Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5144308" data-attributes="member: 40177">When I first ran 4e, I had a problem (like a lot of people) running skill challenges.  I didn't really "grok" them, and after one or two super failed attempts, I dropped them and focused on combat challenges and exploration.  After reading Stalker0s take on Skill Challenges, I jumped right back in, and things got better - I suddenly started enjoying them again.  And I've become comfortable enough to just kind of take that basic framework and wing it - I'm an adherent to the "Seat of your Pants" school of GMing, for sure.So today I ran a skill challenge.  The PCs were pushing a large metal cart along rails, trying to outrun a wave of millions of highly poisonous spiders, as well as a monstrous spider that was HUGE.  The PCs knew that one bite from these spiders was near fatal.  So they ran like hell.I divided the challenge up into rounds - the PCs needed three successes (there are 5 PCs in the group) to maintain the distance with the spiders, and each success over this increased the gap (and each failure decreased it).  Each round, the PCs could choose an action to keep that cart moving.The first two rounds were just running and keeping the thing moving.  We had our alchemist dropping fire bombs to deter the spiders (auto successes), we had people pushing the cart like mad, and we had thieves oiling the wheels.  The cart picked up speed, and began barrelling down the hallway.We then had archers in the eaves ahead firing down on the PCs (basically, a round of combat in which the PCs didn't fight back), drow aberrations trying to block the rails (and getting blasted out of the way by the bard using a shout power), and the always popular "Hit that thing to stop the doors from closing" portion of the skill challenge.Each round was a different "theme" - speed the cart up, dodge incoming arrow fire, clear the tracks, prevent the doors from closing, and then "holy crap, we need to stop this cart!" And there were roleplaying moments within the challenge, as well - the NPCs shooting worried looks at the PCs, and some moments of nonverbal communication between the two groups that were just awesome.  My personal favourite, though, is when the bard took a spear that was wedged in the front of the cart (he was riding on the outside) and a shield and basically "jousted" with an aberration that was blocking the track - naturally, he got knocked beneath the cart, and was being dragged along (I know the player, so I kind of fudged things to make sure he'd fail, because he'd enjoy it a lot more than if he succeeded).  The point of all this is, to those of you who that think skill challenges are just die-rolling - god, no.  And you don't need meticulous planning, either.  You just need to set up a situation where the PCs have multiple options, and where the players aren't just looking at their character sheets trying to figure out how they can use their +14 skill for a challenge that doesn't need it (though there was a bit of that in this challenge, it didn't really hurt things).  Definitely one of the high points of my GMing 4e so far.  <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>

Verification