Planning Skill Endeavors

The humble skill endeavor! This is the primitive form upon which the Council is built, and by god we can do even better than that. It may seem like you’re supposed to grind away at these, rolling EXPLORE 4 times in a row, hoping to get 9 successes. But is everyone in the company good at EXPLORE, or are we watching one person do this? They failed, now what?

“What’s that? Tea! No thank you! A little red wine, I think, for me.”

Do not force players to choke down this plain oatmeal. Instead, present a 9-course chef’s tasting menu. After each roll, clear their palate with a little bit of story. Include the entire party by varying the skills used.

The starter adventure Most Excellent Fireworks gives us some good hints by presenting a list of events to be encountered, but completely flubs it by having the event be randomly chosen, making it an open ended scenario!

To determine whether they find Otho, the Loremaster rolls a Success Die once for every successful EXPLORE Skill roll, adding 1 to the result for each Success icon rolled by the Player-hero. Then, the Loremaster checks the roll result against the following entries.

The events themselves are good. The writer added texture by including some risk of gaining bonuses or losing resources:

• “Add 1 to the next roll.”
• “The guide loses 1 Endurance.”
• “…the long dark … will require a VALOUR roll from everyone … lose 1 Hope on a failure.”

Armed with these ingredients, we have all we need to create the Artisanal Skill Endeavor.

First off, the rules for Skill Endeavors in the Core Rules do not scale well as the Player-heroes increase in power. If you are able, use the rules for “Optional Councils and Skill Endeavours,” on p.118 of Ruins of the Lost Realm.

1. Decide on a success state. This is what the players will achieve.
2. Pick skills that apply to the skill endeavors.
3. Choose a Risk Level, per the sidebar on Core Rules p.133.
4. Decide the failure state.
   • If you absolutely need your players to succeed, then have success come at a cost, by draining Endurance, assigning Fatigue or Shadow.
   • You can also have degrees of success depending on how much Resistance was overcome. For example, imagine the Company is tracking down a group of thieves with Resistance 9:
     • 0-2 successes: the Player-heroes track the thieves to a specific city. They will need to complete an errand for the local Guard Captain before he will assign guards to help.
     • 3-5 successes: the Player-heroes track the thieves to a neighborhood. They may need to engage in a Council with a rival guild in order to convince them to reveal more information.
     • 6-8 successes: the Player-heroes track the thieves to a city block. They need to PERSUADE a nosy neighbor to reveal some clue which points to the final location.
     • 9 successes: the Player-heroes track the thieves to a specfic building. Now they just need to break in.
5. If you know the Resistance ahead of time, you can attach a reward to each level of success. The last success is always the overall success state from step 1. These can be clues, items, or simply bits of story that are unlocked.
6. If you know the Time Limit ahead of time, you can decide on specific tasks or challenges for every increment of time instead of picking two or three skills to cover the whole endeavor. This is a good way to get everyone in the party involved.

Example

Here’s an example from my home game.

• Success State: The Player-heroes are tracking down a talking bear named Shardik, who is known to live somewhere within a certain 20-mile hex.
• Applicable Skills: HUNTING and SCAN are applicable skills for this endeavor. I used these. Alternatively, you can use the skill checks under Challenge per Time Limit, below.
• Failure State: If they fail, they still find Shardik, but it takes days and they gain Fatigue points equal to the remaining Resistance.
• Rewards for Resistance: Since they are trying to find a specific bear, this is a Laborious effort with Resistance 6. As the Company racks up successes, they find clues:
  • They come across a large clawed footprint, as big as a Dwarf’s head.
  • An old oak tree is scarred by claw marks. Nearby, they spot the remains of a plundered beehive.
  • They spot Shardik from above, fishing in a stream. She’s gone by the time they make their way down.
  • They crest a hill, very close to Shardik, but she crawls under some fallen trees and disappears.
  • They get the feeling that they’re being watched.
  • The company locates Shardik.
• Challenge per Time Limit: There is plenty of time, so the time limit is also 6. Here are some challenges. They are in order: start from the top and go down the list.
  • HUNTING to find sign of a bear.
  • ATHLETICS to scale a cliff.
  • SCAN to search for possible hideouts from the top of the cliff.
  • STEALTH to slip past
  • COURTESY to ask a friendly bird for directions.
  • HUNTING to follow tracks back to Shardik’s lair.