Yet another Skill Challenge Variant

[Mysterious Hu]

This is what I am thinking of using for Skill Challenges in my campaign.

• It basically gives a 55% chance of success, modifed by the character's creativity.
• It encourages the party to plan and co-operate to overcome challenges.
• It allows everyone to have some creative input and rewards cunning and drama.
• It punishes failure in a Skill Challenge with a measurable and ongoing game effect.

Fatigue
I am making the assumption that Healing Surges include an element of morale, determination and destiny; rather than reflecting simple physical toughness. With this assumption, it is possible to reconcile a character loosing a Healing Surge because of a severe disappointment or setback in addition to the normal causes; disease and injury.

When a character suffers Fatigue, he looses a Healing Surge. Healing Surges lost to Fatigue can only be recovered by taking a Long Rest after completing the current Major Quest. If a character has no further Healing Surges to loose, he looses quarter of his remaining Hit Points instead. These lost Hit Points can be recovered by healing that does not require the character to expend a Healing Surge.

Skill Challenge Summary

· The GM describes the situation to the players.
· The players discuss their characters’ options and decide upon a plan.
· The players select one of the characters to act as the party’s Champion; the other characters act as Helpers.
· Each player controlling a Helper describes how his character will attempt to aid the Champion.
o Based on each player’s description, the GM selects an appropriate Skill for that player to test.
o Each Helping player makes an appropriate Skill Roll for his character against a Difficulty Level of 15 + (Level/2).
§ If the player’s description was particularly appropriate, clever or dramatic, the GM can grant a +2 bonus to the Skill Roll.
§ Conversely, an inappropriate, stupid or dull description can impose a -2 penalty.
o If the Skill Roll is successful, the Helper grants a +2 bonus to the Champion’s Still Roll.
o If the Skill Roll was unsuccessful, the Helper suffers Fatigue.
· When all of the Helpers have made their Skill Rolls, it is the Champion’s turn.
o The player controlling the Champion describes the character’s actions and the GM selects an appropriate Skill for the player to roll.
o The Champion player makes the Skill Roll against a Difficulty Level of 15 + Party Size + (Level/2).
§ The Champion’s Skill Roll can be modified to take into account a good or bad description and is modifed by the success of the Helpers' rolls.
· If the Champion is successful, the party overcomes the Challenge and gains XP equal to a Balanced Encounter.
· If the Champion is unsuccessful, the party fails to overcome the Challenge. The Champion suffers Fatigue. The party will have to come up with a new plan for overcoming the Challenge or will have to accept that it has defeated them and suffer the consequences set by the GM.

 

[Paul Strack]

This is not bad. I wasn't liking it at first until I noticed that you factored party size into the difficulty of the Champion's roll. The should make the rules scale correctly.

I'd make the "Fatigue" penalty only 1/4 hp if the PC doesn't have a healing surge instead of 1/2 hp. Other than that it looks pretty playable to me.

 

[Mysterious Hu]

Ta - the 1/4 loss = 1 healing surge makes sense to me. No doubt I'll find some huge pothole I overlooked.

 

[Stalker0]

While I'm partial to my own system of course, this has several factors I like. Its clean, simple, and straightforward. There's definite incentives to have everyone participate, and solid mechanics should they fail.

I haven't run any math on it, so I don't know how it works in practice. I will say the system has issues handling a really strong skill user. For example, at 1st level its possible to have someone with a +15 to a skill, which means in a 5 person group they succeed 80% of the time without any help. Including other party members, you can easily get it to 100% success without much trouble.

Also, scaling your DCS by just 1/2 level will begin to break down at higher levels, as players start getting more ability bumps, powers, and items that bump skills.

 

[Mysterious Hu]

Ta - Stalker0 - it was tales of the broken Skill Challenge system and your Obsidian system that kicked this idea off.

I've not immersed myself in the 4e rules - so thanks for the heads up on possible imbalance caused by modifiers (+15 @ 1st level - blimey). I kind of based my ideas on my players' characters skill levels; thinking that they were indicative of the system (their best skill mod is Arcana +8).

I guess that what is need is a clear idea of the players' objectives. First and foremost is amassing XP; this even takes precedence over survival - if survival were the most important consideration, they would stay at home where it is safe like 99% of the population.

In a combat encounter, the characters gamble hit points/survival versus XP and story goals. If the PCs win the encounter they gain XP and advance the plot. If the PCs lose the encounter, they are killed or forced to flee.

Non-combat encounters need to provide the same penalties and rewards.

However, in combat, the players’ options are clearly defined with definite repercussions. The player selects from among a number of well defined options. In non-combat encounters, the players receive less guidance; though this does allow them more creativity.

What I’m looking for is a concrete system for resolving non-combat encounters with the same tension, penalties and rewards as combat encounters.

 

[Mysterious Hu]

Also, scaling your DCS by just 1/2 level will begin to break down at higher levels, as players start getting more ability bumps, powers, and items that bump skills.

Hah - the Grind is so obvious in 4e with everything showing that +(Level/2).

 

[Paul Strack]

Hah - the Grind is so obvious in 4e with everything showing that +(Level/2).

If you look at the DMG errata for generic skill difficulties, WotC has upped the progression to about +2 DC per 3 levels rather than +1 DC per 2 levels.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates

Based on my number crunching, that's a better fit to the actual progression, once you figure in Ability bonuses and random boosts for items, feats and powers. Since your rules encourage the best-skilled member in the party to be the leader, you will have to at least factor in the maximum attribute bonus increases that person will likely have (roughly +1 per 8 levels). 1/2 + 1/8 is not quite 2/3, but if you figure there will be a few other bonuses, it's about right.

In practice, you should set your DCs appropriate to your party. Your system should make figuring out the "right" DC a lot easier, since you have a single lead challenger to look at.

 

[Mysterious Hu]

If you look at the DMG errata for generic skill difficulties, WotC has upped the progression to about +2 DC per 3 levels rather than +1 DC per 2 levels.

It's a bit worrying that WOTC are making such a major adjustment in the errata rather than in the play-testing beta. The big selling point of 4e for me was that the underlying calculations were all balanced.

So, if I understand what you said; the formula for determining the Follower's DC would be 15 + (Level x .66) and the Leader’s DC would be 15 + (Level x .66) + Party Size

This leaves the question of rewards. How many successful Non-combat Skill Rolls should equal a Combat Encounter? How much XP should be earned by a Skill Challenge?

 

[Frostmarrow]

It's a bit worrying that WOTC are making such a major adjustment in the errata rather than in the play-testing beta. The big selling point of 4e for me was that the underlying calculations were all balanced.

I wonder if the DM screen will feature the old numbers when it's released?

About you skill challenge: Even though I think it's reasonable to lose healing surges over disappointment I think you take it too far. Major quests can be far between.

 

[Paul Strack]

This leaves the question of rewards. How many successful Non-combat Skill Rolls should equal a Combat Encounter? How much XP should be earned by a Skill Challenge?

Hmm. That's a hard question. Your system feels to me to be roughly equal to a single Complexity 1 challenge in the old system. That is, it is about one equal-level monster worth of XP. It's not just a question of difficulty; it's a question of game-time used. I doubt your challenge would take more than 10 minutes or so of game time.

You could make a more difficult challenge worth more XP by stringing a series of smaller challenges together.