Are PCs expected to beat skill challenges?

[Raduin711]

perhaps the idea is to teach dm's and players how to use skill challenges; not every challenge is going to be, or should be a cakewalk.

In order for skill challenges to work, players and DM's will have to learn to accept failure as an outcome. For instance...

Lets first look at a 3.5 skill check. The players need to get to a temple hidden in the mysterious forest.

DM: "Ok, Ranger, roll a Survival check. You have a rough idea of where to go, but the forest is pretty hard to navigate."

Ranger: "oops. only rolled a 2. that brings my total to 12."

DM: (sweats) "Um... that didn't quite make it. You get hopelessly lost in the forest." (geez, I need to get them to that temple... maybe I will just use this as an excuse for a random encounter or something... Now where did I put that-)

Ranger: "well, can I try again?"

DM: "Say what? You're hoplessly lost, though..."

Ranger: (grumbling) "well, the book says I can retry..." (what else are we supposed to do, oh mighty DM?)

DM: (sighs) "Alright, go ahead."

Ranger: "Finally! Something decent!"

DM: "You find yourselves at the gates of the temple..." (now wasn't that a waste of time...)

This time around, they are instructing us, through the use of skill challenges, to accept failures, while at the same time allowing players to progress through the adventure. By allowing failure, the skill checks really matter, tension goes up, people pay attention and have more fun.

So, instead of just giving the player a reroll (I guess he wasn't so hopelessly lost after all...) you have them accidentally wander into a quicksand trap, or perhaps they meet a sly kobold who is willing to put them back on the right track... for a price. or some other consequence that progresses the plot, but makes them pay.

So I guess that's why they made the challenge so hard... the beauty of the system isn't in how players succeed at challenges... it is how they fail. And that's what they are showcasing.

 

[Ginnel]

Can I be cheeky and piggy-back a question on this thread:

(If it's already been answered I apologise, but I haven't got the time right now to search through the forum)

How do people think a Skill Challenge should be presented to the players? All I've read right now has left me a bit confused: Do I give them all the options when the skill challenge starts? i.e. I tell them how many successes they need and what skills they need to use, or do I just say there is a skill challenge here and go try your skills?

Personally I'm a bit loath to tell them too much detail because I like to hide as much of the number crunching from the players whilst in-game, but I also don't want them to stand around and scratch their heads, especially this being such a new concept.

Bing! have a cookie, I put this question into the random skill challenge generator thread and it got ignored. My suggestion would be to describe the scene with a few key descriptions

The humanoid figure disappears and instantly reappears within an arcane ritual circle, seemingly aiding the dark energies which flow around it.

Then you put it down to player preference if the players say they want to look at the circle closely advise them to make an appropriate arcane role if they look at the energies, advise a knowledge religion. If they don't specify again point out 2 things seem to grab your attention the ritualistic way this has been set up and the evil dark energies flowing forth.

If the players chose to ignore the actual circle the skill challenge doesn't go ahead for the moment, perhaps you want to give them a free hint 2 rounds into the fight, saying something an partially formed idea comes to mind, give me a knowledge arcane role.

 

[FireLance]

perhaps the idea is to teach dm's and players how to use skill challenges; not every challenge is going to be, or should be a cakewalk.

While that is not a bad philosophy, in this specific case:
[SBLOCK]You're effectively punishing creative players who want to try an alternate approach to simply fighting an encounter. Admittedly, the costs and downsides are low: the checks are made as free, opportunity or minor actions, failing Arcana and Religion checks subjects the character to an attack, and failing the skill challenge simply means that the characters lose a healing surge. However, a trivial chance of success seems to be a poor reward for creative and cinematic play. I would rather increase the costs (so that each check requires a standard or move action, for example), but lower the DCs so that the PCs have an overall 50% or so chance to succeed.[/SBLOCK]

 

[phil500]

for skill challenges i will give my players a mod from a -3 to a +3 on their roll.

if they give clever answers, for example, thats a +2 or a +3.

 

[SnakeNuts]

So I guess that's why they made the challenge so hard... the beauty of the system isn't in how players succeed at challenges... it is how they fail. And that's what they are showcasing.

That I can see and I really love the idea. However, my beef is with how to get the players to know what they can do (if at all)

The humanoid figure disappears and instantly reappears within an arcane ritual circle, seemingly aiding the dark energies which flow around it.

Then you put it down to player preference if the players say they want to look at the circle closely advise them to make an appropriate arcane role if they look at the energies, advise a knowledge religion. If they don't specify again point out 2 things seem to grab your attention the ritualistic way this has been set up and the evil dark energies flowing forth.

If the players chose to ignore the actual circle the skill challenge doesn't go ahead for the moment, perhaps you want to give them a free hint 2 rounds into the fight, saying something an partially formed idea comes to mind, give me a knowledge arcane role.

That sounds like a plan... I like it

 

[AtomicPope]

Just looking at the additional skill challenge provided for Keep on the Shadowfell, it seems like the PCs only have a slim chance of beating it.

The primary skills for the challenge are Arcana (DC 22) and Religion (DC 22) and the PCs have to accumulate 8 successes before they get 4 failures.

Otherwise, attempting skill challenges seems pointless for the PCs, at least in this specific case.

That's the hardest level 6 challenge possible according to the site. A skill challenge is 15+1/2+Variable(-4 to +4) so the more difficult the higher the Variable and number of successes required. A skill that is DC 22 (15+3+4) is the highest a level 6 skill challenge should be.

Why it's in a level 1 to 4 dungeon beats the heck outta me.

 

[vagabundo]

That's the hardest level 6 challenge possible according to the site. A skill challenge is 15+1/2+Variable(-4 to +4) so the more difficult the higher the Variable and number of successes required. A skill that is DC 22 (15+3+4) is the highest a level 6 skill challenge should be.

Why it's in a level 1 to 4 dungeon beats the heck outta me.

I suppose it is a "long shot" that could heroically end the encounter. It should be difficult.

 

[Harr]

How do people think a Skill Challenge should be presented to the players? All I've read right now has left me a bit confused: Do I give them all the options when the skill challenge starts? i.e. I tell them how many successes they need and what skills they need to use, or do I just say there is a skill challenge here and go try your skills?

Personally I'm a bit loath to tell them too much detail because I like to hide as much of the number crunching from the players whilst in-game, but I also don't want them to stand around and scratch their heads, especially this being such a new concept.

Describe the situation without listing any of the possible skills. Let the players decribe their character's actions organically ("I want to try to read the book"), and YOU assign the skill they need to use ("Ok, give me an Arcana check DC 15"), using the written challenge as a guideline for what skill to ask for. When they inevitably describe something the written challenge doesn't cover, improvise and choose whatever skill seems best to you, again using the written challenge as a guideline for DC.

Once you start playing, you'll find that this process is what you will naturally fall into.

Whether you want to make them aware that they're in a skill challenge in the first place is completely up to you (I choose to do so, it works well).

Edit -> This is all you really need to know to run a good skill challenge, (or this and a couple false starts maybe, to get the experience) I'd recommend staying away from the old skill challenge threads as they quickly became clogged with an astounding amount of misinterpretations and over-analysis which makes them a lot more difficult to understand than they actually are.

 

[NMcCoy]

Haven't read it, as I want to avoid spoilering myself as a player, but couldn't you give players a bonus for spending bigger actions on the skill checks?

 

[keterys]

The problem I have is that there are real penalties for failure for each check (that's quite a bit of damage), on top of the difficulty of doing it.