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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mesh Hong" data-source="post: 4848987" data-attributes="member: 73463">True, when I ran it there was one door section that they failed three times. I don't think the actual damage from the (by then) single trap was the real problem though. The damage ends up being pretty trivial relative to the characters level.  Possible, but wouldn't that pose themeatic problems. All the parts resetting is consistant and fitted the theme of that part of the adventure. If only two locks reset on failure then it might cause confusion as to why, or the players might not notice it depending on what locks they disarmed first.  Yes this is might be a good idea, one of the problems I have with skill challanges is trying to make them appropriate for all the characters. Giving something to do for any character who didn't want to participate in the main challange is a good idea. I think I might have a slight problem with splitting the group into 2 teams though, I think part of the fun of a skill challange should be the application of thought, skills and teamwork. For some reason I have it in my head that a skill challange shouldn't need to resort to "hitting it with a big hammer" or the martial characters relying on their combat skills. What is the point of a puzzle or complicated trap if it can be defeated by a couple of rounds of "Combat", if the characters are going to do this then wouldn't you be better off with an actual combat encounter in the first place? To take it to it's natural extreme (warning: devils advocate <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />) it would be like the characters not bothering to use social skills or roleplaying and just attacking NPCs until they told them what they wanted to know. Its an extreme but possible parrallel, the players choosing to use their much broader attack options rather than their much more limited social skills.  I really wanted to encourage all the characters to work as a team and all get involved, my thinking was that they would all share in the success (open door, xp from challange, getting there magical kit back) so they should all share in the pain (damage from failures). I really didn't think this challange was appropriate for an in combat skill challange. It was far too complicated (what I really wanted to encourage was different characters attempting different sections of the doors at the same time), and both myself and my group havn't had a lot of experience with skill challanges so I wanted to keep it seperate so that I could get a proper assessment of how successful it was.  Thanks for taking the time to help me out. This is probably only the fifth proper skill challange I have used in 16 levels, I love the concept of skill challanges but find it very difficult to actually slide them in to the game in a reasonable way. Most of what you can achieve with a skill challange we deal with better by actual roleplaying and a formal skill challange can get in the way of that.</blockquote>

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