Skill Challenges Rules

Group Challenge where you need to get “X” successes before you get 3 failures. There is a DC that is set for what is
needed to get a success (I have it be a set DC that doesn’t change)

Once the challenge starts players go around and describe what they want to do (not specifically asking for a check
directly, be creatively descriptive) the DM asks them for that check

Once the Success or Failure max is reached, the challenge is over and that is the result.

**Make sure you know what happens if the group fails**

Have it set before hand: whether it triggers on each failure OR on a total failure
o Each fail could be a Saving throw for damage, puts them in danger, puts others in danger, etc
o The “total fail” will be more obvious

BASIC RULES:
 Group Reaches X Success before 3 Fails by making skill checks
 Players describe what they do to try and help the situation and the DM asks them for a check
o Success or Failure is added to the total and this keeps going until you reach the Success goal or you get 3
failures
 Players can NOT do repeat skill checks from round to round
o Once a skill is used it can not be used again next round and definitely not in the same round, so think on
your feet!
 You can take your turn to “Aid Ally” which instead helps a specific PLAYER and grants them Advantage on THEIR
next roll if you succeed on your “Aid Ally” roll.
o The DC for these are 10 lower, but they STILL count towards the failures if they fail, and cant repeat
 Optional RULE: “Lair Actions” can be taken at the start or end of a round if appropriate
o Saving throws for danger/ be attacked by something/ spell effects/ anything
 Critical Success and failures are worth 2 in their respective category

#1 Rule: Creativity is KING

Script Excepts: Here is literal excepts from my script for this video if this helps to describe it to players.
 The difficulty you set for this depends on 2 things
 How many successes they need before 3 failures (its always 3 failures) AND the DC you set for
what you need to roll for each “success”
 The easiest skill challenge ive done would be 3 successes before 3 fails with a DC of 12…
 and the most difficult was the city under attack example needing 8 successes before 3 fails with
a DC of 20 (keep in mind they were level 19)
 You tell your players that they have entered a skill challenge now! The first one of these you throw at em, youll
have to explain the rules and maybe even help them along some since there is a lot of creativity needed for
this… but after the first one, they’ll know what to do
 Players go around the table round by round, saying what they do in this situation, similar to combat, but there is
no initiative rolled and each round is unique, and once each player has had a turn that’s the end of a round. Now
this next part is optional… but you can have some sort of “lair action” for lack of a better word happen to the
players at the end of every round… These can be some sort of save they make from an environmental or spell
effect, or get attacked from whatever enemies are around. Then this thing starts all over Now once my players
establish their “turn order” I tend to ask them “what do you do?” in that same order, but it’s a fluid thing and
sometimes the order can change based on the flow of whats happening.
 On a players turn they describe WHAT they do in this challenge to try and get 1 success… but if they don’t roll
high enough to beat the DC, they get 1 failure instead
 This is my favorite part, because this is where the players have to get creative. They need to look at their set of
skills and think to themselves “what is my character good at?? And how could that help me in THIS situation”
 Here is where Im going to tell you a BIG rule to this:
o No Duplicate ability checks from round to round
 That means once someone uses a certain ability check, that is now off the table for next round.
So for this group… spell attacks/ Perception checks/ initiate checks/ and acrobatics checks are
not allowed in round 2… someone else could do it again in round 3… but just not in back to back
rounds.
o This prevents things from getting to repetitive, to where one player could just use their big best ability
over and over… because why wouldn’t they if they could?
o It fosters creativity in all players and gets them to try unique things that only they could do, so they keep
everyone else options open
o Ill give some more tips on this at the end
 The last rule here is what the sorcerer is about to do: “Aid ALLY”
o This is a cool mechanic that promotes teamwork
o Instead of going for a Success, players can instead describe a way that they are HELPing one of their
allies and grant them ADV on their next ability check instead
 Same rule applies for these “no duplicate skill checks” and if they fail it still counts as a fail… BUT
the DC for THIS is 5 lower than whatever the skill challenge DC is, so for our example it would be
10 instead of 15.
 This is a cool strategy option with a lower DC but still a risk of failure. They can really try and set
up a success… but if they do this too much then more rounds would go by leading to more of
those potential lair actions
 Make sure you know what happens if they fail the entire thing, and even what happens on each failure.
o Each fail could mean the person that fails could be in trouble like I didn’t do it on THIS example
o OR in the first example, 1 fail meant the city gates fell, 2 fails was large casualties of the populous AND
key NPC deaths… and 3 fails was Mass casualties across the board and the players most likely retreating.
o but I have done it before where I had each fail be a Saving throw for some kind of damage on the person
who failed OR the entire group.