Need some skill challenge help

[Uller]

The party I'm running a game for has entered a village where the population is ruled over (terrorized?) by a bog hag. She had allowed a group of wererats to take over most of the trade related businesses to help her keep the villagers in-line (and it probably wasn't entirely her choice). Unfortunately, the wererats (surprise!) proved to be unruly and began infecting the locals with lycanthropy and chaos is ensuing (I've house-ruled that lycanthropy is a curse spread by a bite...not just filfth fever...feh!)

Anyway...I expect eventually the party will run the hag out of town (if they don't end up joining her) and may want to track her down to her lair to finish her off. By then they should be at or very close to 6th level.

So I'd like to run a skill challenge to simulate the hunt. The problem is, I have no idea how to write a decent skill challenge. I've made up a few here and there to resolve some problems that have come up, but nothing all that complex.

The party is 5th level and includes a Warden, Slayer, Mage (Necromancer/Enchanter), Druid (PHB2) and a Ranger (Hunter)

Also, I'm trying to think of a way to end the adventure with something other than a boss fight...likely the main wererat will provide a boss fight (an elite feral wererat with some supporting creatures). So I'm also trying to think of another way for them to defeat/destroy the hag in the end without a fight...trick her...they have to find a way to destroy her tree (like a dryad)...find some item that drives her away.... A fight is always an option for the party, but I won't pull punches and I expect her to have a couple trolls and an otyugh along with some traps so they risk a TPK (hunting bog hags in their lair is dangerous business after all).

Ideas?

 

[mcmillan]

I think one of the most important things to think about to start off is what happens if they fail. If the only interesting things will happen if they find her, you might as well just say they do so.

When it comes to figuring out what kinds of skills could come up, I usually leave that open to the players to decide, though come up with some obstacles that could let people shine with what they're good at, especially if there's something that only one character has some good stats for. Looks like you have a very naturey party, which covers some of the obvious tracking. But think about what else might cause them trouble.

I can imagine the hag leaving magical wards around her lair that the Mage needs to identify, Arcana could also be useful for identifying a weakness they can exploit when they actually find the hag. Athletics or acrobatics may be needed to get around some obstacle in the swamp. Since you mention allies of the hag, you might have the trolls patrolling around and need to be avoided with stealth or tricked into helping the party in some way. I've also run a tracking challenge where my group needed to catch up within a time limit, and used endurance to let them cut down the time they had used, to represent them pushing on longer than they would normally do.

 

[Quickleaf]

Hey I like that you house-rules lycanthropy - gives it some real teeth

For a non-combat climax, what about the PCs manipulating the wererats and the hag to fight each other? Then the PCs lock the doors and huddle down with the villagers until the bloody affair is over.

For your "Hunt the Hag Into the Bog" scenario, you need three things:

(1) A reason for the PCs to not kill the hag outright (you say "run her out of town"...but how often do players do that?), or a foolproof way for her to escape...and a compelling reason to chase after her.

(2) Obstacles / complications. For example, you could steal my arcane mists...
[sblock]Arcane Mists (d8)
1. Stranded spirits on an isle in the bog call out to PCs for help; anyone listening is attacked vs. Will or they hear voice of a departed loved one... of course that part of the bog is full of lighting sand, fire spouts, and R.O.U.S
2. Obscuring mist separates party members which appear to be enemies for a moment.
3. A ghostly marker the PCs are convinced they passed before, but if they double back they're lured into a troll ambush.
4. Poisonous green vapors drift thru the mist, requiring Endurance checks or nauseating PCs and draining a healing surge.
5. A mire full of "curse bubbles" - too much agitation of surface causes a bubble to pop and release the curse. As an example of a curse: water pours uncontrollably from the PC's mouth, threatening to drown them, unless they blindfold themselves or walk backwards.
6. Projection of the hag as a spectral veiled woman promising to lead a PC to a great magic weapon if they but tell her their name (or the place of their birth). However if they do, the hag can now assume the PC's form.
7. One PC sees a momentary vision in the bog water of a fellow PC betraying them in the midst of combat. Until the matter is resolved, they are not considered allies.
8. The PCs become lost in the mist and night is fast approaching. If they press on without sleeping they must make Endurance checks or grant combat advantage until they sleep.
[/sblock]

(3) Consequences for failure that are still interesting and move the story forward. For example, if the PCs don't get X successes before Y failures then it takes them a long time to find the hag - perhaps meaning they face her at night when her cycle of magical might is at it's peak, or perhaps meaning she has time to complete several rituals/summonings. Or it could be very dramatic and the PCs could be shapechanged into weasels and toads!

As long as you've got those 3 things dialed in, the rest of the skill challenge can be filled in by the players.

 

[Uller]

Thanks for the tips to both of you!

I really like the arcane mists idea. I might go with that. A new pc (the warden character) is being introduced tonight....maybe we'll use those as his hook into the pary (he has knowledge of the mists to help them through it)

With wererats ROUSs are a given...

 

[pemerton]

My advice on skill challenges is more about pacing - use the failures/successes progression to flesh out your material, and add stuff in that responds to what the players are having their PCs do in the course of making their checks. In particular, use failed skill checks as a chance to introduce new complications in the fiction, and don't just impose mechanical penalties like surge loss or -2 to the next check.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Since a Bog Hag is a standard monster, I'd consider combining the skill challenge with the battle, the SC would take the place of one or more additional monsters.

Now, since the Hag is 10th level, 4 above the party, one option is to convert her to a 6th level Elite (exact same experience value). That would make things work more smoothly mechanically, without impacting the encounter budget. You'd have to give her an extra power or two, maybe some action-preservation or the Leader secondary role.

So, whatever budget you set for the encounter, the Hag (10th standard or 6th elite) is 500. My impulse would be to make the Skill Challenge the same level as she is (6th or 10th), with a complexity that fits the budget. At 6th complexity 2, it's worth as much as the Hag, herself, which seems fitting to me.

That's 6 successes before 3 failures, 5 moderate, 1 hard, and no advantages needed (Rules Compendium p159).

Obvious primary skills would be Nature (tracking) and Endurance (slogging through her prefered habitat). Since she's Fey she might have some sort of glamour/illusion hiding her lair, which Arcana or Insight (candidates for the Hard success) could pierce. You could also point out that using an encounter power might generate a success.

Failures could expose the PCs to dangers of the swamp, inflicting damage. Typically in a Skill Challenge you just take away surges, but as this one is part of an encounter, you might want to have it do actual damage, using up surge-triggers as well as surges to heal, as the party won't get a short rest before facing the Hag.

Success or failure, then, is just about how hurt/exhausted the PCs are before they stagger into her lair. Each failure inflicts some damage, 3 inflicts the maximum amount, and you stop worrying about successes and just describe blundering through an illusion and into her lair or something like that - possibly even giving the Hag surprise.

Success might let the party gain surprise. Complete success leaves them reasonably fresh (except for any powers they expended to get successes), since no failures means no damage.

 

[Uller]

Excellent reply. I think that combined with the arcane mist will work nicely.

Since my original post the party is now in the village. They have been attacked by a pack of wererats and one party member is afflicted with the first stage of lycanthropy. They are holed up in a shrine to the raven queen (this is in the shadowfell) and are contemplating their next move. They know the hag has the components to do a remove affliction ritual but have not met her yet and don't know she is a hag but suspect something since she has been in the village longer than the residents can remember.

I have decided that the origin of the village was that it was swallowed by the shadowfell when its lord protector became a vampire. This was generations ago. The hag seduced the vampire and trapped him in his crypt with a undead ward to keep him in and a glyph of warding to keep intruders out. The party may decide to free him (or may inadvertantly do so). But they have no thievery skill. Is there a ritual that could be used to disable the glyph?