D&D 5E Skill Challenges in 5e

[NotAYakk]

I'm not talking about group skill checks, if by that you mean the entire party rolls the same skill. I mean that my players hated the requirement that no player could make a second skill roll until everyone had rolled some skill or another, even though each player got to choose which skill to roll for.

Yep, that is a gameist flaw.

Hence the idea of moving from that to a simulationlist situation. Instead of "every PC gets a turn", rather we have "the problem gets a turn after everyone has an opportunity to do something".

Players are now free to not do something. It isn't "you have to wait for every PC to take a turn", but rather "you don't get to do 2 things before the problem acts". Other players also get to do something before the problem acts, or not.

 

[Oofta]

In some ways I think the way many DMs used skill challenges in 4E put the cart in front of the horse. Throw together a bunch of skill checks which are somewhat divorced from the scene. Make sure that every PC has to do something.

I think a better way is to figure out the scene and then figure out the challenge/obstacle. In other words, I like to set up a variety of challenges for my group. Sometimes that means a fight, sometimes it means any number of scenarios like getting from point A to point B when there are enemies in the way.

So let's say they're trying to get past some guards. They know that there are two tanks in heavy armor, it's going to be difficult to get past. There are a lot of options, they can attack, they can try to sneak past hoping the tanks don't make too much noise, they can try to create a distraction so the tanks can walk by, they can try to talk their way through.

But I'm not going to set up a skill challenge that says "these are the appropriate skills and you must succeed at X before failing Y". I think of some options, try to give multiple options, think about some ways I might get around this if I were a player. I try to review what skills and backgrounds the PCs have to jog my thought process on options I can make available.

Then I present the scenario, the guards react in ways I think are appropriate and I just kind of improvise what's happening based on what makes sense. Maybe they come up with some option I hadn't considered like putting the tanks into a portable hole while they sneak past. Maybe someone has Pass Without Trace or Dimension Doors with the tanks or they disguise them. Maybe a religion check can give them advantage on a deception check.

The important thing to me is to think of scenarios and obstacles first, how the group is going to overcome those second.

 

[prabe]

The important thing to me is to think of scenarios and obstacles first, how the group is going to overcome those second.

I don't so much worry about figuring out how the PCs are going to "solve" a scenario or obstacles as I do making sure that I can see at least one plausible path. It's a way, not the way.

Which, as you made clear, is at least very close to how you do it.

 

[Li Shenron]

What techniques or methods do you use in your 5e game that make skills and non-combat challenges more interesting?

Less rolls and more problem-solving.

I am sorry but more rolls by itself doesn't make things more interesting. At least there needs to be more decision points between rolls. But still too many rolls end up negating good ideas more often.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't know if I'm that good at it as I don't often have any written out with applicable DCs, but often if there is a problem the players have to solve, I like to provide hints with a roll rather than just "You rolled a 19, you successfully solve the problem".

 

[Bacon Bits]

Yep, that is a gameist flaw.

Hence the idea of moving from that to a simulationlist situation. Instead of "every PC gets a turn", rather we have "the problem gets a turn after everyone has an opportunity to do something".

Players are now free to not do something. It isn't "you have to wait for every PC to take a turn", but rather "you don't get to do 2 things before the problem acts". Other players also get to do something before the problem acts, or not.

The funny part is that this is basically the scene rules from half a dozen games I can think of. It's not a new system. It's just that D&D has never really had a formal exploration or social interaction structure.

It doesn't need to be that difficult, either.

Navigating a swamp? Each PC can make a check (Survival, Nature, or Athletics). Each success reduces the consequences of the swamp's turn. It could be a check, or a percentile roll, or a multiplier of some sort that increases the danger. Then, you go back and do it again until the players either reach the success threshold, or the failure threshold.

 

[OptionalRule]

The core idea of Skill Challenges in the 4e PHB and DMG are solid IMO. I like the idea of the event "getting a turn" too. All this stuff about group checks, wrote lists of skills to check off etc, seemed to come out after they decided they wanted to sell whole supplements of skill challenges as a way to make money. People seem fixated on the skill challenge books but I don't think that's how they were originally indented. I just use the root idea of an interesting challenge the players need to suggest solutions for.

 

[Teemu]

Whenever the 4e skill challenge rules are discussed, there’s often a lot of misremembered stuff tossed around. The rules don’t prescribe a certain order for the checks, for example, or that everyone has to roll. One player once told me that they didn’t like the rules—yet turns out the player had actually never even read them! Here are the basics of skill challenges from the 4e Rules Compendium:

To deal with a typical skill challenge, a group of adventurers makes a series of skill checks, sometimes taking a few rounds and sometimes spread over days of game time. The DM either informs the players when the challenge begins or lets it begin quietly, when an adventurer makes a skill check that the DM counts as the first check of the challenge. As the challenge proceeds, the DM might prompt the players to make checks, let them choose when to make checks, or both. The DM can have the adventurers act in initiative order or in some other order of his or her choice. The DM might tell the players which skills to use, let them improvise which ones they use, or both.

The skill challenge is completed either when a specified number of successful skill checks is achieved or when three failures are reached.
If the adventurers complete the challenge through achieving a target number of successes, they succeed at the challenge. Otherwise, they fail the challenge. Whether the adventurers succeed or fail, they complete the challenge, face its consequences, and receive experience points for it.
For example, the adventurers seek a temple in the heart of a jungle—a skill challenge that might occupy them for hours. Achieving six successes means they find their way without too much trouble. Accumulating three failures before achieving the successes, however, indicates that they get lost for part of the search, fight their way through quicksand, and arrive at the temple worn out, having lost some healing surges on the way.

There’s also advice on allowing suitable powers or rituals to count as successes, and the rules encourage the DM to include a variety of different skills and approaches. They talk about degrees of success, meaning that a good challenge takes into account the number of failures and successes to determine the final outcome, instead of every challenge being a binary success or failure (which I’ve seen in published adventures).

I’ve used skill challenges in 5e, but the main problem has been setting the DCs in order to achieve the desired difficulty. I have absolutely no clue how difficult it is to succeed on four DC 15 checks vs six DC 12 checks, as an example.

 

[Rune]

Whenever the 4e skill challenge rules are discussed, there’s often a lot of misremembered stuff tossed around. The rules don’t prescribe a certain order for the checks, for example, or that everyone has to roll. One player once told me that they didn’t like the rules—yet turns out the player had actually never even read them! Here are the basics of skill challenges from the 4e Rules Compendium:

There’s also advice on allowing suitable powers or rituals to count as successes, and the rules encourage the DM to include a variety of different skills and approaches. They talk about degrees of success, meaning that a good challenge takes into account the number of failures and successes to determine the final outcome, instead of every challenge being a binary success or failure (which I’ve seen in published adventures).

I’ve used skill challenges in 5e, but the main problem has been setting the DCs in order to achieve the desired difficulty. I have absolutely no clue how difficult it is to succeed on four DC 15 checks vs six DC 12 checks, as an example.

While I don’t care enough to dig out my old 4e books, I want to point out that the rules compendium includes the rules as they stood in 2010 (when Essentials came out). There was a ton of errata before that point (and I mean a ton – sometimes it seemed 4e was doing errata in real-time).

Skill challenges were almost certainly one of those areas affected, considering they were revised for the – I wanna say – DMG 2.

 

[NotAYakk]

While I don’t care enough to dig out my old 4e books, I want to point out that the rules compendium includes the rules as they stood in 2010 (when Essentials came out). There was a ton of errata before that point (and I mean a ton – sometimes it seemed 4e was doing errata in real-time).

Skill challenges were almost certainly one of those areas affected, considering they were revised for the – I wanna say – DMG 2.

The big change was before it was 9 successes before 9/2 failures, and after it was 9 successes before 3 failures.

And the DCs where tweaked.

The core part of skill challenges was really simple:
A check moves you towards success or failure by a measured amount.

As a DM, for a complexity X challenge, you can ask for 2X+1 successes before you should shut up and let the PCs succeed at the stakes in question.

At launch, after X failures you also shut up and let the PCs fail.

After revision, after 3 failures you also shut up and let the PCs fail.

You decide "how complex is this problem", and then this gives you a budget for how many hoops you are allowed to put the PCs through. If you ask a PC every round to make a stealth check? Well, there goes your complexity budget.

A failed stealth check, is everything over? Do you give the PCs more chances? Well, count failures! Keep giving PCs more chances until you run out of failures in your challenge.

So a PC sneaks into a castle to get the plans for the winter's ball (where they want to assassinate the king).

If you ask for 10 checks and the PC passes 9 of them, you just blew your skill challenge budget for a C4 challenge. If it is C5, you can ask for 2 more checks, if they both succeed, the PCs succeed at the challenge.

When the PC fails a stealth check, does everything fall apart and the challenge becomes impossible? No! You need 5 (at launch) or 3 (after revision) before you get to say "your plans aren't going to work" or whatever.

So, how important is that sneaking? Only a bit? Well, give them one stealth roll. On a success, they manage to get the plans. On a failure, they get part of them, and alert the guard that something is up on the way out.

Something more important? More checks and detail. Something less important? Call for one check, and narrate results in bulk. Something irrelevant? It doesn't work, no check. They do something stupid that pretty certainly makes things harder? Here, have a failure.

Much like the encounter building rules of 4e, they are a tool to build an encounter.