Are You Using Skill Checks and Skill Challenges

[Grabuto138]

To a veteran like me the justification doesn't matter as much.

I've played many games where I can skip the dialogue and/or turn the animation off. But to give the game spice it's nice to keep the skill challenges.

I did crash the cart that stranded us for a day. A bard doesn't have a good nature check for that as I found out.

I see. Thank you.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Skills? Of course we use skills. I don't really grasp how you could have an interesting game of 4e without constant use of skill checks. Every time one of the PCs tries anything there is pretty much going to be a skill check. A lot of them are easy checks, but they still add an element of fun and tension (now and then a character fails one and slips up). If I have any issue it is that the players are constantly bombarding me with skill rolls, lol. As soon as they say "My character tries X" the dice are hitting the table.

Skill challenges are a great tool. Not everyone has apparently been able to master using them well. Perhaps they don't fit in really well with some group's play style either. I know groups that hardly ever have combat encounters either (though it is fairly rare with D&D players). The basic answer is obviously that SCs can be great. The best advice is to make them organic, that is don't lay it out mechanically in the midst of a narrative. Let the players just go about doing what they think should be done and keep explaining what happens when they do things. When you need to measure their attempts against some kind of failure criteria then use the SC framework to do that.

Personally I run a lot of ad-hoc SCs. They are usually low complexity kinds of things, but not always.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm determined to use more SC's in my game, because at the moment I rarely use them at all. This isn't because I don't understand the shortcomings of overly-simple and mechanical challenges, but simply because the game seems to be perfectly satisfactory to the players without them.

I think though that well-designed SC's will add a lot to the proceedings and I'm currently soaking up advice and examples from all over the web. Mearls' exploration challenge from DMG2 is essentially where I want to end up: scaffolding for complex, usually lengthy challenges where failures has a tangible impact on the ongoing game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Skill Challenges? In a word utterly amazing... When they are done right.

My group rarely realises the Challenge mechanics are being used tho. I frequently use it as an accounting and progress tool to measure their progress towards an objective... With a lot of roelplaying, successes via things other than skills... And a lot of DM adlib involved. Very open ended. A lot of fun.

This. Skill challenges are an excellent DM tool for evaluating "PC-plans" on the fly while keeping the pacing and the XP fair. Don't tell the PCs they are in one - just use it for evaluation of what they are doing and pacing - and how far they still need to go to succeed at their goal.

Explicit skill challenges on the other hand in most cases just break immersion.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Anyone have links to good examples of skill challenges being used in play? Any videos, podcasts, etc.?

 

[Imaro]

Skills? Of course we use skills. I don't really grasp how you could have an interesting game of 4e without constant use of skill checks. Every time one of the PCs tries anything there is pretty much going to be a skill check. A lot of them are easy checks, but they still add an element of fun and tension (now and then a character fails one and slips up). If I have any issue it is that the players are constantly bombarding me with skill rolls, lol. As soon as they say "My character tries X" the dice are hitting the table.

Skill challenges are a great tool. Not everyone has apparently been able to master using them well. Perhaps they don't fit in really well with some group's play style either. I know groups that hardly ever have combat encounters either (though it is fairly rare with D&D players). The basic answer is obviously that SCs can be great. The best advice is to make them organic, that is don't lay it out mechanically in the midst of a narrative. Let the players just go about doing what they think should be done and keep explaining what happens when they do things. When you need to measure their attempts against some kind of failure criteria then use the SC framework to do that.

Personally I run a lot of ad-hoc SCs. They are usually low complexity kinds of things, but not always.

So I'm curious, in taking the above advice into consideration... what in your oppinion differentiates a skill challenge from a series of skill checks?

 

[Holy Bovine]

I was using skill challenges when I was DMing. In one game I played in until recently the DM would announce the SC was in effect and we just rolled dice to overcome it *yawn*. The game I do still play in uses SC but manages to keep things in the background for the most part. I find SC a chore to create but have had some awesome moments using them.

 

[the Jester]

So, 2.5 years into 4E and a couple months into the Essentials redirection, how are skill challenges working out for your group?

Mostly great!

I try to run skill challenges periodically, but combat is certainly more common most of the time. I try to make skill challenges engaging for the whole party OR mixed with combat, traps or other challenges. My favorite was the party fighting the BBEG, slaying him- and discovering that they had to lay the spirit of his lover to rest with a skill challenge or he would come back in a few rounds. Whoops! The party spent the next session frantically trying to hold off the BBEG's horde of minions, slay him again AND complete the skill challenge.

OTOH, I've had a couple boner loser skill challenges too, but they were mostly early on and before I had a decent handle on how to make a good SC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So I'm curious, in taking the above advice into consideration... what in your oppinion differentiates a skill challenge from a series of skill checks?

I'd say any time you have a series of actions that is directed at accomplishing a fairly specific goal then you have a candidate for an SC. Skill checks are fine for cases where a PC simply tries to pull a stunt or is doing something fairly simple that has no real plot signficance. So for example if the rogue wants to unlock a door so the party can go past it without making a lot of noise (as opposed to bashing it in say) it really doesn't warrant an SC, a simple check will do. Likewise a character scrambling up a steep slope in the middle of a fight.

Now, if the characters say enter a town and decide to try to get some info so they can find missing NPC then an SC would probably be a good idea. The issue at hand could be can they gain the info without being too obvious about it and alerting the bad guys. They're going to get the info either way (or somehow encounter the bad guys anyway) but how well they do it is going to determine how things play out. A single Streetwise check COULD suffice, but it is more fun to put a bit more meat on that. It also lets you do it without requiring a single specific skill and making things rest on one toss of the dice. With a nice SC (say using Streetwise, Intimidate, maybe Athletics, Insight, and maybe Perception) would be cool. Most of the characters can participate with a decent skill bonus. The ones that can't may well still be able to pull off something clever (maybe using a power or a ritual or whatever).

 

[Riastlin]

In a word, yes. I love skill challenges when they are done right. The problem of course is that they can be incredibly flat when done wrong. I really try to avoid using skill challenges that are likely to only require 1 or 2 characters to succeed unless the sc is part of a combat encounter.

I think the trick to sc's is to not only get everyone involved (assuming a non-combat sc) but to also make the challenge meaningful without causing the game to grind to a halt if there's a failure.

I think the best SC I've designed so far involved the party attempting to talk to the spirit of a former guardian of the major artifact in the campaign. The individual in life belonged to an organization dedicated to protecting the secret of the artifact (think Last Crusade). In order to get the needed info from the spirit the party had to a) disable the protective runes around the coffin (3 successes), b) open the locks on the coffin to release the spirit (3 successes) and c) convince the spirit that the PCs were friendly and had the same goals as the spirit (4 successes).

The runes required arcana checks, the locks Thievery, and the convincing could be done by a combination of Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate. History, Religion and Streetwise were available as secondary skills that could provide bonuses to primary skills and of course, I was always willing to let party make other suggestions if they could properly describe the use of the skill.

Success meant the spirit came out and talked to them, giving them the info they wanted. Failure meant that the spirit summoned a host of undead guardians to repel the intruders but if the party defeated them, they could then negotiate with the spirit. No additional XP would be given for fighting the baddies (in other words, no incentive to fail the challenge). If, after the fight the party still failed to convince the spirit, then they would have to look elsewhere for the info.

Unfortunately, in play, the artificer rolled 1, 1, 2 on his arcana checks, causing the challenge to fail almost immediately. After the fight though the party succesfully negotiated with the spirit and received the info they needed.

As for SC's I've seen, there was a really good one in the final encounter of Radiant Vessel of Thessk an RPGA module. Basically, during the fight one or more of the party members needs to help deliver a baby. I was also a player in a game wherein the party was tasked with chasing a harpy at night. We had to make athletics checks to stay on the horse, perception checks to see the harpy and obstacles in our way and nature checks to help navigate, etc. It worked pretty well aside from the fact that on the last check we failed the challenge. In this case, the harpy got away causing the adventure to progress in a different direction rather than just grinding to a halt.

Unfortunately, I've also seen plenty of challenges fall flat either because only 1 or 2 people participated or there wasn't enough variety or description of what was going on, etc. I do really like the suggestion above for social challenges in that the number of people who need to be convinced determines the complexity of the challenge. Rolling Bluff and Diplomacy over and over again in order to convince the duke gets old fast.