Skill Challenges

[JamesonCourage]

I use a skill challenge type of system in my RPG (X successes before 3 failures), and while I tend to let my players know when they're in one, I tend to not tell them which skill checks count towards the success or failure as often as I do tell them. Also, though, I have absolutely zero problem letting people make skill checks inside of a skill challenge without it counting towards the challenge. If everyone rolls [do I recognize that] checks, it may not even count for or against the challenge. My players commonly roll Spots, Knowledge checks, etc. during a skill challenge because of this.

Does this address the "it becomes crucial that certain PCs don't think, don't even try to notice things" objection? Letting players make skill checks in a skill challenge without it affecting the skill challenge? My players do that all the time (as well as bypassing skill challenges, leaving them, etc.). As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

With the difficulty I already laid out in mind, it still penalizes people for trying to contribute, but now they get to do it blindfolded.

Presume that a Skill Challenge calls for people to recognize a family crest on a marker or shield. Or perhaps it calls for someone to know the history of a particular battle, or to recognize that a map has been altered.

Those are all simple skill checks, not skill challenges. A skill challenge relates to a dynamic situation that isn't simply pass/fail. If it's simply pass/fail on a single point you use a skill check. And if you mean as components of the skill challenge, part of the point of a skill challenge is that you can afford failures - you can afford not to recognise the arms.

Presume that a Skill Challenge includes a Spot/Observation check: In a normal situation it wouldn't hurt at all to have several people looking around, but now suddenly it does. Everyone who fails to notice the clue should, by the rules, count as a failure. Those who aren't specifically trained as observers really should be attempting it blindfolded. It improves the odds of a success for the group.

Now explain to me how that's a good rule, how it can be anything other than artificial and contrived?

This is just the inverse of the stealth problem and being handled badly by the DM. The stealth problem is that no matter how stealthy your party someone is likely to roll badly - so without a skill challenge mechanic you should split the party.

It's being handled badly by the DM because it's one decision point. So you handle it as one primary skill with everyone else trying to aid other. And your complaint vanishes in a puff of smoke - the aid other not being primary so not counting for the failures.

 

[pemerton]

Presume that a Skill Challenge calls for people to recognize a family crest on a marker or shield. Or perhaps it calls for someone to know the history of a particular battle, or to recognize that a map has been altered. Normally it doesn't hurt to have several people think about the crest and try to recall whether and/or where they've seen it before.

<snip>

Presume that a Skill Challenge includes a Spot/Observation check: In a normal situation it wouldn't hurt at all to have several people looking around, but now suddenly it does.

you handle it as one primary skill with everyone else trying to aid other. And your complaint vanishes in a puff of smoke - the aid other not being primary so not counting for the failures.

I think Neonchamelon is correct here - those situations are pretty easily handled by the "aid another" rules.

And if a skill challenge is at all challenging when the cards are on the table, how is it even remotely possible to do with the cards (rules) hidden away like this?

A skill challenge is a mechanical representation of the situation in the fiction. If that situation doesn't map pretty closely to the skill challenge then the skill challenge is wrong.

I agree with Neonchameleon here too. It is the fiction that should be providing the players with cues - including cues about whether or not they are progressing towards their goal.

The first rule of DMing skill challenges is you do not talk about skill challenges. You talk about the fiction and mark things off on a little tally behind the screen.

I don't fully agree with this, though. Sometimes it works, but sometimes I think you need to let the players know what's going on so they can deploy their resources sensibly (which might include powers, items, action points, and - depending on how you handle them - Essentials advantages).

Very often when you say a rule covers something, it is true by the letter, bu tthe "coverage" is so general and generic that it is actually more fluff than rules. Saying "you can do other things than roll skill checks in kill challenges" is not the same as having rules to arbitrate how to use attacks and powers. Following a rule like that is pretty much the same as improvising. It doesn't answer the question "What effect does the ability to fly for one round have on a mountaineering skill challenge" or any of ten thousand similar questions.

I agree that more detail, and more examples, could help. But I think page 42, plus the monster design guidelines, are the basics of the improvisation required. (Which is what I took to be the gist of [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s response.)

The existence of page 42 plus clear monster design guidelines, all of which anchor action resolution mechanics to a common framework of levels, checks, DCs etc, makes the required improvisation not that hard (at least in my own view). The game expects it, and provides the framework for doing it. (The only thing missing, which LostSoul has also noted from time-to-time, is an "expected condition" table to complement the "expected damage" table.)

You know what, you're right... it appears that if I had purchased another supplementary book about SC's then one of my major problems would be addressed... I guess it's too bad this wasn't in the first

I've never seen anyone defend the presentation of 4e's rules. For example, half the information needed to resolve encounters in on p 42 (DCs, damage) and the other half is in the monster-design section (defences by level).

In this respect you could consider 4e an homage to the original 3 booklets - how many people worked out how to resolve combat using the "alternative system" (which went on to become the norm) simply from reading Men & Magic? It was the Greyhawk supplement that cleared away the confusion.

 

[Greenfield]

Those are all simple skill checks, not skill challenges. A skill challenge relates to a dynamic situation that isn't simply pass/fail. If it's simply pass/fail on a single point you use a skill check. And if you mean as components of the skill challenge, part of the point of a skill challenge is that you can afford failures - you can afford not to recognise the arms.

Those are indeed skill checks, and it is a collection of skill checks aimed at a particular goal that constitute a Skill Challenge. Hence my wording that it "calls for", rather than "consists of".

This is just the inverse of the stealth problem and being handled badly by the DM. The stealth problem is that no matter how stealthy your party someone is likely to roll badly - so without a skill challenge mechanic you should split the party.

Odd. I never said what it was they needed to Spot/Observe. Noticing a detail, such as an odd note on a map, or a trail sign that someone tried to obliterate are examples that come to mind, and neither has anything to do with Stealth.

It's being handled badly by the DM because it's one decision point. So you handle it as one primary skill with everyone else trying to aid other. And your complaint vanishes in a puff of smoke - the aid other not being primary so not counting for the failures.

That's one way to call it, though Aid Another usually requires that people be actually trying to Aid Another. You can't have everyone roll, then decide who was primary and who was Aiding. That needs to be determined in advance.

I'm sorry if I seem brusque here, I'm typing this during a stop over at my office, and I'm a bit rushed.

Over all you seem to be missing some of the things I wrote, and reading in things that I didn't. My examples are valid, as written. They were never described as Skill Challenges in and of themselves and I never suggested that they should be. They can easily be included as part of a "dynamic" challenge, and for purposes of this discussion it's probably best if you accept them as points given for proof, not fully developed game scenes.

As for the Stealth challenge: That's a topic that calls for it's own thread, and has probably suffered through more than a few.

The odd thing about skills like Stealth: You can Take 10 any time you want, so long as it doesn't matter. When there's an actual chance of getting observed it becomes a contested roll, and when that happens Take 10 goes out the window, for both Observation/Spot and Hide/Move Silent/Stealth.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think people that read rules with preconceived ideas of how they are supposed to work--especially if those preconceived ideas are essentially, "it should work just like the other set of different rules"--are unlikely to have much success with any system that has something radically new in it. They might if someone who does substantially grok the system performs the system introduction well enough to overcome the preconceptions.

Better explanations would have helped Skill Challenges immensely. Better play testing, and the resulting cleanup, would have helped even more (and probably contributed to the better explanations). However, given that, some people would still dislike them just as much as they ever did, because they don't want to do what Skill Challenges are doing.

It's parallel, though somewhat different, to those whole really like wizards dominating high level play. Not everyone that likes wizards is that person, of course. And not every like or dislike of a particular implementation of a wizard is about power. But of those that fit the "take over the game at high levels" mindset, it really doesn't matter how poorly or well you explain your system to rein in dominate high level spells. They aren't buying what you are selling.

 

[Manbearcat]

They aren't buying what you are selling.

Can't xp but I'm buying what you're selling in this post. I posted something parallel to this regarding mental frameworks and preconceptions awhile back. I read these threads and ponder this endless merry-go-round and find myself disinclined to hand my ticket over to the custodian.

 

[Greenfield]

First, I'd like to apologize for my last post. I was in a rush and it came across a lot harsher than I intended.

While I'll admit to being a bit of a grognard when it comes to games, I'll also say that I approached the Skill Challenge mechanic in 4e without any preconceptions about what it was or should be, or how it should work. It couldn't fail to live up to my expectations because I didn't have any. It was the first time I'd really encountered a formal mechanism for creating and adjudicating that sort of non-combat situation.

Okay, maybe that isn't 100% true. I did expect better from the developers in general.

D&D 3.* had become very comfortable for me, with the ability to more or less free form your character by mixing skills, feats, classes and prestige classes.

D&D 4e felt more like standing in line at an amusement park. Enjoyment is waiting, but once you pick a line you pretty much have to stay with it or you never get anywhere. While I understand that the later books expanded the variety of options available, my initial experience seemed to indicate that the system was not about choices.

The Skill Challenge mechanic felt like that as well. There were specific skills you had to employ successfully, as a group. If your group didn't include some required skill on their trained list you were screwed, and if it did then you really weren't challenged.

I'll explain that last part: People in my group tended to train in skills that were backed by strong stats. As a result, if you were trained in a given skill, you were a god with that skill. If you weren't trained in that skill you were far better off never even considering such a thing.

Your own views and experience may vary, but that's what I saw happening around my game table.

Still, I loved the idea of a reasoned and planned game mechanic for quantifying success in areas that had always been pure role-play before.

Now I love role-play. It's one of the things I love most about these games. But not all role-players are created equal. If I hand out rewards for successful RPing, be it in Exp, loot or story awards, I end up rewarding the same players week after week, while others who were never Drama Majors sit in the corner, forgotten and ultimately left behind.

A well planned Skill Challenge should be a method of inclusion. Design it so that every PC has something to contribute, even if you have to go outside of "skills" and call for some class abilities to involve some of the characters.

A well designed Skill Challenge system should encourage/require participation from all involved, and it should fit smoothly, not only into the game system it's used in, but also fit in with the way people play.

Game designers can't force DMs to play or plan inclusive Skill Challenges, and they can't even write them into modules and settings. They don't know what the party has in terms of skills and abilities, and so they can't plan for them.

So the best we, or anyone else can do with this, is propose guidelines on how to draw everyone in, and suggest target DCs for the challenges appropriate to the group levels.

 

[LostSoul]

Very often when you say a rule covers something, it is true by the letter, bu tthe "coverage" is so general and generic that it is actually more fluff than rules. Saying "you can do other things than roll skill checks in kill challenges" is not the same as having rules to arbitrate how to use attacks and powers. Following a rule like that is pretty much the same as improvising. It doesn't answer the question "What effect does the ability to fly for one round have on a mountaineering skill challenge" or any of ten thousand similar questions. But you are correct by the letter, and arguing the point doesn't seem to lead anywhere, so I prefer to not reply until you called us out on this.

I agree, but I don't think there's much you can do (other than exhaustively detail mechanics for every possible action a character could take, but that approach has its own pitfalls). If you want to resolve actions that characters could conceivably take with simple mechanisms, you're going to need to lean on someone's judgement.

That's why I don't think they need to spell out what you can accomplish with an ability that lets you fly 100' or so in a few seconds. The fictional situation + simple guidelines aid the DM's judgement. Maybe being able to fly 100' will end the skill challenge in success. Maybe it's just one success. Maybe it will cancel a failure. Maybe that will allow the PC to use one skill over another.

What I find missing is good advice: what should be a skill challenge? what is the scope of a single check in the game's fiction? when do you call for an automatic success or failure? what if the conflict that's driving the skill challenge simply ends? etc.

I would like it if they had checklists for each of these questions, e.g. "Look for these aspects in the game's situation: a conflict between the PCs and NPCs or an active environment; a level of abstraction that means the dice are going to have to act as "oracles" to determine details about the situation; and a conflict that can't be resolved in one or two simple actions. If your situation has all of those features, you should think about running a skill challenge."

(I like procedural rules.)

My personal experience in playing through Skill Challenges is that they felt artificial, sor of a game inserted into the game. Normal rules of behavior didn't apply any more. And at the same time, the mechanic forces you out of the game: You have to meta-game or you fail.

Normally, when facing a challenge, everyone pitches in towards that common goal. In a Skill Challenge that will led to failure, as every "helpful" effort that doesn't result in a successful dice roll counts as a failure, and you can't afford them.

Suddenly being forced to say, "I don't know what that is" can cost the party. Better to sit empty headed and close mouthed than even try to think of something, try to see something, try to recognize or remember something.

So you have to look at your character sheet and say, "My character isn't trained in that skill, so I'll just have a seat over there."

That turned me off more than anything.

But that, I see, is a problem with the implementation, not with the concept.

The rule I use - for all checks in and outside of skill challenges (including attacks) - is this: when multiple characters are attempting actions that have the same goal, I call for only a single check and let up to four other characters lend aid. The character who "rolls" is the one who's most involved in the action's success or failure.

A few examples:
* A group attempting to sneak past a guard will have the noisiest character (the one with the lowest modifier) make the check. A group on watch will have the most perceptive character (highest mod) make the check.
*A group of characters trying to convince another of something will have the one who actually makes the argument make the check (which could be the 7-foot-tall Iron Wolf barbarian, standing with arms crossed and eyes staring daggers, instead of the fat, mouth-breathing city dweller who says "I would really like to avoid any trouble.").
*Two guys trying to put an arm lock on an ogre will have one make the check and the other aid. Who makes the check is a little more complicated because it depends heavily on the specifics of their action; it might be the strongest, or the "best", or the guy who's in the best position.

 

[LostSoul]

So the best we, or anyone else can do with this, is propose guidelines on how to draw everyone in, and suggest target DCs for the challenges appropriate to the group levels.

I run a heavily-modified version of 4E. I set up a setting with enough variety for the players to choose their own challenges, and base XP off of completing those goals. The DCs for skill challenges come from the level of the opposition instead of the PC's own levels. Equal-level challenges are usually pretty easy for the PCs to overcome, which is why I make most of the setting mid-heroic tier level - levels 4-6.

edit: Oh yeah, I always use the Moderate DC from page 42 of the DMG (non-errata version). Easy is a marginal failure, Hard is a stunning success, and below Easy is a total failure. Hmm, well, sometimes I use other numbers (a defence score or 10 + skill modifier) if there's an NPC involved.

 

[Manbearcat]

The rule I use - for all checks in and outside of skill challenges (including attacks) - is this: when multiple characters are attempting actions that have the same goal, I call for only a single check and let up to four other characters lend aid. The character who "rolls" is the one who's most involved in the action's success or failure.

A few examples:
* A group attempting to sneak past a guard will have the noisiest character (the one with the lowest modifier) make the check. A group on watch will have the most perceptive character (highest mod) make the check.
*A group of characters trying to convince another of something will have the one who actually makes the argument make the check (which could be the 7-foot-tall Iron Wolf barbarian, standing with arms crossed and eyes staring daggers, instead of the fat, mouth-breathing city dweller who says "I would really like to avoid any trouble.").

This is precisely what I do. Same thing with a climbing obstacle whereby its a collective effort and everyone has to deal with it/get over it. This is intuitive and my guess is that anyone who has a decent amount of experience with the system will default to this. What's more, I'm almost certain that there is rules text somewhere (could be one of the old, monthly Dungeon magazine articles on Skill Challenges) that advises on this.