Q-man

Previously I rambled on about the ways in which I use skill challenges, and a bit about what lead me to that opinion. I’m still not done wasting time going on and on about these challenges. Having them lumped in with combat means that careful design of the challenges is key. Just like you can’t randomly grab monsters and drop them on the battlemat and expect the encounter to be any good, you can’t just toss in a skill challenge and expect it to work well.

Obviously the first thing you need to do is pick the obstacles and the goal of the skill challenge. Those are the key points to describing the scenario to the player, and how it ties in with the encounter and the story the campaign is following. When I offer tips about considerations to make when designing the challenge, I’ll apply them to two challenges that I’ve used to help illustrate. The first is the players needing to close a portal or put an end to some other magical effect, the second is the players are in a maze like crypt or dungeon and need to find their way to safety. I’m sure you can figure out the monsters and other creatures the harass the players while they solve these challenges, so I’m going to ignore that aspect and just talk about the challenges themselves.

First you need to look at the skills your challenge will use. Its not crucial to the challenge that you have a diverse set of skills, but it does make things easier on the players if you do. Its something of a risk to have a narrow group of skills available, the most likely result is that not all of the players will be able to take part in the challenge. Granted there’s combat going on in the background so they should all have something to do. However, if the challenge calls for Intelligence and Charisma skills only and the player with those skills can’t make it the party might have some real difficulty.

First thing you need to look at is methods by which several different skills can be used to solve the challenge. Now its important to mention that your players won’t have this list of options, and the solutions they try might be things you hadn’t thought of, so on game day you’ll likely have to improvise anyway. This makes it sound like the list is pointless; I say its not, having it means that the challenge has a plethora of solutions and gives you some directions to nudge the players if they can’t find a solution on their own. You don’t need to have an answer for every skill that D&D has, but you should have enough so that each ability is represented. That should ensure that every player can participate in some way; if nothing else they can use their high ability score with an untrained skill and likely succeed in the check.

1) Stopping a Magical effect

• Strength: Runes engraved on the floor are made from weak stone which can be smashed.
• Constitution: The flow of arcane energy can be interrupted by placing your body in the stream, you might use an Endurance check to see if you block the energy or if it rips through you dealing damage.
• Dexterity: You can use Thievery checks to attempt to decipher the magical workings and take apart the mechanism supporting the spell.
• Intelligence: Arcana checks might help you discern the workings of the spell and allow you to inject or redirect some arcane energy to destroy the spell.
• Wisdom: Dungeoneering and Perception checks are good catch alls, you might have seem this before and be able to recognize how the spell functions and be able to stop it.
• Char
  isma: Perhaps the cultists or wizards that created the effect are still around, you might be able to use Diplomacy or Intimidate to make them stop the spell.

2) Escaping the Maze

• Strength: Occasional pits or crumbling floors might require Athletics checks to jump over them.
• Constitution: There might be patches of noxious fumes that can be resisted with Endurance checks, or merely the strain of running such distances while fighting need these.
• Dexterity: Its probably worthwhile to Stealth ahead to scout for other enemies in your path.
• Intelligence: Perhaps the walls are marked with runes or other symbols that Arcana checks might be able to decipher.
• Wisdom: Dungeoneering checks might be able to determine which direction you’re heading, to ensure you don’t go in circles.
• Charisma: This one is kind of tough, unless you can find a less than hostile NPC to wheedle directions out of.

Not all of these examples is particularly good, but you should see how you can give all of the abilities some method of assisting the party succeed in the challenge with a bit of creativity. Depending on the scenario you are building it might be tougher to get all the abilities to work, and that’s ok. The party shouldn’t have an easy time with every encounter, just be sure that there is some method in your story for overcoming a failure in this challenge.

You might also be able to trim off some abilities by looking at what classes your party is comprised of. If none of the classes depend heavily on Intelligence, its a safe bet that they won’t be much good at those skills, therefore you don’t need to include solutions that depend on Intelligence. If your party is well balanced this isn’t likely, but you never know.

You may want to take this a step further and look at what skills the party has trained. Based on what they have trained think up solutions that make use of those skills. Doing this will make it even more likely that the players can contribute a successful check to the challenge. The downside is that you are definitely going to be more limited in what skills you can draw from making the design a lot more challenging.

Now that you’ve outlined which skills can be used to solve the challenge, you might want to go through and give a general weight to each skill. The idea here is to determine exactly how that skill would effect the challenge. If its directly related to the solution it gives a success, if its in opposition to the solution its an automatic failure, if its only tangentially related to the solution then it can offers a bonus to the next check, things like that. This gives you a bit of a cheat sheet to help you determine the effects of things the players might try during the challenge. This might also be a good time to think about the DC’s that are needed for the skill; success checks should have some difficulty, while skills that only offer bonuses ought to be pretty easy. Again depending on how much the skill relates to the solution should determine its DC, a check thats in line with the solution ought to be easier than a check that’s hardly related at all. Just be careful you aren’t hampering creative thinking, ideas that are a little bizarre shouldn’t be stifled, but you do want to keep the players bound by the reality of your world. Depending on how the players make use of the skill you might have to come up with a result on the fly, so its up to you whether its worthwhile to do this or not. Perhaps for the first couple challenges it’d be useful just to find the proper mindset, but once you get the hang of it just improvise it.

1) Stopping a Magical effect

• Acrobatics: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Arcana: Can be used to redirect the spell’s energies; DC is Hard, Success. Can be used to determine how the spell works; DC is Medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Athletics: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Bluff: The cultists/wizards already know the full strength of your party, they can’t be fooled into thinking you have more forces on the way; automatic failure.
• Diplomacy: You might be able to reason with them to stop the spell by explaining that it will deal far greater damage than they were lead to believe; DC is Very Hard, Success.
• Dungeoneering: You can work out how the spell works, making future attempts to disrupt it easier; DC is medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Endurance: If you block the beams of energy inside the ritual to disrupt it; DC is Hard, Success. Failing the check isn’t a failure, but rather the player takes medium damage.
• Heal: Does not apply to the challenge.
• History: You can work out how the spell works, making future attempts to disrupt it easier; DC is medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Insight:You infer the mental state of the cultists/wizards making it easier to debate with them; DC is medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next Charisma check.
• Intimidate:You might be able to frighten the cultists/wizards into stopping the spell; DC is Very Hard, Success.
• Nature: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Perception: You can work out how the spell works, making future attempts to disrupt it easier; DC is medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Religion: You can work out how the spell works, making future attempts to disrupt it easier; DC is medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Stealth: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Streetwise: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Thievery: You meddle with the reagents and devices the spell is using to disrupt it; DC is Hard, Success.

2) Escaping the Maze

• Acrobatics: Can be used to traverse the holes in the crumbling floor; DC is Hard, Success. Failing the check doesn’t count as a failure, instead if allows more monsters to catch the party.
• Arcana: Can be used to read the runes on the walls to determine the correct path out; DC is Hard, Success.
• Athletics: Can be used to traverse the holes in the crumbling floor; DC is Hard, Success. Failing the check doesn’t count as a failure, instead if allows more monsters to catch the party.
• Bluff: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Diplomacy: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Dungeoneering: Can be used to determine which direction the party is heading, keeping them on the correct path; DC is Hard, Success.
• Endurance: The passages are full of noxious fumes the party must be able to hold their breath or endure the effects; DC is Hard, Success. Failure does not count as a failure in the challenge, instead the player takes medium damage.
• Heal: Does not apply to the challenge.
• History: Can be used to remember which paths you’ve already taken; DC is Medium, offers a +2 bonus to the next check.
• Insight: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Intimidate: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Nature: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Perception: Can be used to peer ahead at what is down the hallway; DC is Medium, offers a +2 bonus to overcoming terrain or avoiding monsters ahead.
• Religion: Can be used to read the runes on the walls to determine the correct path out; DC is Hard, Success.
• Stealth: Can be used to scout ahead to avoid encountering additional monsters in the maze; DC is Hard, Success.
• Streetwise: Does not apply to the challenge.
• Thievery: Does not apply to the challenge.

All of this work is relatively quick to do, and if nothing else should help you really pin down how the challenge should work in the game. Its not going to cover everything that the party might try during the game session, but it ought to give you some decent baselines for quick ways to handle what they do try.