How do you feel about Skill Challenges?

[Stalker0]

I have found that I like skill challenges for some social areas...and I have found them useful for investigative type scenarios.

Overall, I found I don't actually use them that often, I definitely prefer to make them a big deal scenario then try to have them commonly used...for smaller scenarios I prefer the one off skill check.

 

[Ariosto]

The "rational assessment" I had chiefly in mind was the DM's setting of game factors (which is of course prerequisite to players' estimation). All the instruction (of which there is quite a bit) is of the sort suggested by popular use of the dismissive term "fluff" for everything to do with nature.

 

[wayne62682]

The main issue I have with them isn't the rules - it's the fact that they pretty much force you to all just sit back and let the person with the highest score do the work, for fear of accumulating a failure! But that's exactly what the concept of Skill Challenges was done to avoid... the 3.x scenario where the character who maxed out on Skill A was the only person who handled anything that required Skill A, because they have the best chance of succeeding. A Skill Challenge is simply that same old gimmick, only now it's a part of the core rules and you have to make a certain number of successes instead of only one.

Also I notice that the Skill Challenges seem to only offer the use of skills that one, possibly two, PCs would even have a decent chance of succeeding at. This makes them seem rather contrived because either you spend your actions aiding the character with the best score, or you get forced by the DM to roll a skill you're lousy at and risk endagering the entire party.

 

[LostSoul]

The "rational assessment" I had chiefly in mind was the DM's setting of game factors (which is of course prerequisite to players' estimation). All the instruction (of which there is quite a bit) is of the sort suggested by popular use of the dismissive term "fluff" for everything to do with nature.

I honestly have no idea what you are saying here.

edit: Let's just say I'm a moron. I don't get it.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

*Ducks and weaves through the debate to the last page and sneakily puts down post*

I have to say I quite like Skill Challenges, I have adapted them somewhat (more in simply how I deliver the information/events then anything else) but overall I find they work quite nicely.

I have been using them from:

• Various physical feats; for example Parkour
• Chase scenes
• Social scenes
• Investigations
• Side elements to combat
• Just various types of non-combat things. Like stalking someone, finding ones way through the wilderness, etc.

As for single skill checks vs. skill challenges. I use both, and hell I combine them together. Do a single skill check to solve one issue and aid a side skill challenge, to give one example.

I also find that with the way I narrate Skill Challenges it can get more people to try different skills. Say one PC is using Diplomacy, I state that the person they are talking to is beginning to sweat and look skittish, this can flick a switch to tell another player to use Intimidate.

I think Skill Challenges is one mechanical aspect of the game, that is greatly, GREATLY helped with proper narrative.

 

[Pbartender]

Overall, I found I don't actually use them that often, I definitely prefer to make them a big deal scenario then try to have them commonly used...for smaller scenarios I prefer the one off skill check.

I'd always understood that to be the way they should be used... Not every haggle over the price of an item at the local bazaar needs a skill challenge -- that's a needless waste of time at the table. But something as complex and involved, and important to the adventure, like negotiating a treaty between two kingdoms, should.

 

[Ariosto]

I think one reason some people find skill challenges "all grind" is frame of reference (or lack thereof).

I found my first few combat scenarios in 4E extremely bizarre. Nonetheless, the board game and the powers combine to create a conceptual space with a kind of Lewis Carrol logic one can manipulate. A well-designed scenario gives one plenty to manipulate, creating an engaging intellectual exercise. A poorly designed one degenerates into a dull dice-fest.

Now, I understand that some other players came to the game with a grounding in the "cheese" of certain video games that made some aspects familiar rather than befuddling and "cool" rather than dreary.

Whatever the equivalent formative influence would be for getting into skill challenges, my impression is that it's much less common. I certainly have not seen video gamers enthralled by watching virtual dice roll. They seem in general to be as much into exploring and manipulating their game environments as old-style D&Ders, to enjoy making real decisions and devising real strategies.

The combat game happens to involve a lot of dice-rolling, but beyond a point that's just a necessary evil. Stripped of the complications that make for interesting choices, it is in itself not all that much fun for many players. I wonder whether the designers overestimated the value of that game element, perhaps due to feedback from a play-test demographic?