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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delgar" data-source="post: 4284457" data-attributes="member: 3195">Forget the math. It's all about the scene. We're not playing a computer game here, were using it as a tool to help make cool scenes. If you need to up the failures or lower the DC's so that players aren't all aiding one player to beat the math, then do it. Or put them in situations where aiding one player just doesn't make sense. Besides the players don't know how many failures they can get or how many successes they need.Whatever you do, take a page out of Hong's book and make it cool.Below was an example skill challenge I typed out to show my players how the system could work.The walls begin moving slowly together. Roll Initiative:Dave: 10Mike: 25 WOOT, I rock!Jon: 12Tim: 1 DM: Okay Mike what do you want to do the walls are closing in on you.The door behind you slammed shut and is locked.Mike: Alright I start looking for some sort of mechanism to try and shut this thing down. DM: Okay go ahead and roll a perception check, it's going to be very hard.Mike: Oh come on, I do this for a living! Roll Sweet 18+12 in perception is 30, that's got to be good enough.DM: Nice, okay you spot a small imperfection on the right side of the door, because you succeeded at a hard check you can choose another skill to try and use, and you get a +2 bonus to it.Mike: OH hell yah, I'll start working on the panel see if I can figure this thing out.DM: Okay well if you want to start disarming it with Theivery it will be difficult, BUT if you want to try and use your insight to try and figure out how it's working it will make further Thievery rolls easier.Mike: Okay I'll study the mechanism. Insight of 12+7=19 is that good enough.DM: Yes, you figure out how the mechanism is working, any theivery attempts to disarm it now will be a normal check instead of a hard one.Okay that's two successes for you guys so far. Jon your up.Jon: Alright I'll use my Knowledge: Dungeoneering to see if I can give Mike any help with disarming this trap. Roll 1+8=9 crap I failed.DM: Okay you've never seen or heard of anything quite like this before.That's 2 successes and 1 failure. Dave your up the walls are still moving in on you.Dave: Alright, I want to take a look at the mechanism and see if I can help figure it out. Is it possible for me to gamble on a difficult Insight, to give us some more information?DM: Sure why not go ahead and rollDave: Alright woot 16+10=26. Is that good enough?DM: Sure is, you can definitely tell Mike what levers are responsible for the walls moving. Okay because you succeeded at a hard check you get to try another skill at a +2 bonus.Dave: Hmm, I think I'll just take another look around and make sure we didn't miss something, we don't want to be surprised by anything.Perception 12+7=19.DM: Taking another quick scan of the room, your pretty sure that you can see a trap door in the ceiling, perhaps another way out if all else fails. That's 4 successes and 1 fail. Your up Tim.Tim: Well I'll try to use my brute strength to slow the progress of the wall to give us some more time. I'll use my athletics skill.DM: Okay but that's definitely going to be difficult.Tim: That's okay I'll try it. Roll 15+10=25DM: That's just good enough to make it, you dig in and use all your might to slow the progress of the wall. Okay Mike back to you. You guys have 5 successes and 1 failure.Mike: Well here goes nothing guys. I'll attempt to rig the levers to move the wall back into it's original position.DM: Okay go for it.Mike: Thievery roll 10+12=22. Good? Good?DM: You manage to move the levers into the apporpriate position and the wall, comes to a stop and slowly moves back into it's original position.</blockquote>

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