Your Interesting/Unique Skill Challenges...

[weem]

First of all, a disclaimer -- I am not calling my own skill challenge interesting or unique, I just want to hear yours and am starting with my first I ran this last weekend...

I typed this out a few minutes ago, but the site died on me and I could not get it back, so I give it to you now in a more brief manner.

Basically, the players in my Last Lands 4e campaign were face to face with a corrupt Sheriff who, along with his 3 men, were attempting to arrest the PC's for crimes they did not commit.

The challenge at this point was to make the guards question the validity of the charges being leveled at them and instead question the actions of their boss, who many did not entirely like or trust to begin with. It resulted in a great scene, where the Sheriff was commanding his men to arrest the PC's while at the same time the PC's were trying to sow the seeds of doubt into the minds of his men.

Anyway, the PC's succeeded and when the Sheriff realized his men were beginning to question his motives, he tried to make a run for it. He was quickly apprehended though and by the end of the night the players were telling me that the skill challenge was a lot of fun - their favorite part of the night. They really liked having another option besides killing/fleeing. A few even asked me, "what would have happened if we failed?" and I said, "well, the leader of your group made it clear during his intimidate roll that there was going to be a fight if the men tried to arrest you, so... there would have been a fight!" hehe.

So I was curious to hear some examples of what you have done for skill challenges - whether you ran it or played it. What made it fun? etc.

 

[Rechan]

Surviving a sea serpent destroying the ship they're on.

 

[Badgerish]

Here's something i posted on rpg.net, as a spin off from planning a combat encounter for this thread, which is awesome and more people should be involved with[/pimping]


'The mire of no return', a heroic tier skill challenge.

Your party is seeking a person who has fled into the 'mire of no return' an area of cursed swampland. Perhaps you intend to kill this person, return them for justice or rescue them from their own mistake, but first you need to find them...

RAW DMG rules
lvl 6, normal difficulty complexity 2 (6 success before 3 failures). 500xp

challenge success: you find your way to the person you seek/their body/their captors. xp reward. treasure reward if that's what the party is seeking.

challenge failure: you find your way there, but it takes much longer and what you find is worse than planned:
if you where trying to rescue someone, they are dead or injured.
if you where trying to recover an item the person carried, the item is gone but you have a lead on who took it.
if you where trying to kill the person, they have found allies/mutated into a stronger form/been killed by a bigger threat.

special abilities to do with swamps provide notable advantages. limited flight abilities grant an auto-success if applicable. lost healing surges represent fatigue and being disenhearted by the cursed swamp.

special rule: if you get a natural one AND fail the test (even if you are assisting a group test) then you get distracted by a will'o'whisp and separated from the party. Combat encounter with a single monster of the PCs level, the monster starts in an advantageous position and the rest of the party starts 20-30 squares away (and behind difficult terrain).

suggested skills: (remember, that other skills can be used, with a good enough reason) all skills checks are at DC 22.

Nature: group test, your group's tracker leads the party through this horrid place.
success: you get closer to your target, 1 success and +2 to the next non-nature test due to your knowledge of swampland.
failure: you get lost/slowed down, 1 failure and -2 to the next non-nature test due to mis-remembered knowledge

perception: single test, you look further ahead to find a better path.
success: you spot a better path or a hazard you can avoid, 1 success.
failure: you get distracted looked ahead and forget to look at your feet! you fall in a small bog, covering yourself in muck and muddy water. 1 failure and lose a healing surge.

endurance: group test, it's a hard slog, but you need to keep going.
success: you slog on and make good time. 1 success.
failure: some PCs get tired and need a rest. you lose track of time and wait for too long. 1 failure.

athletics/acrobatics: single test. you get slightly separated from the group and notice a bog in front of you. roll athletics to jump it or acrobatics to carefully step around the edge.
success: you get past and keep up the pace, the others are motivated by your display. 1 success
failure: you mess up in an in-elegant fashion, but at least you where prepared for it, still you lose time and the party is disheartened. 1 failure and lose 1 healing surge.

pacing: The party is expected to take a nature OR endurance test each turn, players can also take upto one more test per turn.