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[dammitbiscuit]

That sounds great; glad to hear you've seen it in action. I used your system a little bit, several months ago, and then my group disintegrated.

I thought of a few alternatives to the primary skill system more as a brainstorm, than out of anything I dislike about primary skills. I think the fun factor of the skill challenge matters far more than the mechanics. The primary skill can, occasionally, remind you that you're playing a GAME, but doesn't have to. If asked, I usually tell the players something like "Acrobatics is the right tool for the job," quoting the 3.5 PHB, "and if you don't want to fall off the airship as it disintegrates, acrobatics is the best way to do so and your efforts will be granted a +2 bonus."

I never really told them "you can only use X, Y, and Z skills for this challenge". I think that would have caused more of a "Why?" "Because it's a game, and I said so!" feeling than primary skills do. I just ask them, "Ok, you guys have decided to do ____. Certain obstacles are in your way - a few obstacles that you're aware of are ___, ______, and ____. What does your character do to help the party achieve their goals?" or something along those lines. I only was able to run three challenges. Two of them resulted in success, and one of them resulted in smashing success (they had 3 or 4 successes to spare, at the end). This may have been the result of, as you say, characters using their best skills more often than assumed, but 3 challenges are hardly a worthy sample size.

Could you describe the 2-round challenge that you guys did? I'm still having somewhat of a difficult time deciding when, why, or how to use them.

1) Ultimately... it's solid and flexible enough to allow DMs to throw in ad hoc things without things going crazy. ...but also there's definite room for improvement.

I'm glad to hear that another version is coming down the line! No product, however awesome, is immune to the beneficial effects of hindsight and revision.

5) Skill Challenges, like good combats, require a bit of planning. Skill Challenges are the most exciting when their consequences have meaning, and when the DM has put a little something extra into them.

You may find Radiating Gnome's recent blog entries on the NON-mechanical elements of skill challenges quite illuminating. http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/r...-thoughts.html

6) I really liked primary skills that changed with each round. I felt that added a dynamic portion to the game that made the challenges more interested.

I had a lot of fun with one of those; I'm not sure if I posted it in the previous Obsidian thread or not. They were trying to crash someone's airship, which meant Arcana primarily to free the elemental from its bindings, Acrobatics primarily to ride the pieces of airship down as safely as manageable, and Endurance primarily to stick the landing.

I also ed with the rules quite a bit, for the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the challenge. Players were allowed to use abilities such as Fey Step and Feather Fall to auto-succeed on the 2nd or 3rd skill check, if they thought of it or asked. Succeeding via skill meant they did well, but still lost a healing surge from injuries, stress, and strain. Failing meant they were reduced to their bloodied value, two failures meant they were unconscious on the ground. The auto-successes via use of utility power is acceptable, in my opinion, balanced out because the party was fighting the ship's crewmen, when they were in the air trying to free the ship's bound elemental, and the party also had to contend with some unhappy snakes and yuan-ti when they landed in the jungle below.
The other two followed the formula more closely, but weren't quite memorable enough to recall.

7) I may need a way to handle ability checks.

EXCELLENT idea.