Manbearcat
Legend
Negative. That is a classic extended Skill Challenge trope. I've run many just like this. The Skill Challenge I ran was 10:3 and I could map out True Grit's to 12 resolution moments or less.
D&D 5E Exploration Rules You'd Like To See
- Thread starter I'm A Banana
- Start date
Negative. That is a classic extended Skill Challenge trope. I've run many just like this. The Skill Challenge I ran was 10:3 and I could map out True Grit's to 12 resolution moments or less.
I wonder if the baggage of bad presentation in 4e (and associated system cliquishness) has made the name "Skill Challenge" an impediment to the concept being accepted... Something like "organized system for those die rolls long-time DMs might have always had the party make to help figure out if their role-playing of exploration and social interaction worked, done in a manner that encourages those unfamiliar with role-playing to think about what they're doing, flexibly incorporating lots of possible ways for them to interactively narrate the story, while also making it so the DM isn't just determining success and failure based on his/her mood at that current moment" seems long.
Just thinking aloud here...
What if we included fatigue points as a new resource? Each character had say 25 fatigue per day. Each combat uses up 3 points. Each skill use takes up 1 or more points. Skills like climb typically using more than pick lock.
Each hour of adventuring beyond 8 hours costs a fatigue point.
Throw in class based or feat based limited use bonuses, and penalties to you're fatigue total based on encumbrance. Throw in spells and other abilities that affect fatigue directly.
At the end of the day the number of FP you have left affects how much over night healing and spell recovery toy get. A night's rest only restores 20 FP. At 0 FP you are heavily fatigued and can only walk a short distance at a time, effectively reducing your over land speed to 1/4.
And so on. Numbers to be tweaked by play testing. Maybe include a way to trade HP for FP.
That gives us several resources which don't directly impact on existing resources until you're heavily fatigued. Providing something to work with that doesn't have to be used by all groups. It puts limits on how many times you can try skills without being as blunt as SC. It means that making a single check actually has some impact on the game by costing a resource. This in turn may encourage groups to share the workload internally.
Thoughts?
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What if we included fatigue points as a new resource? Each character had say 25 fatigue per day. Each combat uses up 3 points. Each skill use takes up 1 or more points. Skills like climb typically using more than pick lock.
Each hour of adventuring beyond 8 hours costs a fatigue point.
Throw in class based or feat based limited use bonuses, and penalties to you're fatigue total based on encumbrance. Throw in spells and other abilities that affect fatigue directly.
At the end of the day the number of FP you have left affects how much over night healing and spell recovery toy get. A night's rest only restores 20 FP. At 0 FP you are heavily fatigued and can only walk a short distance at a time, effectively reducing your over land speed to 1/4.
And so on. Numbers to be tweaked by play testing. Maybe include a way to trade HP for FP.
That gives us several resources which don't directly impact on existing resources until you're heavily fatigued. Providing something to work with that doesn't have to be used by all groups. It puts limits on how many times you can try skills without being as blunt as SC. It means that making a single check actually has some impact on the game by costing a resource. This in turn may encourage groups to share the workload internally.
Thoughts?
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I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Tony Vargas said:
Cadence said:
It's an interesting bit of psychology, no? SC's as a "roll a skill multiple times" concept have existed since at least 2e. 3e "Unearthed Arcana" had the basic SC framework in it. The basic underlying idea of SC's isn't exactly new, what was new was their presentation.
I mean, if you'd prefer to avoid hard rules for exploration, that's cool -- that's why these things should be modular. But if you'd LIKE hard rules for exploration, I don't know really how you're going to get around a basic "multiple checks to accomplish a goal" layout.
Ferghis
First Post
I would use HD (or the 4e surges) for this, if it is implemented.
Viking Bastard
Adventurer
We use Surges for this in my 4e game. Encounters result in Surge loss, be it a Combat Encounter or a Skill Encounter. It's your Steam for the day.
I think the problem that is being seen is that some people like to zoom in to different levels and at different points. Also, it is possible that the framework for "finding the lost city of awesometreasureguardedbyancientundeadhome" needs to be different from the infiltrate the castle scenario. Perhaps using some of the same skills and abilities, but in different ways. I'm starting to think that there are some very different needs these two scenarios have, and trying to make them work satisfactorily with the exact same mechanic may be unwieldy.
I believe a sort of random encounters (but not necessarily fighting, or even negotiations) could help exploration out a lot. Perhaps a skill challenge, check, special ability use, whatever, doesn't represent a single attempt, but the party's overall ability to navigate a situation. So they have to go around. And if the party goes around, roll for random encounter (gnoll ambush, a village where everyone seemed to die in their sleep, a trading caravan that makes the spine shiver, a torrential thunderstorm that may cause a flood or destroy some of the party's food).
Also important, and quite likely a module and playstyle thing, but a noncombat encounter shouldn't just be handwaved if a character has focused to make it his "thing". If you want a character who is a wilderness explorer extroardinaire, and spend your "points of awesome" in character creation on that, you should get to play it. The fighter doesn't (usually) just say "Well, I'm yay awesome, and those are just pansied guards, so they are taken care of cause I rolled a 15 on my combat check." So the wilderness guy should have dynamic special abilities that allow him to make interesting tactical choices in his arena just like combat focused characters do.
As an aside, I would like to point out that I vehemently disagree with the "everyone must be equal in all three pillars" idea. There are too many character concepts that SHOULD be worse in one of them. Make everyone useful in all three, but not equal. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the argument of balance in all three pillars, and this is exactly what it's proponents are saying as well.
Would the best possible answer be to make the core a simple, binary exploration method for those who don't want it? THEN, have a module right in the starting books that the group agrees to use or not use. Then each character can split his abilties up how he wants. Note that this approach could still work for a "3 tiers balanced" system". The essence is you just decide in the beginning on the granularity of your exploration, much like you would decide on the method of natural healing, for example.
I believe a sort of random encounters (but not necessarily fighting, or even negotiations) could help exploration out a lot. Perhaps a skill challenge, check, special ability use, whatever, doesn't represent a single attempt, but the party's overall ability to navigate a situation. So they have to go around. And if the party goes around, roll for random encounter (gnoll ambush, a village where everyone seemed to die in their sleep, a trading caravan that makes the spine shiver, a torrential thunderstorm that may cause a flood or destroy some of the party's food).
Also important, and quite likely a module and playstyle thing, but a noncombat encounter shouldn't just be handwaved if a character has focused to make it his "thing". If you want a character who is a wilderness explorer extroardinaire, and spend your "points of awesome" in character creation on that, you should get to play it. The fighter doesn't (usually) just say "Well, I'm yay awesome, and those are just pansied guards, so they are taken care of cause I rolled a 15 on my combat check." So the wilderness guy should have dynamic special abilities that allow him to make interesting tactical choices in his arena just like combat focused characters do.
As an aside, I would like to point out that I vehemently disagree with the "everyone must be equal in all three pillars" idea. There are too many character concepts that SHOULD be worse in one of them. Make everyone useful in all three, but not equal. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the argument of balance in all three pillars, and this is exactly what it's proponents are saying as well.
Would the best possible answer be to make the core a simple, binary exploration method for those who don't want it? THEN, have a module right in the starting books that the group agrees to use or not use. Then each character can split his abilties up how he wants. Note that this approach could still work for a "3 tiers balanced" system". The essence is you just decide in the beginning on the granularity of your exploration, much like you would decide on the method of natural healing, for example.
GnomeWorks
Adventurer
Um, apples and oranges?
The goal here is to make exploration interesting, expanding it beyond "make a check and win." Having an exploration resource that is expended as you make exploration checks (however that would be handled) would be one step towards introducing interesting decisions for the characters/players to make.
And hit points - and their means of restoration - are effectively a limit on how much combat you can deal with in a given period.
If everybody can use their best skill all the time endlessly with no drawbacks, then exploration isn't interesting, it's just people throwing dice until they win. But if you can only make so many climb checks in a day, then you need to start thinking about whether or not it's worth it to make one in a given situation. Limitations lead to interesting decisions.
Knock is a terrible spell precisely because it bypasses an "exploration challenge" without a roll. It's an auto-win. It'd be like playing a fighter that can just auto-kill things in a combat: if there's no effort required, why even mention the encounter?
Although I agree with your overall concept, the knock spell is a horrible example. Knock burns through a rescource and allows you to succeed at a challenge, exactly like a successful skill check and "fatigue points" or something similar. Furthermore the current version adds in the complication of possibly attracting unwanted attention, so there are still plenty of situations where you might not want to use it. Getting past a single normal locked door is like a fighter auto-killing a single normal kobold in combat, and only being able to do so a limited number of times per day. If a previous poster was comparing apples to oranges, you just compared apples to paintings of fruit.
GnomeWorks
Adventurer
Wands of knock: faster, easier, and more effective than a rogue, at least in 3.5. And they cost next to nothing at 5th+ level.
Not having looked at 4e in four years or so, I have no idea what knock does in 4e. I also admit to note knowing what it looks like in 5e, haven't examined the spells too closely in the latest update.
If it's less of an auto-win and less available than it was in 3.5 (ie, the wizard would actually need to dedicate spell slots to it rather than just walk around with a wand that's ridiculously cheap to replace), then it might be acceptable.
Not having looked at 4e in four years or so, I have no idea what knock does in 4e. I also admit to note knowing what it looks like in 5e, haven't examined the spells too closely in the latest update.
If it's less of an auto-win and less available than it was in 3.5 (ie, the wizard would actually need to dedicate spell slots to it rather than just walk around with a wand that's ridiculously cheap to replace), then it might be acceptable.
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