Playtest/critique a "defend the base" skill challenge

[RangerWickett]

The last time I asked for help with a skill challenge - http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/304577-skill-challenge-feedback.html - I got a lot of great advice. I have another one now that will show up in the first ZEITGEIST adventure, and it's kind of an odd scene to run any way except as a skill challenge.

The party have infiltrated a fort, run down the length of a fortified sea wall, and attacked a lighthouse that houses the mechanical controls for a sea gate. Now they open the sea gate, notify their allies in the navy with a flare, and then have to make sure the sea gate stays open until the navy arrives.

I'm curious about

a) the mechanical grokability of the scene; reading it, do you get how it's supposed to play out

b) the fun for the players; I figure this is better than multiple combat encounters, or just 'winging it,' but would the adventure be better served by just cutting out the scene?

c) the balance; are there enough or too many enemy forces?

I hope that as the first wave comes in, the players get a chance to learn how the challenge works, and they can easily defeat them. Then the second wave comes, and the party might take some hits. Then the third wave arrives, and the party should have a fair chance to lose.


So, what do you think?

 

[Quickleaf]

I really like it! You've turned waves of minions into something less grindy and IMO more awesome.

I grokked the scene right away, but I would make it resoundingly clear that there are too many enemies to face in a fair fight. The way you tie in their stealth checks from a previous scene is cool! To heighten the tension I would stack the waves earlier than you have them so that you don't have a really good stealth check moving tha last wave past round 10 and effectively removing it from the scene.

Also I think you could include a short list of developments besides the waves of minions... What if some enemies take a boat to reach the light house? What if a large swell breaks against the sea wall? What if an enemy captain threatens a captured ally unless PCs surrender? Basically expend the complications section a bit.

I have no doubt this would make for a fun encounter, which is reason enough to include it. What impact succeeding/failing has in the next part of the adventure is another thing to consider. I'm sure you have

At first blush I like the different areas, but I'm not clear what differentiates them or why a PC would prefer to be in one area rather than another. And what constitutes "far away"?

The whole use an encounter/daily power to mitigate auto-damage is just bizarre, and not only is it a sub-system but it's not clear what this means narratively. Others may disagree but I say scrap that idea. Instead area effect or multi-target powers could wipe out more minions, right? So it's not about encounter or daily, but what type of attack - controllers will have a field day! Single target powers would be less effective, unless they did damage to enemies adhacent to target. Powers lasting till the end of the encounter, like Freezing Cloud (wizard daily 1), could be used to devastating effect.

Oh, and if I ran this for my players I'm certain two questions would come up:

(1) can't we just blast the sea wall to pieces and prevent bad guys from reaching the sea gate?

(2) can't we sabotage the mechanical system that opens the gate so it stays open no matter what?

As a matter of taste, I found the Force Rating (FR) artificial and grating; maybe its just me but I'd prefer it was simply expressed as number of minions, eg. "The trap kills 4 minions."

 

[RangerWickett]

I like the idea of adding more complications. Thank you.

The different areas are just to keep track of where the enemies are. A PC probably doesn't want to be anywhere except inside the lighthouse, but sometimes going out is worthwhile. You have to go outside to set up some barricades or place a trap, and you might decide to go out and face the enemies alone, stalling them for a round.


The idea of attacking was that one 'round' of attacking is equivalent to several rounds worth of normal combat, in which you take some damage. But if you use an encounter power you kill your enemies faster, and if you use a daily power you kill them fast enough that you don't take damage in response.

I considered making it more complicated -- are you using ranged, area, close, melee? How many enemies are present? Defenders soak damage from allies, etc. etc. I'm not sure how best to balance the complexity.



The sea wall is part of the fortress's defenses. It's 40 ft. high, 10 ft. wide at the top, and wider at the bottom. So no, the party definitely can't destroy it. (And that's established in the earlier combat.)


You can sabotage the gate system, but the mechanism is so large that anything the PCs do will not be substantial enough that the damage can't be overcome. The party's 1st level, and this is akin to telling four modern people to jam a modern drawbridge. You can mess up the gears by jamming something in there (but the something can be removed), or break the controls (but they can be repaired or jury-rigged). Concerted efforts can get the thing back online within a couple minutes.


I'll see how easy it is to get across the mechanics by just saying X 'enemies.' One 'enemy' might really be several minions, but mechanically each enemy does one thing.


The main thing I want to work on is figuring out a good way for PCs to kill enemies, to make it feel risky but be very simple and fast.

 

[keterys]

Feels odd to add time delay no matter what, and potentially more easily missed by the DM to the PCs detriment (notice too late that 2/5/8 isn't when they actually come in)

Maybe
Arrive in round 5, 8, 11, and subtract half the number of failed stealth checks (minimum 1 unless no one failed). Not sure it's much better, but figured I'd mention.
Or even if stick to as it is now, 3/6/9, and add 2/1/0 instead, would make a worst case mistake equal to the heightened alert level.

Use of DC 18 very mathematically planned? Wonderingly mostly because the Hard DC would be 19, Moderate 12, and you use both of those DCs for Stealth/Perception checks later.

I'd pick a different word than "Attack" for character action, just cause it implies rolling to attack, which doesn't actually happen. One alternate idea might be to require a successful roll for attack to work, and on a fail they take damage... with encounters and dailies doing more. Though as a warning there are certain character types where the encounter/daily divide works a bit oddly (PH3 Psionics and some Essentials, notably). But, I can see where you might find that troubling to get too precise.

Set Ward - so if a Cleric (Religion) or Druid (Primal) want to do this, it uses Arcana? Also, I think restricting it to ritual casters is fine, rather than generically any non-martial. A goliath barbarian setting wards, but not an eladrin warlord? Eh.

It feels like it could be a little easy for someone to be suddenly dropped by 3+ FR (as sensible as it is, of course), and fighting back will not necessarily help (very likely to take as much damage as they prevent). A lot will depend on how hard it actually is to move around when needed I think... ie, if a PC is still dealing with 1 FR from wave 1 or 2 Outside the Lighthouse when 10-16 FR show up for wave 2 or 3... do they need to make a Stealth 12 to get back into the Lightouse? (he's moving through his own location, which has an enemy in it)

This is coming out this month, yes?