A Town Riot as a Skill Challenge

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm about to turn a town riot into a Skill Challenge. There was a huge gathering and many of the outsiders have fallen victim to a local magical mind altering effect. The party has realized there is some magic going on, but before they can get to the bottom of it people start going crazy.

The entire town seems to be going crazy. Locals have boarded their windows and barred their doors. There are buildings on fire and things are generally sucky. Before we can go about figuring out the source, we must help the local law enforcement get things under wraps.

I'll probably manage just fine on my own, but since this seems like a pretty generic scenario, I was just wondering if any of you have run a scene like this before? If yes, can I steal some of your stuff ^^

[Chad.e.clark]

I've never run that scenario, sounds fun. Some suggestions I have:

1.Horse-drawn carriage(s) stampeding down streets, skill checks to catch up/head off horses as they loop around a curved street. Possible solutions: athletics/acrobatics check to mount horses, animal handling to calm them down. Or attack the connections / wheels of the carriage to either disconnect it from horses or cause it to be too heavy to pull before horses tire out. Could also try to Sleep the horses.

2. Fire starters running about with torches, lighting new fires.
Possible solutions: Control flame/Thaumaturgy cantrips to snuff out torches. Shape Water/ Mold Earth to start putting out existing fires. Disarming attacks /maneuvers vs the torches to drop them. Entangle to restrain the fire starters.

3.Rescue mission: house on fire, civilians in second story. First floor door inaccessible.
Possible solutions: Make persuasion checks to have civilians jump, find something to cusion their fall or make athletics check to catch them.
Or, find something to climb on (maybe horse drawn carriages from scenario 1 above), push under window, climb up, carry civilians down. Feather fall could help if available.

[Abracadangit]

Great scene idea!

One general, overarching theme that I'd like is that an easy out to a lot of rioter-based situations should be an attack roll -- after all, these are townspeople. But instead of HP, rioters have to make a Con save when a player hits them, DC is the value of the player's attack roll. If they succeed, they're incapacitated in a sort of benign way, but if they fail, the player injures or maims them, so when the encounter is over, it's not so easy for them to return to their usual job/daily grind.

The idea is that outright violence is always there as a "simple" option, but with long-lasting consequences. And then it puts the players in a weird, uncomfortable place regarding using said violence -- sure, it might stop the turnip farmer from looting now, but when the turnip farmer returns to his senses, how's he going to get through the whole harvest with a busted leg.

Riots are scary, panicky messes where no one is themselves and mistakes are easily made -- try to put the players in that state of mind, if you can.

[Sorinth]

I haven't run this type of scenario before but I have an idea.

Basically there are 3 aspects to deal with: Arresting the magically insane, dealing with the fires, and dealing with looters who aren't magically effected but just taking advantage of the chaos. The challenge is effectively over once there have been 10 successes in arresting the magically insane have occurred, as this represents the local law enforcement getting things back under enough control that the players can investigate the source.

However the catch is that if the PCs focus too much on arresting and leave the fires and looters alone those aspects will damage the town. So it's important that the players actually care about the town and/or helping the townsfolk so that it's actually a meaningful choice between arresting the magically insane faster and keeping the fire/looters in check.

The basic workflow would be each player describes how they are helping deal with one the aspects. Based on what they describe they make a skill check. Once everyone has taken a turn and resolved their check you describe any damage to the city. Repeat until it's over.

For arresting the magically insane the DC should be static for the type of action. So using Athletics to help the police grapple/arrest people would be say a DC 15 check and stay a DC 15 for the entire challenge. For the fires and looters the DC will vary, so they each have a counter and the DC is 10 + the counter. With one success that aspect is kept in check for the turn, so minimal damage to the town and the counter doesn't change. Every addditional successes beyond the first reduces the counter by 1 (Min 0), but failing to get one success means the situation worsens, the counter increases by 1 and some significant damage happens to the town/townfolk. The fires/looters counter should start at some value.

[Bjarkmundur]

I came to some of the some conclusions while working on it! While usually Skill Challenges are "multiple ways to solve the same problem", I like the idea of presenting the party with various different mini-scenarios to solve.

Like instead of choosing a Skill to use on their turn, they pick a Problem, like suggested before:

- Capturing the magically insane
- Stopping-without-maiming opportunistic looters
- Stop animals that are rampaging through the streets
- Stop a fire
- Save victims from a variety of scenarios.

Definetly going to be a lot of fun, and then I'll transition right into the investigation Skill Challenge, of figuring out the source of the magic :D

[Slipjig]

Have you considered the possibility that your players will be more inclined to join in the riot than stop it? I've played at enough tables (possibly a majority of tables) where at least one player would suggest, "Sweet! Let's take advantage of the chaos to [X]!"

[Chad.e.clark]

Oh, thought of another angle: since the riot is being caused by magic, maybe have a chance that any spells casted might further exacerbate the "riot magic".

Have levels of mania that the NPC's are being affected by. If a PC casts a spell, have them make an Arcana check against an appropriate DC level (or a Religion check if a Wis caster). If the Arcana check fails, any NPC within 30 to 60 ft of the spell range gets bumped up 1 mania level and behaves accordingly. Maybe have Calm Emotions be able to automatically bump down a mania level or two.

I could see that adding another interesting wrinkle to the scenario. Bridge the Caster vs Mundane gap risk/reward balance.

Edit: Another idea: if the riot hasnt started yet, maybe have an NPC Druid that party can interact with the day or so before. The Druid can be brought in for preparation of a rain dance or some such other ritual. If the PC's help him before the riot, they have the opportunity to request his/her help during the riots. If the PC's succeed on a Skill Check, the rain ritual completes and DC's for putting put fires across town significantly lowers.

[Bjarkmundur]

Another idea: if the riot hasnt started yet, maybe have an NPC Druid that party can interact with the day or so before. The Druid can be brought in for preparation of a rain dance or some such other ritual. If the PC's help him before the riot, they have the opportunity to request his/her help during the riots. If the PC's succeed on a Skill Check, the rain ritual completes and DC's for putting put fires across town significantly lowers.

Rain ritual! That's perfect!

I'm also definitely going to take the chance to strengthen the party's relationship with all the local NPCs before the riot, so I can use them for both drama and as tools to help/hinder the players!


I can have each of the challenges revolves around a beloved NPC. The random fire is now the fire of Belinda's house, and whether she'll make it out alive. The looting is now Potionmaster Peppermint Jr. fighting for his life against robbers, and the Magically Insane is now the entire staff of the Dizzy Duckling on the verge of unaliving themselves.

[Bjarkmundur]

Have you considered the possibility that your players will be more inclined to join in the riot than stop it? I've played at enough tables (possibly a majority of tables) where at least one player would suggest, "Sweet! Let's take advantage of the chaos to [X]!"

I'm am deliberetly ignoring the notion 😂