D&D 5E Is there any 5e love for skill challenges??

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Yes, there's definitely a place for them. Don't expect people who are unfamiliar with 4E to understand what you're doing the first time you use one but they are another useful tool in the toolbox.

Also don't overlook the "Group Check" in the 5E skills chapter. I have used that quite a bit more in play than I ever expected to. Including those in a skill challenge type framework is fun too.

The concept of skill challenges is fine, but I have yet to see an implementation of them that doesn't suck. Either 1-2 PCs dominate the challenge, or you force characters to engage in the challenge, even if they have no reason to. The latter option is particularly painful for less social players (called Watchers in 4E), because they are supposed to engage in the narrative, which they are not comfortable with.

That's quite the opposite of my experience - giving the "less social" player a mechanical element to work with pulled them in far more than asking them to improvise. Probably depends on the player.

 

[ad_hoc]

I like them and prefer them over group checks.

Let's say the party needs to get through a city without being found out by guards who are looking for them.

The standard is to use group stealth checks. But this just reduces the situation to a few rolls which the players have little control over and which aren't very interesting.

Instead, I can ask each player; 'what are you doing to help/get through the city?'

Here are some possible answers:

- I sneakily guide the party past guards (stealth)
- I take shortcuts over walls while pulling characters up (athletics)
- I recall what I know of the city's foundations to find a hidden passage (history)
- I help the party blend in to the crowds and concoct a story about who we are (deception)

Now the exercise is much more fun and players get to express aspects of their characters.

 

[5ekyu]

Yes, there's definitely a place for them. Don't expect people who are unfamiliar with 4E to understand what you're doing the first time you use one but they are another useful tool in the toolbox.

Also don't overlook the "Group Check" in the 5E skills chapter. I have used that quite a bit more in play than I ever expected to. Including those in a skill challenge type framework is fun too.



That's quite the opposite of my experience - giving the "less social" player a mechanical element to work with pulled them in far more than asking them to improvise. Probably depends on the player.

i agree... the mechanical involvement adds a chance for a player otherwise not involved to get involved and gain a stake.

 

[Tiles]

I flat out copied a technique from “Critical Hit” podcast DM Rodrigo. I use his rules and my table cheers when I declare a skill challenge. It took a lot of failed attempts before it clicked , but after that it’s become an essential tool in my DM box. I love em!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I hated skill challenges in 4e, but that was in large part because I didn’t know how to run them well. In my defense, the books didn’t do a very good job of teaching DMs how to run them well. I’d like them more now, as a rough mechanical framework for non-combat encounters. But the thing is, I don’t think the game is well-served by thinking about encounters in terms of “combat encounters” and “non-combat encounters.” Ironically, now that I have the DMing skills to run skill challenges effectively, I also have less need of the type of framework they provide.

One thing that has saved dnd for my group is viewing skill changes as something that can be a part of an encounter.

Having to solve a puzzle to get the portal “key”, while the heavies hold/take down some baddies, and the wizard tries to unravel the enchantment that is keeping the portal from working, is just bloody fun.

The skill challenge framework helped a lot in 4e for adjudicating how complex and challenging to make those non combat elements, and what xp to reward for the whole scene.

Also, your points are why my own system, Quest for Chevar, has scenes, not encounters.

 

[Charlaquin]

One thing that has saved dnd for my group is viewing skill changes as something that can be a part of an encounter.

Having to solve a puzzle to get the portal “key”, while the heavies hold/take down some baddies, and the wizard tries to unravel the enchantment that is keeping the portal from working, is just bloody fun.

The skill challenge framework helped a lot in 4e for adjudicating how complex and challenging to make those non combat elements, and what xp to reward for the whole scene.

Also, your points are why my own system, Quest for Chevar, has scenes, not encounters.

Scenes are a really good way to break down a session into units of gameplay. Personally, I think of an encounter as a type of scene. Specifically, a scene where the PCs have a goal, and there is an obstacle or other source of conflict is preventing them from achieving it. Combat, skills, social interactions, etc. are all just means of resolving the conflict that makes a scene an encounter.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OT1H, Skill Challenges are structured in a way that's antithetical to aspects of the 5e DM Empowerment philosphy, OTOH, you can just take that structure behind the screen and use it as a DM tool, and you're fine. There's no need to get away from the basic DM-describes-situation>player-declares-action>DM-calls-for-a-roll-and/or-narrates-success-failure flow of 5e, just compose the skill challenge, the tasks (individual rolls or group checks) that'll be required to complete it successfully and tick 'em off behind the screen as the players engage with the situation as you presented it to them. Players running a character not suited to the Challenge might end up 'wasting turns' by declaring actions that don't advance (or cause failures) on the challenge, but since you're not presenting them with a turn structure that shouldn't be an issue.

Also, BA - essentially like the treadmill but with smaller numbers - creates a foundation for Skill Challenges, since everyone, even the theoretically incompetent at a give task, can participate. So, it is too bad that 5e didn't present and improve Skill Challenges, itself, even as an optional module, but, at least it did retain Group Checks....

 

[iserith]

Players running a character not suited to the Challenge might end up 'wasting turns' by declaring actions that don't advance (or cause failures) on the challenge, but since you're not presenting them with a turn structure that shouldn't be an issue.

I always put PCs into initiative for skill challenges in 4e (could always Delay in 4e as well) chiefly as a way to manage the spotlight and ensure participation from all the characters. I always felt like sitting out of skill challenges went against the spirit of 4e what with its team-based tactical rules. At a minimum they could Aid Another on their turns with only a slim chance of failure. My players joked that they had begun to fear skill challenges way more than a deadly combat. I saw a marked drop in skill specialists back then and the choosing of utility powers and the like that helped in skill challenges. It seemed like a net positive in the play experience.

In 5e, I tend to be less rigorous about it. But it might be worth trying some kind of initiative order and a general agreement that everyone is expected to participate just to see how it goes. That's easier if the players actually care as much about the stakes of the skill challenge as they would a combat. It's odd that few seem to care if someone sits out an exploration or social interaction challenge, but I suspect many would be annoyed if someone decides to sit out a combat.

Also, BA - essentially like the treadmill but with smaller numbers - creates a foundation for Skill Challenges, since everyone, even the theoretically incompetent at a give task, can participate. So, it is too bad that 5e didn't present and improve Skill Challenges, itself, even as an optional module, but, at least it did retain Group Checks....

4e had some good advice about how many Primary and Secondary Skills to include in the skill challenge. I believe it was the number of PCs plus two. I think that was good for getting DMs to think a little bigger about how many ways the PCs might approach a given challenge. In my experience, this was what allowed more participation in skill challenges since in theory you could have stuff in there for both the toughs and the talkers. It's advice probably worth considering for 5e skill challenges as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e had some good advice about how many Primary and Secondary Skills to include in the skill challenge. I believe it was the number of PCs plus two. I think that was good for getting DMs to think a little bigger about how many ways the PCs might approach a given challenge. In my experience, this was what allowed more participation in skill challenges since in theory you could have stuff in there for both the toughs and the talkers. It's advice probably worth considering for 5e skill challenges as well.

Yeah, there was a little more to Skill Challenges than just setting some DCs and toting /n/ successes before 3 failures. I want to say that part's intuitive, but even the 3 failures wasn't obvious, they started out with half as many failures as success, making 'complex' skill challenges /easier/! Maybe it's just a D&D thang, but having charts & tables of exp values, numbers of successes required, DCs, number of skills to involve, and so forth, would have been nice tools to have, and it's not like the 4e versions carry over...

...but, in the vague, DM-Empowered way of 5e, adapting that basic /n/ successes before 3 failures model to BA as a foundation for making a sufficiently challenging non-combat encounter is a fine 'starting point,' which is what 5e is all about being.

 

[Stalker0]

This is complete hubris on my part, but thought I would ask.

I wrote the Obsidian Skill Challenge system in the early days of 4e that became quite popular at that time on the board

I was curious, does anyone still use it?