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<blockquote data-quote="Imp" data-source="post: 4169758" data-attributes="member: 40094">I've thought about this for a bit, and I really think it's going to take a good bit of on-the-table-use to really get a feel of when/how skill challenges are helpful, but my current thoughts are:Given the two play examples I know of – &quot;escape from Sembia&quot; and &quot;find the secret of the tree&quot; – &quot;escape from Sembia&quot; seems like a far more compelling use, and I think it's because it's more abstract. Without the skill challenge mechanic, escaping a city can easily involve a whole ridiculous mess of prep work, unless you just talk through it, in which case you risk it not feeling very important. Using a skill challenge for that allows you to run through a dramatic scene and have some suspense from the dice without mapping out gatehouses and statting out all the freaking guards. It's a godsend.The &quot;secret of the tree&quot; scenario, on the other hand, is quite concrete, so it throws some of the mushiness of the skill challenge mechanic into sharper relief, and furthermore I'd argue it's not much of a win in terms of DM prep time over the stock 3e method – static DCs for specific skill checks – or even 1e's method of dealing with stuff like that, which was usually talk-through-it-plus-maybe-a-few-arbitrary-dice-rolls. Which leaves us with other metrics, on which skill challenges are not clearly very much better than previous methods.But as a tool to help a group wing it when playing out complex, abstract scenes, skill challenges seem awfully useful.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Imp, post: 4169758, member: 40094"] I've thought about this for a bit, and I really think it's going to take a good bit of on-the-table-use to really get a feel of when/how skill challenges are helpful, but my current thoughts are: Given the two play examples I know of – "escape from Sembia" and "find the secret of the tree" – "escape from Sembia" seems like a far more compelling use, and I think it's because it's more abstract. Without the skill challenge mechanic, escaping a city can easily involve a whole ridiculous mess of prep work, unless you just talk through it, in which case you risk it not feeling very important. Using a skill challenge for that allows you to run through a dramatic scene and have some suspense from the dice without mapping out gatehouses and statting out all the freaking guards. It's a godsend. The "secret of the tree" scenario, on the other hand, is quite concrete, so it throws some of the mushiness of the skill challenge mechanic into sharper relief, and furthermore I'd argue it's not much of a win in terms of DM prep time over the stock 3e method – static DCs for specific skill checks – or even 1e's method of dealing with stuff like that, which was usually talk-through-it-plus-maybe-a-few-arbitrary-dice-rolls. Which leaves us with other metrics, on which skill challenges are not clearly very much better than previous methods. But as a tool to help a group wing it when playing out complex, abstract scenes, skill challenges seem awfully useful. [/QUOTE]

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