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Message: <blockquote data-quote="darkbard" data-source="post: 7086239" data-attributes="member: 1282">This is an oversimplification and, thus, a mischaracterization of the latitude the DM has when setting skill challenges in 4E. A SC may be of any level, not just "level appropriate" (by which I take you to mean = the PCs' level), though, like with combat encounters, 4E provides guidelines for challenge levels not deviating too far above or below the level of the PCs (level +3 is usually the upper limit, for example). Even more importantly, the complexity of the skill challenge sets the number of successes needed from as low as 4 to as high as 12 before 3 failures. I would hardly call the DM handcuffed with such flexible tools at her disposal. Through utilizing these tools the DM mechanically "opposes" the PCs through a game representation of the NPC's skills in such encounters.Trying to sneak past some generic guards and into the bedroom of the burgermeister? Maybe a simple, level 1 complexity, at-level skill challenge (or even level -1 or -2) suffices. In pemerton's example, though, involving a cunning court advisor, a baron, and high stakes, unless I'm mistaken, he set the challenge at complexity 5. I don't think he specified the level comparative to the PCs, but that could have been another way he represented the NPC's "leverage" of his own qualities, as you call it.</blockquote>