Sometimes my party gets decision paralysis when I present skill challenges. If this happens to you I recommend giving out roles that the party can pick from if they don't have any ideas. I use this for my travel with roles like navigator, scout, Muscle, etc. This helps players get into the mindset of how they can participate imo
Easy way to introduce them to that would be on a ship, one steers, one is look out, the other does the sails, other jobs dished as needed. Then let them pick jobs next time they do run into a challenge again
I do the same thing, its great advice. Also just giving them roles in the party in general it helps them know what they're pc would do in a situation too, and it makes sure everyone has a job instead of one person trying to do everything.
As a new player, ive found it awkward to know how to proceed in skill checks but I remember a cool thing that my dm did once. As a monk on a sailing ship during a sea journey with my party, my dm guided me in a subtle way to use my dex or wis to help out the ultimately non-existent npc crew. They gave me basic ideas and let me choose. There wasn't any pressure, and them giving me an idea or two based on my strengths helped me make a formidable choice as well as keep the game running smoothly.
something i like to use skill challenges for: montages! the players are tracking the gnolls to their lair through the haunted wode, the players are being chased through a city by guards or the thieves guild, a volcano is erupting and the heroes must evacuate the terrified people as best they can. by having the situation be less concrete and more pliable, you leave it open to the players’ neat ideas. if every obstacle is perfectly defined and has clear consequences and impact, then you don’t really need a skill challenge, ultimately. you just run those obstacles! the skill challenge’s failures are better at representing the idea of abstract failure, it’s not immediately clear how it didn’t work but in the end we can see that it wasn’t enough to get you through it.
This is a great idea to break up the style of storytelling a bit, bring in new perspectives and maybe let players shine who are not great at improvising solutions in set circumstances but are creative when they get the opportunity to control the narrative a bit :) I will try to use these more myself .
matt colville has three good rules to implement: 1) you can only attempt a skill if you are proficient in it. he often does this outside skill challenges too, because it helps avoid the situation where a wizard rolls a 1 on the arcana check and doesn’t know it while the barbarian who can’t even read rolls a 20 and somehow knows this obscure fact. 2) each person can only try each skill once. one person can try multiple skills, and multiple people can do the same skill, but you cannot have one person do the same skill over and over. this prevents the ranger from rolling survival three times as everyone else just sits there. 3) he always makes it clear that the players are now in a skill challenge. instead of trying to hide it, he explicitly states “this is a skill challenge, you need X successes before 3 failures. ultimate failure means *this* happens.” then the players know what’s up, they know what’s at stake, they’re going to address it with the appropriate attention and seriousness. you don’t want a player to say “if i knew this was on the table i wouldn’t have done that.”
I really disagree with the first and last points, honestly. Sometimes a Wizard has a bad day and the Barbarian heard an obscure fact at an inn, I think everyone should have a chance as success. That’s how rolling dice works. And for the last one, the unknown factors of success and failure are part of what makes the story interesting so letting people know what will happen ahead of time seems silly.
I love using skill challenges as a way to offset the random chance element in really significant rolls, where one stroke of bad luck shouldn't wreck everything, and instead creative thinking it and / or roleplay becomes key.
I did enjoy skill challenges and have tried implementing them in my 5e game. It went well and the players did like it. I did implement a rule occasional that a Player could not use the same Skill repeated. This was to encourage the entire party to participate and also to think more about how to use their abilities and skills.
I love skill challenges, it’s really helped me speed up play. Here’s some Things I used skill challenges for Recently. -charging through artillery towards a demon gate amidst the Battle Ruins of a Massive Castle -Battling a continent sized monster from the realm of Dreams -Rocketboarding away from a black hole Anything that is frantic in energy or too epic in scale to be mapped (and maintain such energy). Sure those secnarios coulda been DM’d as Crunchy DnD 5e gridded encounters but not without dragging on for multiple hours or sessions each. Kept it all TOTM and did each in about 30 mins to an hour tops. This vid was good food for thought on doing it for negotiations. Would’ve been helpful during a court scene I had last year
Kelly Appreciation Post: Just watching OG vids (Fighter Guide) and just noticed the huge difference in Kelly's confidence in knowledge and delivery over the years. It's great that not only are you guys building the community, but also growing as players/DMs. Love your work, dudes!
I once ran a skill challenge that my players still say was the greatest moment in all of our campaigns so far. A zombie horde was attacking a town the players were using as a home base. The players needed to take back control of the city and were told by the captain to close the Eastgate. The counterweight system on the gate was sabotaged to stay open. So during a combat encounter while fighting off zombies, the players had to make accumulative checks to try and lower the gate bit-by-bit. I accomplished this by setting DC a 50 for the gate and making their DC checks lower that number till it hit zero. So for every round they made a skill check The total DC would go down that exact number. Any round where they weren't actively working on the gate it would go back up 5 to a total of 50. It was a hard battle with clever uses of skills, abilities, an immovable rod, and some homebrew consumables called rune tags. my players felt the pressure and were on the edge of their seats. A player death happened (although somewhat planned because he wanted to change characters) and one of my players actually almost cried because of the story elements. Skill challenges are an amazing element of done correctly.
A way I've tried skill challenges to include the party, is having the skill check be specifically something that a player is proficient in. Makes it a little more realistic.
An important thing to remember for skill challenges, as GM, is to destin guise between player and character. In a combat, I don’t require the player playing the fighter to know how to swing a sword, nor the rogue to know how to pick a lock. Yet the first thing a charismatic character is asked by a GM is what and how they talk to an NPC and then the GM judges the response based on the PLAYER’S words and charisma. Just as we must treat the actions of the fighter as though they would be done by am immensely strong and skilled warrior, the arguments of say a bard we have to edit them in our minds as though they were said by an immensely charismatic and clever negotiator.
I like to let the players give input on not only how they succeed, but how they failed. It adds to the immersion and changes it from a horrible thing to still something fun to come up with.
I was playing a 3.5 game and the party was supposed to meet a performer at a tavern. The performer didn't show. The DM wanted us to investigate his disappearance, but we took the performer's absence as a sign that we should perform in his place. We didn't have a bard or anyone with proficiency in performance, but my character was a halfling rogue with tumble, and we had an orcish barbarian. Our solution was a series of attack rolls for the barbarian to throw my halfling across the stage and for my rogue to tumble his way through the air into the arms of the fighter. After a series of mostly-successful checks, we had earned the adulation of the crowd and bonuses to persuasion and diplomacy checks to investigate the performer's disappearance. It is one of my finest moments as a player and the DM just "rolled with it" as it were.
D&D is a game where you can do anything and Skill Challenges is how to accomplish situations you can't normally portray (Chase Scenario, Heist, Breaking ins!) They are great for One Shots for making big cinematic scenes quick so you can get down to the Nitty Gritty. P.S. Kelly, I'm lovin' the shirt man!
One of my favorite moments in 5e was playing my Warforged (just used the race for the initial stats; my character is a reprogrammed Modron with dumped intelligence) Battlemaster in the Out of the Abyss when we found ourselves in the archmage's tower. We found a locked drawer without a physical lock on it, and my character decided to just Force it open (athletics check) while my party (wisely) backed out of the room. When I succeeded, I was transported into the archmage's secret pocket dimension where I saw a drow maiden tapped in a circle. After passing an insight check to know that the woman was lying to me, I decided to tie my rope into a lasso and... Lasso the lady (survival check). I tentatively pulled her to the boundary of the circle, at which point she took damage and showed her true form as a Yochlol. I then unceremoniously yanked it through the boundary of the circle (athletics check), killing the Yochlol and showering myself with viscera. I then took everything I could carry (including the grimoire) and walked through a gateway, appearing in front of my bewildered companions, covered in demon guts, with the archmage's grimoire. It was a ton of fun and let my fighter, who has very bad mind stats and limited utility outside of combat, have a fun roleplay moment.
When I tried to use skill challenges in my current campaign, I had them in various parts of an Airship they had taken, they had to help with maintenance as part of the costs for travel and had been given different job. After the players actions the airships was being raided, and based on how well they did it determined how well the ship could defend itself against people boarding the air ship throughout the raid and as such determining how many encounters they had to contest that day.
Nerds recently did a Dnd 5e collab and I got all of the sessions, 6 mini sessions and then a final big one. Excited to play, I gathered a group of four of my friends and started to prep. To my horror, I realized (after forming the party) that each mini session was a single player mini game and the last one is all of the players together. I have been a DM for several years so adapting combat was fine, but when it came to making sure everyone had a part in the skill challenges I was having a hard time, until I saw this video that is. I was easily able to allow the players who weren't the main character (they take turns) assist in the skill checks and made it engaging for everyone. Excellent video!
Love this video. You guys should do more like this. Where you're taking ideas from previous editions and adapting that to 5e and the current state of play.
I was actually first introduced to this concept as Matthew Mercer uses it in Critical Role. I love the idea and have been implementing them in various ways for a while now. Love the vid, great advice to improve my own use if the skill challenge.
I appreciate that you guys acknowledge skill challenges started with 4th edition even if it didn't vibe with you all. Many times the ideas in 4e are met with vitriol even though a good chunk of 5e have 4th edition mechanics in there. I ran a skill challenge in 4e while the players in were in combat trying to stop a person from fleeing while being successful then came their interrogation. It was pretty fun. Honestly I keep forgetting that 5e has it too and with the custom rules of substituting ability check with skills like athletics with strength you could make it as flexible as one need to.
I just finished a Skill Challenge leading up to the final battle of my campaign, that way my players could do a bunch of things to prepare without taking another year of adventures to get to the end. Basically making sure we don't get burnt out on this campaign and ensuring we get to a satisfying conclusion. It worked out alright, but I think I should have set the DC higher because they got through it flawlessly.
The way I like factoring in secondary and risky skills is by adjusting the DC. For example, if the party is trying to negotiate with a gullible but brave NPC, the DC for deception might be 10 but the DC for intimidation is 16. I feel like that encourages players to seek to use the best fitted skills but still allows them to use others at a higher risk of failure.
For some of the traps/puzzles I've been running I make pages the players can interact with directly(we play on Roll20). They can get hints by rolling a skill check successfully, but I found that even on magical traps even our non-magical characters have something can contribute. I found standard traps were either solved by someone proficient with arcana, investigation or thieves tools. So instead I made up several dozen puzzles with pieces. They usually don't take my players long to complete, but they have all said they much prefer these to puzzle/trap skill checks. I've also designed an elaborate set of skill challenges that requires teamwork. I've put in different checks depending on what classes people decide to play. Not all are skills, but some are abilities. I designed them so each player has SOMETHING to contribute. For social encounters, if multiple players want to present arguments, I'll do a group check. It's lead to more players interacting in social situations instead of deferring to someone with a higher charisma score or persuasion/deception/intimidation. More engaged players leads to happier players and more fun games. I've found it encourages role play and creativity amongst all of them.
Oh man... I'm catching up on Dungeons of Drakkenheim, watching this content & enjoying it all... You are making amazing content, I took a lot of roleplaying tips into my Pathfintder alchemist and how to roleplay his reactions to the table! Luv you all, and you are an inspiration!
I can tell my team has interest in skill challenges but often got confused on how to know what skills to use. This is really helpful for planning mini-skill challenges without overwhelming them!
Marvelous! I have been trying to use skill challenges off and on in my latest campaign and this will really help me dial them in. Thanks again for all you do for the community!
Fantastic content, really enjoyed this. Would love to see a further video on this, maybe linking to some footage where you have used them in your own games? It'd be cool to see them done in real time.
Thanks for covering this topic. I feel that my characters should be a lot more than just swinging weapons and talking and I always emphasize how important it is to choose their skills wisely. I use skill challenges for everything from tracking and exploration to escaping a cave in to rescuing a drowning NPC. My players enjoy the pace and also being able to roll dice
Call from the Deep has a couple of these early on, like the adventurers are part of the crew on a ship. During a storm, or while trying to bring the ship into a tricky harbor, the players get to pick which attribute they want to use and the game gives examples of how it applies. Like if you have a high Dex, you’re swinging through the rigging fixing problems, but if you have a high Wis maybe you’re in the crow’s nest calling down directions because you’re in a good place to see everything and make decisions. High Char? You’re shouting encouragement to everyone else, and so on. And then they have some hook into the role-playing as well as the visualization of it all. I loved this and used it frequently throughout the rest of the adventure.
I didn't see this in the comments or video yet but depending on the encounter I will sometimes allow the group to do a skill challenge to try and flee from an enemy instead of fight. Send them in the wrong direction (deception), find a spot to hide (perception), roll an attack/use a spell against terrain to cause an obstacle for the pursuers, etc. It's really up to you as a dm to reward creative thinking and set the DC for these but it feels better than "you escape" or "you failed your stealth check and they spot you - roll initiative". Have fun out there!
Used skill challenges to great effect in a recent game; it was in a Mad Max style fast-paced wheeled encounter and was just so much better at retaining the sense of speed and action - even as a combat. The wrinkle was that the players had to choose a different skill to use each time and describe what it would do. It was great to really see the players think extra creatively beyond the usually bounds of move-action-bonus action.
I LOVE the idea of incorporating Spells into the Skill Challenge. Anything to get the Players thinking and using abilities that they might not normally use. Listening to the examples, it gave an air of almost a little too much "DM suggestion" not straight railroading but sort of like the DM guiding the players into creating a scenario that THEY as the DM would like to see versus more of a blank page on which the Players can paint their own scene.
We had "skill challenges" in Gen 2 and the first Eastern Adventures. I still run them, but I try not to let the dice over rule common sense, Interesting video, thanks.
This is incredibly cool! I’m planning on using skill challenges in the next session of my Eberron campaign. They’re on an elemental galleon and they maaaaaaaaaay (will) be heading for and unusually large storm surge and some unforseen Demonglass rising from the depths. The ship’s crew is going to need some help to get the vessel safely to the shores of a remote island! In addition reasoning with the Eternal Dominion to explain why the vessel is straying beyond the established trade routes.
A REALLY good video from you guys. I've been catching up with older ones, so know I'm late to the party. But this has made me rewrite 3 whole homebrew encounters, and they'll be soo much more interesting now, Thank you l.
I just ran a chase scene through Sharn in Eberron as a skill challenge. They needed to accumulate successes for certain events, and if there were failures, complications would come up that could delay them more and allow the people they were chasing to have more prep time to hide and get reinforcements at the end of the chase. One player used a whip to swing over debris that they had been knocking over to slow them down and kicked one of them in the head. It was great.
I just started the video and I IMMEDIATELY want to relate a stong thumbs up on the idea of "Being open to the player's skills they want to use." That can make such a difference. In a game I'm in that's not 5e, we were in a similar kind of skill based scenario. Where we were negotiating. My character is 100% just wilderness survival and hitting stuff really hard, so I was benched for a while. But I asked my DM if I could use my Survival skill to help negotiations. So instead of giving an impassioned speech or intimidating the other side, she offered strategic benefits they had over their common enemy that had to do with things like terrain. Or what supply chains might look like if they're disrupted by this enemy and how our allies could alleviate that for them. there's a lot of ways you can use skills.
One skill challenge I ran some time back: The plan was a chase after a runaway mule through the town. Not only would it introduce the party to the area, it would also encourage being befriended by the mule's owner who was a potential important NPC to the plot. The party was supposed to run through the streets, track the mule, dodge carts and passerby etc. Well along came a player who wanted to be a half-Avariel elf. I didn't want a 1st level character who could fly (though I figured he could learn that around the time that wizards get the fly spell) so we negotiated a fluttering "hop." This required two athletics skill checks - one for lift, the other for distance and canceled other movement for the round. I may have been a little over generous on the distance (don't recall what we finally settled on) but it wasn't better than a dash, though it did still allow an action. So the skill challenge starts, the mule runs off, and initiative goes to the half-Avariel, who makes BOTH athletics checks, jumps in front of the mule, manages to grab its rope as his action, and BANG! skill challenge ended. Moral of the story: 1) Definitely take your players abilities in account! 2) Be sure to tone down any house-ruled abilities until you can see what they do. On the good side, other than shutting down the rest of the skill challenge, the encounter DID end with the NPC befriending the party, so I guess it went well enough.
My favourite skill challenges I've run were the party caught in a storm and all of them having to use skills They're proficient in (or not but with a higher DC) so try and help the crew keep the ship together. My other was an important NPC died and the party contributed offerings to bring his soul back for a raise dead spell (ala Critical Role style). Both times were pretty magical and emotional and it was amazing!
I'm generally of the opinion that if non-proficiency in a skill doesn't rule out their using it at all that the DC should only be different for either given character for reasons tying directly into their story. If the party ranger is tracking with survival and I have them roll without proficiency in nature to identify the specific creatures in the region, I'm not going to inflate that DC. They already are missing their proficiency bonus, they are already "penalized." At the same time though, if the druid tries to roll a thieves tools check to disarm a trap? That's a major break in their characters experience and not even debatably adjacent to their skills. Thats probably a +5 to the DC if the trap isn't clearly visible and is of any significant complexity. Significance of existing mechanical disadvantages like heavy armored stealth and the djacency of skills would determine that to me, basically. Like, artisan tools and the various kit? Using cartographers or navigators proficiency are interchangeable with survival for wayfinding by map or by star, poisoners and herbalism kits are literally medicine with flavor, and the overlap between acrobatics and athletics is significant enough that I'm not sure acrobatics should be it's own skill. Doesn't mean the barbarian gets to roll arcana or the sorcerer medicine, at least not for advanced, non surface level uses of the skill. Missing out on a +2 proficiency doesn't describe how totally implausible it is for a character to perform like an expert in a field of study or craft, but nonproficiency is already more than enough of a penalty for things like investigation or an acrobatics check, even the harder ones.
Been looking into this recently. Legend of the Five Rings does something similar with a Momentum system where there's either a narrative time limit, rounds limit or it is a competition against an NPC faction reaching Momentum number of successes. That one doesn't implicitly track failures but the dice mechanics work differently. Good video to settle on counting failures too in a D20 system and great job on the examples ✨
Great video! Quick Note: in the sdcond example, "the Investigation" i do think that Perceñtion could be taken as a risky skills. In my games i use a homebrew method for investigation in wich everyone choose to use the Perception or Investigation Skill. If the party focus on Investigation and not Perception they are being really precise an focused on one thing at a time, ignoring their surroundings, making them vulnerable to traps or surprise attack. In the other hand if they focus on Perception i grant them advantage on Savings against traps or a bonus in Initiative, but they might miss the cool treasure hiding in the room.
Love you guys so much!! I would love to see you all film a session zero together even just for the sake of show for a non campaign but i think it would be a cool idea for a video
I've run several sessions where the entire emphasis is on complex skill challenges, with an openly stated goal of no combat (as in, you don't want to fight these guys). Mostly, I've had a lot of success with these. Players are mostly unfamiliar with this type of play, and enjoy the change up. Plus, they're still rolling dice and trying to beat the challenges. So it has the "game" element that many pure RP scenes don't. Even with those succeses though, I picked up something I think is a good new tool in this video. Using actual turns and rounds to ensure that everyone has an opportunity and need to contribute will help keep everyone engaged.
You two have distinct and complimentary personas and styles. Monty is looking like he recorded every video on the same day, and Kelly is switching it up like someone in witness protection. Great content, guys!
I love doing skill challenges every 3 - 5 sessions to keep the party on their toes. I don’t typically utilize combat in these, I reserve them for chase scenarios, overland travel, infiltrations, etc. But, I have done a couple mass combat challenges before that really worked out, but I like keeping skill challenges in the exploration tier. I do considerably less work to set mine up, I do tell them they’ve entered a skill challenge, what the static DC is, how many successes they need, and what happens on 3 failures. At the bottom of every round there is an environmental / lair action that occurs that the whole party has to save against (but doesn’t count to the overall success or failures). A failure adds a complication for the next round, a success means they avoid the complication. From there we go into a “for the movie” narrative. Where I present a problem to a player and they give me a narrative explanation of how they’d conquer that problem. They can use any skill or class ability they want so long as they give me a narrative reason or justification. To prevent skill dog piling I take what Matt Coville says: one can only use a skill they’re proficient, once a skill is used it can’t be used again in that round, and when the player uses a skill it’s entirely off the table for the remainder of the challenge for that player. I add to that where they can use class abilities and spells as they want, but the rules I have is that there has to be a narrative and a resource expenditure. Outside of that, a player can elect to skip their turn if they don’t see anything they can do and offer aid to the next player, and that allows the next player 1d10 they can add to their roll if the helping player is proficient in the skill the next player is attempting. 1d4 is helper is not proficient. That way it keeps the party active and the challenge fast paced.
My DM used a similar framework for a chase sequence once. We were in a swamp running from a War Tortoise ridden by lizardfolk and we all had to rationalize a skill check into how we would attempt to outpace our pursuers. Obvious things like a strength check to block the path with an obstacle, or animal handling to keep the horse pulling the wagon helped, but you can get a bit more creative, Survival to remember the branches of the path you took, Insight to know that the tortoise has an easier time pursuing through the water vs the land, etc. It really got us thinking as players, and was a blast to play, especially with it being an occasionally difficult scenario to run.
I tried a Skill Challenge encounter for my players today in Curse of Strahd. They were trying to find the Werewolf Den in the mountains amid a raging blizzard. In Roll20 I made about 10 maps featuring a snowy mountain terrain, put it all in Darkness and gave everyone 20ft darkvision to simulate reduced visibility in the snowstorm. They'd start in the middle of a map and explore a bit, sometimes triggering skill checks (Athletics to climb a steep cliffside, a Dex save if they ventured too close to a crevice, Acrobatics to traverse a rickety bridge, etc.) Then I'd have them do a secret Survival check each. DC to find the correct direction was 15 (not told to them). I'd give each player the direction they THOUGHT was the correct one, and why, according to their result, and let them argue on the way forward without letting them discuss their actual result. 3 successes would lead them to their intended destination and 3 failures would lead to a random combat encounter. They had a blast! Great success.
We had a lot of stress, but a really great game during Curse of Strahd with our DM running a skills challenge to find a cave in a snow storm, and later to survive an avalanche. For the avalanche, it ended up with just my paladin and our warlock rolling the lowest initiative, the warlock then casting Dimension Door to get us ahead of the avalanche. During the snow storm we had 2 failures quite quickly and had a real struggle to come up with creative ways to find a cave, and it was stressful.... But also a really fun game where we had to use our brain to solve something.
I've been using skill challenges in my last two campaigns and I have to agree with your original comment about them: They provide as much depth and involvement as combat encounters, which is something I love since it adds so much variety to the game. Your ideas for primary, secondary, and risky skills as well as other abilities that can be used is a great addition to this type of encounter, and I hope to borrow those concepts in the future. But one problem I see is not telling the players that they are in a skill challenge. I originally learned about skill challenges from Matt Colville's video on the topic, and he made the point that skill challenges in 4e were sometimes clunky for this very reason. Presentation is definitely key, but there's nothing wrong with giving the PCs a clear goal. I did my own video that discussed skill challenges, and one thing I included in each one was not just skills that could be used in the challenge, but HOW particular skills were used. Instead of saying, "You can use Arcana in this skill challenge," tell the PCs how they can use that skill. "You delve into your knowledge of the arcane to find a proper command word or chant that could potentially disrupt the ritual." Presenting the encounter as a skill challenge give the party focus, while the nature of skill challenges let's them come up with unique ways to use their various skills to overcome the problem before them.
Just did a skill challenge of a hurricane in my seafaring campaign! Instead of trying to tie things down or help people, they just ran and got clotheslined by a flying rowboat
i don't know how many dungeon dudes fans know this, but matt mercer's resurrection rituals in critical role are skill challenges. the grieving party gathers around their fallen comrade, and matt invites any of the players to say how they want to contribute to the ritual. if 2 party members use the same skill, the DC becomes harder for the second use of the skill. great examples were grog trying to intimidate a soul back into its body, vax angrily persuading the raven queen to allow his vex to return to life and pike reading a poem that ashley had written about scanlan. it was so good, matt rightly gave her advantage on a performance check! The more successes achieved, the lower the DC of the final ritual roll. it worked brilliantly and encouraged great roleplaying. resurrection rituals also get over "simply using raise dead" too bring a party member back to life. resurrection should cost something imo. matt also started using other skill challenges in campaign 2. i'm definitely going to use skill challenges in my new campaign!
I've used skill challenges for almost a year now in 5e following Matt Colville's suggestions. Similar to the Dungeon Dudes, I can think of several skills that may be useful (and will give a couple obvious examples). However, following Matt Colville's ideas, the party members will each, in turn, pick a skill and explain HOW it can be used towards a success. I've heard some pretty creative approaches from them.
Wilderness Travel is sort of a default skill challenge in my game, as I like having instances where a Ranger's PHB skillset can actually be used despite no one ever playing Ranger lol. At most two (justified Help action, need to explain how you help them) can make a Survival roll to lead through hazards and avoid losing their way, and similar on Perception to keep watch for ambushes or other encounters. The navigators are given a -5 to passive perception as they're focused on staying on track rather than to notice hostility, and the lookouts can take the gamble with a Perception roll or use their passive for consistency. On a semi-related rant, Dodge action is not an out-of-combat option. If you don't want to be surprised while traveling, take the Alert feat, but no one is going to be on their toes expecting an attack for hours on end without being debilitatingly paranoid. If you try it, you don't get to help out, and people will find it weird that you're creeping around in a constant guard stance because maybe a bug will fly past and an opportunity attack "needs" to be made. Just relax and roll Perception instead.
I use skill challenges as a way to create quests like the Witcher 3 has, where you're not sure what monster did it, but they have to hit certain conversation pieces or persuasions, they have to pass checks to see physical clues. If they pass all the checks they know what monster they're about to face, if they fail several of them they believe it's a different monster entirely.
When you describe the environment of the skill challenge, if this happens enough, players may start to think more creatively on how to use their character's resources in better ways. Might even find noncombat solutions too!
Savage Worlds does skill challenges very well. I've adapted so that number of successes matters. Depending on the challenge, let's say they need at least 3 successes. Each round, more than half of them must succeed to get a single success. If they succeed by 5 or more, I give them two successes. If they finish with 4, or 5 successes, they get a bonus/advantage for it.
I also like to use Survival as a way for players to discuss combat tactic. In situations where they are negotiating with factions or military commanders this to me helps fighters barbarians and rangers participate more as many of the skills the DDs listed where charisma or intelligence based and many martial oriented classes may not have any proficiency in those abilities but I've found most of them do get access to survival.
another classic skill challenge is the chase scene spells become very useful here along with the physical skills and also backgrounds as a street urchin may know the place like the back of there hand and find shortcuts or magic items can be useful like a magic carpet or the spider climb slippers, a great exsample is done by the Chain of Acharon (spelling probably also wrong) where they are chasing after a thief
I used a skill challenge to navigate a bog-filled green dragon's lair maze. Another was to find a hidden cave with a blizzard approaching. Similar to what Monty said I change the DC depending on the skill used based on it's relevance and not necessarily on how they apply it. If a person says they try to follow animal paths to find a safe passage, that would be a much lower DC than if a player states they will use some irrelevant skill for the challenge like 'I use persuasion to convince the hedge to part' (my favorite words as a DM are 'you can try' and then set the DC to 30+). As the Dudes suggest, I have each player state how they are contributing to the problem before making any roles. What I do a little different is have contributing skills given a primary skill advantage or disadvantage instead of giving a success directly.
Love skill challenges. I ran a game set in Mythic Greece with the players navigating the Labyrinth as a skill challenge. Failures had consequences like NPCs getting lost in the labyrinth or the Minotaur combat being more challenging.
I think Pathfinder 1E had "Chase" mechanics that a player could use two skills to accomplish something. You could use that in 5E. Pick two skills that make sense for non-combat scenario.
One time I used a skill challenge to affect how difficult a combat would be. The party heard the sounds of combat while in a forest, and were making survival checks to find them. Three successes meant they got there whole the two sides were still fighting, leaving certain enemies distracted and allowed for stealth to be in play. Three failures meant that they took too long to get there and one side had won, leaving enemies alert and ready to swarm the party if spotted.
Can you guys do a video on theater of the mind? Like maybe a kind of checklist to really help give the players the best idea of the vision you have for the space? I find that a lot of the time when I'm writing down what i think are important points to share, I'm missing things that the players may find important but were definitely in my thought process and influence the encounter. Also descriptions and descriptors that may help them feel the encounter or location more viscerally. Thanks for all you do!
I always appreciate a DM that let's you negotiate. Religion check on a diety? Could go historical if it was about a battle or arcana if it's an artifact..simple stuff
Some kind of large clockword device is charging some kind of arcane ritual. The wizard tries to dispell it, the rogue tries to dismantle an important piece, the artificer tries to reverse engineer the mechanism, all failures. Then, the hero of the challenge steps forward. In 1 swift move, they manage to completely diffuse the threat. They are...the barbarian ripping cogs out of the wall. Not every situation involving magic and machinery is immune to a very big hammer.
I love skill challenges, my players too. We are very 'board gamer', so our skill challenges are more crunchy. The players know in advance the stakes and DC. And using a short rest resource grants advantage and using a long rest resource allow re-roll a fail. This way the players can burn the resources if they think is usefull. Spoilers of LMoP below! For exemple, in LMoP getting in Castle Cragmaw was a skill challenge. No fail means getting stealthy and 3 fails mean getting ambushed. 1 or 2 was something in the middle.
@@maxmccullough8548 i think i had most to do with a marketing misconception more than a game filosofy one. 4th edition wanted to give what people wanted, but people did not seem to want that.
I use a set DC in my head but I might give the players advantage or disadvantage based on their argument. The DC goes up or down based on what the players are asking for or what they want the npc to do. If the players fail tho by a small amount I usually still give them something out of it. Some piece of information that would be valuable or a magic item that they could use similar to what Dungeon Dudes were saying.
I would love more examples on this! I struggle with creativity here and presenting different options, along with other repercussions for failing. Matt Coville has an inspiring video on fail states when the dice go poorly, but I lack imagination many times. Also, there are other examples in the comments that I would love to see explored: chase scene, or collapsing building/sinking ship/plummeting airship, or saving people, village or themselves from a orc raid, calvary charge, or dragon attack.
Had a paranoid druid pc who whenever the party was going into a conversation would want to be constantly watching for spell casting. I allowed them to role a perception check, to temporarily replace their passive perception if it was higher. This rarely meant anything but they did manage to counter spell a few suggestion spells. (Yes the players had warning from their quest npc that such things aren't unheard of.)
Using skills for things outside the box is fantastic. I heard of a DM using someone's Performance while they picked a chest...and the chest started humming back. Or using Acrobatics to survive a failed Investigation on a skeleton.
Skill challenges. Start with a knowledge check, give the PCs a baseline amount of expository information that they can start off with, so they get ideas about what to do. Depending on what they try to do, ask them to make several skill checks at each step of the challenge going forward, describe each success or failure as they do them. Almost always, add a constitution endurance check before the last skill check ~ a fail here giving a level of exhaustion and/or disadvantage to their next few skill checks. The important thing to remember is that a skill challenge should branch into two paths: if they succeed and overcome; or if they fail and have to reroute. Avoid dead ends.
The best skill challenges are ones where every player has to contribute and participate, even if their contribution may offer a temporary detriment to the group. Crossing a river is my favorite example of a skill challenge: every character must get from one side to the other, but some may have different means or troubles. Success means the entire party continues their adventure on the other side. Failure means they'd fall, get soaked, carried downstream, lose an item and/or suffer an injury.
Sometimes my party gets decision paralysis when I present skill challenges. If this happens to you I recommend giving out roles that the party can pick from if they don't have any ideas. I use this for my travel with roles like navigator, scout, Muscle, etc. This helps players get into the mindset of how they can participate imo
Easy way to introduce them to that would be on a ship, one steers, one is look out, the other does the sails, other jobs dished as needed. Then let them pick jobs next time they do run into a challenge again
I do the same thing, its great advice. Also just giving them roles in the party in general it helps them know what they're pc would do in a situation too, and it makes sure everyone has a job instead of one person trying to do everything.
Great suggestion, thanks.
As a new player, ive found it awkward to know how to proceed in skill checks but I remember a cool thing that my dm did once. As a monk on a sailing ship during a sea journey with my party, my dm guided me in a subtle way to use my dex or wis to help out the ultimately non-existent npc crew. They gave me basic ideas and let me choose. There wasn't any pressure, and them giving me an idea or two based on my strengths helped me make a formidable choice as well as keep the game running smoothly.
That's a great way to handle decision paralysis.
something i like to use skill challenges for: montages! the players are tracking the gnolls to their lair through the haunted wode, the players are being chased through a city by guards or the thieves guild, a volcano is erupting and the heroes must evacuate the terrified people as best they can. by having the situation be less concrete and more pliable, you leave it open to the players’ neat ideas. if every obstacle is perfectly defined and has clear consequences and impact, then you don’t really need a skill challenge, ultimately. you just run those obstacles! the skill challenge’s failures are better at representing the idea of abstract failure, it’s not immediately clear how it didn’t work but in the end we can see that it wasn’t enough to get you through it.
This is a great idea to break up the style of storytelling a bit, bring in new perspectives and maybe let players shine who are not great at improvising solutions in set circumstances but are creative when they get the opportunity to control the narrative a bit :)
I will try to use these more myself .
matt colville has three good rules to implement:
1) you can only attempt a skill if you are proficient in it. he often does this outside skill challenges too, because it helps avoid the situation where a wizard rolls a 1 on the arcana check and doesn’t know it while the barbarian who can’t even read rolls a 20 and somehow knows this obscure fact.
2) each person can only try each skill once. one person can try multiple skills, and multiple people can do the same skill, but you cannot have one person do the same skill over and over. this prevents the ranger from rolling survival three times as everyone else just sits there.
3) he always makes it clear that the players are now in a skill challenge. instead of trying to hide it, he explicitly states “this is a skill challenge, you need X successes before 3 failures. ultimate failure means *this* happens.” then the players know what’s up, they know what’s at stake, they’re going to address it with the appropriate attention and seriousness. you don’t want a player to say “if i knew this was on the table i wouldn’t have done that.”
I really disagree with the first and last points, honestly. Sometimes a Wizard has a bad day and the Barbarian heard an obscure fact at an inn, I think everyone should have a chance as success. That’s how rolling dice works. And for the last one, the unknown factors of success and failure are part of what makes the story interesting so letting people know what will happen ahead of time seems silly.
I love using skill challenges as a way to offset the random chance element in really significant rolls, where one stroke of bad luck shouldn't wreck everything, and instead creative thinking it and / or roleplay becomes key.
I did enjoy skill challenges and have tried implementing them in my 5e game. It went well and the players did like it.
I did implement a rule occasional that a Player could not use the same Skill repeated. This was to encourage the entire party to participate and also to think more about how to use their abilities and skills.
Or you can allow them to continue with that skill check, but understand that the DC will get higher the more they use it.
I love skill challenges, it’s really helped me speed up play. Here’s some Things I used skill challenges for Recently.
-charging through artillery towards a demon gate amidst the Battle Ruins of a Massive Castle
-Battling a continent sized monster from the realm of Dreams
-Rocketboarding away from a black hole
Anything that is frantic in energy or too epic in scale to be mapped (and maintain such energy). Sure those secnarios coulda been DM’d as Crunchy DnD 5e gridded encounters but not without dragging on for multiple hours or sessions each. Kept it all TOTM and did each in about 30 mins to an hour tops.
This vid was good food for thought on doing it for negotiations. Would’ve been helpful during a court scene I had last year
Kelly Appreciation Post:
Just watching OG vids (Fighter Guide) and just noticed the huge difference in Kelly's confidence in knowledge and delivery over the years. It's great that not only are you guys building the community, but also growing as players/DMs. Love your work, dudes!
I once ran a skill challenge that my players still say was the greatest moment in all of our campaigns so far. A zombie horde was attacking a town the players were using as a home base. The players needed to take back control of the city and were told by the captain to close the Eastgate. The counterweight system on the gate was sabotaged to stay open. So during a combat encounter while fighting off zombies, the players had to make accumulative checks to try and lower the gate bit-by-bit. I accomplished this by setting DC a 50 for the gate and making their DC checks lower that number till it hit zero. So for every round they made a skill check The total DC would go down that exact number. Any round where they weren't actively working on the gate it would go back up 5 to a total of 50. It was a hard battle with clever uses of skills, abilities, an immovable rod, and some homebrew consumables called rune tags. my players felt the pressure and were on the edge of their seats. A player death happened (although somewhat planned because he wanted to change characters) and one of my players actually almost cried because of the story elements. Skill challenges are an amazing element of done correctly.
That's really clever! Nice!
A way I've tried skill challenges to include the party, is having the skill check be specifically something that a player is proficient in. Makes it a little more realistic.
I'm currently playing in a group where we're doing Rime of the Frostmaiden, and our DM has pulled skill challenges out 3 times for us so far
Nobody else can take a topic most of us understand and find imaginative ways to apply it like Kelly and Monty. Keep these tips coming!
An important thing to remember for skill challenges, as GM, is to destin guise between player and character. In a combat, I don’t require the player playing the fighter to know how to swing a sword, nor the rogue to know how to pick a lock. Yet the first thing a charismatic character is asked by a GM is what and how they talk to an NPC and then the GM judges the response based on the PLAYER’S words and charisma. Just as we must treat the actions of the fighter as though they would be done by am immensely strong and skilled warrior, the arguments of say a bard we have to edit them in our minds as though they were said by an immensely charismatic and clever negotiator.
Love these during lunch! Perfect timing
I like to let the players give input on not only how they succeed, but how they failed. It adds to the immersion and changes it from a horrible thing to still something fun to come up with.
I was playing a 3.5 game and the party was supposed to meet a performer at a tavern. The performer didn't show. The DM wanted us to investigate his disappearance, but we took the performer's absence as a sign that we should perform in his place. We didn't have a bard or anyone with proficiency in performance, but my character was a halfling rogue with tumble, and we had an orcish barbarian. Our solution was a series of attack rolls for the barbarian to throw my halfling across the stage and for my rogue to tumble his way through the air into the arms of the fighter. After a series of mostly-successful checks, we had earned the adulation of the crowd and bonuses to persuasion and diplomacy checks to investigate the performer's disappearance. It is one of my finest moments as a player and the DM just "rolled with it" as it were.
That's so fantastic. Sums up D&D very nicely.
D&D is a game where you can do anything and Skill Challenges is how to accomplish situations you can't normally portray (Chase Scenario, Heist, Breaking ins!) They are great for One Shots for making big cinematic scenes quick so you can get down to the Nitty Gritty.
P.S. Kelly, I'm lovin' the shirt man!
I loved fourth edition and a big part of that was skill challenges. So much of my game was just skill challenges and players being clever.
Savage World runs this type of encounters very well, their Dramatic Tasks are good source for inspiration in 5e as well
One of my favorite moments in 5e was playing my Warforged (just used the race for the initial stats; my character is a reprogrammed Modron with dumped intelligence) Battlemaster in the Out of the Abyss when we found ourselves in the archmage's tower. We found a locked drawer without a physical lock on it, and my character decided to just Force it open (athletics check) while my party (wisely) backed out of the room.
When I succeeded, I was transported into the archmage's secret pocket dimension where I saw a drow maiden tapped in a circle. After passing an insight check to know that the woman was lying to me, I decided to tie my rope into a lasso and... Lasso the lady (survival check). I tentatively pulled her to the boundary of the circle, at which point she took damage and showed her true form as a Yochlol. I then unceremoniously yanked it through the boundary of the circle (athletics check), killing the Yochlol and showering myself with viscera.
I then took everything I could carry (including the grimoire) and walked through a gateway, appearing in front of my bewildered companions, covered in demon guts, with the archmage's grimoire.
It was a ton of fun and let my fighter, who has very bad mind stats and limited utility outside of combat, have a fun roleplay moment.
When I tried to use skill challenges in my current campaign, I had them in various parts of an Airship they had taken, they had to help with maintenance as part of the costs for travel and had been given different job. After the players actions the airships was being raided, and based on how well they did it determined how well the ship could defend itself against people boarding the air ship throughout the raid and as such determining how many encounters they had to contest that day.
Orrery of the Wanderer (adventure from the _Acquisitions Incorporated_ sourcebook) actually has a segment rather like this!
Nerds recently did a Dnd 5e collab and I got all of the sessions, 6 mini sessions and then a final big one. Excited to play, I gathered a group of four of my friends and started to prep.
To my horror, I realized (after forming the party) that each mini session was a single player mini game and the last one is all of the players together. I have been a DM for several years so adapting combat was fine, but when it came to making sure everyone had a part in the skill challenges I was having a hard time, until I saw this video that is.
I was easily able to allow the players who weren't the main character (they take turns) assist in the skill checks and made it engaging for everyone. Excellent video!
This was PERFECT TIMING!
Thank you soooooo much 👍🏼
Love this video. You guys should do more like this. Where you're taking ideas from previous editions and adapting that to 5e and the current state of play.
This helped me a lot, I was planing an one shot and in the last encounter they need to stop a ritual on a time (turn) limit and this will be perfect
I was actually first introduced to this concept as Matthew Mercer uses it in Critical Role. I love the idea and have been implementing them in various ways for a while now. Love the vid, great advice to improve my own use if the skill challenge.
I appreciate that you guys acknowledge skill challenges started with 4th edition even if it didn't vibe with you all. Many times the ideas in 4e are met with vitriol even though a good chunk of 5e have 4th edition mechanics in there.
I ran a skill challenge in 4e while the players in were in combat trying to stop a person from fleeing while being successful then came their interrogation. It was pretty fun. Honestly I keep forgetting that 5e has it too and with the custom rules of substituting ability check with skills like athletics with strength you could make it as flexible as one need to.
I just finished a Skill Challenge leading up to the final battle of my campaign, that way my players could do a bunch of things to prepare without taking another year of adventures to get to the end. Basically making sure we don't get burnt out on this campaign and ensuring we get to a satisfying conclusion. It worked out alright, but I think I should have set the DC higher because they got through it flawlessly.
The way I like factoring in secondary and risky skills is by adjusting the DC. For example, if the party is trying to negotiate with a gullible but brave NPC, the DC for deception might be 10 but the DC for intimidation is 16. I feel like that encourages players to seek to use the best fitted skills but still allows them to use others at a higher risk of failure.
For some of the traps/puzzles I've been running I make pages the players can interact with directly(we play on Roll20). They can get hints by rolling a skill check successfully, but I found that even on magical traps even our non-magical characters have something can contribute. I found standard traps were either solved by someone proficient with arcana, investigation or thieves tools. So instead I made up several dozen puzzles with pieces. They usually don't take my players long to complete, but they have all said they much prefer these to puzzle/trap skill checks.
I've also designed an elaborate set of skill challenges that requires teamwork. I've put in different checks depending on what classes people decide to play. Not all are skills, but some are abilities. I designed them so each player has SOMETHING to contribute.
For social encounters, if multiple players want to present arguments, I'll do a group check. It's lead to more players interacting in social situations instead of deferring to someone with a higher charisma score or persuasion/deception/intimidation. More engaged players leads to happier players and more fun games. I've found it encourages role play and creativity amongst all of them.
Oh man... I'm catching up on Dungeons of Drakkenheim, watching this content & enjoying it all... You are making amazing content, I took a lot of roleplaying tips into my Pathfintder alchemist and how to roleplay his reactions to the table! Luv you all, and you are an inspiration!
I can tell my team has interest in skill challenges but often got confused on how to know what skills to use. This is really helpful for planning mini-skill challenges without overwhelming them!
Marvelous! I have been trying to use skill challenges off and on in my latest campaign and this will really help me dial them in. Thanks again for all you do for the community!
Fantastic content, really enjoyed this. Would love to see a further video on this, maybe linking to some footage where you have used them in your own games? It'd be cool to see them done in real time.
This adds a nice structure to what I was already trying to do, thanks for this!
Thanks for covering this topic. I feel that my characters should be a lot more than just swinging weapons and talking and I always emphasize how important it is to choose their skills wisely. I use skill challenges for everything from tracking and exploration to escaping a cave in to rescuing a drowning NPC. My players enjoy the pace and also being able to roll dice
I really enjoy putting murals or art pieces that they may know of and get a clue from with a succesfull arcana, history or religion check
You guys really are the best dnd channel I’ve found for stuff like this
Love seeing a new video to listen to right before I start driving.
This was an incredible video! I LOVE the negotiation challenge where everyone was involved! 😍
Call from the Deep has a couple of these early on, like the adventurers are part of the crew on a ship. During a storm, or while trying to bring the ship into a tricky harbor, the players get to pick which attribute they want to use and the game gives examples of how it applies. Like if you have a high Dex, you’re swinging through the rigging fixing problems, but if you have a high Wis maybe you’re in the crow’s nest calling down directions because you’re in a good place to see everything and make decisions. High Char? You’re shouting encouragement to everyone else, and so on. And then they have some hook into the role-playing as well as the visualization of it all. I loved this and used it frequently throughout the rest of the adventure.
This is the most solid video i've seen on the subject of Skill Challenges , with lot great ideas and insight who to craft them . 🍺
This is very nice! Especially the tip about asking another player how they're contributing! Cant wait to use em in my game. Thanks!
I didn't see this in the comments or video yet but depending on the encounter I will sometimes allow the group to do a skill challenge to try and flee from an enemy instead of fight. Send them in the wrong direction (deception), find a spot to hide (perception), roll an attack/use a spell against terrain to cause an obstacle for the pursuers, etc. It's really up to you as a dm to reward creative thinking and set the DC for these but it feels better than "you escape" or "you failed your stealth check and they spot you - roll initiative". Have fun out there!
Great vid, guys! The examples of skill challenges and how you would handle them was just what we needed. =)
Used skill challenges to great effect in a recent game; it was in a Mad Max style fast-paced wheeled encounter and was just so much better at retaining the sense of speed and action - even as a combat. The wrinkle was that the players had to choose a different skill to use each time and describe what it would do. It was great to really see the players think extra creatively beyond the usually bounds of move-action-bonus action.
this was a great video. You guys should do more of these "running the game" style ones. The examples were also super useful
I LOVE the idea of incorporating Spells into the Skill Challenge. Anything to get the Players thinking and using abilities that they might not normally use.
Listening to the examples, it gave an air of almost a little too much "DM suggestion" not straight railroading but sort of like the DM guiding the players into creating a scenario that THEY as the DM would like to see versus more of a blank page on which the Players can paint their own scene.
We had "skill challenges" in Gen 2 and the first Eastern Adventures. I still run them, but I try not to let the dice over rule common sense, Interesting video, thanks.
I like announcing skill challenges because it gets the creative juices flowing because I let my players go nuts with ideas to out fox the scenario
This is incredibly cool! I’m planning on using skill challenges in the next session of my Eberron campaign. They’re on an elemental galleon and they maaaaaaaaaay (will) be heading for and unusually large storm surge and some unforseen Demonglass rising from the depths. The ship’s crew is going to need some help to get the vessel safely to the shores of a remote island! In addition reasoning with the Eternal Dominion to explain why the vessel is straying beyond the established trade routes.
A REALLY good video from you guys.
I've been catching up with older ones, so know I'm late to the party.
But this has made me rewrite 3 whole homebrew encounters, and they'll be soo much more interesting now, Thank you l.
I just ran a chase scene through Sharn in Eberron as a skill challenge. They needed to accumulate successes for certain events, and if there were failures, complications would come up that could delay them more and allow the people they were chasing to have more prep time to hide and get reinforcements at the end of the chase. One player used a whip to swing over debris that they had been knocking over to slow them down and kicked one of them in the head. It was great.
I just started the video and I IMMEDIATELY want to relate a stong thumbs up on the idea of "Being open to the player's skills they want to use." That can make such a difference.
In a game I'm in that's not 5e, we were in a similar kind of skill based scenario. Where we were negotiating. My character is 100% just wilderness survival and hitting stuff really hard, so I was benched for a while. But I asked my DM if I could use my Survival skill to help negotiations. So instead of giving an impassioned speech or intimidating the other side, she offered strategic benefits they had over their common enemy that had to do with things like terrain. Or what supply chains might look like if they're disrupted by this enemy and how our allies could alleviate that for them. there's a lot of ways you can use skills.
I was hoping to find ideas exactly like this. Great video
Great timing as I am looking to run a one shot next week using at least one skill challenge.
The best skill challenges I’ve DM’d and played are often the most exciting and fun moments I’ve had in d&d
One skill challenge I ran some time back: The plan was a chase after a runaway mule through the town. Not only would it introduce the party to the area, it would also encourage being befriended by the mule's owner who was a potential important NPC to the plot. The party was supposed to run through the streets, track the mule, dodge carts and passerby etc. Well along came a player who wanted to be a half-Avariel elf. I didn't want a 1st level character who could fly (though I figured he could learn that around the time that wizards get the fly spell) so we negotiated a fluttering "hop." This required two athletics skill checks - one for lift, the other for distance and canceled other movement for the round. I may have been a little over generous on the distance (don't recall what we finally settled on) but it wasn't better than a dash, though it did still allow an action. So the skill challenge starts, the mule runs off, and initiative goes to the half-Avariel, who makes BOTH athletics checks, jumps in front of the mule, manages to grab its rope as his action, and BANG! skill challenge ended. Moral of the story: 1) Definitely take your players abilities in account! 2) Be sure to tone down any house-ruled abilities until you can see what they do. On the good side, other than shutting down the rest of the skill challenge, the encounter DID end with the NPC befriending the party, so I guess it went well enough.
My favourite skill challenges I've run were the party caught in a storm and all of them having to use skills They're proficient in (or not but with a higher DC) so try and help the crew keep the ship together.
My other was an important NPC died and the party contributed offerings to bring his soul back for a raise dead spell (ala Critical Role style).
Both times were pretty magical and emotional and it was amazing!
I'm generally of the opinion that if non-proficiency in a skill doesn't rule out their using it at all that the DC should only be different for either given character for reasons tying directly into their story. If the party ranger is tracking with survival and I have them roll without proficiency in nature to identify the specific creatures in the region, I'm not going to inflate that DC. They already are missing their proficiency bonus, they are already "penalized." At the same time though, if the druid tries to roll a thieves tools check to disarm a trap? That's a major break in their characters experience and not even debatably adjacent to their skills. Thats probably a +5 to the DC if the trap isn't clearly visible and is of any significant complexity.
Significance of existing mechanical disadvantages like heavy armored stealth and the djacency of skills would determine that to me, basically. Like, artisan tools and the various kit? Using cartographers or navigators proficiency are interchangeable with survival for wayfinding by map or by star, poisoners and herbalism kits are literally medicine with flavor, and the overlap between acrobatics and athletics is significant enough that I'm not sure acrobatics should be it's own skill. Doesn't mean the barbarian gets to roll arcana or the sorcerer medicine, at least not for advanced, non surface level uses of the skill. Missing out on a +2 proficiency doesn't describe how totally implausible it is for a character to perform like an expert in a field of study or craft, but nonproficiency is already more than enough of a penalty for things like investigation or an acrobatics check, even the harder ones.
Thank you for doing these videos, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D
Been looking into this recently. Legend of the Five Rings does something similar with a Momentum system where there's either a narrative time limit, rounds limit or it is a competition against an NPC faction reaching Momentum number of successes.
That one doesn't implicitly track failures but the dice mechanics work differently. Good video to settle on counting failures too in a D20 system and great job on the examples ✨
Great video!
Quick Note: in the sdcond example, "the Investigation" i do think that Perceñtion could be taken as a risky skills. In my games i use a homebrew method for investigation in wich everyone choose to use the Perception or Investigation Skill. If the party focus on Investigation and not Perception they are being really precise an focused on one thing at a time, ignoring their surroundings, making them vulnerable to traps or surprise attack. In the other hand if they focus on Perception i grant them advantage on Savings against traps or a bonus in Initiative, but they might miss the cool treasure hiding in the room.
Love you guys so much!! I would love to see you all film a session zero together even just for the sake of show for a non campaign but i think it would be a cool idea for a video
I've run several sessions where the entire emphasis is on complex skill challenges, with an openly stated goal of no combat (as in, you don't want to fight these guys). Mostly, I've had a lot of success with these. Players are mostly unfamiliar with this type of play, and enjoy the change up. Plus, they're still rolling dice and trying to beat the challenges. So it has the "game" element that many pure RP scenes don't.
Even with those succeses though, I picked up something I think is a good new tool in this video. Using actual turns and rounds to ensure that everyone has an opportunity and need to contribute will help keep everyone engaged.
You two have distinct and complimentary personas and styles. Monty is looking like he recorded every video on the same day, and Kelly is switching it up like someone in witness protection. Great content, guys!
I love doing skill challenges every 3 - 5 sessions to keep the party on their toes. I don’t typically utilize combat in these, I reserve them for chase scenarios, overland travel, infiltrations, etc. But, I have done a couple mass combat challenges before that really worked out, but I like keeping skill challenges in the exploration tier.
I do considerably less work to set mine up, I do tell them they’ve entered a skill challenge, what the static DC is, how many successes they need, and what happens on 3 failures. At the bottom of every round there is an environmental / lair action that occurs that the whole party has to save against (but doesn’t count to the overall success or failures). A failure adds a complication for the next round, a success means they avoid the complication.
From there we go into a “for the movie” narrative. Where I present a problem to a player and they give me a narrative explanation of how they’d conquer that problem. They can use any skill or class ability they want so long as they give me a narrative reason or justification.
To prevent skill dog piling I take what Matt Coville says: one can only use a skill they’re proficient, once a skill is used it can’t be used again in that round, and when the player uses a skill it’s entirely off the table for the remainder of the challenge for that player. I add to that where they can use class abilities and spells as they want, but the rules I have is that there has to be a narrative and a resource expenditure.
Outside of that, a player can elect to skip their turn if they don’t see anything they can do and offer aid to the next player, and that allows the next player 1d10 they can add to their roll if the helping player is proficient in the skill the next player is attempting. 1d4 is helper is not proficient. That way it keeps the party active and the challenge fast paced.
My DM used a similar framework for a chase sequence once. We were in a swamp running from a War Tortoise ridden by lizardfolk and we all had to rationalize a skill check into how we would attempt to outpace our pursuers. Obvious things like a strength check to block the path with an obstacle, or animal handling to keep the horse pulling the wagon helped, but you can get a bit more creative, Survival to remember the branches of the path you took, Insight to know that the tortoise has an easier time pursuing through the water vs the land, etc.
It really got us thinking as players, and was a blast to play, especially with it being an occasionally difficult scenario to run.
I tried a Skill Challenge encounter for my players today in Curse of Strahd. They were trying to find the Werewolf Den in the mountains amid a raging blizzard. In Roll20 I made about 10 maps featuring a snowy mountain terrain, put it all in Darkness and gave everyone 20ft darkvision to simulate reduced visibility in the snowstorm.
They'd start in the middle of a map and explore a bit, sometimes triggering skill checks (Athletics to climb a steep cliffside, a Dex save if they ventured too close to a crevice, Acrobatics to traverse a rickety bridge, etc.)
Then I'd have them do a secret Survival check each. DC to find the correct direction was 15 (not told to them). I'd give each player the direction they THOUGHT was the correct one, and why, according to their result, and let them argue on the way forward without letting them discuss their actual result.
3 successes would lead them to their intended destination and 3 failures would lead to a random combat encounter.
They had a blast! Great success.
We had a lot of stress, but a really great game during Curse of Strahd with our DM running a skills challenge to find a cave in a snow storm, and later to survive an avalanche. For the avalanche, it ended up with just my paladin and our warlock rolling the lowest initiative, the warlock then casting Dimension Door to get us ahead of the avalanche.
During the snow storm we had 2 failures quite quickly and had a real struggle to come up with creative ways to find a cave, and it was stressful.... But also a really fun game where we had to use our brain to solve something.
Amnother useful and fun video! Your own games in Drakkenheim offered excellent examples of how to run skills challenges.
Okay, I have to watch this at 2x speed to fit it into my break, but it's worth it!
I've been using skill challenges in my last two campaigns and I have to agree with your original comment about them: They provide as much depth and involvement as combat encounters, which is something I love since it adds so much variety to the game. Your ideas for primary, secondary, and risky skills as well as other abilities that can be used is a great addition to this type of encounter, and I hope to borrow those concepts in the future. But one problem I see is not telling the players that they are in a skill challenge.
I originally learned about skill challenges from Matt Colville's video on the topic, and he made the point that skill challenges in 4e were sometimes clunky for this very reason. Presentation is definitely key, but there's nothing wrong with giving the PCs a clear goal. I did my own video that discussed skill challenges, and one thing I included in each one was not just skills that could be used in the challenge, but HOW particular skills were used. Instead of saying, "You can use Arcana in this skill challenge," tell the PCs how they can use that skill. "You delve into your knowledge of the arcane to find a proper command word or chant that could potentially disrupt the ritual."
Presenting the encounter as a skill challenge give the party focus, while the nature of skill challenges let's them come up with unique ways to use their various skills to overcome the problem before them.
Just did a skill challenge of a hurricane in my seafaring campaign! Instead of trying to tie things down or help people, they just ran and got clotheslined by a flying rowboat
Perfect time for this, as I have a rock off coming up in my campaign
i don't know how many dungeon dudes fans know this, but matt mercer's resurrection rituals in critical role are skill challenges. the grieving party gathers around their fallen comrade, and matt invites any of the players to say how they want to contribute to the ritual. if 2 party members use the same skill, the DC becomes harder for the second use of the skill. great examples were grog trying to intimidate a soul back into its body, vax angrily persuading the raven queen to allow his vex to return to life and pike reading a poem that ashley had written about scanlan. it was so good, matt rightly gave her advantage on a performance check! The more successes achieved, the lower the DC of the final ritual roll. it worked brilliantly and encouraged great roleplaying. resurrection rituals also get over "simply using raise dead" too bring a party member back to life. resurrection should cost something imo. matt also started using other skill challenges in campaign 2. i'm definitely going to use skill challenges in my new campaign!
I've used skill challenges for almost a year now in 5e following Matt Colville's suggestions. Similar to the Dungeon Dudes, I can think of several skills that may be useful (and will give a couple obvious examples). However, following Matt Colville's ideas, the party members will each, in turn, pick a skill and explain HOW it can be used towards a success. I've heard some pretty creative approaches from them.
Wilderness Travel is sort of a default skill challenge in my game, as I like having instances where a Ranger's PHB skillset can actually be used despite no one ever playing Ranger lol. At most two (justified Help action, need to explain how you help them) can make a Survival roll to lead through hazards and avoid losing their way, and similar on Perception to keep watch for ambushes or other encounters. The navigators are given a -5 to passive perception as they're focused on staying on track rather than to notice hostility, and the lookouts can take the gamble with a Perception roll or use their passive for consistency.
On a semi-related rant, Dodge action is not an out-of-combat option. If you don't want to be surprised while traveling, take the Alert feat, but no one is going to be on their toes expecting an attack for hours on end without being debilitatingly paranoid. If you try it, you don't get to help out, and people will find it weird that you're creeping around in a constant guard stance because maybe a bug will fly past and an opportunity attack "needs" to be made. Just relax and roll Perception instead.
I use skill challenges as a way to create quests like the Witcher 3 has, where you're not sure what monster did it, but they have to hit certain conversation pieces or persuasions, they have to pass checks to see physical clues. If they pass all the checks they know what monster they're about to face, if they fail several of them they believe it's a different monster entirely.
When you describe the environment of the skill challenge, if this happens enough, players may start to think more creatively on how to use their character's resources in better ways. Might even find noncombat solutions too!
Skill challenges sound fun and gives me some great ideas. Thank yu
Savage Worlds does skill challenges very well. I've adapted so that number of successes matters. Depending on the challenge, let's say they need at least 3 successes. Each round, more than half of them must succeed to get a single success. If they succeed by 5 or more, I give them two successes. If they finish with 4, or 5 successes, they get a bonus/advantage for it.
I also like to use Survival as a way for players to discuss combat tactic. In situations where they are negotiating with factions or military commanders this to me helps fighters barbarians and rangers participate more as many of the skills the DDs listed where charisma or intelligence based and many martial oriented classes may not have any proficiency in those abilities but I've found most of them do get access to survival.
Finally a DM that changes the dc by the quality of the argument!!!! I thought I was the only snowflake
another classic skill challenge is the chase scene
spells become very useful here along with the physical skills and also backgrounds as a street urchin may know the place like the back of there hand and find shortcuts or magic items can be useful like a magic carpet or the spider climb slippers, a great exsample is done by the Chain of Acharon (spelling probably also wrong) where they are chasing after a thief
I used a skill challenge to navigate a bog-filled green dragon's lair maze. Another was to find a hidden cave with a blizzard approaching. Similar to what Monty said I change the DC depending on the skill used based on it's relevance and not necessarily on how they apply it. If a person says they try to follow animal paths to find a safe passage, that would be a much lower DC than if a player states they will use some irrelevant skill for the challenge like 'I use persuasion to convince the hedge to part' (my favorite words as a DM are 'you can try' and then set the DC to 30+). As the Dudes suggest, I have each player state how they are contributing to the problem before making any roles. What I do a little different is have contributing skills given a primary skill advantage or disadvantage instead of giving a success directly.
Love skill challenges. I ran a game set in Mythic Greece with the players navigating the Labyrinth as a skill challenge. Failures had consequences like NPCs getting lost in the labyrinth or the Minotaur combat being more challenging.
I think Pathfinder 1E had "Chase" mechanics that a player could use two skills to accomplish something. You could use that in 5E. Pick two skills that make sense for non-combat scenario.
One time I used a skill challenge to affect how difficult a combat would be. The party heard the sounds of combat while in a forest, and were making survival checks to find them. Three successes meant they got there whole the two sides were still fighting, leaving certain enemies distracted and allowed for stealth to be in play. Three failures meant that they took too long to get there and one side had won, leaving enemies alert and ready to swarm the party if spotted.
In short terms its basically death saving throws but with a skill in order to accomplish a task or ect.....
I recommend looking at how skill challenges are run in the actual play Rolling with Difficulty. I think they handle it very well.
Can you guys do a video on theater of the mind? Like maybe a kind of checklist to really help give the players the best idea of the vision you have for the space? I find that a lot of the time when I'm writing down what i think are important points to share, I'm missing things that the players may find important but were definitely in my thought process and influence the encounter. Also descriptions and descriptors that may help them feel the encounter or location more viscerally. Thanks for all you do!
I always appreciate a DM that let's you negotiate. Religion check on a diety? Could go historical if it was about a battle or arcana if it's an artifact..simple stuff
I once saw a blog that discussed skill challenge stat block templates. I wish I could find it again?
Some kind of large clockword device is charging some kind of arcane ritual. The wizard tries to dispell it, the rogue tries to dismantle an important piece, the artificer tries to reverse engineer the mechanism, all failures. Then, the hero of the challenge steps forward. In 1 swift move, they manage to completely diffuse the threat. They are...the barbarian ripping cogs out of the wall. Not every situation involving magic and machinery is immune to a very big hammer.
I love skill challenges, my players too. We are very 'board gamer', so our skill challenges are more crunchy. The players know in advance the stakes and DC. And using a short rest resource grants advantage and using a long rest resource allow re-roll a fail. This way the players can burn the resources if they think is usefull.
Spoilers of LMoP below!
For exemple, in LMoP getting in Castle Cragmaw was a skill challenge. No fail means getting stealthy and 3 fails mean getting ambushed. 1 or 2 was something in the middle.
4e is amazing. The more i come back to that game the more i like it.
Lots of great ideas it just didn't play that well without a super experienced group.
@@maxmccullough8548 i think i had most to do with a marketing misconception more than a game filosofy one. 4th edition wanted to give what people wanted, but people did not seem to want that.
I use a set DC in my head but I might give the players advantage or disadvantage based on their argument. The DC goes up or down based on what the players are asking for or what they want the npc to do. If the players fail tho by a small amount I usually still give them something out of it. Some piece of information that would be valuable or a magic item that they could use similar to what Dungeon Dudes were saying.
I would love more examples on this! I struggle with creativity here and presenting different options, along with other repercussions for failing. Matt Coville has an inspiring video on fail states when the dice go poorly, but I lack imagination many times. Also, there are other examples in the comments that I would love to see explored: chase scene, or collapsing building/sinking ship/plummeting airship, or saving people, village or themselves from a orc raid, calvary charge, or dragon attack.
Had a paranoid druid pc who whenever the party was going into a conversation would want to be constantly watching for spell casting. I allowed them to role a perception check, to temporarily replace their passive perception if it was higher.
This rarely meant anything but they did manage to counter spell a few suggestion spells. (Yes the players had warning from their quest npc that such things aren't unheard of.)
Using skills for things outside the box is fantastic. I heard of a DM using someone's Performance while they picked a chest...and the chest started humming back. Or using Acrobatics to survive a failed Investigation on a skeleton.
Skill challenges. Start with a knowledge check, give the PCs a baseline amount of expository information that they can start off with, so they get ideas about what to do.
Depending on what they try to do, ask them to make several skill checks at each step of the challenge going forward, describe each success or failure as they do them.
Almost always, add a constitution endurance check before the last skill check ~ a fail here giving a level of exhaustion and/or disadvantage to their next few skill checks.
The important thing to remember is that a skill challenge should branch into two paths: if they succeed and overcome; or if they fail and have to reroute. Avoid dead ends.
The best skill challenges are ones where every player has to contribute and participate, even if their contribution may offer a temporary detriment to the group.
Crossing a river is my favorite example of a skill challenge: every character must get from one side to the other, but some may have different means or troubles.
Success means the entire party continues their adventure on the other side. Failure means they'd fall, get soaked, carried downstream, lose an item and/or suffer an injury.