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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 4837160" data-attributes="member: 3424">My thoughts on running skill challenges, from previous threads on the subject:Step One: Ensure that the players have an objective. This could be one that they came up with themselves, e.g. "We want to interrogate the hobgoblin", one that you hint at, e.g. "As you kill the last kobold, you hear a menacing growl. You realize that the bear that the kobolds had been keeping prisoner has escaped" (the PCs may either fight the bear or attempt a skill challenge to calm it down), or one that you state explicitly, e.g. "How will you persuade the Duke to agree to your proposal?" Step Two: Ask each player what he wants his PC to do to help achieve the objective. Step Three: Translate what the players say into a skill check, e.g. "I threaten the hobgoblin" could be an Intimidate check. "I speak soothingly to the bear" could be a Nature check. "I try to get a sense of the Duke's current mood" could be an Insight check. Step Four: Decide whether what the player proposes to do will contribute towards the objective. If it seems reasonable, make it a Moderate skill check. If it seems unlikely or counter-productive, make it a Hard check or even an automatic failure. If it seems very effective, make it an Easy check or even an automatic success. For example, a Heal check to treat the bear's injuries might require a Moderate skill check. A cleric using healing word on the bear might be an automatic success, but making loud noises to scare the bear off might be a Hard Intimidate check or even an automatic failure. Step Five: Have the players make their skill checks and narrate the results. If the check is successful, convey a sense of progress towards achieving the objective. If the check is unsuccessful, describe what setbacks have occured. If the skill challenge is not over, go back to Step Two.My thoughts on designing skill challenges, collected from a few places:1. Consider the likely approaches that the PCs might take and decide how you will handle them. One way to do this is to go through the skill list and decide how each skill might be useful to the PCs. 2. Consider using multiple challenges of lower complexity instead of a single high-complexity skill challenge. I think it's easier for the DM and players to focus on and narrate the "stages" of successes and failures for four separate complexity one skill challenges (4 successes before 3 failures) than a single complexity four skill challenge (10 successes before 3 failures). 3. Consider giving the PCs ways to earn successes without the need for skill checks through the use of powers, class abilities, or creative thinking. For example, in a skill challenge to calm down a hungry, wounded animal, the PCs might be able to earn an automatic success if someone uses a healing power on the animal or gives it some food. 4. Consider separating skill checks to earn successes from skill checks to accumulate failures, or make the accumulation of failures depend on things other than unsuccessful skill checks, e.g. in a timed challenge, the PCs might accumulate one failure at the end of each round. Alternatively, consider other ways to penalize unsuccessful skill checks, e.g. an NPC attacks the PCs until they can convince him that the BBEG has lied to him. This encourages more participation since an unsuccessful skill check doesn't make the party worse off than doing nothing. 5. Consider ways to make skill challenges more dynamic by making changes to them while they are being resolved. For example, successful skill checks may open up other avenues for gaining successes, unsuccessful skill checks may close off some options or make them harder, certain skills may only be used to earn a limited number of successes, or the skill challenge as a whole is split up into discrete stages (this ties in nicely with point 2 above).</blockquote>

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