Skill Challenges: What are the problems, and what are the benefits?

[RedWarlock]

I really like 4E's skill challenges as a concept, and I'm looking at how to work them into my personal homebrew system that takes a lot of cues from 3E and 4E.

I know some people really like them, and other people feel they were flawed, and a few people hate them outright. I also know the system suffered a lot of revisions, because earlier iterations of the SC rules didn't really work, used bad DCs, and left a bad taste in people's mouths.

What do you feel the best parts of the system are? What works best? How do you structure a challenge to make sense, and not abandon important detail?

What's bad about the system, and why? What would you change if you could? What DO you change, because it doesn't work otherwise?

What's the best and worst ways you've seen a SC run? Can you give examples, show flaws, and suggest fixes?

[masteraleph]

The new DCs work fine.

In general, SCs really need to be heavy on narrative (from players as well as the DM) and relatively open on skills. You're trying to convince the bad guy you're on their side? The social skills should work. But so should Arcana, as you describe (or make up) the intricate magical process that they would like to use. And Nature, as you describe the gruesome effects. Athletics, as you punch a nearby barrel and turn it into sawdust. Endurance, as you pull a G Gordon Liddy, proving that you won't fold under torture. Trying to escape a sinking ship? Athletics and Acrobatics, obviously. But also Thievery, for unhooking the lines that are tied to the rudder enough to slow the sinking down. Perception to notice where the water seems to be coming from. If you're well below decks and the boat is capsizing, Dungeoneering for your sense of which way to go. Diplomacy, to help get the crew motivated enough to aid you.

Basically, PCs should a) be good at the skills they're naturally good at, but also b) never feel like there's nothing they can do, because their skills aren't the "right" ones.

[neonchameleon]

Skill challenges are one of the awkwardly written parts of 4e and can lead to a mess if just dropped in front of the players.

How to use them? The example I give is my third session DMing 4e ever, and I hadn't run anything in over ten years at the time (and not much when I was a teenager).

Player: *rolls a natural 20 on a diplomacy check to try and turn the dragon rider rather than just try to persuade him not to fight any more*
Me as newbie DM: *grinds teeth*OK. He says he'd be happy to defect if you can get him somewhere safe. This city is under arial bombardment from dragons on his side
Player: *Thinks for a second* We'll scavenge up a cart, throw a blanket over the wyrmling dragon so it's fully covered from the air and looks like a horse. And we'll pretend it's a plague cart so no one on the streets comes to investigate and those from the air ignore it.
Me: *whimpers mentally and wonders WTF I'm meant to do to deal with a plan like that as DM*
Me: *takes a swallow of my drink to steady my nerves and disguise that I'm stalling for time trying to figure things out. Third session DMing with at least one player at the table who's been playing almost continuously longer than I've been alive (and since before AD&D 1 came out).*
Me: *Remembers the skill challenge rules and decides as I'm drinking that a level 3 skill challenge with 8 successes required should be about the right length and make for a satisfying scene, introducing a complication each time the PCs have a failure as well as failing them off three strikes*
Me:*puts drink down confidently* And how are you going to scavenge up the cart ... Fair enough. Roll streetwise.
Me: *Handles the rest of that scene like a boss*

Basically I use them fairly freeform as a DM side improv tool; whenever my PCs come up with Patented PC Plans I slot them into the basic framework of "Three strikes and this rolling disaster falls apart. N strikes at whatever difficulty and you succeed" (where N and the difficulty are dependent on just what absurd thing my PCs have come up with this time) and never actually tell the players that this is a skill challenge. What the PCs roll is dependent on what they say they are doing (I don't make a list of skills that might or might not work - but if you're doing something irrelevant it won't help).

[Kurald Galain]

What's bad about the system, and why? What would you change if you could? What DO you change, because it doesn't work otherwise?

Basically, the advice in the DMG is bad, and the examples in quite a lot of official WOTC adventures are also bad. If you've learned SCs only from that, well, the results won't be pretty.

The biggest issue is that the system doesn't work well with any action that's not a skill, such as items or spells. When a player tries that, common DM responses include "no you can't do that, you must use a skill" or "sure, you use that, but roll a skill check anyway even if the ability normally doesn't use one". Neither is good; an automatic success is fitting, and in some rare cases ending the entire SC is also fitting.

If the issue-at-hand could have been solved with one spell or item, it probably shouldn't have been an SC in the first place. However, a common trap in WOTC adventures is to have an SC where it doesn't make sense, on grounds that "every adventure must have an SC". For example, I've seen SCs for clearing up a pile of rubble, which is just silly.

Also in terms of bad SCs common in WOTC adventures, having the result for failure be the exact same as success "but you lose a healing surge" is boring.

A major pitfall is to be overly accomodating to to players who wish to do everything with their best skill. I've seen players try to do literally everything with religion (because I'm praying for help), or history (because I'm remembering how it was done in the past), or stealth (because I'm doing it silently). Remember that many printed adventures directly encourage this behavior. Related but less obnoxious are players who try something that directly contradicts what another player is trying.

Finally, if you look too hard at the "X successes required" rule, you may run into situations where the players have already solved the problem but still need two more skill checks, or conversely where the players have sufficient successes but haven't actually solved the issue yet.

TLDR, (1) allow automatic successes for clever ideas that aren't skills; (2) give automatic failure for nonsensical ideas or actions that directly contradict an earlier action; (3) don't use SCs for every non-combat situation; (4) have success and failure be meaningfully different; and (5) on occasion, be willing to require less or more successes than you initially planned.

[Kurald Galain]

You're trying to convince the bad guy you're on their side? The social skills should work. But so should Arcana, as you describe (or make up) the intricate magical process that they would like to use. And Nature, as you describe the gruesome effects. Athletics, as you punch a nearby barrel and turn it into sawdust. Endurance, as you pull a G Gordon Liddy, proving that you won't fold under torture.
Also, actions that should work include making a sizeable monetary donation to their cause, or using a teamwork-inducing Bard power.

Conversely, actions that should not work include using Religion to pray for aid in convincing them, using History to remember how people have been convincing in the past, or using Stealth to quietly convince them.


Trying to escape a sinking ship? Athletics and Acrobatics, obviously. But also Thievery, for unhooking the lines that are tied to the rudder enough to slow the sinking down. Perception to notice where the water seems to be coming from. If you're well below decks and the boat is capsizing, Dungeoneering for your sense of which way to go. Diplomacy, to help get the crew motivated enough to aid you.
Also, actions that should work include using Sovereign Glue to patch a leak, or casting Arcane Gate.

Conversely, actions that should not work include using Religion to pray for aid in escaping, using History to remember how people escaped ships in the past, or using Stealth to quietly escape the ship. Or, for that matter, making a sizeable monetary donation.

Basically, the right approach is (1) the player describes a sensible action and (2) the DM tells him what to roll, or sometimes assigns an automatic success; whereas the wrong approach is (1) the player picks his best skill, (2) makes up a flimsy excuse, and (3) rolls without DM intervention.

[Dimers]

I don't know what the updated rules for Skill Challenges actually are, but I've seen one helpful tidbit that's described as a house rule. You can't use the same skill you last rolled, and you can't use the same skill the most recent player rolled.

Also, players rarely consider making Aid Another rolls for skill challenges. I don't know whether those are supported by the official rules or not, but they're more appropriate mechanically than a full skill check for some actions players describe.

[MwaO]

I'd also note that you can mix them with combats, but that needs to be done very carefully - you want the PCs to not get burned for paying attention to the skill challenge or ignoring it. Unless you've made some blazing lights saying, "Ignore this at your peril!!!"

I had a ritual sphere act really nasty if ignored, then as it got weaker and weaker, finally went away - fun picture in the back :).

Plus, another interesting thing to contemplate is putting lower tier SCs into higher level adventures and assume automatic successes. In other words, they convince the NPCs of whatever it is that they want them to be convinced of, but you throw moral choices for them to think about while they're there.

I co-wrote NETH4-1, which I think has some decent uses of skill challenges. Unfortunately, I think people liked the sphere(and the other combat skill challenge in there) a little too much and suddenly every other mod had a combat skill challenge. Which got a bit repetitive.

www.livingforgottenrealms.com still has it.

[ThePurple]

What do you feel the best parts of the system are? What works best? How do you structure a challenge to make sense, and not abandon important detail?

It was a solid but heavily flawed attempt at creating a conflict resolution system for non-combat encounters that started off bad because it wasn't playtested enough and was basically abandoned rather than rebuilt because so many players disliked it.

I don't really use any of the rules for SC as written, but I like the concept.

I use skill challenges *a lot* in my games, often at least 1-2 per level for my players (I generally structure a single adventure to provide all of the experience and loot for advancing a level) and basically use them any time I want there to be a narrative obstacle that isn't combat related. I've run skill challenges to for getting through "trap rooms", negotiating, investigating, researching searching a room for a hidden door and opening it, navigating through hazardous or exhausting terrain, infiltration, fighting and leading armies, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm also not really fond of the baseline crafting systems and reliability of resurrection coupled with the inability to actually resurrect mid-adventure (resurrecting requires an extended rest and I have a houserule that prevent players from taking an extended rest in dangerous locales like a dungeon or out in the wilderness) so I created SCs for those as well (rather than granting xp, the relative success of those SCs determines how successful the PCs end up).

Basically, I use skill challenges for anything that's supposed to represent a non-trivial narratively important conflict interaction that doesn't make sense for small group tactical combat.


What's bad about the system, and why? What would you change if you could? What DO you change, because it doesn't work otherwise?

There are *so* many things bad about the system such that the only default guidelines that I *do* use about them are the number of required successes and combat level equivalence.

First and foremost, it's way too easy to fail a SC and bring a story to a standstill or draw out the adventure in unintended ways (like requiring a side quest be completed, which, sadly enough, will generally be more interesting to a lot of players than if they had actually succeeded at the skill challenge which just gives them reason to fail it) as player and GM try to figure out where to go from there. They're supposed to be a method of creating combat equivalences for non-combat scenarios, but combat doesn't end with the players retreating when the whole group misses 3 attacks which creates major dissonance when trying to compare the two. The length of a fight is variable and will only prematurely end in failure if the players explicitly choose to do so. SCs basically tell players that, no matter how much they want to keep trying, 3 failed skill checks is a complete failure. Furthermore, that model doesn't even make sense for a lot of potential skill challenges. Why would getting 3 failures suddenly prevent you from navigating a forest or crossing a desert?

Second, the DCs are so high that players are discouraged from doing *anything* that doesn't directly relate to their best skill checks. Even if it makes more sense to search the room for a hidden door, most wizards are going to start trying to recall the history of the building and architect because he's trained in History but not Perception and has a great INT but mediocre WIS. This is exacerbated by the previous problem insofar as 3 failures causes the entire thing to collapse, such that *no one* wants to make a check unless they've got a great bonus because they don't want to be the reason the challenge failed. This also makes it so that, rather than thinking about what makes the most sense to do in that situation, most players instead look at their skill list and just declare that they're going to be using their best skill, which easily gets in the way of having it generate an interesting interactive narrative.

Third, they don't represent anything in the way of cost for the players. Combat reduces players' resources by consuming resources in the form of consumables, healing surges, and daily powers. As written, skill challenges cost none of those things so, if players succeed, they're basically getting experience and loot as if they completed a fight of that level for free since SCs don't consume anything. There are a scant few that are published that allow players to expend healing surges, but, even then, it's still generally a massive discount because players will, as a group, spend 1-2 HSs total when, during a same level fight, they're liable to have spent that many each.

Fourth, somewhat related to the first and third comments above, success and failure in default skill challenges is binary. There's no middle ground. If you get your 12 successes before 3 failures, you get exactly what you want. If you get 3 failures before 12 successes, you don't get anything, even if you had 11 successes when you finally got that last failure. No successes and 3 failures is mechanically identical to 11 successes and 3 failures, which is absurd.


What's the best and worst ways you've seen a SC run? Can you give examples, show flaws, and suggest fixes?

The worst way I've seen a SC run is basically exactly as they are written. 12 successes before 3 failures, GM explicitly states which checks are allowed, DCs are exactly as written and basically devolve into using hard DCs for everything in order to prevent absolute trivialization of rolls, etc.

Personally, I use a massive overhaul of the SC system that I've created over the years using my own experiences as well as being inspired by the Obsidian Skill Challenge system (http://www.tactica-games.co.il/files/Obsidian-Skill-Challenge-System-v.1.2.pdf). I don't really like the Obsidian Skill Challenge system as replacement for real skill challenges because that system is really designed for the use of skill challenges as an augment to combat (it's designed to be simple and fast such that it doesn't interfere with getting to combat), but it was pretty formative in getting me to overhaul SCs.

The first thing I did away with was the 12 successes before 3 failures thing. SCs either last a set number of rounds or they last indefinitely until there are a sufficient number of successes (or "rounds of success", which are basically rounds in which a set number of players must generate a success, when it makes more sense for players to progress as a group rather than as individuals; for the number of "rounds of success" required, a single round of success is equal to the number of players that are required to succeed, so, if you have 4 players and want at least half of them to generate a success each round in order to have a "round of success", you need 6 rounds of success to equate to a 12 success skill challenge). It doesn't matter how many failures the players made as long as they get enough successes.

The second thing I did away with was the lack of cost. Depending upon what makes sense for the skill challenge, there will either be a cost per round or a variable cost depending upon the level of success. The failure result of SCs with set round limitations are on a sliding scale with a higher but still insufficient number of successes resulting in a lower cost than those of lower numbers. An example of this would be a negotiation for a dangerous service, with a success lowering the GP cost to a minimum while only having a small number of successes when the SC finally ends resulting in a higher GP cost. In variable duration skill challenges, I require a specific check be made each round in order to prevent HS loss that doesn't apply to the normal number of successes required (like requiring one Endurance or Heal success each round in an exploration skill challenge to stave off the effects of the heat that would otherwise cost the party an HS or two).

The third thing I do is do away with the list of appropriate skills for the skill challenge. Players are told to describe what they are doing in order to advance the skill challenge (in a social skill challenge, it's basically talking; in an investigation, it's describing what, where, and how they're searching the room; etc). The skill that the player rolls is then determined by the GM with a preference towards interpreting those actions so that the player can actually use one of their better skill challenges. Sometimes they still end up rolling one of their bad ones, but, in general, they still get to use their good ones more often than not.

Fourth, I do away with the static high DC in the errata'd GMs guide. I use the DCs ascribed in the Obsidian Skill Challenge system as a guideline, but sometimes start the DCs (for generating successes; I don't use variable DCs for "loss prevention" checks since those are basically a forced option that someone has to make every turn) at being 2 lower and increase the DC by 1, up to 2 higher than the Obsidian DC, for each success made using the repeated actions in order to encourage players to approach a problem from different angles. I don't *always* do the variable DC thing, especially when it doesn't really make sense (like trying to escape after a cave-in, which is mostly going to be Athletics and Endurance checks in order to just move the stuff out of the way or shore up the walls so they don't collapse again).

Overall, the process of SC design that I use is much more modular and freeform and depends heavily upon what the skill challenge *is* exactly in order to gauge how the group progresses, what success or failure entail, and what the costs end up being. It's much more freeform for the players as well because they're not just looking at a list of options and selecting one. They're coming up with solutions of their own and trying them out.

If it makes sense for a skill challenge to end after a set period of time, like a 3 day meeting to negotiate a peace treaty between warring monster tribes in Droaam, I'll make it last a set number of rounds (probably either 6 or 9, with each round representing roughly 6-8 hours of the day, depending upon whether I expect the players to do stuff at night).

If it makes sense for it to have a variable time frame and progress is measured by the group as a whole, like traversing the jungles of Xen'drik in order to get to some cyclopean ruins, I'll require a given number of rounds of success (each round is a day, week, or some other set period of time, and, if there aren't enough successes that round, the group doesn't make satisfactory progress through the jungles or just gets lost) with each round requiring an Endurance or Heal check to prevent HS loss.

If it makes sense for it to have a variable time frame and progress can be measured by individual contributions, like investigating a murder in Sharn, I'll require a set number of total successes, with each failure costing the players an HS (if they're in the rough part of town and might get attacked in a fly-by or mugged) or some gold (bribes, paying CIs, etc).

[Kurald Galain]

Also, players rarely consider making Aid Another rolls for skill challenges. I don't know whether those are supported by the official rules or not, but they're more appropriate mechanically than a full skill check for some actions players describe.

They are, but math-savvy players know that rolling to assist is (mechanically speaking) always, and I mean always, worse than rolling a skill you're good at.

So you get exchanges like "Can I do <X>?" - "Sure, that'll give the next player a +2 to..." - "Oh, never mind then. Can I do <Y>?" and so forth.

If a set of rules only works if the players are unaware of those rules, then you're going to have a problem as many players are smart enough to figure it out sooner or later.

[Tegu8788]

I played with a group where one player all but demanded that everyone assist on every single roll. It made the game incredibly dull, because no reasonable DC wasn't beaten by our party all tag teaming. And since aid another counted as an action for a skill challenge according to our DM, it meant half the players never actually did anything but help out others. Aid another has it's uses, but gods that was dull.

[ThePurple]

I played with a group where one player all but demanded that everyone assist on every single roll. It made the game incredibly dull, because no reasonable DC wasn't beaten by our party all tag teaming. And since aid another counted as an action for a skill challenge according to our DM, it meant half the players never actually did anything but help out others. Aid another has it's uses, but gods that was dull.

Part of that is derived from the way SCs were initially designed. Because 3 failures of any kind will end a skill challenge in a failure and there aren't any rules about a limited number of turns or costs per turn, it's actually strategically optimal for the party to have the person with the best skill bonus make the check with the rest of the group using the aid another to decrease the odds of failure. As written, minimizing failures are more important than maximizing successes, which is dumb.

[Yakk]

Skill Challenges where an attempt to codify a pacing mechanism.

When someone makes a Stealth check, how much should it cover? Do you make a Stealth Check every 10' you move? Do you make one Stealth Check to get all the way to the king's jewels?

Similarly, it paces failures. When you fail a Stealth Check, does this ruin everything?

The first rule of Skill Challenges needs to be "the action they are attempting must work towards their goal, and failure must be harm their work towards their goal".

If failure has no consequence and success advances you towards your goal, then it is a "freebie".

If success doesn't advance you towards your goal, then the action is pointless.

The DC guidelines can be read to say "well, if this is an actual problem for Level X adventurers, anything easier than this or harder than that is out-of-scope".

If the DC is lower than easy, it is a freebie as failure is basically never. If the DC is higher than very hard, success is implausible and the action is pointless.

---

The counts of success/failure is then about pacing. Having everything hinge on one action makes it a minor issue. Having everything hinge on 100 checks makes it a boring grind. Higher complexity means "more stuff to do to solve the problem", lower complexity means less stuff to do.

---

An issue with the rules as written is that it treats inaction as neutral. Any task where doing nothing doesn't cause any harm is a poor skill challenge for more than 1 player, as the proper response is that everyone who isn't optimal should step back and let the expert handle it. It is a single-player skill challenge. Sometimes it is a sequence of single-player skill challenges.

So one of the ways to deal with this is to make both failure and inaction roughly equally bad, and be "you only have so many opportunities to solve the problem" (time pressure of some kind).

Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.

[Kurald Galain]

Those are good ideas, and it would have helped to have text like that in the DMG.

[MoutonRustique]

For my part, [now] I almost always use SCs as : You have [X] "rounds" to accomplish your goal, [these] are the base things I think need to happen for you guys to get a win on this.

Sometimes I narrate the above "in-game", sometimes I just flat-out state it OC - but I always try to err on the side of TMI.

A "round" is a flexible period of time that is wholly dependent upon the fiction/nature of the task.

What this does:
1 - it's clear what I think needs to happen
1a - there's a clear goal and a clear path to that goal
2 - it's possible the players see a different path to the goal
2a - changing the "path" is easy by simply having the same "number" of successes needed (unless the plan really calls for a change - which has never happened in my games.)
3 - inaction is almost always a bad choice
4 - it's pretty easy to have, at least, a few tasks require varying aptitudes

The "add-ons"
1 - some actions could add a "round"
2 - failures can deduct from the successes or penalize the chances going forward
3 - a few [mandatory] "choke point" skills/events
4 - the use of rituals becomes fairly interesting and obvious

[ThePurple]

2 - failures can deduct from the successes or penalize the chances going forward

It sounds like you're doing things a lot like I do, but this is one thing that I most definitely wouldn't do since you're doubly penalizing your players. They're already paying for the action by consuming the primary limited resource of the SC (actions per round), and you're compounding that.

The only time I could feasibly imagine doing *anything* like this is if the player insists on doing something that actively impedes progress (and I would make sure to warn the player that it's most likely going to impede progress rather than help). Not generating a success is more than enough of a penalty for normal failures.

[MoutonRustique]

It sounds like you're doing things a lot like I do, but this is one thing that I most definitely wouldn't do since you're doubly penalizing your players. They're already paying for the action by consuming the primary limited resource of the SC (actions per round), and you're compounding that.

The only time I could feasibly imagine doing *anything* like this is if the player insists on doing something that actively impedes progress (and I would make sure to warn the player that it's most likely going to impede progress rather than help). Not generating a success is more than enough of a penalty for normal failures.
Most always true. (why it was in the "add-on" section :smallwink:)

On the flip side, depending on how much time you grant vs the number of success required, and depending on if you use easier DCs, and *probably something else*, there can be situations where a major bungle could merit a -2 to the next roll or some such penalties.

I've used it in situations where there are multiple paths to the next phase : a failure in "path A" means the next "step" in "path A" suffers a drawback - but "path B" is still open as-is. Also, the potential penalty was known in advance.

In recap (because I like point-form text), a failure imposed penalty could be appropriate :
1 - there are other avenues of success available after the failure
2 - there are multiple options possible before the decision and the potential penalty is known
2a - this sets up a "high-risk/high-reward" situation
3 - you like to be mean (some people like when people are mean to them - they even made a movie about it! 5x10^1 Variations on Colourless Light, or something...)
4 - the narrative really calls for it (a rare occurrence)
5+ - ...drawing a blank...

But, as initially stated, you're quite right that in the vast majority of situations, unless there's a special setup of some kind going on, a failure is (quite literally!) it's own (and sufficient) penalty.

[Yakk]

For an attrition game like D&D, you can model it a bit like you might model combat.

In combat, there is threat (the monsters are trying to defeat you), and there is soak (the monsters take effort to be defeated in turn).

Sometimes trying to take down the soak more effectively (or trying to prevent threat) involves exposing you to more threat, especially if you screw up.

The soak in a skill challenge is the successes needed (or tasks that need to be completed, whose effort is typically measured in successes).

The threat is sometimes missing (in poor skill challenges). In Rustique's, it is rounds of time before some unidentified failure (a ticking clock).

4e default combat encounters are pretty good at generating an interesting threat/soak profile, with lots of moving bits for players to wrap their heads around.

Default 4e SCs ... are less so.

[kyoryu]

I'd do something like this:

"GM: Oh noes! Here's this problem! What do you do?"

A success gets narrated as something getting the players closer to success. A failure adds complications. The rules of the skill challenge tell you when to stop doing this.

One example (from a player perspective) was being in a forest, near a clearing, and trying to get in a tower. The GM never said "skill challenge", but that's exactly what it was (combined with the various nasties in the forest and whatnot.) Went wonderfully well.

I'd probably allow clever magic usage or whatnot to count as a success.

[Yakk]

The "secret skill challenge" doesn't solve the issue with the baseline 4e skill challenge, which is:

The character with the highest applicable skill bonus (compared to expected difficulty) then should try to repeatedly solve the problem.

Everyone else should sit back and do nothing, as doing nothing isn't a failure, while failure is penalized.

Hence the threat/soak model, or the "doing nothing is almost as bad as failure" time limit solutions.

[kyoryu]

It kinda does, because the narration of the results of the first player's action should change the situation such that doing the same thing again would have no real impact.

[georgie_leech]

It kinda does, because the narration of the results of the first player's action should change the situation such that doing the same thing again would have no real impact.

The objection is that it could still lead to the best player at a given task doing a thing while everyone else sits back, followed by another task where the best suited player does a thing, followed by another player...

In other words, it breaks up the skill challenge into smaller ones, but doesn't do much to change the fact that it's just better for one person to be rolling for a given task rather than the party actually working together to overcome a challenge. Imagine a combat scenario where the optimal solution was for the party Rogue to go forward and kill a thing, everyone moves on to the next monster that the Wizard kills solo while everyone else sits back and waits, followed by another enemy appearing that Cleric engages while the others wait behind... it risks letting the potential depth of the combat/skill challenge system go to waste. Not that it must, just that it doesn't do much to avoid that type of scenario. It does avoid the above analogy being entire encounters instead of individual enemies, though, which would be even worse.

[kyoryu]

The objection is that it could still lead to the best player at a given task doing a thing while everyone else sits back, followed by another task where the best suited player does a thing, followed by another player...

Right. Almost like... turns.

It's also assuming that problems are presented in such a way that there is *a* solution, which implies *a* best character to do that. In my experience, things work better when the GM provides *problems*, and the players provide the solutions.

If you always present things in such a way that there is *a* solution, then there will be *a* character that has the best skills for implementing that. Instead, I prefer to present problems as open-ended, and the solutions chosen will impact the game going forward in various ways.

[Yakk]

Suppose you are currently blocked by a locked door with an enchanted chain.

There are many ways to bypass this door. You could kick it down, dispell the chain, pick the lock, fool the guard outside into giving you the key, etc.

The players form a model of what their chances are on each action. Whomever has the highest chance at "earning a success" is clearly the *only* one who should act under the standard skill challenge model.

Lacking information about the actual difficulty, that would be the player with a somewhat appropiate skill with the highest modifier, based off prior guesses of when the DM might set punative DCs or easy DCs or the like.

Everyone else should shut up and not act, because you don't get penalized for doing nothing, you get penalized for trying and failing.

In combat, you get penalized for not acting. Generally not acting is as bad as trying and failing, as the bad guys will seek to harm you regardless of you trying to harm them. This is a big difference.

If one character has a +20 thievery, and someone else has a +10 arcana, even though you as the DM set up many ways to bypass that door, unless the thievery check has a punatively high DC, the arcana character should *do nothing* and just sit there. They should skip their turn.

In order to encourage party involvement, the DM is then forced to examine the parties skills and produce DCs that encourage the less-competent to be worthwhile to act, or accept that the less-skill-competent are usually best to doodle on a piece of paper while the more competent solve a skill challenge.

Having more options to progress at any one spot actually makes this problem worse. If there are 7 ways to progress each of which has 1.5 skills on average, that is almost half the skill list. It is almost certain that there is someone else in the party with a higher modifier on *one* of those skills, and you should not act and let that competent person act to solve the problem (assuming there is any challenge to the skill challenge that is). Trying to climb to the window with your +10 athletics is counter-productive is there is an enchanted rune to investigate with +20 arcana. Let the big kids handle it.

Now, a solution is to make all skill challenges trivial -- gimmies. Then even though your chances of beating the skill challenge are reduced by everyone doing things, it doesn't really matter.

On the other hand, if there is *a* solution, then there is a *higher* chance that a given non-skill optimized character would be the best to deal with the problem.

This can all be dealt with by ignoring the skill challenge system, which is the way I suspect you solve the problem: the skill challenge system doesn't actually provide the challenge. It in effect provides a counter for how long you should tell the improv story for, with the chane of failure from the system nearly zero. Even then, if you tend to have positive outcomes from success and complications from failure and the players care about moving towards positive outcomes, the same sort of incentives apply.

[Kurald Galain]

The players form a model of what their chances are on each action. Whomever has the highest chance at "earning a success" is clearly the *only* one who should act under the standard skill challenge model.
This is, of course, why the standard skill challenge model mandates that everybody participates.

Not that that's such a good solution, mind you. Rather than having players sit still, it encourages them to take the highest-rated skill on their character sheet, and make up vague excuses to apply that skill to the task at hand, regardless of how much sense that makes.

[masteraleph]

This is, of course, why the standard skill challenge model mandates that everybody participates.

Not that that's such a good solution, mind you. Rather than having players sit still, it encourages them to take the highest-rated skill on their character sheet, and make up vague excuses to apply that skill to the task at hand, regardless of how much sense that makes.

To be perfectly fair, that can sometimes end up with awesome RP. We're playing through Prince of Undeath right now, and had to take over a Chaos Ship, which was described as sentient. While the rest of us fixed up pieces of the ship or used Arcana for magical effects, our Bard romanced the ship. The DM will, from time to time, ask the player to make additional checks in order to maintain the romance.

[Kurald Galain]

Sometimes, sure. But I've seen players try to do literally everything with religion (because I'm praying for help), or history (because I'm remembering how it was done in the past), or stealth (because I'm doing it silently). This gets old quickly, and bear in mind that many printed adventures directly encourage this behavior.

[Tegu8788]

Don't forget Acrobatics, because I'm doing a backflip while doing it.

[Beoric]

To be perfectly fair, that can sometimes end up with awesome RP.

The key word here is "sometimes". IMO, a model that only does what you want it to sometimes is fatally flawed.

I’ve been following this thread for a while, and trying to deconstruct exactly why, IMO, skill challenges are usually not the right tool for the job.

I think the fundamental problem, when it comes that the way I like to run a game, is that skill challenges are a mechanic that is used to drive the narrative, whereas I prefer to let the narrative drive the choice of mechanic. That is, I prefer to let players choose the approach to the situation, which approach might not be skill based, and let that approach drive my choice of resolution mechanic.

The problem with skill challenges is there is a predetermined list of skills, determination of the number of times you can use a skill, and determination of the number of successes required for success, which is entirely independent of player choices. And you can talk about DM fiat, but I would argue that a system that relies on DM fiat isn't a system.

Because of the way skill challenges are designed, either the designer has to accurately predict player choices (which is a dubious prospect); or the DM has to deny actions that fall outside the parameters of the skill challenge, even if they appear reasonable; or the DM has to vary the parameters of the skill challenge on the fly. In my opinion, any mechanic that requires in every instance one of omniscience, inflexibility, or that the mechanic be ignored, is a fundamentally flawed mechanic.

What makes it worse is that the way skill challenges are presented in published adventures is how people new to the game/edition are introduced to the mechanic, and there is little or no guidance as to when or how DM fiat is to be applied.

A related problem is that skill challenges often abstract encounters that would be more interesting if they were played out. For example, take the common “travel montage” skill challenge. It usually includes one or more Athletics checks, which correspond to an assumption that the characters will be climbing things or swimming across things. I think it is inherently more interesting to place a chasm with a river flowing through it before the characters, and ask the players what they do.

This is what I do in place of skill challenges. I create a situation with a default goal. I figure out the most obvious (to me) solution to achieve that goal. I figure out how many successful skill checks it would normally take to do so using that solution. For every four checks, I award experience equivalent to a single monster of the appropriate level, no matter how the players have chosen to achieve the goal, or how many checks it actually takes.

[Beoric]

Don't forget Acrobatics, because I'm doing a backflip while doing it.

It also occurs in the list of primary skills in published adventures, I suppose to include all of the players. I remember one adventure, I think it was Tariff of Reklingham, which included of Athletics as a primary skill in a social challenge. It was supposed to represent bonding with the hawkish lord by showing the character’s athletic prowess.

Because nothing helps you to be taken seriously in a negotiation like dropping and doing 100 push-ups.

[Kurald Galain]

It also occurs in the list of primary skills in published adventures, I suppose to include all of the players. I remember one adventure, I think it was Tariff of Reklingham, which included of Athletics as a primary skill in a social challenge. It was supposed to represent bonding with the hawkish lord by showing the character’s athletic prowess.

Because nothing helps you to be taken seriously in a negotiation like dropping and doing 100 push-ups.

Yeah, that's a good one.

I've also seen such gems as "I use my Endurance skill to give my teammate a massage to make him pick locks better" and "I use my Nature skill to conjure a fish to distract the enemy". Yeah...

[ThePurple]

This is, of course, why the standard skill challenge model mandates that everybody participates.

Not that that's such a good solution, mind you. Rather than having players sit still, it encourages them to take the highest-rated skill on their character sheet, and make up vague excuses to apply that skill to the task at hand, regardless of how much sense that makes.

Since the "assist another" action is still considered an action, the mandate for all characters to act during a default SC just ends up with intelligent parties to have a single character performing the skill check with the rest of the party using the aid another action, since it increases the chance of success without generating failures. It's pretty much the same as a single character acting though because only one character is making rolls that actually have a substantive impact on anything.


Sometimes, sure. But I've seen players try to do literally everything with religion (because I'm praying for help), or history (because I'm remembering how it was done in the past), or stealth (because I'm doing it silently). This gets old quickly, and bear in mind that many printed adventures directly encourage this behavior.

This is why I never actually come up with a list of skills for the players to use during a skill challenge. I have a single DC for the skill challenge and mark it as either social, physical, or mental. Players, during their turn, describe the narrative action they're taking (as opposed to just spouting out the skill they plan on using), and I, as the GM, then adjudicate which skill they are rolling.

Yes, some of my players look at their skills and then try to describe their actions based upon what their best skill is, but it definitely cuts down on the absurdity of attempting to use Religion for *everything*. With some particularly bad players, I've actually instituted a rule that stating the name of the skill you plan on using when describing your action gives you a penalty to the roll.

In general, I also apply a cumulative +2 increase to the DC when a player repeats the same action they did their previous turn (if they alternate between 2 significantly different actions, the DC doesn't increase) unless it actually makes sense for them to repeat the same action over and over rather than trying something different.

The entire point is to get players thinking about their actions in terms of the narrative rather than the game's mechanics, which is what SCs are supposed to be about. I've found it works *really* well with new players, since they don't need to know what each skill actually comprises, but experienced players tend to stumble when first exposed to it because they're having to unlearn the previously encouraged behavior of "I state skill and then roll it".

[kyoryu]

The entire point is to get players thinking about their actions in terms of the narrative rather than the game's mechanics, which is what SCs are supposed to be about. I've found it works *really* well with new players, since they don't need to know what each skill actually comprises, but experienced players tend to stumble when first exposed to it because they're having to unlearn the previously encouraged behavior of "I state skill and then roll it".

This a thousand times.

[Dimers]

I guess one of the most important things to consider in making a skill challenge is trust. The players have to trust the GM (and maybe also each other) not to ruin their game experience due to a skill check failure.

The player who wants to look badass might be unwilling to risk rolling a weak skill if failure results are usually described as silly, humiliating or moronic. Conversely, a player who pokes hornet nests, an instigator always testing boundaries, might be okay with getting embarassed but hate failures that waste time without changing anything.

The player who wants to be part of a constantly evolving story shouldn't roll a weak skill unless they can trust the GM to not get stuck.

Players who feel competitive with other players will be willing to roll a weak skill only if they trust the other players won't make fun of them for a failure.

The beer-n-pretzels player who's there to spend time with friends won't roll a weak skill when a failure will piss off friends who want to win.

The one who mostly sits on the sidelines, rolling dice when prompted and enjoying other people playing, might try a weak skill if he can trust the DM not to shine the spotlight on him for a failure.

[/armchairpsychology]

[Elroy114]

I hadn't thought of that

[Kurald Galain]

Or, to put it differently, using the skills that are in character most likely to solve the problem is often mathematically not a good strategy. This causes a clash between role-minded players, math-minded players, and players who don't understand the difference.

[RedWarlock]

So, then, is it better to keep the SC mechanic as a hidden DM's tool, and not present the players with the idea of "Let's do a Skill Challenge!" at all? Keep it totally behind the screen.

I'm wondering if it might be a better thing to say, for instance, that when your players are not in combat, and taking actions towards achieving a particular goal, the DM could arrange to track progress via a 'skill challenge' system, like let's say, a worksheet? Every action could be tracked on this sheet, either as direct victories, or as secondary actions that create bonuses for other actions, or as failures that either cancel victories or create penalties for future actions. When the effort is ended (either because of total victory or total failure, abandonment of the effort), experience is awarded based on the sum of uncanceled victories, as relevant for the level of the party.

[Dimers]

So, then, is it better to keep the SC mechanic as a hidden DM's tool, and not present the players with the idea of "Let's do a Skill Challenge!" at all? Keep it totally behind the screen.

I'm wondering if it might be a better thing to say, for instance, that when your players are not in combat, and taking actions towards achieving a particular goal, the DM could arrange to track progress via a 'skill challenge' system, like let's say, a worksheet? Every action could be tracked on this sheet, either as direct victories, or as secondary actions that create bonuses for other actions, or as failures that either cancel victories or create penalties for future actions. When the effort is ended (either because of total victory or total failure, abandonment of the effort), experience is awarded based on the sum of uncanceled victories, as relevant for the level of the party.

Yeah, hidden is best if the DM can pull it off while still getting input from most or all party members. I know a couple GMs who methodically go round-robin when taking care of all noncombat stuff in any game system, so that would be natural to them.

As for your sample system, well, I don't assign XP (just advance levels when it feels right) so it wouldn't be useful for my game. But for groups where XP is a thing, it sounds like you have a good basic concept for how to provide it.

[ThePurple]

So, then, is it better to keep the SC mechanic as a hidden DM's tool, and not present the players with the idea of "Let's do a Skill Challenge!" at all? Keep it totally behind the screen.

Personally, I prefer to let my players know when they're in a Skill Challenge to get them into the proper mindset (especially insofar as getting everyone involved is concerned) and so they can start tackling it tactically, as far as their rolls are concerned, mainly because that's how I design them. I don't like Skill Challenges that are just straight up "take turns to roll a skill until it's over"; my SCs tend to be too complicated to pass under my players' radar (e.g. for a traversing dangerous terrain, each round, at least 1 player needs to succeed on an Endurance or Heal check to prevent random loss of 1 HS and at least 1 player needs to succeed on Nature or Perception in order to have it be a successful round; challenge ends with players finishing the traversal after 4-10 rounds, depending upon difficulty and length of travel), and I've been experimenting with methods to provide players with more tactical options during SCs (e.g. use an encounter/daily to get a bonus to the roll, explosive successes, or rerolls to failed rolls).

I still find it best to require narrative descriptions of actions as opposed to declaration of skill used, but I think that players should be given the option to use other resources when making those rolls that I, as GM, adjudicate based upon their narrative descriptions. The idea is to provide a degree of tactical complexity that at least *approaches* what players get out of combat (since SCs are designed to replace combat, they should try to be as interesting to play through for everyone).

[Kurald Galain]

So, then, is it better to keep the SC mechanic as a hidden DM's tool, and not present the players with the idea of "Let's do a Skill Challenge!" at all? Keep it totally behind the screen.
While this is a good idea in principle, players who know that the SC mechanic exists (e.g. from reading the rulebook, or from earlier adventures) tend to figure it out pretty quickly.

But yes, it is better if the DM asks each player in turn "what does your character do?" instead of "which skill will you use?" Since there are no rules for using powers or items, the DM will have to improvise that (and in a better way than "you cannot do that" or "ok but roll a skill check anyway").

[MwaO]

While this is a good idea in principle, players who know that the SC mechanic exists (e.g. from reading the rulebook, or from earlier adventures) tend to figure it out pretty quickly.

Yeah, this can even get to the point where there are false positives - when I ran my mod at DDXP, I had at least one person at each table say something to the effect of "So...we're in a skill challenge, right?" when there wasn't one at the time.

[iPlayMindflay]

Like has been mentioned before I tend to err more on the side of keeping it hidden. It allows me do longer, and oft interrupted skill challenges (i.e. building favor with a noble group would be very complex but would also be interrupted by other factors, such as adventuring. Success yields better regards and failure yields disregard)

[MwaO]

Like has been mentioned before I tend to err more on the side of keeping it hidden. It allows me do longer, and oft interrupted skill challenges (i.e. building favor with a noble group would be very complex but would also be interrupted by other factors, such as adventuring. Success yields better regards and failure yields disregard)

Something to consider also doing here is a fail-forward option. You don't succeed in building favor with a noble group and in fact, antagonize them, but at the same time, a merchant consortium hears about your disfavor and offers to help. And had you succeeded with the noble group, they very well might have asked you to deal with a troublesome merchant consortium.

One of the things that this does is allow some more advanced planning of potential future encounters - the two groups want some of the same things - both want to disrupt an overactive Thieves' Guild as a possible example. But the merchants want the Thieves Guild to leave their group alone and the nobles want the Thieves Guild to simply be not quite as aggressive. A good punch on the nose might do it for the nobles, but getting the Thieves Guild to simply leave certain merchants alone could be harder...

[ThePurple]

But the merchants want the Thieves Guild to leave their group alone and the nobles want the Thieves Guild to simply be not quite as aggressive. A good punch on the nose might do it for the nobles, but getting the Thieves Guild to simply leave certain merchants alone could be harder...

Maybe it's just the Terry Pratchett fan in me, but I think that the merchants would have an easier time working with the Thieves' Guild than the nobles. The nobles want the Thieves' Guild to make less money whereas the Merchants' Guild wants the Thieves' Guild to make their money *elsewhere*. If the players negotiate a contract with the Thieves' Guild where the merchants agree to pay a given amount of their total income to the Thieves' Guild with any thefts (whether said thief is a member of the guild or not) coming directly out of the pay to the Thieves' Guild, the Thieves' Guild would actually have an impetus to keep the Merchants' Guild safe while still making a reliable amount of money. It would also make membership in the Merchants' Guild more appealing since it provides a degree of protection from theft with a very predictable cost. Also, no one said anything about the nobles being out of bounds; merchants aren't the only rich people around.

In that dynamic, I actually think it would make more sense for the organizations to attempt to use a third party organization, like the Thieves' Guild, against their opponents (e.g. negotiate something to decrease its effect on them and increase its effect on their opponent) than just trying to decrease their effect overall, especially since it's much more appealing to try and get the Thieves' Guild to make their money elsewhere as opposed to trying to convince them (through brute force) to simply accept making *less* money.

[MwaO]

Maybe it's just the Terry Pratchett fan in me, but I think that the merchants would have an easier time working with the Thieves' Guild than the nobles. The nobles want the Thieves' Guild to make less money whereas the Merchants' Guild wants the Thieves' Guild to make their money *elsewhere*. If the players negotiate a contract with the Thieves' Guild where the merchants agree to pay a given amount of their total income to the Thieves' Guild with any thefts (whether said thief is a member of the guild or not) coming directly out of the pay to the Thieves' Guild, the Thieves' Guild would actually have an impetus to keep the Merchants' Guild safe while still making a reliable amount of money. It would also make membership in the Merchants' Guild more appealing since it provides a degree of protection from theft with a very predictable cost. Also, no one said anything about the nobles being out of bounds; merchants aren't the only rich people around.

In that dynamic, I actually think it would make more sense for the organizations to attempt to use a third party organization, like the Thieves' Guild, against their opponents (e.g. negotiate something to decrease its effect on them and increase its effect on their opponent) than just trying to decrease their effect overall, especially since it's much more appealing to try and get the Thieves' Guild to make their money elsewhere as opposed to trying to convince them (through brute force) to simply accept making *less* money.

Right. And why the PCs want to be working for the nobles(who really just want the Thieves to stop bothering their peasants) rather than the merchants(who have their own ulterior motives)

:)

[Beoric]

It is curious. There is a lot of decent discussion in this thread about techniques for running skill challenges, which would be equally applicable if another form of skills-based adjudication was chosen. There is also a certain amount of discussion of how to ameliorate the problems with skill challenges.

But the OP also asked for the benefits of using a skill challenge, and no one is discussing that. Why would you choose a skill challenge over some other type of adjudication, skills-based or otherwise?

[MwaO]

But the OP also asked for the benefits of using a skill challenge, and no one is discussing that. Why would you choose a skill challenge over some other type of adjudication, skills-based or otherwise?

In general because there's a numerical defined challenge - it isn't haphazard or random - and also, ideally it involves thinking about what the particular party can do, which ought to lead to more interesting games.

[ThePurple]

In general because there's a numerical defined challenge - it isn't haphazard or random - and also, ideally it involves thinking about what the particular party can do, which ought to lead to more interesting games.

To elaborate and provide my own take on the question, SCs are "encounters", which are the fundamental design unit that 4e uses, that are oriented towards non-combat skills. Without specific rules for skill challenges, the only thing with guidelines for duration, difficulty, choices, etc. would be combat (you could still do non-combat stuff, but they would just be skill checks without a frame of reference for those things). SCs allow you to create a similar paradigm for non-combat encounters. Without SCs, by RAW, the only way you'd be able to provide experience outside of combat would be quest xp, which doesn't really make sense since most SCs are *part* of the quest rather than the end of it (also, quest xp is *really* poorly defined).

To directly answer the question that MwaO was answering, because there isn't another type of adjudication. SCs are the adjudication mechanism provided by 4e for extended/complex non-combat scenarios. Your question is kind of like asking "How would you add up 2 numbers without using math?".

[Beoric]

To directly answer the question that MwaO was answering, because there isn't another type of adjudication. SCs are the adjudication mechanism provided by 4e for extended/complex non-combat scenarios. Your question is kind of like asking "How would you add up 2 numbers without using math?".

Well, now, if it is the only method of adjudication offered by 4e, that still doesn't mean it is the only method of adjudication. I touched on my own method earlier in the thread, which includes a method for awarding XP. I am also fond of the methods advanced in the Angry GM's series that begins with "5 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Skill System".

MwaO has suggested (to paraphrase) that a benefit of skill challenges is that they provide structure for an encounter. I would suggest that structure is only a benefit if the encounter is one that would benefit from structure, which is not always the case. That is, structure is not, in and of itself, a "good". My personal experience is that the majority of non-combat encounters are better off without that structure, but YMMV.

Would you agree with me that there is a certain amount of subjectivity here?

That is, we have the objective assertion that skill challenges provide structure, which is only relevant if we make the subjective decision that structure is a positive thing for a given encounter.

We have the assertion that it is the only method of adjudication available in 4e according to the rules as written, which is only relevant if we make the subjective decision that we should follow those rules for a given encounter. (And keep in mind that the OP was looking at incorporating this into his homebrew system, so adhering to RAW is not likely to be a serious objective.)

And we have the suggestion that it ought to provoke DMs to consider party abilities, which is only relevant if we make the subjective assessment that a given encounter ought to be tailored to party abilities.

I mention this because I think it is useful for people who are considering whether to use skill challenges, if they are able to separate what skill challenges accomplish from the opinions as to whether accomplishing those things is a good or bad thing.

[ThePurple]

Well, now, if it is the only method of adjudication offered by 4e, that still doesn't mean it is the only method of adjudication.

The default SC system is so monumentally flawed that I would never recommend anyone use it. When I use the term "Skill Challenge" I refer to the general concept that the Skill Challenge system was attempting to address: providing a guideline for the number of skill checks/successes required for a non-combat encounter/problem that has a strong guideline for the amount of XP it would reward.

In other words, a skill challenge is just the non-combat version of combat encounter.


I touched on my own method earlier in the thread, which includes a method for awarding XP.

Your system is, for all intents and purposes, the skill challenge system without the terrible, terrible baggage of the failure system (though it does lack a penalty for failing or ongoing cost to the party for extending it, which makes skill challenges effectively "cost free" since the party doesn't actually lose anything) applied in a more freeform manner (which multiple people over the course of this thread have stated that a single "type" of skill challenge is universally appropriate). For all intents and purposes, you're already using what the skill challenge system has, over the course of time and via lots of homebrew, evolved into (and probably what it would have evolved into if it had been playtested rigorously like it should have been).


I am also fond of the methods advanced in the Angry GM's series that begins with "5 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Skill System".

I hadn't heard of that so I practiced my 1st dan google-fu and checked it out. With the exception of the third rule (which I disagree with him on; some actions should be more complicated than others and require more checks), everything he said there is stuff that I know I've said in this thread (and I'm pretty sure MwaO has as well).


MwaO has suggested (to paraphrase) that a benefit of skill challenges is that they provide structure for an encounter. I would suggest that structure is only a benefit if the encounter is one that would benefit from structure, which is not always the case. That is, structure is not, in and of itself, a "good". My personal experience is that the majority of non-combat encounters are better off without that structure, but YMMV.

Except you've already admitted that you have a structure you use for "skill challenges". You figure out the number of success you expect it to take, assign xp based upon that number, and have your players tackle it.

Structure isn't really a binary element. You don't really have "unstructured" and "structured". The "structured-ness" of a system exists more on a continuum. At the most unstructured, you have diceless roleplaying systems that have no (or as close to it as possible) structure by design. At the most structured, you have systems like what 4e uses for combat, where almost everything you can do in combat is very explicitly spelled out and defined.

Skill challenges, by virtue of the vastly greater number of different types of conflict they're supposed to encompass (combat is a subset of a single type of conflict, violent entity v. entity conflict on a tactical level; all other conflicts fall outside the scope of the 4e combat system), have to be less structured than combat simply because the more structure you create, the less fluid the system becomes, but, without some kind of structure, you end up without a system to govern the resolution of the conflict (the rewards and costs of the resolution of the conflict are also part of the system to govern resolution, which is why combat has specific xp listed for different monsters), at which point you're just using heuristics to find a way to shoehorn it into the well structured system.


Would you agree with me that there is a certain amount of subjectivity here?

Most definitely, but only because the amount of structure that works best for a group depends upon the group. It's for the same reason that some groups prefer the combat rules for 3e, some prefer 5e, some prefer WoD, some prefer nWoD, some prefer GURPs, and we prefer 4e. The value of any system is going to be entirely subjective.


We have the assertion that it is the only method of adjudication available in 4e according to the rules as written, which is only relevant if we make the subjective decision that we should follow those rules for a given encounter. (And keep in mind that the OP was looking at incorporating this into his homebrew system, so adhering to RAW is not likely to be a serious objective.)

First off, I don't think you'll find *anyone* that has played 4e for more than a few games that honestly believes that the rules for SCs *as they are written* are actually a good system of adjudication. Those rules are friggin' terrible.

Secondly, *any* system that adjudicates non-combat conflicts is, for all intents and purposes, a "skill challenge" system. "Skill challenge" as a term is analogous to "combat". The discussion isn't so much centered around whether there should be a skill challenge system (one of the primary reasons that most people still play 4e is because it is an exceptionally well balanced and defined combat system; ideally, non-combat should follow a similar paradigm; if you simply do away with a skill challenge system, you create dissonance where non-combat is poorly defined and vague while combat is well defined and specific), but what needs to happen to make a skill challenge system that actually *works* (since the rules, as they are in the books, are atrocious).


And we have the suggestion that it ought to provoke DMs to consider party abilities, which is only relevant if we make the subjective assessment that a given encounter ought to be tailored to party abilities.

The question of whether the GM should consider party abilities is one of good conflict design and completely and totally irrelevant to the design of the skill challenge system. The point that MwaO was making with that comment (as I read it) was that a skill challenge should be designed so that it's actually able to be tackled by your party. In other words, if your party is comprised entirely of low-to-moderate INT martial and divine characters, you really shouldn't give them a skill challenge focusing on Arcana. This is the exact same reason that you don't throw armies of incredibly fire resistant enemies against parties that specialize in dealing fire damage (e.g. it's not fun to feel impotent when you're playing a game that is, on some level, a power fantasy).


I mention this because I think it is useful for people who are considering whether to use skill challenges, if they are able to separate what skill challenges accomplish from the opinions as to whether accomplishing those things is a good or bad thing.

"What skill challenges accomplish" is pretty simple: it gives you rules for non-combat conflict resolution. Whether that's a good or bad thing is pretty obvious when you look at it through the lens of the rest of 4e: yes, it's a good thing.

The question isn't whether we should be using skill challenges. It's whether we should use the skill challenge system as it is written (pretty much everyone agrees "no") and what should be changed about it in order to make it work.

If you don't want to use a set of rules, you don't have to. If you *do* want a set of rules, it's not a question of whether it's good to have rules or not; it's a question of how good the rules you're using are.

[Kurald Galain]

But the OP also asked for the benefits of using a skill challenge, and no one is discussing that. Why would you choose a skill challenge over some other type of adjudication, skills-based or otherwise?

I think you'll find there isn't any substantial difference between a skill challenge tweaked so that it actually works, and how almost every other RPG treats non-combat encounters.

Basically every tweak proposed to SCs moves it away from the terrible version in the DMG1 and towards what other RPGs do. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does make the label "SC" rather meaningless.

[Beoric]

@ThePurple: Nice response.

My "system" is less a system for adjudication than it is a system for awarding experience. It lacks stated consequences because the consequences are entirely dependent on the party's approach.

Say as once part of a trek through the wilderness the party comes to a chasm with a river. One party member tries to jump across, which to me means a single Athletics check. Another wants to climb down the chasm, swim the river, and climb up the other side. At least three checks, but possibly easier ones. The one who jumps and fails falls into the chasm. The other may or may not fall, or may fall a shorter distance, or may get swept downstream and separated from the party. Or maybe the one who is jumping ties a lifeline to himself, and doesn't fall far at all.

Maybe instead they cut down a tree and try to make an impromptu bridge. It takes a while because they don't have a woodaxe, they really aren't trained for this sort of thing, and they drop the first couple of trees into the chasm when they are trying to bridge the gap. They are trading risk for time. In that case, the consequences are that the journey takes longer, and maybe that the chopping draws the attention of a wandering monster.


I hadn't heard of that so I practiced my 1st dan google-fu and checked it out.

Sorry about that, it was only my 8th post, the system wouldn't let me post links until I hit 10.

Angry does bend a little on the third rule in in later articles. My own feeling is that minimizing the number of checks is a good policy when possible. I'm trying to think about how I approach this, and I think I only use multiple checks where either there are natural stages (like cliff-river-cliff) or where each check represents a choice to take that action instead of something else (as when the challenge occurs within a combat, and the alternative is a combat action).

As for challenges being tailored to the party, I think that at least sometimes it is a good thing to challenge parties with resolving situations that they are not good at; it rewards creative play (of course, the flipside of that is I an flexible on the effects of powers and rituals, and allow fluff to play a part).

And sometimes an obstacle is required by the narrative, or by the cannon established from previous games on my world, and I am not going to alter it. If I designed a chasm to challenge a paragon level party, the heroic level party that follows the same route may just have to go the long way around.

@Kurald: To pick up on what you are saying, I would remove the label "skill challenge" and just use the label "challenge" or even "encounter". I don't care how the party overcomes the obstacle. If they can find a way to do it without using skills, good for them.

[RedWarlock]

I suppose I should interject that, for my goals, I divide the system up into physical challenges and skill challenges, with very little crossover between. Social situations, information searches, extended magical rituals, travel cross-country, management of resources or kingdoms, that kind of stuff.

On the other side of the coin, physical stuff like jumping, climbing, stealth, perception, all get rolled into the 'combat' portion and handled accordingly. I merged the 3e/5e-saves with the skills that get used in combat situations, and add skill-derived powers that interact with the physical checks where needed, but the skill system has separate ranks and rolling from the character's powers and such. Combat powers (like short-range teleports) almost-certainly *cannot* solve a skill challenge, they turn it into a physical challenge, and it's resolved that way instead.

[ThePurple]

My "system" is less a system for adjudication than it is a system for awarding experience. It lacks stated consequences because the consequences are entirely dependent on the party's approach.

The problem that I have with this is that, most of the time, "time" isn't really a resource that matters significantly to the party unless the scenario specifically calls for there to be a time crunch. In general, it doesn't really matter to most games whether it takes 2 or 3 weeks to cross the Great Glass Desert.

On the other hand, stuff like healing surges, powers, consumables, and monetary resources always matter. In my games, performing poorly on a skill challenge has a similar effect on the (player) tangible resources that performing poorly on a combat challenge does, which makes players look at them just as importantly.


In that case, the consequences are that the journey takes longer, and maybe that the chopping draws the attention of a wandering monster.

One of the things that I absolutely despise about the SC rules as written is that "combat" is supposed to be a legitimate result of a "failure". Most 4e players actually enjoy combat, even if it's going to be more costly from a resource perspective than a skill challenge, so, from an enjoyment perspective, you're rewarding them for failure (by giving them a fight) and penalizing them for success (by denying them a fight).

Also, I'm not fond of random encounters mainly because they're either "pointless" fights (if you hand out levels after adventures as opposed to awarding experience) or they provide more experience than intended (if you grant experience on a per encounter basis), both of which screw with the progress of a campaign/adventure. I believe that one of the reasons why 4e actually did away with the "random encounter" tables was that it was designed under a cinematic view of adventuring. Random encounters aren't really "cinematic" since they're completely separate from the story. If you want to have a "random" encounter, you should plan it ahead of time as a GM and find a way to make it relevant to the story (even if it's just "look how dangerous this place is!").

The way that I tend to incorporate "random encounters" in traversal challenges is to use them as an explanation for the loss of HSs in environments that can't really cause much damage/stress themselves. When you're navigating a thick forest, players aren't liable to become dehydrated, get sunstroke, or otherwise be injured by the environment (they might get hurt falling off a cliff or crossing a river, but I tend to view those as specific challenges that might be a subset rather than a continual threat throughout the traversal).

One of the main reasons I do this is because, in my mind, random encounters aren't really supposed to pose a major threat to players, but they're still supposed to represent some sort of stress upon the players. If you throw out a single elite or a pair of standard monsters of the party's level, which *might* cost the group 1-2 HSs, it's not really going to be a very interesting fight because it'll be over quickly, especially if the party is reasonably well optimized and knows how to coordinate a decent alpha-strike. It's easier to just represent those micro-fights as the loss of an HS during the traversal challenge that the players are undertaking.

Basically, I use traversal skill challenges as more like a montage, which might show a tableau or two of the party fighting off a bear or pack of wolves amidst all of the others that involve the players walking, climbing, and fording rivers. The only time I'd break that montage (e.g. have a combat encounter) is if the story is actually served by the break.

It goes along with that general conceit that 4e uses where adventures are designed in a cinematic sense. While other systems might try and make adventures "realistic", 4e tries to make adventures seem more like an interactive movie or book, where everything exists to serve the narrative.


Sorry about that, it was only my 8th post, the system wouldn't let me post links until I hit 10.

It's fine. I've got no problem googling stuff like that. Most people I've seen don't really bother going to the effort of specifically linking articles and whatnot and instead trust to others' ability to parse out the relevant keywords to find the article.


Angry does bend a little on the third rule in in later articles. My own feeling is that minimizing the number of checks is a good policy when possible. I'm trying to think about how I approach this, and I think I only use multiple checks where either there are natural stages (like cliff-river-cliff) or where each check represents a choice to take that action instead of something else (as when the challenge occurs within a combat, and the alternative is a combat action).

My view is that the number of checks required to complete the skill challenge should represent the narrative importance and difficulty of the task being performed. If it's not super important to the narrative, I might have the skill challenge require only 4 successes (e.g. ~2 rounds of checks, which is the rough equivalent of 1-2 standard monsters); if it's as important to the narrative as one of the combats I have planned (e.g. hunting down the beast is as much a challenge as actually taking it down when they find it), I'll have it require 10 (e.g. ~5 rounds of checks, which is the rough equivalent of 5 standard monsters).

(btw, if you can't tell, I've found that 2 successes in a skill challenge is a good approximation of a single standard monster in combat; I could actually using an approximately similar paradigm for combat encounter design as non-combat encounter design, where you have an xp budget and pick specific elements of the challenge with given levels, with each element the equivalent of a single standard monster)


As for challenges being tailored to the party, I think that at least sometimes it is a good thing to challenge parties with resolving situations that they are not good at; it rewards creative play (of course, the flipside of that is I an flexible on the effects of powers and rituals, and allow fluff to play a part).

I think it's less important to "tailor the skill challenge to the party" than it is to "keep the party's capabilities in mind when designing the skill challenge". If you truly tailor the skill challenge to the party, you would choose the options based upon what the players can do. If you keep the party's capabilities in mind, you design it so that *everyone* has a reasonable chance of contributing.

Personally, I think the often required tailoring/minding is less a problem with the SC system itself and more a problem with the players and the character system. On the GM side of things, 4e is designed under the idea that every player should be engaged in every conflict, whether it's a fight, a negotiation, or an attempt to discover the true name of the demon lord you're going to fight next week. On the PC side of things, 4e is designed such that players specialize in specific areas, with some character being physically adept, others being mentally adept, and others being socially adept, with very few characters actually crossing those boundaries. This works in combat because 4e is designed so that every ability score has some applicability in combat (assuming you're playing a class that actually uses that ability score); it doesn't work in skill challenges because very rarely will your physical prowess be useful when you're negotiating for the duke's protection from your enemies.

This creates something of a disconnect, especially when dealing with players from previous editions that make sure that all characters are specialized such that you had one character that could tackle all physical challenges, another that could handle the mental ones, and another that could handle the social ones, since that design ends up with a single good contributor and a majority of people that can't do anything. 4e wants everyone to be able to do *something* in each of those situations but doesn't really encourage or require players to actually be designed that way.

The way that the 4e designers addressed this (which was a terrible way to do it) was to make it so that skill challenges would allow some skills (Religion, Stealth, and History being the most egregious) to be construed to apply to *every* scenario, regardless of how absurd it might be; History would be used when climbing a cliff by "recalling ancient climbing techniques" while Religion would contribute by "praying for a successful climb", neither of which makes a great deal of sense (especially when you consider that said actions were accepted as actions that could be taken *repeatedly*; I might allow each of those a single time, but I really don't see how a group could pray their way up a cliff).

The method in which I address this is to give my players access to more trained skills (I house rule that every class has at least 5 trained skills) while encouraging them to diversify what skills they are trained in (specifically, getting at least one knowledge skill, one social skill, and one physical skill). One of the main reasons I suggest this is because, in my experience, it doesn't really pay off that often for a character to have Bluff, Diplomacy, *and* Intimidate trained because, most of the time, even if you're the face of the party, you only really need 1-2 of those since you can't do all of them simultaneously, only get one action per round, and they all apply to the same category of skill challenges.

Also, random note, in my own games, I don't even use rituals as they are written. I don't have players track what rituals they know or what have you. I simply allow players to describe what non-combat ritual magic they're going to attempt and then have them spend residuum/components depending upon the level of the skill challenge to gain an automatic success (and possibly some other stuff) without making a roll at all. In effect, the Ritual Casting feat/feature allows a player to simply purchase successes (as well as accessing some special non-combat capacities like Raise Dead and Enchant/Disenchant).


If I designed a chasm to challenge a paragon level party, the heroic level party that follows the same route may just have to go the long way around.

That's just remaining consistent, which is always a good thing within the confines of a campaign setting. Personally, I tend to assign "tiers" to different areas in the campaign setting (I run Eberron, so I assign tier based upon the nation/continent; the only way that varies is under special, temporary circumstances or significant world changing events).

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in this thread or not, but one of the first criticisms I heard about 4e was from a friend of mine that railed against the absurdity of the skill challenge system by referencing a party crossing a forest at level 1 with a skill challenge and that same traversal at level 5 also requiring a skill challenge that, for some reason, scaled up to the party's level. My retort was that skill challenges, just like monsters, have a static level. In effect, if the level 1 party traversed it, it was most likely a level 1 forest and it would *still* be a level 1 forest (and required the same DCs for the skill challenge) even when the level 5 group traversed it (honestly, I might just not require any rolls at all, since a -4 "encounter" isn't really an encounter).


@Kurald: To pick up on what you are saying, I would remove the label "skill challenge" and just use the label "challenge" or even "encounter". I don't care how the party overcomes the obstacle. If they can find a way to do it without using skills, good for them.

Well, by that same conceit, "combat" isn't the most appropriate term for a fight because there are ways to use skills to circumvent or end it. The best example is the classic "intimidate optimization" where a character is built around the application of a non-combat skill in a combat setting.

The term "skill challenge" really just means that the primary, intended method of tackling it is by using your skills (as they are referenced by the rules).

[Beoric]

You run Eberron? Get yourself over to the Piazza (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewforum.php?f=16) , we’re pretty active over there. (Ha! Tenth post.)

We are WAY off topic, but I started using wandering monsters again after a long break from them precisely to make time relevant. I have also tinkered with dungeon design and experience awards so that wandering monsters don’t mess up experience gain. I want random encounters to be nothing but a resource drain, so that the choice to take more time or not is a real one. My players generally see them as a nuisance, which is how I like it. Plus the monsters are usually off the roster, so unless the party prevents any from escaping the whole complex tends to be alerted.

I have done away entirely with the skill challenge travel montage, mainly because I don’t find that they challenge the players’ creativity, and are therefore boring. I would rather play the crossing of a chasm than have a player make an abstract athletics check to represent “leading the party safely across rivers, up cliffs and over difficult terrain”.

I don’t mind letting the fighter excel on the physical challenges, the rogue excel at scouting, the wizard excel at arcana and the face excel in the social arena; moving the spotlight around isn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, I don’t punish the party for splitting up, so the rogue can be hitting the streets for information at the same time that the wizard is doing research and the chaladin is buttering up the king.

I also frequently allow ability substitution for skill checks, which smooths the curve. If you want to look intimidating by flexing your muscles, that’s a strength check modified by your Intimidate bonus, not a charisma check.

I also don’t mind pushing the characters out of their comfort zone, and encouraging players to find ways to compensate for the characters weaknesses. “You’re Tharashk, you tell me how you find the people who kidnapped your sister.”

In my game, the key to rituals is sacrifice, and I have a variety of alternatives to just blowing residuum.

As for sliding DCs, there are some things you can expect to get better at with experience, and other things you can’t really expect to get better at unless you expend additional resources on them. Knowledge checks, for example, should have static DCs, because as you gain experience you also gain general knowledge. But breaking down a door should be no easier for a wizard with an 8 strength at 21st level than it is at 1st (except insofar as ability increases play a role). That goes double for diseases: I haven’t found that life experience has made my colds go away any faster.

[ThePurple]

I want random encounters to be nothing but a resource drain, so that the choice to take more time or not is a real one.

The problem I have with is that if you're running a fight just to have it be an annoying resource drain, it's not really a fun fight. You shouldn't have a 30-45 minute deviation from the game's progress just to annoy your players. If you want to drain your party's resources because of their actions out of combat, I would just keep it out of combat. Players should look forward to the things they're doing, not lament them because they're going to be annoying.


I don’t mind letting the fighter excel on the physical challenges, the rogue excel at scouting, the wizard excel at arcana and the face excel in the social arena; moving the spotlight around isn’t a bad thing.

It's not a question of allowing specific areas to excel on given challenges. It's the feeling of impotence that everyone else feels when the challenge is designed so that can't really contribute in a meaningful way because it's designed for the guy who has the obscenely high skill check. The old D&D/heist movie design where everyone has a single thing they do incredibly well and everyone else just keeps out of their way while they're doing it doesn't work in 4e because 4e is designed such that everyone is supposed to partaking in every event.


I also frequently allow ability substitution for skill checks, which smooths the curve. If you want to look intimidating by flexing your muscles, that’s a strength check modified by your Intimidate bonus, not a charisma check.

I try to do that as well, but I get a lot of resistance from experienced 4e players who aren't used to tweaking their skill checks on the fly. The homebrewed version of 4e that I'm doing (that completely overhauls the entire skill system) does exactly this.


In my game, the key to rituals is sacrifice, and I have a variety of alternatives to just blowing residuum.

I've contemplated allowing players to burn powers and/or HSs to fuel rituals, but I'm worried about how those would work with players attempting rituals outside of adventures, when the basic assumption is that they'll always have the time/safety to rest up and recover all of their powers/HSs on a constant basis without the possibility of needing them in the immediate future in order to prevent you from dying.


As for sliding DCs, there are some things you can expect to get better at with experience, and other things you can’t really expect to get better at unless you expend additional resources on them. Knowledge checks, for example, should have static DCs, because as you gain experience you also gain general knowledge. But breaking down a door should be no easier for a wizard with an 8 strength at 21st level than it is at 1st (except insofar as ability increases play a role). That goes double for diseases: I haven’t found that life experience has made my colds go away any faster.

There are 2 things I'd like to bring up.

First off, you are not a PC. This isn't 3.X where PCs and NPCs follow the same rules. In 4e, players have gobloads of HSs while NPCs only have 1 per tier. PCs have to adventure and level up in order to improve their skills whereas NPCs basically have whatever the narrative requires them to have (which means that they improve in the same way people improve in reality: by studying and practicing their ass off without putting themselves in life or death situations).

Secondly, life experience might not make your colds go away any faster, but exposure to more rhinoviruses will actually make you resistant to more strains. Where diseases are concerned, exposure protects you. Adventurers probably wander the world and get exposed to *a lot* more exotic strains of diseases than you do, so it makes sense that they would be more resistant to more mundane diseases.

Also, you can apply your disease logic to gross physical injury. In the military, a GSW that kills a private isn't going to simply annoy a sergeant (who probably has several years of combat experience that the private doesn't and, if he were a PC, would be several levels higher).

As to a higher level wizard being better at knocking down doors than a low level one with the same STR, her gross physical strength might not have improved, but maybe she's better at channeling the ambient magic to exert herself more. It could just as simply be the ability to actually exert herself closer to the physical limits of the body (most people are basically incapable of actually exerting themselves anywhere near the limits of their bodies; one of the primary goals of martial arts training is teaching people to actually get to those limits) which is learned through years of combat.

4e D&D was designed with cinematic sensibilities. An ordinary wooden door is a sensible obstruction for a low level wizard, but an epic tier wizard should be able to look at it and simply ignore it (even without using magic).

[Beoric]

The problem I have with is that if you're running a fight just to have it be an annoying resource drain, it's not really a fun fight. You shouldn't have a 30-45 minute deviation from the game's progress just to annoy your players. If you want to drain your party's resources because of their actions out of combat, I would just keep it out of combat. Players should look forward to the things they're doing, not lament them because they're going to be annoying.

You’re making assumptions about what my random encounters look like. It is not, “1d6 Orcs attack on sight and fight to the death.”

It is more like: the Hobgoblin Commander from room 12 and his adjutant round the corner and notice the party. Commander tries to position himself to escape and cautiously challenges the party. This could be a social challenge where the party tries to bluff the Commander, or maybe win his support against a rival faction, or it could be a chase scene to prevent him from alerting his comrades.

Or, Orc scout approaches. Perception checks on both sides to determine who notices whom. If the party fails, the scout might just sneak off and alert his comrades; or party could end up bluffing or chasing.

Even where combat is the most likely scenario, the encounters are under level and end quickly. Remember, in comparing this to a failure in a skill challenge, the penalty for failing a check if often the loss of a single surge. All team monster has to do is land one hit to accomplish much the same thing. When I say “resource drain”, I’m not talking dailies.

Plus, I don’t see it as an interruption in the game’s progress; I see it as portraying the dungeon as a living place. Monsters move around and do stuff. And the flip side of wandering monsters is, when they are wandering their rooms are unoccupied. There is a chance the monsters will be absent when the party arrives at their room. Maybe the monsters show up when the party is in there, and maybe they don’t.


I've contemplated allowing players to burn powers and/or HSs to fuel rituals, but I'm worried about how those would work with players attempting rituals outside of adventures, when the basic assumption is that they'll always have the time/safety to rest up and recover all of their powers/HSs on a constant basis without the possibility of needing them in the immediate future in order to prevent you from dying.

On the one hand, as I said, the key is sacrifice. Burning powers when it doesn’t cost you anything isn’t a sacrifice and does not necessarily have the required effect.

On the other hand, looking at the roster of rituals, how likely is it to unbalance things if you allow them to be cast without cost outside of an adventure? Assuming that, for instance, creation of magic items plays by different rules and requires actual material components (although XP might also be a worthy sacrifice at any time).

[ThePurple]

It is more like: the Hobgoblin Commander from room 12 and his adjutant round the corner and notice the party.

That's not a random encounter. That's an out-of-order encounter inside a dungeon. You planned on having the players fight that monster at some point; the only difference is that now they're fighting it at some other point.

A random encounter is one that wouldn't happen otherwise, most famously fighting a random monster out in the world while you're traveling from point A to point B. That's also the context in which "random encounter" was being used.


On the one hand, as I said, the key is sacrifice. Burning powers when it doesn’t cost you anything isn’t a sacrifice and does not necessarily have the required effect.

On the other hand, looking at the roster of rituals, how likely is it to unbalance things if you allow them to be cast without cost outside of an adventure?

It depends heavily upon how exactly you implement/use rituals. If you use them as written, out-of-combat cost-free rituals can pretty quickly render a *lot* of stuff irrelevant. Free teleportation, divination, improved interactions, conjuration, abjurations, and a whole slew of other useful effects are possible through rituals, and the only real limitations on their use are time and money. When you're not actively adventuring, the only cost is money, and, if you allow PCs to replace money with HSs (which are basically free when not actively adventuring), you're making those rituals completely free and removing any barrier from their constant use.

My issue isn't so much that it doesn't make sense for players to be able to cast rituals with a recoverable resource (since rituals are just non-combat magic; it's not really different from attack/utility powers). My issue is that rituals have a lot of potential for rendering certain narrative elements irrelevant or unimportant. You can basically learn anything using the proper divination ritual, go anywhere (or, at the very least, render a majority of the journey irrelevant) with the proper application of teleportation, and protect your home base with all kinds of protections, all of which stymie story options and, if you, as the GM, aren't keeping all of the possibilities in mind, a wily player can pretty quickly derail everything.


Assuming that, for instance, creation of magic items plays by different rules and requires actual material components (although XP might also be a worthy sacrifice at any time).

My house rules for raising dead and creating magic items are explicitly different from all other rituals (I also make them a lot different than the way they're written by default; my Raise Dead ritual is a skill challenge that only takes 5 minutes to perform, so it can be done during a short rest, but can only be used on a freshly "dead" creature; resurrection of creatures that have been dead for longer than a few minutes is restricted to quests) so it's not really a problem on my table. I've actually contemplated not even requiring players have the Ritual Caster feat to have access to them and simply require access to Nature, Religion, or Arcana (under the idea that part of learning about magic is the ability to cast the most useful and important rituals for adventuring; I also tend to give anyone trained in Arcana access to arcane cantrips for similar reasons).

I have a few problems with allowing xp sacrifices.

The idea that 3.X generally used for xp sacrifices was that you were paying for the magic with your life energy (previous editions used similar logic and required the permanent loss of CON, which pretty well made it so that players *never* created magic items). That never really made much sense to me because xp isn't life energy; it's knowledge and experience. I can understand sacrificing memories in some kind of arcane dealing with beings with obscure and esoteric motivations, but experience and memories aren't exactly the same thing (experience is general and skill focused whereas a memory is specific); also, if you're able to sacrifice your memories, why wouldn't you choose to sacrifice memories that don't really have any relevance on your life (like your memory of that one time you got food poisoning from the inn near your house). It doesn't really make much sense to me for a wizard to suddenly know less about magic because he decided to actually practice magic.

From a mechanical standpoint, I have a problem with it because it tends to screw around with expected progression. If players start sacrificing xp to solve problems, they're either going to be lower level/advancing slower than they should be for a given adventure/campaign or they're going to be wealthier than they should be for a given level because they basically delayed leveling up in order to avoid spending money.

To me, any magic that requires major abstract sacrifices such knowledge, memories, and the like shouldn't be controlled by the players. It should be part of the narrative decided by the GM (the players would still get to choose whether to pay the cost, but the cost should be determined by the GM).