Hook and Hatchet Tavern: A Skill Challenge

[John Hofmann]

I came up with the skeleton of a skill challenge that I thought I
would use as part of my party's first adventure, which takes place in
and around Threshold. This is just something I put together now and
was looking for some feedback about it:

Party at the Hook and Hatchet

The Hook and Hatchet tavern is a favorite among off-duty guardsmen
(notably Sgt Arthol) and out-of-towners. The food is excellent and
trends towards spicy, exotic fare. The owner, a slender half-elven
woman name Kilay, is a former adventurer and has several trophies from
her travels around the bar. There are broken weapons, a still moving
troll's hand in a jar, strings of teeth of all different sizes, and a
tall, deep purple plant on the bar that Kilay claims is from the
Shadowfell. Kilay left town 10 years ago to seek her fortune,
something her family disapproved of mightily, and returned 6 years ago
as a wealthy and successful adventurer. She is fond of wearing
flowing garb of Ylari silk during the summer, Vestland furs during the
winter, sensible Traldaran outfits during the spring, and exotic
Wendar and Glantrian robes during the fall. The main bartender is
Darnath, a former Minrothadian pirate whose ship was attacked by a sea
monster. He was stranded on an island for several months until he was
picked up by a passing Karameikan navy ship. They rescued him and
took him back to Specularum. After surviving the attack and being
stranded, Darnath wanted to move away from the sea but couldn't
totally leave the water behind. He took what money he saved from his
time as a pirate and bought a house in Threshold next to the tavern
where he now works.

The night after the goblin raid is driven off, Kilay throws a party in
the PCs honor. There are two bards who play rousing Northmen drinking
songs, Kilay makes a special meal of Red Dragon Tongue stew, an
extremely spicy blend of peppers and beef served with strong wine.
Darnath holds a drinking contest to see who can drink the most glasses
of his signature drink, the Deathtrap.

Level 2: Complexity 2 (requires 6 successes before 4 failures) DCs:
Hard 22 Medium 17 Easy 12

Acrobatics, Athletics: Hard -> It's difficult to do acrobatic tricks
inside the tavern, but if someone pulls one off it's impressive to the
partygoers.

Arcana: Hard -> there is a ban on wizard spells inside the confines
of the town so the topic sometimes makes partygoers uncomfortable.

Dungeoneering: Hard -> The PC tells a story about the Old Caves
outside of town. A DC 22 roll counts as a success, but a DC 12 roll
means that the PC gave at least one useful fact about dungeoneering to
the group of listeners and the next PC gets a +2 on his roll as the
crowd gets more forgiving.

Endurance: Easy -> The PC eats the stew and participates in the
drinking contest. On a DC 22, the PC wins the drinking contest and
gets two successes (this can only happen once)

Heal: Easy -> The PC helps an overindulgant partygoer. A success
doesn't count as a success, but gives the next PC a +2

History, Religion: Medium -> these are popular, if dry, subjects.

Insight: Easy -> The PC tells sharply pointed jokes to the drunken
crowd

Intimidate, Thievery, Stealth: Hard -> It's a party.

Streetwise: Easy -> the PC uses his street savvy to impress
partygoers

Success: The party rages long into the night as the PCs entertain the
crowd until they've eaten and drunk their fill and start to pass out
in the tavern. The PCs receive 750xp and are warned not to enter the
graveyard without saying a prayer to Halav by Sgt Arthol, who tells
them this late in the night when he's in the midst of a talkative
drunk phase ... just before he happily passes out in his mug.

Failure: no ill effects, but the Party dies down early and no one
tells the PC of the graveyard.

Any thoughts? I was thinking that skill challenges could present a
slick way to inject flavor into a game that even the powergamer/action-
oriented/crunch-lovers in the group could respond to. The more you
know about Threshold, the more of an advantage you would have with
skill challenges.

[David Knott]

One note -- There have been some extensive errata to
the skill challenge system. In particular, the number
of failures needed to lose a skill challenge became a
uniform value of three (3) and many of the standard
DC values were changed. I think they were driven
by feedback about the peculiar results generated by
the printed system. The July 17th DMG update has
more details.