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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 4165311" data-attributes="member: 704">I suspect the biggest fear would be that the players manage to come up with a sequence of events that would resolve a 6/4 encounter within 3 successes, which in turn somehow leads to a massive plot derailment for the DM.  Personally though, I am not sure about how that would happen.  There is a quote by Joeseph Stalin that says "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything".  What the players roll may determine success or failure, but the DM decides what exactly success and failure mean.In Combat, I like to play the rules as written, simply because the temptation to fudge the outcomes can often come back and bit you.  But Skill Challenges are not a direct analog to combat simply because the outcomes are much more flexible.  Success or failure in combat have very specific meanings.  If the players fail, they are dead, and if the succeed, your monsters or NPC's are dead, (ignoring the option to run away for the moment).  But I do not expect to run into very many instances where the results of a skill challenge are going to lock the narrative into that sort of outcome.  Skill Challenges allow for much more fluidity in outcomes. - The DM can decide to ignore the result of any given skill check if that skill check does not appear to be applicable.  I would not feel obligated to allow the players to win a 6/4 challenge to disarm a trap if they win 6 insight checks. - The Perception / Heal(Autopsy) / Theivery scenario posted by Celebrim to disarm the corpse trap may or may not work.  It really depends on the DM and the intent of the trap.  If the trap was meant as a speed bump, I would probably go with it.  If I intended the trap to be extraordinarily lethal, I could probably spin it plausibly to avoid the premature success.  Sure, the Theivery got the poison bladder out of the corpse, but now your holding a very toxic sack of poison that is probably going to burst if mishandled.  What do you do with it now?  If I needed 3 more checks, I would probably call for a balance check from the guy holding the sack to avoid bursting it, a check to determine a method of safe disposal, and another check to actually dispose of it. - The DM can still determine what success really means, and can modify the expected success based on how it was obtained.  If I were to set up a skill challenge for my players to obtain the cooperation of a local noble. I might expect them to use a combination of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy to pull it off.  But if they instead use skills like Intimidate and basically coerce the noble, then instead of willing co-operation, they will get grudging co-operation.Anyway, while I am sure there are some extreme corner cases where a skill challenge outcome could derail a game, I would be surprised if there are any instances where a skill challenge could have an extraordinarily unforseen and damaging outcome.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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