How do you feel about Skill Challenges?

[Ariosto]

Lost Soul, your rope enchantment is a fine example.

First of all, it's just the sort of situation in which what's really going on is easily obscured (as opposed, say, to "How many 4E players does it take to change a light bulb?"). All the referents are to things you're pulling out of your hat. There's no basis for players to consider different approaches.

The only apparent choice is whether to keep rolling dice. Your descriptions of the consequences naturally and post hoc either do or do not entail more rolls, in accordance with your abstract mathematical "game". You decide what "success" and "failure" mean.

It's not very far removed from the old "yes, but" or "keep rolling until I get the result I want" technique employed by "killer" and "can't kill 'em" GMs alike (both being mutants of the "storyteller" species).

For what it is, it's not too bad. Again, there's no choice of strategy involved and no remotely objective reason it should not involve a certain number of steps -- or even the uncertain number dictated by the skill challenge abstraction. There is in the case no standard at all but your whim and whimsy.

That's altogether different from the situations in which I have commonly seen skill challenges used in WotC published scenarios. When there actually IS more than one way to "skin a cat", and common sense suggests that some should be more efficient than others, the business of forcing so many die rolls can become blatantly trite and tiresome (if not thoroughly bizarre, which some 4E notions about "skills" abet).

 

[FireLance]

While this sounds like a fun scene, it seems to me that a combat analogue would be the DM having to decide on the monster's AC, Will, hp, Acrobatics bonus on the spot, as the players attack it with a sword, a charm spell, deal damage, try to maintain a grapple...

With a good DM, this way of handling combat isn't unworkable either.

I'd say that 4e help even a mediocre DM if he wants to handle things in this way. To get the monster's AC, Will defence and hp, he just needs to decide on the monster's level and role. To get its Acrobatics bonus, he need to assign a Dexterity score and decide whether it should be trained in Acrobatics.

However, in much the same way that running a combat on the fly is more difficult, it is also harder to run a skill challenge on the fly.

But my impression about the skill challenges as advertised was that they were to be a tool that would allow an inexperienced, momentarily uninspired, or simply mediocre DM construct a non-combat challenge that would approach combat in opportunities for mechanically meaningful, enjoyably complex fun.

I'd say that you can create non-combat challenges that approach combat in terms of meaningful choices and complexity, but it is difficult to do so on the fly. You can use skill challenges to improve your ability to run non-combat challenges on the fly, but it will be difficult to approach the same level of choices and complexity as combat (unless it is a combat in which you are also creating the monster on the fly, as mentioned above).

I think that putting together a good skill challenge seems a lot more difficult compared to putting together a good fight because we only have a few rudimentary examples of skill challenges to work with compared to a Monster Manual's worth of creatures to fight. If WotC ever comes up with a Big Book of Skill Challenges, it might go some way to addressing that.

 

[jasin]

I know it has been mentioned before, but the same criticism could be levied at combat. Since most combats (presumably) do not play out that way, it implies that there is something about combat that prevents it from being dull, and generates more input from players than simply rolling dice. I think it may be worthwhile to identify what those aspects are, and find some way to apply them to skill challenges.

A large number of discrete but interacting building blocks allowing the construction of a huge number of different situations?

For non-combat encounters to be like combat, on the adventure-building side you should have a large number of small, simple situations and issues that you could pile together to make a problem to be overcome by the PCs, like you do with orcs for combat.

Rather than the wilderness trek with a half a dozen skills and DCs in the DMG, you would have:

Avalanche
Situation * Cold, Surprise, Wilderness
Make a moderate Athletics, Acrobatics or Endurance check or lose a healing surge until the end of the encounter.

Winter
Time * Cold
+2 to DC of checks to deal with Cold situations.
Blizzard (Encounter, recharge 5 6): see Storm situation.

Well-Traveled
Region * Social
-2 to DC of Wilderness situations. +2 to DC of Stealth checks.

Border Watch
Situation * Social, Subterfuge
Easy Diplomacy to cross legally. Difficult Bluff or moderate Stealth or cross illegally. Failure results in a moderate combat encounter.

Furthermore, you'd need powers that interact with these building blocks, beyond just boosts/rerolls/etc. to skills:

Winterborn Druid Utility 6
Encounter * Cold
Use Nature to deal with a Cold situation, instead of the skill normally used.

Overall, I'm not sure if this much structure is a workable idea, or even desirable, but I think it's a direction worth exploring.

 

[jasin]

[*]I don't enforce a round-robin. I juggle the players, making one of them act and then looking for another player's initiatives, but if some (or even most) of the players want to stay out of it, I don't force the matter.

How do you deal with the fact that the DCs in WotC's adventures are sometimes so low that a reasonably skilled character (trained + good stat, or trained + meh stat + feat or racial bonus) cannot fail except on abysmally low rolls, or even ever?

Doesn't it devolve into "I appeal to his sense of justice, and tell him that [...] I could roll diplomacy 8 times, but I can't fail, so let's just say we win."

 

[jasin]

I'd say that 4e help even a mediocre DM if he wants to handle things in this way.

Certainly.

However, in much the same way that running a combat on the fly is more difficult, it is also harder to run a skill challenge on the fly.

Again, certainly, but if you can't/don't want to run a combat on the fly (completely on the fly, making up ACs and hp as described), you just crack open the MM and start picking monsters.

If you can't/don't want to run a skill challenge on the fly, you have a handful of poorly explained examples in the DMG, whose problems are being discussed on messageboards for about a year now, with a running advice column in the official magazine on how to handle them, with implementations in published adventures differing wildly from one another and from the advice in the column...

I think that putting together a good skill challenge seems a lot more difficult compared to putting together a good fight because we only have a few rudimentary examples of skill challenges to work with compared to a Monster Manual's worth of creatures to fight.

And because the examples we have still seem to be in a state of flux.

If WotC ever comes up with a Big Book of Skill Challenges, it might go some way to addressing that.

Certainly. The situation we have now is a bit like playing with the survival kit in the back of the 3.0 PHB as your MM: there were a couple of monsters, but not really enough to discern enough of a pattern to competently build your own, much less just pick and choose as you need.

 

[Pbartender]

By "skill challenge" I mean (and presume the OP meant) the formalism described in the 4E rules. That involves a lot of baggage that I find counter-productive. One might wonder why combat has not been made to work the same way, if it's so groovy.

What I was saying is that using the formal rules described for skill challenges is dull and lifeless, just like if you used nothing but the formal rules for combat.

Consider that combat, at its most basic, can be reduced to "I move 5 squares. I attack. *ROLLING DICE* I hit. *ROLLING DICE* I deal 10 damage." I think every one would agree that that's boring, and is equivalent to everything you are complaining about on skill challenges. Just as you claimed for skill challenges, in combat you are determining success or failure through the use of an ad hoc, abstract numbers game.

If you use skill challenges in the same way, without even the most basic roleplaying embellishment, then yes, its going to be like watching painted grass grow dry.

In the latter, we start with numbers and dice-rolls and the result, and then tell a story about how that result came to pass. What is cause and what is effect get turned upside down.

But you don't have to let it work that way...

Here's what I do... I describe the stituation that's prompting the skill challenge, and hint at a few obvious directions in which the PCs can start. I let the PCs tell me what they want to do. I check the skill challenge to see if there's anything that matches what they're planning, if there isn't, I make something up quick. They roleplay the actions, we roll dice to determine the outcome of those actions, then we roleplay the consequences.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

We start with story and roleplay to determine the pertinant action, continue with numbers and dice-rolls to determine the results of that action, and then proceed with more roleplay to examine the consequences of the action.

As someone said above, its not all that different from how non-combat interactions were all done before. Except...

The Skill Challenge system now gives guidelines for skill DCs and target number of successes and failures, so that I can calculate an appropriate amount of experience for the non-combat encounter.

 

[CapnZapp]

How do you feel about Skill Challenges?

One word:

Meh.

Even with errata, houserules and other fixes it boils down to the simple fact: Rolling a few skill checks can't become nearly as tactically or personally exciting as combat. I like the underlying idea, but for Skill Challenges to become a long-lasting well-integrated "core concept" of D&D the designers need to come up with something much more involved.

Such as new kinds of "hit points" where you get options more akin to (simple) D&D combat than skill checks.

Trying to persuade the King to allow you access to the sacred royal necropolis? Fight him for social hit points. Trying to find your way across the unmappable Scorpion Swamp? Fight it for mental hit points.

Look at the newly released SIFRP rpg from Green Ronin (a non-d20 game) for an example where the designers have experimented with a kind of "skill challenges" that just might actually work!

 

[Jack Colby]

I have never used skill challenges in the game yet, and they are not missed. I ignore them completely, as do the others I game with. I think their development is an evolutionary dead end for D&D, since the things they seek to provide special rules for really don't need special rules. We've been playing without them for decades.

 

[Southern Oracle]

My online group is leery of 4E, so I've slowly been introducing elements of it to our 3.5 campaign over the past year. Below is a skill challenge I just designed to integrate the process into our game. (The scenario is taken from the Planescape adventure Dead Gods, if anyone is interested.)

Burning Down the House

Marlus cackles wildly as flaming timbers crash down around her. “The agony! Chaos! Destruction! Rot! Decay! It’s spreading…spreading!”

This skill challenge involves rescuing members of the Woodworkers’ Guild from the burning building while simultaneously battling Marlus Van. Extra XP is available if she is defeated without killing her.

Setup: To successfully complete this encounter, the heroes must defeat Marlus Van and rescue the five woodworkers trapped in the burning building.
Level: 14th.
Complexity: 5 (requires 12 successes before 6 failures). Includes a 9th-level creature (Marlus Van).
Primary Skills: Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (architecture and engineering), Knowledge (nature), Search, Survival, Tumble
Constitution (DC 11): Every character in the party must make a Constitution check each round as a free action to resist the debilitating effects of the heat and smoke. Making this ability check doesn’t count as a success or failure for the challenge, but a success provides a +2 bonus to the next Strength-, Dexterity-, or Constitution-based check the character makes. Failure means the character suffers 1d10+6 points of damage from heat, smoke inhalation, and the impact of falling debris.
Intimidate (DC 23): A successful check (full-round action) only counts as a success if someone makes the check with a higher initiative than Marlus. In such a case, Marlus takes no actions that round, allowing rescue operations to proceed unhindered. If a successful Intimidate check is made after Marlus has taken her actions that round, she simply suffers a –2 penalty on her attacks the next round.
Jump (DC 18): A successful check (move action) allows a hero to navigate the burning building and counts as a success. A failed check results in damage (1d10+6), and consecutive Jump checks are not allowed.
Knowledge (architecture and engineering, DC 11): A successful check (move action) grants a +2 bonus on Jump, Strength, and Tumble checks to navigate the burning building, and halves any damage from failed checks on that round or the following round.
Knowledge (nature, DC 23): A successful check (full-round action) pulls Marlus back from the brink of madness and counts as 3 successes. She doesn’t aid with any rescue efforts, but neither does she hinder them. It can be attained only once during the challenge.
Search (DC 23): A successful check (standard action) allows a hero to discover the location of one victim and counts as a success. A maximum of 5 successful Search checks are allowed during the skill challenge.
Strength (DC 18): A successful check (standard action) results in automatic damage (3d6+6) but counts as 2 successes, as the character sacrifices his or her safety to rescue a victim.
Survival (DC 18): Making this check (move action) doesn’t count as a success or a failure for the challenge, but success provides a +5 bonus to the character’s next Constitution check, and it halves the damage if that check is failed.
Tumble (DC 18): A successful check (move action) allows a hero to navigate the burning building and counts as a success. A failed check results in damage (1d10+6), and consecutive Tumble checks are not allowed.
Success: If the heroes gain 12 successes before 6 failures, all five woodworkers are rescued and Marlus Van surrenders.
Failure: If the heroes gain 6 failures before 12 successes, the guildhall collapses and anyone remaining in the burning building is killed.

I could certainly run this encounter in a more free-form manner, but after reading the original entry for the scenario, it seemed like a bare-bones skill encounter, so I thought I'd flesh it out. I don't intend to tell the players they're participating in a skill challenge until after the fact; we'll see how it goes.

 

[Jhaelen]

What I was saying is that using the formal rules described for skill challenges is dull and lifeless

Yep. Even the designers admitted that. It's why they went to such great effort to explain their vision of skill challenges in a series of articles.

If I had only read the description of skill challenges in the DMG, I wouldn't be impressed about them either and not used them in my game. But since I'd already heard a lot of additional ideas and details about them beforehand, I saw their potential.

It made me think more about the way I've been using skills and skill checks in my games and how I might get more mileage out of them.

I can see why there may be people for whom skill challenges aren't doing anything. Heck, there's many people on this board who don't even care about skills and believe the game would be better without them!