Integrating Skill Challenges With Combat

[darkbard]

I'm not going to depict a round, because that would require me to think too hard about PC builds.

I would love to jump in here and contribute by doing so, but my teaching schedule changed last minute, and I have to scramble this week to put together a syllabus for a course I haven't taught in four years, so time is at a premium!

 

[pemerton]

I did think about PC builds cyclng home.

The sohei is a fighter, paladin or STR cleric.

The two companions are a wilderness warrior type - either a skirmishing ranger or archer ranger - and a hermit from the mountains (maybe a wizard, shaman, or druid).

I think that could make for an interesting trio.

EDIT: [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION], good luck with the teaching!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I did think about PC builds cyclng home.

The sohei is a fighter, paladin or STR cleric.

The two companions are a wilderness warrior type - either a skirmishing ranger or archer ranger - and a hermit from the mountains (maybe a wizard, shaman, or druid).

I think that could make for an interesting trio.

EDIT: [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION], good luck with the teaching!

If the sohei is a fighter, and the 2nd one is a skirmishing ranger, then the 3rd one is an artificer A shaman would also make a good option.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], some pun-free XP!

I don't know artificers - I think I find the flavour inherently a bit offputting, and so have never looked into them in detail.

But I was thinking defender (sohei), striker (ranger), leader (shaman/ now artificer) or else leader (sohei), striker (ranger), controller (wizard/druid/ even invoker).

With a sohei whose monastery was taken over/s;aughtered by demon cultistsI'm wanting a solid "somewhat outcast folk from the mountains" vibe, and I think either of those groupings would do it.

Or it could be all sohei - warlord, fighter/paladin, skirmisher ranger (I don't really see sohei as archers) - all hellbent on vengeance!

EDIT: what does sohei give at 1st level?

 

[darkbard]

EDIT: what does sohei give at 1st level?

Minor action melee (divine, weapon) encounter attack, Sohei Flurry.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], some pun-free XP!

I don't know artificers - I think I find the flavour inherently a bit offputting, and so have never looked into them in detail.

But I was thinking defender (sohei), striker (ranger), leader (shaman/ now artificer) or else leader (sohei), striker (ranger), controller (wizard/druid/ even invoker).

With a sohei whose monastery was taken over/s;aughtered by demon cultistsI'm wanting a solid "somewhat outcast folk from the mountains" vibe, and I think either of those groupings would do it.

Or it could be all sohei - warlord, fighter/paladin, skirmisher ranger (I don't really see sohei as archers) - all hellbent on vengeance!

EDIT: what does sohei give at 1st level?

Honestly, I don't like PLAYING the artificer. It has a plethora of small fiddly class features which commit the sin of requiring other players to remember them, often later in an adventuring day, which might mean 1 or even 2 sessions later. Good luck with that! OTOH the thematics of the thing are interesting. I think spinning it as a Chinese-style herbalist/mystic would be fun in that sense. Luckily, for a write up like this you don't have to endure the awkward play part of it. Shaman are also complex, but in more of a good way in play. They are infamously fragile though, I'm not sure one is a good choice for a 3-character party.

So, I see the Sohei Fighter, disgraced and tossed out of his temple after the demon incident he's been eaten with self-doubt, but determined to find out what happened. Shunned by most of the locals only the son of the local herbalist takes up with him. His family are demon hunters, and this guy is the 13th generation.

Later they meet a spirit folk woman who's clan are protector spirits for the temple in question (the ranger). They obviously all reach level 3, and then they hear that something is amiss! Maybe the ranger's family or some other spirit/omen/whatever has alerted them to the further goings-on.

There, now you have a pretty decent OA-ish setup for a 3 character party.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, and the bad guys, clearly 狐狸精 (Huli Jing, Fox Spirits). There's a tradition with these beings of a sort of vampiric element where they have to eat human hearts to survive. Undead aren't really a big Chinese thing as far as I can tell, but there are definitely necromantic elements which would fit fine.

So, you could have the bad guy be a Fox Demon (characteristically female, powers include charm, illusion/disguise, possibly other magical/spiritual/shadow sorts of powers) who has taken the place of or dominated the leader of the temple. She doesn't need to be present in this scenario perhaps. That might actually create a sub-plot or alternative path involving breaking her hold on the priest who's the main bad guy in this scenario vs killing him. Perhaps there's a way to recognize what the true enemy is. Maybe this is simply stated at the start in order to present the additional element. Obviously that goes a bit beyond the strictly necessary for the illustration of a combat SC though, so perhaps it is simply best left as speculation about the greater plot of some hypothetical adventure.

Now I wish I had a couple people to run a game of this! lol.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm stealing AbdulAlhazred's idea, but am not giving XP for that pun.

I'm not going to depict a round, because that would require me to think too hard about PC builds. I will sketch an encounter (I'm not used to designing for 3 PCs, but will try) for Level 3 PCs. I think it is fairly hard but not impossible.

It will also be trope-heavy.

Setting: the stone walled but earth covered burial mounds of the temple elders. The entry way is open, because the evil cultists have opened it for their nefarious purposes. The PCs may have had to fight their way in already, dealing with the cult rabble (mostly minions, one leader-type) who were guarding the outside (and too cowardly to enter). It's possible that a survivor from that first assault fled down the tunnel - even if that was the leader-type, his/her cowardly nature means that, in the barrow, s/he is reduced to minion status.

The battle map in words: I'm thinking maybe 5 x 7 squares - or smaller, 4 x 6 squares. (I'm not used to 3 PCs!) Movement has to be a significant constraining factor, so it can't be too big. All the creatures are medium.

In the centre of the left (ie non-entry, non-rear) wall of the chamber is an open pit, 20' deep, where the body of a temple elder has been exhumed. This is 2 x 1 squares. On the side of the pit, opposite the entrance, is a pile of earth from the grave - 3 x 2 squares, difficult terrain (DC 10 Athletics to avoid this penalty). (I know my earth squares are fewer than my pit squares, but some of the earth is scattered elsewhere on the floor, but not deep enough to cause movement issues.)

The pit itself is welling with necrotic energy. Anyone who falls into it takes standard falling damage, plus 5 necrotic, 5 OG (leaving the pit ends this). At the start of the third round, this steps up to 10 necrotic and any current OG damage also steps up (and the necrotic energy becomes palpably more terrible) - this counts as a skill challenge failure. At the start of the fourth round, everyone in the room also takes 5 necrotic damage at the end of his/her turn - this counts as a skill challenge failure. At the start of the fifth round, a third failure is accrued.

Anyone in the pit also suffers a -2 to checks in the skill challenge. Climbing out of the pit is DC 13 Athletics.

Next to the entrance (on the side closer to the wight - see below - I think) is a ceremonial gong.

Creatures: Standing at the end of the pit is the (fallen, coup-leading) abbot who summoned the demon back when the sohei PC was a serving temple warrior, and who has raised the temple elder from death into undeath. I'm lazy, and already have my MM open, so I'm saying that this is a Human Mage but with Darkbolts (necrotic damage) instead of magic missile, Soul Drain (necrotic again, and attacks Fort, not Ref) instead of Dancing Lightning, and Miasma of Despair instead of Thunder Burst (attacks Will, not Fort, and does psychic damage). He also has necrotic resistance 5 from his Abyssal prayer beads. (This can be a level 4 or 5 neck item if taken by the PCs - but wearing these prayer beads causes a -5 penalty to checks to checks in the skill challenge.)

Tactically, this NPC will move into the difficult terrain in the corner behind the pit.

Between the entrance and the pit is a Deathlock Wight - the risen temple elder. These guys are perfect as they are (other than the standard damage fixes, and making the damage from Horrific Visage psychic, which I think they picked up in the PDF with the MV reworking of wights). It doesn't have any friends to reanimate, but that will have another use: it can use its Reanimate to power up the necrotic energy in the pit (if adjacent) or in the room (from round 4 on), undoing one success in the skill challenge.

Tactically, anyone who tries to go past it to the abbot gets pushed into the pit. It should fall back to a wall, so that it's blast can push into the pit. If the PCs try and keep away to jump the pit, it uses gravebolt to try and stop this, and if they make it to the other side there will still be a square of pit in front of them (and next to the abbot in the corner), so the wight can try and push them into that.

The skill challenge is Level 3, complexity 1 (E/M/H DC: 9/13/21). Each success delays the progression of the necrotic energy by one round (no stacking) or inflicts 1d10 damage on the wight. Failure causes the same damage to the PC (it may be necrotic or psychic, depending on context).

Possible actions in the skill challenge (off the top of my head) include throwing sanctified earth back into the pit (Athletics), using prayers or magic (Religion or Arcana), or striking the gong with the right tone (Religion with a +2 bonus the first time because it's cool, or maybe History - there's no music skill in 4e). Maybe other stuff I'm not thinking of (eg Intimidate to taunt the abbot). I think the gong could also be used to undo a failure (with a Hard check).

If the skill challenge fails then the corruption of the tomb is complete - the welling necrotic energy drives the PCs from the tomb (the combat is over, but everyone loses another HS). When they get out, they see any surviving cultists have fled too (they got more than they bargained for!), but the PCs still have to track them down/return home/head for the next mound to try to ensure it's protection/etc.

Budget and level: by my maths that's 175 x 2 + 150 = 500 XP, or a 4th level encounter for 3 PCs (a minion or two from cultists who flee inside is a rounding error for level). I think that it should be fairly challenging, given that if one PC falls into the pit that's fairly bad for action economy.

I'm not sure there's the right balance of incentives to skill vs incentives to fight - in my group I think the invoker/wizard would skill it up, because he's not a very good fighter, but a different group might just try and win the fight in (say) 3 rounds, and then try and win the skill challenge in the final round or two before it all explodes. I'll leave it to someone else to try and sketch a playthrough to see if it works out OK!

(That also took longer to write up than I thought it would - over 45 minutes by the time I looked up my monsters and tweaked some of the details.)

So this is an awesome example of another way to properly integrate Skill Challenges and combat:

Mechanically, its a countdown/clock scenario. The clock "strikes 12" at round 5.

So, as the GM playing the adversaries/obstacles, what you're trying to do is prevent the PCs from being able to (a) nova the bad guys so they can clean up the SC unharassed in later rounds and (b) make the decision-points in each round weighty/difficult (from an opportunity cost eval perspective and from being able to get in position to deploy what they want to deploy).

Reading your encounter above, I think I would make the following additions/ammendments:

1) I would increase the size of the encounter area (I definitely understand and agree with the principle you're working off of) and simultaneously increase the size of the pit and the excavated earth proportionately and I would make that scattered earth also act in the way directly below (in 2).

2) I would make the excavated earth a Hungry Terrain hazard to protect the Abbott. Perhaps the ritual during exhumation tainted the excavated earth so either phantasmal or earthen hands reach up and grasp at anyone who attempts to cross (attacking Fort, Necrotic damage and Immobilized). Also Difficult Terrain.

3) I'd step down the Necrotic damage for the Abbot's (reskined Human Mage) Darkbolt and give it a Slide 2 rider (into the pit or the Hungry Earth).

4) I'd have pillars or stonework/mausoleums so the Abbot could get cover against ranged attacks and make ranged attack PCs have to navigate the dangerous terrain to get an attack off.

5) I don't see that you indicated action economy above, but I would definitely go with Standard Action (primary)/Minor Action (secondary) to engage with the SC given the scenario (given the relationship of # of adversaries/control elements to PCs), the countdown/clock nature of its construction, and the fact that the one or two of the PCs will surely have Action Points.

---

I'll throw together a round 4 of your combat/SC scenario with your Sohei Fighter, your Skirmisher Ranger, and your Shaman later tonight when I have some time. Great stuff though.

Alright, so far for integration of SCs with combat so far we have:

1) Lack of engagement equals micro-failures which negatively impact the PCs from both a mechanical and fictional positioning perspective; they become injured, things become more dire/pressing, a story loss becomes imminent.

2) Integration at the fiction level, but not at the action economy level; eg the GM frames the Skill Challenge situation and reframes it each round to have it coincide with the combat/unfolding narrative scenario, but there is no decision-point tension for the players.

3) A clock/countdown scenario which comes online a few rounds in whereby (i) failures begin to automatically accrue at the end of each round when the SC is active and (ii) the unfolding situation becomes more mechanically dire (and therefore fictionally) at it progresses.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], I was assuming standard actions for the skill challenge (striking a gong, throwing in dirt both seem like standard actions to me).

I think I'd still stick with my more claustrophobic feel for space - it makes it harder to get away from the pit. Your change to the abbot makes this very hard for 3 PCs, I think, because someone will end up in the pit for sure. Maybe reduce it to 10' deep in that case?

 

[Manbearcat]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], I was assuming standard actions for the skill challenge (striking a gong, throwing in dirt both seem like standard actions to me).

Gotcha

I think I'd still stick with my more claustrophobic feel for space - it makes it harder to get away from the pit. Your change to the abbot makes this very hard for 3 PCs, I think, because someone will end up in the pit for sure. Maybe reduce it to 10' deep in that case?

Agreed. Reduction to 10 feet deep is a good idea. If I'm doing an encounter like the above, I want the Pit, the Hungry Earth, Control, and Obstacles for line of sight (to put the pressure on the PCs in their efforts to deal with the noncombat challenge clock you've devised) to be prominent. But you don't want it to be too punishing. 4 squares of movement to get out is reasonable (accomplishable in a Move Action) and just serves to confound the PCs efforts (which is what we're going for). 8 squares really hurts their collective action economy as it costs them their turn's Standard Action.

I'll get that round 4 of your encounter up this evening.

And I'll come up with another scenario to integrate a Skill Challenge with a combat.