Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome

[Storm-Bringer]

In a skill challenge, players who want to participate volunteer the skill they will use, and what they want to try with it. A DM then decides whether or not what they are trying is Easy/Hard, and picks one of the DCs for it.

A clarification: I believe, unless it has changed recently, that part of the system is the players set the stakes with the difficulty they want to attempt. The difficulty they choose determines not only the DC, but also indicates the level or number of successes/failures that result. So, with an Easy check, maybe one success, but a Hard check would be two or three successes toward the goal.

I don't think that really changes the point you were making, however.

 

[Crosswind]

Storm - Ah. So the player states what they are trying to do, -and- states how hard it is?

Wouldn't that lead to conversations like:

DM: "You want to get the sheep into the pen."
Player A: "I dance. It is an easy challenge to get a sheep into a pen by dancing." *Rolls dancing*
DM: "...err, no it's not. That skill is barely applicable. I mean, it's possible to dance the sheep into the pen...but it's really hard. You'd have to be like, the patron saint of all that is dance. A veritable Michael Flatley."
Player A: "Too bad. I said it was easy, and the rules say I get to pick."

...that doesn't make sense, and the 4E designers are very good at their job. Obviously, control of whether a player's idea gets an easy, medium, or hard DC has to rest in the hands of the DM. This rewards players with applicable skills, and players who think up clever solutions. I believe that that is the purpose of such systems, no?

-Cross

 

[LostSoul]

This seems like it's adding unnecessary structure to a pretty easy part of the game...and one that's not at all broken in 3.5. It's pretty easily handled as:

"Alright, players. You want to get the sheep into the pen!"
"I'll use my wild empathy to get the sheepdog to help..." (*rolls*)
"Thog roar, scare sheep-things into box!" (*rolls*)
"I create an illusion of food!" (Spell is cast).
*DM looks at all this, looks at the rolls people made, adjudicates what happens*

I think it is a broken part of the game. Well, for me at least.

In your example, the DM could be thinking, "Thog tries to scare them? What the hell? They'll just run around like crazy. And he got a good result on his check, too. I guess they'll run away." So he says, "Okay, the sheepdog barks helpfully, but Thog's roar scares them away and they are now spread all around the countryside."

In a skill challenge, if success on the roll doesn't help, and failure doesn't hurt, you shouldn't be taking that action. I don't see why the DM won't say, "Thog, my common sense tells me that roaring and scaring them will send the sheep all over the countryside. Doing that will be an auto-failure. You still want to do it?"

Or, if immersion is an important goal: "As Thog breathes in, the sheep look panicked, like they're going to bolt in all different directions. The Ranger knows that only a few will go into the pen - and only if you're lucky."

 

[Lacyon]

It is unclear whether you are willfully misinterpreting this, or I was just unclear. I'm going to assume you're a cheerful, friendly fellow and not an internet troll, and I was unclear. Let me try again.

Thank you.

In a skill challenge, players who want to participate volunteer the skill they will use, and what they want to try with it. A DM then decides whether or not what they are trying is Easy/Hard, and picks one of the DCs for it.

A bunch of people do this, and if you pass a fairly arbitrary X out of Y threshold, you win!

As arbitrary as 1 out of 1?

This seems like it's adding unnecessary structure to a pretty easy part of the game...and one that's not at all broken in 3.5. It's pretty easily handled as:

"Alright, players. You want to get the sheep into the pen!"
"I'll use my wild empathy to get the sheepdog to help..." (*rolls*)
"Thog roar, scare sheep-things into box!" (*rolls*)
"I create an illusion of food!" (Spell is cast).
*DM looks at all this, looks at the rolls people made, adjudicates what happens*

Sure. And if the DM has arbitrarily decided that each success is going to net you about 25% of the sheep successfully herded, then once you get four successes you've got all the sheep penned. Or the DM can arbitrarily decided that one is enough. Or he can arbitrarily decide you need ten. This is nothing new to 4E.

Since there's nothing really opposing you here, it doesn't make much sense to use the skill challenge rules.

One of my favorite things about 4E is the increased power in the hands of the DMs to keep the story flowing. Providing fixed rules for how to solve every type of non-combat situation in D&D seems counterproductive, doesn't it?

It doesn't need to solve every type of non-combat situation, just the ones that warrant it. Simple situations like 'gather the pigs' are fine to resolve in one simple check (or just a 'take 10' or 'take 20') instead of bringing out the challenge rules.

 

[Mercule]

Point in fact:

If b is directly proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = ka (where k is a constant).

If b is inversely proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = k/a (where k is a constant).

Now, even in statistics, the second can't be derived from the first.

Please don't encourage him.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Storm - Ah. So the player states what they are trying to do, -and- states how hard it is?

Well, the way I understood it, and I am hoping someone comes along and clears this up, is that the players 'set the stakes'. So, they choose a Hard difficulty, which increases the DC, but garners more successes. So, using Athletics as a Hard challenge would involve vaulting up the tree, cutting the body loose, and catching it on the way down (to use a previous example), which would earn two or three successes towards the goal if the roll succeeds. On a failed roll, of course, the number of failures would be higher as well.

Wouldn't that lead to conversations like:

DM: "You want to get the sheep into the pen."
Player A: "I dance. It is an easy challenge to get a sheep into a pen by dancing." *Rolls dancing*
DM: "...err, no it's not. That skill is barely applicable. I mean, it's possible to dance the sheep into the pen...but it's really hard. You'd have to be like, the patron saint of all that is dance. A veritable Michael Flatley."
Player A: "Too bad. I said it was easy, and the rules say I get to pick."

...that doesn't make sense, and the 4E designers are very good at their job. Obviously, control of whether a player's idea gets an easy, medium, or hard DC has to rest in the hands of the DM. This rewards players with applicable skills, and players who think up clever solutions. I believe that that is the purpose of such systems, no?

-Cross

Which ended up being the observation/complaint from DDXI and other playtests. Players seemed to find it best to just take the Easy checks until they got enough successes rather than risk the harder checks.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Please don't encourage him.

Agreed.

I apologize for the diversion, but it helped make a point. At least, I hope it did.

 

[AllisterH]

I'm a 4E Fanboy, and I'm still not thrilled about Skill Challenges. I think it's largely unnecessary to codify "X out of Y" checks mechanics.

Let's be serious - in any serious D&D group, you have to solve challenges like this all the time. And the DM has you make checks for whatever applicable skills you think you can use to further your plan, and if the skills back up a good plan, you execute well, and succeed.

I feel like, to some extent, Skill Challenges are over-codifying things that every D&D group did, and it may make groups think that they -have- to use Skill Challenges ("Well, it was a good plan, but the rules say you failed your check, so I'm afraid it doesn't work").

To me, the only use of Skill Challenges is to make Bad D&D Groups (RPGA) give out XP for doing non-combat things.

-Cross

*LOL*

I know you didn't mean to intentionally Crosswind, but I think both you and Stormbringer need to give a glance at the ENWORLD boards.

Apparently, a LOT of people were in BADWRONGFUN groups. I have used something akin to skill challenges but this was definitely not something I picked up from 3E. For the life of me, I want to say Talisanta but that's not right, is it?

I'm almost positive I've seen skill challenges codified along these lines before. I just can't remember what RPG it was.

 

[Crosswind]

Lacyon - Your opinion seems to be that there are situations which warrant skill challenges, and there are situations which don't. The examples I have brought up are, then, situations which don't. This is all well and good, but there don't seem to be clear delineations (at least from what I can see) between when you should use a skill challenge, and when you shouldn't.

What I'm afraid of, and what makes me leery of these rules, is that people will use skill challenges when they should just use nice, normal, DMing. Unless there's a clear delineation on the part of the designers as to when you should use skill challenges, and when you shouldn't (Like there's a pretty clear delineation as to when you go into combat rounds...), isn't this something a lot of DMs could get tripped up on?

AllisterH - Apologies - I've read the ENworld forums religiously for about a month. I agree that there are some groups where you just can't seem to get XP for anything not involving combat encounters. That said, I think that a more robust, less finicky system could be put together to encourage non-combat problem solving with XP rewards.

-Cross

P.S. I can't tell if the terminology "BADWRONGFUN" is meant to be ironic ("Who are you to tell somebody else how to enjoy playing an RPG, you jerk?"), or serious ("There are games where the only purpose is to massacre everything. This is bad, wrong fun.")

 

[Professor Phobos]

It doesn't need to solve every type of non-combat situation, just the ones that warrant it. Simple situations like 'gather the pigs' are fine to resolve in one simple check (or just a 'take 10' or 'take 20') instead of bringing out the challenge rules.

Heck, if you're me as the DM, I'd just say "Okay you gather the pigs!"

I really don't like asking for rolls unless there's some kind of Big Important Thing happening.