Skill challenges and tactical choice

[hcm]

I'm a bit disappointed with the skill challenges. Where is the challenge? As far as I can tell, all you do is roll your dice (multiple times) and see if you succeed. Where is my tactical choice?

I *can* see a challenge in coming up with a way to use a skill I'm good at. And I can see a certain challenge in guessing what skills the DM has chosen to work and not to work. And yes, the current system does give some structure to a narrative. But that's not enough, imo. I want tactical choice. That's why I play DnD and not some other game.

I was expecting some kind of system where there was a tactical choice for the players between different kinds of approaches. I wanted, for instance, a choice betweeen (1) "the slow but safe way", (2) "the fast but dangerous way" and (3) "the standard way".

(1) Low DC, but a win gives only a +2 bonus for the next roll.
(2) High DC, win gives two successes.
(3) Normal DC.

I have no idea if the example is any good -- I haven't tried it. But *something* like that would have given the players a meaningful, tactical choice.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good house rule along the lines of this reasoning?

 

[hectorse]

the challenge is in that you can actually lose skill challenges if you use the inadequate skills.

Try intimidating a King and see where that takes you

 

[hcm]

the challenge is in that you can actually lose skill challenges if you use the inadequate skills.

Try intimidating a King and see where that takes you

If you read my initial post again, you will see that I recognize that as a certain challenge. But it's not truly tactical in the way that other parts of DnD is tactical (I'm thinking of combat). It's more of a guessing game where the players guess what the DM thinks should work.

What I'm after is the addition of true tactical choices, like in chess or back gammon or dnd combat.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

I was expecting some kind of system where there was a tactical choice for the players between different kinds of approaches. I wanted, for instance, a choice betweeen (1) "the slow but safe way", (2) "the fast but dangerous way" and (3) "the standard way".

(1) Low DC, but a win gives only a +2 bonus for the next roll.
(2) High DC, win gives two successes.
(3) Normal DC.

I have no idea if the example is any good -- I haven't tried it. But *something* like that would have given the players a meaningful, tactical choice.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good house rule along the lines of this reasoning?

1 and 3 are exactly whats in the DMG. If you want to have a hard DC give two successes, go ahead. Personally I like how they have it the DMG where a hard DC is for using a suboptimal skill.

 

[hectorse]

If you read my initial post again, you will see that I recognize that as a certain challenge. But it's not truly tactical in the way that other parts of DnD is tactical (I'm thinking of combat). It's more of a guessing game where the players guess what the DM thinks should work.

What I'm after is the addition of true tactical choices, like in chess or back gammon or dnd combat.

Oh ok...

Skill challenges in the social sense I suspect provide little of that, but I could see myself modifying other types of skill challenges to provide tactical variety.

Taking the "navigating through a forest" skill challenge, you could easily add the three options you mentioned as possible "routes" for the PC's to take. Perhaps the mountain pass is faster but harder to navigate than the longer but easier detour that the forest represents.

Make it matter imposing severe weather damage for the shorter route and make the PC's be aware of it.

I think the genius of skill challenges lies in their malleability

Who pursues the fleeing opponent in the chase? Perhaps failing the skill check at the detour your streetwise check provided will actually slow you more.

 

[hcm]

1 and 3 are exactly whats in the DMG. If you want to have a hard DC give two successes, go ahead. Personally I like how they have it the DMG where a hard DC is for using a suboptimal skill.

No, that is not in the DMG. You can aid someone, but there is no risk involved (as in my alternative 1), as failure to aid does not count towards the number of losses (I'm sorry if that isn't clear in my initial post, but all three of my options should count towards the total successes/failures in the challenge).

I don't see at all how there is any true tactical choice in the DMG. From the player's perspective, all you do is tell the DM you wanna try a skill. Then you roll and see what happens. This is the equivalent of saying 'I attack with my <weapon>. Do I hit?' until either your HP or the opponent's HP is down to 0. And I think most people who choose DnD agree that such fights are very boring. If they're like me, they choose DnD precisely to get away from games that remove player choice in order to increase simplicity.

The aiding mechanism you're referring to is a no brainer. Of course everyone should try to aid the lead climber. There is no actual choice. It might become an actual choice if something else is going on in the encounter, so you choose whether to help or to, for instance, fight the dire bear that's attacking from below the climbers. This is indeed suggested in the DMG. But the skill challenge mechanism in itself, as written, is lacking what I'm looking for in this thread.

 

[ThirdWizard]

From the player's perspective, all you do is tell the DM you wanna try a skill. Then you roll and see what happens. This is the equivalent of saying 'I attack with my <weapon>. Do I hit?' until either your HP or the opponent's HP is down to 0. And I think most people who choose DnD agree that such fights are very boring. If they're like me, they choose DnD precisely to get away from games that remove player choice in order to increase simplicity.

The skill challenge section is four pages. Did you read them all? In any case, it very explicitly tells you not to play like this.

As for tactical considerations, I don't think that was one of their goals.

 

[hcm]

The skill challenge section is four pages. Did you read them all? In any case, it very explicitly tells you not to play like this.

As for tactical considerations, I don't think that was one of their goals.

Well, games with boring combat systems don't tell the players to play out the fights in a boring way either. But this does not change the shortcomings of the underlying system.

I think it's a bit odd if they decided to move away from the over all gamist philosophy in the skill challenge design. I think this is simply a poor solution, which is fine, because all games have them and afaik this is the first time they try something like this.

I love 4e. I just want to improve this part. Any ideas?

 

[Jer]

I was expecting some kind of system where there was a tactical choice for the players between different kinds of approaches. I wanted, for instance, a choice betweeen (1) "the slow but safe way", (2) "the fast but dangerous way" and (3) "the standard way".

This is implicit in any kind of skill check framework, though. The players are going to make suggestions about what they want to try, the DM is going to map those suggestions to skill checks (or, if you're particularly old school, allow for automatic success if the player comes up with a good idea). All of the tactical choices are wrapped up in the player suggesting what he wants to do. If you're trying to get your buddy out of jail after a barroom brawl, then the "slow but safe way" is to go to the town magistrate and try to convince him to let him out. The "fast but dangerous way" is to attempt a jail break. The "standard way" is somewhere in between those two things - possibly finding the mayor or some other influential citizen and offering an exchange of services for some string pulling, or calling in a previous favor from an influential contact. There are, of course, multiple examples of each of these three categories, because who knows what your players are going to come up with.

The skill challenge mechanic is just a framework for the DM to decide whether the players have succeeded or failed at the choices they've made. It's a way of wrapping some formal mechanics around what before 3e would have been nothing but "roleplaying" challenges or "convince your DM that what you're proposing would work" - a great mechanic if you have a reasonable DM, but highly dependent on who your DM is. And in 3e these tend to boil down to a single skill check, which is mechanically fine, but sometimes unsatisfying. Having a bit of back and forth roleplay with the local magistrate and then having your success or failure come down to a single roll, with perhaps a slight bonus or penalty depending on what went on between the characters, feels arbitrary.

With skill challenges, the 4e designers seem to be trying to split the difference between the fairly bland mechanics of a die roll and the open-ended, DM-dependent non-mechanics of a roleplay challenge. I like the mechanical design of it, and it seems similar enough to other "extended skill contest" frameworks I've used that I think it will work reasonable well. I especially like some of the open-ended uses that Jonathan Tweet has described in his campaign blog on gleemax.

 

[Andur]

I think if tactical choice was in skill challenge as you describe we'd have even more folks complaining about 4e being al combat, just in different formats...