Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome

[LostSoul]

I'm hopeful that the Skill Challenge system will be flexible enough as written (no need to break the rules) that characters can solve the challenge if they succeed at the right combination of skills, even if they haven't made the correct number of successful rolls.

Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game. It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."

One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again. We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces." The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.

The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys? The King gives in to your demands. He needs your support that badly. You win the skill challenge."

I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

You know, honestly, I don't see the particular problem with winning a skill challenge in 3 if you're normally supposed to win it in 6, now that you mention it. But there were others posting in this thread who did see that as a problem and I guess I was responding to that.

In re improvising in general, there are really lots of little issues that go along with a heavier improvisational burden on the DM, not just catastrophic brain failure – things like falling into cliches ("oh great, Thog, you failed another History check; the DM's going to send a crow again to set off the trap") or whatever. I don't think the emphasis on improv is terrible, just something to keep an eye on. Carry on.

I suspect the biggest fear would be that the players manage to come up with a sequence of events that would resolve a 6/4 encounter within 3 successes, which in turn somehow leads to a massive plot derailment for the DM. Personally though, I am not sure about how that would happen. There is a quote by Joeseph Stalin that says "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything". What the players roll may determine success or failure, but the DM decides what exactly success and failure mean.

In Combat, I like to play the rules as written, simply because the temptation to fudge the outcomes can often come back and bit you. But Skill Challenges are not a direct analog to combat simply because the outcomes are much more flexible. Success or failure in combat have very specific meanings. If the players fail, they are dead, and if the succeed, your monsters or NPC's are dead, (ignoring the option to run away for the moment). But I do not expect to run into very many instances where the results of a skill challenge are going to lock the narrative into that sort of outcome. Skill Challenges allow for much more fluidity in outcomes.

- The DM can decide to ignore the result of any given skill check if that skill check does not appear to be applicable. I would not feel obligated to allow the players to win a 6/4 challenge to disarm a trap if they win 6 insight checks.

- The Perception / Heal(Autopsy) / Theivery scenario posted by Celebrim to disarm the corpse trap may or may not work. It really depends on the DM and the intent of the trap. If the trap was meant as a speed bump, I would probably go with it. If I intended the trap to be extraordinarily lethal, I could probably spin it plausibly to avoid the premature success. Sure, the Theivery got the poison bladder out of the corpse, but now your holding a very toxic sack of poison that is probably going to burst if mishandled. What do you do with it now? If I needed 3 more checks, I would probably call for a balance check from the guy holding the sack to avoid bursting it, a check to determine a method of safe disposal, and another check to actually dispose of it.

- The DM can still determine what success really means, and can modify the expected success based on how it was obtained. If I were to set up a skill challenge for my players to obtain the cooperation of a local noble. I might expect them to use a combination of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy to pull it off. But if they instead use skills like Intimidate and basically coerce the noble, then instead of willing co-operation, they will get grudging co-operation.

Anyway, while I am sure there are some extreme corner cases where a skill challenge outcome could derail a game, I would be surprised if there are any instances where a skill challenge could have an extraordinarily unforseen and damaging outcome.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[eleran]

Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game. It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."

One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again. We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces." The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.

The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys? The King gives in to your demands. He needs your support that badly. You win the skill challenge."

I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.

Thats a very good point. Within the context of the skill challenge system as I understand it right now, I think that would be a hard DC Diplo check which counts as 2 successes if made. That would leave them 3 successes left, so maybe you continue the scene and if they can get those extra 3 successes not only does the King decide to send troops, he places the party in charge of the mission and gives them some other types of aid such as potions, or extra supplies or a little known map or whatever suits the campaign.

I think there is a lot of ways to go with this and I am hoping the book has a lot of good examples of how to handle these sorts of things.

 

[LostSoul]

- The DM can decide to ignore the result of any given skill check if that skill check does not appear to be applicable. I would not feel obligated to allow the players to win a 6/4 challenge to disarm a trap if they win 6 insight checks.

Why wouldn't you tell the players that Insight isn't going to work here?

Why can't Insight disarm a trap? They check it out so much that they discover how to disarm the trap, and so they do. Something like: "Okay, that's the 6th successful Insight check. You win the challenge to disarm the trap. Here's how you do it." Then the DM proceeds to describe how the PCs use their Insight into the trap's workings in order to disarm it.

I don't see why you would need to make a Disarm check.

- The DM can still determine what success really means, and can modify the expected success based on how it was obtained. If I were to set up a skill challenge for my players to obtain the cooperation of a local noble. I might expect them to use a combination of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy to pull it off. But if they instead use skills like Intimidate and basically coerce the noble, then instead of willing co-operation, they will get grudging co-operation.

I think that you should stick to the goal - if success in the skill challenge means they obtain co-operation from the noble, then they do. So nothing like, "You get co-operation from him: he agrees not to kill you."

I totally agree with you about how the skills they use colour success. That's why I think stating the goal of the skill challenge should be done in general terms only.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Why wouldn't you tell the players that Insight isn't going to work here?

Why can't Insight disarm a trap? They check it out so much that they discover how to disarm the trap, and so they do. Something like: "Okay, that's the 6th successful Insight check. You win the challenge to disarm the trap. Here's how you do it." Then the DM proceeds to describe how the PCs use their Insight into the trap's workings in order to disarm it.

I don't see why you would need to make a Disarm check.

Technically you would not. It really all comes down to what the DM and players find plausible in this instance. It may be splitting a hair, but knowing how something is broken does not necesarily mean you know how to fix it. Along those lines, knowing how a trap works might not render you able to disarm it. We could keep going back and forth on it, but for every situation you can come up with where pure insight may be a plausible way to rectify the situation, I could probably come up with situations where it might not be entirely appropriate.

I think that you should stick to the goal - if success in the skill challenge means they obtain co-operation from the noble, then they do. So nothing like, "You get co-operation from him: he agrees not to kill you."

That is not quite the direction I was heading. If the players basically intimidated and coerced the noble into co-operating, his assistance would be very half hearted. Instead of sending his best men with you, he might pull a few random people out of his dungeon, throw a uniform on them, and send them along to help you instead. Instead of getting potions of Cure Critical Wounds, he may give you a couple Cure Light wounds. And of course, there is the matter of what would happen later. They might get the help of the Noble and make a future enemy.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[WhatGravitas]

Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game. It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."

As a side note: Getting to the king, getting an audience and so on, should also be part of the challenge, I think.

The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys? The King gives in to your demands. He needs your support that badly. You win the skill challenge."

I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.

Would be nice. Or the DM could instead change the goal of the skill challenge on the fly. If they make more successes, the king sends more troops, or even get him to give them other support.

Cheers, LT.

 

[LostSoul]

Technically you would not. It really all comes down to what the DM and players find plausible in this instance.

Right. I'm looking at the skill challenge as resolving whether or not you can disarm the trap. If you hit the needed # of successes, the trap is disarmed - we no longer need to roll to see if you can do it or not, because we already resolved that. In other words, all those Insight checks mean that, in this case, knowing how the trap works means you are able to disarm it.

Whether or not Insight checks are plausible here is something that needs to be decided when the roll is made. This could be a problem for some people who like the mechanics to "fade into the background", but I guess you could get around that by narrating the Insight check as doing nothing (i.e. neither success or failure).

That is not quite the direction I was heading. If the players basically intimidated and coerced the noble into co-operating, his assistance would be very half hearted. Instead of sending his best men with you, he might pull a few random people out of his dungeon, throw a uniform on them, and send them along to help you instead. Instead of getting potions of Cure Critical Wounds, he may give you a couple Cure Light wounds. And of course, there is the matter of what would happen later. They might get the help of the Noble and make a future enemy.

This isn't what I was thinking exactly. What you've describe sounds great for a half-hearted success - 6 successes, 2 or 3 failures (going with 6/4) - but if it's a complete success, it should be a complete success!

If the PCs did use Intimidate, then I would have him act like someone Intimidated: he'll cooperate until the threat of force is gone, and then he'll seek payback. This wouldn't be the case if the PCs used Diplomacy, and this would be independant of the number of successes or failures the PCs roll.

In other words, I wouldn't change the level of success based on the skills the PCs used. Only the number of successes and failures would do that. I would, however, change the in-game situation to reflect how the PCs dealt with things.

 

[kennew142]

Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game. It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."

One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again. We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces." The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.

The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys? The King gives in to your demands. He needs your support that badly. You win the skill challenge."

I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.

Your set up doesn't sound a lot like a skill challenge to me. The challenge should involve more than a few diplomacy checks. You can have situations like this, but they should probably be solved through RP or with RP and diplomacy checks.

I also have to say that giving ultimatums to the king is usually frowned on. In some cultures it could get you killed or imprisoned. Any king who gave into ultimatums would likely be viewed as weak and ineffectual by his court. Players in my upcoming 4e campaign would be wise to remember that King Goran Drago came to power at the age of 14 by engineering a palace coup, slaughtering the regency council and purging the Druidic Church of his opposition. It would be unwise to attempt to bully him in this fashion.

As for skill challenges, I think it will be necessary for the GM to be careful in how he constructs them. Just like encounters, a skill challenge should be designed to be interesting, challenging and fun. In the example above, the challenge would likely include:

1) Discovering the correct way to approach the king
2) Getting in to see the King
3) Convincing the King of the need for troops
4a) Convincing the military advisor to send troops
4b) OR, convincing the King to overrule his military advisor

If the King's advisors are in the room (likely at most courts), they may concerns (real, imagined or a cover for plots of their own) that could lead to them arguing against the PCs. Perhaps History, Local or Insight could give the party an idea why the advisor is arguing against sending troops. Intimidate (to make him back down), Bluff (to make him think that they know something he wouldn't want revealed), Diplomacy to ease his fears or to get better cooperation could all be useful in these circumstances.

I've said that I'm not a big fan of the X successes before Y failures approach. I've always been able to wing encounters of this sort without a system per se. But I can see that it could be helpful to GMs who aren't experienced, who aren't comfortable winging it or who like to have a mechanical system in place to provide a framework for social encounters.

To me, the best thing about this system is that it could lead to solutions the GM didn't think of ahead of time.

 

[AZRogue]

I don't really see Skill Challenges being the default way Traps are handled.

When I think Skill Challenge, I'm thinking of stuff like the mine cart scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with players trying to get a certain number of successes as they hurtle through mine shafts, trying to judge which track will lead to safety, maybe swapping vehicles over a chasm, that sort of thing. Something more dynamic.

 

[LostSoul]

Your set up doesn't sound a lot like a skill challenge to me. The challenge should involve more than a few diplomacy checks. You can have situations like this, but they should probably be solved through RP or with RP and diplomacy checks.

Why not use a skill challenge here? Or:

1) Discovering the correct way to approach the king
2) Getting in to see the King
3) Convincing the King of the need for troops
4a) Convincing the military advisor to send troops
4b) OR, convincing the King to overrule his military advisor

Skill challenges, each and every one of them!

By making it a skill challenge instead of RP, we're going to mechanics other than DM fiat. We're also spending more real-world time on it, making it important. And XP is handed out, so there's a risk of failure involved.

If "Getting in to see the King" isn't something you want to focus on, it might be a simple Diplomacy check with whoever plans his schedule. Or you might not even have a roll.

As for skill challenges, I think it will be necessary for the GM to be careful in how he constructs them. Just like encounters, a skill challenge should be designed to be interesting, challenging and fun. In the example above, the challenge would likely include:

I think what the DM really needs to be careful about is if the in-game situation calls for a skill challenge. Is the situation important to the players? Is there some sort of conflict between the PCs and NPCs or environment? Do the PCs risk something if they fail?

I think that, if the answer is "yes" to all those questions, a skill challenge is the way to go.

I also have to say that giving ultimatums to the king is usually frowned on.

That depends on the setting.