[CONAN] Meta or Mega Skill Checks

[Supplement Four]

Under the Conan RPG rules, how do you guys handle mega-checks (or, sometimes called meta-checks, but I think that's an incorrect use of the term...somebody correct me).

The rules always default to the Tactical, 6-second combat round scale. What do you do when you're running the game on a larger time scale?



For example (I thought about this with my Swim question thread), let's say you've got a river the PCs need to cross. The river is 315 feet across. If you're not in a combat situation, you don't sit there and make (a minimum of) 21 Swim Checks, do you?

I mean, that sounds idiotic outside of an a combat situation.

Do you just say that the PCs cross the river and forget about Swim checks?

Do you use the Take 10 rule? And, what if, using the Take 10 rule, the result is not enough to exceed the DC required to swim the river? (For example, when Taking 10, a character gets up with a 13 Swim check and the DC to cross the rapids of the river is a DC 15?)





OK, another example. The PCs are moving overland from one village to another, a couple of days travel. On the eve of the second day, they reach the base of a huge 200 foot cliff.

You don't make a butt load of climb checks, right? That's crazy. But, wouldn't you want to make a couple of quickie checks to ensure that there were no complications scaling the cliff?

So, how do you handle these sorts of things in your game?

 

[Spectator]

Good question, I always have been the kinda of GM who said "it takes you three days to get to the village... You arrive at the inn.

As for your example RAR would require the checks.
Laws of averages may tend to indicate that you characters who don't swim like Fish, will drown. Not fun. eh? I think this might be more of a one-off wisdom check: Did they find the right place to ford the river. They failed the WIS check and swim at the most treacherous point? I hope they have some fate points to burn!

Darwin said...

 

[Supplement Four]

Speaking of the Law of Averages, from asking this question over at Enworld, I've come to the conclusion that the Take 10 option has replaced Meta, or Mega, skill checks.

 

[Mach5RR]

I've been thinking this one over, and I do think it requires some modification.
As it stands, with your "take 10" for these checks, either you succeed or you don't. You either swim across the river, or you figure out some other way across. Not very exciting for travel.

If we flip back to rolling for it, then they take damage from their near drowning, or damage from falling from the cliffs. But again, this doesn't really mean anything unless your willing to make them roll to the point of dying (and who wants to be the Barbarian that bested Thoth-Amon, but drowned while swimming across a river?). Again not fun. Normally, any damage taken means nothing unless you follow it up with some other form of encounter (Nearly drowning while swimming the River Nile, you almost make it across until you realize your thrashing has attracted crocodiles) that takes advantage of said damage. Otherwise, rest and travel will quickly replenish whatever damage is lost rendering the whole exercise moot.

But I don't want to just say "three weeks later, you're there!". Getting there should be half the fun. Yes their will be hostile encounters, but environmental should make a play as well. So, we need to boil this down to what resources are being risked in environmental challenges.

In combat, the primary expendable resource a combatant has is hit points, followed by ammunition, and then damage to equipment. A players strategizes to conserve his hit points while expending his foes, in a big glorious mess. Exciting stuff, but not translatable to our problem.

However, Pathfinder introduced chase rules in their GameMastery Guide. In these rules, the GM sets up fixed points in the chase with two obstacles at each point that require some form of skill challenge to pass (say DC15 to Climb a wall or DC20 Spot check to see a shadowy path around it). The participant picks a challenge of his choice, and if he succeeds continues on. Failure halts him for that round. There are more rules to this, but the resource being competed for is distance. A runner is trying to increase the distance until he can escape, and a pursuer is trying to close the distance before escape happens.

So, what are the resources overland travel should threaten? Time. Why should a player swim some dangerous river if he's in no hurry? He'll either walk along until he finds a safe crossing, or manufacture a method (say build a raft) to do so. Tell a player he has a week to get somewhere (say, for a ton of money, because an invading army is passing through, bounty hunters are after them, etc) and you can give them a choice - successful skill checks get you across the river, failure means you didn't and you waste a day figuring some other way across.

Failure can eat into other resources besides time. A failed swim check could mean you had to lose some of your heavier items to continue on - and you just had that chain shirt tailored to fit you, or bags could be waterlogged, ruining what's inside. Failed climb checks could also have the same effect, meaning that backpacks , or bags get torn on rocks as you missed a footing, scattering valuable supplies, or precious loot to the winds.
All of this boils back to costing time. As mentioned, a failed swim check can have you interpreting that as lost supplies, swept away from you in the current. Which now means you have to perform a Survival check to acquire new rations and then prepare it for travel, which again eats up time.

 

[Dwarin]

Mach5rr is right on the money. One thing I have learned from Burning Wheel (bear with me, please) is not to force unnecessary rolls on the players. I wouldn't dream of forcing them to make 20 rolls to cross a 300 foot river. The sheer madness of it all would make the players turn on me beating me to a pulp with the rulebook. Ouch! :lol:

On the other hand, the Take 10 and Take 20 rule applies in non-stressful situations. Since a roll, in my opinion, is only asked for when there's an interesting obstacle and a failed roll means the story takes off in a different direction (not necessarily death), then it should subtly stress the characters in aspects other than hit points. Taking the river crossing example:

A) If the characters need to absolutely cross the river because going around it would cause a greater delay, then by all means roll. This only works if whatever the situation is requires the group to arrive at their destination before something happens or on a specific date. If not, don't bother even mentioning the river. Skip to "three days later, you arrive."

B) If the groups needs to roll, the result need not be death by drowning or loss of hit points. It could be very well be being dragged downriver which causes delay, loosing equipment (rations are specially nice forcing the group to use survival skills), loosing a vital NPC (an escort, for example) which would be nice for a side-adventure in which the group searches for him / her. There are lots of other options depending on the particulars.

Ditto for climbing. You don't have to force numerous rolls on the characters. They try to climb but the don't find any good handholds, they climb but they are spotted by guards, they climb but they scrape themselves (loss of 1 or 2 hps), they drop a piece of equipement (weapons are prone to do this), etc.

Is this bending the rules a bit? Yes, but it creates a more dramatic situation and your players will love you for it.