NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 6039766" data-attributes="member: 52734">Skill challenges FTW!However, there's some significant problems with the skill challenge rules that need to be addressed.  I think it's an excellent skeleton, but it needs a lot of meat put on it's bones to make it more than a dice rolling fest (by one person).In the right hands, a skill challenge ought to play out like combat.  Characters take turns deciding on and then preforming an action.  The environment reacts to the character's action.  The result of that action/die roll propels them toward or away from their goal and updates the environment.An example might be sneaking past the Night Watch.First, the rogue decides how he's going to get around.  The first player decides he'll slip through the dark alleys.  The second decides he'll go by rooftop and the third dons a disguise and hopes to sneak under the watch's very nose.For the first round, Character 1 makes a stealth roll to slip into shadows.  Character 2 makes a climb check to get onto the rooftops and Character 3 makes a disguise check to don his "peasant beggar" disguise.The DM sets up the night watch - it's a chilly night and the two lax guardsmen hover near a blazing barrel, their halbards resting against their chest as they warm their hands over the barrel and discuss matters of import only to them.As Character 1 nears the guardsmen, the DM makes a perception check for the guards to notice the stealthed character, and fail.  Unfortunately, Character 1 will have to cross out of the shadows to pass the strategically placed guards, so he decides to create a distraction.  Grabbing a pebble, he hurls it over the guards heads, where it makes a "plunk" sound as it scatters across the far cobblestone.  With a successful Bluff vs. Perception check on Character 1's part, the guards shift to check what made the noise.  Character 1 makes another Stealth check, with a bonus from his Bluff check and quietly slips by the watch.As the two guards return to their barrel to warm back up, Character 2 - who has made a successful Streetwise and Jump check to navigate the rooftops so far, crouches out of sight of the talkative guards. With careful aim, Character 2 launches his grappling hook across the open square and with a successful attack roll, manages to secure it around a chimney on the far side of the plaza.  He likewise makes a successful Stealth vs. the Guards perception, so the guards don't even pause their conversation as the grappling hook hits home.  After a quick test, Character 2 hooks up and slides across his grappling line to the far side and past the watch.Meanwhile, Character 3 has humbly made it to the open square where the guardsmen are on watch.  Carefully, he makes his way up to the fire, requesting to warm his chilled hands at the blazing barrel.  With a successful Bluff and Disguise check vs. the guards Sense Motive and Perception checks, Character 3 is catting up the guards.  With yet another successful Gather Information roll, he learns the guards are on watch for three rogues who just robbed the mayor of all his valuables, and that bounty hunters are on the prowl for the substanacial reward for the three.  Pressing his luck, Character 3 hits the guards up for some alms so that he may get "some food, drink and a warm bed" for the night.  With a successful Diplomacy check vs. the guard's Sense Motive check, Character 3 quits the scene with a few extra silvers to add to the pearl necklace taken from the mayor wife's jewelry box.That's what a skill challenge ought to be like.</blockquote>

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