Rethinking Skill Challenges

[Quickleaf]

In every discussion I've had or thread I've read about skill challenges (SCs) a series of common complaints about the SC system emerge. Thinking about it, I noticed that many of 4e's design philosophies seemed to stop when a skill challenge begins. A lot of my ideas came about from conceiving SC as a monster or a combat encounter.

1. Incentivize don't punish
Problem: There's a disincentive to participate with low skills because failure is worse than inaction.

Solution A: Time Limit: Stalker0's sweet Obsidian SC system does this best! However, I'm trying to work with a positive incentive (think carrot, not stick) and maintain the basic framework of the SC as presented in RAW.
Solution B: Escalating DC: The idea here is to force the players to use different skills by increasing the DC of repeat skill use. Again, this is more of a stick approach, even if effective.
Solution C: Variable DC: This is what most RAW SCs do by dividing skill checks into easy/medium/hard categories. While this can be well done, a lot of times I've seen it turn into a guessing game. This is sort of a stick/carrot combination approach.
Solution D: All Skills Available: Ok, this is where I go off the deep end. What if *every* skill was available during a SC? Think of combat - most powers work on most enemies, with the exception of immunity (which I hear the new monster design philosophy is moving away from in favor of vulnerabilities). I compare skills unavailable in a SC to a monster's immunities. In other words, not much fun; and when they do rarely appear, there should be 1 or 2 at most. This really requires us to expand our notion of a SC's scope, so it's not about negotiating with the duke, but it's about securing military aid *however* you want to go about it. Now, this creates another problem, which is...why wouldn't the PCs just spam their best skill if all skills are available?

2. The PCs should have a motivation to change tactics, move around, and use varied powers
Problem: High number of successes required before failure (or time limit) encourages tactical player to spam their best skill. This problem is magnified if all skills are available.

Solution A: Arenas/Development: Imagine all the skills being divided into 3-6 "arenas", so in an investigation you might have the Docks, the Scene of the Crime, a Noble's Manor, and the Prison. Each of these areas has different skills that can be used there, so Athletics might not be useful at the Scene of the Crime but it *is* useful to climb thru the noble's manor house window. I think of "arenas" as akin to terrain. Likewise, changing conditions in the SC can change which skills become available. For example (like the bloodied condition) at 1 and/or 2 failures *something* happens. In other words, all skills are allowed, but there's a time and a place for each skill.
Solution B: Jackpot Skills: Think of this as the opposite of auto-fail skills (aka the "save or die" of a SC), or as the SC's vulnerability. This includes auto-successes, rider effects, and other benefits in or outside of the SC.
Solution C: Tactical Choices: Sometimes the individual effects of a success or failure may be almost or just as important as overall success in the SC. Give the players choices about how to use their skills. This ties in with the next design tenet...

3. Each PC should feel special & have their chance to shine
Problem: Once the SC begins every character is converted into a striker trying to rack up successes (i.e. damage)

Solution A: Roles: Introduce the 4 roles into SCs. This will take a little work to sort out, but what I'm thinking is each role gets a choice between 2-3 options in a given SC about how a skill check is resolved. Think of this as what comes after the damage die in a power, the rider effect.
Solution B: Critical Hits: This ties back in with the idea of jackpot skills, or SC vulnerabilities.
Solution C: Degress of Success & Failure: The players should be able to see the extent of their success or failure as a result of the actions their PCs took. This could take a cue off of rituals (degrees of success) and skills like Acrobatics, Athletics, and Thievery (failure tolerance). So you don't just succeed, but you succeed with 0, 1, or 2 failures (or some other plot related detail specific to the SC). Likewise, you don't fail, but you fail with a certain # of successes.

4. Exceptions-based design
Problem: One size SC doesn't fit every situation. For example, a chase, an investigation, and a siege seem to have very different underlying structures. While DMG2 made headway in this regard, it seems like the community is pushing that envelope even more.

Solution A: SC Templates: I was thinking that a series of templates for different SC scenarios could be created, perhaps even produced as a series in Dragon or published as a supplement.


I'll try to post a sample "gathering troops" SC using these ideas later today...

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I like your ideas.

Something I've done (with some success) is to have each character say what part of the problem they are tackling, then that leads them done a certain path. So, they'll likely know what the "gateway" skill is, but not to which other skills that will lead them. I think this falls under your suggestion of assigning "roles" to the PCs.

I used it for a courtroom drama - the PCs were trying to convince the local ruler to delay its decision under a certain treaty. The terms of the treaty were unclear because of a certain river used as a border now being a swamp instead. They had basically the night to prepare, and the next day to argue.

Each PC decided what their general goal was, and I took them through it. This sometimes lead to different skills uses than the player might have expected. Unfortunately, I can't remember what exact skill combos this lead to, but it did result in the warlord needing to make a nature check (to find the headwaters original banks of the river), and the wizard a dungeoneering check (to figure out how to rebuild the irrigation system destroyed by the swamp), which made perfect sense in terms of what the players wanted to do, but mechanically would have been better for the warlord to be doing the dungeoneering test and the wizard the nature test.

One thing this approach does require is that the DM think ahead of time of the various approaches there might be, yet be flexible for new ones.

 

[FireLance]

Some thoughts on a variety of issues:

1. I also agree the "three failures" failure condition for skill challenges discourages players with low skill modifiers from taking part. I generally prefer to have either a hard time limit (score X successes with Y rounds), or have something bad keep happening until the PCs score the necessary number of successes (this is the approach taken for traps), or have a variable time limit which the PCs can extend with successful skill or ability checks (e.g. in a classic crushing walls trap, one PC can buy time for another PC to unlock the exit by making a Strength check to hold back the wall).

2. In addition to escalating DCs to discourage the repeated use of certain skills, you could consider setting a limit on the number of successes that can be achieved through a specific skill. This also ties in to the point about giving PCs a motivation to change tactics and use varied abilities.

3. The concept of what you call jackpot skills (automatic successes, multiple successes, other benefits) is probably better applied to creative ideas instead of skill checks. By awarding automatic successes for creative ideas, you break the players out of the habit of simply going through their character sheet and picking out what they think to be the most useful skills, and you encourage them to approach skill challenges in a manner similar to the free-form problem solving that was more common in earlier editions.

4. With respect to PC "roles", I personally divide non-combat challenges into four broad categories: Learn challenges, Move challenges, Survive challenges and Persuade challenges. Where possible, I try to incorporate all four elements into a skill challenge, either as part of the main challenge or as sub-challenges which, when successfully completed, contribute successes and/or confer some advantage to overcoming the main challenge. This is discussed more fully in my blog post here.

 

[Markn]

2. In addition to escalating DCs to discourage the repeated use of certain skills, you could consider setting a limit on the number of successes that can be achieved through a specific skill. This also ties in to the point about giving PCs a motivation to change tactics and use varied abilities.

I strongly prefer the escalating DCs to the DM saying no more uses of a particular skill. It really goes in line with 4e's mentality of saying YES. Basically, you as DM are saying you can use the skill again, its riskier than last time but if you decide thats your angle then all the power to you.

 

[LightPhoenix]

One fairly easy way I've found to limit PCs from using their best skills over and over again is to make the players describe what they are doing with the skill. It makes the players think more about how to use their skills, and I've found that they don't do things over and over again.

Another thing I try to do is get rid of absolute failure. Rather, failures add challenges that need to be overcome a different way. Sometimes it's something simple, like losing healing surges to scalding steam or adding enemies later on from fair warning. Other times there's no immediate issue, but one crops up later - they've contracted a disease from poisonous spores, or the local lord is resisting their good efforts. In one challenge (bidding for a mission), failure meant another group bid lower against them, lowering the reward. No matter what though, don't let failure actually equal failure.

I've found, like others, that "staying in one place" makes for a boring skill challenge most of the time. I try to think of a skill challenge as a series of vignettes rather than a single scene - that's what combat is for. It makes using the previous two ideas easier as well; if you fail the Streetwise roll, the informant is injured/dead when you get there. Not great, but it doesn't really equal a total failure - now you have more clues to follow, even with failure.

Finally, the biggest thing is simply knowing when to use a skill challenge. The reason I hate most of the WotC-produced ones is because they're exactly when you shouldn't use them. Conversations should be just that - conversations. Make sure there's a clear goal (track the assassin, win the contract, escape the kobold horde) and make sure the PCs know what the goal is.

A couple of smaller things:

One thing I've found helpful is to provide an "out." That is, if the players aren't enjoying the challenge, give them a way to end it immediately. That prevents a lot of issues regarding "challenge grind."

Try to find ways for the PCs to use Encounter powers and encourage them to use them; a Skill Challenge counts as one, after all.

 

[FireLance]

I strongly prefer the escalating DCs to the DM saying no more uses of a particular skill. It really goes in line with 4e's mentality of saying YES. Basically, you as DM are saying you can use the skill again, its riskier than last time but if you decide thats your angle then all the power to you.

While I generally agree, I wouldn't rule out capping the number of successes, either. It's really just another tool for the DM, and there may be circumstances in which achieving more successes through the same route may simply be implausible.

 

[LostSoul]

It's interesting that you are only looking at it from a mechanical perspective. I think there are solutions from the colour side as well.

1. You don't do anything? Something bad happens. It might not be a mechanical failure, but it will suck.

You're running away from the dragon and you don't do anything. Fine, it eats you. You're supposed to be talking to the Duke and you don't say anything? He gets creeped out and thinks you have a secret to hide, so he starts talking to you. You still don't say anything? That's very rude; the Duke might throw you in jail while he finishes his talks with the rest of the PCs.

2. If you don't think of it in terms of "Intimidate" but instead "I put my sword to his throat and say, 'If you don't tell us who you're working for I'll gut you like a fish - and then my cleric buddy will heal you so we can find a new place to cut you.'" There is going to be a consequence to that action - indeed, there should be a consequence to any action. Play off the fictional reality of the action instead of "I roll Intimidate. Does 23 succeed?"

3. I don't think every PC should shine in every skill challenge.

4. Interesting.

 

[pemerton]

LostSoul, great stuff as always!

 

[ExploderWizard]

The biggest problem I have with skill challenges is that they pre-suppose the goals of the PC's.

The challenge might encompass several different approaches to a problem but all of them assume that the problem is one that the PC's must deal with.

The whole purpose to a skill challenge is providing an encounter based structure to a non-combat situation. I don't tell my players who to fight where or when so I see no reason to try and tell them who they need to negotiate with, run from, or search for.

If the players think that there is value in trying to convince an NPC of something then they will try it. Those kinds of decisions are there for the players to make. If the players do decide on that course of action, and are successful then their success means so much more because it was based on their own plan and not some series of hoops that I decided that they needed to jump through.

The basic mechanics of the system are working for our campaign without the encounter based baggage.

 

[wayne62682]

What I always hated about skill challenges is twofold:

1) If you suck at a particular skill, you aren't going to want to use it for fear of causing a failure, especially in RAW where it's three strikes and you're out. So depending on the challenge, not everyone is GOING to have an ability that's worth using. If I'm the big, tough fighter I'm not going to be participating in a diplomatic skill challenge, and I'm not going to use Intimidate because A) half the time it'll auto fail, and B) I don't want to threaten someone we're trying to get information out of if they're friendly

2) MANY, many DMs enforce this nonsense where you HAVE to participate in the skill challenge, or they punish you for it, therefore you're basically forced to roll something that won't succeed and chalk up a failure for the group. It hurts the group as a whole because you aren't given the option to not participate, or else you get punished for it, but when you do participate you're hurting the group's chances of winning.