# Skill Challenge Play Examples?



## kaomera (Aug 9, 2009)

I'm gearing up to get back into 4e, and I've been reading the Mike Mearls Skill Challenge articles in the DDI. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, but very little on the actual procedures of implementing a Skill Challenge at the table.

This is something I've been noticing about 4e recently: there's a ton of information that is at least potentially useful to the game (if you can get it out on the table), but not a lot of advice or instructions on how & when to do so. And as I'm leaning towards adding more details (like Skill Challenges, terrain effects, secondary objectives in fights, etc.) to my games, I'd like to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't.

I understand that a lot of this is going to vary on a group-to-group basis, but are there any good examples of how a Skill Challenge plays out at the table out there, or would any of you mind posting an example of how you play them out at your table?


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## Paul Strack (Aug 10, 2009)

Here is how I ran a physical skill challenge in my last game session.

The PCs were in a village gathering information when their enemies, a group of ogres, hurled flaming barrels of tar into the center of town. This set various buildings on fire and the PCs had to save the villagers and put out the fires.

I told the players up front what skills were relevant to the challenge (Athletics, Acrobatics and Endurance). I then had them each make an ability check to determine who went first. After that I just went clockwise around the table.

On each player's turn, I asked them what they were doing. After they talked for a bit, I had them roll an appropriate skill check based on their "action". Several of the players attempted an out-of-challenge, which (per the rules) I allow, but only once per challenge and at the higher difficulty. I put out glass beads with each success or failure so the players have a visual representation of their progress.

When the players are successful, I have *them* describe what happens, sometimes with my own elaborations if they get stuck. I usually describe their failures myself, but I try not to make their characters look stupid when they roll poorly.

For example, our dragonborn tried so smash his way into a burning building, which I decided called for an Endurance check. When he blew the roll, I said that there was a rush of smoke that kept him for getting close enough, as opposed to having him fall on his face or doing something silly.

I find that this approach encourages a lot of creativity in my players. The wizard raised the water levels of a nearby stream to drown out the flames, the warlord started a bucket chain and the rogue was climbing up buildings to pull people out. The challenge ended with the rogue making a dramatic acrobatics roll to pull the mayor out of the way of a collapsing building. That was all the players' inventions, none of mine.


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## Infiniti2000 (Aug 10, 2009)

I can only hope to someday run cool skill challenges like that.  For some reason, it's still not clicking with me either.  Rest assured, though, I'll mark this thread copy gems like this down.  One question, though, Paul Strack, what check did the wizard make to raise the water?


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## Mechanimal (Aug 10, 2009)

That's a really cool skills challenge. So far, in my campaign, I've not done any actual skills challenges to that affect. But, I think I'm going to have to add in some, because battle after battle gets bland for everyone. 

One question: Do you come up with "events" for bad rolls, or do you improvise it all? I was thinking of coming up with a sheet, because I usually end up just making funny things happen, like falling on your face, or slipping, or tripping; though, I want to come up with something more meaningful. It's hard for me to improvise all the time.


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## Thanee (Aug 10, 2009)

What I think is missing in most skill challenges, and what could be the source of them being hard to implement, is, that there is often no direct result for a single check.

Basically, a skill challenge should both have one overall goal, which is either reached or not (depending on whether there are enough successes gathered before too many failures, as usual), but also, every single check should have some small effect, which the DM (or the player) can describe.

The whole skill challenge should feel a bit like a tug-of-war, I think, where one side is the successes and ther other side the failures.

Also, skill checks should generally be seen as a small piece of the whole thing, not to solve the whole situation at once.

For example, when you are in an audience with the king to persuade him to give you access to his armory, you do not make a Diplomacy check to persuade him to give you access to his armory, but to raise his mood, to make him understand the importance of it, or something like that.

Each success would show him more interested and more willing to listen, while each failure would make him lose his patience a little. And in the end he either allows you in, or throws you out.

Still, when you need like 12 successes, that's a lot of rather similar checks you will have to do, and it will quickly become difficult to find more actions that seem different enough to not just be a repeat of a precious action, and more ways to describe the outcome.

Bye
Thanee


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## FireLance (Aug 10, 2009)

Thanee said:


> Still, when you need like 12 successes, that's a lot of rather similar checks you will have to do, and it will quickly become difficult to find more actions that seem different enough to not just be a repeat of a precious action, and more ways to describe the outcome.



This is why I am starting to think that skill challenges should not require more than 4 successes before 3 failures, as it is much easier to define and narrate four steps to success and three steps to failure. 

More complex skill challenges can split up into two or more sub-goals which can be tackled consecutively or concurrently, each of which is a standard 4 successes before 3 failures skill challenge.


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## Delgar (Aug 10, 2009)

Before 4th edition came out and as information was being leaked about skill challenges. This was how I envisioned they would play out. I haven't had a chance to really run a 4th edition game as of yet (soon I'll be running one online finally). The information we had was that there were Easy/Normal/Hard rolls. Someone theorized that you could gamble on a hard roll to give you another check with a bonus. When the actual rulesystem came out I was a little dissapointed, but I have looked at Stalkers Obsidian system and that seems to fit my style of playing much better.

Anyway, here is a round by round example I put together.

_The door slams shut behind you and you hear a loud click. Nothing happens for a moment but then, the walls begin moving slowly together. Roll Initiative:_

Dave: 10

Mike: 25 WOOT, I rock!

Regan: 12

Tim: 1



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. Dungeoneering of 12+7=19 is that good enough.



DM: Yes, you figure out how the mechanism is working, any theivery attempts to disarm it now will be a normal check instead of a hard one.

Okay that's two successes for you guys so far. Regan your up.



Regan: Alright I'll use my Knowledge: Dungeoneering to see if I can give Mike any help with disarming this trap. Roll 1+8=9 crap I failed.



DM: Okay you've never seen or heard of anything quite like this before.

That's 2 successes and 1 failure. Dave your up the walls are still moving in on you.



Dave: Alright, I want to take a look at the mechanism and see if I can help figure it out. Is it possible for me to gamble on a difficult dungeoneering, to give us some more information?



DM: Sure why not go ahead and roll



Dave: Alright woot 16+10=26. Is that good enough?



DM: Sure is, you can definitely tell Mike what levers are responsible for the walls moving. Okay because you succeeded at a hard check you get to try another skill at a +2 bonus.



Dave: Hmm, I think I'll just take another look around and make sure we didn't miss something, we don't want to be surprised by anything.

Perception 12+7=19.



DM: Taking another quick scan of the room, your pretty sure that you can see a trap door in the ceiling, perhaps another way out if all else fails. That's 4 successes and 1 fail. You're up Tim.



Tim: Well I'll try to use my brute strength to slow the progress of the wall to give us some more time. I'll use my athletics skill.



DM: Okay but that's definitely going to be difficult.



Tim: That's okay I'll try it. Roll 15+10=25



DM: That's just good enough to make it, you dig in and use all your might to slow the progress of the wall. Okay Mike back to you. You guys have 5 successes and 1 failure.



Mike: Well here goes nothing guys. I'll attempt to rig the levers to move the wall back into it's original position.



DM: Okay go for it.



Mike: Thievery roll 10+12=22. Good? Good?



DM: You manage to move the levers into the appropriate position and the wall, comes to a stop and slowly moves back into it's original position.


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## jcayer (Aug 10, 2009)

We have recently, after almost a year, added skill challenges in.  Like someone else said, battle after battle can get boring.

It hasn't been a total success or failure.  A couple tips.  The session before I put one in for the first time, I read a whole lot about it and informed the players there would be one(and asked them to research).  I also put all the skills and their descriptions on a sheet for them so they had a good reference at the table.  Finally, I gave them all the info once the challenge began.  I told them how many success/failures, had them keep track of it, what skills were primary and secondary, and the respective DCs.  The challenge ran well and there was interest in doing another.  We now probably average 1 per session.

I agree about the number of success/failures.  6 successes is the most I would go at this point and that is stretching it.  A couple of my players are having a difficult time figuring out how to use the skills I present(they are welcome to suggest others) and how to RP that.  For them, I try to be more patient and allow others to help by making suggestions.  I improvise my responses, since I have NO idea what these guys will come up with.

My biggest complaint is they tend to resolve too quickly for my liking.  Combat takes an hour+, I would love to have these last longer than 10 minutes.

My most recent one was interesting, they were chasing one of the Big Bads. I hadn't decided if they should get to catch and kill him or not, so I managed to get him through a magically locked door. They had some of the components to unlock it, but not all, so I threw up the challenge.  If they got the door open, they would continue pursuit and probably get to kill him.  If not, he got away.  It required 6 successes to unlock and open.

No player rolled less than a 17.  Not a single failure.  No tension whatsoever.

My biggest comment is to try them.  We've probably done 6 or so in the past 5 sessions and we keep getting better.  My players accept we are learning this and want to include it.  You won't get better at it unless you play through them and learn.


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## Kalthanis (Aug 10, 2009)

I would also suggest, as in a great deal of things, you don't let them simply name the skill they are attempting and roll it.  "My turn on the skill challenge?  I try Athletics.  Ummm... I got a 23."

Ranks right up there with, "I try to convince the king to share his grain stores.  I rolled a 45 Diplomacy so he probably does anything I tell him to."  *looks at me expectantly for the king's response.*  (1st session with a new group).


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## kaomera (Aug 11, 2009)

Wow, thanx for all the comments!

I actually have tried running some Skill Challenges before, with my previous group, but they didn't seem to work out too well. My players really wanted to focus on the role-play aspects of the situation, which is cool, but to the extent that it became difficult to provide them with the information they needed to make significant tactical decisions... For example they didn't really seem to want a handout with a list of skills in front of them, but that leaves them without any clue as to what's a primary / secondary / or off the list... I was confused by this a bit, it seemed like most of the real descriptive narration ought to happen after the roll, anyway.

I'm not sure if any new group I end up putting together will have the same problems, but I want to be prepared, just in case! I could see possibly not making a list of appropriate skills, and just running with whatever the players come up with, but I would think it would be nice to have at least something to work from... Maybe I could get that across with my descriptions, I'm not sure it would be 100% clear.


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 11, 2009)

My group have found skill challenges to be a bit... underwhelming.

There's no real decision to be made by players: pick your highest skill, think up an excuse to use it and roll. The only real difference between them and 3e's skill encounters is that those who've ended up with low skills are forced to take part and earn a failure for their team.

I think things would be a lot better if there was a countdown mechanic instead of the existing failure mechanism: With such a large penalty for failing a skill check, players are discouraged from doing anything interesting, and instead try to avoid taking part, or go with safety options like aid another if they think their modifier is relatively low.


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## LostSoul (Aug 11, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> There's no real decision to be made by players: pick your highest skill, think up an excuse to use it and roll.




That's only true if there's no difference between succeeding at a Diplomacy check or succeeding at an Intimidate check.



Saeviomagy said:


> With such a large penalty for failing a skill check, players are discouraged from doing anything interesting, and instead try to avoid taking part, or go with safety options like aid another if they think their modifier is relatively low.




That is a problem, so put it back on the PC: if they don't do anything, bad things will happen to them.


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## Iron Sky (Aug 11, 2009)

In my session Saturday night, I ran an Obsidian Skill Challenge for the 4 level 5 players that were there at the session.  Obsidian has a set DC (20 for level 4), three rounds in which each player makes a roll, and requires x amount of successes for a success, y-z for a partial success, otherwise it's a failure.  7, 5-6, 4- in this case.

When I run it as follows:

Each player must describe what they are attempting to do before they make a roll.

After the description, they can suggest a skill or I give them a choice or two that seems appropriate.

They roll the check and at the end of the round, I narrate to the group the net results of their actions for the round.

My general rule is to find a way to say yes to whatever they want to do, figuring out what skill makes the most sense and imposing penalties on far-fetched or largely irrelevant rolls.

Here is a partial transcript from our session recording of how the skill challenge went:

Setup: The party was on the walking hut they'd just been gifted from a wandering Kenku Village, heading west through the Western Elder Wyld when the hours-long nuclear explosion of a Godstorm ignited a huge fire 100 miles to the south of them.  As the forest in the far distance became a massive wall of fire, they turned the hut north to try to flee the flames, but as they ran the fire started catching up to them.

After two days of trying to outrun the fire, the Swordmage's player figured out they could make a backfire ahead of them, firebreaks, and the like to get safe from the fire.  His character rolled a Nature check, succeeded, and so the player could use the idea.  He announced his plan to the party and they stopped the hut at which point this <edited for coherence and relevance> transcript begins.

---

DM(me): "So the next morning after you've been pretty much fleeing from this slowly growing wall of fire, discussing the plan that the Hadarai spent the night figuring out, we're going to initiate a Skill Challenge with you guys figuring out a way to outwit this fire, creating a firebreak or whatever else you guys figure out.  First round of the skill challenge..."

Vincent(Barbarian): "Um... let's see here.  We have to make a backfire?"

DM: "Well, you can do anything you can think of to try to prepare for the fire reaching you."

<bad jokes about peeing on a fire being Sustain: Standard>

Vincent: "I'll do something with Endurance..."

DM: "Well you could also wait until somebody else does something and make your check to tag along with them."

Vincent: "My Endurance check will be to gather supplies needed to start the back fire.  That's a 14."

DM: "Ok."

Hadarai(Swordmage): "Can I make an Arcana to just create the fire?"

DM: "Like, using your magical fire to start the fires?"

Hadarai: "Yeah."

DM: "Sure.  I'll call it a -2, but go ahead."

Hadarai: "*Grunt* that's only a 14"

DM: "Ok, what are the rest of you doing?"

	 	  Vincent: "What is the underbrush and stuff like around here?"

DM: "You find that it's all really dry.  It's the middle of summer here and looks like it hasn't rained since it rained on you guys a week ago."

Kanatash(Cleric): "I'm gonna pray this plan works."

DM: "So a Religion check?  Ok -5 on this one."

Kanatash: "Uh, ok, I'll roll Nature instead, helping Vincent.  That's going to be a 20."

DM: "Ok, what about Galentra?"

Galentra(Sorceress): "I know what I want to do, but it's hard to describe.  Fire burns the underbrush, but also burns from treetop to treetop.  I want to use my powers to knock down trees so it in the area so the fire doesn't jump over us.  I don't know what skill that is..."

DM: "Well, since you're using your powers, we'll call in Arcana.  -2 on this one too."

Galentra: "Ok, that's a 26."

DM(to Vincent): "You go around and gather up tinder and the like but you find that in spite of it being pretty dry here, alot of the underbrush you can reach is green and so you have slow progress chopping it down with your handaxe."

DM(to Hadarai): "You use your powers to try and start fires at strategic points, but you're having problems getting it going, maybe it's too green or something, but Galentra starts blasting trees down left and right to keep the fire from jumping."

DM(to Kanatash): "Kanatash goes around and actually finds some nice sources of dry tinder."

DM(to all): "So that took about half the day.  Now you can look to the south and even when you're not on the hut you can see the fire over the tree tops.  You guess the fire is going to reach you around midnight.  Round two..."

---

We continued on for the second and third rounds.  Here's the checks, brief descriptions, and final results.

-Round 2-

Vincent: Athletics check to knock down trees with his Stonebreaker Power(granting him a +2 on the check) and his Mordenkrad.  Result: Natural 20(2 successes).

Hadarai: Athletics to stack/drag the trees Vincent is knocking down.  Result: 26(success).

Kanatash: Nature again(-2 penalty for repeating skill in two sequential rounds) looking for a source of water.  Result: 17(failure).

Galentra: Nature to start little fires in the gathered tinder.  Result: 21(success).

-Round 3-

"By the time you're done, you can feel the hot wind blowing on you.  You can see the wall of fire, close enough that it's hazy and raining ash as the sun sets."

Hadarai: Arcana to ignite sword and get the fire going.  Result: 18(failure)

Vincent: Endurance to dig a big trench around the hut. Result: 22(success)

Kanatash: Heal to help others deal with heat, soak rags in water and get them ready for everyone(desperate gambit, -5 to check, 2 successes on success).  Result: 19(failure).

Galentra: Arcana to try to convert the food rations given by their bag of endless provisions into water to douse the hut with(desperate gambit, -5).  Result: Natural 20(3 successes).


End Result: 10 successes(7 needed for skill challenge success with 4 players).  They huddled in their hut, soaked down, as the fire raged around them.  Aside from having to make some Endurance checks to suffer through the heat, they were unaffected by the fire (well, unaffected except for the smattering of fire-based creatures that attacked them from out of the storm).


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## Stalker0 (Aug 11, 2009)

I actually haven't enjoyed skill challenges too much (that might come as a surprise considering I spent so much time developing my own challenge system).

The ones my group has enjoyed have two characteristics in common:

1) The challenge was a big one. It was epic and grand in scale. We have found quick challenges just aren't that enjoyable for us.

2) There some real penalties for failure. We've had challenges where everyone takes damage each round until they succeed, suffer healing surge penalties when they are doing badly....and of course have serious consequences for failure. That seems to drive them more.


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## Turtlejay (Aug 11, 2009)

Iron Sky said:


> Setup: The party was on the walking hut they'd just been gifted from a wandering Kenku Village




You had me at walking hut.  Godfire nuclear explosion or whatever was nice too.

Good skill challenge, and nice dramatization of it.  Our group has not had a ton of luck or experience with them, but I did run a non standard skill challengy thing a few months ago.

It was a festival, and the party had the option of participating in a number of different events.  Call it ripped of from Neverwinter Nights 2 if you want, but it was pretty successful.  Pie eating contests, talent shows, things like that took up a couple of hours of roleplay.  Good times.

Jay


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## kaomera (Aug 11, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> My group have found skill challenges to be a bit... underwhelming.



That was my experience as well, but not so much for mechanical reasons.

My usual response to this sort of thing (ans Stalker0's response gives me some pause on this) has been to ensure that succeeding is a bonus, rather than making failure a penalty. That was the rule of thumb I used to follow with complex tricks / traps, etc. in AD&D & 3.x Not that there shouldn't be some sort of penalty (traps blow up, resources get used), but in terms of the overall goal (usually: get through the dungeon to the boss and/or treasure) they should provide a shortcut or beneficial result (buffs, etc.) on a success, but not close anything off on a failure...

Of course, if the benefit is nice enough, then not getting it _is_ a penalty, I guess...

I've seen several suggestions to stick to larger-scale (or long-term, time wise) stuff for Skill Challenges. I'm also beginning to think that making each check a discreet thing, with it's own lesser rewards and consequences may be the way to go. Not sure entirely how to handle that, but it would tend to make the players more thoughtful about what skill checks they made (rather than just sticking to their one best skill). At best it might get players thinking of how many failures (for the overall Skill Challenge) they can risk to go after personal gains (via the individual rolls)...

One other thing I'm kind of wondering about: Secondary skill checks and Aid Another. These seem like a really interesting resource for the players, but I can't really see how they would work that way, instead of just being the recourse of characters otherwise unsuited to the challenge, or everyone piling on to every check...


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 11, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> That's only true if there's no difference between succeeding at a Diplomacy check or succeeding at an Intimidate check.



Yeah, but 4e is a gem where your good skills are all roughly equivalent and your bad skills are all much worse. So the choice is <one of your good skills> succeeding or <any other skill> failing.


> That is a problem, so put it back on the PC: if they don't do anything, bad things will happen to them.



So... if they don't do anything, they only have to suffer personal loss? Instead of letting the entire team down?


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## Iron Sky (Aug 11, 2009)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> I actually haven't enjoyed skill challenges too much (that might come as a surprise considering I spent so much time developing my own challenge system).
> 
> The ones my group has enjoyed have two characteristics in common:
> 
> ...




I try to limit skill challenges to once or twice a session for this reason.  At one point, I tried to do skill challenges for every day of travel.  All it ended up doing was diluting the "interest factor" of "Hey, a skill challenge!" and transforming it to "ok, looks like another skill challenge."


I've found that the most rewarding types of skill challenges for the players are ones they initiate.  In the example I gave above, I had no idea how they were going to deal with the raging forest fire.  I presented a resource-laden environment, an immanent threat, and they came up with the idea.  Their idea seemed large enough to turn into a skill challenge, so I went with it.


When we've done regular(by-the-book) skill challenges, I've found that most of the time it's Aid-the-Maximust, with all the players pitching in +2s to the best roller.  Statistically, unless there's a time-per-roll limit or the like, it just makes sense to do it that way.  Sometimes you can find ways to split them up and make it interesting, but often I've found they tend to be long chains of near auto-successes due to all the assists.

Same with random skill checks.  "I ask around town about the bandit king." "No, let me do it, I'm more diplomatic."  "We all help him."


My basic rule of thumb for skill challenges is:

If I'm pretty sure it will add to the tension, drama, or player involvment in the story, it can be broken into interesting steps, and I can think of interesting _possibility-creating _and/or _story-enriching_ results from success or failure, enter skill challenge.


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## Eldorian (Aug 11, 2009)

I've also been mostly unhappy with skill challenges.  The examples given in this thread look far more entertaining than the ones I've done.

Once, we were trying to research information about the Feywild and some trolls (doing king of the trollhaunt warrens).

My character has a 13 int, 11 wis, and his skills are bluff, intimidate, stealth, thievery, and acrobatics.  Basically, since our DM allows us to aid another (a massively unsatisfying turn in the skill challenge).  I aided others with various int and wis based skill checks.  I attempted to use thievery to open locked books or secret passages in the library, but the DM told me this was impossible, so I aided another.  I later left the library and stopped participating because it was pointless.  We eventually succeeded based on the avenger's, wizard's, and cleric's wis and int based skills, along with various aid another attempts.  Oh, and the DCs for success were in the mid 20s, too high for my untrained skills, which are around +6 at this point.

Later, we had to open a magic door during a combat, and I used thievery to disrupt the portal by damaging/moving symbols on the door.  It wasn't really a skill challenge, but was OK I guess, as I very rarely get to use my thievery.

I'd say the skills I use most often are stealth and acrobatics, and acrobatics only because it's a prerequisite to a power or two that I have, and I count it as being used when I use that power.  Attempts at bluff or intimidate usually just get NPCs pissed off it seems, even when successful.  I do occasionally bluff our minotaur party member into believing silly things about drow society, such as that they keep minotaurs as slaves because once they're done working, it's time for steak.  And also, in drow law, it's not murder unless they fight back.  This provides amusement for me and the minotaur's player, but does little to progress the quest.


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## Paul Strack (Aug 11, 2009)

*More challenge ideas*

Here are some of the things I think go into making a good skill challenge:

1) The challenge has to be about something the players care about. A meaningless challenge is boring. The challenge should be related to the story you are telling.

2) The players should have a chance to show off and be cool. A challenge that requires skills that none of the PCs are good at is not a good challenge. A challenge that lets one particular character shine, though, can be entertaining. One way to help this along is to present a general problem to the players, but let them decide how to approach it. They will usually choose an approach that plays to their own strengths.

3) You should have a meaningful result for both victory and defeat. A challenge that requires success is a bad challenge, because it means that the GM cannot allow the players to fail. "Succeed or die" is a bad challenge. "Succeed or you can't find the dungeon" is another bad challenge.

A good challenge might be: "Succeed and you get to ambush the bad guys, otherwise they ambush you." Another good challenge is "Succeed and you catch the bad guy before he commits the murder: then you fight. Fail and he kills before you catch him: then you fight."

Successful challenges can also give them bonuses: "Succeed and you get some extra healing magic to get you through the hard part of the dungeons. Fail and you get nothing"

Challenges can force them to take an unpleasant alternative that still moves the adventure forward: "Succeed and you find your own way into the castle. Fail and you have to turn to the thieves guild to get you in, and now you owe them a favor."

4) You should "prepare to improvise". Jot down some notes on what might happen for individual skill check successes and failures in a challenge. Once you've done it for while, it gets easier to make things up on the fly. Be prepared to respond to whatever crazy scheme your players come up with, even if it means pitching out you notes. Remember: the PCs just have to achieve the goal. How they get there is not so important.

5) Let the dice decide how things turn out. This is part of "saying yes" to the players. When your player comes up with an idea that you think is clever or stupid, don't judge for yourself. If the dice roll well, it was a good idea. If the dice roll poorly, it was a bad idea, or the PC got unlucky and there was some unforeseen problem. If the roll was good and you can't possibly see how what the PC was doing will help, make the *player* tell you how the result was helpful.


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## msherman (Aug 11, 2009)

I've got a challenge coming up in a few sessions where I'm trying something new. We use the Obsidian system, so challenges are always three rounds, and each player tries a skill each round, with a fixed number of successes required for victory or partial victory.

The entire session will see the pcs assisting in defending a fort against a monster siege. There's three combats, where the PCs are fighting a wave of monsters attacking the gate they're defending. Before each combat is one round of the skill challenge, where the PCs take advantage of the lull between waves at their gate to offer orders and assistance to defenders elsewhere in the fort.

In prepping the challenge, I went through the PCs and picked 3 unique trained skills for each character. For each skill, I figured out a way to "slow pitch" to that skill, so that if a PC doesn't already have an idea in mind for what to do during a skill challenge phase, I can give them a setup that plays to their strength. For example, the cleric (Raven Queen) will be asked to perform a benediction for the dead and soon-to-be-dead (religion), and the fighter will be asked for help commanding a cowardly unit that's trying to flee their post (intimidate).

I'm also going to give the PCs an option to spend a standard action during the fights to make a bonus check in the skill challenge. I don't expect this to get used, but if things are looking bad by the time they get to the third fight (after the last round of the skill challenge), they might want to take the risk.

I also set up a meaningful result for each possible outcome: failure, the fort falls, and the PCs are taken prisoner, leading to exciting adventures escaping the enemy camp. Partial victory, the fort holds, but the defeated monsters manage an orderly retreat, taking some of the available treasure with them. Full victory, the monsters are routed, and the PCs get an additional treasure parcel full of potions from the cart of an enemy witch doctor.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 11, 2009)

There are a thread from Sagiro and Rel in the General RPG Discussion forum on the campaigns they are in (Sagiro plays "under" Piratecat) or run (Rel). They also contain a few ideas for skill challenges, and I think they are the closest to play examples you can get.

I notice that Piratecat seems to have found that "open" challenges work well - meaning that he declares the relevant skills and what they do.

In the podcast on skill challenges, the designers suggest that long challenges might not be such a great idea and you should try to split a longer challenges in multiple smaller challenges. This gives you a better ability to describe what is going on. (And they also note: Don't hesitate to break the DC guidelines. They are a starting point, designed to work even if no one is trained in the skills. If that leads to unsatisfying results, use something else. You know your players and their skills best.)

I suppose a skill challenges works best if you can actually describe what an individual skill check represents and how success advances the progress and failure causes setbacks. 
For the challenge as a whole, defining the goals of the challenge and the possible outcomes might also be important.

I prefer the "round-by-round" method of skill challenges - each round, all PCs _have_ to make some kind of check. I am not fan of using aid another for that, but I haven't found good alternatives. There are challenges where this is all that makes sense for the other PCs to do (if at all). To make the aid-another a little harder, don't use DC 10, but a DC indicated for the challenge (probably a low DC). Except at lowest level, this will make things harder, but not impossibly so. And you might also want to introduce a variation of penalty/success (+2 / -2 to check).


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## DanmarLOK (Aug 11, 2009)

I believe a big thing is partial successes/failures. 

I ran this and it went well - Key Our Cars » Blog Archive » Skill Challenge: Defense

To sum up - They were on the run from a mob of orcs, obviously more than they could take.  They spotted the commune and ducked inside with the orcs on their heels.  The orcs pulled up to assess the situation.

The players had options in the skill challenge to work on the defenses.  They could bluff or intimidate the farmers into performing better, they could build traps with thievery, deploy the forces to their best tactical position by reading the likely way the orcs would come in via the terrain or the orc's normal battle behaviour with nature, one of the leaders added a skill to the challenge by asking if he could deploy first aid supplies and thus use his Healing skill which I smacked my forehead for not thinking of myself. 

Their level of success dictated the forces that would reach the walls and how quickly they would.  THe more failures the more forces they'd have to face on the walls and the more farmers that would end up dead, the more successes and part of the forces would show up in waves, dead by traps etc. 

All in all it the players enjoyed considering the real purpose of the challenge and how they'd best accomplish the needs.


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## LostSoul (Aug 11, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Yeah, but 4e is a gem where your good skills are all roughly equivalent and your bad skills are all much worse. So the choice is <one of your good skills> succeeding or <any other skill> failing.




If Diplomacy and Intimidate are both good skills, do you still think there is no difference between using them?



Saeviomagy said:


> So... if they don't do anything, they only have to suffer personal loss? Instead of letting the entire team down?




Maybe, maybe not.  It depends on what's going on in the game world, right?


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## LostSoul (Aug 11, 2009)

Here are some of the things I do.

1. Make sure the opposition has a goal.

2. Make sure the opposition _can_ apply pressure to the PCs.

3. Make sure the opposition _will_ apply pressure to the PCs in order to achieve its goal.

3. Don't define a list of skills that can and can't be used.

4. Don't assign a DC to any individual skill check.

5. Don't define what success or failure mean at the outset.

6. Make sure you keep your mind in the game world.


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## Horatio (Aug 11, 2009)

Here's one of mines.
I usualy preapre a few "opportunity" skill challenges - optional, "unlocked" by a certain actions made by the characters. So here it goes:

In a village, the party rogue decided to look around the village to find something interesting (they were trying to undermine certain corrupted noble's operations and thought he might have something going in this village) and told me he's using his street savvy (aka streetwise), rolling 22 which was enough to get this information (among other things, not pointed out) - people talking about some landslide in nearby hills opening some sort of cave or something.

Meanwhile, the swordmage were at the local grocer, shopping for some general adventuring gear. The shopkeeper, chatting with the swordmage, mentioned something about more people coming and ordering more goods, calling for an insight roll (which was successfull) I told the swordmage, that it was not only a general chat, but that was a reason that he mentioned the shipment.

Not wanting to pass the opportunity, the swordmage indeed asked what's so special about it. "Well, shovels. Now that we can expect the treasure hunters...". Further questioning leading to the revelation of the (supposedly) tomb of one of the heroes of old - Conrad the Fender. Who was burried (according to the legens) with his famous armor. (1st success).

Getting back together, the group piled all information they got (the rogue wasn't the onnly one streetwising) and decided to investigate further.

The wizard asked if the name rings a bell and rolled history, asking if 26 is enough. Enough it was and I told him, that yes, deeds of said hero are well documented as is his armor. He wasn't originaly from this area. He spent his adventuring carriere in Tarengar (a kingdom east from their current location) and was supposed to return into his hometown of Westhaven (name unknown to all) after retirement. Though he never got there. (2nd success).

Now they all asked themselves if they know the name Westhaven or something similar. (3 "solutions" were possible now - either diplomacy, hard check, remembering about the fact that some diplomats (a special sort....) use to call the port Highcross byt the nickname West haven, or history again, hard chceck, in the dark ages, the name of Highcross was Westhaven, or finally religion, hard check, pointing out that the name was originally Vesta's haven, named after goddes Vesta, who's church is long forgotten, but was supposed to be around the location of today's Highcross). 2 heroes passed the checks (the warlord with diplomacy, the wizard with religion) (3rd success).

Now they knew, that Conrad indeed could travel through these lands and thus could actually be buried here. But where exactly? Treasure hunters are now on the way and we want to be there first!

Ok, time for the information gathering again. Where the rumors about the cave started? Streetwise time! (1st failure, as noone rolled high enough or came up with something elaborate enough to justify a bonus).

Dead end? Not so fast! Our clever ranger pointed out, that they were talking about landslide. Whcih is not a common event. Using his knowledge about nature and a map of surrounding areas, he tried to determine, where said landslides might be possible (as I did not expect his, I had to quickly decide and I went with moderate to high difficulty). After a very lucky roll, I gave him 3 possible locations. (4th success)

Now the warlord asked, if something special is known about Conrad's legendary armor - what the legends tell us. Rolling history (and succeeding), I told him, that the armor was called lifegiving in some legends. (5th success)

Wizards turn - do I know what "lifegiving" might be? - rolling arcana and (they were unnaturally lucky that day) succeeded again. So I told them, that said "ability" not only protects the wearer against negative energies, but boosts the lifeforce of nearby living allies.

Now the ranger again (frequently coming with interesting ideas or problem solutions) got another idea - which fields in the nearby areas have the best yield? You know - buried underground, boosting life nearby .... . As I really like this kind of thinking, I let them make an (easy) streetwise chceck to gather gossips from village farmers which of their "competition" has best quality / quantity. (6th and final success).

Now they just picked the (possible) landslide location closest to the "best crop farmer". Skill challenge done.


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## LoneViper (Aug 12, 2009)

I use a modified version of the Obsidian system by Stalker0, so take this feedback with a grain of salt... I use a house-ruled variant of a custom system(!). I agree with those above that partial successes are key.

I tell players a single skill (or, rarely, a pair of skills) that I think is most relevant to the task at hand -- whether it's Nature for a wilderness jaunt, or Streetwise for gathering info -- and they get a +2 to all attempts with this Skill. Less imaginative players or those who can't come up with a good idea can always default to this recommended key skill.

Regarding the "use my max skill no matter what" mindset, I run Skill Checks by asking the players what they want to do in the situation, and then asking them for a check with whatever Skill I think is most relevant based on their idea. Obviously they could still outfox me by coming up with a Skill, and then telling me an activity that obviously uses that skill, but encouraging them to forget skills and narrate their behavior seems to break them out of that "how can I use my +12 Religion" mentality.

The Obsidian system virtually eliminates Aid Another because there are only three "phases," but if one of the players has a great idea and another just wants to help out, I have the aiding player make a reduced-difficulty check with that Skill and essentially double-or-nothing the original player's check. This is probably statistically unbalanced, but so is the +2 from Aid Another. I like this way more, though.

I allow players to continue using a _successful_ Skill for as long as they continue to make their checks. If they fail at a Skill in one phase, they can't try it again in another phase (it's a dead end!).

I guess I run things fairly fast and loose, and it may be a little harder to succeed at Skill Challenges, but I tend to reward really brilliant thinking with bonuses... because I like to see great ideas succeed!


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 13, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> If Diplomacy and Intimidate are both good skills, do you still think there is no difference between using them?



The problem is that most characters will have a raft of skills that they can potentially use that are all roughly the same numbers: and if diplomacy and intimidate are the only options (and of them, only one is going to work because the DM has decided that this particular NPC is immune to fear or something), then the challenge is almost certainly a failure without some spectacular dice rolling.


> Maybe, maybe not.  It depends on what's going on in the game world, right?



It sounds like you're not actually talking about the base skill challenge system. Could you explain exactly what you mean? I'm keen on finding ways to make skill challenges work, but using the rules as they are is what I find disappointing.

Oh, wait... I realise you just did that a few posts up. Would I be right in thinking that you're mostly improvising? DCs get set based on the described action, degrees of success and failure are decided at the end, "3 strikes and you're out" mentality of the current challenge system is totally gone?

Incidentally, I think that the "use my best skill or try to avoid participating" tactic is purely produced by the original skill challenge mechanics' limited failures before the entire challenge is failed. It's like telling players that if they miss with their attack, the entire party loses a healing surge each. Suddenly you're not going to have people with slightly sub-par attacks taking part in the combat. Trying and failing is worse than not trying at all.


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## LostSoul (Aug 13, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Oh, wait... I realise you just did that a few posts up. Would I be right in thinking that you're mostly improvising? DCs get set based on the described action, degrees of success and failure are decided at the end, "3 strikes and you're out" mentality of the current challenge system is totally gone?




Kind of.  I do stick to the DCs (I am using the old, pre-errata ones without the +5 modifier) and the number of successes vs. failures.  I pick the DCs based on how difficult the action seems.

There is lots of improvising; it's in the fiction, when I have to figure out what happens after a skill check.  I consider the skill used, how it is used (ie. what's said by the player), any bonuses that add into it, what other people do to aid, and anything else that's happened already.

What I mean is that a success from a Diplomacy check is going to result in a different outcome than a success from an Intimidate check - although both will still be successes.  Maybe you spam Intimidate to get the Duke to lend you some support.  It works, and he does, but he isn't going to like you much after that.  Once he thinks you can't hurt him, or he can get back at you, he will.

Using Diplomacy won't produce the same result, though in either case you will get some support from him.

An example from a skill challenge I ran: the PCs were trying to fake creation of a magic item too high level for them.  They sacrificed some animals to give it a spirit.  Sacrifice, eh?  That's not nice.  When the Infernal-pact Warlock used his Beguiling Tongue on it, that gave it a bit of a devilish personality.  That would not have happened had he not used the Beguiling Tongue power.



Saeviomagy said:


> Incidentally, I think that the "use my best skill or try to avoid participating" tactic is purely produced by the original skill challenge mechanics' limited failures before the entire challenge is failed. It's like telling players that if they miss with their attack, the entire party loses a healing surge each. Suddenly you're not going to have people with slightly sub-par attacks taking part in the combat. Trying and failing is worse than not trying at all.




Totally agreed.


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## Infiniti2000 (Aug 13, 2009)

I still don't see how you can avoid people always using their trained skills and being limited by that.  In fact, by encouraging people to use untrained skills, you're encouraging them to fail.  And, once you boil it down to PCs always using a set list of 4-5 skills, they'll tend to not think out of the box.

Would it be better to simply scrap all PC's skill modifiers and let anyone try anything with a simple static modifier?  Such as no matter what you try or do, your modifier is +X (maybe with a DM fiat or +/- 2 or some such for circumstantial modifiers perhaps for being very creative or whatnot).  This would certainly alleviate that problem, but it would hamper the skill monkeys (which I don't personally find as an issue).


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## LostSoul (Aug 14, 2009)

I don't see a problem with PCs always using trained skills.  I guess it's because I'm not concerned about success or failure as much as I am in having a dynamic and changing situation.


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## Infiniti2000 (Aug 14, 2009)

So, do you simply not have players that look towards their strengths?  I can't imagine having a dynamic, intense scenario and not use, say, diplomacy when the situation calls for it.  And yet, e.g., your PC sucks wind at it.  To make this worse, another PC is awesome at it, but who didn't happen to think of your cool usage of the skill.

That creates a bad situation for everyone involved.  You're (we're) assigning modifiers that have nothing whatsoever to do with the nice, dynamic situation that we're trying to create.  The ranger PC without diplomacy can't suddenly take over the conversation because he'll fail miserably at the rolls, despite the fact that (still e.g.) the player himself is the best one for the job, is excited about it, and everyone's having a blast as he roleplays it well.


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## Tai (Aug 14, 2009)

I ran a few skill challenges in a campaign I was doing that worked quite well. One of the ideas I used was prep-cards. For example, in the first session, someone had been murdered in the village square, and the party were looking for clues. One of the players used diplomacy to try and talk to the villagers about it. So, I gave two of the other players prep cards for an elderly married couple with a tendency to bicker to be the NPCs for the encounter. When the player asked about the murders, he made a check, and I gave out additional cards for the NPCing players for success or failure on a check. I find it's a good way to keep players who don't have as many useful skills for this particular challenge in the loop, and avoid the unfortunate GM-talking-to-himself problems you get with multiple NPCs in the room.

For skill challenges in general, I think that the most important thing to do is to make sure you have a scenario for both success and failure. It might not be the way the skill challenge plays out - it's important never to undrestimate the capacity of players to derail your plot - but if you don't have an interesting scenario for what will happen if they fail, you shouldn't be running a skill challenge.


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## LostSoul (Aug 14, 2009)

I2K, I'm not sure I understand.  Do you want to give me a hypothetical example of what you mean?  That might help me out!


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## Nebulous (Aug 14, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> I actually haven't enjoyed skill challenges too much (that might come as a surprise considering I spent so much time developing my own challenge system).




That DOES surprise me.  I've found the default challenges very lacking and skipped them mostly.  I used Obsidian and found it pretty good, but i found the players STILL trying to use their best skills all the time.

Do you allow Aid Another in Obsidian?  Anyway, i'm still lukewarm about the whole thing.  I'm coming to believe that running a good skill challenge takes much, much more creativity than the dice rolling would indicate.  And that just takes practice or natural talent.


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## Infiniti2000 (Aug 15, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> I2K, I'm not sure I understand.  Do you want to give me a hypothetical example of what you mean?  That might help me out!



What we've experienced and what I can only understand from the rules is that it only pays to use your trained skills.  Simple mathematics is that +5 is much better than +0.

So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills?  I play a ranger and I'm not trained in diplomacy.  Yet, if we're actually role playing I can come up with some great stuff--for no reason.  It absolutely doesn't pay for me to try and role the skill challenge properly.  I have NO motivation whatsoever to _get into it_ and focus on the challenge itself instead of how I can use my 5 trained skills.  I frequently come up with great ideas and instead of following them through and being rewarded I fail, sometimes miserably.  Or, worse IMO, I "hand off" my great idea for someone else to execute; which basically amounts to "I say what he said!"

Unfortunately, there's no system to account for this.  It could be something like all unmodified rolls (so everyone is effectively equally trained in all skills) or perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll _as him_.


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## Garthanos (Aug 15, 2009)

Infiniti2000 said:


> perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll _as him_.




Well the person who has the idea is probably the best one to express and elaborate on it... it seems reasonable that the character most competant at the activity is the one in game that had that idea.... what difference is this from --- > "what he said" ?


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 15, 2009)

Infiniti2000 said:


> So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills?




You could always increase the number of required successes and then hand out 1 automatic success for a good idea, and then have the roll on the idea add another one, instead of changing the success chance on the roll based on the idea:

ie: 
the ranger with good ideas and bad skill gets 1 success from his idea
the paladin who mumbles "I try diplomacy" and rolls with a big bonus also gets 1.

A player with a character that can implement his good ideas would get 2.


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## Turtlejay (Aug 15, 2009)

Infiniti2000 said:


> What we've experienced and what I can only understand from the rules is that it only pays to use your trained skills. Simple mathematics is that +5 is much better than +0.
> 
> So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills? I play a ranger and I'm not trained in diplomacy. Yet, if we're actually role playing I can come up with some great stuff--for no reason. It absolutely doesn't pay for me to try and role the skill challenge properly. I have NO motivation whatsoever to _get into it_ and focus on the challenge itself instead of how I can use my 5 trained skills. I frequently come up with great ideas and instead of following them through and being rewarded I fail, sometimes miserably. Or, worse IMO, I "hand off" my great idea for someone else to execute; which basically amounts to "I say what he said!"
> 
> Unfortunately, there's no system to account for this. It could be something like all unmodified rolls (so everyone is effectively equally trained in all skills) or perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll _as him_.




This is leaving rules far behind and delving into roleplaying, where I am not really qualified to give advice.  I'll give it a shot, however...

I think this situation is part of playing a character.  You build someone, a whole person, and you sit inside their head and drive them around.  So if you are playing a Ranger who is no good at Diplomacy, then think "what would he *do* instead?"

Make a skill check that reflects what your tongue-tied or ill mannered outdoorsman might contribute to sensitive negotiations.  Perhaps it is a key piece of information (Dungeoneering or Nature) or a whispered observation to the face (Insight or Perception).  That is part of the challenge of the game, right?

This might also be why skill challenges aren't for everyone.  When you build a character, it has a defined role in combat.  No matter what, 90% of the time you know you can contribute when you are killing things.  Social and other interactions. . .not so much.  You might feel like you are missing out if the party has an 'encounter' and you don't have a defined role.  Another thing that changes is failure.  In combat there are three clear options: 1)win  2)run  3)die.  It is more complicated than that of course, but the idea is that you don't generally lose fights.  Skill challenges have the idea of failure built in to them.  When is the last time you read a module and each combat encounter had a paragraph about what to do in the event of a TPK?

So. . .I'm no great thinker so I'm sure there are better analyses than that out there, but it's what I think, and I hope it helped.

Jay


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## Quickleaf (Aug 15, 2009)

Great thread, thanks for starting it kaomera.

I just ran a skill challenge (my first one) using Stalker0's rules and it worked out great - I plan on running many more!

It was for a murder investigation the PCs conducted in the opening scene and I wrote 2 pages notes in advance (it was my first time DMing 4e so I overprepared). I' based the design off the skill challenge in Khyber's Harvest.

I set up the scene and began it with the PCs in the Lower Quays. However I never said they were in a skill challenge, instead just letting the story evolve naturally. Began with player to my right and went around the table letting everyone decide what they would do. I allowed a Perception check to learn information listed under Insight, Thievery to palm a piece of evidence, and a bard's encounter power bolstered a Diplomacy check to win over some dockworkers. I also improvised something on the spot as they investigated the dockworkers who looted the corpse, where the dockworkers had also stolen from each other (to explain the bard's failure on Diplomacy...opening up the rogue's Thievery). When even the Thievery attempt failed, the invoker burned a daily for an automatic success.

However, I noticed by the middle of the third round (skill challenges are divided into 3 rounds in Stalker0's rules) that the players were losing interest and getting ancy at 10 successes. Two players said they wanted to pass on their turns, so I let them and gave them an extra success for good measure. 11 successes gave them a partial success.



> I've seen several suggestions to stick to larger-scale (or long-term, time wise) stuff for Skill Challenges. I'm also beginning to think that making each check a discreet thing, with it's own lesser rewards and consequences may be the way to go. Not sure entirely how to handle that, but it would tend to make the players more thoughtful about what skill checks they made (rather than just sticking to their one best skill). At best it might get players thinking of how many failures (for the overall Skill Challenge) they can risk to go after personal gains (via the individual rolls)...



Agreed. I handed out treasure cards as different clues were gathered or dropped little hints/foreshadowing at each success.


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## Pbartender (Aug 15, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I notice that Piratecat seems to have found that "open" challenges work well - meaning that he declares the relevant skills and what they do.




To quote Rel, though...  "Know your players."  In my group, "open" challenges kills the fun of them.  Nobody ends up describing anything, no one uses anything but the most obvious skills, and characters without the best modifiers in those skill either sit out or Aid Other.

Boring.

For most challenges, I do what Quickleaf suggests...



Quickleaf said:


> I set up the scene and began it with the PCs in the Lower Quays. However I never said they were in a skill challenge, instead just letting the story evolve naturally.




I provide descriptions and suggestions to encourage my players toward certain skills and action that might give them successes.  If the players come up with something that's not on the skill challenge list, I improvise.



Saeviomagy said:


> Incidentally, I think that the "use my best skill or try to avoid participating" tactic is purely produced by the original skill challenge mechanics' limited failures before the entire challenge is failed. It's like telling players that if they miss with their attack, the entire party loses a healing surge each. Suddenly you're not going to have people with slightly sub-par attacks taking part in the combat. Trying and failing is worse than not trying at all.




There's plenty of ways around that, as well...  For example, not too long ago, I had a skill challenge involving a parley with a red dragon in its lair -- a volcanic cave.

In addition to the usual social skills, every now and again, I had everyone in the group make an Endurance check...  how well can our heroes maintain their composure in the midst of overwhelming heat and noxious volcanic fumes?  In this case, the number of PCs making the check determined success or failure: Out of a group of six playres, if two or fewer failed, then it counted as a success. If two or fewer succeeded, then it counted as a failure.  Anyone failing their individual check lost a Healing Surge.


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 15, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> There's plenty of ways around that, as well...  For example, not too long ago, I had a skill challenge involving a parley with a red dragon in its lair -- a volcanic cave.
> 
> In addition to the usual social skills, every now and again, I had everyone in the group make an Endurance check...  how well can our heroes maintain their composure in the midst of overwhelming heat and noxious volcanic fumes?  In this case, the number of PCs making the check determined success or failure: Out of a group of six playres, if two or fewer failed, then it counted as a success. If two or fewer succeeded, then it counted as a failure.  Anyone failing their individual check lost a Healing Surge.




...
That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.

In fact, by explicitly having endurance checks called for, you're reducing the the possibility that a player can say "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use  his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!". Even if you as a DM would accept it, a lot of players will feel that they're double-dipping.

Now, if instead of the original 3 strikes and the party is out, the challenge continued until X successes OR someone passed out from the heat, that would be different. Participation can no longer WORSEN the scenario, only improve it. Even if a player is reduced to praying for a long shot, only good can come from him or her rolling.


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## Saagael (Aug 15, 2009)

I've been DMing a group for about a year now, and have only done two or three skill challenges; mostly because I'm nervous they won't be entertaining. Incidentally, it's mostly my lack of knowledge that keeps them from being interesting. 

One of the best ways to make really dynamic, evolving situations is to just let the dice sit on the table. When players are forced to roll the dice it's as if their characters are leaving everything to chance (with a modifier). Realistically the characters would never feel that way. If they think they have something good to contribute, then they will open their mouth. I encourage that participation, so I like to let the dice sit on the table for most social encounters. It forces the players further into the shoes of their character. If they can't think of anything to say then I'll let them roll a diplomacy check (there is always a knowledge discrepancy between players and characters).

The only time I would use skill challenges are for extended tasks (multiple days) or non-deadly obstacles; I don't want the player to die because he failed to jump the chasm. Social encounters are much easier to role play out, rather than base off of die rolls (singular die rolls to convince the shopkeep to lower costs, or gain some information around town, or sneak into the nobles private quarters I do use). 

One skill challenge I'm looking forward to using is a couple day long siege coming up in game that will require the players to take part in preparing the fortress and then defending it. What the players do is up to them, though I've outlined basic ideas for them to fall back on. This system was introduced in an article in Dungeon Magazine, btw. The challenge is made up of three challenges, each requiring 6 successes before 4 failures. There's the tactical command, artillery fire, and defending challenges. I have six players, so that's two on each challenge (they can divy themselves up differently, this is just for planning purposes). For each challenge there's a primary and secondary check. The primary check offers the success or failure, while the secondary check gives advantages. 

For example: In the Tactical Command check, the player uses his skills to direct troops, determine the enemy tactics,  or inspire or scare allies to fight. The secondary check is perception or insight, which allows the player to determine or guess the enemy force's strategy. On a primary check success, the artillery fire check gets a bonus (the player determined what's going on in battle, so he can better direct the archers). If the secondary check succeeds, the bonus also applies to the defending the gate challenge. All in all, the players have 3 main skills for a primary check (that's 9 primary skills, I think the players can cover them), with 1-2 skills for secondary checks (not as important, but useful if a player doesn't really fit in any other roll).


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## Regicide (Aug 15, 2009)

Skill challenges aren't really entertaining.  I have over a foot thick of 4E DnD books on my shelf and aside from a few errated pages in the DMG, WotC has shown no or next to no support for them.  They're supporting what people like.  Aside from a lot of pretty pictures, probably 90%+ of the material is combat related and pretty much the rest is fluff.

We have had some fun skill challenges in other games such as Conan or in 3E, but each a tailored set of rules  specific to the individual skill challenge and didn't conform to the simple guideline in the 4E DMG.  Unless they dedicate even a TINY amount of space in the system to supporting skill challenges, such as, say, a good 50 pages in DMG2, they're going to remain something you're better off not using or making your own rules for as they certainly will not compare to the heavily supported combat system.

Oh noz, I said 4E wasn't a pristine bastion of perfectitude.  Guess I'll be locked out of this thread.  Cya!


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## Garthanos (Aug 15, 2009)

Given the amount of attention given on DDi, to skill challenges I kind of expect we will indeed see plenty regarding them in up and coming books.


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## kaomera (Aug 16, 2009)

Well, I'm certainly hoping that we'll see more about Skill Challenges in DMG2...

When I first read of Skill Challenges I had assumed (or at least was hoping) that they would be a way to make non-combat encounters as (or nearly as) "crunchy" and mechanically tactical as combat. Now, obviously in 4e that's kind of a tall order, but I think they missed the boat simply on the basis that there wasn't really room in the product schedule to provide the number of options for Skill Challenges that where available for combat encounters (powers, different monsters, terrain, dungeon tiles).

4e mechanics don't always (if ever) map directly to the "fictional reality" of the game world. I guess this is most obvious in the combat mechanics, where concepts like a "hit" or hp are really abstract and squares behave like circles. When I (at least) imagine the characters creeping into a dusty and dimly-lit room in a moldering dungeon, I don't envision it laid out in perfect 5' squares, nor that the characters are careful to stay in the exact center of each square. So, sometimes, you have to deal with the mechanics and then puzzle out what the results you get mean, in terms of the fiction (or role-play or story, or whatever you want to call it). The problem is that the DMG Skill Challenge rules tend to give the players one best option for proceeding mechanically, and then unless you have the fiction trump (or obscure) the mechanics things just get boring...

Failure has to be an option. The point of having different skills is that there's going to be some things that a given character is good at, and others that they just aren't. Personally I'm a bit miffed when my character's limitations are glossed over... (Not as much as when I don't ever get a chance to show off what he's good at, but still...) I agree with the idea that Skill Challenges can create an environment where failure is more acceptable than in combat encounters. I think that it's important that both success and failure (and any partial results in-between) lead to fun in the game. As I said before I really lean towards making success a bonus but not overly penalizing failure, but as long as there's somewhere interesting to go from the results of a failed challenge I don't think it matters. Of course, you will (and should) still have the players doing their best to succeed...

So, one thing that stuck in my mind is that every 4e character has something useful to offer in combat. As such "Can we kill it?" becomes the first question players are going to ask when confronted by an obstacle in play. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have a "backup plan"... And this doesn't have to even be a backup, it might be the first option the players consider before resorting to bloodshed... But, anyway, my thought was to ask the players, before character creation, how they wanted their characters, as a party, to approach the challenges they face in play other than fighting: they can be stealthy & acrobatic ninja-types, political manipulators, con-men, whatever...

{Now: I think I should mention that I'm not fond of the way that class skills have been dealt with in 4e. It's part of the flavor built into the game, and that's OK, but I don't personally feel like 6 trained skills is a lot and I also don't agree with the idea that there are just tons of "extra" feats floating around for 4e characters that the player isn't going to be able to throw at Skill Training without losing out on anything else. As a result I'm planning on house-ruling to allow characters a much wider choice of skills, based on character concept rather than class.}

So, back to the idea of a backup plan, if every character has a t least 2 or 3 skills appropriate to the kind of solution they have chosen, and if I keep in mind that this is they kind of thing that the PCs are likely to (and that the players are going to want to) try then I think we should end up with a lot more Skill Challenges where everybody has something meaningful to contribute. Not that I won't throw other stuff at them, of course...


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## kaomera (Aug 16, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.



Well, if you assume that the character who is bad at social skills is good at Endurance, then it definitely does matter. Even if the fighter can't score points with Diplomacy he's helping the group every time he scores on the Endurance check. If three more characters make theirs then it counts as a success, and if two more does then at least they don't accrue a failure. It's not as good as actually having a good skill to roll on, but I think it's unfair to discount the effect entirely.

Another issue is Intimidate. Intimidate seems to "get the shaft" rather often, as far as social challenges go. This does make some sense, it's not always the best choice to go around threatening everyone, but as the only social option for the Fighter I think Intimidate could stand to have a bit of love thrown it's way.


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## Stalker0 (Aug 16, 2009)

I think the ultimate question comes down to: What are skill challenges suppose to accomplish, and ultimately do they do that better than other mechanics?

The way I see it Skill Challenges fill two main niches:

1) Provide an avenue for characters to make heavy use of skills.
2) Provide a way to model a complex noncombat scene into a straightforward, flexible system.

To the first point, I think skill challenges do this, but I don't know if its the best way to do it. Alternatives would be stunt type systems or simply a beefier set of mechanics to explain more things you can do with your skills. While I thought the 3e Epic Handbook didn't work particularly well...one thing I loved in that book were the epic uses for skills. The fact that sense motive was useful...but if it was high enough you could actually detect alignment with it made it even more interesting!

I think 4e could be well served by that. What does a 40 bluff check in the 4e world mean? Am I just really good a lying...or have I gone beyond that and can do even more?

If players had more examples of interesting ways to use skills, then they might try to use those skills naturally as opposed to being pushed into it through the mechanical skill challenge system.


To the 2nd point, I think at times skill challenges are more of a benefit than a burden. My primary example would be a social scene. The eternal debate in roleplaying systems is: How do you mechanically model the socially inept guy who is playing the smooth talking character....without hindering the roleplay too much.

Its a constant battle between free form roleplaying and rigid mechanics...for the two tend to conflict with each other. I think in this instance skill challenges go too far into mechanics. When players are choosing skills and rolling lots of dice....they forget to talk. Having tried both sides of the coin....I think I'm happier with lighter social mechanics and more free form roleplaying. So in that regard, I would rather roll a simple diplomacy check and then roleplay from there.


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## LostSoul (Aug 16, 2009)

Infiniti2000 said:


> So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills?  I play a ranger and I'm not trained in diplomacy.  Yet, if we're actually role playing I can come up with some great stuff--for no reason.  It absolutely doesn't pay for me to try and role the skill challenge properly.  I have NO motivation whatsoever to _get into it_ and focus on the challenge itself instead of how I can use my 5 trained skills.  I frequently come up with great ideas and instead of following them through and being rewarded I fail, sometimes miserably.  Or, worse IMO, I "hand off" my great idea for someone else to execute; which basically amounts to "I say what he said!"




If I understand you correctly, you are having your PC say something that sounds like it should be a success - or at least have a better chance of success than the modifier indicates?

I think there are a few ways to handle it, and the DM has to pick the one that fits best at the time.

The first is adding a bonus to the check.

The second is to give the PC an automatic success.

The third is to end the skill challenge at that point and declare it a success.


Do you have an example of something that happened in one of your games?


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## Pbartender (Aug 17, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> ...
> That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.
> 
> In fact, by explicitly having endurance checks called for, you're reducing the the possibility that a player can say "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use  his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!". Even if you as a DM would accept it, a lot of players will feel that they're double-dipping.




In my very personal experience, players without the appropriate skill (Diplomacy in this case) generally (but not always) don't say, "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use  his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!"  They typically say, "I don't have the right skill, so I'll sit out or aid another. Blah."

The suggestion is a way for the DM to suggest and encourage a way for the PC with bad Diplomacy, but good Endurance, to contribute to the skill challenge.



Saeviomagy said:


> Now, if instead of the original 3 strikes and the party is out, the challenge continued until X successes OR someone passed out from the heat, that would be different. Participation can no longer WORSEN the scenario, only improve it. Even if a player is reduced to praying for a long shot, only good can come from him or her rolling.




That, by the way, is a great idea...  It'd work really well for some "chase" challenges.

I'd give you XP for it, if I didn't have to spread some around first.


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## Regicide (Aug 17, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> The suggestion is a way for the DM to suggest and encourage a way for the PC with bad Diplomacy, but good Endurance, to contribute to the skill challenge.




  Why should a dragon care if you are able to not pass out at what, to it, is room temperature?  Look Mr. Dragon, I haven't passed out, aren't you impressed!  Even if you somehow ignore the fact that it's completely a meaningless achievement to the dragon, I fail to see how that would have any more diplomatic impact than using your diplomacy skill instead of endurance on a road would to improve your marathon time.

  If you don't have at least a meaningful skill then fail the challenge and get on with the game or wait for the rest of the party to roll a couple dice to finish it.  It's not like waiting the minute or two it takes to complete the challenge is going to ruin the night for you.

  Forcing everyone to be involved in all skill challenges is bad.  Just don't do it.


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## Piratecat (Aug 18, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> To quote Rel, though...  "Know your players."  In my group, "open" challenges kills the fun of them.  Nobody ends up describing anything, no one uses anything but the most obvious skills, and characters without the best modifiers in those skill either sit out or Aid Other.
> 
> Boring.



Have you tried pushing them on this? I needed to remind them that they could use other skills if they could rationalize it, and I ask them _how_ their skills are helping them succeed. Then I narrate it to make it even cooler.

Good examples on post 581 and post 598.

One important thing: never give a skill challenge that stops the adventure cold should it be lost.


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## Pbartender (Aug 18, 2009)

Regicide said:


> Why should a dragon care if you are able to not pass out at what, to it, is room temperature?  Look Mr. Dragon, I haven't passed out, aren't you impressed!




That depends on what you are defining as a "success"...  In the context of this particular part of this particular skill challenge.  Success equals the group NOT reinforcing the dragon's view of humanoids as slow, squishy, weak little bits of tasty snack food that make funny noises when you poke them too hard.

As a fictional trope, it's the "Heh!  Not bad for a [insert demographic the antagonist looks down upon]!" moment.  The dragon's not necessarily impressed, but he's just not displaying his usual dismissive disdain toward the percieved weaklings standing before him...  which when dealing with a dragon would be considered a success from the party's point of view.

Whereas a failure might elicit a, "What's the matter?  Too hot for you?" as the dragon mocks them and laughs at them.

And a neutral result would be ignored.



Regicide said:


> Forcing everyone to be involved in all skill challenges is bad.  Just don't do it.




Why not?  We force everyone to be involved in all combats.

What's wrong with looking for excuses to make non-combat encounters interesting and fun for everyone?



Piratecat said:


> Have you tried pushing them on this? I needed to remind them that they could use other skills if they could rationalize it, and I ask them _how_ their skills are helping them succeed.




Oh, absolutely...  Just, some of my players grok the idea better than others.  Recently, during a skill challenge to track a band of hobgoblin raiders to the ruins they were using as an encampment, the party wizard, who wasn't very good at the standard tracking and wilderness skills, suggested that he could use his History skill to tap knowledge about the ruins in the area and narrow down the possible destinations.  It was a great idea.  I let him use it, and gave him a "personal milestone" for it.

On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding...  Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using.  Blegh.

In other words...  I know my players.  While they do have their flashes of brilliance, often enough they need to be led by the nose.  



Piratecat said:


> Then I narrate it to make it even cooler.




Yup, yup...

Again, some of my players are better at doing this on their own than others (Once, when I encouraged a player to describe a particulatly spectacular critical hit, he said, "I hit him really hard with my sword."     You gotta love him.  ), so I try to help out by setting an example and giving a little post-hoc description of what they did.



Piratecat said:


> One important thing: never give a skill challenge that stops the adventure cold should it be lost.




Oh, absolutely.

For example, when the party ultimately failed the challenge to track the hobgoblins, it didn't result in them not finding the hobgoblin's lair.  Instead, it meant that they trigger one or more random encounters, and were delayed by a day or two...  Consuming valuable resources, and increasing the chances that one or more of the hobgoblins' hostages would die befome they could be rescued.

I always looked at skill challenges as either success == extra benefit, or failure == extra complication.


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## LostSoul (Aug 18, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding...  Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using.  Blegh.




I think what you have to do as a DM is change up the situation a little bit.  Not much, but enough.  Assuming the skill challenge is about calming her down only:

"Calm down, you're safe now.  The hobgoblins are gone."
(success)
"Okay, she looks around, doesn't see any immediate danger.  Then she looks at you.  'They'll come back.  They always come back.  How can you protect me?  They are too strong.'"

In response to that, "'Don't worry, just calm down.  You can trust us,'" doesn't sound like what she needs to hear.  Make it a Hard check and drop a penalty on the roll.  But if the Fighter flexes his mighty thews and rolls Intimidate, that's exactly what she wants to hear; it's an Easy or Moderate check.

Or maybe the Warlock will say, "I lean in close to her and whisper: 'They are the ones who fear us.  And they are right to, for we hold secrets such as these.'  Then I whisper a Dreadful Word into her ear and watch as her mind reels in terror."  If he hits, the DM ends the skill challenge.  She spills her guts.  Now she fears the PCs more than the hobgobs.


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## Regicide (Aug 18, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> Why not?  We force everyone to be involved in all combats.




  That is... really horrible.  What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?


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## Garthanos (Aug 18, 2009)

Regicide said:


> That is... really horrible.  What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?




Heh, according to lost souls sig... life is a battlefield that will eventually nail you even if your head isnt sticking up..[rhetorical]  don't you trust pithy sigs? [/rhetorical]
I have DM'd for some extremely passive players who were as reticent to take part in the fantasy as they were to take part in real life it really left me sad.

Actually yes LostSoul that changing up the context is perfect for the scenario described and interpretation of intimidate to include showing you are tough with a diplomatic ulterior motive ... is very cool. Intimidate with a grand scale gesture from the Warlock icky but interesting.... allowing for a different skill to take supremacy even if the context has only shifted a little.


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## Saeviomagy (Aug 18, 2009)

kaomera said:


> Well, if you assume that the character who is bad at social skills is good at Endurance, then it definitely does matter. Even if the fighter can't score points with Diplomacy he's helping the group every time he scores on the Endurance check. If three more characters make theirs then it counts as a success, and if two more does then at least they don't accrue a failure. It's not as good as actually having a good skill to roll on, but I think it's unfair to discount the effect entirely.



Most characters tend to be good at one group of skills and bad at another. 

Why does the fighter care that he may or may not have contributed 1/3 of the rolls necessary to stave off a failure/add a success, when it means that he can't choose that skill for his primary effort?


> Another issue is Intimidate. Intimidate seems to "get the shaft" rather often, as far as social challenges go. This does make some sense, it's not always the best choice to go around threatening everyone, but as the only social option for the Fighter I think Intimidate could stand to have a bit of love thrown it's way.




Personally I think that intimidate gets the shaft because people reduce it down to its most blunt form (the rulebook writers included), direct threats of violence.

I think it's a far more viable skill if it's simply used to indicate "getting your way through fear".

Correspondingly, diplomacy becomes "getting your way through being nice" and bluff becomes "getting your way through being deceitful".

There's overlap, certainly, but in general the skill(s) you choose are just going to indicate the style of your social interaction, rather than fill thoroughly different purposes.

As an example: Intimidate might be used to indicate that someone's house looks like it might be very flammable, and perhaps their local guild could help them out with that. Or it could be used to make the duke worry that monster infestation in the local ruins is a serious concern.

That second one could also be a bluff: although for a bluff instead of suggesting that monsters MIGHT be there, and that it's very dangerous, you'd just outright say monsters ARE there, that you talked to a contact just this afternoon, who met a guy who was attacked!

Whereas for diplomacy you might suggest that whether or not there are monsters there, the duke should know for himself, and you're such a trustworthy fellow that you're the perfect guy to send.


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## Pbartender (Aug 18, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> I think what you have to do as a DM is change up the situation a little bit.  Not much, but enough.




Oh, I understand that, and I agree completely.

The point I was trying to make is...



LostSoul said:


> In response to that, "'Don't worry, just calm down.  You can trust us,'" doesn't sound like what she needs to hear.




I agree, but inevitably, that's exactly what some players will come up with, regardless of how hard you hint toward something else.

Sometimes, forcing them to use a different skill is the only way to break them out of it.



Regicide said:


> That is... really horrible.  What are they, gladiators who are executed if they don't fight?




What game are you playing?  D&D, to my knowledge, has always assumed that when combat happens all PCs will be involved in the fight one way or another.  4th edition in particular goes out of its way to make certain that all the relavant roles in combat are interesting and fun, so that all players will be involved and engaged in the action.  

Occasionally, a particular type of creature or hazard in combat forces a character to attack in a way that isn't their forte -- a typical Fighter, for example, has little available to attack a creature flying outside his reach other than his basic ranged attack.  Does that mean those characters should sit out the fight?  Or should they use their ingenuity to find a way to attack the flying creature, no matter how ineffective the attack is?

Why can't we do the same for skill challenges?

Now, I understand that under the basic rules a failure contributes to total failure, whereas missing in cobat does do so quite so directly.  However, the rules for running skill challenges are loose enough that I think we could get around that, if we tried.



Saeviomagy said:


> Personally I think that intimidate gets the shaft because people reduce it down to its most blunt form (the rulebook writers included), direct threats of violence.
> 
> I think it's a far more viable skill if it's simply used to indicate "getting your way through fear".




LostSoul's idea with the Warlock is a perfect example of what you are suggesting.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 18, 2009)

Hmm. I think your example, pbartender, might be a good idea on when to become more "open" with how the skill challenge works. The way I see it - if nothing more is done then repeat the same narrative and the same skill check over and over again, there is nothing to lose by getting explicit. The scene feels more awkward then believable, and saying: "These are things you could do" might help them to come up with better ideas. 

I seriously need to work in more skill challenges in my games, to experiment more...


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## Piratecat (Aug 18, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> On the other hand, during another recent, very short, skill challenge to calm the fears of a rescued hostage and get some information about the enemy from her, it amounted to the cleric rolling Diplomacy four times in a row "I try to calm her down, and tell her she's safe" with everyone else aiding...  Even with hints and suggestions for other possible skills they could be using.  Blegh.



Agreed. Blegh.  I try to address this by having the DC rise by one every time a person (or in short challenges, the group) uses the same skill. My PCs know that they _can_ use diplomacy four times in a row, but it gets harder each time. I'm open with the DCs and the possible skills, and my group is having fun doing fast decisions about who does what.

Similarly, I try to make it fun for people to participate via secondary checks (aid another) if they don't want to make a primary check. Adding a penalty for failed secondary checks adds a little excitement to the roll.


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## babinro (Aug 18, 2009)

I find myself using skill challenges simply to fill in gaps in the adventure.  One of the more common uses is simply getting from point A to point B.  

For example, the party aims to reach the top of a mountain in order to kill/obtain something.  The skill challenge is used along with the general narration of their climb up the mountain. Typically, failed checks would lead to encounters on the mountain side or loss of healing surges.  If the overall challenge is a success, than the final confrontation is often either made slightly easier, or some environmental change will provide the party an edge that wouldn't be there otherwise.

I would say the main problem to my system is that the overall success of the challenge is not necessarily obvious.  Especially in a case like the one described above. In the event your challenge ends with some form of human interaction, then success is made all the more clear based on how the PC ultimately reacts.

The system works fine in my opinion, but players will not always contribute based on skills.  Thankfully, any nature oriented challenge has tons of options which keeps the entire party involved. The above can easily use Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, Perception, and some knowledge checks.  Enough for everyone to be able to do something. 

If you start a challenge like this while the party is at base camp...then you immediately add in all the social components as well as they get information on the mountain prior to physically climbing it. This challenge then becomes something all players can shine at, and is broken up by several encounters to complete the overall adventure.


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## Nytmare (Aug 18, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> Agreed. Blegh.  I try to address this by having the DC rise by one every time a person (or in short challenges, the group) uses the same skill.




So far, with the limited experience I've had running skill challenges (and those only with Obsidian) we've had each person only use each skill once.  The thought process we cling to is that the roll is for how your skill plays out over the course of the three stages of the challenge, not in just for a single instance.


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## Pbartender (Aug 18, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Hmm. I think your example, pbartender, might be a good idea on when to become more "open" with how the skill challenge works.




Oddly enough, it seems to work the opposite for my group -- and that specific challenge was one in which I _was_ more open about it than usual.  That is to say, if I clearly lay out which skills are useful, they will choose one or two of those skills and not bother to branch out.

When I'm less obvious about it being a skill challenge tends to be when my group starts thinking outside the box a little more.


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## Tai (Aug 19, 2009)

One other thing skill challenges do that in someways is a bit controversial, but that I think is invaluable, is to turn plot-direction from annoying railroading into a trail of sweeties. In the old days, if you want the party to go check out a goblin mine, you drop a hint on their heads, and they know they have to go there. Now, you put in a skill challenge to find out about it and get there, and the party *wants* to go there. Not only has the mine become a more logical plot progresion, they even get XP for getting there!


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 19, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> Oddly enough, it seems to work the opposite for my group -- and that specific challenge was one in which I _was_ more open about it than usual.  That is to say, if I clearly lay out which skills are useful, they will choose one or two of those skills and not bother to branch out.
> 
> When I'm less obvious about it being a skill challenge tends to be when my group starts thinking outside the box a little more.



Okay, I took your description you were not explicit (hinting at it seems not explicit) and they came only up with one idea. In that case - explicit challenges don't seem to work for them, right. 
Or maybe you have to force them to try different venues - allow only a limited number of successes with each skill, for example. I generally think that creates interesting twists - adding conditionals to use for individual skills in a challenge. Of course, this has to be guided by what makes sense for the scenario. In your case, multiple Diplomacy checks didn't really make sense, at least not if they really say the same thing every time.


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