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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 4289732" data-attributes="member: 2303">Proposed New Skill Challege SystemIn this system, the challenge needs an initiative to act upon. Generally, the challenge always acts last in the round. In some cases, where the challenge is based on a trap or character, it might have a regular initiative score, but this makes things harder by giving the players less time. It also introduces something called friction points; a mechanic used to determine when the time allowed for the challenge runs out.Each round on the start of the challenge's turn, check to see if there is enough friction points to cause a failure. The number of friction points needed to fail is twice the number of successes the task requires. At the end of the challenge's turn, it gain a number of friction points equal to the number of players.This gives the players in a 5-person party one extra round to complete a challenge. For larger and smaller parties, the time allotted varies because of rounding, but they get at least one extra round as well. This makes simpler challenges easier - it is more valuable to go from 2 to 3 rounds than it is to go from 6 to 7 rounds.It is important that friction points be based on the number of players, not on the number of characters present. If the players split up, or if some characters opt not to participate, things get a lot harder. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Since your efforts never cause harm, any form of participation is helpful.I did some math:This work out to these required skill levels to have a 50%chance of success at a moderate difficulty challenge in a party of five. Complexity    Minimum skill bonus1    +12    +2 (just barely)3    +24    +25    +3Remember, a 50% chance to succeed is very, very bad. This, this gives us an absolute worst-case scenario: a skill challenge should never get harder than this. Players expect to succeed much more than that. The chance to succeed goes down as the complexity increases, but only very slightly so. Then again, players are likely to be running out of ideas and resources, which should make a long challenge harder.  In a mixed encounter, NPCs can work at counter purposes to the players, adding friction points as they score successes. Make sure the total xp value of the NPCs and the skill challenge does not become excessive.</blockquote>

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