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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5338285" data-attributes="member: 75065">Making the person who is worst at a skill make the skill check on behalf of the party is a rubbish idea. That's a piece of advice you will want to ignore. It punishes not only the player, the group, the character but even worse, it doesn't give the guy who is good at that skill a chance to put his hand up to say 'it's okay guys, I'll handle this one'.From what I have learnt from my experiences with physical challenges like this, everyone should be involved. PCs good at that stuff should have a chance to shine. They should also be able to help out those weaker in those areas. If I was dropped into the wilderness from a helicopter, I'd probably die fairly quickly. If I went into the wilderness with Scout Leader Billy, Billy would find ways to keep me alive, and more than that, he'd tell me how to be useful. But I'd have to do my part, it wouldn't all be up to Billy either, he could only do so much.So PCs who suck at it should have a chance to succeed if they are lucky, but there needs to be some mechanism involved that skilled PCs can bail them out when the put there foot in it.Tony's idea to include helpful skills that PCs can use to substitute endurance once during the challenge is a nice take on it.What I do when I consider all PCs need to pass a certain part of a challenge 'individually', is have what I call a 'team check'. Everyone rolls. Say you have 5 players, if 4 out of 5 of them succeed it gains a success. They may or may not have to resolve that individual failure depending on the situation. That doesn't affect the challenge as such, but the PCs need to deal with the situation before than can carry on (or they are prepared to abandon their friends as Tony suggests they might want to do... a little harsh but hey!) If 3 out of 5 succeed then it's neither a success or a failure, but something has happened. The PCs will need to deal with that something. The 2 who failed are the PCs in the most danger.If 2 out of 5 succeed then it's a failure and the PCs are momentarily in trouble. In my opinion a failure should always change the situation, complicating things further for your PCs. The PCs need to get out of the situation as best they can before being able to proceed on their way. This situation should be more difficult than either of the other above situations. With wolves this might lead to them liking their chances to bring down one of the PCs who failed their check. maybe they have been momentarily separated from the two who succeeded the check. Let's say they are on different sides of the river. The wolves won't flee until either one wolf is killed and the other PCs manage to make it back to the group.To aid the weaker PCs I include the following mechanics: Lead the Way: One of the PCs can choose to take the lead. The CD is usually more difficult. But if they succeed they provide a +2 bonus to the checks of those that follow them. If they fail, well it's never good if you follow someone that leads you from the frying pan into the fire now is it? I usually come up with consequences for someone failing to lead the way. Leading should involve a risk as well. (always reward good play with bonuses or lowering the difficult of the check)The second thing I put in place is a skill that a leader can use to allow a PC they are leading who failed the check to make a reroll. I consider that these are extreme exertions of energy that require the person who rerolls to spend a HSurge. Depending on the situation I also limit the amount of times this is allowed.As for your specific challenge, why don't you imagine the terrain the PCs are actually travelling through. Are there any tunnel like caves in the hills they could crawl through, a river with a rotten rope bridge they could cross, a waterfall to jump over. Trees they can climb to sleep in during the night, other animals they can hunt down and sacrifice to the hungry wolves? I scribble little 'pick-path maps so I can visualise where the PCs are going on the challenge and what options open up if they go a certain way as opposed to another, and dangers at each part should they gain a fail at each point.Skill challenges are meant to be simple, but unless you are a genius of improvisation, I find they take a decent amount of thought and preparation in order for them to become memorable and actually challenging. One of the secrets of improvisation is that the best improvisers are usually thoroughly prepared. You don't know exactly what your players are going to do, but if they do this then this happens, if they do that then that. That way when you've got nothing, you've always got something to springboard from that will hopefully lead you to a good idea, or a base to work form to handle a situation you have invented on the fly.</blockquote>

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