Hacking Skill Challenges

In my previous post, I mentioned that skill challenges could be adapted to cover even more situations, provided you, as gamemaster, were willing to bend their rules a bit.  There are a few ways of accomplishing this.

Extend the Failures

There’s no reason why every skill challenge has to be based around three failures.  If the PCs are allowed to fail more checks before the challenge fails, the challenge is made easier to pass, all else being equal.

You could simply extend the challenge by proportionately increasing the numbers required.  A skill challenge requiring 8 successes before 6 failures is the same as one requiring 4 successes before 3 failures, but will take roughly twice as long.  This might be useful if you game with a particularly large group (more than 6) — it gives everyone a chance to participate.  It also extends the roleplay surrounding the challenge, so even with a smaller group, you might find this method better if the challenge deals with a major campaign event.

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What Skill Challenges Aren’t

I’d promised this post a little while ago after reading Jonathan’s statistical analysis of skill challenge success rates over at The Core Mechanic.  I’m wary of the “echo chamber” effect — At Will has been posting a lot of skill challenges lately, there was a series of war-related challenges on The Core Mechanic recently, and Asmor offered some very good advice at Encounter-a-Day.

After thinking it over though, I remain convinced that there’s more to say.  The mechanic itself is pretty integral to the fourth-edition experience — it’s the first time a structure has been offered in D&D for long-term non-combat challenges involving the entire party.

It’s also one of the messiest and most misunderstood portions of the rulebook, even with the errata.  And this is a pity.  The designers of 4e developed a mechanic that could take the game — the default, rules-as-written game — into territory far beyond what was possible with earlier editions as-written.  And then they flubbed the execution and created widespread confusion.

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More on Skill Challenges…

Keith Baker – Skill Challenges talks about designing and running a skill challenge under 4e.  He’s got some pretty good advice.  If you’re GMing 4th edition, it’s definitely worth a look.

In particular, he’s right on when he writes, “It’s more than just twelve die rolls; it’s an encounter, and it should offer just as much opportunity for creativity and clever tactics as a battle.”  I’ve seen some other comments along the lines that eight or eleven dice rolls is anything but exciting, but many of these commenters seem to miss the point that a skill challenge is woven into an encounter — the mechanics aren’t the whole of the encounter.  Roleplaying is requisite.

Combat can be run like this:

“I swing.  I hit.  8 damage.”

“The orc attacks you.  Take 4 damage.”

“I miss.”

“The orc hits you again for 3 damage.”

But that gets boring fast.  That’s where roleplaying and narration come in.

“Atros hefts his axe in both hands, aiming a vicious stroke straight at the orc’s neck.  He’s trying to behead the monster with a single blow.”

“The orc ducks in time to save its neck, but not in time to avoid the blow — the axe rings off its heavy steel helmet, leaving a nasty-looking dent in the already-scarred metal.  Ears ringing, blood dripping down the side of its face, it still manages to lunge toward you, howling in rage and fear.  Its own weapon slams into your side.  Your armor deflects it, but you can already feel your skin bruising.”

Likewise, a skill challenge shouldn’t be “Diplomacy DC 15… made it.  Bluff DC 20… failed.”  The player should be describing what it is he’s doing, and the NPC should be reacting to each success or failure.

Anyway, good article to read over.