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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4812784" data-attributes="member: 710">I think making martial powers to be "mystical" (Ki) isn't wrong. It kinda makes sense that you can't beat supernatural monsters like dragons, beholders and hydras without some kind of "magic" tricks, either. really, even if they are not explicitely magic (as I would put the default assumption), beating a dragon in melee combat isn't really something ... dare I say.... "realistic"? Aside from that the dragon probably doesn't work without some magical help, fighting a big monster 25 times your weight and 5 times your height with scales as hard as metal with a big sword should be impossible without some extra tricks up your sleeve. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />There is a very good podcast on them on the WotC website. <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20090429" target="_blank">D&D Podcast: Skill Challenges (April 2009)</a>It explains a little on the "evolution" of the rules (e.g. the errata) and how to interpret them. The most important thing might be not to feel to straightjacketed by them. They are guidelines. For example, the DCs are per default set (with the errata) so that an untrained character has a chance to contribute to them. When creating your own challenge, don't just have to consider the party level, but you could also think about what kind of person you expect to succeed at a check half the time, and then figure out what his skill modifier would be and thus what the DC would be. (e.g. the skill challenge has its own level - the party might happen to have the same level, or they might not.)More importantly from a "feel" of the challenges, ensure that there is a concept of "rising tension" - failures and successes have notable effects on the in-game scene, and you should try to set up the challenge in a way to be able to describe them. (An example they mention is the "stealthy approach" scenario, where failures lead to guards being more alert and more guards coming out from the barracks. Another example was a social challenge where the king was not entirely convinced during the challenge and suggested to get his Grand Vizier for aid, and the PCs would want to avoid that with their next checks because the Vizier of course hates them). Also large complexity challenges might sometimes be served better by splitting into multiple lower complexity challenges, to give a better feedback and make it easier to identify "partial" successes. For example, in an investigation scenario, the party might fail to interrogate an important subject, but they succesfuly secured all evidence from the crime scene. This distinction makes at least the DM aware on how the plot can or should continue...</blockquote>

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