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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 4896283" data-attributes="member: 20323">This is just like the what if we kill the BBEG on the first round question. The good DM rolls with it, but ideally 4th edition's combat mechanics are balanced so this is unlikely given a well-designed encounter. In a well-designed investigative skill challenge the Big Clue is the result of succeeding at the SC, and is dependent on lots of other smaller successes.For example, to learn that whoever killed the victim was trying to conceal knowledge of a secret society called the Wyvern League, the PCs need to accumulate X number of successes spread across all the investigative tracks.Great question, LostSoul! Red herrings are to investigative skill challenges what traps/hazards are to combat. They are meant to hinder and provoke strategy, not totally throw off track, demoralize, and destroy. I'm thinking the best way to handle red herrings is to create clues that have multiple interpretations. The more clues you gather the closer you are to pinning down the actual events (though even then the players need to do some thinking), so with incomplete information it's entirely possible to jump to the wrong conclusion.One of the benefits of breaking up the investigative SC with encounters is that it allows the PCs to course correct. Making a mistake by pursuing a red herring is fun and dramatic. Having it throw off the story and make the PCs look like idiots is a drag.For example, the PCs learn the victim was in debt to the thieves' guild and the method he was killed matches up with a notorious guild assassin's modus operandi. They might pursue the red herring of the assassin being the murderer, when in actuality another clue would point them in the direction of a noble framing the thieves guild. This leads to a tense encounter with the thieves guild where the PCs learn that the thieves' guild preferred having the victim around as an indebted toady (and some appropriate drama with the assassin..."now that you have seen my face, you cannot leave alive!"). What he was doing for the thieves guild might provide a clue to get them on the right track for the next round of the SC.The idea is when the PCs are in investigation mode (i.e. a round of the skill challenge), it's their show, they are the stars - they roll against DC determined according to their level as normal for a SC. When the encounter occurs (in between rounds of the SC), that's when pushback happens and the villains get to complicate things.In a way it's a lot like the initiative system simulating the ebb and flow of combat. Only in this case it's more like "I burn the bad guy's lab to the ground and set a trap if he returns"; to which the villain goes "ok, fine, I kidnap your mom!"Exactly. For example, you can gather all these clues *during* the SC, but the actual goal is to keep your investigation under the radar of the BBEG, so that your success/failure determines how much the BBEG learns of your nosing about. Or you are trying to find the murderer's hideout before he strikes again, success meaning you get to fight him, failure meaning someone will be pushing daisies by midnight. Or you are looking for a break in the investigation, a big clue which will allow you to release a bunch of detained suspects (some with quite a bit of clout and long memories) and issue a warrant for an arrest; if you fail then there's fallout with the innocent NPCs you've had to detain. There are so many ways to define success/failure, though I wonder if it might be convenient to catalogue the kinds most common to investigative SCs.Great point ExploderWizard! That's the crux of SC design - succeed or fail the story moves on, and (for the sake of DM sanity) usually to the same encounter. So once the SC is complete, regardless of whether the PCs found the killer's hideout or not, the next encounter has to make logical sense. Make it a masquerade ball where the killer is likely to strike next. If the PCs found the hideout they might have learned a clue about how to identify the killer by his choice of mask or his collection of fine imported leucrotta shoes. Without the information, the PCs will have a harder time stopping the murder, but either way the action scene takes place with the PCs chasing down and confronting the killer.</blockquote>

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