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I've gone on the record saying I don't hate 4e, but it is my least favorite incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons.  Were I grumpy today, I might even go so far to say it doesn't count as D&D.  I might even like the game if it wasn't trying to be D&D, but that's not the point of this post.  I have played it and decided it wasn't for me or my group at the time.

However, two of my groups threw me a curveball.  One plays 4e with coworkers and feels about the same way I do: Doesn't hate the system, but doesn't like it as a version of D&D.  Another has no experience with 4e but is eager to try anything that is RPGs.  They both think they'll like it if I was the one to DM it.  So I'll do it, I'm a fair person.  I'm DM 95 percent of the time so maybe me experiencing 4e as a player wasn't a fair test.  But if I do, I want it to run good to excellent, so we can all have a just experiment.

So, I pose these questions to the audience:

a) I am annoyed by errata.  Especially the fact that the conspicuous Page 42 supposedly needs it.  It's my problem, I guess, that I don't like having to cross reference or mark on pages.  Anyway...

Using the first 3 books, how much of errata do you consider must use? A good deal of it seems to be related to curbing abuse, and my players (as a whole) don't try to exploit loopholes.  However, I don't know enough about the game crunch to know which bits of the errata are essential.  Suggestions appreciated.

b) A more specific question: How do you do the maths for skill challenges? That shit is awkward enough to understand even before you start fiddling with the rules.  The RAW look like they are too difficult for PCs, the errata makes it look far too easy.  My instinct is to leave Page 42 as-is, but drop the footnote suggesting you raise Skill DCs by 5.  Does that sound reasonable?

I'm taking my girl out for the day, but I'll be back this evening to check in.  You're welcome to flame the thread to ashes at some point, but I'd like to hear some feedback from 4e'ers before then :D

Quote from: winkingbishop;374256b) A more specific question: How do you do the maths for skill challenges? That shit is awkward enough to understand even before you start fiddling with the rules.  The RAW look like they are too difficult for PCs, the errata makes it look far too easy.  My instinct is to leave Page 42 as-is, but drop the footnote suggesting you raise Skill DCs by 5.  Does that sound reasonable?

For me, the biggest thing about skill challenges is that they aren't really supposed to be challenges. They're roleplaying opportunities. Failure is going to happen sometimes, but it's not like a combat where players should be worried all the time -- it's just an uncommon happenstance.

So yeah, I drop the DCs as per the errata and things work out fine. Players get to show off the cool things about their PCs, which for me always increases immersion. You know the problem where you've imagined your PC as this debonaire charmer and you go to it and you roll the dice and you fail miserably the first time and the second time and people start snickering? I like the errata because they avoid that problem.

How I run skill challenges: I take a situation/problem. Say, breaking into the noble's house. I figure, OK, I can see a few obvious things the PCs might do, and maybe I write those down. More likely I don't. I think it's a pretty well-guarded house, so I set the difficulty at whatever it would be for 6 successes. Then I describe the situation to the players. I don't flag it as a skill challenge, necessarily.

Then the PCs do crap. Mostly it's crap I don't expect. If it's smart and makes sense, I set the DC at the medium difficulty. If it's way smart, I set the DC at the low difficulty. If they're stretching ("I want to use my knowledge of history to tell me about the secret entrance to this noble's house"), it's hard. If they're really stretching ("Even though I've never visited this city before and it's on a continent I'd never heard of"), I say no.

Awesome ideas may be worth two successes, which is one way to scale the difficulty in the middle of the thing. But it's not like anyone is going to come take away my GM badge if I go from requiring six successes to four successes in the middle of the skill challenge.

For errata, I don't sweat it. Since I use DDI, if its a character or monster issue, I don't notice it. If it's a rule, I try and stay aware, but as you said, most of it was curbing abuses (for example 'Dominate's errata actually is the only one I can think of where I had to be aware of it..and all that said was that a dominated character can't take free actions.) And this is just common sense, because (for example) a dominated character can't shout for help (which is a free action) if he's actually mentally controlled. This came up in my Vault of Xammux adventure once.

For Skill Challenges, keep in mind a rule of thumb: All they are meant to do is provide an encounter-like XP reward for a non-combat situation.

• Not every skill check has to be a challenge.
• If you don't feel comfortable running them, don't use them.

Ok, ready to run a skill challenge? Here's the technique I use (http://terrible-and-true.tumblr.com/post/482203126/skill-challenge-technique).

It amounts to this:

Set a baseline DC. At 1st level, this number is 11 for a moderate task. "Hard" is +5 from that (about 16). "impossible" is +10 from that, so 21. "Never tell me the odds" shouldn't be used, but it would be another +5. (26).

For every two levels you just bump this by one. Nevermind that this number might seem low. The secret is, YOU (the DM) determine the skill that will be used, and if the player has an idea to try a different skill, you allow it, but at the harder difficulty.

So level 2, the baseline is 12.
At level 4, the baseline is 13.
etc.

At the low DC, there WILL be automatic succes for some characters. Every once in a while the rogue with +12 in thievery gets a DC 12 lockpicking task. Hey, thats fine.

Example: SO If there's a dungeon passage where characters have to jump from rune-tile to rune-tile and you set the DC at 11.. the rogue and the fighter are fine. But the wizard says "I want to use my arcana to suppress some of the magic to make it across.."  allow it, but instead of DC 11 it will be a 16. This gives players agency, and every once in a while, the fighter in plate mail really is going to have to make a hilariously unlikely stealth check or the wimpy wizard will have to try and use athletics to force a door open. Thats ok. You want that.

Understand a group check- that's when you make everyone do the check, and only at least half the people have to be successful. Or you might determine that "more than half" have to be successful.

Have the goal in mind (like... "disarm the trap") before you start:
This can be short term (disarm the trap) -- 4 successes
long term (explore the entire dungeon level) -- 8+ successes
very long term (overland travel between cities) -- Maybe 12 or even 14 successes.

For long term challenges, don't do them all at once. Maybe run a few skill checks, roleplaying stuff (as Thanlis says above) and then an encounter, then continue with the challenge, and perhaps another encounter, and then complete it.

So for a longterm overland journey? You could even do 2 or 3 encounters in between skill challenge checks.

For certain failed skill checks, there should be a consequence: For a failed lockpick check, perhaps break the lockpicks, or reduce their bonus from +2 to +1. For a failed climb check, perhaps lose a healing surge due to twisted ankle. Be creative and improvise.

Know what the consequences for failure (of the entire skill challenge) are. For a disarm, the trap goes off and damages everyone. For an explore check, extra monsters are alerted, encounters beefed up, valuable treasures taken away and moved to different parts of the dungeon. For overland travel, the players might end up spending an extra week in the wilderness and arrive exhausted (just take away half their surges  and have them only regenerate surges over the course of the next week of rest).

Here's a non traditional one I ran a couple of months ago: Assassination as a skill challenge.  (http://terrible-and-true.tumblr.com/post/434972757/assassination-as-a-skill-challenge)

Stalker0 has been working on this for a while now, I would assume it is pretty thoroughly tested and works well:

Stalker0's Alternate Core Skill Challenge System: FINAL VERSION 1.8! (http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/230567-stalker0s-alternate-core-skill-challenge-system-final-version-1-8-a.html)

Follow up question(s): Are skill challenges still supposed to be done in initiative order?  Must everyone participate each round as per the RAW?  How does that affect order if someone chooses to assist instead of use a skill?

Quote from: winkingbishop;374325Follow up question(s): Are skill challenges still supposed to be done in initiative order?  Must everyone participate each round as per the RAW?  How does that affect order if someone chooses to assist instead of use a skill?

God no. Initiative order and making people participate is for the birds, and was removed as part of the errata. But even if it wasn't, you should ignore it. Let the skill challenges be organic.

Skill Challenges never seemed to me to be a fundamentally bad idea. Keeping it 'organic' would seem to be the challenge - Mearls has commented that he often doesn't tell the PCs they're in a skill challenge, in fact.
Maw's idea of the assassination is interesting - given that they're meant to add tension, with the right scenario you could probably design a 'skill challenge' that actually runs it in the background as an adventure progresses, with other encounters going on in the middle? (Say, a Survival/Endurance challenge to find the lost temple in the jungle with monster encounters in between, or an extended Arcana challenge to figure out what the artifact does while the party continues toward the site of the ritual they'll need it at).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374368Maw's idea of the assassination is interesting - given that they're meant to add tension, with the right scenario you could probably design a 'skill challenge' that actually runs it in the background as an adventure progresses, with other encounters going on in the middle? (Say, a Survival/Endurance challenge to find the lost temple in the jungle with monster encounters in between, or an extended Arcana challenge to figure out what the artifact does while the party continues toward the site of the ritual they'll need it at).

This is correct: in the real game example, the group was spotted just before the assassination was due to take place, and so they decided to go ahead and kill the witnesses.. once that encounter was over, they went back into the skill challenge mode.

Skill challenges do not work. Full stop. They fail at all of their design goals, top to bottom, beginning to end. You are better off not using them.

Even if you fiddle with the DCs until they aren't auto-fail or auto-pass like they are before/after errata, the fact is that they are still boring as hell and the optimum solution is for everyone except one player to just pass (or "aid another," if allowed) round after round while one player with a good skill check does the same thing 12 times in a row and rolls 12 twenty sided dice one after another and still only generates two possible results.

They don't encourage creativity, they don't encourage cooperation, they don't encourage everyone to participate, they don't generate more possible results than a coin flip, they aren't fast, they aren't simple, and they are almost completely deterministic. There is no advantage to the system. At all.

Skill Challenges are like some kind of game design epic trolling. Every single detail about them is wrong. Every time someone plays a skill challenge, Mike Mearles pops into their basement and says "Ha Ha!" like on the Simpsons.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;374400Skill challenges do not work. Full stop. They fail at all of their design goals, top to bottom, beginning to end. You are better off not using them.

Even if you fiddle with the DCs until they aren't auto-fail or auto-pass like they are before/after errata, the fact is that they are still boring as hell and the optimum solution is for everyone except one player to just pass (or "aid another," if allowed) round after round while one player with a good skill check does the same thing 12 times in a row and rolls 12 twenty sided dice one after another and still only generates two possible results.

They don't encourage creativity, they don't encourage cooperation, they don't encourage everyone to participate, they don't generate more possible results than a coin flip, they aren't fast, they aren't simple, and they are almost completely deterministic. There is no advantage to the system. At all.

Skill Challenges are like some kind of game design epic trolling. Every single detail about them is wrong. Every time someone plays a skill challenge, Mike Mearles pops into their basement and says "Ha Ha!" like on the Simpsons.

-Frank

Hey, Frank!  Do Stalker0's modifications fall under the 'fiddling DCs' category?

Quote from: StormBringer;374403Hey, Frank!  Do Stalker0's modifications fall under the 'fiddling DCs' category?

Yes. Stalker0's modifications are an example of someone wasting my time and yours by fiddling with all of the inputs that don't make any difference.

Here are the failure points of Skill Challenges:

• Counting Party Failures. If failing a die roll counts towards the parties allowed failures, then every single player's actions reduce the number of actions your character with the best skill can take during the challenge on a one to one basis. That is, if the Barbarian tries to make a diplomancy test, that reduces the number of diplomancy tests that the bard can make before the challenge is over by 1. Thus, the "correct" solution is to have everyone but the guy with the best skill leave the room and go pound sand.
  
  
• Terminating Upon Success/Failure. If the challenge ends when one of the two end points (success or failure) is achieved, then by definition your challenge can only generate two end points. For goodness sakes, a straight skill test can generate four! (success, failure, critical success, critical failure).
  
  
• Skill Reuse. If your challenge involves rolling the same skill test over and over again, all you're really doing is making likely results more likely and less likely results less likely. Rolling identical dice over and over again isn't inherently interesting, it's just a method to generate curved results. Results that therefore show a larger statistical shift in the face of bonuses than rolling only once. In short, rolling 3 diplomacy tests in a row just makes a +1 bonus to diplomacy more noticeable, which in turn benefits min/maxxers and punishes players who don't maximize their bonuses more.

If your skill challenge overhaul doesn't change those three things, it's a waste of time, because no matter how you fiddle with the numeric inputs to try to make the success/failure percentages come out the right way, the fact remains that the behavior you are encouraging is incredibly uninteresting and the results your subsysten generates will be underwhelming for the amount of table work you put into it.

-Frank

Quote from: winkingbishop;374256I've gone on the record saying I don't hate 4e, but it is my least favorite incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons.  Were I grumpy today, I might even go so far to say it doesn't count as D&D.  I might even like the game if it wasn't trying to be D&D, but that's not the point of this post.  I have played it and decided it wasn't for me or my group at the time.

My sole feedback is don't play 4e. You won't like it and your players won't enjoy the experience. If they're interested in playing 4e, find someone who has at least neutral feelings about the game to run it.

Seanchai

Quote from: FrankTrollman;374407Here are the failure points of Skill Challenges:

• Counting Party Failures. If failing a die roll counts towards the parties allowed failures, then every single player's actions reduce the number of actions your character with the best skill can take during the challenge on a one to one basis. That is, if the Barbarian tries to make a diplomancy test, that reduces the number of diplomancy tests that the bard can make before the challenge is over by 1. Thus, the "correct" solution is to have everyone but the guy with the best skill leave the room and go pound sand.
  
  
• Terminating Upon Success/Failure. If the challenge ends when one of the two end points (success or failure) is achieved, then by definition your challenge can only generate two end points. For goodness sakes, a straight skill test can generate four! (success, failure, critical success, critical failure).
  
  
• Skill Reuse. If your challenge involves rolling the same skill test over and over again, all you're really doing is making likely results more likely and less likely results less likely. Rolling identical dice over and over again isn't inherently interesting, it's just a method to generate curved results. Results that therefore show a larger statistical shift in the face of bonuses than rolling only once. In short, rolling 3 diplomacy tests in a row just makes a +1 bonus to diplomacy more noticeable, which in turn benefits min/maxxers and punishes players who don't maximize their bonuses more.

True.  Though, to play Devil's Advocate, I think point 1 is supposed to be mitigated by the errata wherein they eliminated the process of initiative order and 'everyone gets a turn.'

Point 2 - totally, but it's even worse than Frank describes.  RAW, there are not critical successes and failures for any skill checks, in a challenge or not.  They are introduced as an optional house rule in DMG.

Point 3 - also feels true.  I think this is why previous posters in this thread have made a point of describing the different techniques they've used to basically put Skill Challenges in the background, basically turning it into score keeping that takes place behind the natural flow of the game.

See, I think I get why they tried to write up these things called Skill Challenges. They were trying to codify non-combat encounters in a way that novices wouldn't be overwhelmed by the sticky grey bits of roleplaying that veterans have been very comfortable with.  And that would be fine if it was written up correctly.

I think, cover-to-cover, 4e was written as training wheels (to others, a noose).  Balanced powers, treasure parcels, encounter blocks and especially Skill Challenges.  That's fine if it makes an otherwise novice DM run a pretty decent game.  The risk is that an otherwise great DM gets stuck only running pretty decent by keeping the wheels on.

That just about everyone has to modify the system demonstrates that it was poorly constructed and the previous posters are anything but novice DMs, they took the training wheels off and turned them into tank treads.  I think I would too, and just run the game and use skills the way I have in previous editions.  But I can imagine a couple of reasons to use something like Skill Challenges:

• When the group is working towards a goal as a whole
• When I want to build tension
• A check on DM fiat

Like Frank pointed out, there are some real issues with counting failures against the whole party.  I can imagine plenty of cases where this makes sense, and just as many where it doesn't.

I actually do like the idea of putting the "beans" in front of the group for certain situations.  Like watching your hit points tick down, keeping the score can be used to good dramatic effect.

I'm a good DM, but not perfect.  Maybe my party does get into a situation that I hadn't planned for and I don't want to just make a ruling on an important encounter.  Say they do decide to ask the Duke for help and I forgot to detail him, don't care to, or didn't realize I should have.  Maybe using the numbers is better than me saying "No, he's busy" or role playing badly if I'm off my game that day.

I guess I can say I don't like Skill Challenges as written.  But that doesn't mean I can't take a lesson from them.

Quote from: winkingbishop;374489I guess I can say I don't like Skill Challenges as written.  But that doesn't mean I can't take a lesson from them.

I think that's the perfect way to use 'em.

With endpoints - its true that there's two end states (success and failure), but note that at least allowing some form of resource use -increasing numbers of powers or letting players use healing surges (Stalker's system) or action points - means there are 'side effects' that makes it more complex than that. That is, characters might pass easily, struggle to pass and burn some surges, fail without trying particularly, or fail hard with some resource burnout.

Counting party failures is the biggest hole in the system, though I'd imagine this is mitigated slightly by 'mandatory participation' for characters, or allowing skills altering as the challenge progresses - since that may at least change which character has the biggest bonus. Leaving the stinky barbarian at home so the bard can negotiate becomes less optimal if a barbarian skill suddenly becomes useful.

I've always said skill challenges are half-baked.  The underlying idea was good, the execution is terrible.

For me, I use the original difficulties but never added the +5 for skill checks so it seems to work out fine (I find the errata numbers to be so low as to make checks completely pointless).  I do use the errata for the 3 failures = lose thing.

As for other errata, I don't bother unless its built into the character builder or monster builder.

The problems I always run into are:
* The players won't take the fucking hint when they lose a challenge.  I have to explicitly say, "hey, dipshit, you can't keep trying to roll to negotiate because you fucking lost.  the guy isn't listening anymore.  give it up."  And even then, someone else who wasn't paying attention will be all "can I roll my diplomacy?"  It's especially annoying because I try to be sim-friendly running the game and don't mention I'm using a skill challenge per se but try to integrate it organically.
* The whole "pick the guy to roll who has +15" thing is a pain in the ass, particularly when you have a larger group (7-8 PCs at a time) because somebody is almost always good at whatever it is.
* The whole "I roll diplomacy again" thing.  I've compensated for that with my own little houserule where I keep increasing the difficulty by +2 every time they use the same skill again.
* There's also a phenomena of "can I roll history?" or whatever to always try to use inappropriate skills just because they have a big bonus in them.  I wouldn't mind if they came up with a reason/idea for it.  But no, they want to just name the skill and have me figure out how it might fit into the challenge.  The counter is simple - I just say no.  It's just annoying.
* I'm not perfect, either.  As a DM, I am the master of coming up with boring skill challenges that only make sense for one or two skills.  I also find it difficult to come up with interesting results for failure (or sometimes, any result for failure).

Mandatory participation is even more infuriating, because being knocked unconscious has no long term consequences in the game (you just spend a healing surge and you're not even bloodied anymore if you have a good Cleric on hand). Any time you are literally encouraged to smack your allies in the head with a sword to make climbing a mountain easier, your game system has failed utterly.

The really infuriating part is how easy it would have been to have a system that didn't suffer those problems. Let's say instead that Skill Challenge duration was limited by a number of rounds rather than a number of rolls. Instead of saying "Roll dice until 7 hits or 4 misses" you say "Everyone gets 2 rolls." That would make things much faster, everyone would want to take their turn, and you could generate 11 different possible endpoints (0 hits to 10 hits) for a variable degree of success.

But no. They went for the system where the players get tangible mechanical rewards for figuring out how to get most of the players to not participate in the challenge while one player rolls a die ten times in a row and still only generates a simple plus or minus result.

-Frank

Hey not bad.

Quote from: jgants;374600The problems I always run into are:
* The players won't take the fucking hint when they lose a challenge.  I have to explicitly say, "hey, dipshit, you can't keep trying to roll to negotiate because you fucking lost.  the guy isn't listening anymore.  give it up."  And even then, someone else who wasn't paying attention will be all "can I roll my diplomacy?"  It's especially annoying because I try to be sim-friendly running the game and don't mention I'm using a skill challenge per se but try to integrate it organically.
* The whole "pick the guy to roll who has +15" thing is a pain in the ass, particularly when you have a larger group (7-8 PCs at a time) because somebody is almost always good at whatever it is.
* The whole "I roll diplomacy again" thing.  I've compensated for that with my own little houserule where I keep increasing the difficulty by +2 every time they use the same skill again.
* There's also a phenomena of "can I roll history?" or whatever to always try to use inappropriate skills just because they have a big bonus in them.  I wouldn't mind if they came up with a reason/idea for it.  But no, they want to just name the skill and have me figure out how it might fit into the challenge.  The counter is simple - I just say no.  It's just annoying.
* I'm not perfect, either.  As a DM, I am the master of coming up with boring skill challenges that only make sense for one or two skills.  I also find it difficult to come up with interesting results for failure (or sometimes, any result for failure).

Well don't blame yourself and your players entirely.

About the diplomacy checks, what if suddenly a player comes up with a brilliant proposal after they fail the skill challenge? To not let the NPC bother seems inorganic. The DM can easily take it into account, but according to RAW for skill challenge, a failed skill challenge is like a social TPK. This is one of the weakness of the system imo.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;374617The really infuriating part is how easy it would have been to have a system that didn't suffer those problems. Let's say instead that Skill Challenge duration was limited by a number of rounds rather than a number of rolls. Instead of saying "Roll dice until 7 hits or 4 misses" you say "Everyone gets 2 rolls." That would make things much faster, everyone would want to take their turn, and you could generate 11 different possible endpoints (0 hits to 10 hits) for a variable degree of success.

But no. They went for the system where the players get tangible mechanical rewards for figuring out how to get most of the players to not participate in the challenge while one player rolls a die ten times in a row and still only generates a simple plus or minus result.

-Frank

Check out this example (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/intheworks_rotg.pdf). Rewards are tangible, and not even polar (as there's successes and failures to be had every turn, the overall stakes are always clear as is the end point of the challenge). Another skill challenge in the same book (Revenge of the Giants) has the characters accumulate successes until they get 3 failures; at which point the DM looks at the number of successes accumulated, and then determine the outcome. Another instance of results not being just win/fail. In short, there are many ways to communicate and raise the stakes for the party; e.g. exerting time pressure by the party having to accumulate a certain number of successes before round 4, e.g. the dungeon ceiling is about to collapse, you got 4 rounds to figure out how to unlock the magic portal (only safe exit in view). And so on and on.

Some of this is apparently even explored in WotC' own product. E.g. DMG 2 apparently features a compilation of variations on the original idea of skill challenges (by Logan Bonner, not Mearls btw), but I never bought that book when I heard that they didn't bother to playtest the new rules of skill challenges. I had been tricked into buying faulty product before (DMG 1) and found that too insulting.

It does look like some evolution on the framework, though the way it runs is funny in some cases - its plausible that most characters Bluffing really badly blows it for the check to get past the patrol (round 2), but for the Nature check to spot giant tracks??

QuoteRound 3, Nature (DC 16, standard action): The characters
look for signs of the giants’ passing. If they
succeed, they find the fastest path to the main camp.
If the group fails this check, they spend an hour
lost in the wilderness and must re-do this round.

Character1 [natural 20]: Hey look, giant footprints going that way!
Character2 [16]: And giant spoor! Eeewww!
Character3 [15]: Where?
Character4: [7] What's a giant?
Character5: [2] I search the footprints for traps. Can I use thievery instead?

Net result: Giants found 0 (since 3 perception fails cancels 2 perception successes).

So if they fail to spot the giant's tracks, they have to wait one hour in game for the next reroll. What is stopping the DM to advance the time line an hour forward, permissible of course, and then having the PC reroll immediately?

True a good DM narrates it nicely and maintains immersion but there will be groups who just cut to the chase and go on a dice rolling fest. Skill Challenge is a nice framework and I appreciate the designer's intent, but it seems quite difficult to implement it. The first DMG examples were really bad. I wish they designed it better like how they did combat rules, where most if not all DMs can handle.

Well, I still like skill challenges. I used similar procedures in 3e and they work fine. I think people are reading too much into the procedure.


All a skill challenge is, is a way to create scenes in a roleplaying game that are worth XP but don't involve combat.

That's it. All they are is skill checks. And skill checks have been a part of the game since August 2000. You want to quibble over DCs? You can assign your own DCs, it isn't hard. You can even assign your own XP rewards for them. The idea behind them is they are supposed to be worth about as much as a typical encounter.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374649Character1 [natural 20]: Hey look, giant footprints going that way!
Character2 [16]: And giant spoor! Eeewww!
Character3 [15]: Where?
Character4: [7] What's a giant?
Character5: [2] I search the footprints for traps. Can I use thievery instead?

See, that's sheer brilliance in my book, if you play 4E as intended. (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=136647#136647) :D

See also this (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/keep-shadowfell/kots-initial-impressions.html) (Keep on the Shadowfell impressions):

QuoteOkay, setting those problems aside, let's turn our attention to the meat of this encounter: The social skill challenge that Sir Keegan triggers. A social skill challenge that will result in brilliant conversational gems like this one:

QuoteKEEGAN: You wear a fearsome demeanor. Are you really as formidable as you look?

PC: Yup!

KEEGAN: Awesome. Well, in that case I totally believe that you're here to stop the cultists. Would you like my magic sword?

... sound kinda cheesy? Well, perhaps you'll prefer this one:

QuoteKEEGAN: If you trust your senses not to betray you, tell me what you see before you.

PC: Umm... a dead guy standing in the remains of his crypt?

KEEGAN: Wow! You've got keen eyes! With eyes like those you must be here to stop the cultists. Would you like my magic sword?

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;374652Well, I still like skill challenges. I used similar procedures in 3e and they work fine. I think people are reading too much into the procedure.


All a skill challenge is, is a way to create scenes in a roleplaying game that are worth XP but don't involve combat.

That's it. All they are is skill checks. And skill checks have been a part of the game since August 2000. You want to quibble over DCs? You can assign your own DCs, it isn't hard. You can even assign your own XP rewards for them. The idea behind them is they are supposed to be worth about as much as a typical encounter.

That's all very fine, but it makes me wonder why it got touted as the next big thing in D&D, up to including the "revolutionary rules for social combat" which are probably still sitting next to the virtual game table awaiting publication any minute.

You know, a more elaborate instance of an "example of play" of a roleplaying scene which has all the players engaged, intermingled with the occasional skill check just like in the 3.0 DMG example, would have done that job (the job you describe) as well. The "audience with a duke" in 4E DMG 1 isn't even far off (just need to excise some of the bits).

In a recent interview with Mearls (http://ninjavspirates.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=593939) he said that one thing he learnt from Forge games is the lesson to never include a mechanics people don't want to use.

I do believe the number of people still using skill challenges as initially designed (irrespective of DC adjustments) is so small as to merit applying Mearls' "lesson" to them. Or in Frank Trollman's words on that tBP-thread, 'If you, as a designer, wouldn't want to use the very mechanics you designed in your home game then don't publish them.'

Quote from: Windjammer;374661That's all very fine, but it makes me wonder why it got touted as the next big thing in D&D, up to including the "revolutionary rules for social combat" which are probably still sitting next to the virtual game table awaiting publication any minute.

You know, a more elaborate instance of an "example of play" of a roleplaying scene which has all the players engaged, intermingled with the occasional skill check just like in the 3.0 DMG example, would have done that job (the job you describe) as well. The "audience with a duke" in 4E DMG 1 isn't even far off (just need to excise some of the bits).

I don't know. There were story awards and ad hoc XP in 3rd Edition as well, and I recall this created a similar kind of internet upset.. but you know what the basis of a lot of the ire back then was? It was considered an "option" (not officially part of the system) and there was no official system for coming up with the DCs or the XP amount of the awards.

Then as now, the primary people who had an issue with it, didn't actually play the game.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;374652That's it. All they are is skill checks. And skill checks have been a part of the game since August 2000. You want to quibble over DCs? You can assign your own DCs, it isn't hard. You can even assign your own XP rewards for them. The idea behind them is they are supposed to be worth about as much as a typical encounter.

Hey man, it's early, and no one has really started to fling shit yet.  No need to bust out the size 4 text yet. :) The discussion, to me, has been helpful so far.
 

Quote
All a skill challenge is, is a way to create scenes in a roleplaying game that are worth XP but don't involve combat.

You say this, and I think that's part of it.  But I'd prefer to define an ideal skill challenge more like: "A test of skills that is just as important as a combat."  So I want to see what I can get out of the system, and get it right, you know?

So, this example (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/intheworks_rotg.pdf) that Windjammer provided is interesting.  Like AM pointed out up-thread, it uses group skill checks.  Those look okay, but you have to read the results as affecting the whole party, not each roll.  So, unlike BSJ's scenario, you don't read each die as yes/no there are tracks.  You zoom out; Player A was barking up the right tree but Player B misidentified deer spoor and Player C accidentally walked over and ruined the tracks that did belong to ogres.  Overall? The party failed that round.  It's not natural thinking for most of us, but I think that's how it has group checks have to be interpreted.

The example also has consequences turn-by-turn.  Those look like good things, even though this example seems pretty boring (failed this time? Fight! This time? Fight again!) but you could make it interesting.  Now, what made my flesh crawl was how the author determined the PC actions based on the phase of the Challenge.  "You're trying to intimidate the orcs now, roll that."  I don't like that one bit.  I even prefer the RAW approach where you can attempt using a secondary skill.  

Quote from: FrankTrollmanMandatory participation is even more infuriating, because being knocked unconscious has no long term consequences in the game (you just spend a healing surge and you're not even bloodied anymore if you have a good Cleric on hand). Any time you are literally encouraged to smack your allies in the head with a sword to make climbing a mountain easier, your game system has failed utterly.

Yeah, I agree.  And I think WoTC does too, as it this was stripped out in the errata.  Like, I get what they were originally thinking ("Wouldn't it be great if everyone got to do something every round!?  This is a cooperative game.") but, shit, did they ever playtest the system with gamers outside the office?

I think there is a misconception about Skill Challenges (I had it too on first read or two) where when you begin one, you set down your beans in front of your players and play the thing out round-by-round like a combat.  But I really don't think they were all supposed to be used that way.

I wonder if anyone could describe/include/link to a couple of examples of actual WoTC published Skill Challenges post-errata?

(The following is from an LFR adventure). I guess this is kinda typical for a 4E Skill Challenge. The PCs have infiltrated a school to investigate an insidious drug cartel.


Encounter 3: Someone’s Missing
Skill Challenge Level 1/3, Complexity 1 (100/150 XP)
This is an investigative encounter. The main goal is to discover what caused the ‘disease’, and that a student, Laurin d’Lysander, deals with it.
Laurin, however, has disappeared. He tries to hide from Barlunien, fearing that now that her game is up, she seeks to kill him. He hopes to meet with Jhenta and escape the earth mote through the elevator at night.
He is right as well – Barlunien has charmed Brace and ordered him to kill Laurin. While she does not know what Laurin used as a hideout, she anticipates that Jhenta eventually leads them to it, and told Brace to keep an eye on her.
The PCs have some time for this investigation, though it is wise to keep it to one or two days at most. After that time, the PCs should really have tracked down Laurin.

PCs who have played DRAG1-7 likely suspect the Agony drug is involved. These PCs still need to investigate the students at the infirmary to confirm their suspicions.
Skill Challenge: A Day at School

• Goal: Find out that the cause of the problems is a drug (if the PCs do not yet suspect this), and locate the person who trafficked the drug.
  
• Complexity: 1 (4 successes before 3 failures)
  
• Primary Skills: Diplomacy, Heal, Intimidation, Perception.
  
• Other Skills: Bluff, Athletics, Acrobatics, Knowledge
  
• Victory: The PCs timely discover that the “disease” is a drug-like poison, and manage to locate Laurin.
  
• Defeat: The PCs take too long. The villains find Laurin first, and Barlunien is warned of the PCs’ investigations.
  

Depending on what the PCs decide to do, you should select the appropriate scene below. Note that at least some PCs are expected to run class, so their investigation is occasionally interrupted with that scene (which you can also use to add some suspense and delay if the PCs progress quickly).
This challenge ends when the PCs have learned where Laurin is – either by discovering the secret hide out, or by following Jhenta Cormaeril or Brace.

Scene: Teaching Class
The PCs are introduced as teachers, and have to spend at least one or two hours in class that day. Providing a good cover (and an enticing class) can aid in winning the students trusts and remove the suspicion of fellow teachers.

Course-appropriate Skill (varies) DC 15/16 (trained only; no successes, maximum one per PC)
The PC gives a class in a field that he picked (see Encounter 2 for the proper skill to use for a chosen subject) and captivates the students with their knowledge or skill. If a PC is not trained in anything applicable, he can either use Bluff to fake a course, or ask Torleaf to arrange for the class to be rescheduled.
A success earns that PC the story award DALE19 Teacher at Arrowpoint, and grants a +2 bonus on the next skill check by that PC. A failure grants a -2 penalty on the next skill check by that PC.

Scene: Meeting the Staff
The PCs can talk to the staff. The most obvious places to do so are the mess hall during meals or after teaching class.
Bluff or Diplomacy DC 10/11 (no successes, removes one failure, useable only once): The PC manages to win over some teachers. They do not find any more information, but manage to earn some trust and avoid suspicion.
If a PC gives away why they are there, this instead earns a failure.

Intimidation DC 15/16 (no successes, removes one failure, useable only once): Bullying a teacher earns the PC a bad reputation and causes teachers to avoid that PC, allowing some breathing room to investigate.
If a PC gives away why they are there, this instead earns a failure.

Perception DC 10/11 (1 success, 1 maximum)
Searching Statwick’s office (Torleaf provides access) reveals a hidden compartment in his desk, containing his diary. Give the PCs Handout 2.

Insight DC 10/11 (no successes)
The PC learns that not all staff gets along well. Gulkin is a loner who likes to lock himself in his lab. Brace is a simpleton and easily manipulated. Shem Ra Dak is uncouth and too easy to anger. Most other teachers avoid all of these three.

Scene: The Infirmary
The infirmary is where the worst cases are being treated. So far there are nine students in the infirmary. Sabrelle, the school nurse, cares for the patients. She is competent but does not have healing powers, relying on mundane skills. She wears a cloak of the chirurgeon +1, which is actually part of the infirmary. If PCs ready to attempt to use their own skills, she offers them the use of the cloak. The PCs may earn the cloak at the end of the adventure (see the conclusion).
Heal DC 10/11 (1 success, 1 maximum)
When a PC examines the students, he notices symptoms of withdrawal and in some cases poisoning. In a few cases it is evident that a drug has been taken but no withdrawal symptoms are yet showing. PCs can conclude that the cause is a drug, and that some students must still have access to that drug. If any PCs have played DRAG1-7, they have a +2 bonus to recognize the drug. These PCs see similarities to the drug from that adventure (though it seems slightly less powerful).

Scene: Meeting the Students
PCs can search the rooms and talk to the various students.
Diplomacy or Streetwise DC 15/16 (1 success, no maximum)
The PC uncovers rumors about two groups of students who remain tightly knit. One, the Loyalists, is lead by Laurin d’Lysander, who sees himself as the next hope for Cormyran royalty. Jhenta Cormaeril, a vane girl, leads Sune’s Children. She secretly has a crush on Laurin even though the two are rivals.
A second success reveals that the Loyalists secretly meet at night during curfew, and that Laurin himself has not been seen the whole day.
If the PCs specifically target Jhenta and ask about Laurin, a success lets her slip that she believes Laurin is in trouble. He had secret meetings, which he refused to tell her about when she confronted him. She claims not to know where the meetings are.
Insight or Streetwise DC 10/11 (1 success, 1 maximum)
The PC gets a feel for the group dynamics. Some students are random targets, but a large number belong to a distinct group of young nobles who are all members of the griffon flying class, specifically Laurin’s group.
Insight DC 15/16 (when a PC deliberately targets Jhenta, 1 success, 1 maximum)
If the PCs target Jhenta, a success indicates she is upset. Confronting her gets her to admit she is worried about Laurin.
If the PCs have asked Jhenta where the meetings were held, a successful Insight check reveals she is lying about not knowing where the meetings are held.
Intimidate DC 10/11 (1 success, 1 maximum, only useable if a PC deliberately targets a student from Lauren’s group)
The PC intimidates someone from Laurin’s circle of fellow students. This yields the following results: Laurin provided them with some form of soldier drug and they are meeting every night at the old shack near the earth mote edge where Laurin distributes the drug.
Intimidate DC 15/16 (when a PC deliberately targets Jhenta, 1 success, 1 maximum)
The PC pressures Jhenta to reveal that Laurin’s secret meetings were held at the old shack near the earth mote edge. She (truthfully) denies knowing what he did there.
Perception DC 10/11 (no successes)
Only make this check if the PCs are conducting a search of the student rooms or are counting heads. Searches in the rooms reveal nothing out of the ordinary. The few students who have the drug are hiding it outside of the main buildings. However, the PC realizes that one student, Laurin, is missing. (Using this as leverage grants a +2 on Diplomacy, Streetwise, or Intimidation checks with students.)

Scene: A Conspicuous Meeting
The PCs might want to follow and observe certain people, especially those they get suspicious of, such as Jhenta. Following them around most of the day may annoy the students if they notice the PCs. This may lead to open disputes.

Perception DC 10/11 (1 success, 1 maximum)
The PCs lie in wait for nightly activities and either detect Jhenta or, if they wait longer and do not immediately pursue her, Brace the groundskeeper moving through the grounds at night. If they follow them they need to make the stealth check below.
Stealth DC 15/16 (1 success, 1 maximum)
The PCs attempt to follow Jhenta or Brace. This is a group check. If half or more of the PCs fail, they are noticed (those successful cover the mistakes of the others, but only up to a point). In that case, Jhenta or Brace make a run to the hollow, and the PCs momentarily loose them in the night. This ends this challenge regardless of the successes earned.

• Ending the Encounter
  
• If the PCs have not earned three failures by the time they find Laurin’s hideout, they succeed on this challenge, even if they failed the Stealth check in the last scene or managed to find him early.
• Success: The PCs find Laurin and Jhenta before Brace does.
• Failure: The PCs find Laurin and Jhenta after Brace does, and Jhenta is badly hurt.

Experience Points
The PCs earn 20 / 30 xp if they succeed in the skill challenge. They earn half xp if they failed. This encounter does not count towards a milestone.
Treasure
The only treasure in this encounter is the cloak of the chirurgeon, worn by the school nurse Sabrelle.

Quote from: winkingbishop;374664The example also has consequences turn-by-turn.  Those look like good things, even though this example seems pretty boring (failed this time? Fight! This time? Fight again!) but you could make it interesting.

Important: except for two instances which are phrased in unmistakable language, I personally wouldn't parse these as combat encounters. Rather, they get monsters on their heels, and then have the option to hide from these, take quite a long way from their actual path, etc., and even when they are approached in clear sight I'd give them the option to bluff their way out (just as specified in round 2), use rituals, etc. I think it was Stuart who said it a long time ago - don't slam down map+minis on a table when it isn't clear whether the encounter will devolve into a fight yet. (Sure, sometimes visualizing it may help, but it does incline some people to lean heavily towards going for combat.)

QuoteI wonder if anyone could describe/include/link to a couple of examples of actual WoTC published Skill Challenges post-errata?

DMG 2 contains one or several, apparently.

Quote from: Windjammer;374675DMG 2 contains one or several, apparently.

I posted one that is a production one rather than a sample/example.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;374670(The following is from an LFR adventure). I guess this is kinda typical for a 4E Skill Challenge.

Thanks much.

Quote from: jgants;374600* The whole "I roll diplomacy again" thing.  I've compensated for that with my own little houserule where I keep increasing the difficulty by +2 every time they use the same skill again.

I thought Challenges could either have limited or unlimited rolls. That is, you could use Arcana twice for the Challenge, but no more.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;374802I thought Challenges could either have limited or unlimited rolls. That is, you could use Arcana twice for the Challenge, but no more.

Seanchai

True, but telling a player to his face that he has to stop being diplomatic immediately seem inorganic in a supposedly immersive roleplaying moment. You can tell the player to stop rolling diplomacy because it's a waste of time or try to subtly hint through NPC reaction, but if they don't get it, they would want to keep rolling.

Quote from: Seanchai;374802I thought Challenges could either have limited or unlimited rolls. That is, you could use Arcana twice for the Challenge, but no more.

Challenges can work however you want. Escalating difficulty seems like a neat idea to me -- I'mma steal it.

QuoteThen as now, the primary people who had an issue with it, didn't actually play the game.

Well...yeah...believe it or not, I am trying to be helpful on this thread specifically (if only for WBs sake), though I've not what you'd call a fan. Also for the record, I have played through an actual skill challenge once, albeit briefly, on the World Game Day for MM-2 (The adventure with the rust monster in it). However in any system, I'd totally agree that its worthwhile having skill usage be relevant, useful, and worth xp.

Going back to the first example with the ogres, my example probably was a bit silly but its easy enough to fix the system here. You just count 'successes', (disregard numbers of failures completely), and the party gets something happening each round until X successes accumulate and they find the plot. Weaker party members can then try to help without having to worry that they'll sink the encounter for their friends.
OK, there are instances where party members could screw it up for their allies (e.g. I recall getting lost on scout camps moderately often because someone was convinced that their way was the right way to go) but it should at least be possible for a character to just 'not help' due to a bad roll rather than actively hindering.

Also, I think the rules really should make a distinction between normal tasks and tasks that are intrinsically harder due to party size (Sneaking around, Bluffing, finding enough Reduction Cream in the wizard's lab to get the whole party down the rathole) - for these, you could increase the number of successes needed due to party size. Just as an idea, maybe you could let a high-skill character roll at a penalty to generate more than one success to try and cover for their friends.

PS Windjammer: Aha! OK cool, I see where you're coming from now.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374827Well...yeah...believe it or not, I am trying to be helpful on this thread specifically (if only for WBs sake), though I've not what you'd call a fan.

I know, right?  It's like people find it hard to believe we can talk about 4e without barfing all over ourselves.  I'm seriously trying to get my head around this.  I'm close.  I want to run a good game, or series of games, not wed a system.  :)

QuoteGoing back to the first example with the ogres, my example probably was a bit silly but its easy enough to fix the system here.

I thought your example was totally appropriate for what we were talking about; there are narrow ways to interpret group skill checks "roll-for-roll" and "zoomed out" global ways.  If you focus on the narrow, one die at a time, it starts to look silly.  Zoom out, and it can make some sense, but it's pretty close to violating my level-of-abstraction comfort zone.  :)

Quote from: winkingbishop;374829I thought your example was totally appropriate for what we were talking about; there are narrow ways to interpret group skill checks "roll-for-roll" and "zoomed out" global ways.  If you focus on the narrow, one die at a time, it starts to look silly.  Zoom out, and it can make some sense, but it's pretty close to violating my level-of-abstraction comfort zone.  :)

You understand the concept of the "group check" (as opposed to an individual check or an assist) right? That's when everyone rolls, (nobody aids) but you only need X amount of successes for it to be considered a success. You can call that X amount "half" or "at least one" or "all" or any other number you like.

So for example, in a scene where everyone has to slog through a jungle swamp, while getting bitten by mosquitoes.. it's a group check for endurance, but if at least half (an arbitrary number)  are successful then that's a success.

There's some interesting takes on different type of skill-roll-off structures in Rune, (the Ars Magica derived RPG by Robin Laws) if anyone has that. I like to mix and match some stuff from there as well.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;374833You understand the concept of the "group check" (as opposed to an individual check or an assist) right?

Yep, that's what I was talking about earlier.  But for the record, you had to remind me about group checks earlier in the thread, somewhere on page 1.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374827Weaker party members can then try to help without having to worry that they'll sink the encounter for their friends.

This is the biggest reason (IMHO) for dropping the difficulties -- I like it when an untrained PC can have a reasonable chance of succeeding. I recommend giving +2 or so for good roleplay, too.

If you're feeling saucy, as a DM, you can always say "OK, you successfully assisted!" when someone makes a good effort but fails, and then the talented PC can make the "real" roll. But I like a little chance of failure, so I try not to do that too much.

Cf. Frank's post ealier - in a standard challenge you have either a 'succeed' or a 'fail'. That is, when I roll, I'm reducing the number of rolls remaining in the challenge by 1. If I suck, that's bad, since that's one less roll that a competent ally could make. The best approach is then to leave your friends at home/out of the challenge (if possible). A challenge can make it mandatory for them to participate but they're still participating as a liability.

Dropping the difficulties hides the problem but doesn't fix it - the problem is the accumulating failures, not the DC. The party are going to care less than the weaker party members are participating, but removing them is still the winning strategy.

If you want a (slighty inaccurate but illustrative) analogy, a Skill Challenge as written is like a combat where every time you hit the monster, it takes damage, and every time you miss the monster, it heals. In this situation, everyone who can't hit it is better off staying in the corner.

Start counting successes rather than fails and suddenly, its actually good to have friends, since a 20% chance of an extra success is better than an 0% chance of an extra success. Or, have a roll count as a 'failure' only if it misses by (say) 5 or more and there's still a tradeoff.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374845Start counting successes rather than fails and suddenly, its actually good to have friends, since a 20% chance of an extra success is better than an 0% chance of an extra success. Or, have a roll count as a 'failure' only if it misses by (say) 5 or more and there's still a tradeoff.

Just as a compliment to your statement here, I was pondering the value of using degree of success as a way to create a wider range of results during a skill challenge.  Beat the DC by 5, gain 1 Success, beat the DC by 10, gain 2, etc.

Combine this with what you and Frank were describing earlier (making Skill Challenge success dependent only on number of successes, limited by time or some other external variable) and you not only ensure everyone wants to participate, but you get to reward your Really Skilled PC for their insightful skill selection.

If you like tightly-written Skill Challenges, you could add yet another layer of complexity.  Say that only Primary Skills are allowed to contribute degree of success and Secondary Skills, while still usable to keep the party's head above water, cannot.

Only trouble with these brainstorms is that "external variable" (i.e. how many rounds you get to accumulate successes).  I don't know how I could rationalize a time/round deadline for all Skill Challenges.

Take a Skill Challenge called "Breaking and Entering" - the party needs to case a joint, avoid detection and end up in the treasure vault.  In this example, it's actually more appealing to me to track Successes vs. Failures; Every failure represents a growing risk that the guards are going to stir, a threshold so-to-speak for when they finally put down their cards and get off their ass.

Take another example called "Find the Sage" - the party is in town square and need to find someone that speaks Gee-Whiz before their caravan leaves.  The number of accumulated successes ultimately decides how much learn from the sage once the time limit expires.

Well, I can't take any credit re. the counting failure aspect - I'm totally just jumping on the bandwagon.

I should qualify my last post - realistically, there are some situations where failures should count. In cases like your sneaking in example, you've got a bigger effect (more characters inside the treasure vault) and you should pay for that in terms of success chances.

Time-wise, a skill challenge could have a fixed deadline and that will probably be arbitrary...perhaps based on how long characters need to roll, and how long a roll takes. (If the time is unrestricted and there's no danger, its largely pointless to roll at all - they'll get there in the end).

Otherwise, an exploration-based challenge would probably have a per-round effect...you need 10 Nature successes to escape the Maze of Minauros and each round the GM rolls to see if a random encounter occurs.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374863Otherwise, an exploration-based challenge would probably have a per-round effect...you need 10 Nature successes to escape the Maze of Minauros and each round the GM rolls to see if a random encounter occurs.

That is almost exactly how I was trying to cram the speculative Breaking & Entering challenge into a round-dependent affair:

After hearing the door creak open, the guards will begin sweeping the area in five rounds.  The party must accumulate X successes within five rounds or encounter the guards...

Quote from: winkingbishop;374865That is almost exactly how I was trying to cram the speculative Breaking & Entering challenge into a round-dependent affair:

After hearing the door creak open, the guards will begin sweeping the area in five rounds.  The party must accumulate X successes within five rounds or encounter the guards...

What about "Here's the layout of the room you are in, you have five rounds to find a hiding spot before the guards arrive"?

Having a skill challenge where the number of rounds is variable is a possible variation. So possible in fact, that you should write rules for exactly that into the basic Skill Challenge rules. The two basic models are extension and termination. An extension model is something like "If anyone can make a difficult History test, you get an extra challenge round." A termination model would be something like "If anyone fails a simple Stealth test, the challenge ends one round early."

You could even really mix it up by having those tests be optional choices inside the challenge rather than between round mandatory setups. So you could for example let people make Intimidate tests as easy tests during a negotiation, but if someone tries that route and fails, the negotiation terminates one round early.

So you could have the following changeups:

• The Heist After the first round, everyone has to make an easy Stealth check (not a challenge round). If anyone fails, the third round of the challenge does not happen. The players may choose to run away rather than doing the second round.
  
• The Negotiation The challenge lasts 2 rounds. If a player attempts to use Intimidate (easy) and fails, reduce the number of rounds by 1. If a player attempts to use History (hard) and succeeds, increase the number of rounds by 1. Maximum one increase and one decrease.

Making these sorts of mechanics really isn't very hard once you know what the mechanic is supposed to do. The fact that they've managed to write up errata to those rules six times in two years, and it still sucks means that they just aren't even trying. The 4e Skill Challenge rules are made by people who refuse to use a solar powered calculator to check the probabilities their system generates. And they don't even have a clear design goal of what they want the subsystem to do. We'd do better waiting for monkeys to type out Hamlet than waiting for James Wyatt to get us a Skill Challenge system worth using.

-Frank

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374827PS Windjammer: Aha! OK cool, I see where you're coming from now.

Not sure which bit of my posts you're reacting to, but I think your parody (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=374649&postcount=21) of a group check trying to find the way to the giants' steading  was spot on. In short, the situation is such that it screams for the expert to find the tracks and the rest of the party to stand back and not intervene by e.g. obscuring those same tracks (picture Aragorn and a bunch of hobbits here on the way from Bree to Rivendell - it's not like the hobbits can actively mess up Aragorn's attempts to find the way to Rivendell).

And that incidentally highlights a major problem I have with skill challenges - they try to impose more structure on non-combat scenes than I find necessary. Whether a situation mandates a group check or not ought to be dictated by the situation, not by a rigid set of rules the DM must foist on any non-combat situation regardless of context. Which is why I think skill challenges do more harm than good.

This drive to foist mechanics on in-game situations when it doesn't make sense is a recurrent theme in my experience with 4E. There are two remedies to this IME - either ditch the mechanics or run with them in a Hackmaster-vein of self-parody (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=136647#136647).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;374863Otherwise, an exploration-based challenge would probably have a per-round effect...you need 10 Nature successes to escape the Maze of Minauros and each round the GM rolls to see if a random encounter occurs.

Last evening I picked up a parcel of D&D 3.5 modules, and chanced upon the perfect skill challenge in one of them which covers this type of situation so nicely that I'm going to share it here. It's a location from the major dungeon in Barrow of the Forgotten Thing.

------------------------------------

"THE LABYRINTH

... The map shows only a stylized version of the vast labyrinth—areas 14 and 15. PCs move through the magic maze as described later in this section.

When the PCs enter the labyrinth, read:

You enter a large room with irregular stone walls, a rough floor, and a high, uneven ceiling. You see no sign of the carefully carved features present in the other sections of this complex, instead crude carvings and patterns of what might be writing decorate the rough walls.

The builders of the forgotten king's tomb designed the labyrinth to dissuade robbers from continuing down toward the complex below. They carved out innumerable tunnels and dead ends, and the wizards and clerics who worked with them imbued the labyrinth with magic.
Detect Magic: The entire labyrinth radiates a strong magical aura, and discerning which type is nearly impossible. If a character focuses detect magic on the runes in the maze, that PC might learn more. If a rune is specifically viewed using detect magic, it radiates a strong aura (DC 22 Spellcraft check to determine the school is abjuration [25%] or conjuration [75%]).
Random Rooms: Describe the maze in terms of the tunnels the PCs traverse and the rooms they find. Rooms vary in size, but each has 1d3+1 exits. When a room has only two exits, the way to continue is obvious. When more exits exist, the characters have to follow the trail of the robbers or trust in fate to guide them out. Due to its magical nature, the labyrinth cannot be defeated in mundane ways, such as by following the left wall to the end.
Following the Robbers: If the PCs attempt to track the tomb robbers through the labyrinth, the abjuration runes make the task more difficult. Each time a PC first examines a room for tracks or other signs of the tomb robbers, have that PC attempt a DC 15 Will save. On a success, the character can attempt a DC 20 Survival check to determine the way the tomb robbers went. If the PC fails the save, the character finds tracks all over the place, leading through every possible exit. Once the characters lose the robbers' trail, they might run across it again at your discretion—they certainly find it again near the maze's exit.
Exiting the Labyrinth: Keep track of how well the PCs follow the path of the tomb robbers. If the PCs determine the correct path and exit the room, they earn one point toward escaping the labyrinth. If they choose the wrong path and exit the room, they lose one point (backtracking restores this lost point). The PCs need to gain a total of five points to exit the labyrinth. Keep the point total secret. If the PCs guess, as they may have to do quite often if they don't have a tracker or fail enough Will saves, roll randomly to determine which exit is the correct one after the PCs choose. Since each troublesome room has three or four exits, the PCs have a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 chance of taking the correct path each time. Choosing incorrectly often enough can squander a lot of points and get them lost. The mechanic for the labyrinth is supposed to simulate its magical nature. Obviously, the tomb robbers haven't gone through every room in the labyrinth, but the magic of the maze keeps the PCs guessing and moving along. If you feel the PCs have gotten themselves in too deep a hole, you can arbitrarily let them exit the maze at any time. "
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See this? That's a pristine example of a mechanics that actually match the flavour of the situation - the escalating tension of getting lost in a maze, the desperate attempts to recover one's path, and so on. That's clever design. Not: front-loading a general design idea and then hammering all situations to fit its structure ("Procrustean" is the adjective I'm groping for).

Mostly I was referring to the embedded link earlier to the thread describing 4e as parody - before then I couldn't reconcile how your posts seemed to shift between a pro/anti stance...but now it totally makes sense. The KoTS skill challenge is hilarious, btw :)

The 3.5 challenge is interesting -I'd agree it seems less forced since they built up the structure from simpler components (basic checks) instead of having to rework an already complexified system.

I'd say here there's less groping involved to convert back abstractions to specifics . e.g. its clear that each roll is concrete (one room), even if "5 path points" isn't; and even in the case of the system totally having a haemorrhage from god-knows-what PC ability the GM can refer back to the PCs path so far and see where they are.

Quote from: StormBringer;374874What about "Here's the layout of the room you are in, you have five rounds to find a hiding spot before the guards arrive"?

Well, yes.  That's how the game should be played.  You will notice we were conducting some thought experiments at that point in the topic, manipulating Skill Challenges.

But you're right of course.  If all you are trying to do is evade detection in a static room, there isn't any reason to run a Skill Challenge no matter how you mold it.  But there is plenty of reason to prep a flask of acid to drop when someone opens the door...:D

Quote from: winkingbishop;374940Well, yes.  That's how the game should be played.

Good. Just so long as we're not into one-true-wayism.

Quote from: winkingbishop;374940But you're right of course.  If all you are trying to do is evade detection in a static room, there isn't any reason to run a Skill Challenge no matter how you mold it.

True. No, really this time. Not every non-combat encounter should be a skill challenge. That's not the intent, and it's not a good way to use them.

Quote from: Fifth Element;374956Good. Just so long as we're not into one-true-wayism.

That's a fair jab, even if it was a slip or poor communication.  What I should have said was "That's how the problem (or encounter or situation) should be played."

i.e. There's no sense trying to squeeze a task like that into a Skill Challenge.

Quote from: areola;374812True, but telling a player to his face that he has to stop being diplomatic immediately seem inorganic in a supposedly immersive roleplaying moment.

Why would you tell the player to stop? I don't get it.

Seanchai

Quote from: FrankTrollman;374910Making these sorts of mechanics really isn't very hard once you know what the mechanic is supposed to do. The fact that they've managed to write up errata to those rules six times in two years, and it still sucks means that they just aren't even trying. The 4e Skill Challenge rules are made by people who refuse to use a solar powered calculator to check the probabilities their system generates. And they don't even have a clear design goal of what they want the subsystem to do. We'd do better waiting for monkeys to type out Hamlet than waiting for James Wyatt to get us a Skill Challenge system worth using.

UNPOSSIBLE! I was clearly told that the 4e designers, unlike past edition designers (who were all just wannabe novelists), had real mathematical backgrounds and that those backgrounds were being used to make the 4e maths perfect, unlike past editions (where if the maths ever actually worked it was purely by accident).

Therefore any of these so-called 4e math problems -- the grind, high level bonuses, skill challenges -- cannot, by logical reasoning, be actually caused by faulty math and must therefore be a product of either user error, ideological hostility, or pure jealousy.

The maths must be true!!!

Quote from: winkingbishop;374940Well, yes.  That's how the game should be played.  You will notice we were conducting some thought experiments at that point in the topic, manipulating Skill Challenges.

But you're right of course.  If all you are trying to do is evade detection in a static room, there isn't any reason to run a Skill Challenge no matter how you mold it.  But there is plenty of reason to prep a flask of acid to drop when someone opens the door...:D

This added a bit more shine to my viking hat.

:hatsoff:

Well I'm guessing they're best used when you have a situation thats large and badly defined (and you don't want to bother working out exact details). In theory, I guess you could abstract a task of any complexity into a skill challenge (OK, you need 30 successes at DC 35 to conquer the planet. Go!).
Potentially you could use them to replace situations that would take big chunks of time run simulationally, and so have a faster-paced adventure.

Or they could be used when you want drama (may need to be run well for that!), or if you just want PCs to have a chance to shine with their skills.

Potentially I guess you could also use them for situations where other rules just don't work -e.g. I've always had problems running chases in 3.5 since I find it messy dealing with squares, 'teleport' movement on people's turns, and what not, so in our home campaigns we've long used (since way before 4e) an opposed DEX check system for resolving this, which looks vaguely similar to a skill challenge.
EDIT: vaguely similar in the sense that everyone is rolling lots of checks anyway - each character got a separate success track here.