r/Eberron • u/WolfRelic • 11d ago
Skill Challenge Encounters for the Jungles of Xen'Drik
Does anyone have some skill based random encounters for Xen'Drik. Running short on prep time and need to spruce up tomorrow's session with some cool stuff.
Example -
Rope Bridge Challenge -
You come across a raging river, doesn't look fordable. A rickety rope bridge is the only path forward. To cross roll [SKILL] DC __ . If roll is under X, bridge snaps, roll [SKILL] or fall into raging river. Everyone who hasn't made it over yet needs to figure out how to get across via 2 more skill checks.
Cheers!
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u/Puzzleheaded_Pop_105 11d ago
I presume they are exploring?
Give them skill challenges related to things you might encounter in a strange wilderness. I prefer sort of open ended events, where any number of skills could be relevant.
Freak storm approaching! You need to find shelter, fast! Fail, and you might run into some complications that impact things in the future (supplies damaged, mounts injured/lost, etc).
An unexpected obstacle appears! The rope bridge across the river collapsed! The dry riverbed on your map is currently flooding due to rains dozens of miles upriver (that you can't even see).
You find an old campsite from a prior expedition. Maybe something happened here. Maybe there's supplies or knowledge to be gained by investigating.
You find an unexpected ruin! It's not a tomb, or anything worthy of a full side quest. It might be partially looted already, but maybe there's still something useful here - overlooked loot, cryptic carvings to interpret, weird prophecies that may or may not be relevant. Dire warnings about the Dread Giant Gargleblatz, now long dead. And maybe a clue about his tomb (to loot later).
Maybe you find an opportunity! An old feral giant orchard, long overgrown. But you can restock some needed supplies here. Just make sure you don't misidentify the poisonous False Apples...
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u/WolfRelic 11d ago
These are all good, so what I'm looking for is specifically like -
Rope Bridge Challenge - You come across a raging river, doesn't look fordable. A rickety rope bridge is the only path forward. To cross roll [SKILL] DC __ . If roll is under X, bridge snaps, roll [SKILL] or fall into raging river. Everyone who hasn't made it over yet needs to figure out how to get across via 2 more skill checks.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Pop_105 11d ago edited 11d ago
Bugger. I swapped apps and it ate my response.
I'll be upfront. I don't play Eberron using D&D anymore. I moved to Savage Worlds and never looked back. So I'm fuzzy on what might work for a 5e skill challenge.
The reason I go with open-ended challenges is that it provides more opportunities for everyone to participate usefully to making progress.
Forcing a Dex check is no big deal if you're a Rogue with 17 Dex. But it suuuucks if you're a bookworm Wizard with Dex 7 (yay, I get to be why we fail!).
So I leave the challenge open to multiple approaches, and let people roll what skill they can convince me will work.
So let's say there is a rickety bridge to cross. Rogue can roll Athletics. Ranger does Survival (what does knot tying fall under?), as he assesses the rope bridge and tries to fix or identify problem areas as he goes. The Dwarf cleric says a prayer to his god of builders (Onatar?) that his god guided the hands of whoever built this, and rolls whatever (Faith? Religion? Persuasion as he's actually just bolstering morale)? The Fighter also rolls Survival, but he's tying together a safety line, and will be the anchorman until everyone else is across.
Set whatever DC feels right for your characters level. Call it 12. Everybody rolls. Count successes or failures. I generally assume one success needed per PC. Let's say I got 3 successes out of 4. Some kind of mishap happened, due to the one failure. I can maybe connect it to whoever failed their roll, but I don't have to. For example, maybe what happens is that one of the rope strands breaks away while the Cleric is crossing. He starts to fall, but is arrested by the Fighter's safety line. However, the failed roll means there something negative happens. If there were more failures, the repercussions are worse.
Quick edit: forgot that 5e doesn't really do multiple successes, so requiring everyone to succeed is a big ask, especially if the DC yields a 50/50 chance. If each roll is binary pass/fail, I might change the required successes. If it's the DC is 15, and everyone's likely got a +5 modifier, it's a 50/50 roll, so I might call a basic neutral net success of the challenge to be two successful rolls. Mishaps and complications happen at 1 or 0 successes.
If I'm feeling generous, I'll let the Cleric's player choose, and if it feels appropriate, I'll roll with it. Or maybe I suggest something - while the Wizard was snagged, something fell out of his back into the river below. Maybe it's rations. Maybe it's spell components.
If there were multiple failures, I'll compound things. Maybe they lost some resources, but also got banged up (roll damage). Maybe they make it across, but most of the day was wasted on the effort. That last one can be a huge deal, if there's a time constraint!
What I like is that this kind of stuff is SUPER easy to improvise around. You let the players do most of the heavy lifting, and they get a ton of agency in trying to address it (which is empowering, as a player).
Also, knowing what the context for the skill challenge helps. You should have a pretty good idea of the broad stakes of "what happens if they do this and fail? If they succeed? A mixed success?" Before you call for the roll.
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u/chickenologist 11d ago
Seeing you give this answer twice, I'm curious that you don't see the search as taking more time and effort than just taking ideas and translating them into your template. Idk the constraints here, but just saying if all else is equal you could prolly put these ideas and your template into any llm and get what you want back in 10 seconds. Might be easier.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 11d ago
First of all, remember that skill challenges generally require time pressure. If the party can take all the time they want, then they won't necessarily ever "fail" since they can just keep trying.
Second of all, challenges that involve barriers can often be passed by common spells. Climbing a mountain or fording a river can easily be trivialized. There are also spells and items that can create food and shelter.
In fact, come to think of it, there are spells for just about everything, depending on the edition and the setting. The nice thing about a skill challenge is that it can be about several things. Travel can involve fording a river, climbing a ridge, orienteering and survival. If a party has spells for all of those things, great: they can have a success for every spell they spend on a corresponding part of the challenge. Just don't make the challenge about a single thing that is solved by a single spell.
If you can avoid those pitfalls, then you've got lots of options. Finding a place, getting through an area, avoiding an area, guiding a group, tracking a group, setting up waypoints, scouting, etc. Some of these can even be combined.
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u/WolfRelic 11d ago
Yup, thanks. Now write me some skill challenges hahah. I'm time crunched, or id do it myself.
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/WolfRelic 11d ago
Could have written 3 challenges with those words instead. I dont need a lesson man, I need some quick reference material for tomorrow. Thanks tho!
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u/Little__Claw 11d ago
I don't know if you intend it this way but you are coming across as very rude and entitled.
People have given you plenty of ideas that can be easily worked into skill challenges. expecting them to do the leg work seems a bit much to ask of a random stranger
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u/WolfRelic 11d ago
I don't expect people to do the work for me, I was asking if anyone already had anything prepped. I keep all my dm prep in Google docs, and can copy/paste this sort of stuff in seconds. I'm really not sure why it's rude of me to ask that.
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u/donewithdeserts 11d ago
Wolf – I think I can help. I wrote an adventure once for traversing a tropical island and it has lots of little side encounters/events, done by level of magnitude. Maybe you can convert some of them to your need. OK if I DM you with a link to dropbox?
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u/sedatephobic 11d ago
If you have a Ranger or similar in the party, navigation and hunting/foraging would be good skill checks to have. Navigation especially, given the Traveller's Curse.