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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4205849" data-attributes="member: 5143">Maybe.  I mean all that is required is that there is a benefit to succeeding and a consequence to failing to make it so the results of the Skill Challenge matters in some way.The consequence certainly could be death.  However, that result normally ends the adventure for everyone and is probably no fun.It's the same reason most DMs design combat encounters so that the PCs will win.  If you are running an adventure that is about defeating the cultists of Tharizdun and stop them from destroying the world, you want that to happen and the adventure to reach its satisfying conclusion.  You want the rolls in the Skill Challenge to matter, but you don't want it to end your adventure(either through the deaths of all of the PCs or due to derailing the plot enough that it no longer becomes possible for the PCs to win).So, maybe the PCs are at a disadvantage in a later combat.  Maybe it takes another adventure to complete the overall plot as the PCs look for a clue they missed.  Maybe it just gives them negative modifiers when dealing with the duke in the future.As an example, while thinking of ideas a while back I came up with a chase Skill Challenge.  The goal was to chase after some monsters who had kidnapped someone.  Success meant arriving at the cave they were living in just a couple of rounds after the monsters.  This meant that they didn't have time to station extra guards at the entrance yet and the first combat was easier.  As well, the traps in the cave weren't enabled yet.The traps would certainly make things harder.  However, they were designed to be not overwhelming so I knew they'd make it to the end and save the kidnapped person anyways.  That was the idea.  He was the plot hook for the rest of my adventure.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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