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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill Challenges in 5E
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<blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 6177382" data-attributes="member: 54600"><p>I was a big fan of skill challenges at first, but now I would not be sorry to see them omitted from the D&D Next core. Too often, especially in organized play, I have seen skill challenges devolve into players just wanting to spam the skill button with the highest number on their character sheets. Later class designs such as the Thief granted mechanical benefits for skill challenges, so I felt obligated to disclose when the players could enter this mindset. I worked to find ways to make skill challenges feel more natural, and then I realized that all of these attempts boiled down to hiding or removing the skill-challenge mechanics. In combat, the rules give structure to what would otherwise be cowboys-and-indians chaos ("I shot you first!" "No I shot you first!"), but outside of combat, the skill challenge rules don't have enough meat to be intrinsically interesting but have enough weight to get in the way. IMHO. IME. YMMV. </p><p></p><p>I would prefer that D&D Next focus on other ways of achieving the goals of skill challenges. Give DMs suggestions for awarding XP for overcoming non-combat challenges, possibly a mechanical framework, but one that doesn't overtly affect play at the table. Remind DMs to fail forward instead of halting the adventure when PCs keep failing their ability checks.</p><p></p><p>I think that bounded accuracy (and removing skills from the core) have already helped encourage players just to role-play their characters (instead of scanning a list of skills), and the new exploration rules are a good start in providing a more grounded mechanical framework for non-combat play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pseudopsyche, post: 6177382, member: 54600"] I was a big fan of skill challenges at first, but now I would not be sorry to see them omitted from the D&D Next core. Too often, especially in organized play, I have seen skill challenges devolve into players just wanting to spam the skill button with the highest number on their character sheets. Later class designs such as the Thief granted mechanical benefits for skill challenges, so I felt obligated to disclose when the players could enter this mindset. I worked to find ways to make skill challenges feel more natural, and then I realized that all of these attempts boiled down to hiding or removing the skill-challenge mechanics. In combat, the rules give structure to what would otherwise be cowboys-and-indians chaos ("I shot you first!" "No I shot you first!"), but outside of combat, the skill challenge rules don't have enough meat to be intrinsically interesting but have enough weight to get in the way. IMHO. IME. YMMV. I would prefer that D&D Next focus on other ways of achieving the goals of skill challenges. Give DMs suggestions for awarding XP for overcoming non-combat challenges, possibly a mechanical framework, but one that doesn't overtly affect play at the table. Remind DMs to fail forward instead of halting the adventure when PCs keep failing their ability checks. I think that bounded accuracy (and removing skills from the core) have already helped encourage players just to role-play their characters (instead of scanning a list of skills), and the new exploration rules are a good start in providing a more grounded mechanical framework for non-combat play. [/QUOTE]
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Skill Challenges in 5E
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