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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7086953" data-attributes="member: 42582">This does not reflect my experience at all.A skill challenge, as I understand it, is a method for resolving a non-combat situation of adversity in which the PCs find themselves. (Some people use skill challenges for some combats also - but I'm bracketing that for the moment.)So to frame a skill challenge, we need (i) some PCs, who (ii) find themselves in a non-combat situation of adversity. We then apply the method, which (i) requires setting a complexity, and (ii) requires settling at least some general parameters for DCs (though, as the discussion in this thread has shown, different practices are used at this point by different GMs).Then, as per the 4e DMG (p 74), the GM "describe<s> the environment, listen<s> to the players' responses, let<s> them make their skill checks, and narrate<s> the results." As written, it is ambiguous whether the plural here takes a distributed or collective reading; and I think this was a big issue in the reception and play of skill challenges, as I think many RPGers and also, perhaps, some adventure authors assumed that the plural was collective - ie the GM listens once to the many player responses, let's the players all make their checks, and then (once, after this is all done) narrates the results. This makes the resolution of a skill challenge nothing but a "dice rolling exercise".</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s></s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>The DMG 2 (p 83), however, clarified that the plural is intended to take a distributed reading, ie that there are as many episodes of the GM describing the environment, listening to responses and then narrating results as there are makings of checks:</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s></s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>Each skill check in a challenge should accomplish one of the following goals:</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s></s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>* Introduce a new option that the PCs can pursue . . .</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s></s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>* Change the situation, such as by sending the PCs to a new location, introducing a new NPC, or adding a complication.</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s></s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>* Grant the players a tangible consequence . . . that influence their subsequent decisions. </s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>. . . [T]he same situation applies in a battle. . . . During a combat encounter, the actions taken by each character and monster set the stage for the next person's turn. In a good combat encounter, the situation constantly changes. The same thing applies to skill challenges. The best challenges are those that you can adjust as you react to the players' decisions.</s></s></s></s><s><s><s><s>Doing this - that is to say, applying the method so as to resolve the non-combat situation of adversity in which the PCs find themselves - doesn't depend upon there being some sort of fixed exit point. I would go so far as to say that it is impossible that there should be a fixed exit point, as one can't know in advance what actions the players will declare, and hence can't know in advance what things will change as a result of those actions, and hence can't know what the situation will be for subsequent checks, and hence can't know what the outcome resulting from the final check will be.</s></s></s></s></blockquote>

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