Skill Challenge Advice

[Riastlin]

For my upcoming session I am planning a skill challenge which I really want to pull off well. The problem: I don't tend to pull off skill challenges very well. So, I come to y'all in hopes you can help me a) explain the challenge and/or b) provide insights into other possible skill checks, and structure, etc.

The Situation: The Undead Horde

The party is likely to do something to attract the attention of the horde of undead beasties that currently inhabit the Domain of Dread they have become trapped in. They likely will fire off the big attractant (think Boomer vomit or car alarms from Left 4 Dead). The catch is, the party will need to get through and/or around the horde in order to reach their objective.

Given that the party is in the paragon tier, I wanted to set this up as a skill challenge instead of an actual fight in an effort to show off how far they've come. The idea being that they can skirt around the edge, and more or less mow through small pockets.

Structure:

I plan to use the Rounds system rather than a strict X successes before 3 failures. Each round would represent perhaps 5 minutes. Obviously skills include athletics, acrobatics, and stealth. Nature and/or streetwise might be useable to find their way through town, etc. I could envision perhaps some use of heal or religion if explained and perception becomes obvious as well.

I would also allow the use of certain powers (turn undead for instance) to either gain successes or bonuses to checks.

I see failures resulting in damage and/or HS loss (though I prefer straight damage as it gives the party more options later on). An overall failure on the skill challenge could result in the party getting surrounded and a fight breaking out as a result (no extra XP for the fight of course -- don't want to encourage failure). I'm interested in other ideas for failure consequences too so feel free to throw those out. I really want this to feel intense without necessarily just being a massive combat with minions or the like.

Where I have a problem I think is in framing this for the players so that it becomes more than "Well, I have a good stealth so I'll try that *rolls* 32!" Additionally, what other skill uses might you allow?

Party is 13th level and will be 5 strong when the challenge is run. Let me know if you need more information but they have the assorted skills pretty well covered if that matters.

As always, any ideas are most welcome and I thank you in advance for any advice.

 

[mudlock]

What's the scale?

Dozens of undead? Hundreds? Thousands? In a few large groups or many smaller ones? Organized by some evil force or roaming free? Destroying and killing the populace or just chilling until the PCs show up?

Miles to their objective? Across town? Across a single large building? Is it wide open to go around or long and narrow? In an empty field, a dense city, a forest, a swamp?

You're looking for framing, but you've given us absolutely nothing to work with.

 

[LostSoul]

I see two ways to do this; let's call option A "High-Prep" and option B "Low-Prep".

Option A:

What is the PC's objective? The PCs need to get to their objective and need to make choices that get them closer. Let's structure it that way. Each success should represent the PCs getting closer to their objective. Hiding isn't going to help; it might allow PCs to avoid a large horde, but isn't going to get them closer.

Draw a map. Put a number of "locations" on the map so that the shortest route is equal to the complexity of the challenge.

Skill Checks:

• Hiding might allow the PCs to avoid the horde, but won't get them closer. At best it's a "stalling" option. This could be the only way to get a Short Rest.
• The path to the objective shouldn't be known except through some successful checks. These simply make the choices clearer; they don't add successes.
• PCs may backtrack away from their objective if they find that they are in trouble.
• Failed checks should mean different things depending on what's going on. Failed checks might not always bring the attention of zombies. If the PCs fail the check by one category (Hard - Moderate - Easy - total failure) it shouldn't draw the attention of the zombies; instead it should be some minor failure based on their action.
• Moving from location to location should require different skill sets depending on the nature of the location. Stealth is obvious. Athletics could be used to hack through a bramble. Endurance could be used to wade through an icy river or swim a lake. Acrobatics could be used to balance on an old, crumbling wall.
• When making group checks, the PC with the lowest modifier should roll. Other PCs may help, if they describe how they can help.
• Each location should be interesting in its own right and allow for some kind of special interaction. Jot down a few notes about each:
  
  A ruined temple. This temple fell decades ago. Crows roost in the skeletal beams. Water still collects in a font; PCs who drink this water gain a +2 bonus to their neck check.
  
  An old graveyard. The dead have already moved on from this place. The stench of necrotic energy overwhelms zombie senses, making this a good place to hide; however, each time the PCs take a Short Rest, there is a chance (3-in-6) that hateful incorporeal undead will attack them.
  
  A huddled mass of people, hiding in an abandoned farmhouse. These people are terrified and unable to defend themselves. When they see the PCs they will get excited and start making a lot of noise - drawing the attention of the horde. They must be calmed down or they will draw the horde. If the PCs take the people with them, roll the skill level of the horde - +2 - instead of the PC's usual modifiers. If the horde arrives, they will devour the people instead of the PCs, making them a useful decoy.
  
  A crumbling fort. This fort is an excellent place to hole up for a Short Rest - no check required as long as the PCs have something they can jam the old doors with. Within the fort is ... something the PCs can use.
  
  A forest guarded by the fey. The fey refuse to let the PCs through because they are drawing the zombies. They will negotiate (a skill challenge on its own) for passage; they ask too much: start off with 100 years of service from a PC.
  
  A series of ancient, skeletal steel towers connected by steel cables. I like science-fantasy. The PCs can climb the towers and traverse along the cables over the zombies. Dangerous, though; age has weakened them, and the zombies might spot the PCs against the sky.
  
  An icy white-water river. The PCs can use an old raft to try to navigate it. They risk going off-course and/or falling into the ice-cold water and drowning. However, they can pick up some good time here.​

You'll want to take a look a the rituals the PCs have and figure out how they work.

Option B:

You're basically going to ad-lib the whole thing. This can be fine. Here are your procedures:

• Always present a challenge to the PCs after each roll.
• Always ask the players to describe their actions. Don't resolve a skill check, make the skill check resolve the action.
• Only actions that take the PCs closer to their objective count as a success. Others might grant a bonus to the next roll, or just do nothing, depending on the action taken.
• After each roll, change the situation. If the first challenge is sneaking past zombies (Stealth), put them on top of a cliff that they have to climb down (Athletics). At that point you can have them meet a bunch of people who need to be calmed down or they will attract the zombies (Diplomacy). Then they may come across a fey ring/sealed dwarven tunnel/portal that requires knowledge to bypass (Nature/Dungeoneering/Arcana). Basically you want to switch up the relevant stat each time.
• Failure should make things worse, and it should be tied to what the PCs are doing. Some failed checks might mean a quick combat with a time limit (3 rounds to make it to the far side of the map!), others might mean falling down a cliff and losing healing surges. No XP for these encounters!

 

[D'karr]

Where I have a problem I think is in framing this for the players so that it becomes more than "Well, I have a good stealth so I'll try that *rolls* 32!" Additionally, what other skill uses might you allow?

What I have found about running Skill Challenges is that the ones that are successful are the ones that don't feel like "classic" skill challenges. The organic ones are the best. To achieve this I reversed how the skill challenge is presented.

For example the "classic" presentation goes something like this:

DM: You are trying to traverse the city where a horde of "critters" is hanging out. There seem to be too many to fight so how would you like to achieve this?
PC1: I'm going to use stealth, roll 32...
PC2: I want to assist, roll 22
DM: Okay you have found some cardboard boxes and have advanced past the first horde and street number 1.

IMO, that feels strained, simply because the rolling doesn't really determine anything, it feels somewhat artificial.

It takes a bit of work from the DM and players to turn it around into this manner:

DM: You are trying to traverse the city where a horde of "critters" is hanging out. Everyone make a wisdom (perception) check (don't tell them it's an easy DC).
PC1-PC5: 10,14,6,18,22
DM: PC4 & PC5 after looking at the size and demeanor of the horde (take this time to describe the creatures) you have determined that taking them on one-on-one in combat would simply end up overwhelming you. You think that it would be better to circumvent the entire thing. To the north is street 1, and you think that you might be able to hide from the horde in that direction. What do you do?
PC1: I use stealth, roll 32.
PC2: I assist, roll 22
DM: PC1, that alley ahead looks promising, tell me (describe to me) how you would like to use stealth to get to street 1. PC2, tell me (describe to me) how you would like to assist on the stealth check.
PC1: Can I find some materials to put over us to cover our approach?
DM: Yes, you notice some cardboard boxes that might have been used by homeless people on the alley coming up.
PC1: Okay, I use those boxes to mask our movement.
PC2: Can I help to hold them up as we move?
DM: Both of you are able to grab the boxes and stealthily move past street 1. What would the rest of you like to do, as PC1 and PC2 signal to you from up ahead?

Instead of putting the entire skill challenge before them and just leaving it entirely open, put little small pieces of it in front of them and "guide" them to give you input as to how they navigate through that piece. Once that piece is over, then hang out the next carrot and see how they handle it.

That's my .02 cents.

 

[marelion]

Depending on the nature of those undead monsters you might consider Bluff as well. I could well imagine fooling some of the lesser undead by putting up some illusionary make-up and simply trotting along crying `brains` Playing an illusionist I can tell you there is plenty of use for good disguises, well placed ghost sounds and powers that create illusions or summons as diversions.

Prepare some blind spots for the guys in your group who aren`t especially stealthy because nothing feels less heroic than being the noisy tin on legs ruining every ambush/sneak attempt Seriously, it IS annoying as hell for the defender to fail at every second challenge simply because there is stealth involved and because of the ACP eating up your level modifier.

Another idea that srikes my mind is to describe some points of potential interest for the teleporting folks in your party so that they can turn their advantages in terms of movement modes into diversion and confusion.

just my 2 cent

 

[Riastlin]

What's the scale?

Dozens of undead? Hundreds? Thousands? In a few large groups or many smaller ones? Organized by some evil force or roaming free? Destroying and killing the populace or just chilling until the PCs show up?

Miles to their objective? Across town? Across a single large building? Is it wide open to go around or long and narrow? In an empty field, a dense city, a forest, a swamp?

You're looking for framing, but you've given us absolutely nothing to work with.

Thank you. This is what I get for posting in a hurry to make sure I make it to dinner with the wife.

Here's the situation in the sblock (to avoid the massive wall of text for those not interested).

[sblock]The PC's are currently in a lighthouse with a magical cauldron. The lighthouse is on an island near the docks of the city that has become a domain of dread, trapping the PCs and all the town's citizens. The undead are particularly weakened by bright light but the light will also attract them like moths to a flame as they try to destroy the light.

The PCs are going to try to get from the lighthouse to the cemetery where their next objective is. The cemetery is across town. In their way will be hundreds of undead. The idea is that they simply cannot fight them all, though they can mow through a fair portion of them.

The undead are not controlled per se but their "purpose" upon creation is controlled by the creature that cursed the town (who is not present in the adventure at this point). The main purpose of the undead is to kill any living creatures -- creating a chance that they will come back as undead due to the town's curse. The Raven Queen in particular has been especially insulted as an undead raven was used as one of the foci of the curse. The undead will also be attracted to two MacGuffin's which the party has recovered. The MacGuffin's can be used to help end the curse so the undead will be particularly attracted to the PC carrying them.

If the PCs can get to the cemetery (and a mausoleum in the center) they can achieve the next step in the process of reversing the curse. The goal is to get there as quickly as possible, while attracting the fewest undead possible. The undead will rampage through town if the PCs do nothing, though the town has adapted to this and the people are generally "safe" from the undead.[/sblock]

I think that covers most everything about the setup, but please, ask away if I have forgotten something.

One obvious possibility is that the PCs choose not to activate the lighthouse (which I'm totally cool with) but I'm guessing they will turn it on so I want to be prepared.

My plan is to set this up as a series of round with each round being X minutes. I'm not concerned with number of failures per se, as achieving X successes in order to get there. (i.e. if it 4 rounds, then the party will get 20 turns and need 12 successes) -- haven't settled on the exact number yet as I want to make sure it doesn't drag out too much if the players are not in to it.

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]: Those are some excellent ideas, thanks! I agree on hiding not being a great option except for being used to get a short rest. I wouldn't give them successes for hiding, but would allow them to gain a short rest after a successful hide (which might include quickly shoring up a building).

[MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]: I agree with the natural flow approach, I'm just trying to figure out how to describe some of the tasks they will do.

[MENTION=6679828]marelion[/MENTION]: Great idea about important locations and teleporting and such. I would actually love it if the party thought outside the box and used some of their powers to help out. There are two divine characters in the group (invoker and avenger) so I'm thinking if they Channel Divinity, I would then grant a bonus to the skill check for a round or two (undead pushed away, etc. so easier to gain ground, avoid notice)

Thanks again for the ideas and keep them coming!

 

[Quickleaf]

Great ideas! My thinking is similar to [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] but a little more of a mini-game in approach...

The Situation: The Undead Horde

Off the cuff there are two things you might want to check out. First, Open Grave has an encounter where the PCs fight off a horde of zombies as a skill challenge. Second, there is a Colossus of Larn skill challenge fight by Mearls on DDI (forget where exactly).

Given that the party is in the paragon tier, I wanted to set this up as a skill challenge instead of an actual fight in an effort to show off how far they've come. The idea being that they can skirt around the edge, and more or less mow through small pockets.

Probably, with your example, you'll be going into and out of combat mode/skill challenge mode as needed. There are others ways of driving home how far they’ve advanced besides a skill challenge. For example, say they faced 3rd level standard skeletons at low level, you could have those same skeletons reappear as 11th level minion; the players will rejoice as they drop the skeletons in one hit.

An overall failure on the skill challenge could result in the party getting surrounded and a fight breaking out as a result (no extra XP for the fight of course -- don't want to encourage failure).

IME having a failed skill challenge lead to a fight only works with an overwhelming and eminently clear threat of death, and then to follow up on that threat with an absolutely overwhelming combat. For sure a potential TPK. Otherwise, the group won’t care enough to invest in the skill challenge to avoid the combat (unless you have other dynamic failure conditions). Your situation certainly sounds like a potential TPK – don’t hold back in laying the smack down if PCs try combat for a while.

Btw what is the overall success condition? The PCs arrive at their destination safe and sound?

I see failures resulting in damage and/or HS loss (though I prefer straight damage as it gives the party more options later on).

It already looks like a fight, and this makes it taste like a fight. Your players are going to be expecting a fight and probably will be confused about how their powers work mechanically in your scenario. I suggest not using damage/healing surges or other things that are reminiscent of a fight (or to use them as backdrop to the main failure conditions).

I'm interested in other ideas for failure consequences too so feel free to throw those out. I really want this to feel intense without necessarily just being a massive combat with minions or the like.

An affliction slowing turning a PC into one of the undead servitors of the dark lord.
Or, even worse, a twisted curse turning a PC into the next dark lord.
A PC’s dearly departed loved one being forced into undead form/returning as a ghost.
Nightmares haunting a PC so that extended rests provide little to no benefit.
Loss of a piece of soul, which (among other things) reduces benefit of healing.

Where I have a problem I think is in framing this for the players so that it becomes more than "Well, I have a good stealth so I'll try that *rolls* 32!" Additionally, what other skill uses might you allow?

First, if you have the group trying to sneak, that should be a *group* Stealth check. It’s great that your sneaky guy got a 32, but at least half the group needs to succeed in order to bypass the obstacle as a team. Also, if you’re anticipating players attempting a certain skill (like Stealth) surreptitiously in this challenge, then you’ve got to build in reasons for them to vary their tactics. IOW in this particular situation why would Stealth *not* be feasible, or why would something else be even better?

Second, I am not a fan of listing skills and DCs. To me that’s the equivalent of listing powers players can use in a combat situation. Sure, there is a place for that (e.g. terrain powers, special uses of channel divinity, and so on), but it shouldn’t take much design space. The strategies format that first appeared in the Red Box is better, but still it amounts to lists of possible skills.

Instead here’s one way you could frame the encounter:

Killing the undead is bad for some reason – they’re innocent souls who’ve been corrupted, killing them empowers the dark lord, it curses the killer to join the ranks of the undead, etc. So all of a sudden you have a combat-like scenario that using normal combat rules doesn’t make sense for…your players might buy into this as a skill challenge better that way. Also this suggests some nasty results for failed checks where violence is implied.

Then you have a map of the area (not a battlemap, something larger scale) and a stack of tiles/tokens of various challenges (the backside is unmarked or simply a ‘?’). You might have some obvious challenges revealed in play on the map, but others may be hidden or roaming. As the players traverse the map toward their objective you can check for roaming challenges, they may face obvious challenges, or sneaker challenges can surprise them. There’s a sense of “hex-crawling” exploration to this approach, which opens up interesting strategic options, like…

Scouting: Ranger knacks, nature rituals, stealth/perception checks, familiars/animal companions, and so forth can be used to scout ahead, revealing the location and nature of hidden tiles and/or expanding the range of vision for obvious challenge tiles.

Luring Trouble: Sometimes the best way to fight fire is with fire. In this case, a cunning PC tries to lure a roaming challenge into the current challenge, hoping to pit enemies or hazards against each other. Or it may be one bold PC attempting to move a challenge tile to grant the rest of the party passage through a square/hex.

Time Pressure: If the PCs stay in one hex too long (and definitely before they can take a short rest), undead descend upon them in increasing numbers. You might have a particular challenge just for this scenario, one in which the DC of checks gets steadily higher until the PCs moves on. Or you could even throw in a minion fight (of ever increasing waves/numbers) where the PCs get to witness firsthand the difficult of facing an enemy you can’t kill and potentially pay the price for killing some undead.

I’m thinking if this encounter is supposed to play out in an hour or so, and dealing with one challenge tile takes ~5 minutes, you’d want to come up with 15-20 challenge tiles in advance.

The ideas [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] has might fit the bill perfectly for these sorts of challenges.

 

[keterys]

So... a year ago I was asked to write a "Resident Evil" skill challenge. It's not perfect for your setup, but you still might find the framework vaguely interesting for your own purposes.

Basically, Download this module and flip to page 52 - 54. A few mini-scenes where different abilities of the PC are relevant, and a constant stream of undead they have to disperse or destroy basically.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My solution for this one is actually quite simple and 'classic'. Complexity 5 SC of whatever level you want to make it (personally I'd make it a tough one, but they will have lots of resources they can use). Failures attract the attention of the undead, successes get you closer, anything else can give a bonus or erase a failure.

The PCs will arrive at the destination at 15 total success/fail checks. If at that point they have 3 failures notched up, then a contingent of the undead have them in hot pursuit and they need to wipe them out. Otherwise they get by clean and can go about their business.

The PCs should be able to 'raise the stakes' of the challenge by simply moving boldly and rapidly in the open. They can do this at any point and it grants them one (maybe 2) automatic success(es), but it also means if they get caught at the end there are more undead they have to fight.

Beyond that I'd go much the way LostSoul is talking about. The PCs are presented with a bunch of situations. They can use whatever skills or resources they want that they can narratively justify to deal with that situation. Just make sure that the different situations use different skills. If the PCs are successful at a particular spot then give them the choice of what the next situation is (say give them 2 choices "you can go down by the Temple of Erathis, maybe that's safer" or "there's an alley that appears to go more in the right direction, but it leads into an area with lots of buildings and you can see at least a few undead shuffling in that direction").

Hiding for a while COULD erase a failure as the undead lose the scent. Using something like Turn Undead successfully could provide a success too. For 'advantages' you may want to use something like say a character can sac an HS to erase a failure (this isn't too hard to arrange narratively, the fighter holds off some zombies while the rogue finds a way into a building or scouts up the alley). Getting to the temple could allow a Religion check to procure some holy water that makes a later check go from hard/medium to medium/easy.

This should work out as a pretty good SC. It really plays to the strength of the system and I think the framing is pretty good overall. Clear goal, clear consequences of failure, and lots of ways to have little reverses and dramas along the way.

Make up maybe 10 little set pieces. 5 might even be enough if you can reuse them with some variations. Then you have the start and finish, and you can have a couple of the more interesting 'feature' situations that are extra tense or complicated.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

You could use a new and interesting approach, an old and sure approach, and/or a mixture. It's up to the human imagination and ingenuity.

Undead have been discussed to death thousands of times over. I'm not sure what else to do with them than beyond the 3D world which DnD is based.

Your story has to be believable. The undead have to be beatable somehow in any dimension unless you're making a no win situatation.

We should know better than to get advice from a certain Witch of the West who leaves holy water sitting around.

Undead goes under the 'old' category and 'sure' to write about. You'd typically find a potion and/or undo the curse. Maybe even a fight.

This might not apply to what you want specifically. If I could think of an intriguing new situation involving undead I might want to keep it for my own campaign.