Integrating Skill Challenges With Combat

[Manbearcat]

Alright, an iteration of round 4 of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's conceived combat/skill challenge (directly above) with Pit as Hindering Terrain (rather than Trap) and 20 feet deep rather than 10.

Things are getting desperate.

Necrotic energy seeps from the pit. As the corruption spreads, spirits flag and hopes dim. The Sohei faces down a former protector of the order, now grotesquely risen, with its mortal memory and her honor at stake. They dance astride the pit, sickening claws clashing with blessed steel and the ethereal fur of a spirit-bear. Disaster looming, the Shaman calls forth primal power

The Ranger, after freshly pulling himself from the roiling necrosis of the earthen cavity, summons a battle cry despite the spiritual weight and heaves a blade and then himself toward the fallen abbot.

<So 2 failures accrued from reaching round 4. Let's say 2 successes already accrued. Necroit Pit damage and OG damage (if in pit) stepped up 5. Sohei and Ranger out of Action Points. Abbot, Wight and Ranger Bloodied. >

Round 4

Start of the Round - Everyone takes 5 Necrotic Damage as the miasma drifts aggressively from the pit and fills the burial chamber.

Fallen Abbot

Standard Action: Darkbolt on Sohei hits. Necrotic damage and Slides into hindering terrain of pit. Passes Saving Throw and is prone just outside of pit. As the crackling bolt of wheezing death pulls the Sohei from her feet, the Ranger howls in protest and barrels toward the wicked abbot, only to have the phantasmal arms of corrupted earth lock her legs into place! Ranger Immediate Reaction - Avenging Charge (E). Charges through Hungry Earth Hazard to attack FA. Fort attack hits so 3 damage and immobilized (save ends); disaster! My guess is this would be one frustrated PC!

Move Action: Two squares behind a set of urns for partial cover against Ranged attacks from the Shaman and Ranger.

Ranger (Immobilized, Bloodied)

Minor Action: Terrain Advantage (+4 PB while in DT UEoYNT).

Standard Action: Sure Shot (3W+ Dex, can reroll attack and each damage die). Hits (despite the Cover). A squinted eye, a measured aim, and the sound of an end-over-end blade cutting air.
The Fallen Abbot is slain (w/ damage + Hunter's Quarry).

Minor Action: After hunkering down, reaches down, grabbing fistfuls of dirt and invokes the primal spirits of the earth and the mountain to sanctify the exhumed, corrupted earth all around him. Nature Check Secondary against Easy DC for +2 Forward.

Fails Saving Throw vs Hungry Earth.

Wight

Horrific Visage (used prior round) fails to recharge

Standard Action: Claw hits. 1d6 Necrotic damage and loss of healing surge.

Minor Action: Animate Death (reskinned Reanmiate) to remove a success in the SC. Now only 1 success!.

Sohei

Move Action: Stand up.

Standard Action: Its earthen tomb momentarily sanctified by the primal spirits of the world, the Wight's connection to undeath is disrupted. The Sohei speaks the words of the Protector's Prayer to ensure it struggles with returned memories freshly stolen. Religion check +2 succeeds and back to 2 successes.

Shaman

Healing Spirit: Ranger spends a Healing Surge and Sohei gains 1d6 HPs (adjacent to Spirit Companion).

Standard Action: Daily - Spirit of the Healing Flood. The Shaman calls forth the Elder Spirit of the endless deluge...the rain...the rising river. Floodwaters wash the sanctified, exhumed earth back into the pit, choking the necrotic energy.

This would call for an automatic success for 3 total, but if the player wanted to gamble on a Nature vs Hard, I'd let it be 2 Successes and finish the Skill Challenge (which would be lost on next failure - if the Shaman APs or at the beginning of next turn). My guess is the player (with probably something akin to a +13 Nature) would gamble on the 8 or better given the circumstances!

 

[Manbearcat]

And another Skill Challenge/Combat scenario for someone to transliterate into mechanics (or I shall if no one does in the next few days)!

Situation:

A group of (near-end) Paragon Tier PCs have rescued a slumbering princess from the Ice Queen's frozen palace! But the curse is not lifted until she reaches The Land of Summer so they must get her free of the icy, labyrinthine castle so the sun can restore her with its rays! With the Ice Queen's final breath, she summons her champion, a raging Ancient White Dragon! This foe may be beyond our heroes under the best of circumstances...but the creature makes the decision for them. On its rampage, it smashes through the frozen buttresses and columns that support the ceiling suspended above them. Soon it will collapse on all of them, crushing the princess! The only choice is escape through the massive halls, in hopes to reach the entrance chamber, the foyer and the open air beyond!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And another Skill Challenge/Combat scenario for someone to transliterate into mechanics (or I shall if no one does in the next few days)!

Situation:

A group of (near-end) Paragon Tier PCs have rescued a slumbering princess from the Ice Queen's frozen palace! But the curse is not lifted until she reaches The Land of Summer so they must get her free of the icy, labyrinthine castle so the sun can restore her with its rays! With the Ice Queen's final breath, she summons her champion, a raging Ancient White Dragon! This foe may be beyond our heroes under the best of circumstances...but the creature makes the decision for them. On its rampage, it smashes through the frozen buttresses and columns that support the ceiling suspended above them. Soon it will collapse on all of them, crushing the princess! The only choice is escape through the massive halls, in hopes to reach the entrance chamber, the foyer and the open air beyond!

OK, this one is, at least to first look, a straight 'action sequence' where the choices would be overcoming various impediments and the plot a simple movement to an exit. Of course you could throw in a few twists... One immediate twist is the devil's bargain, dump the frozen body and gain 2 success instantly. I'm going to write that into my version, and in order to make it interesting I'll describe the 3 characters involved as being a Changeling Rogue, a Dragonborn Paladin, and an Eladrin Wizard.

The rogue is a classic rogue. Highly self-reliant he's lately come to find his companions surprisingly useful and even likable, when the paladin isn't being utterly insufferable at least. His first instinct is to save himself, but he's not going to leave his companions behind to do so. To him the Ice Princess represents the rewards of a great 'heist' BUT death would put a crimp in his style and he can always find more loot. The thrilling part, beating the Ice Queen, has been accomplished. Furthermore if dumping the frozen body saved his pals (who won't do it themselves) then that's just DOUBLE motivation! He's certainly willing to go full out to bring the body, but when its down to 2 fails and the exit is right there, he might well just crack! Anyway, the GM figures it that way, and thus the devil's bargain feature of the challenge...

The Dragonborn Paladin swore to recover the Ice Princess in payment for learning the location where his patron, Io, was slain. He's not about to fail, no way, no how. His word is just as weighty as his respect for the shifty rogue who's also saved his skin a few times. He'll just carry them both if he has to! Secondarily he thinks he may know the True Name of the white dragon. Such a thing is quite hazardous to attempt to employ, but if he could compel a service, that would probably go a long ways towards getting them out. Should he risk playing that card or is running for the exit a better bet?

The Wizard has mixed feelings as well, but again there's party loyalty. If he does rescue this Princess there will quite a mess in the Summer Court. OTOH he's also got a beef with the dragon, so he's game to fight it out. Still, he might take that devil's bargain at a last resort, since it would fix one of his problems...

Now, how are we supposed to make this a combat-focused kind of a challenge? I'm thinking the dragon has a bunch of minions, icy kobolds would be fun. These are obviously not your average normal kobolds, they're ones that have been imbued with elemental cold and become much stronger than normal (but they're still minions, after all they started out life as low-level creatures).

That's a start. I might have to modify some of this to get it to work, and the details of the battle map still have to be worked out.

 

[pemerton]

I've done more than one "escape from the collapsing temple"-type skill challenge (one at Heroic - the Well of Demons; one at Paragon - the duergar stronghold; two at Epic - the Soul Abattoir, and Thanatos). But I don't think I've ever combined it with combat.

In the Soul Abattoir one, there was a combat, but it was an "interlude" in the skill challenge - they skill challenged in; beat up the powerfurl shrivers at the heart of the Abattoir; then skill challenged out through the fallout from the destruction they'd inflicted.

For [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s one, I think there needs to be a fairly large map, with hazards (eg falling ice), precarious terrain (pillars of ice ready to be pushed over, etc) and a lot of servitors who were in the palace and have been thrown into disarray by the collapse as much as (or more than) the PCs have.

One aspect of the skill challenge can be managing the interactions with these NPCs ("No, we're not rescuing the Princess; we're just making sure the collapsing palace doesn't squash her!"). The risk here is another clock. To avoid that, maybe it should be the case that crossing the threshold into the foyer brings it all crashing down with no hope of alternative escape - "the assembled NPCs pin you against that wall as the ice falls on top of you all" - unless the players have succeeded in the skill challenge, in which case there is at least one stable exit which is clear of NPCs that the PCs can escape through.

 

[Manbearcat]

@AbdulAlhazred and @pemerton

My thoughts on integrating combat/SC here to have 4 brief combat encounter scenes:

1) Skill Challenge Complexity 3, Level +3.

2) Two micro-successes move the players to a new combat encounter scene and related area of the failing structure. Two micro-successes can be achieved by either (a) all characters successfully navigating to the opposite side of the map (these would not be small maps) or (b) 2 Standard Action successes during that scene. A pair of successes or all heroes reaching the opposing edge of the encounter map (this would be plainly conveyed to the players) means the next encounter/scene is framed and we roll initiative again.

If the individual scene hasn’t been defeated by the beginning of round 3, a failure accrues and each PC takes a Healing Surge worth of damage from falling debris due to the collapsing structure. Repeat for subsequent rounds.

3) Each combat encounter would involve a budget with (i) falling ceiling hazards (as the structure collapses), (ii) areas of challenging/hindering terrain and obstacles in the way of debris from collapse or still-standing structures, (iii) Minions and Standards that represent the Ancient White Wyrm's tail thrashes/head smashing through stone-work and releasing a blast of frost/sundering claws or stuff like Ice Mephits/Elementals or Ice Kobolds (like AA mentioned) who try to foil the heroes' effort to escape the collapsing structure.

Repeat until either the structure collapses or the heroes escape the collapsing ice palace.

Thoughts?

 

[Garthanos]

This thread rocks like crazy (I feel like playing)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred and @pemerton

My thoughts on integrating combat/SC here to have 4 brief combat encounter scenes:

1) Skill Challenge Complexity 3, Level +3.

2) Two micro-successes move the players to a new combat encounter scene and related area of the failing structure. Two micro-successes can be achieved by either (a) all characters successfully navigating to the opposite side of the map (these would not be small maps) or (b) 2 Standard Action successes during that scene. A pair of successes or all heroes reaching the opposing edge of the encounter map (this would be plainly conveyed to the players) means the next encounter/scene is framed and we roll initiative again.

If the individual scene hasn’t been defeated by the beginning of round 3, a failure accrues and each PC takes a Healing Surge worth of damage from falling debris due to the collapsing structure. Repeat for subsequent rounds.

3) Each combat encounter would involve a budget with (i) falling ceiling hazards (as the structure collapses), (ii) areas of challenging/hindering terrain and obstacles in the way of debris from collapse or still-standing structures, (iii) Minions and Standards that represent the Ancient White Wyrm's tail thrashes/head smashing through stone-work and releasing a blast of frost/sundering claws or stuff like Ice Mephits/Elementals or Ice Kobolds (like AA mentioned) who try to foil the heroes' effort to escape the collapsing structure.

Repeat until either the structure collapses or the heroes escape the collapsing ice palace.

Thoughts?

Sounds workable. Honestly though, I don't even think you need THAT much mechanics. Just go with the thing being a complexity 3 challenge, and add in say 8 minions that pop up a couple at a time as you traverse a 'scene'. Now, you can just have the PCs make checks for success in the challenge, or mess with the minions. The big dragon can swoop in once per 'scene' and unleash some sort of effect, it could just be a random die roll. Use the various goings-on to narrate the causes and effects of failures and successes. A character attempts to find a way forward, he fails, the dragon's tail smashes down, blocking the way! etc. I ran a LOT of this pattern of SC back a few years ago, and they are cheese, the system just eats them for lunch.

 

[Manbearcat]

Alright, so these are the ways I might render the above fiction via 4e mechanics, depending on how much tactical depth I’m looking for:

1) The way I outlined above (fully integrated SC and combat) where each encounter is basically a side-scroll (old school video game) challenge to get from one side of the map to the other as obstacles (monsters, terrain, hazards) impede you. Once all PCs get to the other side of the map or two Primary Checks are successful made (Standard Actions), we move to the next map and move the fiction along.

2) Skill Challenge to “Escape the Collapsing Ice Palace With the Slumbering Princess.” Any micro-failure leads to a nested combat/C1 Skill Challenge as (1) above (but much larger map and the dragon fully rendered in Solo form).

3) Skill Challenge where the micro-failures lead to complications that don’t involve nested combat challenges.

I’ll provide an example of 2 above (including a map and encounter dynamics) in an upcoming post. That is the way I typically handle these things (though I’ve done 1 about 3 times from memory).

 

[Emryys]

I’ll provide an example of 2 above (including a map and encounter dynamics) in an upcoming post. That is the way I typically handle these things (though I’ve done 1 about 3 times from memory).

Awesome... Looking forward to it!

 

[Manbearcat]

2) Skill Challenge to “Escape the Collapsing Ice Palace With the Slumbering Princess.” Any micro-failure leads to a nested combat/C1 Skill Challenge as (1) above (but much larger map and the dragon fully rendered in Solo form).

Alright, so this was to be end of Paragon tier, so lets put the PCs at level 19.

I would have made the "Escape the Collapsing Ice Palace With the Slumbering Princess" a Level +2 C3 Skill Challenge (so 19, 26, 35 for DCs).

Lets say the PCs would have been at 7 successes and 1 failure and used (a) both of their Advantages and (b) 2 of their available 3 Secondary Skills. They would have passed 1 Hard DC thus far, so this last obstacle would be Hard.

They're entering a winding, icy stairwell that will empty them out into the long, high-ceilinged Entrance Hall of the Ice Palace. A HUGE block of ice falls from the ceiling when they're halfway down their spiraling egress. With the sleeping princess over the shoulder of the Dragonborn Paladin, he barely is able to throw himself back against the wall as the massive block barrels earthward...obliterating the last 6 flights. With 60 feet remaining, sheer, icy walls in the cylindrical stairwell, and their way down now in ruins at the bottom, the PCs have little time. The Eladrin Wizard already used its Arcane Gate Daily to get them out of a pinch earlier (lets say navigating the earlier Hard DC obstacle and choosing to tackle a go at the Hard DC with Arcana for 2 successes rather than just an auto-success) so that isn't available.

With the stair and shaft under imminent collapse, there isn't remotely enough time to affix and anchor a rope to climb down. No time to go back up the way they came and look for another route.

In very Paladin-ey fashion, the Dragonborn lowers the princess from his shoulder, grabs a long coil of rope from his pack and tells his allies he is going to lower them down and he'll just ride the wave of collapse down when it happens; we'll call that 6d10 HP worth of damage or a Healing Surge worth (whichever is worse). But this is particularly awesome, heroic, and Paladin-ey, so I give him a +2 untyped to his Athletics effort.

Instead of holding on with the princess over his shoulder, the guileful, quick-fingered Changeling Rogue knots a few cradles for them to sit in with amazing speed (Thievery automatically succeeds the Easy DC and that is our last Secondary Skill use for the challenge). So another +2. So Athletics +4 vs Hard DC (35).

The player of the Paladin fails the roll.

With shards of ice bombarding him left and right and unsteady footing, the Paladin gets into his best anchoring position by dropping his weight and putting his feet against some ice rails that are still standing. Hand-over-hand, he lowers the Rogue, the Wizard, and the sleeping princess at an amazing pace. His hands bloodying, his grip throbbing and beginning to fail, they near the bottom. The stairwell yaws dramatically, almost 30 degrees. Then, his delicate seat atop the crumbling stair gives way as the whole chamber begins a collapse. He smashes into the wall and slides down, huge shards of razor ice slamming into him all the way down. When he reaches the bottom, the slight angle spills him out at the feet of his companions. They're in the entrance chamber. At the far end, they can faintly see a sliver of daylight through the massive double doors.

As he is helped to his feet, he barely has enough time to register the dozen or so aches from horrific impacts he took...because the massive, rampaging, Ancient White Dragon that has stalked their frantic escape explodes through the ceiling halfway through the chamber!

So now the PCs are at 7 and 2 and this nested Combat/Race will decide it. The Paladin is going to start this combat down 1/4 HPs and I'm going to charge him another Healing Surge for that failure (so likely, the Paladin is low on Surges as I would imagine this is end of the adventuring day).



1) The PCs would start on the far right.

2) The dragon would start in the middle of the map between the pillars.

3) Success would mean all characters navigating the intervening 48 squares in 6 rounds. If they aren't there at the end of round 6, Skill Challenge ends in failure.

4) Due to the slightly iced surface, any Run Action would yield an extra 3 squares of forced movement at the end of the move. However, a Run Action would require a slightly higher than of-level (17) Easy DC Acrobatics check (so 19 which happens to be the Hard DC for a Heroic 1st level PC). Failure = Prone 3 squares from your beginning square (due to the 3 squares of forced movement).

5) There would be pockets of Iceshard Pile:

Effect: Iceshard Pile squares are difficult terrain. A creature that starts its turn in a Iceshard Pile square takes 10 cold damage. A creature that ends its turn in a Iceshard Pile square is restrained until the start of its next turn.

6) The columns could be stunted with (Medium Athletics check then Attack vs Fort) to collapse on top of the dragon, causing damage + dazed and that area would turn into a 2 * 2 section of Iceshard Pile.

7) Two massive ice chandeliers (The Cs) could also be stunted with for a similar effect except less damage and immobilized (save ends) rider.

8) The White Dragon would be the Monster Vault's Elder leveled to 24 (Ancient). The only difference would be the following change to Instinctive Rampage

Instinctive Rampage

On an initiative of 10 + the dragon’s initiative check, the dragon can move up to its speed as a free action. The dragon can move through enemies’ spaces and gains resist 5 to all damage during the move. Each time the dragon enters an enemy’s space for the first time during the move, it can use claw against that enemy. If the attack hits, the target also falls prone. The dragon can move through the space of a column, collapsing it and the ceiling above it for a CB3, +27 vs Fort, 2d10+7 and OG 5 Cold (Save Ends) and Slowed UEoNT (leaves Iceshard Pile where column was). If the dragon cannot use a free action to take this move due to a dominating or stunning effect, then that effect ends instead of the dragon making this move.

The dragon would take that 2d10 +7 (less the resist 5), but would be immune to Slowed and OG Cold (resistance).

9) At the end of each round, I would roll a d12. Moving clockwise (with the top left pillar being 12), I would have one of the pillars (and attendant ceiling collapse) a la the Instinctive Rampage above effect above. If a number is rolled and the associated pillar is already collapsed, then nothing would happen.

on this from [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] :

Secondarily he thinks he may know the True Name of the white dragon. Such a thing is quite hazardous to attempt to employ, but if he could compel a service, that would probably go a long ways towards getting them out.

I would handle this mechanically as a stunt. Basically a Standard Action of-level Religion at Hard DC. Success would basically mean the dragon is stunned (narratively) and the effect for this challenge would allow all the PCs to take a Free Action Move (thus getting them closer to their egress point).

---

That should do it.