Skill Challenges: Please stop

[the Jester]

I want to give another example of a skill challenge that I think was particularly successful, although I don't have a write up of it that I can find.

My 1st 4e campaign's climactic bad guy was a death knight named Arawn. (If I hadn't moved a couple hundred miles, there was plenty of room for more bad guys later, but this is how it panned out.) Arawn was one of those undead haunted by the lost love etc etc. To (over)summarize, his love, Dawn, had been murdered by his bishop (he had been a paladin) to cover up some important corruption, and when Arawn found out he fell and fell hard, ultimately becoming a blackguard death knight (in 3e terms- he was around in the background for quite a while).

When the pcs confronted Arawn and battled him, they slew him, but he just laughed and began to reconstitute himself over about a minute. At this point the pcs put together a bunch of clues they had accumulate and figured out that, in order to kill Arawn, they had to lay Dawn's spirit to rest.

This led to them spending their minute of grace rushing to Dawn's chambers (where Arawn had centered his lair, creating several freaky shrines to her) and trying to lay her to rest even as they were beset by hordes of minion zombies that reanimated the round after being killed unless you hit them with fire or radiant (from Open Grave, they are technically Strahd's, but hey, a lot of Arawn's story is based on the same archetypical story as Strahd, so why not?). In addition, there were some other, non-minion bad guys that arrived, and of course, several rounds into the whole thing, Arawn himself rolled in and things got even uglier.

The non-fighting-the-bad-guys part of this encounter was, of course, a skill challenge- a high-complexity, high-difficulty skill challenge. Starting with finding Dawn's chambers, then moving to figuring out where her remains are, then figuring out how to lay her to rest, and finally laying her to rest.

It could have gone any number of other ways, too- it wasn't predetermined that they would take those steps to lay her to rest, only that they had to lay her to rest and the skill challenge would be high-complexity and high-difficulty.

As far as how it went- fantastic. It made for a great climax to a great campaign. The players really enjoyed it, the added complexity of having a running battle while performing a skill challenge meant that the pcs had important tactical decisions to make (attack and move? double move? skill check and move?) and the addition of the skill challenge meant that it took a lot of work to win. And when the party did, they gave each other some high fives and cheered.

 

[KarinsDad]

The non-fighting-the-bad-guys part of this encounter was, of course, a skill challenge- a high-complexity, high-difficulty skill challenge. Starting with finding Dawn's chambers, then moving to figuring out where her remains are, then figuring out how to lay her to rest, and finally laying her to rest.

We had a partial skill challenge partial combat on Sunday. It was in one of the encounters in Keep on the Borderland where the two PCs with Arcana were attempting to stop a magical effect (I won't mention what it was so as to not be a spoiler) while the other PCs fought the NPCs. It actually worked out ok, or at least the two players with Arcana didn't seem to mind using it for multiple rounds. Not as complex as yours, but still, not total combat either. I suspect that some skill challenges mixed with combat might be preferable to some people than some skill challenges by themselves.

 

[wedgeski]

I can certainly get behind some of the conclusions in this thread: that a SC should primarily be used as an accounting mechanic for complex challenges, for one.

But it should also be noted that some well-known DM's such as Piratecat have presented Skill Challenges as complex mini-games where the players are given all the information they need to "game" the challenge, seeking synnergies and strategising over when best to use their primary skills (that thread has been linked before).

This was quite an eye-opening idea but I've stopped short of presenting it to my group because I don't know whether they'd enjoy it or not.

 

[kaomera]

The pity, to me, is that skill challenges are an awesome concept, but I just can't see any actual benefit to applying the rules. Piratecat's examples brought me back around to being hopeful of skill challenges (as such) again (at that point). However, none of the players I game with are willing to buy into the explicit skill challenges, and without that kind of mechanical involvement there's no way to create a situation where they would willingly use skills other than their best few. As such I continue to see no actual benefit from the work of setting up an actual skill challenge - it's much easier just to deal with skill checks and individual passes / fails as they come up in a scene.

 

[the Jester]

However, none of the players I game with are willing to buy into the explicit skill challenges, and without that kind of mechanical involvement there's no way to create a situation where they would willingly use skills other than their best few.

You can't climb a mountain with Bluff.

 

[renau1g]

Sure you can. "OWww... my ankle, I think I sprained it. Oh burly fighter, can you please carry me?" the half-elf bard says.

Bluff.

 

[Primal]

You can't climb a mountain with Bluff.

You mean a zen monk could't bluff a mountain to let him climb it?

FWIW, Chuck Norris can climb mountains without any skill checks.

 

[kaomera]

You can't climb a mountain with Bluff.

Right, so if the PCs are heavily invested in bluff, to the detriment of their athletics then they won't engage the challenge of trying to climb a mountain. They'll either move on to things that they can bluff or else it's "OK, we make a bunch of athletics checks and fail, what happens?"

 

[KarinsDad]

You can't climb a mountain with Bluff.

No, but just because the DM set up a skill challenge to climb the mountain shouldn't prevent the players from saying:

"Ok, Fred and Barney are the best climbers. Let's have them co-climb up (x number of Athletics skill checks based on distance), roped together. Then, they drop ropes down to the rest of the team to pull up all of the gear and all of the team members who are lousy at climbing."

Instead of a skill challenge, the players change it to few skill rolls for the strongest skilled PCs and the rest is mop up.

I once convinced our DM to do this for a river crossing instead of the skill challenge she originally had set up (one of the WotC SCs btw). 40 feet or so across, the first PC swam it and then each PC after that was roped over (swimming, but pulled over quickly by the PCs on the far bank so that they did not end up drifting downstream too much). The DM didn't bother with rolls beyond the first PC.

Cut to the chase and the more exciting parts of the game. Crossing a river can be made more exciting and a skill challenge can be enforced, but that tends to be an artificial exercise in "How can I make this more challenging and a reason for a skill challenge?" instead of "It makes sense for pygmies to be shooting at the swimming PCs in this encounter". In the name of "excitement" or "fun" or "I want to use a skill challenge", some DMs just throw a lot of extra stuff at players, even if it seems a bit forced (this is often seen in trap layout as well).

Just because something is an obstacle in the game system shouldn't mean that one and only one mechanical solution should be used. Even combat should sometimes be allowed to be avoided.

Instead of climbing the mountain, maybe the PCs will walk around it. If the players come up with a way to avoid the meat and potatoes of a massive skill challenge, the DM should be flexible enough to just let a few skill rolls suffice and move on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Good post.

Fred and Barney? Yabba Dabba Doo!

I've given out too much XP in the last 24 hours, apparently. Sorry.