Skill Challenge question

[Paul Strack]

Does everyone actually use skill challenges? I find this to be such a boring way to do things. Some of them from adventures are really stupid. One was like 7 sucesses before 5 failures. We failed like three times in a row, and the rolling really took too much time. Just skip the stupid skill challenges unless your players are really into rolling dice, just have them tell you what they want to do, such as a tracking check, or intimidate, whatever, then roll.

I use skill challenges pretty extensively, one or two every adventure, and find they work pretty well. It takes some practice to figure out how to use them correctly, but I really enjoy them, as do my players.

The big advantage of skill challenges is that they are a well-defined system where the PCs have a real chance of succeeding or failing. The DM has to account for both possibilities in adventure, and have branches in the adventure for both options.

Good skill challenges also helps short-circuit the "death by planning" problem. These days, I give the players 10 or 15 minutes to come up with a general plan for doing something, then turn the execution of the plan into a skill challenge. Because the players know there is a clear framework determining their success or failure, they don't feel the need to micro-manage all the planning details. They can still be creative and clever during the execution of the plan, with cool ideas giving them a bonus to the individual skill checks within the challenge.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Yea but my gosh, 5 successes before 3 failures, and even higher. Then if you fail its more rolling and more rolling. It seemed just ardous to waste the time. In one of the Scales of War adventures, there was a skill challenge for finding a way through some type of burrow holes. We failed the skill challenge 2x and said screw it! The dm just ended up allowing us in because the adventure was ready to be over with. It just got retarded. I hate redundant rolling. My gosh, have the players come up with a creative way to do something, then let them do it. I haven't found very many skill challenges worth a crap.

 

[tgayoso]

Yea but my gosh, 5 successes before 3 failures, and even higher. Then if you fail its more rolling and more rolling. It seemed just ardous to waste the time.

You are right, if you're just gonna run the skill challenge as a bunch of dice rolls, then it's not worth it. However, you can use skill challenges to give players an opportunity to show/use their character's traits, and using a mechanic to measuring their success. Perhaps that can be done in a pure roleplaying environment, but players tend to play themselves and not the 9 charisma character they chose to run. The SC's give you a way of integrating character traits (i.e., trained skills, feats, etc) and player/group skills. However, they are not for every group.

WotC is coming out with more help on skill challenges, but it's mostly for DM's. I think they need more player guidance in how to play skill challenges. I natural flow does not seem to be inuitive in skill challenges.

 

[Paul Strack]

In one of the Scales of War adventures, there was a skill challenge for finding a way through some type of burrow holes. We failed the skill challenge 2x and said screw it! The dm just ended up allowing us in because the adventure was ready to be over with. It just got retarded.

That would be an example of a poorly designed skill challenge, violating the golden rule of skill challenges:

"If the characters fail the challenge, the story still has to move forward, but in a different direction and possibly by a longer, more dangerous route."

A better challenge would have let the PCs move into the burrow even with a failure, but with some kind of penalty, such as one of the following:

1) Each failed checks results in some damage suffered (from falls, crumbling ceilings, whatever).

2) A lost challenges means the players make too much noise or take too much time, so that the monsters they meet inside of the burrow have had time to set up an ambush and achieve surprise in the next combat.

3) The PCs have to a take a more dangerous route into the caverns, such as climbing down a long hole and risking falling damage.

If you combine the above with allowing player creativity to give small +2 situational bonuses to the checks or to allow creative skill use (as per "Reward Clever Ideas" on DMG 75), then challenges can be an opportunity for some interesting creativity and role-playing.

 

[Jhaelen]

Yea but my gosh, 5 successes before 3 failures, and even higher. Then if you fail its more rolling and more rolling.

I'm curious:
Do you enjoy combat (in D&D [4E])?

 

[Nail]

<chuckle>

...'cause gee-whiz, there's a lot of dice rolling there. It's soooo boring!

 

[Rel]

Good skill challenges also helps short-circuit the "death by planning" problem. These days, I give the players 10 or 15 minutes to come up with a general plan for doing something, then turn the execution of the plan into a skill challenge. Because the players know there is a clear framework determining their success or failure, they don't feel the need to micro-manage all the planning details. They can still be creative and clever during the execution of the plan, with cool ideas giving them a bonus to the individual skill checks within the challenge.

Heck yes! I've not been all that keen on skill challenges in general since getting 4e but this is what really sold me on the idea. Our group has way to much tendency at getting stuck in the planning stages for too long. In some ways I don't blame them because I'm a real RBDM and they want to make sure that they can gain whatever advantages they can by good planning. But it drags on too much sometimes.

When this happens what I really want to do as the DM is to give them hint. But that feels like cheating somehow because they haven't "earned" the hint by doing something (by way of a successful skill check). With the skill challenge format I can put them in a dialog with me rather than them planning endlessly among themselves. I get them moving in some direction and then things gain some momentum.

I one time saw somebody here at ENW (I wish I could remember who) explain skill challenges very simply to the players: "Skill Challenges are where you (the players) trick me (the GM) into letting you use the skills you are best at by creatively describing how they apply to the problem at hand." That's the philosopy I've adopted. I'm very loose about letting them determine what skills to use, provided that they can give a good justification for them. But I keep this in check by assigning DC's on the fly as well as determining if a particularly brilliant idea or execution brings them much closer to resolving the challenge (in other words I am pretty fluid about assigning the required successes too).

Finally, I'm seriously considering going to a "exploding d6" base for skill rolls as described in this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/246377-skills-get-sead.html

 

[tgayoso]

The exploding dice sound interesting, but the excitement from gambling with dice is separate from the excitement or intrigue of a good skill challenge plot unfolding. But it does remedy the boredom of rolling lots of dice, when the story has run flat. I think this point about the dice rolling touches upon one of the problems with skill challenges, that is there must be an interesting underlying story or plot. In combat, there isn't much of a story to maintain and in 4e even a beginner DM can run things. In contrast, skill challenges require a rather creative and quick whitted DM that is a good listener and communicates well. Plus, the players have to all be rather cooperative, since any one of them can throw the skill challenge, besides also being creative and quick whitted themselves. Regardless, any DM that notices the players starting to nod-off, should just short circuit the skill challenge and move-on. However, keep in mind that it's not always the players' fault that they didn't get it, so give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Well actually even combat seems to drag out longer then any other version I have played. It seems even, I mean the combats seem to challenge, but like said in the Grindspace thread, it starts just getting repetative. Skill challenges are just weak to me. Though your right, at least it does provide some means of figuring out the occasional DM madness. I'm not bitchin' and Im sure alot of people will find skill challenges extremely useful. I just hate the roll, then roll again, then roll again, fail, start at the beginning or lose 3 heal surge crap. We just went back to old school, give a good idea, give a roll, then proceed with killing and taking their stuff.