escape from the guards and make your way to the rendezvous point outside the city." Note: I added the idea of a rendezvous point outside the city and the DM went with it, so I doubt that was in the adventure text.

Anyway, I immediately caught on that we were supposed to make a skill check against some sort of challenge level, and, playing the Ranger, I proposed using Athletics and Stealth to climb on the roof and then leap from rooftop to rooftop in order to evade the guards and escape the city. The DM was vague about how exactly the system worked, and admitted he wasn't sure if I could use two skills for the skill challenge, but allowed it anyway. I took on a 'medium' challenge and rolled a 27 or something, which apparently blew away the DC and the Ranger escaped.

Others in our group took longer, either because they couldn't figure out which skill to use or rolled poorly. The Cleric used Religion to hook up with local religious types, who eventually helped spirit him out of the city, while the Warlock used Persuasion (?) and some gold to convince a beggar to swap clothes and escaped the city in disguise.

What I like about the skill challenge system is that it invites the players to get involved in resolving the challenge. You get to choose how your character deals with the challenge, which is not always the case. In fact, in most published adventures, there is *one* right answer.

What I didn't like, and maybe this is an illegimitate gripe, is that the DM didn't seem to know how to resolve the challenge, or at least didn't communicate it very well. For example, it wasn't clear whether making one 'medium' challenge had any effect at all, and what the benefits and drawbacks were with choosing the higher or lower challenges. It could be that the mod was unclear on the matter; I'd like to see the skill challenge system in more detail before passing final judgment.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What I like about the skill challenge system is that it invites the players to get involved in resolving the challenge. You get to choose how your character deals with the challenge, which is not always the case. In fact, in most published adventures, there is *one* right answer.

That's possible the best thing about it - you get to think about a solution yourself, and since there is no predetermined path, you can do what fits to the characters personality - you know, role-playing stuff.

That said, I also believe that you can use the framework of the system to create a set of predetermined challenges, and probably use this to get a reasonable XP value or something to reward beating the challenge. The idea is to create a sequence of possible skill uses that lead to success, leaving room for some failures and varying the results based on the degree of success. And this can also lead to interesting role-playing, if you leave enough options and play the individual scenes leading to a check or resolving the check result out.

I remember reading someone writing for the DMG talking/writing about the social encounter rules for 4th edition, and talking about how they would work for both common types of role-playing - describe the scene first, then roll, or roll first, then describe the scene. In a larger context, this seems to apply to this rule, too.

 

[FadedC]

You may have just nailed it. I would have the success of player's actions determine the effect of those actions on the guard, but unless they take advantage of those actions and continue to move out of the city or to some other safe place, then no number of successful rolls will get them out. They can dodge guards all day long, but until they leave the city...they haven't left!

I've been playing with the same group for over ten years now. They know my style pretty well. And I think if they managed to get out of the city without playing it all the way through, they'd sit there going, "WTF? How are we in the clear? Aren't the guards still chacing us?"

Well I'm pretty sure the skill check system for the chase assumes a constant running away on the part of the characters. It's not like they standing in place turning over apple carts, it's like a chase scene in a movie where lots of things like this happen over the course of the actual running and leaving the city.

But I agree, if you can take the time to plot out the entire city and where all the alleys and escape routes and major NPCs are, that's far superior and cooler then just using the skill challenge system. But I know very few DMs who could pull that off and make the chase scene feel like a chase scene. If your one of the few who can then more power to you.

The only thing the new system might give you if you are using a more specific simulation of the escape are some rules for under what circumstances somebody escapes or gets caught. Often it's hard to adjudicate what the consequences really are for going down a dead end or other problems. Having successes and failures that add up gives a way to actually determine how close or far the players are from being caught by the guards. Your only other option is to somehow try to calculate the movement rates and positions of all the guards, or making completely arbitrary decisions about weither the players get caught when they run into the deadend or not.

 

[glass]

Here is one place I agree with Derren. I don't know the location of all secrets and NPCs in the world at all time. I do need to think on my feet. If I were to run an Escape Scene like the one here, I would however know the exact location of all secrets and all exits. I would know what was behind the doors and over the walls and I would have a list and placement of all major NPCs the group might encounter.

If those things were already decided, then you don't need any way to decide them. Therefore, the idea about using a skillcheck top decide them becomes irrelevant. You might still use it to decide about pitchforks in hay or non-major NPCs, or you might not. From everything we have heard so far it is a very flexible system so you are still good either way. Still not seeing the problem.


glass.

 

[glass]

If he picks the alley first and then makes his check, then he is in that alley and realized he made a bad choice.

How does he 'pick the alley first'. There is no basis for him to make that decision.


glass.