D&D 5E Skill Challenges in 5E

[Jester David]

I like Skill Challenges but find there are multiple different ways of handling complex Skill Checks, and Challenges are just one.

Often I quite like X successes in Y rounds. Sometimes speed matters more than just succeeding. You can add complications where failure by more than 5 removes a success.

Skill Challenges work best when there's a strong narrative. When each failure means something and isn't just this vague "failure". I also like making it possible to remove failures.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I like Skill Challenges but find there are multiple different ways of handling complex Skill Checks, and Challenges are just one.

Often I quite like X successes in Y rounds. Sometimes speed matters more than just succeeding. You can add complications where failure by more than 5 removes a success.

Skill Challenges work best when there's a strong narrative. When each failure means something and isn't just this vague "failure". I also like making it possible to remove failures.

I've often used this method, and it worked quite well. I also used Skill Challenges for travel/exploration, with lots of "secondary" checks to do things like avoid or overcome hazards, etc.

The thing that really helped me with 4e Skill challenges was when I really embraced the idea that the core SC structure -- X successes before Y failures, etc -- that was just a starting point, and that each skill challenge could be wildly different, depending upon what I was trying to simulate.

I created macro challenges that used the same basic mechanic, but instead of skill checks each success or failure was a minor quest or deed the party needed to complete.

I created combat challenges to abstract grinding but boring slogs through trash encounters between important encounters. Characters used attacks in addition to skill checks to try to deal with those challenges, had role-based special abilities, and so on.

And so on. Skill challenges are a selection of paints to mix, and a canvas. And the same structures can totally work in my 5e/Next games.

BUT it may not be necessary to make such a big deal of presenting the system to players -- a good, detailed chapter in a DMG about building complex, interesting, playable non-combat encounters might include ideas that were developed in the creation of skill challenges could be a huge help to young DMs. I'd love to see some patterns described that include X successes before Y failures, X successes before Y rounds, Flow charts with a variety of checks and actions required to move from one point to another, and so on.

So, that's what I'm hoping we'll see.

-rg

 

[Blackbrrd]

I still haven't figured out what are the benefits...

For instance in your example, what is the difference between different checks? What decisions can the players/characters take? The only point mentioned is that you can sacrifice one PC to be arrested and then get a +4 on all the following checks, but beside this, the whole sequence of checks just sounds to me exactly like a bare sequence of checks. If that's the case, the only achievement of this mechanic is to reduce randomness, in most cases this means higher chance of success overall.

It's very nice to have a suggested outcome for success and failure, but this doesn't necessarily require using skill challenges, you could have the same if you resolved all the scene with one single check.

If we're going to have a system, then what I expect the system to offer is tactical choices at every round (i.e. at every check): just like in combat you choose "do I shoot an arrow, cast a spell, heal an ally, drink a potion, etc." there can be similar things, but if the choice is only "do I roll diplomacy, bluff or intimidate" the answer is you just always roll what you have the largest bonus at, isn't it?

Then there can be a much larger range of outcome than success or failure. In combat, the outcome is not just win/lose: you can win or lose with a different amount of expenses and casualties, you can lose by having to flee, surrender and be captured or TPK, and win also doesn't necessarily imply to kill all adversaries (sometimes you want information or prisoners).

My point is, these are the things I'm interested in, and the only advantage I can see of skill challenges over a single roll, is the ability to change something at every round/step, just like you can change your tactic or try something different at every round in combat.

Otherwise it's just the same as rolling one check, since you can also have a range of outcome with just one roll, e.g. based on how much you beat/miss the DC, or perhaps adding an additional "damage roll" or roll on a table (if the possible outcomes can not be ordered in magnitude).

Some really good points here.

Maybe they should show how to use mechanics similar to what they did in Red Hand of Doom. There they had a mechanic with a sliding scale by giving out points for sub-sections of the adventure. When you came to the forth chapter, they used the amount of points to see how bad the big fight would be and so on. It was pretty transparent to the players what happened if they failed at a specific part. For instance if they didn't manage to either defeat the Lich or get him out of the alliance, they would probably have to fight him later on.

To get the points "needed" in Red Hand of Doom, you had to prioritize threats, try to discover ways of handling the threats (information gathering), handle the threat, either through bargaining, intimidation or combat (or whatever you could come up with). It had all the rich resource managment of combat and was a important piece of the puzzle that made the adventure as good as it was.

 

[dmccoy1693]

For instance in your example, what is the difference between different checks? What decisions can the players/characters take? The only point mentioned is that you can sacrifice one PC to be arrested and then get a +4 on all the following checks, but beside this, the whole sequence of checks just sounds to me exactly like a bare sequence of checks. If that's the case, the only achievement of this mechanic is to reduce randomness, in most cases this means higher chance of success overall.

It was just a quick example. If I was writing up a skill challenge for an adventure, I'd put in considerable more possibilities.

you could have the same if you resolved all the scene with one single check.

That is, IMO, exactly what skill challenges are meant to avoid. One check, if you roll bad, oh well, you lose. If you have a series of rolls, you can figure out something to help you and give you a bonus if they are not going your way. That is, IMO, the single biggest reason why 3.5's skill system sucked. Combat would be a multi-round, multi-roll affair, but all skill checks were a one and done. If you failed, sucks to be you.

If we're going to have a system, then what I expect the system to offer is tactical choices at every round (i.e. at every check): just like in combat you choose "do I shoot an arrow, cast a spell, heal an ally, drink a potion, etc." there can be similar things, but if the choice is only "do I roll diplomacy, bluff or intimidate" the answer is you just always roll what you have the largest bonus at, isn't it?

Only if you want to suffer the consequences. If you're a half orc with advantage on intimidate checks, you can try to intimidate Lord Mumblename, but it will get you sent to the stockade. Are you expecting to set out to stop the orc raiders right away or will the party delay for a day, cause the village of Somewheresville to be burned to the ground. All because the player went with the biggest bonus.

Like I said, I did a quick write up; if this were for an actual adventure, I'd put more into it.

My point is, these are the things I'm interested in, and the only advantage I can see of skill challenges over a single roll, is the ability to change something at every round/step, just like you can change your tactic or try something different at every round in combat.

Otherwise it's just the same as rolling one check, since you can also have a range of outcome with just one roll, e.g. based on how much you beat/miss the DC, or perhaps adding an additional "damage roll" or roll on a table (if the possible outcomes can not be ordered in magnitude).

We're on the same page as far as the advantages a skill challenge. I just don't see your argument for the single skill check. Single checks are not my thing. Hence why I was making a case for the skill challenge.

 

[dmccoy1693]

BUT it may not be necessary to make such a big deal of presenting the system to players -- a good, detailed chapter in a DMG about building complex, interesting, playable non-combat encounters might include ideas that were developed in the creation of skill challenges could be a huge help to young DMs. I'd love to see some patterns described that include X successes before Y failures, X successes before Y rounds, Flow charts with a variety of checks and actions required to move from one point to another, and so on.

At one level, I agree with you. At another level, I don't. I fully agree that non-combat encounters need to be really fleshed out in the DMG, and the intricacies should be kept hidden from the players, in much the same way players shouldn't be reading the MM, but the basic framework should be there for the players.

Example: I published the Book of the River Nations. Its a book on how to build your own kingdom in Pathfinder. Some GMs kept it to themselves and let the players more or less guess at how to build a kingdom. Others told their players to buy the book and read it (as the publisher, I liked that second group, but we'll ignore that for the moment). The feedback we got was night and day. Almost universally, groups where the players had the rules were engaged and ready to build their kingdom and they did well with them. Again, almost universally, groups that did not have the rules felt frustrated and frequently asked to give up on the kingdom building aspect of the rules.

Skill Challenges should be given as much space as a combat encounter of the same difficulty. More detail and options (like you said in the rest of your post) would make them much more interesting. The particulars of each encounter should be kept from the players, but I still think the players should have the basic rules to work from.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Skill Challenges should be given as much space as a combat encounter of the same difficulty. More detail to each would make them much more interesting. The particulars of each encounter should be kept from the players, but I still think the players should have the basic rules to work from.

Totally with you on the first point.

I have mixed feelings about the rest. A lot depends upon what you value most in the RPG experience.

Gamers want to know the rules so they can find the opportunities to squeeze out great performance in their characters. The encounters can become as engaging as combat if the complexity and variety of choices they have to make are roughly equivalent to the choices they get to make in combat. In combat, a player chooses where to move to, how to get there, how to avoid dangers along the way, what to do when he gets there, which attack to use, and even though the dice randomize some results, the player has a good idea what his odds of success are and how he can improve those odds (make sure you attack with combat advantage, etc).

So long as combat has those sorts of granular, interesting, specific choices, and exploration and roleplaying encounters don't, the non-combat encounters will never be as interesting to the gamers.

Story-focused players see all the superstructure of game mechanics into the non-combat scenes as distractions from the the part of the game they value most, and for which they tolerate the combat side of the game.

If you've got story-focused players, but as a DM you like the structure that a SC system gives you for running non-combat encounters, you probably don't want to share the details with your players. If your players are gamers, you're going to want to lay those structures and rules out front so they can play the game.

And, of course, we all have both kinds of players in our groups, and each of our players is somewhere on that continuum, and is not just one or the other. (Except for a couple of the guys in my game, and they know who they are.....)

All of that is just to say I don't think there's a single right answer for Skill Challenges -- and maybe that's why Next, with it's modular, make-the-game-you-want-from-these-building-blocks approach will actually be the right way to handle these. And it could be different every single time.

Here's what I mean: Classic Skill Challenge-type Application: Chase Scene.

Some chases are simple things, like a purse-snatcher in the opening of a Law & Order episode that accidentally leads the party to a dead body. The chase doesn't matter much in the game and you don't want to spend a lot of time on it. A quick set of opposed dex checks might be enough to settle the scene.

Some chases are the whole story. Like Smokey & The Bandit. The players are going to need to make complex checks, solve complex problems along the way, feel the pressure of the Smokey on their tail, and make vitally important tactical decisions about the chase as they go. And, in a couple of weeks, when I decide that the next session will be Smokey & The Bandit II - I'll want to try out some different mechanics and ideas to keep the game fresh. So even these two macro chase challenges will be different from each other, and that's great.

We need a system that will let us build both, as we need them, and that won't tell us that either is the "right" way to do it.

-rg

 

[Pseudopsyche]

The feedback we got was night and day. Almost universally, groups where the players had the rules were engaged and ready to build their kingdom and they did well with them. Again, almost universally, groups that did not have the rules felt frustrated and frequently asked to give up on the kingdom building aspect of the rules.

I'm all for D&D Next having a kingdom-building module, in much the same way we're getting mechanics for exploration and for interaction. I'm wary of any attempt to create a one-minigame-fits-all framework to handle all challenges of skill. That's not to say that such a framework is intrinsically bad; I'm just skeptical that someone will arrive at a practical design in the context of D&D anytime soon.

As a mechanical framework, 4E skill challenges suffer from reducing each player action to one of seventeen fixed skills, and reducing the "game state" to the number of successes and the number of failures. It would be the equivalent to formalizing all combat encounters as follows: The party collectively has 3 hp. The monsters collectively have 4-12 hp, depending on difficulty. The monsters have 17 defenses, each of which has one of three different values (easy/medium/hard). Each player has 17 different attack bonuses, one for each defense. Each player takes turns attacking a particular defense; if they hit, the monsters lose 1 hp and if they miss, the PCs lose 1 hp. I suspect that many players would find these mechanics unsatisfying, and if anything, 4E needs these mechanics to cover a wider range of encounters than the actual combat mechanics do.

The actual 4E combat mechanics introduce much more state: the positions of each creature, the HP of each creature, and the current conditions afflicting each creature. It introduces unique actions for each creature, as well as some setting-specific terrain actions. I don't think you can define states and actions for the general case of non-combat challenges. I do believe you could do it for kingdom building, which is what makes that a fine module to provide.

 

[keterys]

If you look at combat through the lens of "I have a melee basic attack only and fight only on a featureless plain" it looks pretty bland and boring (well, at least to me). Similarly, you shouldn't look at skill challenges the same way. Though if you did, 17 skills would actually compare quite favorably.

You should always feel that ideas, ingenuity, power and item use are valid approaches to a skill challenge. Sometimes you might entirely negate a scene, gain bonuses, create new complications, etc. It's still a RP game, you still have options.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I've never liked the 4E implementation of skill challenges, but I often use a freeform implementation of the Heroes of Battle victory point system as a basis for all sorts of complex goals.

Of course, they aren't entirely analogous. 4E has a rather encounter centric ethos, which the skill challenge evoked. The victory point system is more about goals, which is more adventure centric and fitting for 5E.

 

[Dausuul]

I haven't heard anyone refer to skill challenges that way before. Could you explain a little further?

The skill challenge mechanic as presented in the 4E books is a framework, a skeleton. It's not a working system by itself. I have seen skill challenges run strictly as presented in the book, and they're the most boring thing you can imagine. People just pick their best applicable skills and roll dice till the DM says it's over.

Now, you can build some quite nice scenarios on top of the skill challenge framework. The sample challenges in the DMG offer some good ideas. But none of those examples is a plain, roll-till-you're-done skill challenge. They all introduce a variety of mechanics for different skills to shape the scenario in different ways. Compare that to the combat system; if you just set your XP budget and throw together some monsters out of the Monster Manual*, you may not have a nail-biting thriller of an encounter that the players will remember forever, but you'll have a decent hackfest.

If 5E wants to take that skeleton and put some meat on it, I'd like to see what they do with it. But I'm not all that enthusiastic about replicating what was in 4E.

[SIZE=-2]*Well, the Monster Manual 3 or later.[/SIZE]