Skill Challenge: Survive a night in the haunted dungeon

[Nebulous]

If left to their own devices, they just flounder around and fail repeatedly, which isn't very fun for anyone.

Unfortunately, this is also a problem we have. Coupled with the fact that i don't fully understand how Challenges are supposed to work, despite running several myself, and despite reading excellent posts by people who have run them.

I could reasonably argue that all the ideas for the ghosts, the strangling, the murdered family, etc. could be done with the same amount of tension without rolling a single die. Success or Failure could be a decision based purely on DM fiat. I think i'm just having a hard time grasping the big picture of how all these mechanics are supposed to fluidly work together. And the players haven't been real thrilled with the skill challenges so far, which doesn't encourage me to keep practicing with them.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Anyway, as the PCs were making short work of all the minion skeletons, I decided to make things more interesting and had the magic circle rejuvenate the skeletons every few rounds. It took beating down the skeletons and having them all get back up again a few times before the players caught on to the idea that this would keep happening until they deactivated the circle. That made things more interesting -- and one of my players said he enjoyed the skill challenge mixed in with the combat more than the pure skill challenges.

Yoink! Oh, that's a great idea. Depending on how many players I get in that session, I might have to do that. Particularly if my Wizard player can make it - although I've got several players with useful training in the right sorts of skills.

I may also rule that killing Ninaran ends the skeletons threats, too.

 

[pukunui]

Unfortunately, this is also a problem we have. Coupled with the fact that i don't fully understand how Challenges are supposed to work, despite running several myself, and despite reading excellent posts by people who have run them.

I could reasonably argue that all the ideas for the ghosts, the strangling, the murdered family, etc. could be done with the same amount of tension without rolling a single die. Success or Failure could be a decision based purely on DM fiat. I think i'm just having a hard time grasping the big picture of how all these mechanics are supposed to fluidly work together. And the players haven't been real thrilled with the skill challenges so far, which doesn't encourage me to keep practicing with them.

My sentiments exactly!

Yoink! Oh, that's a great idea. Depending on how many players I get in that session, I might have to do that. Particularly if my Wizard player can make it - although I've got several players with useful training in the right sorts of skills.

None of my players who tried to ID the circle succeeded, but when the wizard said he wanted to cast light on the circle to see if it would do anything, I asked him to roll an Arcana check to go along with it and he rolled very high, so I decided that he could just keep doing things like that to "kill" the circle without actually having to identify that he could do it in the first place.

I may also rule that killing Ninaran ends the skeletons threats, too.

I had Ninaran cry out, "You fools! I've lured you to your doom!" and then run away. We ended the session with the players hot on her trail as she heads deep into the woods. I was originally just going to have her head back to her hut as per the FR expansion, but I'm thinking I might do something different instead. They've had too easy a time tracking her what with the snow and the fact that following tracks is now, apparently, just a simple Perception check (and every time I asked for one, someone rolled over a 20, so I couldn't exactly say that they'd lost her trail without making the DC ridiculously hard).

I should also be getting my two new players next session, so depending on what they send me as their backstory, I might have Ninaran lead them to someplace where the new PCs can jump in immediately or something. If not, I'll just have the new PCs waiting back in Winterhaven.