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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7330967" data-attributes="member: 6696971">So this is an awesome example of another way to properly integrate Skill Challenges and combat:Mechanically, its a countdown/clock scenario.  The clock "strikes 12" at round 5.  So, as the GM  playing the adversaries/obstacles, what you're trying to do is prevent the PCs from being able to (a) nova the bad guys so they can clean up the SC unharassed in later rounds and (b) make the decision-points in each round weighty/difficult (from an opportunity cost eval perspective and from being able to get in position to deploy what they want to deploy).  Reading your encounter above, I think I would make the following additions/ammendments:1)  I would increase the size of the encounter area (I definitely understand and agree with the principle you're working off of) and simultaneously increase the size of the pit and the excavated earth proportionately and I would make that scattered earth also act in the way directly below (in 2).2)  I would make the excavated earth a Hungry Terrain hazard to protect the Abbott.  Perhaps the ritual during exhumation tainted the excavated earth so either phantasmal or earthen hands reach up and grasp at anyone who attempts to cross (attacking Fort, Necrotic damage and Immobilized).  Also Difficult Terrain.3)  I'd step down the Necrotic damage for the Abbot's (reskined Human Mage) Darkbolt and give it a Slide 2 rider (into the pit or the Hungry Earth).4)  I'd have pillars or stonework/mausoleums so the Abbot could get cover against ranged attacks and make ranged attack PCs have to navigate the dangerous terrain to get an attack off.5)  I don't see that you indicated action economy above, but I would definitely go with Standard Action (primary)/Minor Action (secondary) to engage with the SC given the scenario (given the relationship of # of adversaries/control elements to PCs), the countdown/clock nature of its construction, and the fact that the one or two of the PCs will surely have Action Points.[HR][/HR]I'll throw together a round 4 of your combat/SC scenario with your Sohei Fighter, your Skirmisher Ranger, and your Shaman later tonight when I have some time.  Great stuff though.  Alright, so far for integration of SCs with combat so far we have:1)  Lack of engagement equals micro-failures which negatively impact the PCs from both a mechanical and fictional positioning perspective; they become injured, things become more dire/pressing, a story loss becomes imminent.2)  Integration at the fiction level, but not at the action economy level; eg the GM frames the Skill Challenge situation and reframes it each round to have it coincide with the combat/unfolding narrative scenario, but there is no decision-point tension for the players.  3)  A clock/countdown scenario which comes online a few rounds in whereby (i) failures begin to automatically accrue at the end of each round when the SC is active and (ii) the unfolding situation becomes more mechanically dire (and therefore fictionally) at it progresses.</blockquote>

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