Tag: Skill Challenges

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

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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DM Resources Skill Challenges

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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Month in Review

Month in Review: August 2010

August was a big month for D&D and for D&D fans. Most notably, GenCon gave gamers from around the world an opportunity to get together and play D&D. Wizards of the Coast made numerous announcements about upcoming D&D releases at GenCon during their seminars, many of which we wrote about. In August we returned our attention to skill challenges, a topic we’ve always felt strongly about. And of course, we had another report from D&D camp. This time the kids tackled the Tomb of Horrors. August was a busy month for gaming and if you missed any of our articles this is your chance to get caught up.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

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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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Checks vs. Skill Challenges

“I know you guys write a lot about skill challenges at Dungeon’s Master. What I’m wondering is, what is the difference between a series of skill checks and a skill challenge? If I fail a skill check I’ve failed, but the skill challenge allows the party to make multiple mistakes and still succeed. It seems to me that the individual skill check is the tougher scenario, so why do we have skill challenges?”

An excellent question recently raised by one of our readers. I’ve played far too many scenarios where I’ve asked myself the questions “How does this skill check or skill challenge add value to the campaign? How is the story being advanced?” In short, things just seemed tacked on. I’ve also played too many adventures that had a series of skill checks required, but no skill challenge attached. It’s left me questioning the point of these skill checks? Could the eventual goal be reached another way?

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Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges Without Skills

Skill challenges carry the narrative of the story forward in a manner that includes the players in the telling. Through participation in skill challenges players can work with the DM to craft the story. While the DM holds the power of the overall direction of the story by creating the challenge, players control the tiny details by how they react to the situation and what skills they use to overcome the obstacles presented. It’s a great collaborative system that ends up being a win-win.

Of course skill challenges have a drawback. Players often pigeonhole themselves into decisions based on what skills are presented on their character sheet. Worse, many players only fully consider those skills that they are trained in. All this leads to some very boring skill challenges where players decide what skill to use to complete the challenge, rather than deciding on an action that creates role playing opportunities.

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Humour Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Road Trip to GenCon

Tomorrow Wimwick and I undertake the 9-hour drive from Toronto to Indianapolis for GenCon. Knowing that many of our readers will be in exactly the same predicament we decided to put together a GenCon Road Trip skill challenge to mark the occasion.

Setup

You pack up the car for the long, arduous road trip to GenCon. The question isn’t if you’re going to get there but when you’re going to get there. The more successes you accumulate in the skill challenge will determine how quick and painless the journey is. No matter what obstacles you might endure along the way, it’s all worth it to get to GenCon.

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DM Resources

The Problem With Assisting

Cruven – I use Arcana to investigate the origins of the portal in order to learn how we might vanquish the elder evil that has attacked the realm.

DM – Will anyone assist Cruven? The DC to assist is 17.

Dox – 29. I assist.

Jacinth – 25. I assist.

Luk – 17. I assist.

Josey – 18. I assist

Cruven – Ok, with four assists that’s +8 to my roll. My base is a 17, so I’m rolling on a 25. Here goes…

DM – Don’t bother. The DC is only 23 so with the assists you can’t fail this check.

How often has this happened at your gaming table? Assisting is a great way to help a PC out with a check that they might not make on their own. It’s a potentially game breaking mechanic if a PC is already highly proficient at a given skill. As the DM, how do you prevent reckless assist roles?

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DM Resources

The 5-Minute Rest as a Skill Challenge

Normally when combat is finished the PCs take a short, 5-minute rest. They get to rest up, heal, catch their breath, and regain the use of encounter powers. But what many players forget is that all of the benefits that come from taking a 5-minute rest come at then end of those five minutes. If the party is attacked or decides to venture onwards before the short rest is finished, they are still hurt and resource depleted.

In a recent game the PCs found themselves in a situation where they really needed a short rest, but couldn’t just drop their guard for five minutes. I decided to turn the 5-minute rest into a skill challenge. If they succeeded, then after five minutes they got all the benefits of taking the short rest (and some XP for completing the skill challenge). If they failed then at least some of the PCs would have to engage in combat to guard the others still resting. Here’s how it played out.

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