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<blockquote data-quote="OnlineDM" data-source="post: 5357607" data-attributes="member: 90804">If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying you are excited about pitting the players in a battle against a big bad evil guy, and it's only logical that this guy lives at the end of a dungeon filled with other baddies, but you have no interest in actually making your players fight through a bunch of little battles with those guys.&nbsp; Correct?&nbsp; You also want the players to arrive at the BBEG battle having depleted some of their resources, to reflect the fact that they've &quot;fought through the other battles.&quot;&nbsp; Sure, you could probably do this with a skill challenge, but you'd want to make sure your players are buying into the concept.&nbsp; Battling with skills rather than attack powers is doable, but it's not what the structure of D&amp;D4e was built for.&nbsp; What skills do you use to win a fight?&nbsp; Well, it's usually your attack powers, defenses, hit points, etc.&nbsp; If you tell the party, &quot;You open the door to the next chamber and are confronted with a bunch of axe-wielding orcs who seem intent on killing you.&nbsp; What do you do?&quot; The answer is probably going to be &quot;Roll initiative!&quot;&nbsp; That's not what you want this to be about, though, so you'll have to help your players along.What are some acceptable alternatives to rolling initiative here?&nbsp; Endurance to shake off the axe strikes as they deal damage?&nbsp; Athletics to jump over the orcs and run?&nbsp; Dungeoneering to spot a fragile pillar that can be pushed over to collapse a ceiling on them?&nbsp; Diplomacy (&quot;Hey guys, can't we just be friends?&quot;)?&nbsp; I don't know - that's up to you.Keep in mind that most players enjoy combat.&nbsp; They WANT to use their cool weapons and attack powers to beat up bad guys.&nbsp; Doing it with skills might seem like less fun to them (though your party may be different).If instead you envision them getting through the monster-filled dungeon by AVOIDING the monsters, I could see that working as a skill challenge.&nbsp; Stealth, Dungeoneering, Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, maybe some social skills, Perception... I could see them all coming into play.&nbsp; This would be more like &quot;rebels infiltrating the empire base&quot; rather than &quot;adventurers plowing through a monster-filled dungeon,&quot; which could be just as much fun.&nbsp; In that type of skill challenge, it's completely reasonable to say, &quot;Okay, your 12 Stealth is a failure.&nbsp; A party of guards hears you and comes in to attack you.&nbsp; You're able to handle them without letting them raise the alarm, but in the process they beat you all up a little bit and you each lose a healing surge.&quot;&nbsp; I can't think of a good way to deplete daily powers unless you want to allow the use of a daily to cancel a failure or something.&nbsp; If the goal is to really do some depleting, you'll want to use very tough DCs on the skill checks with the assumption being that the party is going to have many failures in order to deplete those resources.Personally, I would run all of the combat encounters and let the players arrive at the BBEG naturally, with as many surges and daily powers available as they're able to salvage.&nbsp; But if you really want to take the skill challenge approach, consider the &quot;avoid detection&quot; structure, and be prepared to be very creative!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="OnlineDM, post: 5357607, member: 90804"] If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying you are excited about pitting the players in a battle against a big bad evil guy, and it's only logical that this guy lives at the end of a dungeon filled with other baddies, but you have no interest in actually making your players fight through a bunch of little battles with those guys. Correct? You also want the players to arrive at the BBEG battle having depleted some of their resources, to reflect the fact that they've "fought through the other battles." Sure, you could probably do this with a skill challenge, but you'd want to make sure your players are buying into the concept. Battling with skills rather than attack powers is doable, but it's not what the structure of D&D4e was built for. What skills do you use to win a fight? Well, it's usually your attack powers, defenses, hit points, etc. If you tell the party, "You open the door to the next chamber and are confronted with a bunch of axe-wielding orcs who seem intent on killing you. What do you do?" The answer is probably going to be "Roll initiative!" That's not what you want this to be about, though, so you'll have to help your players along. What are some acceptable alternatives to rolling initiative here? Endurance to shake off the axe strikes as they deal damage? Athletics to jump over the orcs and run? Dungeoneering to spot a fragile pillar that can be pushed over to collapse a ceiling on them? Diplomacy ("Hey guys, can't we just be friends?")? I don't know - that's up to you. Keep in mind that most players enjoy combat. They WANT to use their cool weapons and attack powers to beat up bad guys. Doing it with skills might seem like less fun to them (though your party may be different). If instead you envision them getting through the monster-filled dungeon by AVOIDING the monsters, I could see that working as a skill challenge. Stealth, Dungeoneering, Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, maybe some social skills, Perception... I could see them all coming into play. This would be more like "rebels infiltrating the empire base" rather than "adventurers plowing through a monster-filled dungeon," which could be just as much fun. In that type of skill challenge, it's completely reasonable to say, "Okay, your 12 Stealth is a failure. A party of guards hears you and comes in to attack you. You're able to handle them without letting them raise the alarm, but in the process they beat you all up a little bit and you each lose a healing surge." I can't think of a good way to deplete daily powers unless you want to allow the use of a daily to cancel a failure or something. If the goal is to really do some depleting, you'll want to use very tough DCs on the skill checks with the assumption being that the party is going to have many failures in order to deplete those resources. Personally, I would run all of the combat encounters and let the players arrive at the BBEG naturally, with as many surges and daily powers available as they're able to salvage. But if you really want to take the skill challenge approach, consider the "avoid detection" structure, and be prepared to be very creative! [/QUOTE]

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