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<blockquote data-quote="Havrik Stoneskimmer" data-source="post: 5565631" data-attributes="member: 6670929">I like your idea - very exciting way to start a campaign. If you don't need the PCs to fight the dragon right now, it could become a long term villain that they can eventually defeat when they have leveled up enough.The latest skill challenge rules are in the Rules Compendium, and there's a decent example of a skill challenge in play there. I tend to be pretty loose with skill challenges, and just let players make skill checks that seem appropriate and keep a running tally of their successes and failures. If they fail three times, I move the narrative in a direction such that their is a negative consequence to their failing that would have been avoided if they had succeeded in enough skill checks. Sometimes that's a game mechanic like &quot;you all lose a two healing surges from blundering through the brambles&quot; but more often it's just a story twist like having annoyed the mayor that could have helped them and now they need to find another, less convenient, solution to their problems.I don't do too much preparation for skill challenges in advance, other than having an idea of the complexity and maybe brainstorming a few likely skill uses. But mostly I just let the players come up with ideas and roll appropriate skills checks as it comes up. I rarely tell the players that they are in a skill challenge - I keep the mechanics on my side of the DM's screen.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Havrik Stoneskimmer, post: 5565631, member: 6670929"] I like your idea - very exciting way to start a campaign. If you don't need the PCs to fight the dragon right now, it could become a long term villain that they can eventually defeat when they have leveled up enough. The latest skill challenge rules are in the Rules Compendium, and there's a decent example of a skill challenge in play there. I tend to be pretty loose with skill challenges, and just let players make skill checks that seem appropriate and keep a running tally of their successes and failures. If they fail three times, I move the narrative in a direction such that their is a negative consequence to their failing that would have been avoided if they had succeeded in enough skill checks. Sometimes that's a game mechanic like "you all lose a two healing surges from blundering through the brambles" but more often it's just a story twist like having annoyed the mayor that could have helped them and now they need to find another, less convenient, solution to their problems. I don't do too much preparation for skill challenges in advance, other than having an idea of the complexity and maybe brainstorming a few likely skill uses. But mostly I just let the players come up with ideas and roll appropriate skills checks as it comes up. I rarely tell the players that they are in a skill challenge - I keep the mechanics on my side of the DM's screen. [/QUOTE]

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