Trap-disabler Wanted: Optimized halflings need only apply?

[ravenight]

I think the DCs are off on skill challenges, as has been discussed elsewhere, but I think the main problem is actually early on. Later, you are expected to have any number of different bonuses going on from items, skill focus, higher stats, utility powers, etc.

I'm actually starting to wonder if part of the idea was that these things would actually be fairly hard to do and that challenges would be pretty tough to beat on average at low levels, unless you were true specialists. That might make sense, since it gives a real sense of progression and the party as a whole getting better at things. Of course the math is still off because when things are hard, higher complexity challenges are easier, but the DCs might be reasonable from this point of view.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to be performing entire skill challenges single handedly, even if its a trap disarm effort. I'll have to double check that particular trap, but the typical trap is disarmed in portions- you might disarm a single tile of stone that shifts down when stepped upon, triggering the trap, but leaving the other trigger spaces untouched, for example. So there are single rolls, and they help, but they don't wipe out the entire trap.

 

[On Puget Sound]

For parties without good trap skills, you can always fall back on non-thievery solutions. Until Thieves were published (in Greyhawk), all traps were handled this way in 1E. (spoiler alert)

Example: the dart-shooting suits of armor in Kobold Hall (back pages of the DMG). Players can:
Hold a shield up in front of the trapped armor (automatic, but keeps one character stationary, granting CA, and one hand occupied)

Tip up the lid to one of the coffins and lean it in front of the trap (STR check)

If they try to knock the armor over, or turn it to face a wall, I'd rule that it's firmly bracketed to its position and so this is the same as attacking it to destroy it.

 

[Norhg]

After doing some math I'm in favor of the two consecutive failures to fail model.

(1) Your chance to fail actually increases with challenge complexity.
(2) Your chance to succeed increases at a forseeable rate as your skill does, high skill scores stop being all important.
(3) The challenge becomes more than "keep on rolling untill you win/lose", a poor skill can be used as a better one can weigh the failure up, also see (2).

 

[ObsidianCrane]

The issue is the skill check DCs mostly. At low levels skill challenges are near impossible, at high levels they are near impossible to fail.

But that probably isn't the only problem here at a guess. Dex fighters from 3E do not convert to fighters in 4E generally. I'm guessing the Pirate would feel far more pirate like with a Rogue base and Fighter MC.

Still from the 4 feats available why hasn't he taken Skill focus (Thievery) that gets to +13 base. At 4th level he should have a magic item for another +2 and then +2 for thieves tools for a +17 total. Individul rolls are failed on a 5 then which significantly favors the tooled up PC. (Of course in 10 more levels he will likely auto beat traps anyway.)

 

[Zerakon]

The issue is the skill check DCs mostly. At low levels skill challenges are near impossible, at high levels they are near impossible to fail.

Blech. That's bad.

But that probably isn't the only problem here at a guess. Dex fighters from 3E do not convert to fighters in 4E generally. I'm guessing the Pirate would feel far more pirate like with a Rogue base and Fighter MC.

I mentioned the "brawny rogue" option to him, but he doesn't want to become a light weapon fighter. He prefers to stick with his two-handed trident, and I don't see a two-handed trident qualifying as a "light blade" for all those rogue powers.

Still from the 4 feats available why hasn't he taken Skill focus (Thievery) that gets to +13 base. At 4th level he should have a magic item for another +2 and then +2 for thieves tools for a +17 total. Individul rolls are failed on a 5 then which significantly favors the tooled up PC. (Of course in 10 more levels he will likely auto beat traps anyway.)

He hasn't converted the character yet. He's not a powergamer, so it's up to me as the DM to watch out for gotchas for when he does convert, and offer some advice to him.

I personally don't like how the skill challenge traps is set up as written as it makes me want to tell him "either specialize in trap-disabling or don't try it at all because you'll fall flat on your face," which is the primary point of my post.

 

[LowSpine]

The way it should be designed is to have a progression bar of severity.

The more successes you accomplish the less severe the threat becomes (you move the threat down one.) The more failures you accrue the worse the threat becomes.

If you hit the top threat the challenge is over and the threat is stuck at its worst state. If you hit the bottom threat the challenge is over and the threat is totally overcome.

Just as a very simple example of what I mean. A trap with a flame spewing nozzle. It pumps out a blast each round. You try to disarm it by closing off the nozzle or flow of oil. As you succeed in closing it off the damage die goes down.

6. 1d20 Blast 5 - Goes Ape S**t and is stuck open - the valve breaks open.
5. 1d12 Blast 4
4. 1d10 Blast 3
3. 1d8 Blast 2
2. 1d6 Blast 1
1. 1d4 Single square
0. Disarmed - the nozzle is bunged, closed or a pipe is bent etc.

When the trap is triggered it starts in position 4. You can keep trying until position 6 or 0 is met.

EDIT: Each stage could have its own DC. You could have a list, just like skill challenges, of different skills and what they do. In this case you could have Athletics to bend a feed pipe or turn a rusty valve. Arcana to dispel the magic that conjures the flame. Thievery to disarm the triggering mechanism. Acrobatics to get in a position where the flame will not harm the disarmer. Each skill might have a penalty or bonus depending on the nature of the challenge. - Perhaps the pipes are tough as hell and give a -2 to Athletics checks.

You might actually change the difficulty of each check depending on where you are on the list. As the threat goes up it may become really hard to pull it back. As you get closer to disarming the threat it might get a little easier - it is the kind of thing that could be tailored into each challenge.

Unlike skill challenges this method actually makes sense and can be constructed in any number of ways and level of complexity.

This is only very simple based on damage and range but other challenges could be made.

A social challenge would involve getting someone around to your way of thinking. They would start off at 4 - not trusting you. If they get to 0 you have convinced them of your argument - if they get to 6 they might throw you out of their castle, city or kingdom. They even attack.

When skill challenges were hinted at this kind of very simple challenge structure is what I was hoping for. You can give up at any time if you think things are falling apart so you do not have to automatically fail completely.

The challenge can go backwards and forwards instead of some stupid idea that a couple of fails automatically stuffs everything up (though this might be appropriate in an individual challenge it is a bit duff making it manditory to all of them.)

Skill challenges IMO are an underdeveloped vague idea and not much more at the moment. Most of the explainations of how it works are just very slightly less vague ideas of how they work.

Oh and another thing. In this system you don't have to stupidly say "we are starting a skill challenge." If you have to say something like that at the beginning then IMO it is a bit of a duff concept to begin with.

 

[LowSpine]

Just thinking about it, it would make allot better sense for challenges like a boxing match, an arm wrestle, a court case, bartering, securing tumblers in a lock - the list goes on.

It's not exactly an unpresidented concept.

Another thing - crafting.

The crafting process could be constructed in this way. You can try to make the object as good as possible (0 state) but it could all go wrong and you might have to give up before the construction process goes completely up.

Oh - another one - a cave in. Trying to dig yourself out without the whole place falling on top of you. If you drop a step some rocks fall and damage you meaning you have a little more digging to do. If you get to 0 then you get out. If you get to 6 then you are buried. (the 0 to 6 doesn't have to be for all of them however. The harder the challenge the more steps and the worse starting position.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

There's not really a system for a single-skill skill challenge. Skill challenges are supposedly intended to involve the entire party in circumventing an obstacle and make use of a variety of skills, not just to make one person roll repeatedly while everyone else watches. Further, the skill challenge mechanics invalidate much of the thievery mechanics.

It would seem, therefore, that the use of skill challenges in these places are stupid. An examination of the other features (ie - do 35 points of damage to the control panel requiring 11+ attack rolls instead of spending at least 4 rounds making 22+ thievery checks, and totally failing as soon as you miss 2 rolls) seems to suggest that ANYTHING is better than using thievery to disable a trap.

So - I'd suggest that those 'skill challenges' are just replaced with single thievery skill rolls at the appropriate DC. That way your thief has a 50% chance of disabling the trap in a single round and a 25% chance of triggering it. Furthermore he could choose to simply delay it's triggering by 1 round, and have zero chance of triggering it (and a 75% chance of success). Bashing it will take a couple of rounds to destroy it in any case.


On another note:
Skill challenges are busted. Not the DCs, the basic rules for them. X successes before Y failures is far too swingy to be useable across any range of values. Changing the DC can help somewhat, but breaks the system in other ways. There are other threads on this forum that include vast amounts of maths proving this. I'm not a member, so I can't search for them, but they're there.

 

[LowSpine]

There's not really a system for a single-skill skill challenge. Skill challenges are supposedly intended to involve the entire party in circumventing an obstacle and make use of a variety of skills, not just to make one person roll repeatedly while everyone else watches. Further, the skill challenge mechanics invalidate much of the thievery mechanics.

It would seem, therefore, that the use of skill challenges in these places are stupid. An examination of the other features (ie - do 35 points of damage to the control panel requiring 11+ attack rolls instead of spending at least 4 rounds making 22+ thievery checks, and totally failing as soon as you miss 2 rolls) seems to suggest that ANYTHING is better than using thievery to disable a trap.

So - I'd suggest that those 'skill challenges' are just replaced with single thievery skill rolls at the appropriate DC. That way your thief has a 50% chance of disabling the trap in a single round and a 25% chance of triggering it. Furthermore he could choose to simply delay it's triggering by 1 round, and have zero chance of triggering it (and a 75% chance of success). Bashing it will take a couple of rounds to destroy it in any case.


On another note:
Skill challenges are busted. Not the DCs, the basic rules for them. X successes before Y failures is far too swingy to be useable across any range of values. Changing the DC can help somewhat, but breaks the system in other ways. There are other threads on this forum that include vast amounts of maths proving this. I'm not a member, so I can't search for them, but they're there.

I would personally, but not on every trap, make damaging certain parts of the trap worsten the condition by 1 in my example above.