I am pretty sure this topic has already been covered at some point in the ancient past, but how would one use the 4th edition skill challenge rules to mimic a dungeon crawl for a group of players?
Does one use a map, or something more like a flow chart, and only bring the map out for fights?
Does a fight happen after each failure, or only at the end of three failures? Or, does a failure split the party by dumping half of them down a pit trap to a lower dungeon level?
Any other ideas?
I've used a "hand-drawn" map, not in scale, to show some key areas, like entrance, a few rooms and the main room with the BBEG. I made battlemaps for each of those areas and used Skill Challenges to "connect" the rooms or help in navigation. I really liked this approach since I avoided mapping out the entire dungeon square-by-square.
First, use the skill challenges rules in the Rules Compendium and no others. In fact, forget the others even exist.
Second, make a list of dungeon crawl tropes equal to the number of successes required plus 2. These are the challenges you present to the players for their characters to overcome in initiative order. (That's mostly a spotlight control thing, but the rules work better when the PCs are in initiative.) Make sure your Primary and Secondary Skills list is on point. The DCs for those checks are right in the book.
If the skill challenge is Complexity 3 or higher, you must use Advantages. Pick from the available list and layer on some kind of dungeon crawl trope and assign a price for it. For example, if the Advantage is "a success against a hard DC removes a failure that has already been accumulated in the challenge, instead of counting as a success," then that can be called "Coin-Operated Secret Door." Because it's being done in the face of some complication you're already presenting (which is still unresolved since this does not count as a success), charge some gold or something for the benefit. Basic idea is that if you want an Advantage, you gotta pay. (And they will, particularly in higher Complexity challenges because the math is very much against the PCs succeeding.)
You could do each failure means a fight, but frankly, that's going to depend on your group. My group would want the fight because D&D 4e combat is fun and monsters are worth XP and they might have treasure on them. If that's the same for your group, you'll want to come up with something else in terms of cost. The overall context in which you are placing this skill challenge should inform your decision.
This is how I ran mine, with slight modifications. The RC version of SC is key b/c of Advantages (tho the DM Kit may have them too). I sometimes used a large SC for the entire dungeon (which I describe more below) or a lower complexity SC if players go one way and a separate SC if they go the other way.
I used a single SC for the entire dungeon a lot. When designing the SC, one of the things you have to decide (either in prep or during the game) is what happens with a complete failure (3 failures). In the spirit of "fall forward", do the PCs confront the BBEG but at significant disadvantage? Or do they get hopelessly lost and end up outside of the dungeon?
Say you decide that you want the final result to end with a confrontation with the big bad. With that in mind, I often arranged levels of success like this:
Complete Failure: 3 failures, no successes
Partial Failure: 3 failures, some successes
Partial Success: some failures, success (rolled successfully the # of times you needed to. Like above, sometimes I separated out # of failures)
Complete Success: no failures, success
I would note what a Complete Failure could look like e.g., PCs confront BBEG at a significant disadvantage (say they fell in some trap and the BBEG ambushed them). Note that Complete Failures are usually VERY rare, as are Complete Successes (depending on Complexity).
I winged a lot of it but I often wrote down triggers for reminders:
Result on a Success: I often wrote triggers like after 3 successes they went to the Trap Room but with some benefit and treasure, at 7 successes they went to the Treasure Room, etc.. Successes can also give you a bonus to a roll or open up a new avenue of exploring (mechanically, opens up a new skill that can be used).
Result on a Failure: Sometimes, it triggered an encounter, but I usually didn't do that for the first failure. I usually used a penalty for next roll or lose a HS. Second failure is usually an encounter. The third either is a really bad encounter or the BBEG but at significant disadvantage.
I started using this model after getting Dungeon Delves. A typical delve has 3 encounters. I extended that by "connecting" each room with a skill challenge.
