D&D 5E Skill Challenges in 5E

[WhatGravitas]

I'm still not getting why him falling isn't an appropriate narrative... but after failing the DC check, him succeeding in the climb is

Ah, I find falling would be an appropriate consequence for a genuinely bad roll, but that was aimed at addressing this dissonance from the example:

Rogue: "Wait, but I have a rope and a wall to brace against, the PHB says that is DC 15."
DM: "Yeah...but this is a skill challenge and the DC is 18 for your level."

No fiction isn't always forced to conform to mechanics... mechanics can be built and conform to fiction as well. I swing my sword to hit him... I make an attack roll... the fiction informed the mechanics being used.

But it's also a forth-and-back - you propose a fiction (swing the sword), you roll (mechanics happen), the fiction changes according to the mechanical outcome (hit/miss/flesh would etc.) - in the skill challenge, it's the same: you propose an action (climb the wall), you roll (mechanics happen), the fiction changes according to the mechanical outcome (clean climb/fall/precarious climb - aka "brittle").

he also didn't fail the SC, because it wasn't the 3rd failure... it was the 1st. And again, him falling didn't stop the adventure from moving forward, did it? He had another path to succeed, right?

So the skill challenge was neither completely failed, nor succeed yet? That sounds like it's somewhere in between...

Skill challenges don't have partial failure/success, they are binary.

And hence - until it's finished, it's in an indeterminate state, hence the need for graduation.

Also, I'll have to consult the DMG/DMG2 (not at hand right now), but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to treat a skill challenge completely failed or completely successful differently (sorry, on the go, will return to this later).

 

[Imaro]

Ah, I find falling would be an appropriate consequence for a genuinely bad roll, but that was aimed at addressing this dissonance from the example:

But again the rules for SC's don't address this partial successes for a non-genuinely bad roll (which again is total DM fiat), this is something you are adding to SC's (which is fine and good but not attributable to the rules). I thought the disonance was attributed to the fact that the wall was exceptionally brittle... if not what was the point of that narrative?

But it's also a forth-and-back - you propose a fiction (swing the sword), you roll (mechanics happen), the fiction changes according to the mechanical outcome (hit/miss/flesh would etc.) - in the skill challenge, it's the same: you propose an action (climb the wall), you roll (mechanics happen), the fiction changes according to the mechanical outcome (clean climb/fall/precarious climb - aka "brittle").

I can agree that it is a back and forth... but your conditions for the mechanical outcomes are not a part of the SC rules. And note I'm not saying they are bad or wrong, only that you are presenting them as if they are in the DMG's rules for SC's and they aren't.

So the skill challenge was neither completely failed, nor succeed yet? That sounds like it's somewhere in between...

And hence - until it's finished, it's in an indeterminate state, hence the need for graduation.

You claimed he failed the SC and didn't fail the specific task... not sure how what you're stating above addresses that??? As for A SC being in a between state, it's not... a skill challenge is in the same neutral state of non-resolution that a skill check is in before someone actually rolls the die. Until the final success or failure is accrued... you have not partially succeeded and you have not partially failed because until that last roll none of the previously gained successes or failures affect what you roll next and you are simply in an unresolved state.

Also, I'll have to consult the DMG/DMG2 (not at hand right now), but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to treat a skill challenge completely failed or completely successful differently (sorry, on the go, will return to this later).

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here... of course a skill challenge completely failed or completely successful will be different... in one you haven't achieved your goal and in the other you have.

 

[Warbringer]

Which was basically what the post you commented on was saying too. That is; those who have made skill challenges work are not doing them according to RAW, but have transcended RAW and developed it into something more, something that is quite hard to put on paper.

We're in agreement until your final point. The rules I have for skill challenges are codified and easy for any players to follow and understand the risks and outcomes*

----
*the changes we made were as much to fit our other house rules (ability to achieve multiple successes on a single roll and that we've been using what is now called "advantage" for 4 years) as a reason correct anything wrong with the 4e DC structure, but, I did add a time critical element, a resource consumption for failure steps, and more flexibility in skill determination.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Because (i) the GM is not making any effort to narrate failures within the context of the fiction and the skill system, and (ii) the players are not making any effort to narrate skill use within the context of the fiction and the skill system.

I don't think this is true. Even in my example, the players still explain within the context of the fiction what they are doing. The Rogue used Athletics to climb down the cliff. The Wizard used Arcana to affix himself to the rope to make it easier to cross. The Cleric prayed to his god to make sure he didn't fall and (presumably) his god used his powers to protect him.

Whether or not any of these skill uses SHOULD be allowed is another story altogether and is really up to the DM.

As for the DM not narrating within the context of the fiction, I believe that happened as well. When someone fails to properly climb, they fall. That's generally the consequence of failing to climb.

If a GM builds a 30th level solo whose attack is described as "wet lettuce", and then has it do 6d12+18 acid and necrotic damage, s/he will have a silly game.

Actually, I believe wet lettuce doing acid and necrotic damage sounds appropriate to me. I'm not a fan of lettuce so I relate it with death and acid.

If a GM narrates an Athletics failure by a capable rogue as falling off the rope, s/he will likewise have a silly game. There are a dozen alternative ways to narrate that which won't produce silliness.

He wasn't skilled enough. The point of a skill check is to determine if you succeed in a skill. If you fail, you haven't succeeded in climbing.

It means your skill isn't high enough. So, he isn't a highly skilled Rogue, he's not highly skilled enough to climb this particular wall.

Ironically enough, this is one of the few things in my example that I was assuming the DM got RIGHT.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That is true - and that is the crux of the problem with them. Not their concept, but the lack of guidelines to use them smoothly with the fiction and how to judge situations where abilities and ideas bypass checks, Also, mismatching DCs (e.g. for climbing up) are a DM problem. If climbing is easier than the skill challenge, then the skill challenge should be easier or the wall they're climbing up should be more challenging.

No, the point of a skill challenge is to give XP out for a non-combat challenge. In order to be able to predict the correct amount of XP to give out, you need DCs that don't change. That's why the XP for a skill challenge is based off of two things: The level of the skill challenge and the complexity. The level of the skill challenge sets the DC for all the skill checks and the complexity determines how many times you need to succeed without failing.

These two factors allow you to say "A level 10 party attempting a complexity 5, level 15 skill challenge has almost no chance of succeeding, so they get a lot of xp should they succeed."

However, if you lower the DC of the skill checks, even if its only one of them then you are making the skill challenge easier. If the DC is 18, then all the skill checks in the challenge have to be DC 18.

This particular problem comes when there are two conflicting ways of determining the difficulty of something, in addition to narration issues. If the PHB says "Hey, a rope with a wall to brace against is DC 15" and the DMG says "All DCs in a skill challenge are the same, based on the level of the skill challenge" then as a DM it's difficult to narrate this wall as DC 18. You can say "Well, this is a little more treacherous than the standard wall, lots of sharp rocks sticking out, making it 18 instead of 15." But players now have the idea in their head that all walls with ropes are DC 15 because it's written in there. It creates a bit of a disconnect. Plus, many DMs don't like to go into a large amount of description. So they are likely to summarize the description as simply "a wall with a rope."

In addition to that, there is a severe problem with narrating things when the DCs have to all be 18 but the players decide what they are doing. If they come up with a decent idea but the DC should be extremely easy, does the DC become easier for that one roll? Does it count as a success at all? Or does the DM have to come up with some convoluted description to match the DC? And how many times can one DM come up with descriptions for DC 30 climb checks before it becomes silly?

That is also a problem with the page 42 DC master table and how people interpret it (i.e. the wrong way round, DCs don't scale to the level, the narrative should scale to match the level-appropriate DC).

The narrative should match the DC, I agree. Which direction one comes at it is rather inconsequential. If a DM says "I want this to be a challenge for the PCs, so I'll look up what a challenging DC should be for their level...Hmm, 28. Alright, this climb check will be DC 28 then. I'll just describe it as extremely dangerous or something." it's just as valid as if the DM says "Ok, this cavern has sharp rocks sticking out of it, it has outcroppings, its super slick with moss and water. I'd say it's DC 28."

I'd hazard a guess that the table is used more often for the former than the latter. I know that's how I used it. My last DM based all the DCs in his game off appropriate DCs for our level. We were asked to use it that was for DCs in Living Forgotten Realms adventures as well.

The idea being that if a DC wasn't level appropriate than it wasn't worth including in an adventure. DCs much lower than the DC for the PCs level were pretty much assumed to auto succeed and DCs much higher than the appropriate DC shouldn't be included in adventures because the PCs are the heroes and should always have a chance of succeeding.

 

[billd91]

EDIT: I think there's a reason they don't (or didn't) follow those leads - namely, fear. Key to any sort of closed scene resolution is a readiness to metagame consequences, and especially failures. So (as came out upthread) a failed climb check is narrated as a broken rope, or a damage wall for the other PCs, rather than as plunging down into the ravine. (In Burning Wheel, Luke Crane explains it this way: each check is intent + task, and when narrating the consequences of a failure the GM should focus more on intent than on task.)

But some RPGers are resolutely opposed to anything smacking of metagame in this way. So the 4e designers, not wanting to offend, don't spell this out. (Though they are happy to present examples that depend upon it, like the sample skill challenge in the Esssentials books. They just don't explain what is happening in those examples.) Which means you get people trying to run skill challenges as exercises in process simulation - no different from complex skill checks - and then complaining about the sorts of silliness that [MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION] gave us upthread.

I think there's a real caution in here. The results you narrate changes the situation and may substantially change the view the players have. For example, if the failed climb check is because the rope breaks, you may have just deprived them of an attempt to retry that task if they're not well-equipped with rope. If the climber had just encountered a loose bit of rock that broke away and slipped on it, even if he didn't fall into the ravine, that does not preclude trying again. There may be a fine line between what the player interprets as a situation in which their plan may work and one in which the plan is no longer tenable. That's one reason why I prefer to view a PC failing at a task is because the PC failed, not because some other arbitrary element (like rain in a diplomatic meeting or a newly discovered ravine appearing in a pursuit - examples from when we butted heads on this topic before) intervened.

 

[keterys]

In order to be able to predict the correct amount of XP to give out, you need DCs that don't change.

Umm, you actually have three DCs even in that level, as well as the suggestion to give out a bonus or auto succeed the check when necessary.

So, for example, you might declare that a smart idea allows the use of the Easy DC. You can also decide that using rope will add +2 to the PC's (or another's or everyone's) checks. Course, if it's a climber's kit, it already does that

The system is a lot more flexible than you're making it out to be. Granted, the _awful_ early examples don't help there.

 

[Starfox]

We're in agreement until your final point. The rules I have for skill challenges are codified and easy for any players to follow and understand the risks and outcomes*

----
*the changes we made were as much to fit our other house rules (ability to achieve multiple successes on a single roll and that we've been using what is now called "advantage" for 4 years) as a reason correct anything wrong with the 4e DC structure, but, I did add a time critical element, a resource consumption for failure steps, and more flexibility in skill determination.

If you think these rules would be generally legible, perhaps you should post or link them?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Umm, you actually have three DCs even in that level, as well as the suggestion to give out a bonus or auto succeed the check when necessary.

So, for example, you might declare that a smart idea allows the use of the Easy DC. You can also decide that using rope will add +2 to the PC's (or another's or everyone's) checks. Course, if it's a climber's kit, it already does that

Yes, the 3 DCs that don't change. When writing adventures, we were specifically told not to use DCs that weren't Easy, Medium or Hard for characters of the level the adventure was designed for.

We were also informed to specify these things in advance. For instance:

Get through a room filled with traps that has a magical trap on the door out
8 successes before 3 failures
Primary skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Thievery (Easy DC). Each character can only get 2 successes maximum in either Athletics or Acrobatics
Other skills: Arcana can be used for only one success to analyze the trap on the door(Hard DC), Religion can be used for only one success to recognize the runes on the door(Medium DC)

You might be able to get to the other side using teleport or something, which would grant an immediate success. However, there's no real chance to get a DC other than the ones listed.

Also, note that this has the same issues as most other skill challenges: 4 PCs could each get 2 successes, solving the skill challenge. If there were 6 PCs...well, who knows how the others get to the other side? You could set another restriction that requires each party member to succeed at least once in order to solve the skill challenge, but then that gets even further away from being a true skill challenge and lends even more reason to just do it freeform.

As for bonuses...yes, you can give out small bonuses or decide to use an easy DC. But the point is you can't choose to use a DC 5 check in a level 30 skill challenge. You choose one of 3 DCs and maybe give a +2.

 

[Warbringer]

If you think these rules would be generally legible, perhaps you should post or link them?

I'll try and put them up this weekend.