Category: Skill Challenges

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Editorial Skill Challenges

Really Hard Skill Checks

Have you ever needed to roll over 20 to succeed at a skill check? If you’re a combat-heavy PC then the answer is probably yes, but what if you’re a well rounded PC with decent attributes? Does your DM ever make a DC so difficult that it’s practically impossible to succeed? With very few exceptions most DMs won’t present DCs that are out of the reach of the average PC. My question is why not? I know I do when I’m the DM.

There’s been a lot of discussion about the actual numbers when it comes to skill checks and DC. We already covered this issue last week in Bauxtehude’s articles Exploring Skill Checks and the New DCs part 1 and part 2. The point I want to discuss today is whether or not DCs should ever be out of reach to all but the very best and most highly trained characters?

Too many players focus too much on combat and forget just how important the skills are to the game and to their character. Players need to realize that feats and powers that provide bonuses to skills are just as vital to victory as the feat that gives bonuses to attacks and damage or powers that deal multiple weapon damage.

By presenting circumstances where incredibly high DCs rear their ugly head, the DM reminds players that they shouldn’t expect an easy victory all the time. These reminders need to be nailed home for out of combat encounters even more than for combat encounters.

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Exploring Skill Checks and the New DCs (Part 2)

Since the launch of 4e D&D, Wizards of the Coast has given us three different charts to measure the DC for skill checks. Clearly they’ve recognized that the DCs were off and they’re trying to find a more suitable model. Rather than wait for them to get it right I decided form the beginning that I was going to tweak the numbers as I felt was appropriate for my game. Following the DCs set out in any of the iterations of the skill DC chart just seemed to arbitrary given most circumstances.

In Exploring Skill Checks and the New DCs (Part 1) I explored the idea of when to actually use skill checks and when to let the narrative drive the story. In part 2 we’ll look at the actual numbers that determine success or failure and how to derive them.

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Exploring Skill Checks and the New DCs (Part 1)

Recently our friends at Wizards of the Coast updated the skill check DCs… again, and I admit that I did shake my head when I heard this. Shortly thereafter there was a disagreement at my gaming table about why these changes were made. After a lively discussion I realized that there are fundamental questions about what a skill check actually is that needed to be addressed before you can make use of these newly minted numbers.

What is a skill check? On the most basic level it is a die roll where you add your character’s relevant aptitude and circumstance as expressed as a number. The result is an abstraction about how skilled your character is or how fortunate they are in the circumstances. There are two distinct types of skill checks that you can make – opposed skill checks and skill checks against a set DC.

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The Challenges Of War: Large Scale Battles

One thing that I have never felt Dungeons & Dragons has handled well are large battles fought by armies. D&D gets the details down for one-on-one combat and small scale party based encounters. The mechanics are designed to accommodate these scenarios. Unfortunately, the rules that make small scale encounters fun simply don’t translate to larger battles.

Fortunately, these types of encounters are few and far between. Most adventurers spend their time in dungeons or completing quests that don’t require armies. However, every once in a while an army is needed. We can see examples of this when we consider the Lord of the Rings. For the majority of the tale the Fellowship journeys forth as a small group. It is only during a few climactic moments that large scale battle is called for.

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Knowledge is Power (Part 2)

By now most players know, or should know, that a monster knowledge check can make all the difference when you’re fighting a monster for the very first time. Knowing that a monster is undead, has a vulnerability to fire or has a breath weapon will have a significant impact on what you do during the encounter. However, in practice I’ve discovered that making a monster knowledge check isn’t always as simple as rolling against the DCs set in the PHB. There are often other mitigating factors that need to be addressed when determining the success or failure of a monster knowledge check.

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Making Boring Skill Challenges More Exciting

Any skill challenge that isn’t a challenge is boring. Here at Dungeon’s Master we’ve written a lot of articles about skill challenges. We’ve created a lot of skill challenge templates intentionally made generic enough that you can drop them right into an existing campaign. However, some skill challenges just aren’t that challenging to some parties. This is especially true as PCs get to higher levels. So what do you do if you find a skill challenge you want to use in your campaign but it’s not going to challenge your players? Simple, you make it more challenging – and we’ll tell you how.

Some DMs feel that skill challenges aren’t that malleable. They believe that skill challenges are designed with a certain level in mind and if you try to adjust the numbers for a party more than a couple of levels up or down it’s not going to work. I wholeheartedly disagree. With a little bit of creative thinking most skill challenge can be adapted to suit your party, regardless of the PCs’ current level.

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Skill Challenge: The Revolving Door

When the party finds themselves in front of a locked door it usually falls to the Rogue to search for traps and then unlock it. It takes two rolls and about 30 seconds of game play. It’s a boring, even for the Rogue.

As a DM I’m always trying to find new and creative ways to challenge the party. On top of that, I like to throw typical conventions upside down. So when I was creating a recent dungeon and needed to place a “door” between the PCs and a secret chamber I opted for something unconventional. I wanted something that required more than a quick Thievery check to bypass. I also wanted something that required the entire party to work together to overcome. And that’s where the idea for the revolving door originated.

Depending on how a DM wasn’t to incorporate this into his campaign, it can be a straight up skill challenge or it can easily become a dangerous hazard. I’ll describe how the door works and then provide the skill challenge mechanics afterward.

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Inside Out Skill Challenge

When you look at the latest issues of Dungeon magazine or read through any LFR adventure, skill challenges are always presented in the same way. After a brief description of the high-level objective you’re presented with a laundry list of skills and then a brief description of what happens when these skills are used successfully. This presentation is ok, especially for a new DM trying to better understand the tasks that can be accomplished by using these skills. But what if we turned the skill challenge inside out? Instead of revolving the skill challenge around the list of skills, have the skill challenge revolve around the goals.

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Editorial Skill Challenges

The Challenge Of Writing Skill Challenges

While attending GenCon this year I had a eureka moment. Or to be more precise, the sky parted, a brilliant ray of light shone down, I turned to Ameron and said, “We’re already doing that!” This was in response to almost every hand in the room going up in the air when Bill Slavicsek asked if people wanted more skill challenges during the Dungeons & Dragons preview seminar.

At Dungeon’s Master we love skill challenges. We enjoy writing them, dreaming them up and talking about them. Our archive has over 30 skill challenges and many related articles for the community to use and adapt for their own campaigns.

The challenge that comes with writing a skill challenge for a general audience is how do we make it specific enough to be important, yet general enough that anyone can adapt it and use it? It’s a conundrum.

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How Difficult Is It To Sneak Past A City Guard?

Assigning difficulty checks (DCs) for skill challenges can be a frustrating experience. Some checks have set DCs that are provided for the DM. Examples of this are traps and locks that have a predetermined level of difficulty. A skill check that doesn’t have such an obvious DC is Stealth for sneaking past a guard. Why is this check less obvious? Because it’s opposed by the guards passive Perception. The tougher the guard, the higher his Perception.

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