Skill Challenge Musings

The skill challenge system as presented in the DMG is flawed. It is flawed enough to have been aggressively updated (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates). The official errata essentially removed the turn based aspect of the system which plants it a bit more securely into the role playing aspect of the game. I think that this change really helped the system as a whole but it had some unfortunate side effects.

The problem is that, with the new rules, the examples in the DMG are revealed to be very static and dull. The original system relied on the idea that characters will have very different skill sets, and as such, the skill choices of the ranger, the paladin, and the rogue will be quite different. The different rolls would theoretically help the narrative stay lively and entertaining. However it did not always work that way since players could always opt to aid another or not do anything at all. So forcing players to take turns broke the players out of a role playing mindset, while not providing much in return.

Using the new rules encourages the players to elect on PC to do all the rolling with the best skill trained upon the lowest DC! While it seems like a great idea for the players,since they would want to make sure they win. The problem is that skill challenges get boring really fast that way. I think that the most important factor in a skill challenge is that they should be allow/force a group to do different things each and every round. A skill challenge that can be won, by rolling a diplomacy check every single time, is the equivalent to a knife fight with an orc in a 5x10 room. It can be considered an encounter, but it sucks.

What we need to do is shift the burden of enforcing variety into the skill challenge mechanics itself. In his DDI articles (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome) Mike Mearls creates one heck of a challenge in the Real skill challenge article. It is huge, it changes as the players progress, and even combat can break out! It is a spectacle of a skill challenge! It is something that you can base an entire play session upon. And while I think that it is a great example of what a skill challenge can be, it feels too big for common usage.

The Mike's other DDI articles focus on social challenges. These are munch more simple, in order to encourage the use of a variety of skills, the challenges limit the number of times you can use a skill, or they increase the target DC's each time the skill is used. As an aside, I think the Haggle skill challenge is the best of the examples, I hope the DMG2 will include lots of skill challenges like this, useful utilities to spice up everyday play.

Another important factor is progress, the players need to feel that they are getting somewhere, and each success should bring them closer to that goal. This concept of progress can give a great narrative reason as to why some skills checks are now not applicable anymore. So in my mind progress and variety help each other make a fun skill challenge.

Finally levels of success is something that early skill challenges don't provide. These skill challenges had success and failure sections of text. I view it more as a results section. I think every success should provide something, and every failure should have repercussions. Adding these shades of grey makes the skill challenge feel more natural.

Next week I hope to have a skill challenge posted up here. I want to experiment with a tree structure. The idea is that a tree structure will combine all the elements I feel need to have in a skill challenge. Progress, variety, and levels of success. We shall see how that all works out.