Designing Obstacles
The Narrator should come up with a number of obstacles—situations or creatures that stand between the party and their intended goal. In a given perilous challenge there should be at least two, but usually not more than the number of adventurers. Try to ensure each obstacle is best handled with a different skill, and ideally with a different ability score. For example, adventurers can’t sneak past the guards with a Stealth check and then sneakily steal a boat with another Stealth check, but they might make a water vehicle check to deftly maneuver the craft without being seen, or an Animal Handling check to spook the guards’ horses and distract them from the departing boat.
While no plan will cover every contingency, Narrators should decide ahead of time what happens if an adventurer fails a check. Advice on and examples of such consequences are detailed in Perils and Consequences below. After the Narrator has designed obstacles and consequences, they narrate what the adventurers know, which should include at least one obstacle, though others may be hidden for now.
Setting DC's
Use a baseline DC 10 + twice the party’s tier. So a 3rd level party (tier 1) would have a default DC of 12 on checks during perilous challenges. If the party’s approach is ill-suited to the obstacle, increase the DC by 2 or more, or even say the chosen method is impossible. If they’re being actively opposed by a specific foe, the DC might be 8 + that character’s skill bonus.
If the result of the first effort is a failure, increase the DC for the second check by 5. Especially for higher-level parties, don’t just increase numbers. Make sure to justify the higher DC with an appropriate narrative—a failed Deception check makes a mark suspicious, or a failed Engineering check damaged a piece of equipment. The math of perilous challenges is meant to see the party succeed while facing 1 or 2 complications. During the Face the Challenge stage, don’t require more than one success to overcome each obstacle.
The Narrator is encouraged to use critical failures and successes to add extra complications or lucky breaks to the challenge. See Ability Check Criticals in Chapter 6: Ability Scores of Adventurer’s Guide for examples.
Obstacles and Effort
Perilous challenges don’t use normal initiative or rounds. Instead, each adventurer can attempt to prepare for or overcome one of the obstacles set by the Narrator by undertaking an effort. An adventurer can undertake one effort each in the Assess the Challenge and Face the Challenge stages. To do so, the player states what they’re doing, then makes a single skill check. Depending on circumstances, the Narrator may rule that an adventurer can expend a limited resource like a spell slot to get an expertise die , advantage , or even an automatic success.
Since perilous challenges are somewhat abstract in timing, adventurers can’t use the Help action, the guidance cantrip, or similar atwill actions to affect an effort the way they could in a combat encounter. However, limited-use abilities like Bardic Inspiration can still provide bonuses.
The time spent on each effort is whatever makes sense for the game’s narrative. One effort might be a minute sabotaging a rope bridge to stop pursuing gnolls, followed by an Engineering check. Another could be an adventurer performing high society dances for an hour to ingratiate themselves with noble they intend to rob, making a Culture check using Dexterity. A third could be dealing with a locked vault by simply casting knock .
Peril and Consequences
Importantly, in a perilous challenge, if an adventurer fails a check to overcome an obstacle, that doesn’t mean they lost, just that the operation is imperiled. This might manifest as a delay, such as being unable to make another attempt to steal a guard’s key until later, a partial success, or a case of “failing forward” where they succeed at their goal but encounter additional difficulties. A player can choose to try the check again at a higher DC, but a second failed check provokes a consequence. However, consequences are not dead ends.
Designing Consequences
When done right, consequences don’t stop the party from finishing the challenge; they’re just a cost for poor performance. These might drain resources from the adventurer or even the whole party. Examples include an easy fight, suffering a level of fatigue or strife , losing a lot of Supply, or damage appropriate to an exploration challenge obstacle of their tier. Potential consequences by tier are listed below. Other sorts of consequences are narrative. Perhaps the character leaves a clue that can direct enemies or investigators toward the party. Perhaps their behavior earns them a bad reputation. They might succeed in looting a treasure vault, but discover the loot is doused in stinking oil, making it hard to sell.
Sometimes the nature of a consequence will need to change based on how the adventurer attempted (and failed) to overcome the challenge. Make sure any mechanical penalty is justified by the narrative and story, and that it actually will be consequential. This is easiest if there is no time to rest after the perilous challenge before the next part of the adventure.
Complications to Success
Perilous challenges are often complicated situations and, well, perilous. Even if an adventurer succeeds in overcoming an obstacle and accomplishes their goal, unforeseen narrative complications may arise, especially if you are working with the Complex Timing rules below. In this case, it is important to stress the adventurer’s success and that such complications are not punishments, but instead meant to keep the story moving along. For example, a successful Stealth check to free a companion should result in the companion being freed—but doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an alarm spell set on the cell door. Such complications should be used sparingly, to avoid taking agency from the players.
Multiple Consequences
Since each challenge has multiple obstacles, adventurers risk facing multiple consequences. Ideally these consequences will take different forms—some could be damage or a fight, but others can be lost resources or more narrative effects.
|
TIER |
DAMAGE |
FIGHT CR |
|
0 (Level 1-2) |
3 (1d6) |
1/4 |
|
1 (Level 3-4) |
5 (1d10) |
1/2 |
|
2 (Level 5-10) |
11 (2d10) |
1 |
|
3 (Level 11-16) |
22 (4d10) |
3 |
|
4 (Level 17*20) |
55 (10d10) |
5 |
Example 1: Chase
One of the simplest sorts of perilous challenge is when party is chasing or being chased. Each obstacle is a different location along the route, wherein one member of the party must describe what they’re doing to go faster than the other side.
Perhaps a pack of gnolls are chasing four adventurers cross-country, trying to stop them from warning a fortress of an approaching army. The four obstacles are: the open plains during a massive buffalo migration, followed by a rope bridge across a turbulent river, then woods where faeries harass travelers, and finally the cliffs beneath a fortress where the party can rest in a haven.
Possible consequences on the plains would be damage from getting trampled. At the bridge, perhaps one of the lead gnolls catches up with the party, provoking a small fight. In the fey woods, maybe a party member suffers a small curse. And at the cliffs, the effects of the prolonged chase could inflict a level of fatigue on the whole party.