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Post by Malex on Feb 21, 2014 11:52:58 GMT -8
Hello Jackers,
I have never played D&D 4e, I went from 3.5 to Pathfinder in one seamless transition.
Now I have a newb GM who is intending to try his hand at D&D 3.5 and I'm offering him some advise on session prep and what he should be familiarized with (primarily the Skills chapter and Combat). He says to me that he's interested in using the D&D 4e Skill Challenges for a more Narrative Effect on the game; stating that it offers a Pass/Fail mechanic that can help him develop the story based on degrees of success. My response, having heard Stork (as I recall) voice a dislike for Skill Challenges, was to say "be careful using SCs"; especially because it's not something which was built into the mechanics (to my knowledge).
In order to help this new GM out, who obviously is looking to cross-pollinate mechanics, I need to know what a Skill Challenge is exactly. I do not own any 4e books, so I cannot do my own research. I might even find that 3.5 did have something similar if I knew what I was looking for. Thus I humbly submit this to the Jacker Community:
What the heck is a Skill Challenge and what effect will it have on a 3.5 game? Or on a game in general?
Thanks,
Malex
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kevinr
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 158
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Post by kevinr on Feb 21, 2014 21:10:42 GMT -8
In a skill challenge, the player characters make skill checks to accumulate a number of successful skill uses before they rack up too many failures and end the encounter.
It is actually a bit like the Apocalypse World game Mechanic in that you should be describing what you want to do in a particular situation and then make a roll based off of the skill best associated with the action taken. Then the next player describes what they are doing and the go down the line. It can help some people get into role playing and describing what their character is doing.
It can also easily turn into no narrative description where the players throw out the skill they are using and the die results. player 1: my character hides: I got a stealth roll of 21 player 2: my character runs away, athletics roll of 18 etc.
While it is a pass/fail mechanic, you want x number of successes before y number of failures, if he bases the results off the narrative it could work out just fine. Maybe you get what you want but at a cost.
I suspect if he wants to add it to the game what he really wants to add is more narrative roleplaying and he is not sure how he will get that out of the players. I would not worry to much, it is not going to break anything and if it helps him get into roleplaying great. If it turns into a roll off then I would suggest he just drop the challenges and try something else. If he has trouble coming up with successes with consequences or being open minded about what is happening in the story and not just the die rolls then he may want to drop it as well.
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Post by Malex on Feb 25, 2014 20:12:08 GMT -8
Interesting.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2014 16:11:04 GMT -8
It is also very much like a Dramatic Task mechanic in Savage Worlds if you have played that system. As kevnir said the whole idea is that there is a situation in which the players must use their skills and they are trying to complete a certain number of successes before they hit a certain number of failures.
For instance I had a party trapped in a long corridor with a Indian Jones style boulder rolling down in. Some players rolled athletics or acrobatics to stay ahead of it, the thief attempted to use thievery or engineering to find a way to open the door at the end of the corridor or stop the boulder before it crushed them.
I had it set at a 5 successes before three failures difficulty. With each roll I had the party narrate what they were trying to do before they rolled and then the result of their roll let me know how to describe what happened next. I found that run properly they added alot of excitement and drama outside of combat.
They were good for changing things up every few sessions.
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Post by Malex on Feb 28, 2014 12:36:00 GMT -8
Oh I've done stuff like that, though the successes to failures is kinda different. It is reminiscent to me of Extended Tests in Shadowrun 4e & 5e.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2014 21:42:10 GMT -8
I ignore them... 4e skill challenges are best designed to be either a way to get through the dungeon quickly (for those second runs through) or just for the socially inept groups that prefer the rollplay to the roleplay. I simply find that DMs already do this naturally, but it was nice to be put in there as an optional rule, though many people didn't realize that it was optional
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
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Post by jonas on Jun 12, 2014 23:59:56 GMT -8
I like 4e, but the answer to the question "What the heck is a Skill Challenge" is:
"A bad substitute for roleplaying"
My advice is not to use them.
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lordvanduu
Initiate Douchebag
The Inventor
Posts: 13
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Post by lordvanduu on Jun 18, 2014 10:14:56 GMT -8
I've been running a 4E Eberron game for about a year now, and have tried a few Skill Challenges here and there. I find it to be an unnecessary complication, when you can just have the players roll skill checks while telling you what they are doing. No need for an extra system on top of that. So I haven't used them in a long while.
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Post by Malex on Jul 27, 2014 7:00:52 GMT -8
The guy who going to incorporate Skill Challenges into his Pathfinder game has done so. It worked out well enough, but it did feel a lot like a Quick-Time Event in a videogame.
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