Making a Physical Skill Challenge that Involves Everyone?

[MarkB]

Except that PHysical, athletic skill challenges are a category of skill challenge. Climbing a cliff, trekking over a long distance, etc, are purely physical challenges.

Just like you have mental or social challenges, where the physical skills don't play a part. Athletics, Acrobatics or Endurance aren't useful in a diplomatic skill challenge. By your reasoning, then it's not useful because it doesn't have "hooks" for the physical character.

Open your DMG to the skill challenge chapter, and look at the skill challenges presented. See what skills they facilitate.

Trouble is, skill challenges as presented in the DMG suck. I've played through some of the early, DMG-style skill challenges in LFR modules, and they tend to leave half the party sitting around with nothing useful to contribute.

Later modules, on the other hand, either up the complexity of skill challenges to provide uses for a much wider range of skills, combined with room for creativity in applying other skills or abilities to the problem, or else divide a challenge up into shorter scenes, each favouring a different set of skills.

The more recent challenges are about ten times more enjoyable and interesting to play through than the ones which most closely follow the DMG layout.

 

[Skallgrim]

By simply using it as a skill challenge, I'm getting everyone involved. If it wasn't, then why wouldn't they let the fighter/barbarian do the heavy lifting and that be the end of it? By making it a skill challenge, I'm pushing them to use their skills. And I started this thread so that I could offer choices for those skills instead of making the wizard use athletics.

I guess that whether it is a skill challenge is really more semantics than an actually issue.

However, this is the part (or the party) that I don't understand. You have a group who would sit back and let the barbarian lift all the rocks when they can hear a wailing child underneath? Unless it is a skill challenge?

What group of heroic adventurers does this?

"An infant, trapped under those rocks! Go rescue him, Conan! We'll stand over here."

Using the standard DMG guidelines for skill challenges (modified by the rules updates), I can see why the players might hold back. If they fail 3 checks, then they fail the challenge. No one wants to be the person who kills the child/blows the challenge.

Now, if you are using open-ended skill challenges, or a skill challenge that resolves things differently than a standard DMG challenge does, that changes a whole lot of things, to the point where I don't know how we can all be reliably talking about the same thing.

My point, originally, was that the idea (we try to help the mother, and discover that she, and her baby, are ghosts) was such a cool idea that I wouldn't want to run the risk of not having the "big reveal" by doing this as a skill challenge (someone blows a couple of rolls and they all fail the challenge, and the 'mother' just vanishes in a cry of anguish).

If you structure a skill challenge such that the cool setting you have already worked out will be revealed, then more power to you, but I do think it would need to be structured differently than the standard '3 strikes' skill challenges.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Well, to be fair, if Conan and I were to come across a kid trapped under a rock pile, while I wouldn't be sitting on the side saying "go to it, Conan" I most certaintly would not be the person lifting the rocks - rather, I would be looking for handholds, clearing out lighter debris that might get in the way, and helping with leverage... or in other words, using various skills to aid other.

That said, in game terms, aid other can be rather bland - its like being a member of the pit crew of a formula 1 racer - you do a vital job, but the only person who gets any individual credit is the driver - the best you get is "good job, pit crew".

Additionally, at higher levels, aid other is also mechanically boring, in that its really not that tough to get a 10 on a skill roll when you've hit paragon.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I'm going to have to support those who say this shouldn't be a skill challenge. I don't think you can be faulted for looking at the DMG1 for guidance, but really the DMG2 should be consulted here. Unfortunately I don't have my DMG2 on me, otherwise I'd quote it. When I have access to it, I'll be back..

 

[Saeviomagy]

That's a nice idea, but the problem is that it just becomes different phases where different players are sitting on their hands, as opposed to getting everyone involved at the same time. I want players to be able to be engaged the whole time, as opposed to wait for their character's turn/not be useful anymore.

Did you miss how all 3 categories of skills (social, knowledge and physical) were present in each phase of my version? There is no "I guess I just sit around" unless the player is simply not trying.

Also, the ghost is going to know where the bodies are. And there are no alive children.

Well, if you want to deliberately make this a "you lift rocks and it's boring" skill challenge, be my guest.