Alternate Skill Challenges - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Alternate Skill Challenges

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
guest1458177341
Dec 13, 2011 15:26:07 Well, on another board I said skill challenges were unrefined and that I didn't like the system. Since I've knocked the designers, it's only fair to throw my own design out where it too can be criticized.

Flaws in the Current System

- Exclusive mechanics. It directly contradicts combat, which is inclusive mechanics. That is, if your Ranger is doing lots of dpr to the solo, and your psion is doing less dpr to the target and all the psion debuffs keep getting saved (so the psion is mechanically doing less than the Ranger) the Ranger is not penalized for the psion's performance (nor is the party worse off because the psion is doing damage).

Whereas if your warrior is bad at skill challenges, this mechanically hurts the bard who is good at them. Thus, the teamwork nature of combat goes RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. To help the team, the best thing the warrior can do is... nothing. This is stupid.

- Encourages metagaming. Lets say you want to use Arcana to see if you remember something. Your Arcana isn't great, but hey, seeing if you remember something doesn't take much time, right?

Uh, it costs you a failure. This leads directly to the next problem

- That looks like a nail. If your best skill is bluff, you try and bluff every problem. If your best skills are Streetwise and History, every problem looks like a problem for gathering information from the street or checking obscure historical references. If your best skill is acrobatics, every problem can be solved by doing cool stunts.

In the real world, if you're an olympic athlete and you need to get out of paying a traffic ticket, you don't attempt to backflip for the cop, but this is what D&D characters do ALL THE TIME.

Skill Challenge 1.5 (GreyICE edition)

Changes:

Failures are tied to a situational, and concrete mechanic

If you need to find clues to the missing children's location, each 'failure' represents more wasted time. If you need to infiltrate the palace, each failure represents an increased level of suspicion. If you need to sneak into the dragon's lair unnoticed, each failure represents a step closer to an alerted dragon.

Thus, if the fighter took streetwise, and decides "I'll ask around the street to see if anyone knows anything" when the children are missing, he doesn't cost the party anything. If he fails and the alternative was 'I use that time interval to sit around on my arse' then that was an AUTOMATIC failure in that time interval.

Also, now his streetwise may be locked out (heck, it may be locked out even if he got a success - he found what there is to know). He then decides 'hell, I'll look for tracks.' He might suck at looking for tracks, but he might as well do SOMETHING.

Suddenly he is helping the group. If he succeeds, he contributed, if he fails, it doesn't hurt the party. Thus, the challenge is INCLUSIVE.

Success is tied to concrete steps forward

If your mission is to infiltrate the palace, and the cleric decides to scout for ways into the palace, using perception, he might find a poorly lit and poorly patrolled route past the palace gardens.

This does NOT contribute a success, because there was no concrete motion forward. The difference between a party that knows a good way to sneak into the palace and the party that doesn't is nothing.

The party that successfully sneaks into the palace is getting somewhere.

A good perception check there might give a +2 or +5 on sneaking in, but it won't move the party forward. If the party decides to emulate visiting dignitaries then the fact that the Cleric might know a totally rad way to sneak in isn't helping them.

Modifiers are common, many rolls get +2 or +5

If the fighter is trained in intimidate, but has a poor Charisma, then he might not be very good at intimidating. But he comes up with the nifty idea of bending an iron bar in half, while casually staring at the victim he has cornered.

One moderate strength or athletics check later (which he easily passes) the target is staring at the iron bar and beads of sweat are dripping down his head. The fighter barely needs to SUGGEST that it might be in his best interests to cooperate. The roll is at +5.

If you think this leads to people 'metagaming' I disagree. Sure, the fighter might like this trick. Hell, he might even carry around iron bars in his pack just to do it. And... why not? It becomes his schtick. He pulls an iron bar out of his pack and casually demonstrates his raw strength, scaring the target. Has he found a way to exploit the system?

No. He's found something that works. In 'real life' people do the same thing. If they found a trick that works they tend to come to rely on the trick. It becomes a 'Thog signature.'

And once Thog has a signature, it becomes interesting. Imagine a new villain is the lord of an area. The PCs just messed with him indirectly, and he wants to send them a message. A courier arrives at the inn. And he has a bag. And in the bag is an Adamantium bar... bent in half.

Thog struggles vainly to unbend it, while the party gets the message loud and goddamn clear.

Success may be partial

Deliver information in tidbits as the 'information gathering' challenge progresses, and then allow them to make a 'gestalt conclusion' at the end of it if they succeed (they finally put all the pieces together). If they fail... they still might have what it takes, or at least might know where to start looking.

Let them feel their individual successes did something.

Moment of Glory

I say that after 3 failures the party has raised the merchant guild's suspicions too much for them to sneak in. They get five successes (need six), and then get the third, heartbreaking failure.

The merchant's guild marches their new recruits out, and insists they have infiltrators. Now the party face has one last chance to bluff his way out of this. He knows the DC is hard (or hell, even hard plus), and he damn well needs those +2/+5s.

Watch him start to try and desperately roleplay his way out of the hole, knowing that the success or failure of their plan could hinge on that +5. Succeed or fail, that's memorable roleplay. And it gives him a chance to be special. His 22 charisma, his +5 training, his racial +2, and the best roleplaying he's done in ages, and if he pulls it off, he saved the party bacon.

You play a skill monkey for moments like that. It's the skill monkey equivalent of the Nova turn where the Barbarian got a crit on his 7[W] Daily and then spent an action point for his 5[W] Daily and made that too, and the party is staring at the 160 damage he just did to the dragon saying... 'wow.'

Give them a moment where success or failure hinges on their actions. And give it to them in a situation where it's abundandly clear to the party that they've already failed, and that their bard is their last hope of pulling their fat out of the fryer.
#2
bone_naga
Dec 13, 2011 19:19:21 Overall I do like the idea. The downside is of course that it becomes much more time-intensive to create skill challenges since this is more complex than success/failure.
#3
Herrozerro
Dec 13, 2011 19:56:31 Your tirst and second fixes are already in the game with secondary skills, skills that can be failed without consiquence and succeded with granting bonuses.

And the DMG 2 does better with placing successes tied to actual progress.
#4
guest1458177341
Dec 13, 2011 22:19:07
Overall I do like the idea. The downside is of course that it becomes much more time-intensive to create skill challenges since this is more complex than success/failure.

Actually done right it's less time intensive. Just much more RP intensive.

The key is that all you really have to do is come up with the conditions of failure (either time or event based) and the general situation.

Your players will generate all the remaining details while they go after the prize, by interacting with you. Have a few general NPCs the party will meetand a tone for the encounter (the King is very authoritarian and runs a police state so the palace has lots of forms and protocols) and let the chips fall where they may.

This tends to generate more of those random 'and then you did WHAT' moments that set your plot slowly lurching sideways (well we were sneaking in and one of the characters decided to find a map and then we realized we were right by the king's quarters and he's a horrid tyrant, so we figured well, we might as well...). This can be a bug or feature, depending on your personality.

On the fly you can decide the king is a beholder and drop a high challenge solo on their heads, AND alert all of the palace guard, which results in a frantic escape scene, and an epic civil war as half the guard remain loyal to their beholder king, and the other half discover their remaining shreds of honor and rebel against this literal monster leading them.

But this is tough, and you need to have the balls to tell the PCs 'okay, it's food time, 10 minute break' when they send your train of thought off the rails and into mount doom. It won't happen often, but it will happen.

Herrozerro - That still doesn't make an exclusive system inclusive, nor does it create the feeling of 'whatever I can do' that time based skill challenges do. When your five man party needs to get 7 concrete successes in 3 time increments, if they haven't been very successful, believe me, the fighter's ingenious use of skills will get a LOT more frantic than if he knows that he can sit on his hands and ignore the challenge (since his attempting anything will only result in more chances to fail, beyond the usual 'I use Athletics to impress the king' nonsense). When it comes to roleplay a touch of desperation and panic can make all the difference in the world.

DMG 2 is better. Of course DMG 2 is better at ANYTHING, it's probably in the top 3 books about gaming ever produced. Ever. (not campaign settings or fluff, but books on how to actually create and run an RPG)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 guest1458177341 Dec 13, 2011 15:26:07	Well, on another board I said skill challenges were unrefined and that I didn't like the system. Since I've knocked the designers, it's only fair to throw my own design out where it too can be criticized. Flaws in the Current System - Exclusive mechanics. It directly contradicts combat, which is inclusive mechanics. That is, if your Ranger is doing lots of dpr to the solo, and your psion is doing less dpr to the target and all the psion debuffs keep getting saved (so the psion is mechanically doing less than the Ranger) the Ranger is not penalized for the psion's performance (nor is the party worse off because the psion is doing damage). Whereas if your warrior is bad at skill challenges, this mechanically hurts the bard who is good at them. Thus, the teamwork nature of combat goes RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. To help the team, the best thing the warrior can do is... nothing. This is stupid. - Encourages metagaming. Lets say you want to use Arcana to see if you remember something. Your Arcana isn't great, but hey, seeing if you remember something doesn't take much time, right? Uh, it costs you a failure. This leads directly to the next problem - That looks like a nail. If your best skill is bluff, you try and bluff every problem. If your best skills are Streetwise and History, every problem looks like a problem for gathering information from the street or checking obscure historical references. If your best skill is acrobatics, every problem can be solved by doing cool stunts. In the real world, if you're an olympic athlete and you need to get out of paying a traffic ticket, you don't attempt to backflip for the cop, but this is what D&D characters do ALL THE TIME. Skill Challenge 1.5 (GreyICE edition) Changes: Failures are tied to a situational, and concrete mechanic If you need to find clues to the missing children's location, each 'failure' represents more wasted time. If you need to infiltrate the palace, each failure represents an increased level of suspicion. If you need to sneak into the dragon's lair unnoticed, each failure represents a step closer to an alerted dragon. Thus, if the fighter took streetwise, and decides "I'll ask around the street to see if anyone knows anything" when the children are missing, he doesn't cost the party anything. If he fails and the alternative was 'I use that time interval to sit around on my arse' then that was an AUTOMATIC failure in that time interval. Also, now his streetwise may be locked out (heck, it may be locked out even if he got a success - he found what there is to know). He then decides 'hell, I'll look for tracks.' He might suck at looking for tracks, but he might as well do SOMETHING. Suddenly he is helping the group. If he succeeds, he contributed, if he fails, it doesn't hurt the party. Thus, the challenge is INCLUSIVE. Success is tied to concrete steps forward If your mission is to infiltrate the palace, and the cleric decides to scout for ways into the palace, using perception, he might find a poorly lit and poorly patrolled route past the palace gardens. This does NOT contribute a success, because there was no concrete motion forward. The difference between a party that knows a good way to sneak into the palace and the party that doesn't is nothing. The party that successfully sneaks into the palace is getting somewhere. A good perception check there might give a +2 or +5 on sneaking in, but it won't move the party forward. If the party decides to emulate visiting dignitaries then the fact that the Cleric might know a totally rad way to sneak in isn't helping them. Modifiers are common, many rolls get +2 or +5 If the fighter is trained in intimidate, but has a poor Charisma, then he might not be very good at intimidating. But he comes up with the nifty idea of bending an iron bar in half, while casually staring at the victim he has cornered. One moderate strength or athletics check later (which he easily passes) the target is staring at the iron bar and beads of sweat are dripping down his head. The fighter barely needs to SUGGEST that it might be in his best interests to cooperate. The roll is at +5. If you think this leads to people 'metagaming' I disagree. Sure, the fighter might like this trick. Hell, he might even carry around iron bars in his pack just to do it. And... why not? It becomes his schtick. He pulls an iron bar out of his pack and casually demonstrates his raw strength, scaring the target. Has he found a way to exploit the system? No. He's found something that works. In 'real life' people do the same thing. If they found a trick that works they tend to come to rely on the trick. It becomes a 'Thog signature.' And once Thog has a signature, it becomes interesting. Imagine a new villain is the lord of an area. The PCs just messed with him indirectly, and he wants to send them a message. A courier arrives at the inn. And he has a bag. And in the bag is an Adamantium bar... bent in half. Thog struggles vainly to unbend it, while the party gets the message loud and goddamn clear. Success may be partial Deliver information in tidbits as the 'information gathering' challenge progresses, and then allow them to make a 'gestalt conclusion' at the end of it if they succeed (they finally put all the pieces together). If they fail... they still might have what it takes, or at least might know where to start looking. Let them feel their individual successes did something. Moment of Glory I say that after 3 failures the party has raised the merchant guild's suspicions too much for them to sneak in. They get five successes (need six), and then get the third, heartbreaking failure. The merchant's guild marches their new recruits out, and insists they have infiltrators. Now the party face has one last chance to bluff his way out of this. He knows the DC is hard (or hell, even hard plus), and he damn well needs those +2/+5s. Watch him start to try and desperately roleplay his way out of the hole, knowing that the success or failure of their plan could hinge on that +5. Succeed or fail, that's memorable roleplay. And it gives him a chance to be special. His 22 charisma, his +5 training, his racial +2, and the best roleplaying he's done in ages, and if he pulls it off, he saved the party bacon. You play a skill monkey for moments like that. It's the skill monkey equivalent of the Nova turn where the Barbarian got a crit on his 7[W] Daily and then spent an action point for his 5[W] Daily and made that too, and the party is staring at the 160 damage he just did to the dragon saying... 'wow.' Give them a moment where success or failure hinges on their actions. And give it to them in a situation where it's abundandly clear to the party that they've already failed, and that their bard is their last hope of pulling their fat out of the fryer.
#2 bone_naga Dec 13, 2011 19:19:21	Overall I do like the idea. The downside is of course that it becomes much more time-intensive to create skill challenges since this is more complex than success/failure.
#3 Herrozerro Dec 13, 2011 19:56:31	Your tirst and second fixes are already in the game with secondary skills, skills that can be failed without consiquence and succeded with granting bonuses. And the DMG 2 does better with placing successes tied to actual progress.
#4 guest1458177341 Dec 13, 2011 22:19:07	Overall I do like the idea. The downside is of course that it becomes much more time-intensive to create skill challenges since this is more complex than success/failure. Actually done right it's less time intensive. Just much more RP intensive. The key is that all you really have to do is come up with the conditions of failure (either time or event based) and the general situation. Your players will generate all the remaining details while they go after the prize, by interacting with you. Have a few general NPCs the party will meetand a tone for the encounter (the King is very authoritarian and runs a police state so the palace has lots of forms and protocols) and let the chips fall where they may. This tends to generate more of those random 'and then you did WHAT' moments that set your plot slowly lurching sideways (well we were sneaking in and one of the characters decided to find a map and then we realized we were right by the king's quarters and he's a horrid tyrant, so we figured well, we might as well...). This can be a bug or feature, depending on your personality. On the fly you can decide the king is a beholder and drop a high challenge solo on their heads, AND alert all of the palace guard, which results in a frantic escape scene, and an epic civil war as half the guard remain loyal to their beholder king, and the other half discover their remaining shreds of honor and rebel against this literal monster leading them. But this is tough, and you need to have the balls to tell the PCs 'okay, it's food time, 10 minute break' when they send your train of thought off the rails and into mount doom. It won't happen often, but it will happen. Herrozerro - That still doesn't make an exclusive system inclusive, nor does it create the feeling of 'whatever I can do' that time based skill challenges do. When your five man party needs to get 7 concrete successes in 3 time increments, if they haven't been very successful, believe me, the fighter's ingenious use of skills will get a LOT more frantic than if he knows that he can sit on his hands and ignore the challenge (since his attempting anything will only result in more chances to fail, beyond the usual 'I use Athletics to impress the king' nonsense). When it comes to roleplay a touch of desperation and panic can make all the difference in the world. DMG 2 is better. Of course DMG 2 is better at ANYTHING, it's probably in the top 3 books about gaming ever produced. Ever. (not campaign settings or fluff, but books on how to actually create and run an RPG)