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Disagree here. I guess a completely empty stone room might be pointless, but empty (non-combat/skill challenge) rooms don't have to be pointless at all. I had the same light bulb go off as the OP when I was looking over N1 Cult of the Reptile God. Here's the thread...

Yes, this is much better design IMO. Especially like the Failure result tying into lower victory points. This is heading in the right direction. The first two may still be a little too superficial as you point out Psuedo. Not sure what the relative levels of the PC are. But if the 2nd and...

Well, in my P1 example I am assuming that the players decided they wanted to find the evil lair and do so in the most straightforward/quickest/easiest way possible. If that is not their goal, then this skill challenge would not be run. So with that as a goal, the penalty for failure as...

I'd actually reccomend Stalker0's Obsidian system (see his sig). I find it is a great mechanical solution. It doesn't resolve the skill challenge design problems discussed in this thread (which are tied to adventure design in general).

Why should the combat provide more rewards? The above scenerio would be: Players: We head to the castle to save the princess DM: You arrive at the entrance and there are 4 guards outside. Players choice A: We charge and attack! [Combat encounter, followed by 8 other combat encounters] or...

In my mind the design goal for a skill challenge should be to present a complicated, mostly non-combat scene where 1) success get you closer to your goal within the story and rewards you within the "game" 2) failure gets you farther from your goal within the story and penalizes you within the...

This was my point of the level +4 encounter as a meaningful "failure". There is a real threat of character death vs. simply a level +0 like in many of the published challanges. And if you had a level +4 encounter that gave no XP then yes that would be a very meaningful consequence of failing...

The skill challenge mechanic is wonky too in its current form (too low DCs in errata, etc.), but this topic is about how folks are actually implementing and seting up the skill challenges. So, yes you could call it either adventure or skill challenge design.

First off, I am a huge fan of the skill challenge concept despite the problems that are occuring as this concept gets further refined. Some of the problems are pretty complicated (e.g., setting the right DCs), and some are a matter of play style (e.g., do you annouce a skill challenge, do you...

Many people use this to set up the 1 sq area, and then use various push, pull, slide effects (or their fellow PCs do) to make enemies (particularly minions) enter the area and take the wis mod dmg. Also, note that with a decent wis, most of the time this power will do more dmg than magic...

Lots of good advice here for keeping the "challenge the player" element in a game, as well as adding meaning to "wining" or at least surviving. The above quote points out, however, that this style of DMing requires the DM and players to both agree that they are ok with both the player and DM...

If you think a patrol is a likely reponse then do it. Just don't cream the PCs for it. Send a challenging but not overwhelming scouting party to investigate and disrupt their extended rest. If they don't get the hint and try to rest again, then let them have it...

Thanks for the clarification. Beast Master looks pretty good then for a melee Ranger. You lose: 1 pt of damage per [W] for off-hand for certain 2 weapon powers toughness prime shot You gain/keep: Equal damage for all "2 weapon required" burst type powers Access to all 2-weapon feats and...

This is pretty interesting then. The Beast Ranger is equal to the 2-Weapon Ranger when using burst type powers that require wielding 2 weapons but not main and off-hand explicitly (don't know how many those are).

With Martial Power's Beast Ranger class feature, you lose out on 2 weapon or archery features. Now, given that there are still a lot of good 2-weapon powers, it is likely that a Beast Ranger will still fight with 2 weapons. How does a power like Dire Wolverine Stike work when wielding a long...

Yeah, as I'm looking at it there are a few things wrong with that encounter. The Naga can cast sleep for one thing. Sleep in AD&D is a nasty spell against low hit dice (most likely the PCs!), and this would likely end the encounter with 1-2nd level PCs with no save... That said, easy to swap...

Chainsaw, it is a good one. The plot is pretty local though (like B2) so I'd run it say after B2 and before T1 (especially if you are doing T1-4). el-remmen, I think it is for 1st-3rd level characters but as in all early AD&D modules it is meant for a large party of "4-7 1st - 3rd level...

Inspired by the many BEMCI and AD&D threads that have popped up, I got out N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God for a kick. It's a great intro adventure, and I spotted an interesting design choice that 4e modules have lacked so far. ***SPOILERS*** In N1, there is 1) a nice town with...

How about only 1 Hero Action Token (HAT) of another player per player at a time. This would give an incentive to use the HAT immediately. It really depends on the pace you want to hand them out and people to use them. If I used this, I would try for once a session handing out and use so that...