Skill Challenge Play Examples?

[Regicide]

The suggestion is a way for the DM to suggest and encourage a way for the PC with bad Diplomacy, but good Endurance, to contribute to the skill challenge.

Why should a dragon care if you are able to not pass out at what, to it, is room temperature? Look Mr. Dragon, I haven't passed out, aren't you impressed! Even if you somehow ignore the fact that it's completely a meaningless achievement to the dragon, I fail to see how that would have any more diplomatic impact than using your diplomacy skill instead of endurance on a road would to improve your marathon time.

If you don't have at least a meaningful skill then fail the challenge and get on with the game or wait for the rest of the party to roll a couple dice to finish it. It's not like waiting the minute or two it takes to complete the challenge is going to ruin the night for you.

Forcing everyone to be involved in all skill challenges is bad. Just don't do it.

 

[Piratecat]

To quote Rel, though... "Know your players." In my group, "open" challenges kills the fun of them. Nobody ends up describing anything, no one uses anything but the most obvious skills, and characters without the best modifiers in those skill either sit out or Aid Other.

Boring.

Have you tried pushing them on this? I needed to remind them that they could use other skills if they could rationalize it, and I ask them how their skills are helping them succeed. Then I narrate it to make it even cooler.

Good examples on post 581 and post 598.

One important thing: never give a skill challenge that stops the adventure cold should it be lost.

 

[Pbartender]

Why should a dragon care if you are able to not pass out at what, to it, is room temperature? Look Mr. Dragon, I haven't passed out, aren't you impressed!

That depends on what you are defining as a "success"... In the context of this particular part of this particular skill challenge. Success equals the group NOT reinforcing the dragon's view of humanoids as slow, squishy, weak little bits of tasty snack food that make funny noises when you poke them too hard.

As a fictional trope, it's the "Heh! Not bad for a [insert demographic the antagonist looks down upon]!" moment. The dragon's not necessarily impressed, but he's just not displaying his usual dismissive disdain toward the percieved weaklings standing before him... which when dealing with a dragon would be considered a success from the party's point of view.

Whereas a failure might elicit a, "What's the matter? Too hot for you?" as the dragon mocks them and laughs at them.

And a neutral result would be ignored.

Forcing everyone to be involved in all skill challenges is bad. Just don't do it.

Why not? We force everyone to be involved in all combats.

What's wrong with looking for excuses to make non-combat encounters interesting and fun for everyone?

Have you tried pushing them on this? I needed to remind them that they could use other skills if they could rationalize it, and I ask them how their skills are helping them succeed.

Oh, absolutely... Just, some of my players grok the idea better than others. Recently, during a skill challenge to track a band of hobgoblin raiders to the ruins they were using as an encampment, the party wizard, who wasn't very good at the standard tracking and wilderness skills, suggested that he could use his History skill to tap knowledge about the ruins in the area and narrow down the possible destinations. It was a great idea. I let him use it, and gave him a "personal milestone" for it.

On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding... Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using. Blegh.

In other words... I know my players. While they do have their flashes of brilliance, often enough they need to be led by the nose.

Then I narrate it to make it even cooler.

Yup, yup...

Again, some of my players are better at doing this on their own than others (Once, when I encouraged a player to describe a particulatly spectacular critical hit, he said, "I hit him really hard with my sword." You gotta love him. ), so I try to help out by setting an example and giving a little post-hoc description of what they did.

One important thing: never give a skill challenge that stops the adventure cold should it be lost.

Oh, absolutely.

For example, when the party ultimately failed the challenge to track the hobgoblins, it didn't result in them not finding the hobgoblin's lair. Instead, it meant that they trigger one or more random encounters, and were delayed by a day or two... Consuming valuable resources, and increasing the chances that one or more of the hobgoblins' hostages would die befome they could be rescued.

I always looked at skill challenges as either success == extra benefit, or failure == extra complication.

 

[LostSoul]

On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding... Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using. Blegh.

I think what you have to do as a DM is change up the situation a little bit. Not much, but enough. Assuming the skill challenge is about calming her down only:

"Calm down, you're safe now. The hobgoblins are gone."
(success)
"Okay, she looks around, doesn't see any immediate danger. Then she looks at you. 'They'll come back. They always come back. How can you protect me? They are too strong.'"

In response to that, "'Don't worry, just calm down. You can trust us,'" doesn't sound like what she needs to hear. Make it a Hard check and drop a penalty on the roll. But if the Fighter flexes his mighty thews and rolls Intimidate, that's exactly what she wants to hear; it's an Easy or Moderate check.

Or maybe the Warlock will say, "I lean in close to her and whisper: 'They are the ones who fear us. And they are right to, for we hold secrets such as these.' Then I whisper a Dreadful Word into her ear and watch as her mind reels in terror." If he hits, the DM ends the skill challenge. She spills her guts. Now she fears the PCs more than the hobgobs.

 

[Regicide]

Why not? We force everyone to be involved in all combats.

That is... really horrible. What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?

 

[Garthanos]

That is... really horrible. What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?

Heh, according to lost souls sig... life is a battlefield that will eventually nail you even if your head isnt sticking up..[rhetorical] don't you trust pithy sigs? [/rhetorical]
I have DM'd for some extremely passive players who were as reticent to take part in the fantasy as they were to take part in real life it really left me sad.

Actually yes LostSoul that changing up the context is perfect for the scenario described and interpretation of intimidate to include showing you are tough with a diplomatic ulterior motive ... is very cool. Intimidate with a grand scale gesture from the Warlock icky but interesting.... allowing for a different skill to take supremacy even if the context has only shifted a little.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Well, if you assume that the character who is bad at social skills is good at Endurance, then it definitely does matter. Even if the fighter can't score points with Diplomacy he's helping the group every time he scores on the Endurance check. If three more characters make theirs then it counts as a success, and if two more does then at least they don't accrue a failure. It's not as good as actually having a good skill to roll on, but I think it's unfair to discount the effect entirely.

Most characters tend to be good at one group of skills and bad at another.

Why does the fighter care that he may or may not have contributed 1/3 of the rolls necessary to stave off a failure/add a success, when it means that he can't choose that skill for his primary effort?

Another issue is Intimidate. Intimidate seems to "get the shaft" rather often, as far as social challenges go. This does make some sense, it's not always the best choice to go around threatening everyone, but as the only social option for the Fighter I think Intimidate could stand to have a bit of love thrown it's way.

Personally I think that intimidate gets the shaft because people reduce it down to its most blunt form (the rulebook writers included), direct threats of violence.

I think it's a far more viable skill if it's simply used to indicate "getting your way through fear".

Correspondingly, diplomacy becomes "getting your way through being nice" and bluff becomes "getting your way through being deceitful".

There's overlap, certainly, but in general the skill(s) you choose are just going to indicate the style of your social interaction, rather than fill thoroughly different purposes.

As an example: Intimidate might be used to indicate that someone's house looks like it might be very flammable, and perhaps their local guild could help them out with that. Or it could be used to make the duke worry that monster infestation in the local ruins is a serious concern.

That second one could also be a bluff: although for a bluff instead of suggesting that monsters MIGHT be there, and that it's very dangerous, you'd just outright say monsters ARE there, that you talked to a contact just this afternoon, who met a guy who was attacked!

Whereas for diplomacy you might suggest that whether or not there are monsters there, the duke should know for himself, and you're such a trustworthy fellow that you're the perfect guy to send.

 

[Pbartender]

I think what you have to do as a DM is change up the situation a little bit. Not much, but enough.

Oh, I understand that, and I agree completely.

The point I was trying to make is...

In response to that, "'Don't worry, just calm down. You can trust us,'" doesn't sound like what she needs to hear.

I agree, but inevitably, that's exactly what some players will come up with, regardless of how hard you hint toward something else.

Sometimes, forcing them to use a different skill is the only way to break them out of it.

That is... really horrible. What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?

What game are you playing? D&D, to my knowledge, has always assumed that when combat happens all PCs will be involved in the fight one way or another. 4th edition in particular goes out of its way to make certain that all the relavant roles in combat are interesting and fun, so that all players will be involved and engaged in the action.

Occasionally, a particular type of creature or hazard in combat forces a character to attack in a way that isn't their forte -- a typical Fighter, for example, has little available to attack a creature flying outside his reach other than his basic ranged attack. Does that mean those characters should sit out the fight? Or should they use their ingenuity to find a way to attack the flying creature, no matter how ineffective the attack is?

Why can't we do the same for skill challenges?

Now, I understand that under the basic rules a failure contributes to total failure, whereas missing in cobat does do so quite so directly. However, the rules for running skill challenges are loose enough that I think we could get around that, if we tried.

Personally I think that intimidate gets the shaft because people reduce it down to its most blunt form (the rulebook writers included), direct threats of violence.

I think it's a far more viable skill if it's simply used to indicate "getting your way through fear".

LostSoul's idea with the Warlock is a perfect example of what you are suggesting.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. I think your example, pbartender, might be a good idea on when to become more "open" with how the skill challenge works. The way I see it - if nothing more is done then repeat the same narrative and the same skill check over and over again, there is nothing to lose by getting explicit. The scene feels more awkward then believable, and saying: "These are things you could do" might help them to come up with better ideas.

I seriously need to work in more skill challenges in my games, to experiment more...

 

[Piratecat]

On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding... Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using. Blegh.

Agreed. Blegh. I try to address this by having the DC rise by one every time a person (or in short challenges, the group) uses the same skill. My PCs know that they can use diplomacy four times in a row, but it gets harder each time. I'm open with the DCs and the possible skills, and my group is having fun doing fast decisions about who does what.

Similarly, I try to make it fun for people to participate via secondary checks (aid another) if they don't want to make a primary check. Adding a penalty for failed secondary checks adds a little excitement to the roll.