In order to make skill challenges a little bit more interesting I like to try and build in a skill challenge backdoor. This is a very specific set of conditions which, if met, provide a significant advantage not normally available.
Tag: Skill Challenges
Does this sound familiar? The PCs begin a skill challenge. A couple of PCs have creative ideas and they go at it. They explain what they want to do, use a bit of role-playing and then make their rolls. Right off the bat you’ve got a couple of successes. But as you look around the table at the rest of the players you get blank stares. They either don’t know what to do or don’t want to risk getting a failure since their skill numbers are so awful. So they essentially repeat what the last PCs did.
One aspect of skill challenges that doesn’t get a lot of mention is the reward that comes from achieving the objective. Since skill challenges are supposed to be as difficult and rewarding as fighting monsters, the expectation is to be rewarded with XP just like you would for a combat encounter. But in many cases the amount of XP awarded for a successful skill challenge shouldn’t be that cut and dry. There are situations when two parties might earn a different amount of XP for successfully completing the same skill challenge. I’ve reviewed the skill challenge reward system and have some suggestions for improvement.
Categories
CSI: D&D
Adventurers are used to being approached by local townsfolk and asked to help resolve problems. After all, the PCs have skills and abilities far superior to those of average citizens. When unusual events occur, the locals are often grateful for the assistance of experts like the PCs. Typical request include asking the PCs to kill a monster that has wandered too close to the village or rescue the magistrate’s daughter who’s been kidnapped by goblins.
But every once and a while a situation arises where the solution isn’t as simple as swinging a blade or casting a spell. Sometimes the PCs need to be detectives. Their considerable experience allows them to size up a situation differently then regular folk. The PCs are more likely to notice a clue or detail that the locals missed or took for granted.
Most D&D adventures take place in the wild and untamed areas of the world. After all, that’s where the monsters live. If your objective is to destroy powerful monsters and loot their treasure hoard, then you can expect to travel to far off places. After all, how many ancient red dragons have you ever heard of that live comfortably in a two-story townhouse in the merchant’s district of your local town?
Urban settings in D&D tend to be the place the PCs go after the adventuring is done. It’s difficult to adventure in the city since fighting in the streets is generally frowned upon in most civilized urban areas. If you’re used to killing everything you fight, then having to pull punches and not execute the local authorities when they come to break up a bar brawl might be a reluctant change of pace for many players and their PCs. Who would ever want to play a long-term, city-based camping? That depends on what type of PC you’ve got.
While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.
With the movie The Hangover just out on DVD I thought it timely to run this as part of our 2009 Greatest Hits. I still haven’t had an opportunity to use this idea in my campaign but I’m always looking for the right time to spring this on my regular group. If you’ve tried this kind of adventure, please let us know how it worked out in the comments below.
We received some great feedback after we ran this the first time. One reader rightly pointed out that this kind of adventure works better with players who are more interested in role-playing than just killing everything. After all, if the PCs are more the hack and slash types then there wouldn’t be much of a mystery as to what they did the night before. They probably fought and killed everything in their path and need only follow the bodies and blood trail to solve the mystery.
It occurred to me afterwards that the Forgotten Realms novel, Azure Bonds by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb is structured in pretty much this exact way. The hero, Alias, awakens in a dark room without anything other than a strange glowing azure tattoo on her arm. But in her case she’s missing more than the last 24 hours; she’s got absolutely no memory of who she is or how she ended up in the room where she awakens. It’s an excellent read and if you can find the novel (which is unfortunately out of print) I highly recommend it.
If you’re watching The Hangover on DVD this holiday season, think about how you can adapt it into a D&D adventure. There’s plenty of great material in there to work with so multiple viewings may be required. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
One of the fundamental design concepts behind skill challenges is that they provide a mechanic for large scale, out of combat encounters. Skill challenges were meant to assist in advancing the story. But the story doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The actions of the PCs should bring about reactions from NPCs or the environment they are in.
This is a problem with many of the skill challenges I’ve encountered, they don’t evolve. We’re guilty of it too, many of our skill challenges are static. Certain checks provide certain information, make enough successful checks and you can get on to the next combat encounter. In other words skill challenges feel like they’re tacked onto the game. I know I’ve participated in more than a few where I wondered what I should be doing next. This is because the skill challenge didn’t evolve. Nothing new happened.
‘Tis the season for giving and receiving gifts. Regardless of your personal or religious reasons for celebrating during the holiday season, everyone likes getting gifts. This is no secret to retail merchants. They know that you’ll be shopping for everyone on your list at this time of year and they want you to spend, spend, spend.
Shopping for Christmas presents can be a lot of hard, grueling work. It’s the part of the holidays that I like the least. So I decided to look at a challenging, real life situation through my D&D coloured glasses (as I so often do). A few months ago we put together a skill challenge called Battle for the Remote. It’s in that same vein that I present a holiday themed, real life skill challenge called Holiday Shopping.
Don’t forget to enter the Dungeon’s Master Design a Holiday Dungeon Content. This skill challenge is a little bit outside the box, but it would still qualify (if I wasn’t one of the judges). Enter today.
When the skills were streamlined for 4e D&D one of the skills that disappeared was Craft. That’s not to say that PCs can’t create things anymore, it’s just that this kind of task isn’t something you’re likely to use very often. It’s a task more suited for an NPC, not an adventurer.
However, there might still be times when you do want to create something yourself. You might require a unique device to accomplish a goal, you might need to pose as a smith or carpenter, or you might need to craft your own weapon as the first part of an epic quest.
When PCs find themselves in this situation the DM needs to determine just how significant the outcome is going to be. If it’s just something you’re doing during your down time then no role playing is probably required. In fact no roll is likely required either. However, if the success or failure of your handiwork will affect the outcome of things to come, then perhaps it’s time to turn your labours into a skill challenge.
Categories
Always Train Your Worst Skills
Imagine you have an attack score of +15. Your opponent, a savage brute, has an AC of 20 and his companions all have ACs between 10-15. Does this fight even interest you? You’d hit with almost every attack. It might be ok if this was a rare, one-off situation, but imagine that this was how combat shaped up every single time. Personally, I’d lose interest.
Yet this is exactly what’s happening during skill challenges at gaming tables everywhere. We’re so concerned with being really, really good at a couple of skills that when it comes time to use them we are almost guaranteed automatic success. Using Stealth to move undetected or using Athletics to climb any wall under any circumstance can be very cool and a lot of fun, but training the skills we’re already good at just makes using those skills a bore.