Session Discussion: Skill Challenges

So, we did a couple of more extended skill challenges. Here's my notes on these challenges:

Approach the Bloodreaver Lair

This skill challenge is necessary to find the Bloodreaver Lair quickly and quietly. It is assumed that the heroes are trying to reach the lair unmolested and undetected.

Difficulty: Moderate (DC 10)

6 Successes (150 xp)

At this level of success you manage to reach the Bloodreaver lair without alerting any patrols to your presence. All guards will be considered ready (but not alert) until such time as your activities dictate otherwise.

9 Successes (275 xp)

In addition to reaching the Bloodreaver lair undetected you also manage to find a good location near the lair to set up a defensible “base camp” to which you can retreat and avoid contact with goblins if you are careful about returning to the place without leading enemies to it.

12 Successes (400 xp)

You reach the Bloodreaver lair undetected, find a good base camp and capture a lone goblin who gives up information about the guard routines and patrols. This information grants a +2 bonus to any three skill checks during the next skill challenge. The skill check bonus must be declared before the roll.

3 Failures (0 xp)

If you get three failures before achieving at least six successes then each character loses one healing surge and the party has a combat encounter with a Bloodreaver patrol. The Bloodreaver guards will flee as soon as a single of their number falls. If any of the patrollers make it back to the lair alive then the entire lair will be considered alert for the next several hours. Apply a -2 penalty to all skill checks in the next skill challenge (Stalking the Bloodreaver lair) should you choose to attempt that challenge before the next sunrise. Additionally, all Bloodreaver guards are alert and ready for combat during this time.

Key Skills (DC 10)

• Athletics: you use your physical skills to help your party navigate the mountainous terrain.
• Dungeoneering: using knowledge of general dungeon construction and guard patterns, you help avoid patrols and get into best position near the lair.
• Endurance: stealthy movement through mountainous terrain is hard work. Your endurance helps ensures that you and your comrades do not flag during the trek.
• Nature: using knowledge of the natural world you help to avoid any dangerous flora or fauna. You help track previous patrols and see tell tale signs of recent goblin passage.
• Perception: you powers of perception help you to find the way to the goblin lair while avoiding patrolling enemies.
• Stealth: you and your friends sneak through the mountainous terrain drawing closer and closer to the enemy stronghold.

Secondary Skills (DC 15)

• Acrobatics: the difficult terrain presents no challenge to you as you leap over ravines and tumble through underbrush and move closer to the Bloodreaver lair.
• Heal: climbing through these rough mountains results in numerous cuts, scrapes and bruises. Your use of first aid helps keep the heroes on their feet.

Stalking the Bloodreaver Lair

After finding the Bloodreaver lair you have the option of observing and planning your assault which may make it your attack easier.

Difficulty: Hard (DC 15)

6 Successes (350 xp)

Each character gets a +1 bonus usable on any single d20 roll while inside the lair.

9 Successes (525 xp)

As above and gain one action point.

12 Successes (700 xp)

As above and find hidden treasure near the lair: buried chest with 250 gold and Gloves of Piercing.

3 Failures (0 xp)

While casing the Bloodreaver lair you alert guards to your presence. Each PC loses two healing surges immediately and the guards on duty outside attack. Additionally, the goblins inside the lair prepare for an attack. All goblins are alert and prepared for combat. Traps, cover and other preparations are fully in place.

Allow the PCs to use any reasonable skill that they can justify with role-play/explanation of use.

Session Discussion: Skill Challenge - Success?

So, I'm going to lay out all of my notes from the negotiation skill challenge with the dragon Jadonkos. I hope this will show you where I'm coming from and how I hope to see skill challenges work in the future.

Skill challenge vs. Jadonkos (Difficulty: Hard – DC 15)

Before resorting to fighting, the dragon Jadonkos offers to parley with the PCs. Should they accept the offer and succeed in a difficult skill challenge they may achieve victory without combat. They may also acquire a gift from Jadonkos and a quest.

Success (minimal): 6 successes – 525 xp
Jadonkos agrees to leave the heroes alone either because they managed to convince him that the Black Tablet is not of use to him or that they are more than he can handle.

Success (medium): 9 successes – 700 xp
As above and Jadonkos asks the heroes to help him with his problem with the Bloodreaver clan of hobgoblins. He offers a quest to them to track the Bloodreaver Clan of hobgoblins who recently attacked his lair and took many hostages.

Success (maximum): 12 successes – 875 xp
As above and Jadonkos gives a Holy Symbol of Bahamut +1 to the party if they accept the quest to root out the Bloodreavers.

Failure: 3 failures before 6 (or more) successes
Jadonkos attacks the party and calls his kobold allies to aid him in the fight.

Key skills (DC: 15)

Examples of usage of key skills in this encounter:

• Arcana: convince Jadonkos of your arcane knowledge and power and then explain that the Black Tablet is of no use to the dragon.
• Bluff: convince Jadonkos that you do not have the Black Tablet
• Diplomacy: sway Jadonkos to not fight and instead discuss the matter for mutual benefit
• Insight: realize Jadonkos’s true desire: to protect his kobold followers and himself from the Bloodreaver hobgoblins; required to achieve 9+ successes
• Intimidate: convince Jadonkos that he does not have the power to face down the party

Secondary Skills (DC: 20)

• History: weave a tale about the Black Tablet and how it cannot be used to protect the dragon or his allies
• Nature: this item is wholly unnatural, evil and dangerous. Its use will endanger the dragon and his minions.
• Religion: the nature of the Black Tablet is wholly evil and your knowledge of religion is such that you can prove it is of no use to the dragon.
• Any other skill the PCs can convingly employ.

If the PCs can convince the dragon not to fight (6 successes) then they may further convince him to offer a quest and possibly prepayment for the quest.

Skill Challenges - Again!

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure the best way to do the skill challenges. I thought they went better, but the "negotiation" with the dwarf ghost didn't go off very well. What needs to happen differently is that you all need to (and I need to encourage) roleplay in these encounters and then shoot the dice.

Think of a skill challenge as a combat where you use your skills instead of your powers. How's that work? You roleplay. You describe your actions and/or what you're saying (or just say what your character says) and then we throw some dice. A good roll gets you a success. A bad roll gets a failure. The theory behind skill challenges is to offer a framework for the roleplay encounters that involve skill use and involve everyone. What we don't want to see is the options that usually came up in 3.x D&D: 1) the bard (or other high diplomacy skill guy) is the only one that does any talking with major NPCs. 2) one skill roll determines success or failure.

So, it's a team effort. Everyone should participate and everyone should try to offer something to what's going on. I'll do my best to better roleplay the NPCs; you all work on doing a bit of RP yourselves. I know you don't know all there is about the game world and such, but as I'm sure you can tell from what I've been doing, I'm ad libbing a great deal in the skill challenges anyway. So, if you make a history check and decide to describe that as reminding the ghost of the time the eladrin heroes saved some dwarves from an attack by giants . . . cool! Let's go with that!

So, I'll keep working on making the RP skill challenges better. Everyone needs to get involved. I think the non-RP ones went off very well.

Session Discussion: Skill Challenges

So, it didn't quite go as planned. While I thought I had clever plans for use of skill challenges in the negotiations with Vardigas and Lady Caer, it didn't work out as well as I would have liked.

The missing piece, I think, was that I didn't make it clear that this is a skill challenge and here are your goals. I actually had laid out specific skills, DCs and results for success or failure. What I didn't have was a good way to convey that information to the players without just flatly stating, "You should make a diplomacy check to try to win the Lady Caer's favor and trust and she will tell you more." I'll work on that in the future.

Overall, I'm pleased with the progress we made. We played for a bit under four hours and we got through one combat encounter and three skill challenges and a farily good amount of role-play, introduction and information gathering.

The combat dragged a bit longer that I would have preferred, and for some reason seemed like it was just "tacked on" to the adventure, while it was in fact planned and has a purpose greater than just letting everyone roll dice and do damage. The combat was 900 xp, which is 150% of the xp for a normal encounter of six 1st level characters, but since I knew it was the only combat of the day, I wasn't worried about that.

Anyhow, so far, so good, or at least ok. Stay tuned for more recap of the first session.