D&D General Level Independent Challenges

[Reynard]

What are some challenges that can be presented in adventures that are "level independent" -- that is, not a function of hitting a certain DC, doing a certain amount of damage, or having just the right level gated ability.

The first one that comes to mind is the classic puzzle -- whether it is a riddle or the old chessboard-movement puzzle, or anything along those lines. Some players, however, DO NOT like puzzles. I once had a player balk at solving an easy sudoku as a stand in for shutting down a nuclear reactor in a Mutant Future game.

Another sort of level independent challenge might be trying to convince an NPC to help you by doing things that tick off some "help you" clock. The Duke would love to help you but can't do anything until he has evidence against his rival in hand, etc...

What other sorts of level independent challenges are there?

 

[Fanaelialae]

What are some challenges that can be presented in adventures that are "level independent" -- that is, not a function of hitting a certain DC, doing a certain amount of damage, or having just the right level gated ability.

The first one that comes to mind is the classic puzzle -- whether it is a riddle or the old chessboard-movement puzzle, or anything along those lines. Some players, however, DO NOT like puzzles. I once had a player balk at solving an easy sudoku as a stand in for shutting down a nuclear reactor in a Mutant Future game.

Another sort of level independent challenge might be trying to convince an NPC to help you by doing things that tick off some "help you" clock. The Duke would love to help you but can't do anything until he has evidence against his rival in hand, etc...

What other sorts of level independent challenges are there?

One of my DMs once had a skeleton challenge the party to a dance off. The DM gave us the option to either resolve it as a series of checks, or to have an actual dance off between the DM and one of the players. One of the guys opted to have an actual dance off.

That same DM came up with a mini game where each player created a thematic team of animals (felines, avians, etc) and each team was trying to obtain some McGuffin in this game and get it to the goal. I don't remember the particulars beyond that.

Years ago, I had an NPC challenge the party to a match in a fighting video game. We resolved it by actually playing that fighting game IRL. Admittedly, that really only happened because I was obsessed with that game at the time.

 

[Stalker0]

Ultimate game of russian roulette. You bring a person to 0 hp, and they start rolling death saves. If they stabilize, they move on to the next round, they die....well they lose!

As death saves are level independent, you have yourself a deadly challenge for 1st to 20th level characters alike!

 

[Celebrim]

Somewhat related to topic.

The Limit of Challenge as Level Approaches Infiinity

One thing that has always intrigued me about D&D is that there are certain monsters which are a challenge at low levels, which very quickly cease to be a challenge so that within only a few levels they aren't even a nuisance and consume virtually no resources to overcome. But, other monsters -...

www.enworld.org

 

[Mannahnin]

A delicate glass sphere containing a useful key, floating in the middle of a pit full of deadly acid, deep and with sheer walls.

Higher level PCs likely have more magic and tools to help them retrieve the key without breaking the sphere and losing it in the acid, but it's not strictly level dependent.

An Immovable Rod holds up tons of rock, a ceiling on the verge of collapse, which will clearly kill anyone under it if/when it does. You can leave the rod alone and get safely through the room.

Many players will be intrigued by and scheme how to get the rod.

More ideas:

OSR: 3 Level 1 PCs Solve 20 Black Doors

Michael Prescott of Trilemma fame crowdsourced 1d20 "black doors" on G+. In his words, A Black Door is a dungeon obstacle (in Ben Robbins...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

 

[Quickleaf]

Multiple stakeholder negotiations can be level-independent challenges.

 

[Celebrim]

Basically, any contest you run as purely one of player skill is level independent (or as I've called it in the past, level invariant).

The big trouble is that very few contests you are going to think of are actually independent of character resources. Puzzles in which you ask the player to solve the puzzle are going to be the closest, but be prepared at high level for the player character to just summon a Planetar or other super-genius being and negotiate with an outsider to solve the puzzle on their behalf. So unless you are dealing with something like "A Chess Game with Death" where there is an arbiter that would consider that cheating, even that probably isn't level invariant.

Social challenges run into the problem that not only are high level players more likely to have super charismatic abilities either through high skill or magical enhancement, but that problems of figuring out what the characters levers are also amendable to using high skill or magical resources in the investigation phase. At low levels it's a reasonable challenge to convince 5 of out of 9 town burgomasters to support you in something. At higher levels, it might be a reasonable challenge to convince 5 out of 9 deities to support you in something. So while the design might be ultimately the same, the difficulties of the tasks involved won't be.

 

[Shiroiken]

There were a ton of level independent challenges in AD&D and OD&D, since there weren't any skill checks to resolve a lot of issues (although 2E tried). These all were designed to challenge the players, not necessarily the characters, as they tried to solve issues with what they have.

Riddles are the classic level independent challenge, because it's pretty much you know it or you don't. However, because of this most players hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

 

[Dross]

I agree with what Celebrim wrote, unless you challenge the players it would be hard to have a level independent task.

Otherwise players will be...
Riddles: do I know anything about the subject matter (Knowledge)?
Convince someone of helping (persuasion/deception/intimidation).
Etc.

Maybe one way is using a bit of information/an item that will automatically produce only one outcome?

 

[jgsugden]

Negotiations, puzzles, riddles and mysteries all sound level independent - but higher level PCs have access to magics that make these things simplistic. To that end, I suggest not worrying about level relevance too much for anything except combat statistics, and even then - realize that there is a lot of wiggle room. EIther nothing is truly level indpenedent because high level magics make it too easy to 'cheat', or everything is not level dependent enough because a resourceful low level party can sometimes surprise you and find a way to concquer high level challenges.

 

[Lanefan]

Surprised nobody's mentioned mazes yet.

Mapping or navigating a maze of twisty passages all alike (or even all different) can be a challenge for any level. Just make sure there's a fat payoff in there somewhere, to make it worthwhile.

 

[Celebrim]

Surprised nobody's mentioned mazes yet.

Mapping or navigating a maze of twisty passages all alike (or even all different) can be a challenge for any level. Just make sure there's a fat payoff in there somewhere, to make it worthwhile.

Cast "Find the Path". Done.

 

[Salmakia]

One of my favorites is a sort of "morality test." I once had an NPC instruct the players to go pick a flower from the Tree of Law and bring it back to her to help prevent a catastrophe. I described the tree as one of the most beautiful, delicate, perfectly balanced natural phenomena they had ever encountered. Inscribed around the base of the tree are the words Beware all ye who walk the path of Law, for ye be not exempt from Evil. Do you follow the NPC's instructions and pick the flower or leave the tree in peace?

 

[Salmakia]

The classic is the Kobayashi Maru test from Star Trek. Although I don't love putting "unwinnable" situations into my games since those are, by nature, un-fun, so usually I'll do more of a "tricky" situation than an "impossible" one.

 

[Lanefan]

Cast "Find the Path". Done.

At high enough level, yes; but Find the Path to what (other than the way you came in) if you don't know what's in there?

 

[Quartz]

What are some challenges that can be presented in adventures that are "level independent" -- that is, not a function of hitting a certain DC, doing a certain amount of damage, or having just the right level gated ability.

Check out the Challenge of Champions adventures in Dungeon magazine.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Everything that does not require a d20 roll is level independent. Everything else is.

 

[Lanefan]

Everything that does not require a d20 roll is level independent. Everything else is.

It ain't quite so cut and dried.

The above ignores all the no-roll-required situations where a character's level either grants auto-success or enforces auto-failure.

It also ignores any challenges that deal damage enough to kill lower-level characters yet barely scratch high-level ones, falls being the most obvious among these.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What other sorts of level independent challenges are there?

Skill Challenges. The definition is getting X successes (however success is defined) before Y failures (ditto.) Chase scenes, ritual interruptions, hostage negotiations, all sorts of stuff becomes a simple and easily-applied framework.

 

[Pedantic]

If you're willing to write a scaling DC system, then literally any challenge resolved with skills. You can just pick your preferred chance of success and throw away the character sheets, or alternatively, replace your skill descriptions with a table of scaling adjectives (and you probably should, lest you mess up and describe this lock as finest dwarven engineering again, even though the player defeated a fine dwarven lock 5 levels ago and ostensibly got better since then).

I've spent a very long time screaming into the void that this is gross and you shouldn't do that. Let your players be good at things, and let them solve problems by being good at things.