Conflex: an alternative skill challenge system [v0.2]

[BobTheNob]

I'd suggest trying it with the worksheet in the open. The system is certainly a lot less complicated than the rules for 4E combat.

Thats for sure!

What I actually have is an application I wrote. It does mapping and handles combat and runs of the internet, so when we play the information I want to present to the player is on a widescreen tv on the wall. As such, I am actually designing the next facet which is skill challenge support, I just need a skill challenge system I am comfortable with.

When I need transparency, I would achieve through this.

But the importnt aspect of it is that by making these things transparent to the players, you shed a little light on the impact their characters abilities have. Its so cool when a power you possess has a profound impact on combat and you understand how and why....I want the same thing for skill challenges.

 

[Fluxx]

Hi!

Last weekend I read your System and I think it has some really nice ideas. The expend of ressources is much more like in a real fight. The rolls for failure give some elements of tension. The different consequences make it easy to design skillchallenges with different feeling.

But there are some things I think one should look at:

- First is a question: you say your players made all skillchallenges - but at what cost? Did they loose about 1 surge the whole party or more about 10 surges?

- You say: 'I don't think it's really as essential to have all players directly involved in a skill challenge as it is in a combat, mostly because SCs take so little time.' I have to agree and disagree at once I agree that it is not nescessary that everyone must have a meaningful role in every skillchallenge. If it is a mainly social SC my Int 8-Cha 10-Fighter wouldn't be of much help and it is good not to force him to try. But on the other hand you only make a SC if the situation is important for the party - so it is not much fun to sit there and can't do anything. I think you need s.th. like the 'guiding light' from Stalker0's Cores System. S.th. to roll but not as important as the main-rolls...

- What is about other ressources? Give them some interesting options: Action Point: spend an AP to get an additional roll this segment; daily Powers: mark an daily Power of your choice as used and get 3 additional SP on the next roll

- think about a longer list of 'official' consequences: pressing: you have one roll less on the next segment, instabil: the primary skill changes (diplomacy-bluff-intimidate, athletics-acrobatics), minor important: 3 failures doesn't loose the SC but you only have a partial success.

- make two kinds of consequences: one which is an effect on a failure (distracting, tiring) and one kind changes the overall rules or has an effect on three failures (individual, partial,...). Every Conflict can have one consequence ofg each type

- give the DM some meaningful decissions: perhaps he can choose each time which conflict will first test for failure (so he can try to inflict maximum surges damgae or can concentrate on denying a full succes by rushing the partial conflict...). Or he has some other minor toys to play with (like heroes can use APs or Powers). Perhaps here is a point where the players who had no roll this round can do s.th. by cutting down the options of the DM a bit.

- if you have some experience with other number of plaers than 5 pleas tell it

 

[HealingAura]

How do you decide the amount of EXP the players get when they succeed in the skill challenge? or when they score a partial success?
I assume that making a conflict harder by adding a complication to it, like confrontational, would provide more EXP for the party.

 

[Silverwave]

This system made me though about an alternative. I'm not huge fan of using spread sheet to manage my skill challenge, so here a "light" version of this system.

This system is based on 5 characters group.

- For the skill challenge, the DM choose 3 objectives. For example, in the labyrinth skill challenge the 3 objectives could be : 1. find your way 2. bypass traps 3. don't get caught by the monter patrols

- For each objective, you choose a negative effect. For example, it could be 1. find your way : the party gets +2 to all DC for the next turn 2. bypass trap : each character loose a healing surge 3. don't get caught by monter patrols : an encounter of the party's level (or each character loose 2 healing surges if you don't want to throw a fight)

- Each turn, every player have to make a skill check. The player decides wich objective he will try to get progress in.

- If in a turn (one turn ends when each players have rolled) there's not at least on sucess made in one or more objectives, the group takes a negative effect based on the objective(s). Penalties can be cumulatives (if there's no sucess in more than one objective).

- The DC are those at p.42. However, the DM choose if the DC is easy, medium or hard based on the player's description. If the player describe a nice and original way (or a very good idea, a good interpretation, etc) to use his skill, the DM will select an easy DC to oppose his check. On the other hand, if the description is basic, unoriginal, not very clever or not really appropriate, he will select the hard DC. That way, a very good role play or clever idea from a character with an average skill bonus still have a very good chance of suceeding.

- The challenge is completed when the group accumulated a number of successes. This rule make failure nearly impossible, pretty much like in combat. You expect the party to win.

- You can had the use of action points and critical hits (natural 20) in the same way has in Obsidian. An action point let you reroll, a natural 20 gives you 2 sucesses.

 

[DanmarLOK]

I recently used a mash up of this idea, obsidian and my own quirk and used it with pretty good success.

Three obstacles or agents of failure to overcome.
DC is set per Obsidian with a quirk that the force/obstacle rolls a d20 to see if the DC changes by -2, 0, +2. (This is more to make it an dynamic rather than a flat static DC).
Players all roll once against each obstacle/force. One skill is primary and adds +2 to the roll.

Total successes overall are what matter and used Obsidian recommended success numbers. Partial successes would have resulted in lost surges or extra encounters. I award XP based on quest so there's no 'farming' of encounters for xp using a challenge result.

There was no question they'd make it to the lair, just what shape they'd get there in.

Example:

Find the swamp lair.
Obstacles/Forces Against the Players -
Find the trail.
Avoid the dangers of the swamps.
Approach undetected.

A handwave of the success count on the three obstacles would have resulted in non-hardcoded results. Example if they got the fewest successes on the find the trail check then they arrived later with bad consequences. Fewest on the avoid the dangers and they show up with fewer surges. Fewest on the approach undetected and lair guards know they're coming or they run into an unecessary fight (patrol) that saps their resources.

 

[Silverwave]

The problem I often see with skill challenges is when you resolve one objective... then what.

I mean, if the players work toward finding the way, once they succeed at the nature check, well... they did find the best way. But you still have to wait until the challenge is completed to tell them. There's no immediate effect to suceeding one objective. It feels a bit flat and the player's don't have the feeling of influencing the events.

 

[Camelot]

I too love this idea and would greatly like to see it developed into a completed system! I like how each conflict can be countered simultaneously instead of the effect of a good or bad roll happening immediately after. I do have some critiques of it, but only a few.

First, the players should get to make a number of checks each round equal to the number of conficts in the challenge. My reasoning is that this way, each of the conflicts can always be addressed. For example, in the labyrinth challenge, I don't see why one player could navigate, one player disarms traps they come across, one player is focusing on distance travelled efficiently and the last is focusing on the group's stealth, all at once.

Second, the DCs seem too difficult. Each player should be able to participate, plus the easy DC for level 1 is 5, where you have the lowest DC resulting in a success being 14. That's even higher than average! I think the DCs should be adjusted per the updated DC guide.

Lastly, you need a way to address experience received from the skill challenge. My suggestion at first glance would be XP for a standard monster for each conflict completed. However, with some thought, this seems like a bit less than it should, as a challenge with 4 conflicts is average, but would only give 400 XP, which is less than a standard encounter.

Keep up the awesome work!

 

[Camelot]

After a wee bit of testing, I have some more ideas:

Instead of insight revealing conflicts, reveal all conflicts at the beginning and tell the players the primary skills they can use. Don't reveal secondary skill options; let the players come up with those themselves. They aren't as good as other skills, anyway. However, add a complication to the list, called "requirement" or something. Add this to a conflict to tell the DM to not reveal it at the start of the encounter until a certain condition is met.

For example, I created a skill challenge once that had the PCs trying to find where a certain dragon's lair would be. They knew the dragon's name, but nothing else. The first conflict would be to find out what kind of dragon it was, by looking up the name with the aid of History. Once they figured it out (it's a grey dragon), they would need to research where it might live using Nature. They would find that it lives in mountains, and hey, there are mountains nearby! So they need to do research on those specific nearby mountains using Dungeoneering. Each of these would be a conflict (what kind of dragon, dragon's habitat, and mountaineering) and the latter two would require that the earlier ones handled before they can be attempted.

I mentioned DCs yesterday. The problem is that if they are too high, characters without good skills can't contribute to the challenge. They should at least be getting 1 or 2 successes. However, you still want to reward players with high skills for using those skills, so how about this table? It keeps 5 the same, but lowers the others a bit so nontrained players can contribute.

Level.......1.....2.....3.....4.....5
1............5.....9....14...19....24
2............5.....10...15...20...25
3............6.....11...16...21...26
4............6.....11...16...21...27
5............7.....12...17...22...27
6............7.....12...17...22...28
7............8.....13...18...23...29
8............8.....13...19...24...30
9............9.....14...20...25...31
10..........9.....14...20...26...32
11..........10...15...21...26...32
12..........10...15...21...27...33
13..........11...16...22...28...34
14..........11...17...23...29...35
15..........12...18...24...30...36
16..........12...18...24...30...37
17..........13...19...25...31...38
18..........13...19...26...32...39
19..........14...20...26...32...39
20..........14...20...27...33...40
21..........15...21...28...34...41
22..........15...21...28...35...42
23..........16...22...29...36...43
24..........16...23...30...37...44
25..........17...23...30...37...44
26..........17...24...31...38...45
27..........18...25...32...39...46
28..........18...25...32...39...47
29..........19...26...33...40...48
30..........19...26...34...41...49

About the number of checks, maybe equal to the number of players? Otherwise, the players with the highest skills will be doing all the work and the others will just sit out and watch the entire time. It evens out because when there's more players, they make more checks, so it's easier, but they each get less XP because it was easier.

Which brings me to XP. Here's a starting point. Each conflict is worth XP of a standard monster at that level. If there are two primary skills, it is worth half XP. If there is a secondary skill, take away XP equal to a minion for that level from the conflict for each secondary skill useable. If there are complications, increase the XP earned by an amount of minions depending on the number and difficulty of each complication. There can also be reverse complications: rewards the players get for not getting a failure in a reaction round. These would decrease the XP.

I really like this system, and I think that by the finished edition, it could be used as the only skill challenge system a campaign needs.

 

[Camelot]

I hope you don't mind my obsession with this, but I am so inspired by this that I hope to use it in my own D&D game, and incorporate it into a game I'm creating, if that's okay with you (it's not going to be published, just made and shared)!

I came up with a few more ideas to extend the versatility of the system. You could have a system similar to the complexity to determine how many checks can be made per action round. 1 is the most difficult, as it means only 1 check can be made per round. It increases from there, and can help determine how many XP the players get in the end.

Also, the complications should come in helpful versions as well. These helpful complications would activate when the DM makes a failure check and it comes up lower than the target number. They can be things like revealing other conflicts, revealing secondary skills available, giving a bonus to skill checks, adding success points to the next round of skill checks, removing failures, rolling twice and using the lower result for the attack, requiring more failures to fail, and more. I also thought of a new negative complication: Detrimental. It's usually last, as Fundamental is usually first, and when a failure occurs in this conflict, it removes successes from all the previous conflicts!

Another idea, though this is a bit of a stretch as it goes against the idea that player's checks don't contribute negatively to the challenge, is negative skills. When you use this skill, you lose previously gained successes in the conflict. You compare your check to the table as normal, but inverse the SPs. So, say you make a check that would normally give you 4 SPs. It turns out to be a negative skills, so instead you lose 1 SPs. Inversing the SPs also inverses where the 0 is. The 0 is at the top now, so you have to count backwards for the SPs: equal to or over the highest number is 0, equal to or higher than 4 SPs is 1 SP, and so on. If you get lower than the lowest target number, you lose 5 SPs in that conflict.

I transformed the Negotiation skill challenge from the DMG into a Conflex skill challenge, to test out some of my ideas. It could work with more testing and tweaking. It uses the assumption that the DM tells the players the goal of each conflict and the primary skills of each conflict (except for Conflict 4, because it has the Unapparent complication, so it isn't revealed until the players are Enlightened of it).

Negotiation with the Duke
The duke sits at the head of his banquet table. Gesturing with a wine glass, he bids you to sit. "I'm told you have news from the borderlands."
Complexity: 3
Conflict 1: We have the same goals.
You must empathize with the duke to encourage his assistance.
Primary Skills: Insight
Secondary Skills: Streetwise
Complications: Fundamental, Enlightening: Conflict 2 (this means that a success causes the DM to tell the players everything about Conflict 2 that they didn't previously know, i.e., that Intimidate is a negative skill. A success refers to the DM rolling a failure check and not meeting the target number).
If you don't understand who you're talking to, you'll eventually realize that you've been getting nowhere when you thought you had progressed.
Conflict 2: Surely you can see the sense of that.
You must entreat the duke for aid in your quest through diplomatic procedures.
Primary Skills: Diplomacy
Negative Skills: Intimidate
Complications: Enligtening: Conflict 4.
The duke refuses to be intimidated by the likes of you.
Conflict 3: It's worse than it seems!
True, the goblins don't plan on attacking the duchy. But the duke doesn't have to know that.
Primary Skills: Bluff
Complications: Precarious, Detrimental.
The duke does not take kind to being lied to.
Conflict 4: History is doomed to be repeated.
Remembering about bloody battles of the past, you can warn the duke not to make the same mistakes as his predecessors.
Primary Skills: History
Complications: Unapparent. Helpful: +2 (this gives a +2 bonus to the next character's skill check).
When the duke reveals that he has participated in battles in the past, someone with knowledge of those battles warns the duke that more bloodshed could be avoided if he gives them aid.

Of course, this is your system, not mine. If what I'm saying goes against the goals you had in mind when designing the system, feel free to ignore me! I am personally looking for a skill challenge system that encourages DMs to give players more options than battle after battle.

 

[Fluxx]

I wouldn't be worried about players who can't contribute to the SC. Usually there are 4 different main-skills so the cahnces are good that each player has at least one of it trained. (usually you should try making up SCs which cover at least two of the areas social/knowledge/physical so that a char who is a total looser in one part still has a good chance to cover one skill.)
In addition you can - depending of the situation you try to simulate - allow the skill of a handled conflict be secondary for all/some other conflicts.
And finally there is still the fact that you have less rolls per segment than players - so it is ok if one player can't contribute.

If you don't want some players become passive spectators make following changes:
- the 3 main rolls have to be from different heroes
- each hero who has not rolled a main roll can try to protect some conflicts from failures by doing a protection roll - this roll is just like a normal skill roll but it don't add successes to the conflict. instead the defense of the conflict is increased as if there had been added the aprropiate number of successes. This protection-bonus vanishes at the begin of the next segment.
- for balancing out this increased defense allow up to two failures per segment instead of stopping after the first on.
- to make it ballanced for any number of players you should adjust the number of successes needed to handle a conflict. For each player above 5 add one box, for each player below 5 start with one success per conflict.

(I haven't playtested it yet, but I think it should be more or less balanced.)