Skill Challenges

^{Mistveil → Rules → Skill Challenges}

Skill challenges are an optional mechanics to allow the party to overcome obstacles in a cinematic manner while making use of their skills and quick thinking. During these cinematic moments, players are encouraged to take up some of the imaginative responsibilities of the GM and feel free to take liberties with the obstacles that are presented in order to justify the skill they would like to use. Anything too outlandish or exploitive can, and should be, shot down by the GM but this is fun opportunity for everyone at the table to flex their storytelling muscles.

Skill challenges begin when the GM presents a situation and announces that the party will attempt to overcome it through a skill challenge. Once everyone is aware that they are in a skill challenge, the following steps are gone through in order.

1. The GM presents the current obstacle the party is trying to overcome, explains the guaranteed skills that the players could use to progress, and tells the party what the base DC of the challenge is.
2. In "passive initiative" order (10 + initiative bonus; ties are decided by the players) each player picks any one of their skills that they have not used yet in the challenge and proposes how they would use that skill to progress.
3. The GM approves or denies the plausibility and, if approved, asks for a roll. If denied the player can suggest a different skill, or possibly skip their turn^*.
4. Based on the result of the roll, the GM describes the outcome and the party accumulates one "success point" or one "failure point".
5. Repeat each above step until the party overcomes the obstacle or accumulates 3 failures.

^*Each player can pass their turn once per Skill Challenge if they are unable to think of anything in the moment and need more time.

Building a Skill Challenge

To create a skill challenge you come up with an obstacles for the party to overcome and how many successes will be needed in order to do so. An easy skill challenge might require 3 successes where a more difficult one might call for 6 or more.

Each skill check has a base DC depending on the difficulty of the challenge. These can be adjusted however you want while building the challenge but the table below gives some guidance on what the base DC might be, based on desired difficulty and average player level of the party.

Next choose a small number of skills, usually 1-3, that will be "guaranteed skills". These are skills that will definitely work to progress and always use the base DC of the challenge. Each of these should also have a small example of how they could be used which is a way to show players how they should be thinking about this and also act as a safety net for players who can't think of anything in the moment and would rather just rely on your examples, assuming they have the skill training to do so.

If a player suggests a skill other than one of the guaranteed skills, and proposes a realistic way for it to be used, the DC of the skill check may be adjusted based on their proposal. If their idea is one that could work but isn't very straight forward then the DC of the skill check will go up but the opposite is also true if they propose a skill use that seems like it would be especially effective, the DC of the skill check may go below the base DC.

How much the DC changes is based on how outlandish or effective their proposal seems but a good rule of thumb is a DC adjustment of 2, 5, or (on rare occasions) 10 based on the likelihood of the proposal.

Success Points and Failure Points

Whenever a player successfully makes a skill check they accumulate one success point for the party and if they fail their skill check they accumulate one failure point instead. What a failure point means exactly is different for each skill challenge. For example it could be a binary pass or fail and having one or two failure points means nothing in the end as long as you were ultimately successful. Alternatively, perhaps getting one or two failure points has no impact on the end result of the challenge but does have immediate consequences such as Hit Point loss or a negative status condition. Or perhaps failure points mean nothing during the challenge itself, but how many you accrued impacts what happens after the challenge is resolved. For example, if the challenge is to escape a prison, maybe each failure point slows you down and results in there being more guards you have to fight through at the prison gates. Regardless of what each individual failure point means though, accumulating 3 means the skill challenge has been lost.

This means that when building a Skill Challenge, you need to prepare what it means to accrue a failure point, what the results of the challenge will be (and if that result is modular based on how many failure points the players have), and what happens if the party fails entirely.

Other Considerations

You may have noticed that a lot of the specifics about skill challenges are left vague. That is because skill challenges are intended to be extremely versatile and able to mold themselves into nearly any scenario. These rules are simply guidelines to follow to fit skill challenges best into your game.

Another thing to note is that although it varies from challenge to challenge, but generally speaking players should "fail forward" instead of hitting a wall when accumulating a failure points. So failing their skill roll should still move them forward just with some kind of consequence, either narrative or mechanical.

Sometimes players will want to use their other abilities to overcome obstacles. This is usually a spellcaster who wants to use a spell they think would work but could be other scenarios such as a gunslinger who wants to shoot down falling rocks before they reach him. It's entirely up to you if these would be allowed or not but if they are allowed, they will still always require a roll to overcome and should usually be combined with a skill where possible. So perhaps the spellcaster needs to make a Spellcraft check in addition to casting their spell or the gunslinger needs to make a Sleight of Hand check while firing.

Other things, such as allowing a player to use a Hero Point to automatically get a success for their turn or accumulating double successes after an incredibly high skill result are also things you might want to use to adjust and personalize your Skill Challenges as you see fit.

Example Skill Challenge

The objective is to catch and fight a bomber who's running through a city. The party must have 4 successes before they accrue 3 failures. Once the Skill Challenge is over and the combat begins, the party will get a bonus action if they had no failures, nothing extra if they had 1 failure, and the bomber will get a bonus action if they had 2 failures. If the party fails entirely, the bomber destroys his main target and gets away for now.

You tell the party that Acrobatics can be used to quickly dodge out of the way of civilians to catch up to the bomber and Athletics could be used to climb up a building quick enough to get an advantage by taking to the rooftops. And you tell them that the base DC is going to be 15 for this skill challenge.

The turn order is determined based on passive initiative and starting with Player 1 they ask if they can use their Diplomacy skill to call out for the crowds to move aside. You agree that's reasonable and in line with the examples you gave so the DC doesn't change. Player 1 gets a 22 Diplomacy check so that's one success for the party. Player 2 still isn't too sure about this system yet and asks to pass bringing it to Player 3's turn.

Player 3 decides to use one of your examples and wants to make an Athletics skill to get up on the rooftops. They roll but unfortunately only get a 12 on their check so fall from where they were climbing and that's one failure point for the party.

Player 4 likes the rooftop idea but his Athletics skill is pretty poor so he asks if he can use Dimension Door to teleport up there. You allow it but call for a Spellcraft check and the DC is going to be 20 for this one as its hard to cast spells during a foot chase after all. Player 4 barely makes it, getting a 20 exactly so he marks off the spell slot and you describe them overshooting their target and nearly falling off the ledge of the roof, but that's still a success; 2 down, 2 to go.

Back to Player 1 who can't use his Diplomacy again but still wants to try and get through this with social skills proposes finding a shortcut through an alleyway that has a guarded gate which he can lie his way through, pretending to be on official business. You allow the attempt but increase the DC to 22 this time as you figure its hard to lie convincingly while you're out of breath and still in a hurry. Player 1 clears the skill check easily still, getting a 29, and gives the party their third success.

Player 2 is ready to participate now and decides they want to try and use Handle Animal to get a nearby man's dog riled up and join the chase, grabbing at the Bomber's pant leg and slowing him down. You agree that's a cool idea and allow it, setting the DC to 25 as there's a lot going on that would make this hard to pull off quickly. The player reminds you though that they have the Speak with Animals spell and ask if they could use that in conjunction with their Handle Animal check. You allow it and decide the final DC will be 20. Player 2 makes they check, getting a 23 total, and that's the party's forth and final success needed.

You narrate the players catching up with the slowed down Bomber and combat begins!