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<blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 4885987" data-attributes="member: 60965">I try to limit skill challenges to once or twice a session for this reason.&nbsp; At one point, I tried to do skill challenges for every day of travel.&nbsp; All it ended up doing was diluting the &quot;interest factor&quot; of &quot;Hey, a skill challenge!&quot; and transforming it to &quot;ok, looks like another skill challenge.&quot;I've found that the most rewarding types of skill challenges for the players are ones they initiate.&nbsp; In the example I gave above, I had no idea how they were going to deal with the raging forest fire.&nbsp; I presented a resource-laden environment, an immanent threat, and they came up with the idea.&nbsp; Their idea seemed large enough to turn into a skill challenge, so I went with it.When we've done regular(by-the-book) skill challenges, I've found that most of the time it's Aid-the-Maximust, with all the players pitching in +2s to the best roller.&nbsp; Statistically, unless there's a time-per-roll limit or the like, it just makes sense to do it that way.&nbsp; Sometimes you can find ways to split them up and make it interesting, but often I've found they tend to be long chains of near auto-successes due to all the assists.Same with random skill checks.&nbsp; &quot;I ask around town about the bandit king.&quot; &quot;No, let me do it, I'm more diplomatic.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;We all help him.&quot;My basic rule of thumb for skill challenges is:If I'm pretty sure it will add to the tension, drama, or player involvment in the story, it can be broken into interesting steps, and I can think of interesting possibility-creating and/or story-enriching results from success or failure, enter skill challenge.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Iron Sky, post: 4885987, member: 60965"] I try to limit skill challenges to once or twice a session for this reason. At one point, I tried to do skill challenges for every day of travel. All it ended up doing was diluting the "interest factor" of "Hey, a skill challenge!" and transforming it to "ok, looks like another skill challenge." I've found that the most rewarding types of skill challenges for the players are ones they initiate. In the example I gave above, I had no idea how they were going to deal with the raging forest fire. I presented a resource-laden environment, an immanent threat, and they came up with the idea. Their idea seemed large enough to turn into a skill challenge, so I went with it. When we've done regular(by-the-book) skill challenges, I've found that most of the time it's Aid-the-Maximust, with all the players pitching in +2s to the best roller. Statistically, unless there's a time-per-roll limit or the like, it just makes sense to do it that way. Sometimes you can find ways to split them up and make it interesting, but often I've found they tend to be long chains of near auto-successes due to all the assists. Same with random skill checks. "I ask around town about the bandit king." "No, let me do it, I'm more diplomatic." "We all help him." My basic rule of thumb for skill challenges is: If I'm pretty sure it will add to the tension, drama, or player involvment in the story, it can be broken into interesting steps, and I can think of interesting [I]possibility-creating [/I]and/or [I]story-enriching[/I] results from success or failure, enter skill challenge. [/QUOTE]

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