How would you build this skill challenge?

[Kzach]

I'm trying to build a skill challenge as a significant part of a journey through a tomb. I had thought to make it a crevasse crossing but that seems like it'd be a bit dull. So I thought I'd put it to you to see how other people would do this and therefore give me some ideas to use for my game this coming weekend.

I could go into the details of my situation but I think that'd just limit the creativity. I'd really like to hear some far out ideas on how to make this a fun and interesting encounter.

The basic premise of the skill challenge is that they need to get from one side of a tomb/dungeon passage to the other, and there is a significant danger/obstacle in between that is part of the design and meant to hinder would be looters.

 

[Jurph]

Drowning Chamber with Rube Goldberg Safety Interlocks

My first thought would be to replicate the drowning chamber from Cryptonomicon but add some twists. The players move (let's just say North) through a long narrow hallway, then down a steep ramp, along the hall further, and then up into an ornate circular room lined with treasures and fool's gold on shelves. A thick marble pillar spans the height of the chamber in the center of the room. The north and south walls have archways leading down steep ramps or stairs.

Removing or examining any treasure on the shelves causes a stone pillar in the center of the room to drop into the floor, spilling a thin layer of water all around its base -- its fall is arrested by a column of water. Then it hits the bottom of the column, our heroes hear the sound of (say) a ceramic jug or pipe breaking, and the water drains out from the crevices quickly. As soon as they hear the jug or pipe crack, heavy sliding stone doors fall from the ceiling and seal off the arched doorways. The hallways at the bottom of the ramps (now on the far side of thin stone doors) fill with water. A player who manages to make an Acrobatics roll can make a leap and become stranded on the far side of the door; they can make it down the hallway before the water fills over head-height and emerge safely in the north or south hall.

Getting out will require:
- Thievery and/or Dungeoneering, to figure out how the doors are latched (it turns out that one of the items of treasure is a brass key placed in the room in case the trap was accidentally sprung by the slaves who were baiting it)
- Athletics, to lift the doors once the latches are disabled (chance of injury or even becoming trapped on the far side of the door, ankle-deep in water, if the team fails when the door is most of the way up)
- Thievery and/or Dungeoneering again in order to figure out how to drain the water (lifting the pillar back up opens the path to drain the water, but the water can only be drained by the activation of a pair of drain levers - one on the dry north side, one on the dry south side; again, when the trap was being prepared, this was an emergency release).
- Athletics and Endurance, to swim far enough down the tunnel without suffocating (chance to kill or drown a party member - you can dial this back)
- Endurance for the team members still in the chamber who need to hold the pillar up for as many rounds as it takes to activate the two drain levers.

Adjust the difficulty of the challenges to your party's strengths and weaknesses, and feel free to set the DCs high enough that you need the whole party to HEAVE HO on both stone doors. You can also add venomous water snakes that bite once or twice and then leave the two swimmers with ongoing venom toxicity, so that the team will need to go check on both of them once the water drains.

For maximum role-playing effect, split the party up into two or more rooms once they send their swimmers down the pipes.