So, what other uses for Skill Challenges can we think of?
For what it's worth, I just posted a more extensive look at skill challenges on my livejournal.
I've been reading your entries as they appear and i'm very excited to get my game underway in Eberron. The whole idea of actually roleplaying the skill challenges seems obvious now you mention it, I've been doing similar things for years but without the actual structure involved. Seems that when a process is given a name and structure it causes confusion.
For what it's worth, I just posted a more extensive look at skill challenges on my livejournal.
Wow, that was totally not there when I looked at your LJ, as I posted that pretty much right after I read it. I believe it was in reaction to the "4e is more hack-and-slash?" post. As usual, though, your writing is edifying.
Still, the thing about skill challenges is that they could take place where every "turn" is a 6 second round, just like in combat, solving a puzzle in like a minute, or a turn could also be a minute, or an hour, or a day. An hour-turn challenge or a day-turn skill challenge could be something that takes place inside a city, whereas the round-turn challenge would be something that takes place inside a room.
Just thinking about an hour-turn or day-turn challenge, the goal could be to find out information about a possible enemy.
Streetwise, thievery, diplomacy, and bluff could be primary skills; streetwise to ask around in the street, thievery to lift information off of or break into some place for information, diplomacy and bluff to talk with people to weasel information out of them. Other skills as proposed.
Hell, couldn't you theoretically nest skill challenges? As in, one of the successes for the bigger skill challenge could be a combat or another skill challenge at a 'lower' level?
There's a lot of possibilities here, and it'll take a lot of skull-sweat to figure them all out.
Still, the thing about skill challenges is that they could take place where every "turn" is a 6 second round, just like in combat, solving a puzzle in like a minute, or a turn could also be a minute, or an hour, or a day.
Absolutely. I'm thinking about military resolution myself - could be just the thing for a Next War campaign.
So, what other uses for Skill Challenges can we think of?
Just about any Eberron scene that doesn't resort immediately to combat could be staged as a skill challenge:
- Playing out a game of hrazhak (sp?) against a team of shifters
- The Race of the Eight Winds in Sharn
- Trying to outsail a Lyrandar or Lhazaar ship
- An interrogation scene for an Inquisitive
- Trying to get through a passage in the Labyrinth before the Gaashkala paladins catch up with you
- Getting across the Talenta/Valenar border without being spotted
- Staging a performance as a cover for a Phiarlann/Thuranni operation
- Deciphering a complex artifact from the Age of Demons or Age of Giants
- A Talenta Rodeo
- Gaining Control of a Lightning Rail; Airship; etc
- Investigating intrigue during a masked ball or other similar event
- Passing through the veil between Cyre and the rest of Khorvaire
- An auction in Sharn
- A slave auction or negotiation for a slave release
- Entrance exam into one of the major schools, such as Morgrave or Arcanix
- A "Free Runner" courier race though any major city, though most likely Sharn
