New Structures for Skill Challanges

Skill challenges are a great addition to Dungeons & Dragons.  They take those non-combat obstacles that players face and turn them into legitimate encounters with clear criteria and consequences for success and failure.  Perhaps more importantly for the players they also provide experience point rewards for overcoming the challenges.

However, I have found that when I'm DMing the structure presented in the DMG for skill challenges doesn't always make a lot of sense for the encounter I'm presenting the players.  Sometimes I present a challenge that requires a single skill check - one success or failure right there and the challenge is over - like climbing over a wall or jumping a chasm.  Other times the skill challenges I present have a clear chain of skill checks that need to be performed in the correct order, and the traditional skill challenge structure doesn't make sense for those challenges.  For example, if the players fail their Perception skill check to notice the scrap of parchment in the top branches of a tree, there's no reason for them to make Athletics checks to climb up there.  Some puzzles and trap skill challenges benefit from this structure as well.

Because of these structural differences in how skill challenges can be played, I came up with two new structures for skill challenges that I run: minion skill challenges and chain skill challenges.


Minion Skill Challenges

Structure

As mentioned above, some skill challenges are a simple yes or no, success of failure on one skill check.  Can the party sneak past the napping guard dog?  Can they bribe the watchman?  Can they swing on the rope across the chasm?  One skill check is all it takes, and if they succeed, they pass the challenge and move on to the next one.  If they fail, there are consequences.  The watchman rejects their bribe and shouts the alarm.  The guard dog wakes up and begins barking.  They lose their grip on the rope and plunge into the chasm.

The minion skill challenge is also useful when playing in a more free-form fashion.  The players may be at court on a diplomatic mission, trying to win over allies to their side.  I may be presenting the players with NPCs that they meet, but I don't have any specific goals in mind for most of them.  But I know that they players are going to find some hook about some NPCs interesting and try to win them over as allies, or stymie their plans if they become enemies.  So I let them make skill checks as they want, treating each as a minion skill challenge: if they succeed they impress the NPC, if they fail they make a bad impression and likely an enemy.  The minion skill challenge structure lets me DM this scene in a nice free-form fashion, awarding XP for success and consequences for failure as I go.

As mentioned in the DMG, every skill check does not qualify as a minion skill challenge.  Only when there are consequences for failure should a skill check be considered a minion skill challenge.

Skill challenge DCs for minion skill challenges should be set by level, using the DCs by level chart in the DMG.

Experience

For each successful minion skill challenge, award experience points for a minion of the level used to set the skill challenge's DC.


Chain Skill Challenges

Structure

Chain skill challenges are designed for situations where skills have to be used in a certain order in order to successfully complete the whole challenge.  Often, these skill challenges might be part of overcoming a trap or a hazard. 

An example of this might be a magically protected, hidden wall safe.  Step one of the skill challenge would be a Perception skill check to determine if any of the party members notices the hidden safe.  If no one makes that check the challenge can't proceed and ends.  If someone notices the safe, they then must overcome the magical ward protecting it.  This might be an arcana check to disable the Glyph of Warding, or a Strength or Thievery check to bypass the Arcane Lock placed on the safe.  If they can open the safe they get experience and whatever valuables are in the safe.  If not they might get blasted, or else are just unable to open the safe.  If they spend a lot of time retrying their Thievery checks, a monster is likely to come to investigate the noise.  Either way the skill challenge fails and there are consequences.

Skill challenge DCs for chain skill challenges should be set by level, using the DCs by level chart in the DMG.

Experience

To award experience points for a chain skill challenge, count up the total number of successful skill checks needed to complete the challenge and compare them to the following chart:

Complexity Successes      XP
     1                4-5           1 monster worth
     2                6-7           2 monsters worth
     3                8-9           3 monsters worth
     4                10-11       4 monsters worth
     5                12-13       5 monsters worth
 
Award XP for successfully completed chain skill challenges by handing out XP for a number of monsters of the skill challenge's level equal to the complexity of the challenge. For example, if a 10th level chain skill challange requires 7 sucessful skill checks to complete, award 1000 XP for the challange upon success.
 
If the chain skill challenge requires less than 4 successes, award experience for a number of minion monsters equal to the number of surceases required.


Other Thoughts on Running Skill Challanges

For more on different ways to handle skill challanges in your game, check out this post at At-Will.