This is the first skill challenge I came up with for 4e.
Background: Originally set in a large ritual room in a temple in the swamp, the room was occupied by cultists conducting a ritual to keep the ancient temple intact, and unflooded. Through combat, the PCs interrupt the ritual by killing the cultists, and shortly afterwards, the structure begins to shudder, and water starts to flood in...
Setup: The players must escape the collapsing, sinking temple.
Special: This skill challenge was set up slightly differently. Each round of skill checks was related to running out through previously-cleared rooms, thus everyone had to make a skill check each round, otherwise they would "fall behind" and take a cumulative -2 penalty to skill checks until they succeeded at a skill check. In addition, a character who has "fallen behind" cannot aid another character. A potential viable strategy would be for a very skilled character to put himself or herself at risk in order to help a less skilled comrade out.
Dungeoneering (DC 10): Attempt to recall the layout of corridors and rooms to run out in the most efficient manner.
Endurance (DC 10): The character pushes himself or herself to sprint for longer periods, saving time. A failure on this skill means you cannot attempt it the following round.
Acrobatics (DC 10): The character nimbly hops over obstacles, and is not thrown off-balance by the tremors of the temple sinking into the ground.
Athletics (DC 10): The character performs prodigious leaps and climbs to cover distances more directly. Might possibly use the rising water to swim vertically (depending on individual dungeon layout).
Success: The characters make it out of the temple safely, as it crumbles and sinks into the ground behind them.
Failure: The characters are pummeled by collapsing masonry, and are briefly trapped by the flooding waters as they fight their way out. The players lose all their remaining healing surges, and infected by filth fever (see page 219 if the Monster Manual for details on filth fever) from the tainted water. They crawl their way out of the temple, barely alive and exhausted from their struggle to get outside.
Critique/ideas are welcome. If you use this idea, I would love to hear how you modified it, and how it turned out.
This is the first skill challenge I came up with for 4e.
Background: Originally set in a large ritual room in a temple in the swamp, the room was occupied by cultists conducting a ritual to keep the ancient temple intact, and unflooded. Through combat, the PCs interrupt the ritual by killing the cultists, and shortly afterwards, the structure begins to shudder, and water starts to flood in...
Setup: The players must escape the collapsing, sinking temple.
Special: This skill challenge was set up slightly differently. Each round of skill checks was related to running out through previously-cleared rooms, thus everyone had to make a skill check each round, otherwise they would "fall behind" and take a cumulative -2 penalty to skill checks until they succeeded at a skill check. In addition, a character who has "fallen behind" cannot aid another character. A potential viable strategy would be for a very skilled character to put himself or herself at risk in order to help a less skilled comrade out.
So, if you Aid Another, you "fall behind?" If two or more characters have fallen behind, can they aid each other? Can someone who hasn't yet fallen behind aid someone who has?
Dungeoneering (DC 10): Attempt to recall the layout of corridors and rooms to run out in the most efficient manner.
Endurance (DC 10): The character pushes himself or herself to sprint for longer periods, saving time. A failure on this skill means you cannot attempt it the following round.
Acrobatics (DC 10): The character nimbly hops over obstacles, and is not thrown off-balance by the tremors of the temple sinking into the ground.
Athletics (DC 10): The character performs prodigious leaps and climbs to cover distances more directly. Might possibly use the rising water to swim vertically (depending on individual dungeon layout).
Say you had a reasonably varied group, including those who are trained in at least one of those skills, one who isn't trained in any of those skills, and maybe one who can't fail one of those skills unless penalized.
Based on the description provided, they're all running out, so say they start the challenge and one of them rolls and fails Dungeoneering. That PC would "fall behind," take a -2 penalty on further checks, and incur one penalty for the group, correct?
How would you describe this? Is the party sticking together? That would describe why one PC's failure affects them all, but not why the one who failed the check is the one to fall behind.
Success: The characters make it out of the temple safely, as it crumbles and sinks into the ground behind them.
Failure: The characters are pummeled by collapsing masonry, and are briefly trapped by the flooding waters as they fight their way out. The players lose all their remaining healing surges, and infected by filth fever (see page 219 if the Monster Manual for details on filth fever) from the tainted water. They crawl their way out of the temple, barely alive and exhausted from their struggle to get outside.
I like the success-failure conditions. They keep the adventure going whether they succeed in the challenge or not. Success could also include the PCs stumbling across an outlying treasure cache and sensing they have enough time to grab a small item or two (perhaps based on how well they've done in the challenge.)
Would you be using the actual map of the dungeon for this, or run it more abstractly? I could see it either way. Using the actual dungeon might suggest interesting descriptions to go with the rolls, but I would think that it might cause issues if, say, someone wants to use Athletics to jump a gap that, by the rules, has a DC higher than 10. Run more abstractly, only the "good parts" of the escape need be described, with other parts of the dungeon assumed to have been circumvented in a way that doesn't merit "screen time."
As I understand your description, not everyone has to make the same skill checks. So, if one person describes using Athletics to make a daring leap, not everyone has to roll to attempt the same leap. Is that right? I approve of that, but it seems like it might throw off players if not handled carefully. Do you have any thoughts about this?
Finally, would you let the party know that they aren't going to die as a direct result of the skill challenge, or would you let them fret?
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
Thanks very much for your feedback! Obviously I have a lot to refine with this particular challenge :P
1) Correct, if someone aids another, the aiding character "falls behind." I intentionally penalized aiding another, since the DCs are the same as aiding another (it being a 1st-level adventure). I considered letting characters who had "fallen behind" aid each other, but this could easily lead to abuse where two characters who have fallen behind aid each other and thus don't risk racking up more failures. It's a bit hamfisted, but I wanted to encourage teamwork - I guess I only succeeded in punishing failure. Finally, yes, I had fully intended for those who had not fallen behind to aid characters that have. I need to be more clear when I write stuff that was mostly in my head.
2) I had assumed the party would stay together. Admittedly, if the party decides it's "every man for himself" my challenge falls apart. In such a case, I guess it'd be better to run it as a Complexity 1 challenge, one solo challenge per character. I described the egress as them navigating through the rooms they had previously cleared; e.g. "You leap across the water-filled canals with ease, making your way through the room in record time." when the Goliath Warrior succeeded at his Athletics check going through a specific room. I'm not sure how to write this when presenting it as a generic challenge.
3) I ran the challenge abstractly, pointing to the map and describing their run out, ad libbing successes and failures.
I agree with the confusion of multiple skill options. In the case where I actually ran it, I relied on being able to ad-lib descriptions. Not the best option for a generic skill challenge, I agree. Again, I'm not sure how to write this better. Something to think on.
Finally, when I ran them, I did reveal that failure did not mean death, and got a lot of flak from the players for spoiling the suspense. So, in the future, I would not reveal such a fact.
Thanks so much for your feedback! You've given me a lot to think about.
Do you think it'd be better to instead run each character through a semi-independent Complexity 1 challenge? I'd remove the "falling behind" penalty, and instead allow someone to aid another at the cost of taking a -2 penalty to their next check (or something like that) representing the aiding character losing a few seconds to run back and help out. Would that be better or worse?
1) It's a bit hamfisted, but I wanted to encourage teamwork - I guess I only succeeded in punishing failure. Finally, yes, I had fully intended for those who had not fallen behind to aid characters that have. I need to be more clear when I write stuff that was mostly in my head.
Believe it or not, I ran sort of a similar skill challenge as my first one. It involved a collapsing structure, and innocent lives to be saved by the PCs (as they themselves weren't really at risk). Because I was worried that they'd just spam Aid Another and never have a problem, I stated that only one Aid Another was allowed and anyone who Aided Another had to make the next skill check. I don't know if that quashed any desire to Aid Another, but they never took that option even when it became apparent that they were about to lose the challenge.
2) I had assumed the party would stay together. Admittedly, if the party decides it's "every man for himself" my challenge falls apart. In such a case, I guess it'd be better to run it as a Complexity 1 challenge, one solo challenge per character.
It's probably a pretty safe assumption, but you never know. Since you have a good success-failure pair, I think it's alright to keep the challenge at Complexity 5 whether they split up or stick together. The downside would be that you probably have one or two characters who could complete such a challenge and would therefore be in much better shape than the rest of the party after the challenge. Of course, there's nothing to say that he gets out of the temple at the same place they do, so maybe there would then need to be a skill challenge to get the party reunited.
I described the egress as them navigating through the rooms they had previously cleared; e.g. "You leap across the water-filled canals with ease, making your way through the room in record time." when the Goliath Warrior succeeded at his Athletics check going through a specific room. I'm not sure how to write this when presenting it as a generic challenge.
I think the suggestions you gave were good. As the temple collapses, the rooms could change drastically anyway.
Another thing occurred to me: for things like Athletics checks, you could say something like, the others hurry across the floor, but before the one making the check gets across, a huge fissure opens. This could be used a few times to explain why one character is making a check and no one else is. For Dungeoneering, a cave collapse separates the group; they meet back up, but the character making the Dungeoneering check might have fallen behind. Etc.
3) I ran the challenge abstractly, pointing to the map and describing their run out, ad libbing successes and failures.
I agree with the confusion of multiple skill options. In the case where I actually ran it, I relied on being able to ad-lib descriptions. Not the best option for a generic skill challenge, I agree. Again, I'm not sure how to write this better. Something to think on.
I'm not sure what comment of mine you're referring to, but I think it's fine to expect a certain amount of ad libbing by DMs who use a given generic challenge. I think that's part of what baffles some people about skill challenges: they don't seem to get that they're supposed to take the generic framework of primary and secondary skills and the complexity and improvise to get it to fit their their game. In the Skill Challenge Danger Room (blatant plug!) I just ran The Negotiation twice, in two (I think) very different encounters, and that skill challenge is about as generic as they come.
Finally, when I ran them, I did reveal that failure did not mean death, and got a lot of flak from the players for spoiling the suspense. So, in the future, I would not reveal such a fact.
That's a shame. Unfortunately, you probably would have gotten the same response if they'd failed and not been killed. Yeah, next time don't tell them and if they ask tell them the skill challenge won't kill them directly
When I ran my escape challenge, they knew they weren't going to be killed and one of the still complained when it looked like they were going to lose. It's like, what do you want? I'm ashamed to say I caved, which is why I'm dead-set against going to any trouble to make sure my players can succeed in my skill challenges and just offering interesting failure instead.
Do you think it'd be better to instead run each character through a semi-independent Complexity 1 challenge? I'd remove the "falling behind" penalty, and instead allow someone to aid another at the cost of taking a -2 penalty to their next check (or something like that) representing the aiding character losing a few seconds to run back and help out. Would that be better or worse?
I like the idea of a penalty, but I think maybe it should be kept in reserve for groups who go a little too crazy with Aid Another, to be applied as a prod when they're being too careful and methodical. "While you were all helping Jozan, the collapse appeared to accelerate. You get the impression that you'd better get moving." That sort of thing. Maybe the penalties can be applied in secret, effectively raising the DC for characters who aided, coupled with an appropriate description.
I also like Complexity 5 challenges, or at least the idea of them, so I suggest standing firm on that.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
