agassparkle
First Post
Pls help me understand this ?
So far i have no clue.
So far i have no clue.
skill challenges - how are they used ?
- Thread starter agassparkle
- Start date
delericho
Legend
To a certain extent, rjfTrebor is right - the first step is for you to read up on the subject in the rulebooks. However, as a brief synopsis:
Skill Challenges are a catch-all for pretty much any non-combat challenge that you want to capture mechanically. Do the PCs have to chase down a suspect? Skill Challenge. Do they then have to interrogate that suspect? Skill Challenge. Do they need to schooze a nobleman at a high society ball? Skill Challenge. Do they have to build a cathedral to the glory of their deity? Skill Challenge. Are they lost in the desert and need to find a way to safety before their water runs out? Skill Challenge.
And so on.
At its base level, a Skill Challenge pretty much just involves each player in turn describing how his character will try to help, rolling against the relevant skill, and the counting the success or failure. There's a threshold of 'successes' needed to win the challenge, and a threshold of 'failures' for losing it.
However, Skill Challenges generally work best if you don't simply stick slavishly to the format given in the DMG. But that's probably a topic for another day.
Skill Challenges are a catch-all for pretty much any non-combat challenge that you want to capture mechanically. Do the PCs have to chase down a suspect? Skill Challenge. Do they then have to interrogate that suspect? Skill Challenge. Do they need to schooze a nobleman at a high society ball? Skill Challenge. Do they have to build a cathedral to the glory of their deity? Skill Challenge. Are they lost in the desert and need to find a way to safety before their water runs out? Skill Challenge.
And so on.
At its base level, a Skill Challenge pretty much just involves each player in turn describing how his character will try to help, rolling against the relevant skill, and the counting the success or failure. There's a threshold of 'successes' needed to win the challenge, and a threshold of 'failures' for losing it.
However, Skill Challenges generally work best if you don't simply stick slavishly to the format given in the DMG. But that's probably a topic for another day.
agassparkle
First Post
Thank you for your explanation. It is always to read a second opinion when you think you didn't understand the first one.
Nullzone
Explorer
Step 1) Read DMG for basics.
Step 2) Read DMG2 to see how a skill challenge is ACTUALLY done.
Step 3) Scratch the formal layout and just give people narrative scenes to solve. Use simple easy/medium/hard DCs by level (based on what they describe their character doing) to determine success/failure.
Step 2) Read DMG2 to see how a skill challenge is ACTUALLY done.
Step 3) Scratch the formal layout and just give people narrative scenes to solve. Use simple easy/medium/hard DCs by level (based on what they describe their character doing) to determine success/failure.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Don't get to hung up on the "prepared" part of skill challenges, or the official manner of presentation. Think of a skill challenge in an adventure as an efficient way to convey a lot of information about a something that may or may not be a "challenge" to the party.
If the majority of the party is involved in the activity, it requires several different skills and repeated skill checks to solve, and it is worth XP to win it--then it is probably a skill challenge.
If it fails to meet that criteria, then it probably isn't a skill challenge, and should be resolved with simple skill checks.
Either way, you'll still use a certain amount of player direction, GM decision, and narration to keep the story moving.
After you have run the game a bit, you can easily switch in and out of skill challenge format as the player actions warrant. If that trip through the wilderness to the dungeon turns ultra-simple because they hire an experienced guide, then that was a combination of player agency (via gold) and maybe a skill check to negotiate and a group skill check to make the trip speedily. Without more challenge, it isn't a skill challenge. On the other hand, if the party does everything themselves, requires multiple checks to keep from getting lost and avoiding hazards--or forage when they do take longer--then probably a skill challenge.
Finally, you can think of skill challenges as dramatic focus on the challenge. That trek through the wood on the partys' resources will take game time to resolve, and should accordingly be fun. Maybe the players spend the gold to get the guide and bypass the challenge because they don't consider that part fun enough to go after the XP.
If the majority of the party is involved in the activity, it requires several different skills and repeated skill checks to solve, and it is worth XP to win it--then it is probably a skill challenge.
If it fails to meet that criteria, then it probably isn't a skill challenge, and should be resolved with simple skill checks.
Either way, you'll still use a certain amount of player direction, GM decision, and narration to keep the story moving.
After you have run the game a bit, you can easily switch in and out of skill challenge format as the player actions warrant. If that trip through the wilderness to the dungeon turns ultra-simple because they hire an experienced guide, then that was a combination of player agency (via gold) and maybe a skill check to negotiate and a group skill check to make the trip speedily. Without more challenge, it isn't a skill challenge. On the other hand, if the party does everything themselves, requires multiple checks to keep from getting lost and avoiding hazards--or forage when they do take longer--then probably a skill challenge.
Finally, you can think of skill challenges as dramatic focus on the challenge. That trek through the wood on the partys' resources will take game time to resolve, and should accordingly be fun. Maybe the players spend the gold to get the guide and bypass the challenge because they don't consider that part fun enough to go after the XP.
Neonchameleon
Legend
I almost always use them as an improvised tool. The party come up with something complex making me say "You want to what?". I then quickly assess it as a skill challenge, make the party roll relevant skill checks at strategic intervals, and keep a tally chart behind the DM screen to see how the challenge is going. They are especially useful for semi-split party plans where the fighter creates a mess at the front door to allow the rogue to sneak in more easily or whatever. And then I throw half the framework out just using the easy/medium/hard DCs for the level of what the PCs are attempting.
Unlike some others here I tend to stick pretty closely to the framework of N successess before 3 failures - though in time-sensitive situations I will incorporate a default 1 failure per round if the PCs don't make some sort of progress against the challenge (eg if the PCs are trying to stop an evil ritual during combat, every round that the ritual caster spends an action on the ritual, one failure is accumulated). My reason for doing this is that I like the discipline it puts on pacing - after N+2 skill checks have been made, we know that the situation has been resolved one way or another.
I think that skill challenges can be divided into two broad categories - complex skill checks, and scene resolution. A complex skill check is something like stopping a trap, or opening a door, etc. In this sort of challenge, you would normally be using a low-complexity challenge, and it will often be the case that only a couple of PCs are participating. Each check by one of these PCs will be making a clear contribution towards resolving the problem. You can narrate successful skill checks as straight forward progress towards the goal, and failed skill checks (short of the third failure) as temporary setbacks.
With scene resolution, on the other hand, the skill challenge is used to handle the resolution of a whole conflict. At least in my case, I use these sorts of skill challenges most often for social conflict. The key in this sort of challenge is to narrate the unfolding scene in a way that reflects the actions being undertaken by the PCs. (The skill challenge guidelines often present this in a very formalised way - eg with a successful Insight check the PC notes that the Duke is interested in being flattered about his family's past, which opens up the possibility of a History check - but in play I find this can normally be handled very fluidly.) The choices that the players make earlier in the challenge therefore affect the range of options they have later in the challenge (just as choices made earlier in a combat affect the range of choices available later in a combat).
As a GM, when you narrate the unfolding of a scene resolution skill challenge, you have to be definite enough that the whole thing is moving forward, but leave enough room for flexibility that you can incorporate the consequences of subsequent checks, and leave room to narrate the success or the failure that ends up occurring. (It's a bit like in combat - you don't want to narrate a PC who is dropped to 0 hp as having had his/her head cut off, given that the same PC might roll a 20 and be back on his/her feet next round - but you have to narrate something or else it may as well be a mere dice game. Skill challenge narration requires the same sort of narrative agility on the part of the GM.)
Here are some links to discussions of skill challenges I've run in my game - taming a bear and dealing with a water weird, attending dinner at the invitation of the Baron only to find the party's mortal foe also at the dining table, and persuading a captured prisoner to talk. Taming the bear is an example of a complex skill check, although the whole party participated, but the others are all examples of using the skill challenge to resolve a scene, with the earlier choices made in the challenge setting the parameters for the later choices, until the scene comes to its end (at somewhere between 3 and N+2 checks).
I think that skill challenges can be divided into two broad categories - complex skill checks, and scene resolution. A complex skill check is something like stopping a trap, or opening a door, etc. In this sort of challenge, you would normally be using a low-complexity challenge, and it will often be the case that only a couple of PCs are participating. Each check by one of these PCs will be making a clear contribution towards resolving the problem. You can narrate successful skill checks as straight forward progress towards the goal, and failed skill checks (short of the third failure) as temporary setbacks.
With scene resolution, on the other hand, the skill challenge is used to handle the resolution of a whole conflict. At least in my case, I use these sorts of skill challenges most often for social conflict. The key in this sort of challenge is to narrate the unfolding scene in a way that reflects the actions being undertaken by the PCs. (The skill challenge guidelines often present this in a very formalised way - eg with a successful Insight check the PC notes that the Duke is interested in being flattered about his family's past, which opens up the possibility of a History check - but in play I find this can normally be handled very fluidly.) The choices that the players make earlier in the challenge therefore affect the range of options they have later in the challenge (just as choices made earlier in a combat affect the range of choices available later in a combat).
As a GM, when you narrate the unfolding of a scene resolution skill challenge, you have to be definite enough that the whole thing is moving forward, but leave enough room for flexibility that you can incorporate the consequences of subsequent checks, and leave room to narrate the success or the failure that ends up occurring. (It's a bit like in combat - you don't want to narrate a PC who is dropped to 0 hp as having had his/her head cut off, given that the same PC might roll a 20 and be back on his/her feet next round - but you have to narrate something or else it may as well be a mere dice game. Skill challenge narration requires the same sort of narrative agility on the part of the GM.)
Here are some links to discussions of skill challenges I've run in my game - taming a bear and dealing with a water weird, attending dinner at the invitation of the Baron only to find the party's mortal foe also at the dining table, and persuading a captured prisoner to talk. Taming the bear is an example of a complex skill check, although the whole party participated, but the others are all examples of using the skill challenge to resolve a scene, with the earlier choices made in the challenge setting the parameters for the later choices, until the scene comes to its end (at somewhere between 3 and N+2 checks).
Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
I'd also like to throw out this thread here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/241440-stalker0s-obsidian-skill-challenge-system-new-version-1-2-a.html
It is an alternative way of doing skill challenges if you don't like the way they are handled in the DMGs.
It is an alternative way of doing skill challenges if you don't like the way they are handled in the DMGs.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Narrative, narrative is the key. Create a story with your skill challenge. It has to go from here to there in some sort of conceptual space with bumps and diversions and obstacles along the way, and meaningful choices for the PCs to make. An SC should be a bit like an adventure in miniature.
Think about a desert trek. You could do a survival skill challenge where the PCs make lots of endurance checks and what not, but if you give it a beginning, a middle, and an end, now it becomes a story, with a plot and drama. The beginning relies on properly preparing, rolls to get a good map, to learn rumors, to hire the right guide, get the best gear, etc. The middle has your endurance and navigation and such, and then you get to the end, where something happens to resolve the story, the PCs avoid the bandits, find the cave, come to the oasis and don't drink the poison water, etc.
Think about a desert trek. You could do a survival skill challenge where the PCs make lots of endurance checks and what not, but if you give it a beginning, a middle, and an end, now it becomes a story, with a plot and drama. The beginning relies on properly preparing, rolls to get a good map, to learn rumors, to hire the right guide, get the best gear, etc. The middle has your endurance and navigation and such, and then you get to the end, where something happens to resolve the story, the PCs avoid the bandits, find the cave, come to the oasis and don't drink the poison water, etc.
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