The Rules
Skill Challenges
Skill Challenge Attributes:
- Level: The difficulty of the challenge, equivalent to a character’s or monster’s level.
- Complexity: 1-5 or more.
- Experience: The number of experience point s the challenge is worth.
- Difficulty: The DC of challenge-related skill checks.
- Initiative: When in the round the skill challenge comes up.
- Consequences: Undesirable effects that limit progression in the skill challenge. This is the equivalent of a monster’s attacks.
- Windfalls: Rewards that can be earned before completing the skill challenge.
- Primary Skills: These skills can always be used to contribute to the challenge.
Level
The level of the challenge; comparable to the level of a monster or character. As with monsters, a challenge should be approximately the same level as your heroes; too high level challenges are frustrating even if the complexity is low, low-level challenges are either too easy or risk becoming tedious.
There is a formula for calculating the level of a challenge, but as always this should be applied with care. Though level is listed first in the description, in practice it is calculated at the end of the design of the skill challenge.
+Difficulty
+3 for each consequence
+1 for every two rounds less than 10 in a countdown
-1 for each windfall
-20
Complexity
How much work it is to complete the challenge. Some challenges can require high skill, but are completed very quickly; others take a lot of time even if they are easy. A challenge should be approximately as hard as a number of creatures equal to the complexity rating.
The number of successes required is 4 times the complexity. This makes each success the equivalent of defeating a minion.
Skill challenges where every member of the team has to do something or pass some challenge typically have a complexity equal to the number of heroes. Examples include climbing a wall, sneaking past guards, or having each “knight” answer a riddle. Such challenges automatically and believably scales to the size of the party.
Experience
This is calculated the same way as an encounter; multiply the complexity by the experience reward for a monster of the challenge’s level.
Difficulty
This is the difficulty of all rolls relating to the skill challenge. Check the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table (DMG p. 42) for appropriate difficulties depending on level.
Do not change the difficulty depending on what skill a character is using. Using skills other than the primary skills for the challenge has its own problems, and increasing the difficulty is a disincentive for players to come up with creative uses for their skills. Make liberal use of the situational +/-2 description modifier instead.
Make sure the difficulty makes sense. Difficulties should not increase merely because characters advance in level. Instead, high-level characters should come upon situations where a difficulties are naturally high. Paragon adventurers do not sneak past kobold guards in an ordinary cave while avoiding falling rocks; they dodge blasts of lava and fool the keen senses of hell hounds. A high-level party coming upon a mundane challenge with high difficulties stretches suspension of disbelief.
Initiative
This works the same as it does for creatures, and if a creature is involved in the challenge, use its initiative rating. Many challenges have an initiative modifier of -5 because they are static and unmoving.
Time Scale
Many skill challenges play in the standard 6-second rounds, but not all. Some skill challenges involve rounds that take minutes, hours, or days. These still play out as normal, only more game time passes.
If each round is ten minutes or more, characters can spend healing surges and recover encounter powers between rounds and use some rituals. As they will heal all damage between rounds, use the restricted damage column of the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table (DMG p. 42)
If the rounds are days or longer, characters can take a long rest between rounds. If such a skill challenge inflicts damage or causes the loss of healing surges, heroes do not recover healing surges with an extended rest as long as the challenge lasts.
Consequences
This is what makes a skill challenge challenging; it is the equivalent of attacks for monsters. A countdown cause the entire skill challenge to fail; other consequences have a cost of some kind, letting the players themselves decide how long they wish to keep trying.
- Countdown: Count rounds on the challenge’s turn. Once the counter goes down to zero, tell the players things are getting really hot. On the challenge’s next turn, the skill challenge fails if the players do not have enough successes. The normal time limit is ten rounds. Making the time limit shorter increases the level of the challenge by one per two rounds, to a minimum of 4 rounds. Time limits of more than ten rounds get tedious.
- Escalation: Each time the skill challenge’s turn comes up, have each character make a roll or suffer a harm. These rolls get a +5 bonus if they have to use one specified skill. See Primary Skills, below.
- Backlash: Harm triggered by failures. This can make cautious players hesitant to roll, so use it with caution.
A typical skill challenge has one consequence per tier; 1 at level 1-10, 2 at level 11-20, and 3 at level 21-30. However, there is nothing to stop you from adding more consequences. Consequences make a skill challenge much harder, which is reflected in its level.
Harm
Consequences trigger harm, letting players feel there is a real danger involved in the skill challenge.
- Damage: Use the limited damage expression from the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table (DMG p. 42).
- Healing Surge: Lose one healing surge. If you have none to spend, you fall unconscious for the duration of the skill challenge.
- Escalating Difficulty: The difficulty increases by one. This harm can lead to a standstill and is not recommended as the sole harm.
- Setback: Lose a success. This harm can lead to a standstill and is not recommended as the sole harm.
- Reinforcements: Add a minion of a level equal to the level of the skill challenge. This minion arrives on the challenge’s turn. It will not run away on its first turn, but if survives a whole round and successfully escapes, it will cause a stealth-based skill challenge to fail. If the skill challenge is on a longer time scale so that there is time to play out the entire encounter between rounds, the reinforcement is one standard monster instead. The xp for these reinforcements are already included in the challenge’s xp value.
- Cost: A monetary cost each time you suffer harm.
- Random: A random harm from a list.
- Skill Dependent: Certain skills might carry their own harm when used that differ from the normal harm included in the skill challenge.
- Other: A catchall for situational harm relevant to the specific skill challenge.
Windfalls
Sometimes, there are rewards halfway through a skill challenge. You might fail to convince the king, but you still catch the eye of the princess with your impeccable manners. Windfalls are triggered either by scoring a certain number of successes, or with the first success with a particular skill. Because a windfall gives a partial success by completing a lesser challenge, they reduce the overall level of the skill challenge by one each.
Primary Skills
Primary skills are always applicable to the challenge. These are typical skills relevant to the endeavor; Thievery for traps, Diplomacy for social encounters, Bluff for intrigue and so on. Each skill challenge should have at least two primary skills, possibly as many as five.
Avoid situations where only one skill is applicable. However, sometimes only a single skill makes sense; holding your breath is a matter of Endurance, nothing else. If a player has to use a specific skill, as is often the case when trying to avoid an escalation consequence, give a +5 bonus to the roll.
But these are not the only skills that can be used. As long as the player gives a somewhat reasonable explanation, any skill can be used. But the player has to explain new inventive ways each time he wishes to use a skill that is not a primary skill for the challenge. It can get hard to come up with several different ways to use a skill in an unusual situation.
Likewise, a player might come up with ways to use powers. For attack powers, you use the same value you’d use to attack. If the power seems especially useful or relevant, give is a bonus of +5 or even +10 to the roll, particularly if it’s a daily power. Powers that do not have attack values associated with them automatically succeed if they are relevant at all. For example, the eladrin racial power Fey Step has no attack value; it gives an automatic success in many skill challenges involving movement.
