legiondevil
First Post
I ran the final skill challenge from Thunderspire Labrynth last night, and my players all had a ball with it. I think what helped out a lot was that I clearly defined the challenge (Vecna wants secrets), and then listed the primary skills related to the challenge. They found out the secondary supplimental skills on their own. I did toss them a bone by stating they were facing a God, and that considering their minute status (low level) that any Intimidate challenges they tried would auto-fail.
The most fun came from the rogue, bragging about stopping a minion of Orcus (whom Vecna made an off-hand comment of being a silly pretender godling), and the bickering and one-upsmanship between the Drow Dark Pact Warlock and the Eladrin Wizard and their differing ideas on "the origin of the Drow race" (history checks, each one succesivly scoring a higher result than the previous, finished with a hellacious bluff check from the drow commenting on "bad PR against the drow by the surface elves).
I find that laying out all the guidelines early, and offering benefits from creative skill uses, helps out quite a bit. The Eladrin made a sweeping comment about a fallen vampire warrior who was known to have betrayed his former master...and I lowered the DC for the skill to result in a success, but also gave them an automatic failure because of the topic. I even let the minotaur battlerager just score a success by expending a healing surge, and thus "gifting Vecna with a portion of his prowess." Which is, well, certain to come back to haunt him in the future.
The most fun came from the rogue, bragging about stopping a minion of Orcus (whom Vecna made an off-hand comment of being a silly pretender godling), and the bickering and one-upsmanship between the Drow Dark Pact Warlock and the Eladrin Wizard and their differing ideas on "the origin of the Drow race" (history checks, each one succesivly scoring a higher result than the previous, finished with a hellacious bluff check from the drow commenting on "bad PR against the drow by the surface elves).
I find that laying out all the guidelines early, and offering benefits from creative skill uses, helps out quite a bit. The Eladrin made a sweeping comment about a fallen vampire warrior who was known to have betrayed his former master...and I lowered the DC for the skill to result in a success, but also gave them an automatic failure because of the topic. I even let the minotaur battlerager just score a success by expending a healing surge, and thus "gifting Vecna with a portion of his prowess." Which is, well, certain to come back to haunt him in the future.