Two Example Skill Challenges

[Celebrim]

I did not know you had seen the books, I guess that you're right the books must say nothing of the sort.

I'm not sure I follow you, but in a podcast, Andy Collins explained that skill challenges weren't meant to be linked to things that might lead to TPKs.

 

[Lacyon]

No, it isn't. That's precisely my point.

This is a gross simplification, but suppose this is my design:

Skill Challenge: 'Escape Crushing Room'
Stakes: 5 success/5 failure
Narrative: The walls are slowly closing and will crush the PCs.
On Success: Escape room.
On Failure: Crushed to jelly.

First of all, we aren't advised not to design skill challenges this way were failure indicates death. Yet, the OP instinctually designed not one but two. So that's one indication of how difficult this is going to be for DMs to get adjusted to. But that's only a minor point. There is in my opinion a bigger problem.

Suppose that the players make no skill checks? No failures, and hense, the walls never close. Good safe place to take a long rest if you ask me.

Choosing to do nothing is a failure.

Ok, you say, 'obviously' not doing something is the same as failure.

No, it isn't.

There's no good reason why not.

How long do the walls take to close? It's not a trivial question.

9 actions worth, at most. If there are 3 PCs, this is 3 rounds.

Let's suppose that the first thing any party trapped in the room says is, "I use my dungeoneering skill to estimate how long before the walls come together?" How do you as a DM respond? What is the answer to this question.

Depends on the situation. See below.

Suppose one player is trapped in the room. The walls never close in fewer than five rounds. Suppose six players are trapped in the room. Then there is a finite chance that they'll close before the sixth player even gets a chance to act.

Adjust the number of successes and/or failures required based on the number of PCs involved. "Problem" solved. See below for an example.

Suppose you answer 'obviously' they close in X rounds. Well, then a party could concievably do something (cast healing spells) or just do nothing for X-2 rounds, then solve the challenge entirely in round X-1. In delaying so, they are no worse off than they would have been had they done something useful, and in fact there is a finite chance that by doing nothing they are in fact better off. The party that did something could have already accumulated thier 5 failures and be looking forward to the inevitable big squeeze.

Each round spent not doing something productive is one failure per PC. Easy peasy.

If the walls really close after 3 rounds, then what you really mean isn't any finite absolute number like '5 success/5 failures'. What you really mean is, 'The walls close after everyone gets 3 chances to contribute, whether they succeed or fail'. After all, my pushing against the wall and failing shouldn't make it move faster. If instead of saying '5 success/5 failures' you say, 'Everyone gets 3 chances to contribute', then inaction is the same as failure. But under the standard skill challenge system, inaction isn't the same of failure or if it is, there is a 'special relativity' concept of time in skill challenges where by the length of time an action takes depends on such things as how many people are in the challenge and how many failures are accumulated along the way. That is to say, for example, the more failures you have the more actions you are allowed to take in a round. Although really, we must admit that such simulationist notions of rounds have no place in a skill challenge as described.

A round conforming to a single, constant unit of time is probably unhelpful in the context of a system this abstract. The same system can represent days of work as easily as minutes or seconds.

The party has, in total, 9 chances to act. If five of those chances to act do nothing to avert or postpone the crushing walls trap, they will be unable to escape it. Contrariwise, if five of them succeed, the trap will be unable to crush them. How long each of those chances takes need not be consistent from one activity to another, nor necessarily within a single challenge. I won't complain if there's a standard, but it's not required.

To answer your question of how long it takes the walls to crush: 9/N rounds, where N is the number of PCs in the group. If you want it to be a constant 3 rounds, extend the number of rolls allowed when there are more PCs such that X + Y = 3N + 1.

If you want to be simulationist about it, you'll probably only want to increase the failure threshold - five successes should be sufficient for this trap even when you have 10 PCs, so it becomes 26 failures before you can't beat it. Likewise, if there's only 2 PCs, they still need 5 successes to disarm it and thus a mere 2 failures makes the end goal impossible to achieve in time. A single PC can't possibly accumulate enough successes without help.

But that probably isn't an appropriate challenge for those 10 PCs (or the 1). If you were to design a skill challenge that was appropriate for them, it would probably involve something closer to 18 successes/12 failures. That doesn't match up to 3 rounds exactly, so if that bothers you chunk an extra one success/failure onto the total system.

But if the DM exercises his judgement in this fashion, then perforce he is going to exclude players from the skill challenge who aren't trained in the skills the DM feels are reasonable and relevant. So then we are back to everyone watching the trained character do the work, and we have not in fact achieved the goal skill challenges were supposed to achieve of getting everyone involved.

If you're in a situation where it makes sense in-game for one character to do all the work, just have them do it.

Again, the approach of 'DM exercises his judged to determine what skills are relevant to solving the problem' is what we have now in 3.X (and prior) editions. Where is the chorus of 4e fans decrying your insistance on 'pixel bitching'? Surely the 'skill challenge' system escaped that danger? :smirk:

I've never had a problem with pixel-bitching myself. Whenever the DM wants a particular skill, he calls it out, and we roll it. If we have an alternate skill we'd like to roll, we ask and abide by the answer.

No system will ever prevent a DM from inserting pixel-bitching if he wants it.

'Apparantly' I've been running 4e skill challenges since 1984 (at least).

Good on you.

So for that matter have most of us.

If you say so. Most of what I've been doing is asking the group for the highest X roll and telling the PCs what happens.

 

[D'karr]

I'm not sure I follow you, but in a podcast, Andy Collins explained that skill challenges weren't meant to be linked to things that might lead to TPKs.

Yes, a podcast. So you, the OP and even I have not seen the published books. Is it possible that the OP designed these two scenarios without listening to that podcast?

So beeing overly critical because the scenarios do not "match" a mechanic that nobody has actually seen, does seem like excessive nitpicking.

The only "official" skill challenge anyone has seen at this point is the "guard chase" in Escape from Sembia. In that scenario, there is a time limit. The time limit is still being counted by failures at the skill challenge. Every time that someone fails or does nothing the guards get closer to their goal (identifying the PCs). Everytime the PCs get a relevant success in the escape, they get closer to their goal (escape town).

So to say that skill challenges are "going to be difficult to pull off in practice" is a bit of overreacting.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

So since we only have limited access to the rules (just the preview material, not the real books), I will preface this by saying that this is just my best guess at how this will work.

I was prompted to respond in this thread because I feel that there may be a misunderstanding about how this will play out.

To prevent "pixel bitching" we will be allowed to use any skill that is "relavent". DM judgement will need to be applied, and in the context of player creativity and both DM and player maturity, we might be able to avoid the "You were supposed to use Knowledge!", "To avoid certain death by hanging?" type scenarios. Some players will not have the maturity to avoid the skill spam, and some DMs will not have the maturity to allow creativity by the players, a longstanding problem in any social activity.

The abstraction of the system allows the DM freedom from bad simmulationism. The type where s/he tries to create an interesting and realistic scenario that is also exciting and allows all players to participate, only to find that there are players who are dissatisfied with his simulation, and even cause trouble with the game and other players, or where the players just didn't read the DM's mind. Now the players are empowered to help create the cinematic tension and creative narrative of the story. This is a shift from the DM simulating a trap to the group telling the story of how they accomplished the task.

In reference to time, the player that uses dungeoneering to figure out how long they have before the walls crush them no longer needs a reply of an actual time. A response of "They are closing in on you fast!" allows the player to spur his team mates to action with a "Let's get a move on guys, this room is getting small fast!" and adds to the abstracted successes. This goes just fine with the cinematic feel of 4e.

The bomb timber may have been originally set at two hours, but a number of actions were taken, the time is down to a few secconds before it either is obvious that they won't get it disarmed or that they will need that last herioc saccrifice to stay the last few secconds in the attempt. Since the time is abstracted, the tension is kept high, and the story is more fun. No bad simulation, just action movie simulation.

The fighter that accidentally brings the walls closer to crushing the characters by failing a strength roll to keep the walls appart has not actually pulled the walls closer. The strength check in not a simulation. It is an abstract interaction with the scene, and successes/failures do not simulate anything. They just allow the DM to inject tension into the scene in a measurable way.

In the same way that HP are just an abstraction of "ability to succede in combat", so too are skill challenge successes/failures an abstraction of "ability to succede at a challenge". As there is no need to simulate wounds with HP, there should be no need to simulate the task successes/failures in a skill challenge. Creative description of the action should be good. If the DM doesn't like the description, he has the right interpret the attempted action as a null action, as a fail, or any other way he likes. But to be fair/fun and avoid "pixel bitching", if the other players think that it is fun, he should avoid the railroad.

This whole argument seems to be centered around two things.

1)Some people hate abstraction because it does a bad/unsatisfactory job of simulating X.

2)Some people already have experience/a good group/an intuitive grasp of 3.x that allows them to simulate skill challenges in a way that is more real/fun.

They both degenerate into an objection that 4e does not simulate their pet part of 3.x well. For these people, 4e will not be satisfactory for them in these areas. I feel that 4e is more fun in these areas because it removes the engineering aspects of playing/DMing and replaces it with aspects of screanwriting. Everyone knows that action movies do a bad job of simmulating real life, but they are fun. Everyone knows that engineers do a great job of simmulating the rules of real life, but I have never seen engineering as a spectator sport.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Your first two points have nothing to do with skill challenges per se. I agree with you that 3e had very little information on interesting encounter design or interesting scenario design. But advice for making interesting combat and non-combat encounters is a separate area than the skill challenge itself.

I actually think that is the heart of the issue. If 3e never gave advice along the these lines, but it could do it, then that's just a nice way of saying that it didn't do it. So, skill challenges aren't this brand new system, its a modification to, an upgrade of, and an expansion of, the 3e skill system, which itself is all those things to the 2e proficiency system.

It doesn't have to be brand new from scratch to be a good thing.

The second point again has nothing to do with skill challenges. Obviously, we could give all character classes more skills without adopting the skill challenge system.

The second thing is really why skill challenges won't work in 3e. If you implement the skill challenges in 3e, you still have skill monkies that dominate it. If you add more skill points, you increase what PCs can do, but not how they do them.

For my part, I think the statement "3e has no advice for really doing anything interesting with skills" rather conflicts with the claim that 3e has explicit default assumptions about how skills may or may not be used in combination, and instead left this up to DMs depending on the situation.

It seems to me that advice how to use the rules is at least as important as the existance of the rules.

 

[Thasmodious]

Celebrim seems stuck on this idea that the skill challenge system must represent a bold new system that allows players to do things that were never possible before for it be considered a successful system. That doesn't make much sense. Games evolve in small steps. Yes, you could have used similar systems in 3e. You would have been somewhat hampered by the overall problems with the relevance of skills in 3e, but you could do it. So what? What does that prove and how is that relevant to 4e?

It's not. The idea for the challenge framework was, presumably, thought up by the designers while working on 4e and implemented into that game. It could have developed in 3e, come out in some supplement (maybe it did). That's irrelevant to the value of the system. It doesn't represent anything new and groundbreaking. What it does is provide a framework for designing skill based, xp granting encounters in a system in which skills play a more dynamic role, and aren't limited to one type of character in a typical party. The systems design fits very well with the overall design concept of "no more wallflowers". That applies to the 1st level wizard who has cast his two spells and to the fighter when faced with the "talky parts" of an adventure.

Its not meant to be used when the party is standing in a empty hallway facing only a locked door. That's still just a skill check. But it can be used to create dynamic encounters focused on skill/ability use rather than just "okay, diplomacy DC 25." Good DMs were already running interesting situations where skills and RP intermingled to create a fluid scene. This is just a framework to further integrate such encounters mechanically within the system.

 

[pskought]

I actually tried a Skill Challenge in a 3.5 Eberron game over the weekend, based on what I'd read and heard so far. Any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated.

I had four players who were on an investigation that took them to a small town. They found the village devoid of life and most of the standing structures had been gutted by fire, though the stone walls still stood.

There was a bell tower at one end of town, a weak fountain in the town center, and a barely-scorched blacksmith’s shop near the fountain. As they approached the stone tower, a virtual tidal wave of fire elementals came out of the forest, cutting a swath and coming right for them.

I paused the game, as they expected to roll initiative and to see a map come out. I made it clear this was not a fighting encounter, but a skills encounter, and proceeded to explain the general idea – you tell me how you’re using some skill or power to escape the wave of fire.

I’d decided that they each needed 3 successes before 2 failures to stave off some sort of burn damage or possibly a fiery death. Making death a consequence was apparently my first major mistake.

The DC was set at 18 for 7th level characters, which is low but I wanted to introduce them to the concept. For anyone who wants to read what happened, here is how the four PCs reacted...

The Warlock
First, he runs at top speed towards the tower, and jumps as high as he can to get a head start with Spider Climb. (Success: Jump Check) He starts the climb as fast as he can, but the soot is making it difficult to get a handhold. I give him a Spider Climb bonus to his check, and he makes it. (Success: Climb Check) Next, he scuttles up the side and tries to hide. Luck isn’t with him and an elemental spots him and breaks off from the wave, searching for him. (Failure: Hide) Finally, he goes for broke and scampers up to the top of the bell tower, moving quietly and tries to hide again; the elemental loses interest and rejoins the wave. (Success: Move Silently, Extra Success: Hide)

The Warblade
She opens by trying to gauge the depth of the wave, because she has a plan. She makes a Parkour run up the side of a building to a stone roof (Success: Jump) and tries to see if she can jump over the wave as it passes through her area. She determines it is only twenty feet deep. (Success: Spot). She lines up the jump, waits until the last second and makes an impressive 40-foot magically enhanced long jump (Success: Jump), then throws on a half twist to land safely with weapon in hand. (Extra Success: Tumble)

The Bard
She can’t jump or climb that well, so she tries to run. She remembers that the blacksmith shop was scorch-free, so she tries to recall the fastest route back. (Success: Knowledge-Local) Her chosen path takes her through some tight squeezes, though, and she shimmies her way through a shortcut. (Success: Escape Artist). Her next attempt at a shortcut isn’t as effective, though (Failure: Knowledge-Local), so as a last ditch effort she casts Swift Invisibility and contorts into the blacksmith’s chimney and lets the fire roar past her. (Success: Hide)

The Artificer
Weirdest one, by far. He backpedals and analyzes the oncoming wave for a weak spot while infusing his armor. (Success: Knowledge-Planes) He goes Ethereal, and leaps head-first into the wave, looking for a control source. He ends up disoriented, though, and learns nothing. (Failure: Knowledge-Arcana) He quickly picks himself back up, focuses, and looks for a lingering spell effect. He determines there isn’t one (Success: Spellcraft) He takes one last look around for what might be affecting the wave, and determines they are following a prescribed path, giving him a clue to the overall mystery. (Success: Spot).

From my side of the screen, this was arguably the fastest-paced and most interesting encounters we’ve played through in a while. Everyone got to use one of their signature skills to outmaneuver the bad guys, and the whole encounter took less than thirty minutes to explain and adjudicate. I really like that no battle map was needed, only a rough notion of the area without regard to square-by-square distance.

 

[Just Another User]

DM: Okay Mike what do you want to do the walls are closing in on you.
The door behind you slammed shut and is locked.

Mike: Alright I start looking for some sort of mechanism to try and shut this thing down.

DM: Okay go ahead and roll a perception check, it's going to be very hard.

Mike: Oh come on, I do this for a living! Roll Sweet 18+12 in perception is 30, that's got to be good enough.

DM: Nice, okay you spot a small imperfection on the right side of the door, because you succeeded at a hard check you can choose another skill to try and use, and you get a +2 bonus to it.

Mike: OH hell yah, I'll start working on the panel see if I can figure this thing out.

DM: Okay well if you want to start disarming it with Theivery it will be difficult, BUT if you want to try and use your insight to try and figure out how it's working it will make further Thievery rolls easier.

Mike: Okay I'll study the mechanism. Insight of 12+7=19 is that good enough.

Is that not a thing of beauty?[/I]

Just a question.

If Mike here had rolled a thievery check and rolled a 20 what would you have made?

 

[Propheous_D]

Celebrim needs to get over his I am right retoric that no one is caring about. Come on Celebrim at this point your about as useful as a troll. Everyone has all ready admited you are right, but that it means absolutely nothing. If you don't like it then don't use it. I for one am interested in new challenges we can think up, and different ways of using it. Some of what you say does make us think. Just drop the whole I did this all ready in 3E. Your idea of what happens when the players do nothing is a good point and should be asked. Not because it proves anything, but because it can bog things down and we should be prepared with examples of how to handle that in a skill challenge.

 

[Lacyon]

From my side of the screen, this was arguably the fastest-paced and most interesting encounters we’ve played through in a while. Everyone got to use one of their signature skills to outmaneuver the bad guys, and the whole encounter took less than thirty minutes to explain and adjudicate. I really like that no battle map was needed, only a rough notion of the area without regard to square-by-square distance.

Sounds like you did a pretty good job. In 3E, I'd be careful about two things, mostly:

First, keep an eye on characters' skill bonuses. If one PC gets a +10 or +15 skill-boosting item, it'll be really hard to make a skill challenge DC that he has the possibility of failure and isn't auto-fail for the other PCs (or even that PC with another skill). Just a few of these is probably fine, it just means that they can get one success automatically and still need to use other skills later in the challenge. Likewise, if there's a whole bunch of these items spread around the party, you can just make the challenges tougher and still have a meaningful challenge. A lot of these in one character's hands and none in the others is a situation you'll want to watch out for.

Second, make sure each PC has enough different skills that they can attempt and have a chance to hit your DC, to keep things interesting. Some classes just get a tiny number of skill points in 3E.

The other thing I'll point out is that separating the successes and failures for each individual is probably fine overall, but you may find characters wanting to be able to help each other out, loaning successes to each other, or bearing the brunt of another's failure. Take that idea far enough and you'll probably come back to the apparent 4E conclusion of just making it a total number of successes/failures for the group, and using description to convey the nature of their cooperation.