Skill Challenges: Please stop

[Radiating Gnome]

Since we're sharing examples .... here's something I've done once in a while to leverage the basic skill challenge mechanic to represent a variety of challenges as the party makes their way on a complex journey -- and makes choices along the way. I'll warn you now this one is on the "mechanical" side of the fence, designed to give the players some tough strategic choices and a way to strategically game the system.

The basic idea works like this. Each "round" in the skill challenge represents 12 hours. The PCs can make a single skill check, with a specific skill (or choice of skills) to succeed on that check and advance one step on their journey.

Failure on that skill check just means delays that prevent them from completing that leg of the trip. Usually there's a ticking clock -- the party has a week to complete a journey that will require about 8 successes, etc.

In each round there are a handful of other skill checks that the party has to make. And, in each round each PC can only make one skill check. I've created a blank form I use (attached) to represent each round of the challenge. It uses big enough spaces for me to write in things like the skill options for primary skill checks, a single possible assist skill check for each primary skill, and then some secondary skills (I'll explain those below). The form is big enough that I can have the PCs place their minis on the sheet on the skill check they'll make in that particular round.

Primary skill checks include the navigation skill check (do you complete this leg of the journey), a check to avoid combat (I'll specify the typical of risk along the way -- bandits, monsters, pirates, etc) and a check to overcome specific hazards (cliffs, fording rivers, enduring elements, discovery by enemies looking for pcs traveling incognito, picking up some nasty disease, etc). There's a possible assist check on each, usually using a different skill. As the DM completes each form, he also describes the estimated difficulty of the check - based on the general information the PCs can be expected to have about the path ahead.

Consequences for failing primary checks try to be steep. Obviously, the PCs don't advance if the navigation check fails. If the PCs fail a hazard check or a combat check, they suffer some sort of abstract loss of resources or abilities. They might lose some healing surges, have to make saves to keep each of their dailies, etc. These losses are only recovered if they take a round off in the journey to take an extended rest (see below on the map discussion).

Secondary skill checks are skill checks that PCs can decide to make that might win them some sort of extra benefit along the way -- a new clue, maybe a cache of consumables they can use, unlock a short cut in the next leg of the journey, etc. Anything I feel like throwing in. Also, once you get the players used to the concept of this type of travel challenge, you should also encourage the PCs to define their own secondary skill checks. What are they hoping to pick up along the way? Information? Resources? Support?

So, in each "round" the pcs get a sheet to work with, figuring out which PC will make the skill checks available to them on the sheet. They get to make stratgic choices as a group that way.

To finish the whole thing off, though, I build an abstract map of the region the PCs are traveling so that, for each round (or perhaps sequence of rounds) the PCs have choices to make as to which set of challenges to take on as they try to make their way. Also on that map are locations where there are key locations the PCs can arrive at along the way -- villages where they might be able to take an extended rest safely, choke points where they can be sure to face some sort of combat encounter with forces that want to prevent them from reaching their goal, etc.

So, in play, the PCs get to study the map and decide which road they would like to take, based on the descriptions and rumors they pick up along the way. Do they take the roads, where the navigation checks are easier, but it's damn hard to avoid being spotted by the enemies looking for them? Do they go offroad, through the swamps, and risk malaria and crocodiles along the way? Looking ahead down the paths they choose, do they take the short path through the mountain choke point where the enemy is certainly lying in ambush for them? Or do they take the long way around, sacrificing opportunities to rest and recover so they can reach their destination in time?

I usually salt the map with encounters along the way to break up the challenge -- the party can make their way through a few checks, reach a village, and then run into a party of imperial guards hunting for them who have chosen the same tavern to rest in. Or something like that.

So... it's very mechanical, very much a game to play, rather than RP and narrative. That's something that my group really likes (we're a somewhat low-RP, high-strategic gamer group, usually). What I like about it is that it does an excellent job of two things:

1. Giving the players a variety of meaningful choices to make in something other than combat
2. Creates a very real sense of the distance and the environments the PCs are traveling through.

That sense of distance thing is huge. The last time I used this, it was a structure to represent the party's quest through the underdark to strike three locations and capture three artifacts in fortnight, so the artifacts could be used to stop some big bad ritual the bad guys were doing. It became clear, after a few failed checks and problems along the way, that they didn't have enough time -- even pushing it and traveling for 24 or 36 hours at a time between rest breaks. So they hard to start using secondary checks along the way for an alternative way home. As DM, I had to add another location they "discovered" along the way where there was a prepared teleportation circle they could use to short cut their journey home -- it was enough to let them still succeed, but they still had to push it.

I think this whole idea is best used fairly loosely.

So, as an example, lets imagine a journey the PCs are taking across unfriendly (but not hostile) territory to reach a distant city with a pair of jeweled charms necessary to protect the reputation of the queen (Three Musketeers Fans, anyone?)

The challenge starts with the PCs having disembarked in a small port town. They have two choices at this point -- the main trade road towards the capital, or cutting overland through coastal swamps.

Here's how I'd fill out the sheets for the two options for the first round of their challenge (note that I don't usually let the PCs see what the actual penalty for failure is until they fail, but the rest is shared with the PCs):

The Trade Road

Primary Checks:
Navigation: Staying on the main road isn't hard.
Check: Easy History or Nature
Assist: Medium Streetwise of Bluff
[Fail: The party doesn't reach the next town. (Repeat this challenge or try the alternative, in this Cut through the Swamps)]
Avoid Combat: The Cardinal probably has agents looking for you on the roads. You'll need to avoid them.
Check: Medium Stealth or Perception
Assist: Medium Intimidate
[Fail: You are ambushed by the cardinal's agents. Each PC loses 1d8 healing surges.]
Hazards: Avoid being cheated by hostlers along the way.
Check: Medium Intimidate or Diplomacy
Assist: Streetwise or Athletics
[Fail: Lose Lvl x 5 GP each]

Suggested Seconary Skill Checks:
Streetwise or Insight: Pick up some clues about where the cardinal's men are waiting in ambush along the road ahead
Reltion or Arcana: Look for a way to confuse magical efforts to track the party.


Cut Through The Swamps

To evade the cardinal's men, you cut overland through a mosquito-infested swamp to reach another town, and another road towards the capital, one the Cardinal won't expect to find you on.

Navigation: You pick your way through the swamp, along game trails when you're lucky, and through the much when you're not.
Check: Hard Nature
Assist: Medium Perception
[Fail: The party gets lost. (Repeat this challenge)]
Avoid Combat: You avoid encounters with the nastiest monsters in the swamp
Check: Medium Stealth
Assist: Medium Nature or Perception
Avoid Hazards: This place is a haven for all kinds of diseases.
Check: Medium Heal
Assist: Medium Endurance
Fail: Each PC catches Trench Foot (disease, initial condition = -1 speed)

Suggested Secondary Skill Checks:
Nature - Find some helpful alchemical ingredients
Streetwise - find a bandit's hideout and find out some rumors.

 

[Fox Lee]

Players should only be rewarded when that 20 appears, when they are clever, or when they work together. If it does not fall into any of these three occurrences, then Mr. Car Salesman shouldn't receive any reward.

That seems awfully inappropriate to me. By reading that as written, a character basically can't acheive anything on their own unless they get a natural 20 or do something "clever". What if this isn't a circumstance that requires "clever"?

For example, what if my barbarian is trying to uproot a tree by sheer amazing power? All I want to know is whether or not she manages to yank that sucker out of the ground. I don't want her to do something "clever", because she's not here to be clever; I just want her to show off her strength. Of course I want her to succeed, but I don't want the GM to just say "yes", since the whole point of a game system is to have a random element provided by dice. The chance to fail is what makes success interesting. So, I'd like to roll a strength check, please.

This situation is both in-character, and within the scope of the game rules. But, by your words, she shouldn't be rewarded unless she rolls a natural 20, since she is neither working with the group or being clever. Now, that may be how you want to play a game, but it isn't how D&D works.

 

[That Darn DM]

That seems awfully inappropriate to me. By reading that as written, a character basically can't acheive anything on their own unless they get a natural 20 or do something "clever". What if this isn't a circumstance that requires "clever"?

For example, what if my barbarian is trying to uproot a tree by sheer amazing power? All I want to know is whether or not she manages to yank that sucker out of the ground. I don't want her to do something "clever", because she's not here to be clever; I just want her to show off her strength. Of course I want her to succeed, but I don't want the GM to just say "yes", since the whole point of a game system is to have a random element provided by dice. The chance to fail is what makes success interesting. So, I'd like to roll a strength check, please.

This situation is both in-character, and within the scope of the game rules. But, by your words, she shouldn't be rewarded unless she rolls a natural 20, since she is neither working with the group or being clever. Now, that may be how you want to play a game, but it isn't how D&D works.

"Clever" is more critical on the player than the task. It isn't about the character being a clever person, but the player being a clever participant.

A tribe of barbarians is not without the most basic forms of technology (not space-age and such. Technology as in the most original term. Such as apes using plants and sticks to get ants out of antmounds. This is a form of technology.), a barbarian shouldn't be rewarded, in my mind, for merely saying "I use my raw strength to pull the tree out of the ground".

That's a knee-jerk reaction and merely a roll. But should a player inquire about a digging utensil or use her magic sword to push the tree out of the ground via leverage, that's being clever. Using simple and basic forms.

I suppose, one could argue that the Barbarian, if of simple mind, would not use this method and that the "role-playing" takes priority, but the action described is neanderthal level. Heck, surprising to me is that two of the most famous barbarians, Conan and Tarzan, are well known for being quite crafty. I am speaking about the books of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, respectively. (Although, Conan was more a Rogue/Thief than a Barbarian. That's me rambling and discrediting myself at the same time.)

And yet, I'm plagued with the idea of "what if?". If the Barbarian was tearing the stump out of the ground as a show of strength to put the fear of death in a evil henchman for information. Yes, that's clever. If the Barbarian tore the stump out of the ground to create a hiding place and to put the tree back somehow, that's clever.

Simply put: "Clever" is in the application of the players using the characters, not how the characters act.

EDIT: Oh! And reward does not mean success. I mean reward as in a +2 to the roll or Ad-Hoc XP bonus. Success can always be gained by the character's innate skill, but rewards and greater chance of success ought to be handed out when the player thinks.

 

[Fox Lee]

And yet, I'm plagued with the idea of "what if?". If the Barbarian was tearing the stump out of the ground as a show of strength to put the fear of death in a evil henchman for information. Yes, that's clever. If the Barbarian tore the stump out of the ground to create a hiding place and to put the tree back somehow, that's clever.

That's more what I'm getting at; the point of the example was that using brute strength was the goal of the exercise as well as the means to move a tree. Though, it's worth noting that if somebody makes a big strong barbarian, it may be because they want to be able to approach strength-related problems in a very physical manner, which is neither bad nor wrong per se.

I guess my basic point is that creativity is extremely valuable, but characters built under a system like 4e act in a mechanically reliable fashion, and this is often important to the players. I would go so far as to say that if the rules become unreliable, it can hurt roleplay and especially enthusiasm; if you feel like the rules (or the way the GM is using them) are undermining your character, it can really bring down your desire to interact with the game world or play that character in an interesting fashion.

That's not to say that characters should always succeed, of course, but they should generally understand their odds. If I make a character who's supposed to be an unshakeable monolith, but I screw up building her and she's no good at resisting mes effects, my roleplaying her as a stoic badass is going to seem like false confidence at best - a very different character to what I wanted to play. Of course, in that case it would be my fault, but that same thing can also happen - quite easily - if the rules stop working the way the book says they work.

TLDR: Creativity has value, but a predictable baseline is essential to this system.

EDIT: Oh! And reward does not mean success. I mean reward as in a +2 to the roll or Ad-Hoc XP bonus. Success can always be gained by the character's innate skill, but rewards and greater chance of success ought to be handed out when the player thinks.

Ahh, that does change things considerably. Success in my mind is part of "reward", but if you meant it as a distinctly separate term, what you said seems much more reasonable.