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D&D Older Editions
Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5439729" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>I lurve me a good skill challenge, but I too have found that the best ones are those that kind of stretch the system- sometimes there are special consequences for failing in certain ways or extra benefits for certain actions or types of successes, or maybe it's "keep trying until you get enough successes, you can't fail out but each failure deals damage", etc. </p><p></p><p>I agree with PC that it's often good not to get too fiddly, but I would say that there is a time for it. What I sometimes do is try to anticipate my players' most likely approaches to a SC and prepare for those. Sometimes I set up different skill DCs for the same skill depending on how it's used, too.</p><p></p><p>For instance, here's a SC that I anticipate using sometime in my next 2 sessions. The setup is that the pcs encounter a party of goliaths. Unbeknownst to them, one of the goliaths is the sister of a dead pc, Cavemouth, who took up the job of sheriff for the party and died, so she blames them for it. The skill challenge's failure might end in a combat (worth less xp than completing the SC, and with only 75 gp in treasure) and will affect the campaign's future- the goliaths rule over a set of hills not far south of the border of the small nation the party is building, so they could be important allies or enemies, and this challenge will help determine which it will be. So in this case, the consequences of success or failure are (mostly) obscured from the pcs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 5439729, member: 1210"] I lurve me a good skill challenge, but I too have found that the best ones are those that kind of stretch the system- sometimes there are special consequences for failing in certain ways or extra benefits for certain actions or types of successes, or maybe it's "keep trying until you get enough successes, you can't fail out but each failure deals damage", etc. I agree with PC that it's often good not to get too fiddly, but I would say that there is a time for it. What I sometimes do is try to anticipate my players' most likely approaches to a SC and prepare for those. Sometimes I set up different skill DCs for the same skill depending on how it's used, too. For instance, here's a SC that I anticipate using sometime in my next 2 sessions. The setup is that the pcs encounter a party of goliaths. Unbeknownst to them, one of the goliaths is the sister of a dead pc, Cavemouth, who took up the job of sheriff for the party and died, so she blames them for it. The skill challenge's failure might end in a combat (worth less xp than completing the SC, and with only 75 gp in treasure) and will affect the campaign's future- the goliaths rule over a set of hills not far south of the border of the small nation the party is building, so they could be important allies or enemies, and this challenge will help determine which it will be. So in this case, the consequences of success or failure are (mostly) obscured from the pcs. [/QUOTE]
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Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
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