Excerpt: skill challenges

[malraux]

(does the survival DC for traveling through jungle really depend on PC levels?).

Better question: Does the jungle the PCs travel through depend on their level? Do first level PCs travel to Xen'drik?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

4. Set a goal and let the PCs do what they want with multiple skill checks but without any restricting X/Y count etc. That has all the advantages of a Skill Challenge and non of its disadvantage because it is much more flexible.

Skill Challenges are good as suggestion, but not as a rule.

It lacks one of the main advantages of Skill Challenges: Static difficulty.

If you are giving out XP for a challenge, its good to be able to approximate the actual difficulty of the challenge. With skill challenges you can say that it will require at least X successful rolls to win and is therefore worth X xp because of how hard that is.

If you simply let people do whatever they want with skills then they may complete the challenge in 1 roll or in 30 depending on your whims. How much XP do you give out that isn't an arbitrary amount.

It's about providing a definite risk/reward mechanic that is more involved than "If they make a DC 35 Diplomacy roll then they convince the Duke and they get 1500 xp."

 

[Benimoto]

Optional Roleplaying Reward: 50 XP

Okay, okay, well sometimes you're right. I looked through a few LG modules, and it looks like the combined total XP for story and roleplaying rewards is almost always exactly 20% of the total XP. The exact split is up to the author. I found a few with the full 20% allocated for roleplaying and a few with none. So I guess I should have said 0-20%, but still 3 of the 5 modules I looked at had some XP allocated for roleplaying.

I'm curious to see how the organized play community reacts to these skill challenges.

 

[Kraydak]

Better question: Does the jungle the PCs travel through depend on their level? Do first level PCs travel to Xen'drik?

If the failure resulted in encountering local, hostile wildlife, the DC will scale, not directly with the PCs, but rather with the jungle (or more specifically, the hunting skills of said local, hostile wildlife). If failure is, as in the example, merely getting lost, the DC shouldn't.

 

[malraux]

If the failure resulted in encountering local, hostile wildlife, the DC will scale, not directly with the PCs, but rather with the jungle (or more specifically, the hunting skills of said local, hostile wildlife). If failure is, as in the example, merely getting lost, the DC shouldn't.

More foreign environments should be harder to navigate in. Presumably as the PCs advance in level, they end up traveling further afield.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If the failure resulted in encountering local, hostile wildlife, the DC will scale, not directly with the PCs, but rather with the jungle (or more specifically, the hunting skills of said local, hostile wildlife). If failure is, as in the example, merely getting lost, the DC shouldn't.

Why not? The point to the Skill Challenge system is to use it when something poses an actual challenge. If something is easy for the PCs to accomplish, then it doesn't deserve a skill challenge. The idea is to create a "fork" in the adventure based on the results.

So, "The PCs must find their way through the magical forest filled with shifting trees, illusionary terrain, invisible walls, and poisonous plants" is a skill challenge for high level characters. "Follow the path through the normal forest to the other side" is not.

Then again, part of the reason that skills scale the way they do in 4e is that 4e assumes that ALL challenges will be appropriate for the PCs. The goal is to challenge the players with problems that they may or may not resolve rather than ones that are a forgone conclusion.

 

[drjones]

As for the intimidate... I really dislike being told that a) something that isn't actually physically impossible is impossible. (can't turn myself inside out? Fine with that. This guy can't be talked to a certain way? Absurd)

As has been said a few hundred times already you have not been told that you cannot try to intimidate the Duke, but that if you do try you will not get what you want, which is his trust.

This is no more a railroad then having an orc guarding the pie. "But I want to use my arrow of dragon slaying to kill the orc!!!" you can try, but it will not work.

 

[malraux]

Its more like attack the person your supposed to protect. It's not that your weapons won't hit them, its that a success in attacking that person runs counter to the larger success of protecting them.

 

[Andor]

People who complain about the duke being immune should stop, and go read the text again. It says:
"Intimidate: The NPC refuses to be intimidated by the PCs. Each use of this skill earns a failure." He refuses to be intimidated into helping the PCs. This is why it's a failure to get his assistance. He still can, but it results in a failure, and if enough failure are accumulated, especially by Intimidation attempts, he might very well try to antagonize the PCs.
"Failure: The characters are forced to act without the NPC’s assistance. They encounter more trouble, which may be sent by the NPC out of anger or antagonism."

I really think most people simply don't read enough at all and just write without thinking for one second. If I didn't knew that such things simply happened, I would have really guessed that some people were trying to be purposefully obnoxious. But it's the internet, people often simply write as fast as possible, so I guess we have to live with it.

I'm sad that wednesday, we're going to have such a boring excerpt like weapons. I'd prefer something better, but I guess we'll have to take what is offered.

The irony is you're snarking at people for not reading when you seem to have missed this bit:

This skill challenge covers attempts to gain a favor or assistance from a local leader or other authority figure. The challenge might take only as long as a normal conversation, or it could stretch on for days as the characters perform tasks to earn the NPC’s favor.

Setup: For the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way.

So the skill challenge is not governing all possible social interaction with this NPC. Nor does it say that intimidation won't work on him. It says that in order to convince him that they are trustworthy, intimidation is counter-productive.

If someone felt like being particularly finicky about it they could insist that there is an implication that Intimidation won't work at all since this challenge covers "Provide assistance" and Intimidate doesn't work.

At this point I feel the need to point out that we don't really know who the NPC is, or what the PC want from him. Any form of assistance that strays outside the "Present + 1d6X10 minutes" that the intimidation skill covers should be out of bounds for the skill.

Example 1: The PCs need the Duke signet ring. Of course they can intimidate him into giving it to them, since they are present during the transfer.

Example 2: The PCs need a potion of Flight and know the Archmage has one. They can use intimidate to get it from him.

Example 3: The PCs need the Duke to loan them a regiment of men to fight a war with the Orcs. Intimidate will not work, becuase the Duke will not be with them in the field and if they try it the regiment will have secret orders to kill them. They might try taking the Duke hostage I suppose. Good luck with that.

Example 4: The PCs need the Archmage to make them an item to help them bind a powerful demon. Because item construction takes days it is well outside the use of intimidate and when they try to use the item they'll probably get a programmed image of the Archmage telling the demon "Bon appetite."

 

[Ahglock]

This is the attitude that makes me question some's skill ranks in reading comprehension. You aren't being told no or that something is impossible. You are being told that in this situation, something you might consider doing is counter productive. You can try and intimidate the duke. You could succeed and scare the everloving crap out of the poor man. But that isn't going to help you convince him that you are a trustworthy group of adventurers with the regions best interests at heart and who need resources and aid to solve a problem he wasn't even aware of.

Its a perfectly reasonable part of the overall guidelines for the negotiation. Negotiations are like that. You can say the wrong thing or take the wrong path of convincing and set yourselves back in the negotiations.

(middle of the challenge)
Duke: "I'm just not sure if you are the ones for this task..."
Cleric: religion check success
DM: Duke is known to be pious and friendly to Pelor (cleric's religion)
Cleric: Recites some scripture "...and like St. Todd's band, I can vouch for the sincerity and piety of this group." diplomacy success
Fighter: he's almost there, guys, I'll take him over the finish line "besides, if you don't help us I'll tear your 'crown jewels' off like a paper towel." intimidate success
DM: The duke jumps back, alarmed and clearly frightened. His guard captain and personal guards step forward, hands on hilts, the captain bristling at the threat. "y-y-ou call that sincere and p-p-pious?"

There have to be victory conditions and failure consequences. I wouldn't like it if the only option for failure was poor dice rolling. Being able to succeed and still hurt the cause adds an interesting, dynamic aspect to the encounter, above simply rolling. The failure is not a "no", it is an avoidable encounter condition.

The party is in a challenge to cheer up the sad, 6 year old emperor. Unknown to the party, but could be known with a successful hard history check, the kid was traumatized by a troupe of clowns at his 4th birthday and has an irrational fear of acrobatic displays. If the party doesn't learn this, the rogues first attempt at an entertaining aerial display results in a dismal failure as the young emperor, who is prone to having people tossed out a hole in his sky castle, begins to bawl.

A rewrite of your example

middle of the challenge)
Duke: "I'm just not sure if you are the ones for this task..."
Cleric: religion check success
DM: Duke is known to be pious and friendly to Pelor (cleric's religion)
Cleric: Recites some scripture "...and like St. Todd's band, I can vouch for the sincerity and piety of this group." diplomacy success
Fighter: he's almost there, guys, I'll take him over the finish line "If you don't help us, who will be there to help you when the horde reaches here. Who is going to protect your daughter when the savages are tearing down your door, you willing to help out we can be around and make sure bad things don't happen to you" intimidate success
DM: The duke slump back, clearly worried about the what the future may hold. His guard captain and personal guards step forward, hands on hilts, the captain bristling at the threat. "We can handle any horde, even the oe to the north"
DM The duke says, "As powerful as we are captain the horde to the north we can not defeat if they turn there attention to us."

Oh wait, maybe we do understand what was written we just thought it was shortsighted and unduly limiting on skill usage. Absolute no's are almost always bad.