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View Full Version : A small report on a recent 4e Game skill challenge



HJFudge
2008-06-07, 11:30 PM
Well I decided that for game day I was going to run a small adventure I cooked up myself for a few friends. I browse the forums alot and had played Keep on the Shadowfell when it came out so I had a bit of an idea what I was doing, and 4e really IS easy to quickly plug in and play.

What I mean by that is I had the idea of what I wanted the adventure to be for awhile now, got the books on friday and took less than an hour to look up appropriate monsters/loot/etc and drop it into the appropriate parts of my adventure.

One thing I wanted to try was the new skill challenge system. So I placed a Ancient Door that was trapped and had to be opened by pushing three blocks on the door in the correct sequence. Though because the workmanship was so old, even if they managed to figure out the correct sequence the door wouldn't open far enough. Thats when the skill challenge would come in. I am not sure I did it right, but it had an interesting enough result I thought I'd post it here.

The first part was to figure out how to open the door. Luckily the rogue we had checked it for traps and rolled high enough to tell not only that it was trapped, but how (when the middle block was pushed, a dart would shoot out covered with a debilitating poison that would do damage and make em lose a healing surge). They used a dungeoneering skill to figure out the correct sequence, thievery to disarm the trap, and began the challenge.

The challenge was this. It was a multi part challenge. The first part was to lift up the door that didn't come up all the way (athletics, 1 pass 2 fail) and hold it up long enough for the rest of the party to get under it. (endurance, 2 pass 2 fail). However, after it shut, the party would need to roll perception to notice a faint whirring sound, which signified a trap going off due to the door being held up too long. To know what it WAS they'd need to roll insight. To disarm it, thievery. Basically meaning they had to pass 3 checks, if they failed any one in the line, boom the trap would go off. In game time, this all would supposedly take place in 10 seconds or so, requiring split second reactions to the trap by the characters. Here is how it worked out.

The paladin managed to lift the door up far enough on the first roll, and the characters began scooting through. He failed his first endurance check though, but the brawny rogue, seeing he was tiring, went to lend a hand (I let him have a +2 bonus to furrther checks, which he passed). Then as he was letting the door close they managed to percieve the sound and the wizard passed his insight check to discern it's nature. However, the rogue FAILED the thievery, and all but the wizard got hit for damage (and lost a healing surge each!) because on guessing the nature of the sound he threw himself away from the rest of the party and out of range of the trap.

The party really enjoyed this whole challenge and puzzle, and I think honestly it was one of the better part of the adventure I threw together. 10 minutes was spent on various attempts at opening the door in a way that didn't involve pressing the trapped square, as the rogue just didn't seem to be able to disarm it. The actual skill challenge itself was about 5 minutes, but the after effect lasted throughout the rest of the game. The paladin and the wizard got into a bit of an argument and it was a very RP promoting experience. The Paladin grunted and groaned and the rogue was very desperate when he tried to disarm the trap.

The skill challenge system I think is one of my favorite parts of 4e.

Just thought I'd share my experience :smallsmile:

RagnaroksChosen
2008-06-08, 12:32 AM
When I first looked through my DMG that was the first thing that my eyes went to. I'm looking forward to putting it in my games, and or converting it to 3.5...