How to Run Skill Challenges in D&D 5e

Comments · 294

• TH

  @theDMLair · 4 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Get our 5e Skill Challenge system here: <a href="https://thedmlair.com/products/wish-waste-lair-magazine-18-june-2022-issue">https://thedmlair.com/products/wish-waste-lair-magazine-18-june-2022-issue</a><br>𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗠 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗘 - Get 5e and PF2e adventures, Foundry VTT packs for 5e and PF2e, map packs, and other DM resources! <a href="https://thedmlair.com/">https://thedmlair.com/</a>

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• BR

  @brilliantcut2488 · 4 years ago

  For all the hate for 4th Ed, they did have some really good game mechanics. Minions, 5-minute rests, healing surges and skill challenges were all mechanics I&apos;ve adapted for both 5e and PF1e &nbsp;with varying degrees of success, and they&apos;ve made some otherwise dull non-combat bits much more interesting.

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• MJ

  @MJ-jd7rs · 4 years ago

  I run things like this, but call them QTEs (quick time events). <br><br>For example: The party is transversing through an underground dungeon, the shadows creeping along the walls as the torches do their best to lick the darkness away from the party. You&apos;re moving slowly, constantly on guard for the next ambush, when, out of nowhere, a rumbling start shacking the floor as an earthquake threatens to knock you on your but and cause a cave in. Players, welcome to a QTE, you can do anything you wish to try and avoid the falling rocks and make it to the exit. What do you try to do?<br><br>The Monk: I book it at full speed spending a ki point for step of the wind to the exit. <br>DM: Interesting, due to your fast movement, I will set the DC to 12, roll me acrobatics, but at disadvantage due to the shaking earth. <br><br>The monk: 14.<br><br>DM: Congratulations, you dodge and weave while maintaining your balance, you will not be part of the final roll. <br><br>The wizard: Can I cast shield over my head to deflect the worst of it?<br>DM: Not a normal use of the spell, but for this I will allow an arcana check to see if you can modify the spell to work against this, go ahead and expend the slot, but the DC will be an 18. <br><br>The wizard: 16<br><br>DM: Sorry, you do not succeed, you will be part of the final roll. <br><br>The barbarian: I toss myself over the sorcerer and use my strength and bulk to protect her from the rocks. <br>DM: You do so, The sorcerer avoids any rocks, but you auto fail the final roll. <br>The barbarian: no regrets. <br><br>DM: Wizard, make a DC 15 dex save. Barbarian, you auto fail. Failures take 8d6 bludgeoning damage, are knocked prone, and restrained by the rocks. If you succeed you take half damage and are not prone and restrained. <br><br><br>The system can be used for just about anything, takes little time to set up, and is over quickly, returning the game back to the control of the players.

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• GO

  @goliathcleric · 4 years ago

  Skill challenges are a great (albeit situational) alternative to advantage when characters are trying to work together. Obviously, things like making a perception check to see if a door is trapped don&apos;t need a skill challenge, that should just be done with advantage when characters work together. But consider:<br><br>The characters are trying to talk their way past a heavily guarded door. They&apos;ve each made their case, whether truthful or otherwise, and done everything they individually can to avoid fighting. Instead of having 1 character roll a charisma based check with advantage, have them roll through a skill challenge. Of course, this would be best done as the conversation is going on, but it doesn&apos;t have to be. The characters have to work together and use a combination of their talents to work together to succeed in their goal; one is watching the guards for their reactions, rolling perception; one tells a clever lie, rolling deception; another gives a wonderful and engrossing sob story, rolling performance; perhaps the cleric is watching to see if the guards start lying back to them, rolling insight; finally, someone puts it all together into a pretty bow for the guards, rolling persuasion.<br><br>Now, this mundane social interaction that could have been resolved by a single character rolling requires the input and cooperation of all the characters working together, potentially creating a more engrossing and rewarding experience. Plus, using a failure schedule would avoid the situation of a 15 minute dialogue resulting in nothing more than a &quot;no&quot; because they failed the one check.

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• MR

  @MrDuckAlmighty · 4 years ago

  new to DMing. I used a skill challenge and it was the best idea for the situation and worked really well. My players decided to kill the power in the city. An underground steam generator with fire giants. instead of going for the planned fight, they managed to sneak round them all and break the machinery. the water pipes began to leak and rumble and turned into super heated steam. it was time to leave. they ran away, i did it via skill checks. They got 3 failures resulting in thesteam catching them as they reached the final door. (paused for affect) they took moderate damage from the steam as it blew the final doors open and ejected the party into the middle of the town. the party used the massive steam cloud to escape the scene. but for the mission being a stealth mission, there will be consequences. &nbsp; much better than a tpk and much better than the encouter that was planned anyway :)

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• ZE

  @Zertryx · 4 years ago

  something not mentioned here that is in the 4E rules is a player can also make a &quot;Help&quot; attempt using a skill (in 4e this would allow a player to make a skill check but it wouldn&apos;t count as a success or fail, but if they passed they gave a +2 to the next player making a check). In 5E I usually allow this to give the next player advantage, if you wanna make it a little bit more exciting but harder you can make it so a help attempt if it fails instead of no bonus make it give disadvantage instead (or have the player lose some kinda resource usually HP, they tripped over a vine attempting to help and suffer d6 piercing damage or something)

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• DA

  @davidanddragons5339 · 4 years ago

  I&apos;ve only ran one skill challenge once and it went ok. The players were escaping a collapsing dungeon. I didn&apos;t use initiative and just let them kind of call out what they wanted to do. I think next time initiative will be perfect

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• AA

  @aargvark · 4 years ago

  This is a great idea and I can see nearly all campaigns being able to utilize this in some fashion. &nbsp;One suggestion... It would be helpful and fun to see topics like this run in an actual game play setting. &nbsp;Even a small scenario to keep time down, but sill give the opportunity to see players and the DM interact would be great.<br><br>As a beginner DM, I&apos;ve got an amazing and forgiving group I&apos;m leading but seeing topics like this put in to action would help immensely!

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• AU

  @austibon · 4 years ago

  I&apos;d like to mention that despite it being called a &quot;Skill Challenge&quot;, I have had players use spells in place to make up for something. an example would be that rocks were falling onto the players ship after getting to close to an overhanging cliff, the pilot made a &quot;piloting&quot; check, another took her hammer and flew up to start smashing large rocks, and the cleric/wizard both used control water to blast rocks out of the sky. It was great fun!

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• MY

  @MykeDiemart · 4 years ago

  Devils Advocate: instead of one roll make a lot of rolls. :p <br>I do like the idea that everyone can contribute, and that they cannot use the same skill. Makes them think. <br>kinda reminds my of the ICRPG effort system. &nbsp;<br>Overall I like your idea. <br>My pro tip: never gate the &quot;game&quot; behind a roll.

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  @1003JustinLaw · 4 years ago (edited)

  I kind of specialize in running games for larger (6-8 players) groups, so personally I’d bump up the number of failed checks needed for complete failure to 4 or 5, depending on the size of the party (I think a number that’s around 70-80% of the party size would be appropriate). And yes, I’d increase the amount of successful checks needed as well, to ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute and the challenge isn’t over in just one round (as for actual number, I’d say 150-200% of the party size for easy, 200-250% of party size for medium, 250-300% of party size for hard, and 300-400% of party size for near-impossible). Also quite a few of my players LOVE collecting companions and pets, so instead of having companions and pets also make the checks I would personally make it that only PCs make skill checks and, on complete failures, some companions/pets are lost in the ensuring chaos, giving the players a reason to want to take vengeance if it was something like the gnolls situation, and getting them more invested in the game.

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• TH

  @thehunter907 · 4 years ago (edited)

  1. I love bacon<br>2. I would probably use skill challenges for high suspense moments in my games and I might edit or steal some of it to use in mystery adventures, when trying to find clues.<br>Edit: Luke doesn&apos;t suck

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