DISCLAIMER: These rules are not official The Dungeon Coach material and should not be used or treated as such. They are simply homebrew rules designed for players who wish to use a working set of rules for Challenges. Official rules for Challenges will be released by The Dungeon Coach through official means
Challenges are a fun and open ended way to resolve dramatic moments that take less time and mechanical effort to resolve than something like a combat encounter, but still allow players to express the strengths and personality of their characters. Challenges are meant to provide the opportunity for players to take the lead on the narrative, with each player describing their actions in the Challenge and working with the other players to describe their efforts. The dice then help add an element of chance and uncertainty, helping tell the story alongside the players.
Challenges typically come out of one of three categories, depending on the situation: Combat, Exploration, and Social.
Combat Challenges are meant to represent the party’s efforts to handle a group of enemies in combat, typically a collection of weaker enemies that the party could easily defeat. Combat challenges should not include encounters that may pose a serious threat to party members. They should be used in situations such as fighting a small group of wolves, trying to catch and restrain a singular enemy, or guard a caravan from a couple of thieves.
Exploration Challenges provide a way to represent the party accomplishing some task as they adventure and are not in conflict with enemies, but rather the environment. Exploration challenges can be used for activities such as working together to scale a steep mountainside, trying to identify and set up a camp site, or enduring hazardous weather conditions.
Social Challenges are used when the party attempts to engage in an important or delicate social situation, especially when the whole party is involved. This can include situations such as earning the trust of King upon first meeting him, earning the trust of a guild leader to take on a quest, or calming a group of citizens after a Dragon attack.
By default Challenges involve a single round of rolling Checks, where each player only rolls one Check in an attempt to earn Success Points. These Checks do not represnt individual actions but the overall succes of that player's efforts. The amount of Success Points earned by the group determines if the Challenge was a success or a failure. There are currently no rules for Challenges that last multiple rounds.
Note: Players are not allowed to provide the Help Action during Challenges. The party collaborating and helping each other should be represented narratively but each player is still required to roll a Check if their character is present for the Challenge.
The Challenge DCs and Success Points should be calculated with the formulas below, depending on the difficulty of the Challenge. These increase with difficulty as the number of players characters (PCs) and the Save DC of the players increase. Most Challenges should be at a Medium difficulty.