Cthulhu's Castle Skill Challenge/Puzzle

[chronoplasm]

Cthulhu's Castle Skill Challenge

There's more to this skill challenge than simply rolling a certain number of successes before a certain number of failures.
There's also a puzzle element to it based on the game Mastermind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game)
http://web.telia.com/~u43509647/pages/a-mind.html
...except that instead of guessing a sequence of colors, you must guess a sequence of directions in order to successfully navigate the castle.
Successful skill checks help you to figure out if you are going the right way and may also help you to find Cthulhu Clues.

During each player's turn, that player must do two things in any order:
Make a skill check (Dungeoneering, etc.)
Choose a direction to lead the party in (Left, Right, Up Stairs, Down Stairs, Foreward, Backward*)

*Going back the way you came does not neccessarily take you back to where you were before.

At the end of the round, if the party has correctly guessed the exact sequence of directions required to navigate the labyrinth (foreward, up stairs, down stairs, backward), they reach the end. If not, they are taken back to the beginning of the labyrinth and take three failures.

The players can make Dungeoneering checks to figure out if they are going the right way.
DC 10: The party is awarded one success for every correct movemade at its correct place in the sequence, and one half success for each correct move made at an incorrect place in the sequence. However, the DM does not indicate which turns were correct.
DC 20: As above, but the DM does indicate which turns were correct.

They can also make Arcana checks to read the runes on the walls and get hints.
DC 20: The DM tells the players one correct movement, but does not tell them where it is in sequence.
DC 25: The DM tells the players one correct movement and where it is in sequence.


After 9 failures, the skill challenge resets and the party must fight Cthulhu's minions.
After 9 successes, the skill challenge resets and the party finds a treasure room.
When the party correctly deciphers the exact sequence of movements required to get to the end of the labyrinth, they may fight the boss.


...So... it's a work in progress. Any suggestions?

[Alex319]

When the skill challenge resets, do you just reset the success/failure counts, or do you also generate a new sequence of directions? If the second one, it's going to be tough because they players will basically have a maximum of 3 guesses to guess the sequence (so they'll need to be able to make those DC 20-25 checks to get clues).

I assume that there are exactly 4 characters in the party, correct? (The description seems to imply that you will have chosen 4 directions by the time you get through a round.)

If the party makes multiple DC 10 Dungeoneering checks in one round, do the bonus successes stack? For example if at the end of the round they made 3 successful dungeoneering checks, and they got 1 correct in correct position and 2 in incorrect position, do they get 6 bonus successes (3 * (1*1 + 2*0.5))?

How much information are you going to give them about how the skill challenge works?

[jstomel]

I think I am going to try something like this at my game tonight. I'll tell you how it works out.