E2: Kingdom of Ghouls & Group Skill Challenges

[Jhaelen]

Forked from 'What do we know about Revenge of the Giants':

The biggest problem I had with the skill challenges was that they most (if not all?) took the form of: "Round 1: Everyone rolls this skill, if majority pass, get a success, Round 2: Everyone roll this other skill..." thus completely taking the decision making and roleplaying out of it. I wouldn't have minded it for one or two challenges, but the majority seemed to be this style.

I don't see the point of these either. Module E2 uses them a lot, too. I couldn't quite believe that one of them is actually used as an example in the DMG2!

Which reminds me that I've wanted to rant about that module for quite some time now:

I thought E2 was pretty lousy. It's very railroady in a bad way. Following the author's advice any deviation from the pre-planned strings of combat encounters is punished by hitting the party with a series of boring random encounters:
- don't want to travel through a living mountain? Hit them with random encounters!
- they'd rather fly over the fortress walls than storm against the front doors? Hit them with random encounters!
Failing at skill challenges is often also 'punished' by additional random encounters.

Am I the only one thinking this is both counterproductive and the antithesis of fun?

About the only good thing about it is that it starts in Sigil - but that's only because Sigil's cool, not because the module or the encounters set there are cool.

Part of the reason I bought the module was that I'd read a good mini-review by Jack99 about it. I rather liked H2 and P1 but E1 doesn't even have a good story or plot, so I wondered: Is it any better if viewed within the context of E1/E3?

Another reason for getting it was that I was eager to see an epic-level adventure. But apart from traveling through a section of the Abyss nothing looked particularly epic to me. The heroes just continue doing what they've done since first level: Storm castles and plunder dungeons. The only difference is the monsters seem to be less fun to fight: Action denial all over the place and tons of hit points to wade through. Not really something to look forward to.

Even some of the combat encounters wasn't very well thought out:
One involves entering a smallish room with three enemies, one of which (a storm-thingy gorgon) has an aura that will probably kill its allies faster than the pcs. Unless that was for some reason intentional that's really shoddy design.

Okay, I'm feeling better already

Anyone else who bought (or even played) the module and wants to chime in to agree or disagree with me?

 

[Prism]

Forked from 'What do we know about Revenge of the Giants':
I don't see the point of these either. Module E2 uses them a lot, too. I couldn't quite believe that one of them is actually used as an example in the DMG2!

I would say these have a place but maybe these modules overuse or force them - not having either mod I couldn't say. I do like the stealth check in the Giants preview. I feel that requiring more than one character to roll for the whole party to move across an open area secretly better represents that goal than having the best roll with everyone else assisting. Especially since if this wasn't a skill challenge then you are supposed to have the 'worst' roll. This seems good middle ground. I would use this for a number of physical activities such as climbing a wall or crossing a stream, where I would like each party member to participate (beyond the auto aid another)

Saying that, my party often finds their own ways to overcoming skill challenges - usually involving rituals

 

[Jack99]

Part of the reason I bought the module was that I'd read a good mini-review by Jack99 about it.

It always saddens my heart when my reviews causes someone to buy something they regret. /sniff...

I did mention it being raid-roading though!

Anyway, I am not sure how you figure that all your players roll the same skill in the skill challenge and then a new skill the next round.

 

[Jhaelen]

Anyway, I am not sure how you figure that all your players roll the same skill in the skill challenge and then a new skill the next round.

Well, I'm currently away from the module but IIRC, there's several skill challenges that work like that:

Everyone has to roll a certain skill and if more than 50% of them succeed you gain a success for the skill challenge.

This really reduces skill challenges to a (boring) series of dice rolls. But that's a problem I have with (almost) all of the skill challenges I've seen written up:

I think skill challenges should work the way they've been described before 4E came out:

Ask the players what they want to do and then decide on which skill to use and what the difficulty is.

Without (tactical) choices, skill challenges just aren't fun.

 

[Jack99]

I think skill challenges should work the way they've been described before 4E came out:

Ask the players what they want to do and then decide on which skill to use and what the difficulty is.

Without (tactical) choices, skill challenges just aren't fun.

I agree to a certain degree. I just ask what they do and decide upon a skill and difficulty based on the challenge and what they say.

I do however think that at least some of the SC's in the later published modules are nothing like what you describe. But maybe I am just getting old and senile.

/shrug

 

[Skywalker]

I think skill challenges should work the way they've been described before 4E came out:

Ask the players what they want to do and then decide on which skill to use and what the difficulty is.

That is how they work now, or at least how they can work.

SKill Challenges have a very flexible design and should vary according to the desired result.

FWIW the group skill challenges you mention are appropriate in some challenges, especially to represent the progress of time. It also highlights choices made in regard to PC resources, rather than immediate choices. Not only through the choice of skills trained in but also certain rituals (like Traveller's Chant for long journeys).

FWIW I agree that having nothing but this kind of group check both in a single challenge and over many challenges would be dull. However, the group check of this kind can be one of many useful tools if used properly.

It's just that WotC seems to struggle to find ways of doing so