Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome

[Storm-Bringer]

*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.

I am sure you are correct, it is not a new mechanic with 4th edition. That isn't really the point. The idea is valid, it's the implementation that is the issue here.

I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use. The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless. History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself. A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386. A successful roll in History doesn't create the knowledge in the character's head. But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it. In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.

That is where the problem lies. With the implementation.

 

[Lacyon]

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.

It seems clear to me that skill challenges are only appropriate if you find yourself in a situation with (generally speaking) two ultimate outcomes - one positive, and one negative.

If there's no possible way that Y successive failures prevents you from ultimately putting all the sheep in the pen, a skill challenge is inappropriate. However, if the challenge is "get all the sheep in the pen before a pack of wolves arrive," you have a reasonable skill challenge - you need X successes to get all the sheep in, and if you fail Y times it becomes physically impossible to get them all in on time. (Or you can replace "all" with "enough that the townsfolk won't starve" and let the overall number of successes and failures determine how far above or below that threshold the PCs get).

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?

Sure, I suppose. Do you think the above is clear enough, or does it need work?

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.

This is functionally identical to allowing a take-10 or take-20.

 

[Lacyon]

I am sure you are correct, it is not a new mechanic with 4th edition. That isn't really the point. The idea is valid, it's the implementation that is the issue here.

I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use. The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless. History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself. A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386. A successful roll in History doesn't create the knowledge in the character's head. But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it. In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.

It is true that any implementation of knowledge in a dice-based skill system will result in uncertainty about whether a character knows certain facts until the dice are rolled. It can't be any other way.

That is where the problem lies. With the implementation.

The implementation of knowledge skills does not seem to have changed.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Walter Kovacs: There is no 'sequence'. If there is a sequence in which you must do A in order to do B, then we are fundamentally doing without the skill challenge framework.

It's not so much a "Sequence" but simply a matter of a DM stopping a player and asking "and how do you do that?"

You see the body, and start autopsying it.

The body is hanging from a tree. You can't autopsy a body that way, and if you CAN, you are probably some sort of amazing character with powers of flight, not to mention that you would be making a hard check in that situation. [Which can be one of those things where a "hard" check succeeding counts as an extra success].

It's that causality thing that people have brought up. You want to "beat" the challenge in less than 3 steps, but at the same time, it is either performing EXTREMELY difficult skill checks instead of performing some skill checks to make it eaiser. By avoiding any checks involved with getting at the body and getting the body down, they complete the task "faster" ... but intentionally handicap themselves as well. Or, they are just having their characters make assumptions instead of making a knowledge checks or similar skills to confirm those assumptions, again as a way to make the skill challenge shorter. Of course, that's just one skill challenge, and other ones might be harder/easier to "break" by getting ahead. Of course, the rules for the challenge are not specified. They may allow for certain skills with great success, or for succeeding at "hard" [instead of "implausible"] skills counting as multiple successes.

It's not a sequence, but if you DO want to do something, you may have to do something else first to make it possible. A number of skills may require you get a body down from the tree and onto the ground to be able to perform them, for example. It's not a "sequence" per se, but if the players work out a sequence of "I do A, then B, then C and it's disarmed" ... they have created a sequence, and they may be neglecting some skills between A and B, or B and C that would be required to pull off the sequence that THEY have decided on.

In the "DM sets the easy/medium/hard" idea ... than it might be possible to pull it off in 3, but would involve a lot of hard checks, while it probably isn't possible to find the "easiest" skill each time.

======

They have talked about traps being more like death traps ... and that the party will have to "overcome" the traps instead of it being the rogue does his disable.

So, it seems like some traps will probably involve people finding out about the trap before it goes off, and the group figuring out and then

 

[Crosswind]

Phobos - Sheep in the pen is a simple example. You can come up with plenty of analogous ones that people couldn't take 10 on.

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with. However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!"). The obvious binary outcomes would be: You manage to flee/You fail to flee.

But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain. What about some of the party getting caught, and some not. What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin? It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."

I just don't see that many scenarios where there is a clear-cut success/failure. This might make more sense in a module, or a very linear plot...but in a (and here I reveal my shameless elitism...=( ) more roleplaying-oriented game, this type of mechanic doesn't seem to make sense to use.

-Cross

 

[Lord Zardoz]

You see the crux of the issue here? People seem to think this system is the godsend for bad DMs to suddenly turn into Orson Wells of the tabletop. The fact is, no set of rules will make a bad DM not suck.

If the players or the DM are not good at improvising, this skill system will not help them. They will simply have an extended mechanic for what used to be resolved in a roll or two. A roll that, in previous version(s) was directly related to the task at hand.

I think this is a very legitimate concern about the Skill Challenge system. At its worst, it will play out like this.

DM: Eh, time for a skill challenge. Looks like you guys need to figure out a way to cross an unstable bridge. Base DC is 18, and we need 5 successes before 2 failures.
P1: Endurance 21
P2: History 15
P3: Insight 25
P4: Athletics 29
P1: Diplomacy 32
DM: Diplomacy? No, pick something applicable please
P1: Fine. Endurance again, 19.
DM: Ok, you crossed the bridge successfully....

And that assumes that the DM does not allow a Diplomacy check vs the bridge.

I still think that the system is at its core a good one though, for one simple reason. Given that how the players are meant to resolve any given skill challenge is wide open, it will bring the players more fully into the game than they might otherwise be. As has been said elsewhere, the story behind a D&D game is what results from the people at the table rolling dice and playing the game.

On top of that, it gives the DM a guideline on how to create an interesting encounter in game that does not specifically require a fight and does not necessarily require an NPC. In games where there are occasional obstacles, like a pit, playing those out is usually pretty lame. DM tells the players there is a hole in the path. The players roll some skills or cast some spells, maybe someone falls in. Resolution is fast, but not particularly interesting. It turns into just a potential resource tax on those who did not put skills into something like Jump or Climb.

It is possible to run an engaging encounter in 3rd edition that is both non combat and non role play. Getting the desired result from them in terms of entertainment is much like trying to drive a screw with a hammer. It can work, and sometimes it works just fine, but it is a pain in the ass. The Skill Challenge system is a new tool for the DM's to use.

You may say that not all DMs are above average. Well, not all carpenters are great either. But good or bad, if I have to hire a carpenter, I would like him to have as many tools as there are useful to the job at hand.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[WalterKovacs]

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.

I'm guessing the clear delineation is specifically that skill challenges are set up as if they are combat encounters, with XP attached, which is why they make them intentionally complicated in terms of "X number of successes before you reach Y failures".

Again, it's important to remember that we are looking at something where people have taken some tidbits of the rules and implemented it themselves.

======

In terms of "players set the difficulty", they technically do. Based on what they describe as what they are attempting to do, will determine how hard it is to pull off. So, if they describe an "easy" skill check they get the easy DC. If they describe something that has to be hard to pull off, they get a hard DC. The DM assigns the DC, but it will be based on the level of difficulty of the maneuver the player is attempting.

Disabling the corpse bomb when you know what it is may be easy, but with no idea what it is, it's hard, etc.

 

[Primal]

You say this like it's a negative thing.

Seems like the Hong-bot is just repeating the same phrases over and over again -- must inform the Rouse to check his programming routines.

 

[LostSoul]

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with. However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

I didn't know the outcome was binary.

 

[Lacyon]

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with. However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

Having not seen the full rules, there may be better guidelines than what I've come up with based solely on what I've seen so far. That said, strictly binary isn't necessary if you use what we know of the system as a baseline. You just need to know that there's at least one point at which you can clearly consider the challenge successful and at least one point at which you can clearly consider the challenge failed.

Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!"). The obvious binary outcomes would be: You manage to flee/You fail to flee.

But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain. What about some of the party getting caught, and some not. What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin? It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."

This is where you either need more tools than we've seen, or you need to get creative with the tools we have seen. Nothing so far has said that Y failures means the entire party is captured, though I would imagine X successes does need to mean that the entire party is free.

Likewise, nothing says that a failed check has to mean that the city guard itself has gotten closer to you. Perhaps it instead means that you've encountered a ravenous halfling in what you thought was an empty alleyway.

I just don't see that many scenarios where there is a clear-cut success/failure. This might make more sense in a module, or a very linear plot...but in a (and here I reveal my shameless elitism...=( ) more roleplaying-oriented game, this type of mechanic doesn't seem to make sense to use.

-Cross

It doesn't need to be all that clear-cut. If the party reaches X-1 needed successes before finally succumbing to Y failures, the final result needs to be based on how you've described intermediate successes and failures to this point. Likewise, nothing prevents you from having negative after-effects when the party reaches Y-1 failures before ultimately gathering the needed X successes.

While overall success and failure (in this case, the party escapes vs. at least one member does not escape) need to be adhered to for the system to be functional, the fine details of exactly what that means don't seem to be defined.