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I'm a huge fan of skill challenges. I love using them for montage exploration. For example: Need to cross the mountain? Time for a skill challenge! I do it a bit differently, however. Rather than tracking failures, each failure results in a roll on a consequences chart -- which may lead to combat, exhaustion, loss of resources, or other things. Thanks for sharing!
DM of 39 years here (and I've never had even one unhappy player), with some added advice: Run these skill challenges in secret, after the first time you run one. The first skill challenge is a TEACHING exercise. Your players are learning how to make use of their own creativity, their character's many proficiencies, and how to handle a situation where standing and fighting isn't an option. Once you've had this teaching session, put the onus on your players to recognize when a situation they find themselves in might be a skill challenge rather than a fight. Never announce one again, even if the players are handling a situation as one - just roll with it when they do. Keep in mind that in D&D, characters get XP from a successful encounter. Killing stuff isn't needed at all. Bartering with a forest hag for regular safe passage (from HER) through her forest, managing to escape 5000 angry goblins in a cavern, sparing some low level bandits that picked the WRONG people to rob? All of this gets characters the same XP as if they'd killed the enemy. Note that all of these are the players choosing to handle some situation as a skill challenge rather than a fight, but only one of them MUST be handled as one by the players. The hag must be persuaded, befriended, and some RP is involved too. Getting to her requires survival to find the right trails, maybe nature to recognize the forest's more dangerous plants that she uses for her perimeter defenses, and maybe even performance to get her attention long enough to strike up conversation. The bandits need talked into standing down via persuasion/intimidation as well, and the party might learn why they are bandits - starting a whole little side quest to help a starving village nearby, because they've been forced to become bandits to feed their families due to some kind of problem too big for them. Teaching players to recognize a skill challenge is critical, imo. When they face 5000 angry goblins nearing them in a cavern, players who don't understand their options might choose to just run and not try to use their skills to help themselves get away. Or worse, they might try to make a stand thinking that fighting all 5000 goblins is what they are supposed to do - that's a sure Total Party Kill (TPK) scenario, if the players mishandle it. Though I would suggest that if there is a TPK, you have the goblins use Spare the Dying on the PCs and capture them all instead. This gives the party a second chance to treat the situation they are in as a skill challenge, now that it is established they can't just take on 5000 goblins head on. Have them need to escape their cages, recover their gear, and find a way to sneak out of the goblin nest. Then maybe the chase begins again, if the sneaking part of things goes sideways. Running skill challenges organically this way is immersive. The party never knows when they've finished the challenge. The quiet thunder of countless goblins chasing them has quieted, so dust and rock no longer fall from the cavern ceiling. Does that mean they got away? Or have the goblins taken a shortcut to cut them off? Maybe a goblin spellcaster at the lead of the charge has cast Silence, to help the goblins ambush their prey now that they are close. The tension stays high when you as DM know the party has won the challenge, but the players do not. They have to continue to think like their characters, trying to use their skills to make bloody sure they are doing what they can to survive and thrive in the world you are presenting.
All great suggestions. I would say you should probably feel it out - maybe one time isn’t enough for your players to get how the skill challenge works or what it is. Maybe announce it the first 2-3 times.
"Brave Sir Robin ran away!" 😆 Mercer uses these frequently, to good effect, in various situations. And the players roll with it every time. It definitely gives more dramatic shape to the game to have more options than just combat or chat.
I too started using skill challenges after watching that Matt Colville video. I try to remain as open-minded as possible with people's suggested use for skills, preferring to adjust the DC for things that are a stretch than outright saying no (although I reserve the right to say no if one of my players come up with something asinine--which has not happened yet between three groups). I also adjust the DC downwards if the players use a resource, with the bonus typically being a decrease of 1 to 5, depending on how big the resource was. Use a first level spell when you are level 13? I'll drop it by 1. Someone else burns their 1 7th level spell for the day, or uses a rare potion/scroll? Much more inclined to drop it by 5. All three of the groups I have done these challenges with responded positively and really get into finding creative solutions.
I've been using variations on this for a while, and I generally find that the players get really into it, trying to figure out different things they can do. A couple things I've added... In any one scenario, each character can only use each skill once toward the success/fail count. However, any relevant skill can be used for the Help action, but you must be proficient in a skill to use it to Help. This prevents a character with expertise from dominating the whole challenge. It also ensures that the characters with only a couple skills can still find ways to contribute. Things I limit... Bardic Inspiration, keep count and know the range. The Bard probably can't inspire everyone. Guidance is a touch range spell that requires concentration. Carrying is essentially a variation of grapple and drag, and thus halves movement.
Great video and great idea. But what would be some examples for skill checks in other scenarios besides the orc escape? Or what would be some example OF other scenarios?
A collapsing building is the example Matt Colville uses in his video. I’d think trying to escape from any disaster would be a perfect scenario for this. The way I came to it was: I have a scenario in which combat makes very little if any sense for the PCs (which means standard 5e chase rules wouldn’t really work), there’s an imminent threat, time is a factor, and I just wanted to do something different.
My DM used them for navigation in general. We only had a very rough map of the wild area we were exploring. To try to check out a particular place on it would be an easy skill challenge (3 successes before 3 failures). Perception, Investigation, and Survival all became common, but someone might make an Athletics check to climb a tree and look for landmarks, for example. Once after two players had failed, each starting us in a different wrong direction, the next player asked if they could make a check to facilitate a group discussion where everyone compared notes on what they knew about our location (I forget if they rolled Persuasion or Insight). It seemed to fit the narrative pretty well.
The Rogue leading them down the wrong path sounds like a Dexterity (Deception) check to me, since it's using their control over their movements to misdirect rather than an expression of their personality.
That actually sounds like a stretch to me, But again, if a player explains how they want to use a skill and it’s creative and makes sense, I say go for it.
These are in the DMG page 252. If you allow your creatures to attack during these, you need an explanation why they can dash and attack while the players cannot!
Those are rules for a chase. Not what I was going for in this part of my game. I wanted a limited interaction in which the players had to outrun an entire army. Time was of the essence, and attacking would have been suicide. Skill challenge is a different thing, which facilitated what the players needed to do.
@@Anisozygoptera yes. The game is played like this: first the gm describes a scene or situation, second the players describe what they do, third the gm adjudicates and describes the results. This is called the method of play. When you turn this into a mini game where players must make a minimum number of actions to resolve a situation, where they must make a minimum number of successes to succeed, and where skills cannot be repeated, you do several things. Just to name a few: 1: arbitrarily impose a need to make multiple ability checks / skill checks where in theory one would do. 2. Force players to make decisions based on meeting arbitrary criteria of using tools specifically because those tools are on their character sheet. 3. Force players to make actions to solve a problem based on the mechanical structure of game mechanics and not organic "what would my character do?" For me, this feels overly arbitrary and game-y and forced and inorganic, it breaks immersion, and can mess with player agency. For example, I want to use survival but you tell me I can't not because it's not logical within the context of the situation but because some gamers mechanic says surilvival was already used this skill challenge and can't be repeated. In addition, I hate compulsory ability/ skill checks in general. I think I should reasonably be able to succeed automatically some of the time, and we roll dice way too much. That's a separate topic.
@@Anisozygoptera I thought I wrote a pretty good response this morning, but it didn't seem to post. The method of play is this: 1. The GM describes the scene or situation, 2., the players describe what their characters do, 3., the GM describes the results. 4. repeat. Anything you do to that simple method to make the game more complicated than that is undesirable, like turning it into a mini-game. A GM is responsible for providing a problem, and the players are responsible for providing a solution. I think it messes with immersion because of how meta it is. This is also one of the reasons why I don't like HP sponges or Initiative. I think it messes with player agency because the mechanic of a skill challenge expects participation and arbitrarily restricts certain skills for game-y mechanics rather than in-world logic. Example, not being able to repeat a skill because someone else already did it, or not being able to do some sort of improvised action because I can't reason how it fits into a particular skill on my character sheet. I believe there's too much die rolling. Dice should only be rolled when there two conditions are met: 1 the outcome is uncertain and 2 there are interesting consequences for failure. Calling for die rolls just to have die rolls is a pet peeve of mine. It's inane. Also, I don't want to fail, so I don't want to be forced into a mode of play where I can't come up with a creative solution that leads to automatic success.
Here are some ways you can support Short Rest Studios!
Our website!
==========================
shortreststudios.com (Be sure to check out the shop!)
==========================
Shop D&D books: amzn.to/44Zdj9o (Amazon Affiliate link)
==========================
Shop Dungeon Crawl Classics books: amzn.to/3vszKqP
==========================
Buy Me a Coffee! buymeacoffee.com/shortreststudios
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Check out my other affiliate links:
arcanavault.com/?sca_ref=4271764.bDAvkPWUuS
www.gamenerdz.com/?aff=368
I'm a huge fan of skill challenges. I love using them for montage exploration. For example: Need to cross the mountain? Time for a skill challenge! I do it a bit differently, however. Rather than tracking failures, each failure results in a roll on a consequences chart -- which may lead to combat, exhaustion, loss of resources, or other things.
Thanks for sharing!
This is so cool.
Interspersing attacks is a novel twist for me
DM of 39 years here (and I've never had even one unhappy player), with some added advice:
Run these skill challenges in secret, after the first time you run one. The first skill challenge is a TEACHING exercise. Your players are learning how to make use of their own creativity, their character's many proficiencies, and how to handle a situation where standing and fighting isn't an option. Once you've had this teaching session, put the onus on your players to recognize when a situation they find themselves in might be a skill challenge rather than a fight. Never announce one again, even if the players are handling a situation as one - just roll with it when they do.
Keep in mind that in D&D, characters get XP from a successful encounter. Killing stuff isn't needed at all. Bartering with a forest hag for regular safe passage (from HER) through her forest, managing to escape 5000 angry goblins in a cavern, sparing some low level bandits that picked the WRONG people to rob? All of this gets characters the same XP as if they'd killed the enemy. Note that all of these are the players choosing to handle some situation as a skill challenge rather than a fight, but only one of them MUST be handled as one by the players. The hag must be persuaded, befriended, and some RP is involved too. Getting to her requires survival to find the right trails, maybe nature to recognize the forest's more dangerous plants that she uses for her perimeter defenses, and maybe even performance to get her attention long enough to strike up conversation. The bandits need talked into standing down via persuasion/intimidation as well, and the party might learn why they are bandits - starting a whole little side quest to help a starving village nearby, because they've been forced to become bandits to feed their families due to some kind of problem too big for them.
Teaching players to recognize a skill challenge is critical, imo. When they face 5000 angry goblins nearing them in a cavern, players who don't understand their options might choose to just run and not try to use their skills to help themselves get away. Or worse, they might try to make a stand thinking that fighting all 5000 goblins is what they are supposed to do - that's a sure Total Party Kill (TPK) scenario, if the players mishandle it. Though I would suggest that if there is a TPK, you have the goblins use Spare the Dying on the PCs and capture them all instead. This gives the party a second chance to treat the situation they are in as a skill challenge, now that it is established they can't just take on 5000 goblins head on. Have them need to escape their cages, recover their gear, and find a way to sneak out of the goblin nest. Then maybe the chase begins again, if the sneaking part of things goes sideways.
Running skill challenges organically this way is immersive. The party never knows when they've finished the challenge. The quiet thunder of countless goblins chasing them has quieted, so dust and rock no longer fall from the cavern ceiling. Does that mean they got away? Or have the goblins taken a shortcut to cut them off? Maybe a goblin spellcaster at the lead of the charge has cast Silence, to help the goblins ambush their prey now that they are close. The tension stays high when you as DM know the party has won the challenge, but the players do not. They have to continue to think like their characters, trying to use their skills to make bloody sure they are doing what they can to survive and thrive in the world you are presenting.
All great suggestions. I would say you should probably feel it out - maybe one time isn’t enough for your players to get how the skill challenge works or what it is. Maybe announce it the first 2-3 times.
I love skill challenges. This a great video to remind people of different pillars of the game.
Thank you!
Thank you!
"Brave Sir Robin ran away!" 😆
Mercer uses these frequently, to good effect, in various situations. And the players roll with it every time. It definitely gives more dramatic shape to the game to have more options than just combat or chat.
I too started using skill challenges after watching that Matt Colville video. I try to remain as open-minded as possible with people's suggested use for skills, preferring to adjust the DC for things that are a stretch than outright saying no (although I reserve the right to say no if one of my players come up with something asinine--which has not happened yet between three groups). I also adjust the DC downwards if the players use a resource, with the bonus typically being a decrease of 1 to 5, depending on how big the resource was. Use a first level spell when you are level 13? I'll drop it by 1. Someone else burns their 1 7th level spell for the day, or uses a rare potion/scroll? Much more inclined to drop it by 5.
All three of the groups I have done these challenges with responded positively and really get into finding creative solutions.
I love your DC adjustments. That’s a great idea!
Inspiring guidance - thanks and reminds me why I have a soft spot for 4e.
I've been using variations on this for a while, and I generally find that the players get really into it, trying to figure out different things they can do.
A couple things I've added...
In any one scenario, each character can only use each skill once toward the success/fail count. However, any relevant skill can be used for the Help action, but you must be proficient in a skill to use it to Help.
This prevents a character with expertise from dominating the whole challenge. It also ensures that the characters with only a couple skills can still find ways to contribute.
Things I limit...
Bardic Inspiration, keep count and know the range. The Bard probably can't inspire everyone.
Guidance is a touch range spell that requires concentration.
Carrying is essentially a variation of grapple and drag, and thus halves movement.
All good thoughts! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Good video
Our DM does something like this
Great video and great idea. But what would be some examples for skill checks in other scenarios besides the orc escape? Or what would be some example OF other scenarios?
A collapsing building is the example Matt Colville uses in his video. I’d think trying to escape from any disaster would be a perfect scenario for this. The way I came to it was: I have a scenario in which combat makes very little if any sense for the PCs (which means standard 5e chase rules wouldn’t really work), there’s an imminent threat, time is a factor, and I just wanted to do something different.
@@shortreststudios Okay cool. Thanks for the response. I'm definitely gonna be using this at some point in the future
My DM used them for navigation in general. We only had a very rough map of the wild area we were exploring. To try to check out a particular place on it would be an easy skill challenge (3 successes before 3 failures). Perception, Investigation, and Survival all became common, but someone might make an Athletics check to climb a tree and look for landmarks, for example. Once after two players had failed, each starting us in a different wrong direction, the next player asked if they could make a check to facilitate a group discussion where everyone compared notes on what they knew about our location (I forget if they rolled Persuasion or Insight). It seemed to fit the narrative pretty well.
@@Anisozygoptera I think that sounds like a great way to make travel MUCH more interesting.
The Rogue leading them down the wrong path sounds like a Dexterity (Deception) check to me, since it's using their control over their movements to misdirect rather than an expression of their personality.
That actually sounds like a stretch to me, But again, if a player explains how they want to use a skill and it’s creative and makes sense, I say go for it.
These are in the DMG page 252.
If you allow your creatures to attack during these, you need an explanation why they can dash and attack while the players cannot!
Those are rules for a chase. Not what I was going for in this part of my game. I wanted a limited interaction in which the players had to outrun an entire army. Time was of the essence, and attacking would have been suicide. Skill challenge is a different thing, which facilitated what the players needed to do.
I hate 4e Skill Challenges. As a player, I would absolutely forfeit a skill challenge. It's arbitrarily game-y.
To each their own!
@Joshuazx Can you say more about why?
@@Anisozygoptera yes. The game is played like this: first the gm describes a scene or situation, second the players describe what they do, third the gm adjudicates and describes the results. This is called the method of play.
When you turn this into a mini game where players must make a minimum number of actions to resolve a situation, where they must make a minimum number of successes to succeed, and where skills cannot be repeated, you do several things. Just to name a few:
1: arbitrarily impose a need to make multiple ability checks / skill checks where in theory one would do.
2. Force players to make decisions based on meeting arbitrary criteria of using tools specifically because those tools are on their character sheet.
3. Force players to make actions to solve a problem based on the mechanical structure of game mechanics and not organic "what would my character do?"
For me, this feels overly arbitrary and game-y and forced and inorganic, it breaks immersion, and can mess with player agency. For example, I want to use survival but you tell me I can't not because it's not logical within the context of the situation but because some gamers mechanic says surilvival was already used this skill challenge and can't be repeated. In addition, I hate compulsory ability/ skill checks in general. I think I should reasonably be able to succeed automatically some of the time, and we roll dice way too much. That's a separate topic.
@@Anisozygoptera I thought I wrote a pretty good response this morning, but it didn't seem to post. The method of play is this: 1. The GM describes the scene or situation, 2., the players describe what their characters do, 3., the GM describes the results. 4. repeat. Anything you do to that simple method to make the game more complicated than that is undesirable, like turning it into a mini-game. A GM is responsible for providing a problem, and the players are responsible for providing a solution.
I think it messes with immersion because of how meta it is. This is also one of the reasons why I don't like HP sponges or Initiative.
I think it messes with player agency because the mechanic of a skill challenge expects participation and arbitrarily restricts certain skills for game-y mechanics rather than in-world logic. Example, not being able to repeat a skill because someone else already did it, or not being able to do some sort of improvised action because I can't reason how it fits into a particular skill on my character sheet.
I believe there's too much die rolling. Dice should only be rolled when there two conditions are met: 1 the outcome is uncertain and 2 there are interesting consequences for failure. Calling for die rolls just to have die rolls is a pet peeve of mine. It's inane. Also, I don't want to fail, so I don't want to be forced into a mode of play where I can't come up with a creative solution that leads to automatic success.