What in terms of writing has caused skill challenges to transcend a rather clunky mechanic to allow fun roleplaying and a believable experience? Why have you enjoyed certain ones? What interesting takes on the mechanics have interested you?
Please add as many as you can, and the reasons why you enjoyed them.
Let's keep this thread positive. No griping about skill challenge mechanics (see http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1214482 for that) or complaints about challenges you didn't like. Please also remember to use spoiler tags, and to note which adventures you may be spoiling.
A couple of examples from me. I'll add more as I remember them.
CORE1-3
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I really enjoyed this skill challenge for a number of reasons, although I'm pretty sure it follows the pre-errata DCs and a host of other complaints on the other thread. But it works really well.
The first point is that it makes sense as a skill challenge. Repairing the boat and plotting a course requires a lot of different skills, and the penalties for failure make sense (go to sea in a leaky boat and spend all night bailing it out).
I also like the fact that it allows for a wide range of skills, so every PC can feel useful, but no one PC is likely to dominate. It has an 'out' clause in that the PCs can spend gold (which is also realistic!) to buy the items they need if they can't obtain them using their skills, and has plenty of room for improvisation (in one game, we persuaded the sail merchant to give us the sails at a discount if we painted his name on the sail, and therefore gave him free advertising :D ) - you can come up with clever ways to use your skills and ideas without feeling as if you're trying to 'cheat' the DM.
I really enjoyed this skill challenge for a number of reasons, although I'm pretty sure it follows the pre-errata DCs and a host of other complaints on the other thread. But it works really well.
The first point is that it makes sense as a skill challenge. Repairing the boat and plotting a course requires a lot of different skills, and the penalties for failure make sense (go to sea in a leaky boat and spend all night bailing it out).
I also like the fact that it allows for a wide range of skills, so every PC can feel useful, but no one PC is likely to dominate. It has an 'out' clause in that the PCs can spend gold (which is also realistic!) to buy the items they need if they can't obtain them using their skills, and has plenty of room for improvisation (in one game, we persuaded the sail merchant to give us the sails at a discount if we painted his name on the sail, and therefore gave him free advertising :D ) - you can come up with clever ways to use your skills and ideas without feeling as if you're trying to 'cheat' the DM.
I based the skill challenge in CORE1-8 on CORE1-7. It was the biggest reason for the delay of CORE1-8 - finding a good working sollution without turning it into a 10 hour adventure proved to be a tough challenge. Thanks for the compliments.
Well, the only (very minor) complaint that we had was that after 4 hours, we felt we could have still devoted a couple more to exploring all the possibilities, and we did have to hurry towards the end. There was a lot to it, even now.
* I recently read a book on RL "soft"-dictatorships (as in dictators trying to appear to be benign and democratic) and it gave me some great ideas on how things likely are in Sembia.
For example, many people cite CORE1-3 as a "good" skill challenge (which I really appreciate BTW as it is one of my personal favorites among the things I've written for the campaign -- although I should also take this opportunity to officially thank Shawn Merwin for giving me the name of Captain Inder "Leadbottom" Kloom).
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According to the adventure text the big skill challenge encounter in CORE1-3 is a single complexity 5 skill challenge, but really, it isn't. I broke the overall skill challenge down into two separate scenes (one listed as 8 successes before 6 failures, the other listed as 6 successes before 4 failures). I don't actually remember if 8/6 plus 6/4 (14/10) even adds up to what a complexity 5 skill challenge used to be in the pre-errata DMG, but I suspect it doesn't. ;)
If I were writing that adventure today I would add a third scene (splitting "getting the materials" and "fixing the ship" into two scenes, leaving "decipher the map" as the third) and make each scene complexity 1 or 2... probably 1.
If I were writing that adventure today I would add a third scene (splitting "getting the materials" and "fixing the ship" into two scenes, leaving "decipher the map" as the third) and make each scene complexity 1 or 2... probably 1.
I think one thing we have all learned over the last year (including the WotC designers) is that low-complexity skill challenges seem to work a lot better than high-complexity skill challenges for most situations.
I'll agree with this, but I'll also point out that higher-complexity skill challenges that are broken up into 'scenes' where you only use two or three rolls to advance the challenge in that scene and then move on to the next scene helps tremendously to avoid the 'we've beaten the challenge but still need 3 successes' problem**. There are a number of mods that do this. (
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Best recent example I've run: DALE 1-3.
I think one thing we have all learned over the last year (including the WotC designers) is that low-complexity skill challenges seem to work a lot better than high-complexity skill challenges for most situations.
True. It makes for easier challenges (so less chance on failure, which is a bit of a pity as you do need a reasonable chance at failure imo), though in order to allow people to particpate more that does mean I add more skills that support and less skills that grant successes (so a skill challenge isn't necessarily determined by the bard rolling 4 Diplomacy checks in a row).
It also means that I set various 'success' skill check at Hard DC (but not all - I siply determine what skills would be hard, logically, and which would be easy), and various 'support' skill checks at Moderate or Easy (so you can fairly easy get the extra +2 to help succeed).
I hope that helps to encourage team work in the encounter.
Gomez
What I do not like are scenes (mainly diplomatic) where you're just talking to one person (Or a group of them) and have to make a large number of success. I've just seen to many tables just repeating stuff over and over when they're trying to make that 6th success when they're trying to talk a group of guards to let them pass.
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involving advancing your position inside the caravan
My Invoker managed to get a riverboat run aground in that one!While it's on my mind (ran it today) -- the first LURU 1-1 skill challenge is very nice. It's broken into scenes/pieces, which is always good; it's an excellent example of using the skill challenge mechanics to cover an expanse of time and activity. It has a clear benefit from success, and it doesn't derail the session if it's failed. It also has a few optional components which are handy if you want to spice up the challenge or toss in some roleplay here and there. Finally, it's well-rooted in the scenario. It builds upon things the PCs have already learned and helps set the stage for what's yet to come.
The nice thing is that it freed the players up to do as they wish -- it seemed a lot more "organic" way of running a skill challenge. The players were more willing to try out what they would *actually* do, rather than whatever their highest skill check modifier is, since there was no penalty of failure on the actual skill (only on the corresponding skill check to keep it covert).
I can't count the number of times a player might want to use Bluff, but since his Diplomacy is higher he uses that instead (or vice-versa). Or how desperately a player that is role-playing a Fighter tries to creatively use the Athletics skill. As a judge I reward creativity of course, and don't let myself be "pigeon-holed" into only what is listed, but some of the suggested things that players come up with are just ridiculous, and it's clear they're just doing it due to the skill challenge mechanics.
I can't count the number of times a player might want to use Bluff, but since his Diplomacy is higher he uses that instead (or vice-versa). Or how desperately a player that is role-playing a Fighter tries to creatively use the Athletics skill.
In my neck of the woods, History is the king of the "Can I fool you into letting me roll skills I'm good at" skill challenge.
Every time is "I'll use History to remember how they dealt with this problem in the past."
Every time.
Ugh.
And the DM is a jerk if he says no.
Ugh.
In my neck of the woods, History is the king of the "Can I fool you into letting me roll skills I'm good at" skill challenge.
Every time is "I'll use History to remember how they dealt with this problem in the past."
Either they got that idea from a prior LFR adventure* or enough DMs let them get away with it that it's now assumed that's the way the skill works. Skills don't always work the way you'd think they should in skill challenges, so the only thing players have to go on is how they worked last week.
If, for example, a PC can use Insight in one adventure to help him intuitively get through a maze (
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SPEC1-1
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I did consider dropping that skill, but otoh you do want a skill to matter sometimes. It is not that often that History plays a part, so I left it in. That example should probably have been a supporting check rather than a success though.
Ihope you did like the later challenge. I think we had a History check there as well.
I did consider dropping that skill, but otoh you do want a skill to matter sometimes. It is not that often that History plays a part, so I left it in. That example should probably have been a supporting check rather than a success though.
Ihope you did like the later challenge. I think we had a History check there as well.
Skills don't always work the way you'd think they should in skill challenges, so the only thing players have to go on is how they worked last week.
If, for example, a PC can use Insight in one adventure to help him intuitively get through a maze (ShowSPEC1-1
Regardless, the DC will be based off of the skill you roll. Diplomacy won't be the best skill in every case and the DC could vary significantly (there can be a deviation of 10-12 points between an Easy and Hard DC).
But since the DCs are not generally transparent, players are still well served by rolling only skills that they are good at even if there is a chance that the DC could be 5-10 points higher than the skills that they are not good at. Therefore, players who follow the system of rewards laid out by the skill challenge mechanic will always attempt to cheese their high skill (be it diplomacy or whatever).
The reasoning is as follows:
1. Players are generally not told the DCs and therefore do not know whether the DC is easy or hard until they fail (or succeed with a very low number). Even then, they do not know whether whatever alternate skill they might try is easier unless someone has already failed at it (or succeeded with a very low number). Therefore, players have to figure that there are generally more or less equal odds of any skill being easy or difficult. The only factor that they can predict with certainty is how good they are at the skill, therefore the best odds are almost always with using the skill that you are best at.
2. The difference between a hard DC and an easy DC is ten points--possibly 12 if the DM's best friend is applied. That is pretty much the maximum consequence that a mistake could have. Now, if the skill that you are good at turned out to be an easy DC and the skill that you are not good at is rolling on the hard DC, you are really screwed. On the other hand, even if the skill you are not good at was easy and you are rolling against a hard DC, you will frequently still come out ahead because the difference between a character's good skill and his bad skill is often more than ten points. For instance, there is an 11 point difference between an untrained skill controlled by an 8 and a trained skill controlled by an 18 stat with a racial, or background bonus. Some bonuses (luruar's re-roll history or daleland's re-roll nature) are more significant than that and skill focus or class abilities like word of friendship can boost it even higher.
So the player is sometimes better off cheesing it even in the worst case scenario, but even when he isn't, he will generally not be much worse off.
3. The more likely scenario, however, is that the skill the character is avoiding is a moderate DC and the skill the character is trying to cheese will be hard. That's a 5-7 point difference. Now, if the character is trained in the one skill but not the other, he is generally still best off cheesing a use of the oddball skill. (Trained is a minimum 5 point difference right there). If the character is trained in both skills, but one is controlled by an 18 and the other by a 10, he is only slighlty worse off by cheesing (effectively 5% less chance to succeed) than if he just tried the moderate DC. However, if there is a racial, regional, etc bonus to the cheesy skill, the character is probably still better off even if the DC is seven higher than it would otherwise be.
At higher levels, the difference could well be between a 28 and a 12, in which case, the character is always better off cheesing the skill he is good at rather than one he is trained in but which is not controlled by his attack stat.
4. Therefore, the behavior rewarded by the mechanics of skill challenges is to always attempt to cheese/fasttalk the DM into using your best skill unless one of the natural skills is trained for you and controlled by your attack stat.
Can we save discussion of skill-challenge mechanics for the other thread, and list here examples of particular skill challenges we enjoyed and why?
More examples please, everyone!
Alpha: I agree on 95% of what you're saying, but there's also the bluff skill! (That last example, for one, is definitely bluff IMO.)
I agree on CORE 1-3, CORE 1-8. Those skill challenges are big parts of what made those adventures among my favorites.
CORM 1-1 Skill challenge spoiler
As one of the earliest skill challenges I played in, I absolutely loved the chase scene. It is just a good example of skill challenge mechanics being put to good use in a realistic, yet flexible way.