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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5698902" data-attributes="member: 150">In the basic skill challenge rules, skills can be reused, but if you have a reason why it doesn't make sense or you want to try not allowing reuse, that's up to you, as others have said. I want to take a slightly different tack from the suggestions that skill challenges should always be invisible to the players: I think that sometimes that can be very cool, and especially when it comes to social skill challenges, you don't want the players thinking more about the skills and the dice than you do the story and the RP situation, so keeping the skill challenge mechanics out of sight can be a very good option.  However, there are a lot of cases where the structure and mechanics can add a lot to an encounter. A lot -- and I mean a whole lot -- depends upon your game group and it's culture. I play with min-maxing combat junkies, mostly, and they want to understand the rules of a scene so they can win, even when it isn't combat. More RP-invested groups are probably not interested in that kind of gamesmanship, and would not enjoy the same sort of skill challenges. Having said that, the one think you usually want to try to avoid no matter what sort of skill challenge you're setting up, would be just rolling the same skill check, over and over, with no change, no choices, no more engagement that hoping for a high role. IMO, the thing that is most important to keep in mind when you're creating skill challenges is choices.  If you can construct a challenge that gives players choices to make that are interesting and engaging, you've created a good challenge --whether they can see the mechanics or not. When I say choices, I don't mean picking a skill they have a high bonus for -- that's not a choice, is just comparing numbers. Give them interesting options like spending healing surges for improved results (or easier checks), the option to make a tougher skill check to allow an ally to make an easier one, ways to spend other resources, different approaches to the same problem, etc. Better choice options in this vein are choices that build on interactions between characters -- it's one thing to pick the skill that your character is best at, it's an entirely different one to use that skill but select to try for a harder DC to make that same skill check easier for one of your allies, etc.  When I have the time, I like to build each skill challenge from the ground up, and it's important to really understand that every element of the challenge is changeable to fit your situation: maybe they need 8 successes, but since there's a time limit there's no need for failing after a number of failed checks. Maybe there are varied grades of success, too -- the PCs might be able to earn a minor success, but then the DCs go up as they try to turn the minor success into a greater one. Maybe they can make skill checks to erase failed checks. Maybe they can burn daily powers or healing surges or action points or some other limited resource to gain advantages in their DCs, or double the number of successes earned in a single roll.  It's all fair game, all changeable to fit the needs of your situation.  And you're only really doing it wrong if it isn't fun for your players. -rg</blockquote>

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