Interlocking connected skill challenges

[ryryguy]

I'm planning a puzzly sort of encounter for my 3.5 campaign and thinking about how to run it in 4e skill challenge style. I expect for the most part I'll mostly wing it at the table, but at least with the general idea of accumulated successes vs. accumulated failures from the skill challenge framework.

It's been suggested that skill challenges can interlock, perhaps overall successes/failures at secondary skill challenges can make up the "skill" successes/failures that drive a primary skill challenge. How do you think that might apply in the following example?

The party discovers a planar gate to the plane of Ooze. The gate has a number of effects/features beyond simply being a gate:

• A mighty ooze paraelemental "monolith" is trapped and bound in the threshold of the gate.

• An antipathy-like effect, affecting water and Water creatures, surrounds the gate, driving leaking water/ooze up through a permeable ceiling into a reservoir.

• An item which leaches magical energy from the gate is attached to it; it is disguised/non-obvious.

• Physically, a ring of runes encircles the gate; different runes are keyed to each effect.

Here are the main possible success outcomes for the party:

• The party frees the paraelemental monolith.

• The party acquires the magic leeching device.

• The party gets a clue from the leeching device leading to another device (to which the leeched power is being diverted)

Here are the main possible failure outcomes for the party:

• The paraelemental monolith is not returned to its plane.

• The magical leeching device is not recovered (possibly destroyed).

Here are some possible "intermediate" successes and failures:

• The party identifies the different effects and some interrelationships (for example, if the paraelemental leaves the gate, the antipathy will end). (Success)

• The party determines which runes control which effects. (success)

• The party discovers an asymmetry in the binding effect which is a clue to the leeching device. (success)

• The antipathy effect is dispelled (prematurely), leading to water from the reservoir rushing back into the chamber. (fail)

• The gate is closed trapping the paraelemental monolith in the chamber - it goes on a rampage. (fail)

• The party destroys or alters a "red herring" rune triggering a backlash. (fail)

So you see, it's a complicated situation with lots of possible branches. Again, I feel like I can run this successfully by just keeping these ideas in mind and "staying loose"... but trying to capture it iformally n the skill challenge framework seems pretty daunting! There are combinations of successes and failures that are not mutually exclusive - for example, the party could send the paraelemental home but miss the hidden leeching device. But a "decipher runes" success could count towards both goals.

How would you sort this out into separate skill challenges? Do you see places where an "unlock" (like Diplomacy unlocking History in the excerpt) would be appropriate? Is this setup just too complicated and/or specific for a skill challenge to be used?

PS - One thing I'm sure of - clearly, attempting to use Intimidate should be an automatic failure.