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Kovu Muphasa

I am getting ready to run something and the Team is going to have to sneak up the stronghold of a Somali Warlord through the city he controls. There will be 5-8 team members. The city is not actively looking for them, but the guards may be hostile if encountered.

What I was wanting to do was have them make a series of Infiltration test. If they glitched then there would be an encounter. I was just wondering What would be the Threshold would be?
Draco18s
Anywhere from 1 to 5, depending on the open-ness of the space and the number of eyes looking in that direction.
Aerospider
Should be an opposed test.

For each test the party has to make, roll for the perception of the guards using either Perception + Intuition or, if you prefer, Infiltration + Intuition. Add one die to the dice pool for each guard in the area beyond the first.

Apply modifiers from the perception table (e.g. +3 for actively looking for intrusion, -2 for interfering sights and sounds, etc.) and any others you think applicable, especially those resulting from precautions taken by the runners.

Number of hits scored by guards = threshold for runners.
Aerospider
QUOTE (Kovu Muphasa @ Feb 24 2010, 01:21 AM) *
What I was wanting to do was have them make a series of Infiltration test. If they glitched then there would be an encounter. I was just wondering What would be the Threshold would be?

Just re-read your post and saw the mention of glitching. if they only have an encounter on a glitch, what happens on a simple fail...?

Here's how I'd do it:

Threshold met – area infiltrated
Threshold not met – forseen encounter: roll for surprise but give runners +3 for being alert
Glitch – coincidental encounter: roll for surprise equally
Critical glitch – guard-controlled encounter: roll for surprise but give the guards +6 for ambushing
Crusher Bob
The math for 'skill challenges' is considerably more complicated that it first appears to be. The main problem is how success and failure stack up over time.

For example, on a single test, needing 1 hit, and rolling 8 dice, there's only a 3.9% chance of failure. But it you have a team of 4 (each with a pool of 8 ) needing to pass the same test, the chance that at least one guy will fail is around 14.7%. It doesn't help that the math behind the skill challenge idea can get surprisingly complicated.

The problem with most 'naive' party stealth checks is that they are really 'gunfight generators' the odds of one member of the party failing are almost assured if you ask for many of them, or if some members of the party aren't good at stealth.

In addition a 'skill challenge' like system that only relies on 1 skill is quite boring. Your roll stealth until someone screws the pooch and then it's time to shoot the security guards in the face. In addition there's very little that the players can do to influence things other than say, "I roll stealth again"

So:
1 skill challenge like systems have to allow for multiple individual failures without the whole challenge failing at the first one.
2 The players of the less relevant characters should feel like they are helping the team, rather than screwing it up for everyone. For example, if one guy doesn't have a good stealth score, he'll rack up the majority of the allowed failures. By design, it's better if players fell that they've failed to contribute to getting to the goal, rather than screwed the whole thing up for everyone.
3 There needs to be a way to apply different skills or abilities for the skill challenge, one skill skills challenges are boring.

So, here's a sorta sample of a skill challenge like outline for some sneaking:
The team has to get past some guards, the guards are moderately alert, so any tests against them need 2 hits (we won't roll for the guards, just any reasonable test will require 2 hits to work). Any test that gets 2 or more hits will count as a success. Tests that don't pass the threshold don't screw things up, they just don't contribute. Tests that glitch do something like take away previous successes, or make the guards more alert, raising the threshold required for future tests, or something like that.

Note that things can be narrated by the players or the GM to produce the feeling of more pressure, but the final outcome shouldn't be narrated until the end of the third round of the challenge.

The skill challenge will happen in 3 'rounds' each character can do three things to try to help the team sneak past the guards. (assuming a team of 4) the team needs to rack up 8 (needs more math checking) total successes to sneak past the guards. Now, it is up to the players to come up with what they are doing and what skill they are using to do it; and the GM decides if it's going to fly or not. For example, the hacker may contribute successes by saying that he is going to hack the security systems and rolling logic + hacking, while the pronomancer might help by distracting the guards by posing up a storm across the street, or whatever, and maybe the adept uses athletics to parkour his way through places that no human could possibly pass through, so the guards won't think of looking there.

Remember that the GM decides if whatever the PCs are doing will actually help of not. For example, since this is a sneaking test, he might decide that every PC has to make at least 1 sneaking roll during the challenge.

Then, after the end of the third round, the total number of successful rolls is totaled up. If the party got less than 4, they have failed badly and been surprised by the guards. If they got 4 or more, but less than 8, they have to fight the guards, but get surprise. If they got 8 or more successes, they snuck by with no problems.

The players are engaged because they have to think about how to apply their skills to the situation, and are not limited to just rolling stealth again. Remember also that the GM can change the situation as the skill challenges progresses, to that the way the players can apply their skills changes from round to round.
D2F
Great ideas, Bob!
Kovu Muphasa
Thanks that give me an idiea of what I am going to do. smile.gif
Aerospider
Depending on how abstract you want to make it, you might also consider the use of leadership when determining infiltration results for a group. Have the team decide who's going on point and make them roll for leadership against a threshold of (no. of runners except him). This would represent him attempting to coordinate the team and make sure everyone knows how they should be proceeding.

Success and failure of this test would be up to you, since leadership use isn't very well described in the book, but I'd think of something along the lines of:

Success - the team relies purely on the skill of the guy on point
Failure - the team must infiltrate as individuals (or whatever other rolling mechanism you've decided upon)
Critical glitch - the team relies on the skill of the least competant sneaker in the group

Just an idea.
Kovu Muphasa
Here is what I have come up with. The team will most likely be 5-8 Characters. this is also for my NEST-13 Modern Morror setting so alot of the Matrix and many of the Magical options are not avalible to them.


Sneaking Through The City Skill Challenge
You find yourselves at the edge of the city finding away in you begin to stealthily begin to move. Most people don’t seem to care that you are there, but the guards are on constant look out.
This is a 3 part Challenge, the first represents you getting into the city and heading to the center. The second represents you getting through the “meat” of the city, residences, and businesses. The last one will represent them getting into the center were the government buildings and your target.

The Skill Challenges
Extended Test: Here are some of the suggested skills.
•Infiltration [At least one character must make one], Climb [To get over the walls], Con [To bribe the Guards]
Threshold: # Characters x2
Interval: 1 hour

Options:
The point Character may make a Leadership + Intuition (# of Character)
•Success: The team relies purely on the skill of the guy on point
•Failure: The team must infiltrate as individuals (or whatever other rolling mechanism you've decided upon)
•Critical Glitch: The team relies on the skill of the least competent sneaker in the group

Successes or Failure:
Used at the end of each
•Success: The team reaches the next Challenge [Or their target of this was the 3rd one]
•Failure: The team Spots a patrol of 3 men [Does not end that current challenge]
•Critical Glitch: The team is spotted by a 10 man Patrol. [Must Start Over]

Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Feb 24 2010, 07:50 AM) *
The math for 'skill challenges' is considerably more complicated that it first appears to be. The main problem is how success and failure stack up over time.

For example, on a single test, needing 1 hit, and rolling 8 dice, there's only a 3.9% chance of failure. But it you have a team of 4 (each with a pool of 8 ) needing to pass the same test, the chance that at least one guy will fail is around 14.7%. It doesn't help that the math behind the skill challenge idea can get surprisingly complicated.


This is why my preferred method is a teamwork test. I have the worst infiltration character as the primary and everyone else assists. So Bob has 6 dice in infiltration, his 3 friends have 9 dice each. His 3 friends make team work tests racking up a total of 6 successes, Bob now rolls 12 dice on his infiltration tests. The guards work in a similar fashion, they get a teamwork test to spot the team, or usually it will be pre-rolled so its just a threshold to meet. D&D with its much more random d20 started me on this rule, a group of orcs had a fairly good chance of spotting a fairly talented ninja because out of 10 guys one of them is going to roll a 18+. If I broke the guards roll down to a single attempt to spot for the group with a bonus for teamwokr it showed that it was more difficult to sneak past 10 guys than 1 guy, but it didn't artificially raise the bar too high due to the statistics of rolling a pile of dice.
tete
I'm more than a bit confused by all of this. The point of Skill Challenges in D&D 4e is to let everyone participate and have a good skill in something that may seam unrelated. So like you can use you history skill to help climb a mountain, because you remember something from history about this guy that climbed a certain face of the mountain because it had more handgrips. Its also there so that the partys only good climber isnt the only one climbing. I think thats what your sorta doing, except your predefining what skills work vs which ones do not? Which may be in the D&D 4e vain, I dont know I can count the times I've played D&D 4e on one hand. But regardless I would suggest not doing that. Let the PCs pitch what they want to do and if it seams reasonable by all means say YES! This lets them be more involved rather than having a pre-defined path they must go down. If I missed what your doing, sorry like I said I'm confused so feel free to ignore everything I said.
Kovu Muphasa
I have just got through with a 4e campain. I like the skill challange system. this was sort of what i was going for.
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (tete @ Feb 24 2010, 11:59 PM) *
I'm more than a bit confused by all of this. The point of Skill Challenges in D&D 4e is to let everyone participate and have a good skill in something that may seam unrelated. So like you can use you history skill to help climb a mountain, because you remember something from history about this guy that climbed a certain face of the mountain because it had more handgrips. Its also there so that the partys only good climber isnt the only one climbing. I think thats what your sorta doing, except your predefining what skills work vs which ones do not? Which may be in the D&D 4e vain, I dont know I can count the times I've played D&D 4e on one hand. But regardless I would suggest not doing that. Let the PCs pitch what they want to do and if it seams reasonable by all means say YES! This lets them be more involved rather than having a pre-defined path they must go down. If I missed what your doing, sorry like I said I'm confused so feel free to ignore everything I said.



I didn't play 4e D&D long enough for me to comment on it, for me it was a pile of suck wrapped in a suck leaf instead of tasty bread or a tortilla. I may have misread him but I think what you are describing fits what Crusher was suggesting. Me I'm okay with skill challenges to a point, but if you have to sneak past the guard, you have to sneak past the guard. I don't want gymnastics substituting for infiltration in most cases just because you roll more gymnastics dice. It devalues spending your hard earned karma in a broader range of skills if you can gimmick situations to let your narrow range of skills get you by. Using your 1st example I'd be irritated in my climbing skill if some guy remembered something form history so he can scale the mountain just as well as me. Sure if its a one time thing the DM had integrated int the adventure its fine, but if you always just go I have 4 more dice in X I'll make up a semi-plausible excuse for why it works and the GM will roll with it, why have more than a couple skills.

Personally though I might make 3 tests in what I'd call a skill challenge. One is Gymnastic,s and there isn't really away around it, you really go have to make that stylin jump(I might allow levitate but I doubt it or something else, but don't tell me you avoided having to to the acrobatic moves past the laser grid because you palmed the laser sensors, the next thing is infiltration hey look you really need to sneak past those guys, the 3rd test might be hacking. Out of those 3 tests the 1st 2 I'd do as a teamwork test, the 3rd most likely would not be unless there were multiple deckers on the team.

So basically I'd have 3 tests each requiring a specific skill or a logical substitute(this better be good), most of the tests would be teamwork tests to avoid the eventually fail through enough dice rolling problem and maybe 1 or 2 of the tests would be solo tests giving someone a chance to shine.
Crusher Bob
It's not that you have to sneak past the guard, it's that you have to get past the guard. There's ways of getting past the guard that don't involve sneaking, per se. For example, bribing the guard. And there are also things you could do to make sneaking past the guard much easier, like hacking the security system, or something.

So in a sort of fully simulationist run of the getting past the guard encounter, hacking the security system (which the guard relies on) might greatly reduce his perception pool to notice you, meaning that your actual 'sneak past the guard' test is trivially easy. In the skill challenge version, they just dump the trivially easy second test once you've hacked the security system.

So, the skill challenge idea is to avoid a drawn out 'fully simulationist' run through of a scene that's not important enough to actually warrant one, but that the GM still wants to be interesting. The skill challenge gives rules structure and guidance to both the GM and the players in how to do that.

So, in the example challenge of moving through the city, there are many different things you can do that might help you move through the city quickly and easily. And being able to sneak around really well is just one of them.

So, for example, the hacker wants to try to use data search to pull up the utility tunnel maps of the city, before the place went to hell. The party might be able to use them to move around parts of the city without being seen. But without the mechanics of the skill challenge, how much does this help, exactly? Does the GM be sorta dickish to the hacker when he tries to do that, and say that it won't help at all? Does the GM say, "What a coincidence! the tunnels lead you right to your objective with no one the wiser!" Do the tunnels allow the team to avoid 1 guard checkpoint, two? And when the pornomancer bribes some of the locals, how much does that help them get through the city without incident? When the sneaky guys scouts ahead for possible problems, how does that help, exactly? And, for example, if the hacker glitches his data search roll, how much does that hurt?

In the skill challenge structure, you know more or less how much this helps.


So, for example, the hacker goes first in the skill challenge and glitches the data search roll.

"GM, you find some tunnels, and the team is moving down them, when you encounter a group of heavily armed bandits who are also using the tunnels"

(Team is now at -1 Success out of the 8 they need to pass the challenge)

The sam goes next, rolling hit intimidate and succeeding

"We are not the heavily armed, death dealing post-humans you are looking for," says the Sam.

"Right!" say the bandits "We were totally lying in wait for someone else. Let us just get out of your way, heavily armed, death-dealing post-humans!"

So the team now has 0/8 successes needed.

And then it's the pronomancer's turn, rolling leadership

"Wouldn't you, in the spirit of charity and goodwill, like to help your fellow travelers along their way?"

Bandits, "Yes sir! right away Sir!"

Party is now at 1/8 successes needed.

------------

So the 'story' of the skill challenge develops naturally, goes quickly, involves everyone, etc. You can have the whole thing done in maybe 20 minutes and everyone will be happy.

[edits]
And, for example, if the party doesn't get enough successes to easily move through the city (the 4-7 category) they run into some guards, who they have to fight. But the advantage they have for a partial success in the skill challenge is that they now have a group of bandits on their side vs the guards. Or if they totally screw up the skill challenge, maybe the bandits lead them into a trap.

But the GM didn't really have anything like this planned out when the skill challenge stared, he just knew that the team had to move through the city, can could face complications.
tete
Thanks Bob! That was a good explination. I always liked the idea behind skill challenges but the few I have read and been a part of always felt forced or hurried (by hurried I mean it was there so we could get something out of the way and get on with combat) . I think this has been more a problem with the GMing/Writing than the actual idea. I'm way more into the getting across the city part of the game than the combat part of the game. If combat goes more than a few rounds I'm bored smile.gif
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Feb 25 2010, 02:19 AM) *
It's not that you have to sneak past the guard, it's that you have to get past the guard. There's ways of getting past the guard that don't involve sneaking, per se. For example, bribing the guard. And there are also things you could do to make sneaking past the guard much easier, like hacking the security system, or something.


I don't deny that, but there are plenty of situations where the appropriate skill to get past the "encounter" is really the only skill to get past. If you have to get to the top of the tower and there is not ladder or stairs, and you don't have access to a flying vehicle outside of levitate you really do have to climb it.

I find the problem with skill challenges is that far too often people let things that really shouldn't work succeed just so everyone gets to contribute. I don't like that style of game. If you have a plan that actually works and bypasses the need or reduces the need for infiltration, awesome. But don't expect me to weave in how your knowledge of the combat biker schedule helps just because you want it to, if I designed the guards taking that into account in advance hey great you thought about a skill I put into my adventure and it will work. I am not going to suddenly rewrite things and make the guards fanatical combat biker devotees and have them distracted because of the big game tonight, just because you rolled 4 successes on the combat biker schedule knowledge test. Skill challenges also lead to weird results where you get the total 8 or whatever needed successes but none of the parts added together really make sense for why you defeated the challenge.
Kovu Muphasa
QUOTE (Shinobi Killfist @ Feb 25 2010, 01:45 PM) *
I don't deny that, but there are plenty of situations where the appropriate skill to get past the "encounter" is really the only skill to get past. If you have to get to the top of the tower and there is not ladder or stairs, and you don't have access to a flying vehicle outside of levitate you really do have to climb it.

I find the problem with skill challenges is that far too often people let things that really shouldn't work succeed just so everyone gets to contribute. I don't like that style of game. If you have a plan that actually works and bypasses the need or reduces the need for infiltration, awesome. But don't expect me to weave in how your knowledge of the combat biker schedule helps just because you want it to, if I designed the guards taking that into account in advance hey great you thought about a skill I put into my adventure and it will work. I am not going to suddenly rewrite things and make the guards fanatical combat biker devotees and have them distracted because of the big game tonight, just because you rolled 4 successes on the combat biker schedule knowledge test. Skill challenges also lead to weird results where you get the total 8 or whatever needed successes but none of the parts added together really make sense for why you defeated the challenge.

I do agre with most of this, but I am the type that would give the chance that the guard was combat biker fan if the player asked about it. I would make first roll a Edge Test: Threshold 2-3 first, then the Knowledge: Combat Bike Sceduals instead of bluff. The reason would be that the skill is hardly used and this would make the player feel good that he got to the skill weather it worked or not.
tete
QUOTE (Shinobi Killfist @ Feb 25 2010, 05:45 PM) *
I don't deny that, but there are plenty of situations where the appropriate skill to get past the "encounter" is really the only skill to get past. If you have to get to the top of the tower and there is not ladder or stairs, and you don't have access to a flying vehicle outside of levitate you really do have to climb it.

I find the problem with skill challenges is that far too often people let things that really shouldn't work succeed just so everyone gets to contribute. I don't like that style of game. If you have a plan that actually works and bypasses the need or reduces the need for infiltration, awesome. But don't expect me to weave in how your knowledge of the combat biker schedule helps just because you want it to, if I designed the guards taking that into account in advance hey great you thought about a skill I put into my adventure and it will work. I am not going to suddenly rewrite things and make the guards fanatical combat biker devotees and have them distracted because of the big game tonight, just because you rolled 4 successes on the combat biker schedule knowledge test. Skill challenges also lead to weird results where you get the total 8 or whatever needed successes but none of the parts added together really make sense for why you defeated the challenge.


I think that part of the design still needs work. Though in the examples I have read they sometimes flat out say what skills are not useful at all or in some cases actually make the situation worse if you try. My experience (though limited) has been the idea is ok but the reality is it needs work.
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (tete @ Feb 25 2010, 05:02 PM) *
I think that part of the design still needs work. Though in the examples I have read they sometimes flat out say what skills are not useful at all or in some cases actually make the situation worse if you try. My experience (though limited) has been the idea is ok but the reality is it needs work.


I got the first couple published 4e adventures and we got through most of the 2nd one before we quit out of boredom and I don't remember any skill challenges in them though I suspect there was at least 1 in each. I am sure there is a mention somewhere about it having to make some sense. The general impression I got from the all powerful forums of various D&D boards was GMs really were willing to stretch what made sense because they could come up with something that somewhat sort of tied together.

In 4E D&D I feel more sympathy for the skill challenge, just because you picked fighter you shouldn't be gimped out of all non-combat encounters, its not like you are better in a fight in 4e. In SR, I'm like tough you should have picked up some useful skills beyond pistols and dodge.
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