Skill Challenge Manuals

[howandwhy99]

Are there books listing large numbers of Skill Challenges to use in the game like the Monster Manuals?

4E does the mix-and-match combat encounter well. Go into any of the monster manuals and pick a group of monsters until you reach your XP limit for the encounter. This is simple and includes a vast amount of variation. A DM could even put together their own new, fresh monsters, if they feel so inclined. It isn't that difficult.

Traps are built like monsters in the combat simulation game. So I suspect there are books listing all sorts of traps and trap components for DMs to mix-and-match trap encounters as well.

But what about Skill Challenges? Isn't there an easy way to create these for those DMs who want to include more of these encounters and less combat and trap encounters? It would seem a simple system and a series of books could be published for such a system. Then DM prep time could be cut down more and groups desiring more non-combat gaming could balance their games towards it.

Perhaps I'm missing something as I don't purchase 4E books. But there have been some posts about how combats are simple to create (a very complex game design), while Skill Challenges take more work and are less frequently found in published adventures.

 

[Cyronax]

The best published sources for examples of skill challenges are the DMG2 and the Revenge of the Giants, IMO.

DMG2 has a great deal of background and rules discussion about making skill challenges. It also has a lot of exemplar challenges.

Revenge of the Giants just has a lot of complex and varied skill challenges. Stuff I never thought of doing -- really inspirational. They even have time travel skill challenges!!!

Anyway, the DMG1 is also a source... but a deficient one. The original ideas behind skill challenges weren't worked through well-enough IMO. They were fixed this past year.

C.I.D.

 

[MichaelSomething]

A skill challenge book would be a nice thing to do eventually.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In my ideal world, MM's are less books of stats, and more Encounter Manuals which include full-fledged encounters.

Hooks.
Monsters.
Traps.
Skill Challenges.
Rewards.
Maps.

So that when you turn to "Goblin," you get an entire goblin warren.

And when you turn to, say, "Gold Dragon," you get a series of skill challenges in working with an LG paragon of goodness, perhaps recruiting one, for instance.

So they are complete.

That hasn't happened quite yet, though I've heard some tentative hints that the Dark Sun monster book might be a little like that.

For now, you've gotta cobble it all together. But the suggestions here are good. Use the DMGII, and individual adventures.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I would agree that Chapter 3 of the DMG2 chapter on skill challenges provides a complete, updated and consolidated review of the skill challenge mechanic as well as many examples drawn from D&D Insider.

A perhaps better chapter on skill challenges with very different examples appears in the new Star Wars: SE book, Galaxy of Intrigue by Rodney Thompson. (Rodney was the lead designer of SW:SE and is now the lead on Dark Sun 4E.)

Rodney goes into a fair bit of detail on illustrating what a Skill Challenge is (and isn't) and goes into significant detail on how to design a good skill challenge that has not been presented in any 4E book or on D&D Insider. The crunch Rodney presents is not new, but his explanations and examples certainly ARE new. Chapter II in Galaxy of Intrigue is devoted entirely to skill challenges. It's 30 pages long.

For those not familiar with Star Wars: Saga Edition, most of of the core system developed for SW:SE became the core system of 4th Edition. (The talent system used in SW:SE was, in turn, the progeny of D20 Modern. So that's the pedigree of 4E, currently.)

Skill Challenges, however, were not present in the original SW:SE system. Essentially, Skill Challenges have been "back crossed" into the SW:SE system from its own genetic offspring (4E).

The Skill Challenge system presented in Galaxy of Intrigue is fully compatible with 4E and along with the chapter in DMG2, probably best satisfies what the OP is looking for.

Apart from a "Monster Manual of skill challenges", that is. That would be a very clever book, indeed. I hope some designers at WotC have considered making such a product.

I would point out to fans of 3.xx that there is absolutely NOTHING in the skill challenge system which is not fully backwards compatible with 3.xx. If you want to use skill challenges in your 3.5 or Pathfinder game? Boom - it's there for you and ready to use. Many of you have used your own house rule "Skill Challenge" system for a long time already, frankly. It's just a formalization of many conventions that have been present in RPGs since GWs original Traveller or Call of Cthulhu, 1st Ed. Without the formal skill checks, the substance of the skill challenge itself goes back to Diaglo style Original D&D.

My point: the pedigree of the skill challenge mechanic is as old as RPGs.