Skill Chalanges are so not cool

[Wepwawet]

[...]

Now that makes sense. It's good to have some explanations, instead of just the values totally modified in the errata.
Thanks

 

[Nebulous]

Rules and errata aside, does anyone just plain not like how Skill Challenges play out? I'm DMing, but i don't really like them. I completely skipped a challenge in a premade adventure the other day just because i didn't want to bother with it.

 

[Cadfan]

Nebulous- the trick is often to make sure the players don't know they're in a skill challenge.

They know they're making skill checks, but you do the success/fail stuff behind the screen, and use it without their knowledge to guide how you roleplaying the encounter.

 

[the Jester]

Nebulous- the trick is often to make sure the players don't know they're in a skill challenge.

They know they're making skill checks, but you do the success/fail stuff behind the screen, and use it without their knowledge to guide how you roleplaying the encounter.

I find this to be a very interesting statement. Could you elaborate on it? The RAW seem to say that pcs should always know that they're in a skill test and at least most of the rules that apply. However, a comment a player made the other night has me mulling this over too- and I have run one skill test that was 'hidden from view' because it involved the pcs being tricked with illusions.

 

[Cadfan]

I find this to be a very interesting statement. Could you elaborate on it? The RAW seem to say that pcs should always know that they're in a skill test and at least most of the rules that apply. However, a comment a player made the other night has me mulling this over too- and I have run one skill test that was 'hidden from view' because it involved the pcs being tricked with illusions.

I just mean that the skill challenge rules themselves are like the programming in the computer I'm using right now. I know its there, but I don't know how it works. I don't even think about it. I just know that I hit the keys in the right way and use the mouse in the right way and the computer works. Skill challenges are similar, in my opinion.

So in a skill challenge your PCs might know that they need to convince a baron to lend them soldiers to defend a particular keep. Alright. They know that they're using skills like diplomacy, bluff, history, or whatever. They also know that each time they do so, the baron reacts- sometimes well, sometimes poorly. They know this because you're roleplaying the baron's responses. They also know that the baron is reaching a decision, and that the better they do, the better the decision will be for them.

None of this involves knowing how skill challenges work in any sense other than "try your best to accomplish something using your skills, success is better than failure at skill rolls, and your DM will tell you how it goes." They don't need to know about X successes before Y failures, or anything.

You, the DM, do need to know that information, because you're using it to govern how you roleplay the baron. If the PCs need 5 successes before 3 failures, and they have 4 successes and 0 failures, the Baron is on the cusp of helping them. If they have 1 success and 2 failures, maybe he's a lot more negative. You get the idea.

But the players don't need to know how it works, and as a matter of fact, they don't even need to know that an official skill challenge is in progress. They just need to know that there's a task they need to perform, and that their skills are the right tool. Same as prior editions, really.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I find this to be a very interesting statement. Could you elaborate on it? The RAW seem to say that pcs should always know that they're in a skill test and at least most of the rules that apply. However, a comment a player made the other night has me mulling this over too- and I have run one skill test that was 'hidden from view' because it involved the pcs being tricked with illusions.

to support cadfan: there was an article where a lead designer actually told us about this variant...

 

[Benimoto]

Nebulous- the trick is often to make sure the players don't know they're in a skill challenge.

They know they're making skill checks, but you do the success/fail stuff behind the screen, and use it without their knowledge to guide how you roleplaying the encounter.

Like Cadfan, I've found that sometimes the best way to play out a skill challenge is just to play out a scene, calling for skill checks where appropriate, and just keep track of it behind the screen (or pretend to be doodling, or make it obvious, whatever works). If you get a chance, you could check out the skill challenges in some of the Living Forgotten Realms modules. I like the ones in the first Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep modules, particularly. (Although I've heard that a few people absolutely hated them--go with what works for your group.) In both of those modules, the skill challenges are investigative in nature, and the players visit multiple locations, interact with a fairly large group of characters, and perform multiple tasks, all under the umbrella of one long skill challenge. There's even the option for the DM to interrupt the PCs with a combat in the middle of the skill challenge.

In other words, don't necessarily treat the skill challenge as just one static obstacle. Feel free to play out a whole scene, changing what skills are called for as the players move through it. And again, you don't even need to announce that it's a skill challenge.

 

[Keenath]

It's been mentioned a few times by the devs that skill challenges were written up originally to be a vague set of guidelines with the suggestion, "Hey, DM -- consider requiring a lot of successes before the PCs win with skills, and allow everyone to participate with different skills and abilities!" It wasn't really meant to be a subsystem the way combat is.

In my experience, challenges work best with three modifications:

1) Don't be real strict and by-the-book. Just go with what seems more fun.

2) Allow partial success. If the party fails only 1 skill check short, give them success with a complication, or partial credit. If they fall short by several checks, give them a minor bonus or clue but not what they would've gotten with success. If they just totally flub the test, they get nothing.

3) Stalker0 posted some DCs a while back that were designed such that a moderately talented character would succeed a medium DC about 75% of the time, while an untrained guy with abilities has that chance on easy checks and about 50% on medium, and a real focused expert type can make mediums reliably and hard with some degree of surety. An untrained, off-attribute check will, of course, almost always fail.

I'll see if I can find the DC chart he posted.

 

[Stalker0]

3) Stalker0 posted some DCs a while back that were designed such that a moderately talented character would succeed a medium DC about 75% of the time, while an untrained guy with abilities has that chance on easy checks and about 50% on medium, and a real focused expert type can make mediums reliably and hard with some degree of surety. An untrained, off-attribute check will, of course, almost always fail.

If your talking about my skill challenge systems, those weren't made in a vacuum, but coupled with a host of other changes. I wouldn't recommend my DCs off hand without using the rest of the system...such as how I do complexity, etc.

 

[Bayuer]

Ok so what with this post i writed earlier?

I'm looking at the SC from Dungeon #158 on page 78 and here are the DC for lvl 16 SC.
24 (moderate I think) and 28 (hard). When I look at the table from errata theres no such numbers. But in orginal DC here they are! So I don't get it. Is this errata wrong or something. Errata is dated at 8/11... So what DC are ok then?