I'm using the Skill Challenge rules here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/skill-challenges/
My party of five (APL 12.8) are on the run from the soldiers occupying the city they're in. They have about 3 miles of the city to cross to get to a predetermined meeting place where a resistance agent will take them underground and they'll be safe. They are being pursued by soldiers who want them dead or captured, so this is a pursuit.
Here's what I do have:
The CR (12)
The skill DCs (easy 27, average 32, challenging 34, difficult 37, very difficult 39)
Here's what I don't have/quite know how to put together:
Primary Skills
How many squares I need
Frequency (how many rounds/minutes in a cycle?)
Obstacles, if any
The Opposition's skill list
*I have a few of the Opposition's skills: Acrobatics, Perception, and Knowledge Local.
So that the soldiers actually have a chance of catching a group of fairly high-level PCs, I've scaled them up so that they're skills are comparable to the players'.
Also of note are my players. We've got:
An Elf Hunter
An Aasimar Sorcerer
A Catfolk Ranger and her black pegasus animal companion
A Dwarf Monk
A Human Cleric
Nobody has Knowledge (Local).
To keep things as simple as I can, I'm not bothering with any special qualities.
There are probably some other things I'm forgetting, but this is what I'm focusing on now. If anyone here is experienced in putting together skill challenges, I'd be grateful for any help in how to streamline this process. My next game isn't for another week, so I'm not in a big rush. I just want my players to have a good time with a new (for our game) mechanic that will net them some pretty sweet XP should they succeed.
The Angry GM has an incredibly well thought-out chase encounter. I can't recommend it enough.
I'll try to post a more detailed response later.
So, an encounter asks a question. It is over when the question is answered.
The question here is "can the party evade capture until they get to the rendezvous?"
Decision points. Once a player feels like their character is out of options, they have no more decision points. Try to avoid situations where a character performs the same action more than three times in a row.
The system: a sliding scale of 1 to 10. 1=capture, 10=escape*
*since the players could also escape simply by avoiding capture for X rounds, we may want to try and force their hand. Give the guards some kind of edge.
Start them off wherever you think appropriate. 3 if they really made a mess of things earlier, 6 if they were super careful and sneaky.
For the sake of example, we'll say the chase begins in a crowded market. The players could try to overturn an apple cart, spook some horses or just loose themselves in the crowd (easy Strength, easy Handle Animal, hard Stealth). Success means their character gets to move forward 1 on the scale. Failure means they just lost time and the guards gain, so they loose time. 2-3 rounds of that.
Then there's a long stretch of largely empty street. Characters can sprint to pull ahead (medium Con check), but they get winded if they fail +1/-1). 2 rounds.
Winding streets and alleys. They could try to lose their pursuers (easy Knowledge or very hard Bluff or Survival). They could take to the lower streets, the higher or the rooftops.
The rooftops are like a shortcut (medium Acrobatics), +1/-1. The lower streets are crowded with seedier sorts that might help stall the guards (hard Bluff or Intimidate), where the high streets are straight and clear (as above). 3 rounds of that before their paths converge again.
The guards automatically advanced 1 per round. If a guard and a PC a have the same score, there's a brief combat; the PC can move forward or push the guard back 1 with a successful combat maneuver. If a PC is knocked unconscious or 3(?) or more guards have the same score as the PC, they're captured.
--something like that?
I was kind of hoping for advice on how many squares should be in a 3-mile chase, and by extension, how many rounds? Essentially, how many skill checks should I stack together before it's over? I feel like I have to balance it between making it long enough to be a challenge and not so long that it drags on forever.
Also, it's happening late at night, and they've just had a pretty tough fight. One of them was Disintegrated down to 6HP. Also the soldiers know a bit about them, so they've got spotlights all over the city in case they try to fly.
A single card transition is supposed to be a double move right, so on average about 60'. In 60' then there may be 2 skill challenges. If the PCs go 3 miles in a straight line with no deviation they're moving 15,840'. This translates to 264 cards; 528 skill checks.
A few questions, about your PCs:
Do any of them possess movement types besides their Base speed, such as a Climb, Fly or Swim speed?
Is there any form of teleportation magic in the group?
Would this party feel comfortable traveling to other dimensions?
Does anyone in the party possess a spell, racial or class ability to either summon or turn into another creature of any kind?
What consumables do the PCs usually carry?
These are all common exploits, along with having racial/class abilities, spells, feats or magic items that grant either enhanced Base movement rates or alternate movement types. Generally, by level 12, PCs find a way to fly, teleport, navigate water, etc. in order to deal with enemies in a variety of environments.
For example you have a Dwarf Monk in the party, I'd suspect level 12. So without knowing anything about the build, I'm going to look at a generic core monk, 12th level, as well as the basic dwarf.
Using Abundant Step, for every 2 Ki Points this monk spends one Move action teleports them 880'. A 12th level monk has 6 Ki points plus their Wis modifier; I'm guessing at least +2 but it might be higher. With 4 Abundant steps this monk could teleport 3,520' from wherever the first patrol spots them.
That might negate some of the Chase scene.
Also one of the PCs has a black Pegasus AC. While I can't find stats for that specific creature a standard Pegasus has 60' Fly speed and can carry 300 lbs as a Light load. I'm guessing the 12th level AC is likely stronger than it's Bestiary counterpart and has a greater than average carrying capacity. Said AC may be capable of holding the Elf Hunter along with the Catfolk Ranger, at least based on carrying capacity. If the monk teleports away and 2 other PCs fly 120' into the air, are the Chase scene patrols ready for these actions?
If yes and you as the GM have already used the fight they're leaving before this Chase begins, then I apologize for wasting your time.
Going ahead with the Chase mechanic, I find that having more than 6 cards for the PCs to navigate may be a bit boring for some players. That being said, such a long chase might be broken into 3 sets of cards, each representing a mile, with say 4 cards/mile.
Valdir the Wanderer wrote: I was kind of hoping for advice on how many squares should be in a 3-mile chase, and by extension, how many rounds? Essentially, how many skill checks should I stack together before it's over? I feel like I have to balance it between making it long enough to be a challenge and not so long that it drags on forever. Don't pick a number of rounds. The encounter lasts as long as it takes to answer the dramatic question. As long as the pace is good and there are plenty of decision points, it won't "drag".
Logistically, a chase isn't just an all-out run. You might hide in an alley for a moment, double back, fein a retreat, stop to create a diversion, etc. Instead of measuring distance and time, measure what matters: story beats, decisions and consequences.
To the Don's point, sometimes a chase isn't a chase. I generated a "chase" scene of a pack horse breaking away from the camp of a group of APL 3 PCs. The horse broke away, heading for a steep cliff it was going to tumble over. Round 1, rather than any of the skill challenges the PCs let go of the animal's reins, all fired Ranged attacks, dropped the horse to negative HP, then ran over and healed it to keep it from dying.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: A single card transition is supposed to be a double move right, so on average about 60'. In 60' then there may be 2 skill challenges. If the PCs go 3 miles in a straight line with no deviation they're moving 15,840'. This translates to 264 cards; 528 skill checks. I did the math and came up with the same number, which seemed like a bit much, so I thought I might pare it down a bit to be more manageable, so it doesn't drag on for two hours.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: A few questions, about your PCs:
Do any of them possess movement types besides their Base speed, such as a Climb, Fly or Swim speed?
None of the PCs do, unless my mom's sorcerer uses the Fly spell.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: Is there any form of teleportation magic in the group? Yes, the sorcerer has Dimension Door, and the dwarf has Abundant Step.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: Would this party feel comfortable traveling to other dimensions? Funny you should ask. They got to the city they're at by plane-hopping. Since no one has Teleport, the cleric cast Plane Shift to go to the Plane of Air, then again to get them to their destination (150 miles from their starting point) since they'd been to it before.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: Does anyone in the party possess a spell, racial or class ability to either summon or turn into another creature of any kind? Well, the Hunter has Aspect of the Beast, and the sorcerer just got Form of the Dragon I as a bonus spell from her bloodline (13 minutes per casting).
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: What consumables do the PCs usually carry? Hard to keep track. If the cleric ever gets time to brew potions, he usually makes healing potions. The sorcerer has a few wands, one of which has a few charges of Invisibility left. She's also got some scrolls, and the rest of the party probably have a few single-use items they've been carrying around forever.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: These are all common exploits, along with having racial/class abilities, spells, feats or magic items that grant either enhanced Base movement rates or alternate movement types. Generally, by level 12, PCs find a way to fly, teleport, navigate water, etc. in order to deal with enemies in a variety of environments.
For example you have a Dwarf Monk in the party, I'd suspect level 12. So without knowing anything about the build, I'm going to look at a generic core monk, 12th level, as well as the basic dwarf.
Using Abundant Step, for every 2 Ki Points this monk spends one Move action teleports them 880'. A 12th level monk has 6 Ki points plus their Wis modifier; I'm guessing at least +2 but it might be higher. With 4 Abundant steps this monk could teleport 3,520' from wherever the first patrol spots them.
That might negate some of the Chase scene.
You would be right.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: Also one of the PCs has a black Pegasus AC. While I can't find stats for that specific creature a standard Pegasus has 60' Fly speed and can carry 300 lbs as a Light load. I'm guessing the 12th level AC is likely stronger than it's Bestiary counterpart and has a greater than average carrying capacity. Said AC may be capable of holding the Elf Hunter along with the Catfolk Ranger, at least based on carrying capacity. If the monk teleports away and 2 other PCs fly... Right again. The ranger also has a habit of casting Ant Haul on the pegasus so he can carry the whole party (they made a rope harness so everyone can hang on).
Also, the black pegasus isn't all that different from the standard, so it has the same movement. The only difference is I gave it a venomous bite attack.
Quixote wrote: Don't pick a number of rounds. The encounter lasts as long as it takes to answer the dramatic question. As long as the pace is good and there are plenty of decision points, it won't "drag".
Logistically, a chase isn't just an all-out run. You might hide in an alley for a moment, double back, fein a retreat, stop to create a diversion, etc. Instead of measuring distance and time, measure what matters: story beats, decisions and consequences.
So with all this in mind, I should just keep track of the distance, and let the PCs get to their goal however they can, while making checks for the Opposition to try to find them at each beat? I think the soldiers will have a fair chance of finding them at any given point, since they occupy the whole city, and the PCs have alerted them to their presence.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: To the Don's point, sometimes a chase isn't a chase. I generated a "chase" scene of a pack horse breaking away from the camp of a group of APL 3 PCs. The horse broke away, heading for a steep cliff it was going to tumble over. Round 1, rather than any of the skill challenges the PCs let go of the animal's reins, all fired Ranged attacks, dropped the horse to negative HP, then ran over and healed it to keep it from dying. That's pretty clever. :)
So the soldiers Valdir the Wanderer wrote: occupy the whole city ? Does this mean they're everywhere at once, kind of like the Agents in The Matrix? Is there a supernatural element to these soldiers I'm not getting?
I'm clarifying because the sorcerer has a wand with a few charges of invisibility on it. That, coupled with a flying Pegasus carrying everyone or the instantaneous disappearance of the monk via Abundant Step would lead me to believe that, even though they might be all over the place, mundane soldiers would be hard pressed to find the party.
If somehow, and I know this is a stretch, but if the sorcerer managed to invisible 4 PCs and the animal companion, then they got 120' into the air, unless the soldiers were airborne or have supernatural abilities/spells/items/etc., they would have virtually no chance of detecting the party.
Invisibility grants a +20 Stealth bonus to a moving creature. Every 10' of distance adds another +1. That would put the PCs at Stealth +32 to being detected in the air, right off the bat.
Looking at Perception, there's no base DC for detecting creatures in flight. There is a base DC 10 for detecting a creature walking, but I'd likely put the starting DC at 0 due to the amount of PCs and the wing-beats and whinnies/grunts of the Pegasus. Also this many creatures occupying a Large sized creature's space would make this a Huge creature, imposing a -8 Size penalty to the party's Stealth.
Even so, that means that the standard Soldier needs to hit a DC 24 to even notice the party pass over their heads 120' up. Based on Invisibility, this gives a soldier the rough chance of detecting what square(s) the party is occupying at the moment. The soldier, if they wanted to take any action against these PCs, would then have to target the square or squares they THINK the characters are in and make an attack into these; if using a Ranged attack they're starting off at 120' away, and the invisibility imposes a 50% miss chance.
And that's all considering the soldier beats the party's Initiative roll in that round. If the PCs happen to win initiative, they are 240' away from the soldier by the time said soldier wants to take any sort of action.
Now the players might not think of any of this. Then again, they might not have time to put invisibility on everyone, throw Ant Haul on the Pegasus, climb into their rope harness and take flight. The fact though that they can Plane Shift, Dimension Door, and turn into Medium sized dragons leads me to believe that these PCs may not fit neatly into the mechanics of a Chase scene full of mundane skill checks.
Think of it this way: let's say that one of the cards in the Chase mentions a Perception check, DC 27, to notice a narrow alleyway to duck down or a DC 34 Climb check to ascend a somehow impossibly greased, sheer stone wall with no handholds, and the monk is facing this card. The monk, using their High Jump 5th level ability and 1 point from their Ki pool, can vertically leap 10' in the air with a DC 40 check. The monk has a +31 just from their Ki point and High Jump ability, regardless of their Acrobatics skill or Dex bonus.
So the monk with 1 Ki point can jump 8' in the air by rolling a 1 on a D20. If they have a 2' reach with their arms, they could conceivably leap skyward and pull themselves up onto a roof 10' up. That one Move action would nullify the entire card they're on in the Chase. Since that's only one move so far in the round, they could use the other one with Abundant Step to teleport hundreds of feet away to another rooftop. Since they're just using Move actions and Stealth checks can be combined with Move actions, the monk could end this turn by ducking behind a smokestack or chimney, using the Cover to justify their Stealth check against any soldiers that might be in the area.
I'm wondering if you might be better served just having a SINGLE, elite soldier or group of soldiers totaling a CR 12, tracking the PCs as they go. Maybe a construct, like an Inevitable, created solely to hunt down extremely dangerous, high-power foes such as this. It doesn't stop or rest, can hide itself so the PCs can't just kill it while it's following them, and the construct has superior Perception and Survival skills with the Tracking ability of a ranger.
Or maybe a team of 4 NPCs, each of which has PC class levels in Investigator, Inquisitor, Ranger and Hunter. They're not a match for the party physically but employ a great number of skills and abilities to follow the party to their clandestine meeting without themselves being detected. Once the party arrives and meets with their spy, just as they receive the info they need there's a knock at the door. Looking outside the building is surrounded by mundane soldiers leveling weapons while the 4 elite trackers are demanding the PCs' surrender...
Here's how I'd do it - Explain to the players that they're in a chase scene and that they need to break LOS from the chasers for 2+ rounds before a certain amount of rounds pass (Thinking 12 is a good number) otherwise they'll be *caught* as the guards get reinforcements and close in on them.
This means it could be over as quick as the 3rd round (good die roles on players / lousy rolls for GM) or lead to a climatic battle on the 12 round.
Questions you need to ask -
1) Is this chase scene going to be a group check or a individual check?
Group checks are a lot more easier to balance around as a GM but doesn't have the tension of individual checks. Individual checks are also more influenced by the randomness of die rolls.
2) Success and failure checks.
I'm a firm believer on giving bonuses and penalties for succeeding or failing, by a lot, on a skill check.
3) What actions can be taken during a scene, ie how much time in this scene the players have?
This can be something as simple as a full round action to get pass a check point or as complicated as a 15 minute run through a maze of sewers under the city.
4) Spell effects on the chase.
There's a number of spells that can completely break a chase. If you have some idea what spells your party already has, you need to have some prep for them to come up with clever ways to completely wreck your chase.
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Valdir the Wanderer wrote: So with all this in mind, I should just keep track of the distance, and let the PCs get to their goal however they can, while making checks for the Opposition to try to find them at each beat? I think the soldiers will have a fair chance of finding them at any given point, since they occupy the whole city, and the PCs have alerted them to their presence. Apologies, what I meant was: don't keep track of *distance*. That's not important.
A few rounds down the main street. Then we cut to the back alleys and corridors for a bit. To the rooftops, then. Or down into the sewers. Through a church, into the catacombs, and out into the graveyard, etc. It's about scenes and pacing (a chase will usually be mostly fast-paced scenes, with a few slower ones to catch your breath).
And if these guards are going to be the match for high level characters, I assume they're potent characters in their own right. A few guild wizards with divinations and dispel magic. Ranger-bounty hunters with longbows and keen eyes. Fighters on griffon-back with lances. Maybe a rogue or two in plain clothes to pose as a sympathizer and lead them into an ambush.
That is a lot to take in, and I really appreciate the thought you've put into this.
I think I'm beginning to see that my players are too powerful for a conventional skill challenge.
Here's some context. The country they're in is falling under control of its old motherland. They (Alvaria) tried to revolutionize and declare independence, and it went well for a number of years. The motherland, Thalcania, never acknowledged Alvaria's independence, and took its time building up a massive fleet of ships, and started invading the cities on the south coast. The city where the PCs currently are is one such city (the first to fall, in fact).
The agent they're trying to meet up with is part of the Alvarian resistance.
In addition to having soldiers who are better equipped than the average Alvarian, the Thalcanians have wizards. And they have photographs of the PCs, so they could scry on them. They've also opened contracts with the Bounty Hunters' Guild, so maybe that's where some elite characters could come in.
You've got the seeds for a great chase that could challenge even high-level characters.
A good way to help create interesting, dynamic encounters is to imagine how a "typical party" might try to overcome the challenge and introduce elements to make that approach difficult. Make them go to Plan B.
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