How to: SKILL CHALLENGE in D&D 5e 

Here is the Text Document, I forgot to link it in the description (pulling an all nighter to post 3 videos in one day will get ya! lol) I also put it in the description! I got you! Thank you to Leland Wilson for pointing it out to me! You rock! drive.google.com/open?id=1REK-E16QNHp9Ccs7hIptHOuFc_b1Ot2G

I would have had the paladin make an animal handling check to charge back and pull them out on horseback.

Ooh this is spicy. 4E had soooooo many rad ideas. For nat 1's, I found sound players sometimes felt guilty for two failures even though it's just luck. So what I do instead is one failure, but someone in the party has to add +5 to their DC to compensate before the round ends. If no one takes then +5, THEN the second failure is counted. Adds a small element of choice and responsibility that way

That story of the avalanche was AMAZING

Finally tried this in my group. It was super fun. Thanks DC, for introducing me to a totally new way to play D&D! My players decided to call it a “Montage” instead of a skill challenge. Priceless! We’re a big group, 9 PC’s (5th level), so each round of play takes forever. We were on the fourth session in a row of them slogging through a goblin-infested mine. Last week it took 3 hrs of gameplay just for the party to retreat and regroup for a short rest! And they had finally figured out the location of the goblin king... So it was the perfect time to introduce the Skill Challenge to our table! I ran it like this: DC 15; 10 successes needed; no limit on fails. Each success gets the party 10% closer to the king’s chambers and “kills” 4 goblins. Each failure causes 4 attack rolls against random PC’s. After 1 1/2 rounds (10 S, 3 F) and about 30 min of energetic table time, the Montage was over and the party was ready for the Boss Battle, having used up some hp, two spell slots, a breath weapon, and some ki. I won’t list all the creative ideas, or the checks I called for. Suffice to say it played out like a movie montage of the party busting through barricades, navigating the tunnels, and pushing through the defenders. This mechanic is a keeper!

I just did a skill challenge for my group. They had to find a specific location in the feywild. I told them they had four tasks: one routine (DC 10), one challenging (DC 14) one difficult (DC 16), and one very difficult (DC 18). I did not tell them the DCs. I asked them to pick one skill check and describe how that check would affect the outcome. If they got zero successes, their enemy would have a major advantage in the upcoming combat. If they got one success, their enemies would get a small advantage. Two successes, things would be more or less even. Three successes, they would get a small advantage, and four successes would give them a major advantage. They got to decide which character would do which difficulty, with two characters teaming up to give one check advantage. It worked out really well - they ended up getting three successes and having advanced warning of invisible enemies waiting to ambush them.

What an incredible game mechanic! I absolutely love this! I need this in my elemental Homebrew!

I'm a new DM (5e) and I frequently look for videos to help me improve. I heard about Skill Challenges and looked up some videos from the usual Matt Colville and Web DM, but I didn't understand what I was supposed to do bc I feel like they focused more on the theory and academic discussion rather than a "how to do this and why". This is the first video I've seen from this channel and you explain Skill Challenges PERFECTLY, with a step-by-step walkthrough of how to do it and reasoning for each mechanic, and you do it with a clear, measured voice that's easy to understand and follow. I look forward to watching more of your videos and hope your channel and patronage continue to grow!

This is my favourite mechanic that you've mentioned. I even figured out a way to put it into my next game. I'm running Lost Mine of Phandelver, and the party just finished Klarg - only he managed to get escape after being beat up. They were understandably disappointed at this outcome. As I read ahead to the next section the Redbrand hideout, it tells me that Glasstaff (the mage) will escape if the players don't find the secret doors.. I didn't want to do that to my players 2 games in a row, so that's where I'm going to put in our first ever Skill Challenge. They are 2nd level, and this is their first game, so I'm going to go with DC 12/5 Success. There is even a Lair Action available, as the chase will go past where the Nothic under the bridge. I'm excited to see what will happen.

I love how this is essentially a quick time event in dnd! I'm definitely going to use this in my sw5e campaign at some point!

A game is not only as good as the DM, but as the players as well. Saving your party and sacrificing your life for your group is pretty epic on its own.

Wow! Just came across this video in the hopes of figuring out how to implement skill challenges into my homebrew 5e game and I got some serious "nerd chills" watching this! The way you told the story while also highlighting the successes and failures is exactly why I want to implement skill challenges into my game. Thank you very much for this epic and helpful video!

Thank you for the pdf doc breaking down this info. I love your stuff but honestly have a tough time transcribing it so I can reference it and use it in my games. I'm a new DM so your ideas are awesome but I need the reference in order to incorporate them. Much appreciated and keep up the great work.

Great video! Appreciate the added homebrew elements to keep it spicy.

Fantastic video. Just found your stuff and really loving it. :) Thank you!

What I would recommend when running this in larger groups is do about one and a half (rounded down) for failures and success. This gives everyone a chance to participate around the same time. Another thing I did during a skill challenge during an arcane storm is I added complications at the end of each round or if the players got two failures. This basically "locked out" certain skills as the ship got more damaged. Instead of racing to get successes over failure, now they're against the clock to get through the storm before they're ship is scuttled. The last thing I'll suggest for people new to the system while I am rediscovering DnD is to make a complication chart for your first skill challenge. I am running the Matt Coville adventure and planning to make one. This will help visualize whats the next big issue the party faces along with what the next big hazard for the end of round. Skill challenges are really great as a tool to make mundane travel interesting, montage moments, or condensing grand arcs.

Dude this is epic and solved a major issue in my next one shot of traveling to a destination. I didn't want it to be just u travel a to b or rolling for random encounters that would bog things down with enemy's that don't feel thematic or give away the big reveal of what they may face at the end. Thank you for your hard work.

I love your expansion on skill checks here. Definitely going to steal this for my game!

Love this channel. My favorite video so far mostly due to the amazing storytelling. Keep up the great work.

I'm really loving these videos. Some of these things I'm already running in my campaigns but with your tweeks I'm really going to make it awesome! so please keep up the awesome content!

Thanks, this is great and will come in very handy for my 5e campaign.

Aaaaand I just bought all your stuff (relevant to my game of course) off DMs Guild. You are a hell of a story teller, and clearly a wonderful DM with your players' experience firmly at heart. We can, and I'm sure are, learning tons from you. Thanks a million, bud! Your name is well earned. :)

I can't think of a higher form of praise than to say I found this even more helpful than the great Matt Colville's video on skill challenges! Well done Coach, you have my sub and top spot in my tutorial video section of my notes on this topic.

Very good job defining the skill challenge, giving an example of play, and expanding it's possibilities. This make it a teensy bit more complicated, while really rounding it out as a tool for the game. Big thumbs up!

It's so awesome! I've watched this video 6 times now and I'm preparing to run my first skills challenge. Thanks dungeon coach

Just getting back into dnd after a few decades. You have great and easy to follow content. 5 and 4 editions are fantastic. I started playing with the og up until 3. Keep up the great work.

My new favorite D&D Channel. Love the homebrew. Great Work!!

This is very similar to the "Clocks" mechanic from Blades In The Dark and Beam Saber. Which my GM absolutely loves. And you found a way to integrate it seamlessly into D&D. 😁 2 things I'll be changing when I run this: #1: using Spell Slots or limited abilities can give one bonuses to their roll. Nothing too crazy, probably no more than +1-3. #2: Critical Failures giving 2 fails seems like it will make one Player feel like the entire botched challenge was their fault. Which kinda flies in the face of the entire spirit of a group skill challenge in my eyes. So I'd probably have it count as 1 failure, then add another penalty like they take some damage or someone's next roll has a penalty. Probably do the same for Nat 20s depending on the context.

Another wonderful video, thank you so much for these great resources!

Loved this video! Felt like I was at the table during your recapping. I've only followed you for a short time, but I think I've seen just about every video you've put out. Keep up the great work! I'm gonna keep watching.

Thanks for the help, I've been running some skill challenges since I do like them and 5e does make them such a viable tool in the DM toolbox, but having watched your video and downloading your rule set, this has given me some needed help to improve the challenges I run in the future.... So again thank you.

Super cool concept. Really like how you did this.

13:09 I get chills every time I watch this hehe

I'm sending my players through a maze of old lava, with explosions of poison gasses and shards of glass (a real thing that happens when lava hits water!) and this is SO helpful! Can't wait to use all this in my game this weekend :)

This is Rad, I love it! Definitely using this

Just wanted to say, I tried this out actually tonight and it worked decently well. Need some practice with it and running a stealth encounter with these rules was a bit difficult. My whole party was involved and I even got my amazon browser to pay attention through the whole thing! Win in my book! I'll be using this more and refining it.

I've actually been avoiding this topic on my "Suggested" list for awhile and finally took the plunge to watch it. I think I have personally avoided it because of another channel who talks about Skill Challenges (they really like them) but they never actually "talk about them." I really like you examples (and your future video that led me back to this one once again). Anyway, you finally won me over as a subscriber.

Just had a cool idea while watching a movie, taking a skill challenge and morphing it into a “cliff hanger” challenge basically a modified contest between a character and a bad guy over a specific plot McGuffin. The McGuffin is just a plot device that acts as a inanimate 3rd combatant and skill challenge. So a wagon dangling over a bridge that will fall that both monster and player are struggling on. A sinking ship where the last 2 are the character and monster fighting each other to get off before they are taken under. Can apply to really anything that fits in your storyline that acts as the 3rd party of the challenge trying to get both the player and monster. An out of control carriage, mining cart track(Indiana Jones), airship diving towards a crash. Lots of current action movies use them. (Was watching live free or die hard).

Great video, I really liked the worked example with the canyon!

This is great. I definitely plan on using this in my new D&D campaign I'm starting. My one concern is the no repeating rule. I totally endorse the idea, and use something similar in social encounters, but I'll have 6 players, four new to 5E. I'm definitely going to say a given character can't repeat the same check round-to-round, but I don't want to bog things down as newer players try to come up with something different than everyone else. Maybe if they seem to flounder I'll suggest Aid Ally.

So useful - I am a new DM and heard about these and I wanted to incorporate it and was a bit lost. However, you did an amazing job explaining this and I feel a lot more confident going into my spooky Halloween style one shot.

Thanks, this really helped.

Fantastic video making dude! super entertaining and very informative great work!

Thank you so much for posting this! I just bought something on the DMsGuild for running skill challenges, but I LOVE your tweaks (adding initiative and attack rolls as checks) and asking them what they do to figure out what ability check it should be. This is such a wonderful idea!

For the Paladin, I was thinking a charisma based Handle Animal check. Handle Animal because he was riding back. Charisma for his resolve and determination. Its a very Paladin thing to do. I dont tie specific abilities to skills in every case. For the sorcerer to use a lightning bolt to destroy a falling boulder, I'd use a Dexterity based Arcana check or to levitate rocks in the middle of chaos I might use an intelligence based concentration check or just a constitution based one. Either works to show him being able to ignore the rocks falling around himself and the few that actually hit him, and maintain a levitation spell.

That was so good! Gonna be implementing this.

Ran my 1st Skill challenge 2 nights ago. It was in a dream sequence that the party has been in since Halloween and repurposed for a final battle of the dungeon. DC12, 9 successes to win. 1. Vampire Bloodhunter (order of the lycan) aka Snake 2. Silverblight klyntar host/monk [the dreamer] aka Blitz 3. Tortle juggernaught/barbarian aka Grok 4. Starforger dancer aka Alpha 5. Goliath Barbarian aka Elfangor The party makes it through a dense fog (think Bloodborn boss room fog) and find themselves surrounded by a hoard of fungal zombies that drop from the ceiling & their minds are invaded by a necromancer's telepathy. 1. Alpha spits fire (fire bolt) onto the ceiling & burning away the zombies up there while simultaneously lighting up the room as the burning zombies fall into the hoard. 2. Elfangor charges in making a path for the others to follow 3. Grok uses his towershield (Mjolnir form) to keep the party safe from the zombies) They reach a section that has been hallowed, preventing the zombies from chasing them any further. Blitz gets flashes of someone who has yet to be revealed as his uncle & his final fight with the necromancer as the party hear him in their heads again. A kaiju sized corpse flower (who has the conciousness of the necromancer implanted into it) reveals itself (it looks more like a flower in the dream) 4. Blitz transforms into a wolf motif Venom & jumps up onto it and starts ripping out the "teeth" wanting revenge for this silverblight he saw perish 5. Snake joins Blitz by jumping of the walls & using his rapier to climb the rest of the way to it's mouth Lair action: everyone makes a con save against the stench of the corpseflower (blitz & snake with disadvantage due to proximity) both fail & drop off the boss, Alpha keels over as well. 6. Alpha calls upon Luma (his first star attached to his body) and sends it into the boss' mouth to ricochet off the teeth. 7. Blitz pays close attention & calls to everyone that beneath the teeth is a gem that gets sucked back in after a few moments of being revealed. 8. Grok changes his shield from Mjolnir form to patriot form and tosses it in the mouth as well, however it ends up getting swallowed instead. 9. Elphangor takes Blitz' original idea & jumps into the mouth and starts ripping up teeth as well, but with a twist. He uses an item found earlier in the dungeon to cast a blinding light while he's mid-air to blind the boss akin to Solar Flare from DBZ. 10. Snake gets to his feet & decides to use his crimson rite to allow everyone's weapons to deal additional electric damage, however upon jumping to reach Elphangor (his last target) he is knocked away & falls unconscious in the hoard of zombies as the strain of so many uses of crimson rite was too much for him (nat 2, everyone got tense on that) I explain that the next roll will determine the success or failure of the challenge, everyone is on edge. And Blitz, who once again failed the lair action con save, is the first to respond. 11. He wants his symbiote to increase his reach to the boss' mouth, grab the gem, & puncture the body and have it look like a porcupine as the final blow. I let him know this is made at disadvantage, however, Grok chimes in saying he will aid Blitz by concentrating real hard on his swallowed shield to change it back to Mjolnir form & recall it back to knock the boss over. Grok passes the aid ally check and Blitz's player rolls. There was silence as everyone watches their screens to see the roll. The player takes a few sharp breaths and.... nat 20. There was such a loud cheer by even the people who were watching that never played d&d before, I'm surprised we didn't get a notice from the leasing office. The party killed the necromancer & the zombies fell instantly. Blitz slowly wakes from the dream & in the hand he used, he finds a pendant that connects to the family heirloom he wears, changing it from a crescent to a half moon.

Great video! Really clear and inspiring. Loved the falling rocks skill challenge, really cool.

Thank you so much for this. Just found your channel from LBH collaboration.

I could love to see a video over the homebrew chronomancer class you did^^

This is a great way to handle large-scale events. There should be a supplement just for a dozen examples.

Thank you.

Very nicely spelled out! Thank you for this you have a new sub!

Late to the party, but this is an EXCELLENT homebrew adaptation of skill challenges! Dope, Coach!

Of all the dungeons and dragons commentators and streamers. I actually didn't feel bored at all while watching this. Such a great idea and I hope to implement with my players. Gotta see what their take on it all is.

This is such a great feature I can’t believe it’s not in base 5e.

For both this and your one round skill challenge, I have trouble of thinking of consequences to failures. I'm sure it's very situational, but other than death or taking damage, I'd love some great examples for inspiration.

This is really cool

This is amazing, I love this whole idea

Loving the show so far! Keep it up.

I really like 4e skills challenges, but I *hate* 4e so bad. This was a great idea of how to incorporate that

Great video! I've been looking for something like this and plan to give it a try tonight. I'll let you know how it goes!

This is so good. Can't wait to use something like this for a chase scene, navigation, or certain combats where going into full combat doesn't seem like the best option. This actually reminds me of using elements from Wushu or other cinematic style rpgs, but with a little more strategy. In Wushu the player is given extra dice for details they give (up to 5) to encourage descriptive action. I wonder if you could give them +1 to their roll up to +5 or something, and set the DC higher, especially if you have a group that needs encouraging to give more details. I wonder how it would work for super duper tense moments like a split second in a hostage situation, where every look and movement is a check. It could even be used in critical social scenarios, like intimidation or deception. Players could describe how they move, or what they say using different checks. Obviously, you wouldn't want to overuse it in times like these, but sometimes a single roll doesn't seems a bit of a quick and boring way to resolve action.

Thanks DC, this was epic, and I definitely teared up a bit hearing about the Paladin riding back to save his friends. I found your channel from the rest vid you posted on r/mattcolville and adopted that into my game last week. Plan on running a skill challenge this upcoming wknd. Your vids are great! Keep it up!!

I would have made him make an animal handling check with advantage(for such an epic proposal!).

This is a great video, I love your channel! Does 5E give rules on how you would've dealt with players trying to dig someone out of the rubble before they die? I see how you could skill challenge that as well, but I'm curious how RAW would apply to something like that..

I wish I could Super Like this Video. Awesome

Hi there, recently joined your channel and I find the content very useful and inspired, my honest congrats. Wanted to question about the "Text Doc Skill Challenge TDC" document. On the video, the DC for helping an ally is minus 5, but on the document it says that the DC for this are 10 lower. Which one do you use? (I will lean towards 5 but asking so you know the discrepancy). Keep up with the channel, you are doing a great job

Animal Handling for the Paladin riding back into the falling rock.

Omg. I LOVE this. Guess what I will be adding.

I think a video on interesting combat environments would be cool. Those can sometimes play a larger part than the enemies the players are fighting. Bandits ambushing your wagon on the road? Classic. Bandits ambushing your airship on Wyvern-back in the middle of a thunderstorm? Way cooler.

Bro!!! Love this mechanic!!! I DM a group of 8 PCs!!!! This will kill the bog.

Great way to bring the storytelling to the next level in your game. I love it. Only question I have: how do you deal with skill monkeys? D&D with its proficiency/expertise system seems to give rogues/bards a huge advantage with those skill challenges …

I independently created my own skill challenge system four years ago when I was a brand new DM, before I ever knew it was a real thing. I barely knew anything about D&D at the time, as my wife and I just dove in to the game head first after watching a few episodes of Critical Role, and I made up the challenge on the spot. It was clunkier than this system, so I won't share the mechanics, but I'll share the two most memorable challenges my players (my two daughters and my wife) had to face. For the first challenge, the players had found a magic lamp with a genie, but they didn't trust the genie, so they brought the lamp to an old hermit who was known to collect magic items. The hermit summoned the genie, and wished to do mortal combat with it. As the genie grew to the size of a small mountain, the hermit revealed his true form as an ancient golden dragon! The two fought, tearing apart the country side, and my players had to act quickly to avoid getting caught by rubble or errant attacks! (Spoiler: dragon won easily) For the second challenge, my players were trapped in a sewer. I had separated my wife's character, to encourage my young daughters to make more decisions and role play more. While looking for their missing companion, they got in to a fight with an alligator, and defeated it with a chromatic orb dealing ice damage. Turned out, the gator was a mother, and she was simply defending her nest. Now, the ice was continuing to freeze the water around the nest, and was in danger of freezing the five babies to death! My daughters had to capture the alligators before they froze, while the gators tried to bite them and squirm away! Four years later, and the party (which now includes some family friends) has a mansion with four alligators (one didn't make it) living in a fountain in the center of a hedge maze!

Mind blown.

Great video, thanks for the ideas! Coincidentally, I just watched a Critical Role episode last night that included a skill challenge getaway scene. It was stressful just watching! Two quick questions for you: 1. What is the earliest PC level you would throw this at a party? If they're experienced players, could you try it at level 1? 2. What is the earliest you would try this with new players? Would this help them to learn their character better and get creative quicker, or just freak them out? Thanks again!

I really wish I had watched this before my last game. The players were in a tower, beat the big bad, and the tower began to collapse. I didn't know how to play it. Skill checks would have made it much cooler. Next time. :)

I would give the paladin a 5e point of inspiration!

Here is a suggestion, but first a question: what is the element--or combination of elements--that make this approach to skill challenges so cool? Now the suggestion: could some of these process approaches be utilized in standard combat to make day to day combat as exciting and epic as this, every time?

So cool

High level play seems to lend itself to skill challenges alot. I seem to use them more the higher level the party is. Maybe you could do a video on keeping high level play interesting

So 2 years later (I'm going back into your library of videos - found a lot of inspiration in them), and it seems no one took you up on your challenge. My assumption in this is you seperate types of attack rolls, as the last two rounds seem to have an obvious ranged from archer, and melee from barbarian. (Correct me if I'm wrong) Round 1 1. Initiative. 2. Perception. Round 2 3. Tricky one. A save feels cool here and I'll say Int (even though Cha seems more sorcerer-like) 4. Another tricky one. I'll outside the box go Reflex save instead of spell attack (I know i just cheated haha, and still prob got it wrong) Round 3 5. Ranged attack. 6. Arcana. (This too could be many things, pending what the round before was) Round 3 7. Let's say something crazy and go intimidate. (Spell attack might be a safer answer) 8. Medicine. 9. Melee surely! Well did i pass coach? Cheers from Down Under for the creative ideas.

wait... you mean you can just hide from the avalanche?!

I'd love to see a chart made depicting the level of successes needed per difficulty or level

I found this very insightful and well developed. Thanks for the fantastic video and for providing the rules in text. One question: how do you deal with large parties? I have an idea, but I'd like to get your take. In my case, I DM for a party of 7, meaning there will need to be at least 7 checks each round to ensure everyone gets to participate. To keep it interesting and dynamic, I want the challenge to last at least 2 rounds. That makes a minimum of 14 checks. So, the successes required needs to be around 10-12 to give everyone a shot at actually affecting the outcome. With so many checks, and only 3 failures allowed, I figure the DC has to be comparatively lower to give them a fair shot. However, (and maybe it's just me) lowering the DC seems to take away some of the "epicness" and encourage safe behavior. Perhaps a dynamic DC based on the nature of the player's plan, where a successful check on a high DC could result in more than one success? Greater risks, greater rewards?

Do you work it that PCs have to have proficiency in the skills they use or can anyone use any skill that hasnt been used in the previous round? I like the idea of piling on the pressure on those PCs that make failures too, raise those stakes!

The paladin would need to make an animal handling check to make the horse ride back into danger and to spurr it to ride faster.

I totally thought Con save throw

When I learned about skill challenges years ago this was just how my DM did them. It has never steered me wrong.

Hey Mr Coach - awesome video (and content in general) thank you! I've been trying to implement your take on skill challenges. I got somewhat thrown off by my players' use of spells. In a setting like the avalanche my players were quick to use Dimension Door, Misty Step and Polymorph (to fly). I see how you would make each of these a spell casting check to bring them closer to a total succes or failure. But would you lock out spell casting for the current and next round to avoid repeated spell casting checks? Or is the limit to repeating checks only for the traditional skills? With a bard, druid, warlock, paladin and fighter they see magics as their primary toolbox :)

for stealth: I keep quiet, pressing up against the wall so the falling rocks will miss me. For the paladin assuming they were proficient in it I'd make it animal handling, forcing the horse back through the danger, but with the constitution modifier instead of wisdom since it is mostly absorbing the damage. Love this mechanic!

So my group has an npc traveling with them right now and I want to do a chase scene. Would you add the npc to the successes or failures or maybe have them roll but only for story purposes and not for success and failure? Or something else?

I am planning to use a Skill Challenge for an urban chase encounter. I want it to be quick. Success results in PC's reaching those they are chasing and a possible combat. Failure results in the bad guys escaping, leaving the players with a mystery. I want the encounter to engage the players into a new adventure hook. Probably DC12, 3 success rolls before 3 failure rolls. Question: Do you simply tie narration to the skill being used during the Skill Challenge? With just 3 successes before 3 failures = 5 skill rolls for the whole encounter?

how would you handle them casting spells? would it take a spell slot or would it be free during a skill challenge?

Have you covered using random tables and wandering monsters?

A video on magic items that aren’t OP would be good

Smashes like button

I'm still a very new DM. I've only run one short campaign from lvl 5-lvl 9. Imo though, I like to keep the DC secret usually, not a hard rule, but I have a rough idea of how hard something should be and then see what they come up with. If they are putting in the work and being really creative I may lower the DC in my head. Still a chance it could go bad, but if I tell them it's a 20, they put in all this effort, and then just barely miss it because of a bad roll, I think they still deserve a win for their investment and creativity.

I would have him roll Initiative to see how quick he was to reach his friends

EPIC