Skill Challenge Overkill (mearls stuff)

[amethal]

Duke: DM, *why* did you make me give up my dukedom and probably die an ignoble death in hopeless battle just to preserve your precious "skill challenge"?! The PC's offer was a reasonable one, and my position desperate.

If a desperate NPC is made a reasonable offer by a PC, then the NPC will take it every time. You don't need a skill challenge.

If the NPC is less desperate and/or the offer is less reasonable, the DM has to decide for the NPC based on how he feels the NPC would react.

If the DM isn't sure, he has to assign probabilities e.g. there's a 65% chance the NPC will accept and roll the dice. (In other words, the same way most DMs I've seen did it in previous editions.)

Ultimatums, as they have been described above, mean there is no longer a skill challenge to resolve. (In the same way that a fight can turn into a negotiation if both sides decide that's what they'd rather do.)

 

[Dausuul]

Player: no attempt is being made to intimidate the Duke.

Me: Yeah, actually, you are trying to intimidate him. You want him to give you more support, so you're threatening to leave him in the lurch. Make an Intimidate check if you want him to take you seriously.

Player: again, no attempt is being made to intimidate the Duke. Nor are we being duplicitous, so any reasonable Insight check on the Duke's part will give him all the info he needs.

Me: Once again, you certainly are trying to intimidate him, so roll. Insight is not a magic lie detector and can always be beaten by a higher Bluff check, and he knows that just as well as you do.

Player: we leave. If the Duke is stupid enough to refuse desperately needed aid, he isn't worth the trouble to save.

Me: He hasn't refused anything, he's just not willing to instantly do whatever you say merely because you walk in and start giving orders. For all he knows, you're a bunch of spies and traitors who want to draw his forces out and leave him vulnerable. He's still willing to talk, but if you want to leave a whole duchy to be slaughtered by orcs because you're too high-and-mighty to engage in a little diplomacy, that's up to you.

Duke: DM, *why* did you make me give up my dukedom and probably die an ignoble death in hopeless battle just to preserve your precious "skill challenge"?! The PC's offer was a reasonable one, and my position desperate.

Me: Because the PCs decided to walk out on you. That was their decision, not yours. You were quite reasonably wary of a band of heavily armed strangers who popped up out of nowhere claiming to be the solution to all your problems. "If something seems too good to be true..."

Many players have a very inflated opinion of their characters, assuming everyone in the world will just naturally trust them and go along with whatever they want. This is not in fact the way the world works, and I feel no obligation to run my world that way. Trust is something you have to earn.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Player: no attempt is being made to intimidate the Duke.



Player: again, no attempt is being made to intimidate the Duke. Nor are we being duplicitous, so any reasonable Insight check on the Duke's part will give him all the info he needs.



Player: we leave. If the Duke is stupid enough to refuse desperately needed aid, he isn't worth the trouble to save.

Duke: DM, *why* did you make me give up my dukedom and probably die an ignoble death in hopeless battle just to preserve your precious "skill challenge"?! The PC's offer was a reasonable one, and my position desperate.

If the situation is so desperate, or the players can come up with so convincing arguments, sometimes you don't need to roll for anything.

Maybe the Duke is confident he will find another way to fight off the Orcs. The PCs would be a convenient way to deal with them, but without them convincing them that they are the only way, he will see other options.

It's similar to totally 100 % coup-de-grace no survival chance situations. If a guy is sleeping in his bed and can't wake, you have a knife at his throat, you don't start rolling initiative and hacking the guys hit points down. You don't even use the rules for helpless target. The guy dies if that's your goal, or you cut of his pinky if that's your goal. No called shot, no attack roll.

You use a combat or a skill challenge if the outcome is reasonably in doubt.

An alternative way to handle this skill challenge is is to sell it to the PCs as skill challenge to convince the Duke to give them aid while it's actually a skill challenge to figure out how the Duke will interact with them further. If they succeed, he trusts them and will help them in other situations. If they fail, he will hinder them at a later point (or even during their mission - maybe some backstabbing on the return from the ORc battle.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

The one thing I notice about skill challenges and the largest problem is
one of exclusion. PC's that do not have the skills to attempt a roll with
anything less than close to the optimum bonuses just end up aiding
someone else or sitting on the bench to avoid dragging down the team
with a poor roll.

4E overhauled the classes in a major way to help ensure that
every PC could meaningfully contribute to the action. As far as combat
encounters go I think the goal was achieved, but non-combat encounters
didn't get the same treatment. The three failures baseline for failure is the
equivalent of saying that once three hits are scored against the party
before they can score five or six, the combat is over and the PC's lose.

In a combat encounter, every PC has a variety of actions that
can be performed each round. All classes were given powers that
are useful in the encounter. Powers that, to me, make no sense
as to why they would work in certain situations simply work
because the overall goal was to ensure useful actions for everyone.
In addition to these powers and attacks, are improvised stunts that may
be attempted with varying degrees of success. My point here is that
combat isn't restricted to a static menu of actions (no matter how much the character sheet makes it appear so)
but the skill challenge mechanics as written ARE structured that way.

Even if we removed stunts from combat, every PC would have a
fairly decent list of actions to perform no matter what the circumstances
of the particular fight happen to be. On a skill challenge based on social
and knowledge related skills, the jock types help the party most by sitting
out of the encounter and letting the brains handle everything. This would be like having those skilled at diplomacy sitting out of combat because they would be a liability to the party and couldn't help.

I like the skill challenge concept. A sequence of events moving at
a quick pace, with success hinging on some key die rolls that isn't combat
is a good thing. The system needs to allow for things like stunts and improvisation
to bring the inclusiveness level up to the same level as combat encounters.
Simulationism was trampled to death in the name of equal participation in
combat, why not apply the concept to non-combat encounters as well?

 

[Mallus]

The one thing I notice about skill challenges and the largest problem is
one of exclusion. PC's that do not have the skills to attempt a roll with
anything less than close to the optimum bonuses just end up aiding
someone else or sitting on the bench to avoid dragging down the team
with a poor roll.

Not in my campaign. Failure is half the fun! A good story should feature a few setbacks, particularly of the violent and ridiculous kind. Plus, it's stated explicitly that Skill Challenges shouldn't lead to adventure roadblocks.

In my group people try whatever crosses their minds. Sure, they prefer using trained skills... but not being able to doesn't stop them. It boils down to basic player preferences: do you want to win, or do you want to attempt something interesting (which could include losing)?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not in my campaign. Failure is half the fun! A good story should feature a few setbacks, particularly of the violent and ridiculous kind. Plus, it's stated explicitly that Skill Challenges shouldn't lead to adventure roadblocks.

In my group people try whatever crosses their minds. Sure, they prefer using trained skills... but not being able to doesn't stop them. It boils down to basic player preferences: do you want to win, or do you want to attempt something interesting (which could include losing)?

I think it depends on the nature of skill challenges and what they are used for. Depending on the challenge failure can be trivial or a TPK. Do the players approach a skill challenge with same degree of determination as combat?

Does a total loss (wipe) in a combat encounter lead to an adventure roadblock? No matter what the answer, skill challenges should be given the same treatment. If the players figure out that no matter what happens in non-combat encounters will prevent the adventure from being completed then its no wonder that some players will not bother giving it thier best shot. It would be like saying that the adventure continues as usual after a combat encounter that kills the party.

I agree that failure can be a great deal of fun in combat or out. The win vs interesting thing is applies to all encounter types IMHO. From the perspective of the character the goal is to succeed, and from the player the goal is to have fun doing interesting things. The best game mechanics don't try and put these goals at odds with one another.

 

[LostSoul]

Duke: DM, *why* did you make me give up my dukedom and probably die an ignoble death in hopeless battle just to preserve your precious "skill challenge"?! The PC's offer was a reasonable one, and my position desperate.

If the Duke believed that the PC's offer was reasonable - that is, the Duke would have agreed - then there is no conflict and no reason to roll the dice.

If he doesn't believe the PC's argument is reasonable but the PCs are doing nothing to convince him ("no attempt is being made to intimidate the Duke"), then there is no conflict because the PCs are not doing anything, and there's no reason to roll the dice.

If, however, the Duke does not want to agree to the PC's terms and the PCs are trying to convince him to agree, then you have a conflict and you can run a skill challenge. The Duke might pledge more support than he wanted to at first; and maybe that's not enough for the PCs and they still walk away.

Or maybe he'll get pissed off and throw the PCs in jail. You don't know how it's going to resolve, which is the cool thing about skill challenges.

 

[Kraydak]

If a desperate NPC is made a reasonable offer by a PC, then the NPC will take it every time. You don't need a skill challenge.

If the NPC is less desperate and/or the offer is less reasonable, the DM has to decide for the NPC based on how he feels the NPC would react.

If the DM isn't sure, he has to assign probabilities e.g. there's a 65% chance the NPC will accept and roll the dice. (In other words, the same way most DMs I've seen did it in previous editions.)

Ultimatums, as they have been described above, mean there is no longer a skill challenge to resolve. (In the same way that a fight can turn into a negotiation if both sides decide that's what they'd rather do.)

I could mention that you don't need a desperate NPC, the problem occurs as soon as the players make a reasonable offer, but that is going off-topic. We have solved the question of "what do I mean by an ultimatum" and come to the question originally asked (which I will here put more generally) of: why isn't there advice in the DMG on how to handle skill-challenge-abort-buttons? Not for experienced DMs (although they can use help now and then), but for newbies, and ESPECIALLY newbies running modules. The whole thing wasn't meant as too much more than: "something I find weird about skill challenges as written up in 4e."

I suppose you can further generalize the issue to "how are skill challenges any different from what DMs did before 4e" by virtue of "you will often find your players using skill-challenge-aborts" which turn the "set DC/success/failure numbers" into "improvised DC/success/failure" numbers those who played prior editions are so familiar with. But that isn't a question internal to 4e, but rather makes comparisons across editions. *shrug* I'm still confused by how skill challenges are supposed to be a new thing.

 

[Dausuul]

I could mention that you don't need a desperate NPC, the problem occurs as soon as the players make a reasonable offer, but that is going off-topic. We have solved the question of "what do I mean by an ultimatum" and come to the question originally asked (which I will here put more generally) of: why isn't there advice in the DMG on how to handle skill-challenge-abort-buttons? Not for experienced DMs (although they can use help now and then), but for newbies, and ESPECIALLY newbies running modules.

What advice is needed? If you push the abort button, you fail the skill challenge. Whatever happens when you fail the challenge, then proceeds to happen. If the situation was such as to require a skill challenge in the first place, then failure has to be a legitimate option, and walking away from the challenge pretty much automatically results in failure.

The problem does not occur when the PCs make a reasonable offer. It doesn't even occur when they stick to that offer and refuse to budge. Either way, they keep making skill checks - maybe at a penalty for not offering any new arguments - until the NPC either gives in (they succeed at the challenge) or decides he's not willing to accept the offer and delivers an ultimatum of his own (they fail).

The only problem occurs when the PCs walk away from negotiations. At that point, negotiations break down. I don't see why this is a problem.

Now, if you create a situation in which the NPC cannot plausibly decline the offer, but failing the skill challenge calls for him to do so, then your skill challenge is badly designed.

 

[helium3]

I think there's something sort of fundamentally wrong with skill challenges. The mechanics don't really represent what the PC's are trying to do. When I say that I don't really mean in a 'simulationist' sense. I would never argue that the D&D combat system 'simulates' physical combat but it does sort 'feel' like it. When I'm running or playing in a skill challenge it doesn't 'feel' like that's what's going on.

Still, the mechanic isn't awful if you don't worry about the math too much.