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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pour" data-source="post: 5976362" data-attributes="member: 59411">In the heat of the moment last night, I created a skill challenge on the fly, disregarding a lot of my past philosophy just to see what happened, and I got some astounding results. The Set UpMy party had acquired the location of a clandestine meet, far and away in a pseudo-Arabian land, quite specifically in the middle of an uninhabitable desert. Despite the implausibility of such a meeting place, the man they tortured (quite effectively) held up to their Insight checks. After a month of travel with a merchant caravan, they turned off the main trade road and headed into this blasted waste, toward the place marked on their map. Because they'd hired nomad guides, they were given the illusion things would be a bit easier (I entirely ignored difficulty rating), until which point the natives refused to go any deeper into the desert. No one survived that far out in the Glass Dunes, and all sorts of local legend basically sealed the nomads' departures.At this point, three players and three camels, with all the supplies they could carry, the skill challenge began. I limited skills to Nature (navigating) and Endurance (surviving). That was it. Creative uses of powers, while appreciated, did not impart any mechanical bonuses like I normally would allow. However, later on a player made a good case for Perception, which I allowed as a secondary skill (counted as a failure for the challenge if botched, or on a success would give +2  to either of the next main checks). Now here's where I really veered off the prescribed rules. 1. Failing this skill challenge meant a total party kill, that all three of them would die in the dunes, game over. That upped the ante right there. 2. Because one of the players was a native of the desert, I gave him 5e advantage. That proved VERY useful. In fact, it won them the challenge.3. More interestingly, I decided to use a range of DCs on a rolling bell curve. Using Sly's cheat sheet, I listed low, medium, and hard DCs for one level below them (9), their level (10), and one level above them (11). The list looked like DC 12, 17, 25, 13, 18, 26, 13, 19, 27. As we moved around the table, players rolled against the DCs in turn. This rolling range allowed for players whose skills weren't that great to contribute, and sometimes confounded players with higher skills in Nature and Endurance. It was much more exciting to move through, and a lot more dynamic.4. Furthermore, I had a threshold for success or failure. Basically, they needed to rack up 5 successful Nature checks and 5 successful Endurance checks. Failed Nature checks were like they were moving in circles or getting lost, and failed Endurance checks saw their camels die off and them become dehydrated or even delirious. Oppositely, successful Nature checks kept them forging ahead, and successful Endurance meant they found shelter and sustenance despite the harsh terrain. If they racked up 5 cumulative failures, they lost the challenge and died.5. Critical successes counted as an automatic success, then an automatic success on the next DC, which they could put toward either Endurance or Nature. When they eventually racked up 5 successful Endurance checks, that skill became closed. They'd found all they were going to find sustenance wise, eeked out every last drop of water, slew the camels and sucked the water from their fatty humps, everything short of cannibalizing one of their number. This created an even more tense and exciting close, when they found themselves on a knife's edge, 1 fail away from death, and 1 Nature away from success. Advantage gave them the last success they needed, and boy was it rewarding. I am definitely going to be using definitive skills and a rolling DC curve from now on.</blockquote>

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