Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
When I started reading this thread I was going to suggest the Gelatinous Cube idea -- I actually just did the same thing with cold to make a living, roving, player character swallowing snowdrift. And then Davethegame beat me to the punch. Damn you Davethegame!
As far as the skill challenge goes, I'd recommend that you not worry about it too much. Mearls' recent article suggests finding a number of skill choices equal to the number of players +2 -- which is a LOT of skills, given the short list of broad skills in the game. Some skill challenges are going to involve smaller lists, but I'd recommend that if you're going to do that you make sure those are shorter challenges.
I mean, you don't see too many challenges to disarm traps that invlove more than thievery and maybe one other skill (maybe arcana for a magical trap).
Each skill challenge is its own animal, and you'll need to figure out what makes the most sense. But spend a little time thinking about how any skill might be reasonably applied -- even if those won't be primary skills.
For example, in this case . . .
Arcana (& less obviously religion). Hard checks. A character with an at-will that involves the cold keyword could try to channel that cold energy to help the team deal with the oppressive heat & danger of the environment -- maybe blast lava vents and temporarily seal them so the PCs can cross them, etc. Depending upon your players and how inventive they are, you may have to help them come up with that idea. This is probably a secondary check -- or maybe it can be attempted each round if the PC has an at-will, and once if the Pc has an encounter or daily power with the cold type to spend (but I might allow the encounter or even daily power to have a greater effect than the at will)
Bluff -- This is a tough one . . . . maybe a bluff check could be used to convince other PCs or NPCS that are struggling that they're almost at the top, come on, you can make it, blah blah blah . . . nah, that's pretty weak.
Diplomacy -- just as useless as bluff.
Heal -- Moderate check, doesn't earn a success. Could be used to provide an assist (+2) to a PC who is making a check this round, as the PC helps the other PC avoid heat stroke, etc. Or, maybe it can be used to help a PC who has lost a healing surge to the check recover it (see my ticking clock thing below).
History -- This is another really tough one. Maybe there's a story in the histories of someone else caught in a volcano . . . . but this one would be a hard check, could only be used once, and should really probably just not work.
Insight -- Hard check, use once. if this were a normal volcano, this would be a stretch, but it actually sort of makes sense since you've decided there's a volcano god/spirit involved in the chase. Since there's an intelligence behind it, it's possible to anticipate what that intelligence will do, granting someone else a +2 bonus.
Nature -- Moderate check, use once. Pretty typical, know something about volcanos, know something about finding the more solid rock/avoid thin crust over lava flows, etc.
Perception -- moderate check, assist. Keep an eye out for trouble. Can be used repeatedly.
Stealth -- pretty weak unless there's a way to drop out of the volcano god's sight momentarily -- after all, if there's an intelligent mind behind the chance, can it be bluffed and evaded? Even if just momentarily? This might be a way to bring bluff back into the fold. call it a hard check and only usable once.
Streetwise -- you're kidding, right?
Thievery -- No. Not unless this intelligent presence also has pockets to pick.
You get the idea. Obviously not everything will work, and if you're the sort of DM who tells the PCs what primary skills they can use in the challenge, there are ideas that you may not want to suggest to them (like the bluff/stealth plan) unless your players need prompting to come up with creative ideas like that (in which case you want to train them through a couple of challenges to think outside the box, and then you can phase that out).
Ticking Time Bomb
The other thing you're on the right track on is to try to create a sense of a ticking clock -- some sort of external time limit for the escape. You need for them to feel the crust breaking away behind them, etc. This is really only important if you have a group that likes to assist each other like mad, but it could add some tension for other groups, too.
Part of what you may need to do is try to break away, mentally, from the idea that a "round" in a skill challenge represents a concrete block of time in which all of the PCs are performing actions simultaneously. Pull back a bit for a more cinematic, wide angle view.
What you need to imagine is that this is a scene in which the PCs are scrambling out of the cavern in a movie -- the camera isn't on all of the PCs at the same time, and the chase is still going on -- if the PCs are not on camera, they're just jogging along, sweating, etc. So make each skill check (check, rather than round) represent 30 seconds of actual time. If a party of 5 each makes a skill check, that's two and a half minutes. No PC can make a second check until everyone has made a first one. PCs who are really unsuited to the challenge can "punt" by making a perception check, but they're still costing time. Then, you can put the PCs on a grid with something like five or ten spaces behind them. Every check -- succeed, assist, or fail -- one of those spaces disappears as the lava advances.
In terms of simple math, that's just a limit on the number of actual skill checks the PCs are going to be able to use to complete the challenge. You should make sure it's more than the total of successes and failures they can achieve to allow for some of the assist-style checks. This sets a hard limit on the number of assists they can make, though, and you need to be careful about that -- allow to many, and the Pcs will never feel the lava nipping at their toes. Allow them too few, and you may doom them to the lava bath.
As far as the skill challenge goes, I'd recommend that you not worry about it too much. Mearls' recent article suggests finding a number of skill choices equal to the number of players +2 -- which is a LOT of skills, given the short list of broad skills in the game. Some skill challenges are going to involve smaller lists, but I'd recommend that if you're going to do that you make sure those are shorter challenges.
I mean, you don't see too many challenges to disarm traps that invlove more than thievery and maybe one other skill (maybe arcana for a magical trap).
Each skill challenge is its own animal, and you'll need to figure out what makes the most sense. But spend a little time thinking about how any skill might be reasonably applied -- even if those won't be primary skills.
For example, in this case . . .
Arcana (& less obviously religion). Hard checks. A character with an at-will that involves the cold keyword could try to channel that cold energy to help the team deal with the oppressive heat & danger of the environment -- maybe blast lava vents and temporarily seal them so the PCs can cross them, etc. Depending upon your players and how inventive they are, you may have to help them come up with that idea. This is probably a secondary check -- or maybe it can be attempted each round if the PC has an at-will, and once if the Pc has an encounter or daily power with the cold type to spend (but I might allow the encounter or even daily power to have a greater effect than the at will)
Bluff -- This is a tough one . . . . maybe a bluff check could be used to convince other PCs or NPCS that are struggling that they're almost at the top, come on, you can make it, blah blah blah . . . nah, that's pretty weak.
Diplomacy -- just as useless as bluff.
Heal -- Moderate check, doesn't earn a success. Could be used to provide an assist (+2) to a PC who is making a check this round, as the PC helps the other PC avoid heat stroke, etc. Or, maybe it can be used to help a PC who has lost a healing surge to the check recover it (see my ticking clock thing below).
History -- This is another really tough one. Maybe there's a story in the histories of someone else caught in a volcano . . . . but this one would be a hard check, could only be used once, and should really probably just not work.
Insight -- Hard check, use once. if this were a normal volcano, this would be a stretch, but it actually sort of makes sense since you've decided there's a volcano god/spirit involved in the chase. Since there's an intelligence behind it, it's possible to anticipate what that intelligence will do, granting someone else a +2 bonus.
Nature -- Moderate check, use once. Pretty typical, know something about volcanos, know something about finding the more solid rock/avoid thin crust over lava flows, etc.
Perception -- moderate check, assist. Keep an eye out for trouble. Can be used repeatedly.
Stealth -- pretty weak unless there's a way to drop out of the volcano god's sight momentarily -- after all, if there's an intelligent mind behind the chance, can it be bluffed and evaded? Even if just momentarily? This might be a way to bring bluff back into the fold. call it a hard check and only usable once.
Streetwise -- you're kidding, right?
Thievery -- No. Not unless this intelligent presence also has pockets to pick.
You get the idea. Obviously not everything will work, and if you're the sort of DM who tells the PCs what primary skills they can use in the challenge, there are ideas that you may not want to suggest to them (like the bluff/stealth plan) unless your players need prompting to come up with creative ideas like that (in which case you want to train them through a couple of challenges to think outside the box, and then you can phase that out).
Ticking Time Bomb
The other thing you're on the right track on is to try to create a sense of a ticking clock -- some sort of external time limit for the escape. You need for them to feel the crust breaking away behind them, etc. This is really only important if you have a group that likes to assist each other like mad, but it could add some tension for other groups, too.
Part of what you may need to do is try to break away, mentally, from the idea that a "round" in a skill challenge represents a concrete block of time in which all of the PCs are performing actions simultaneously. Pull back a bit for a more cinematic, wide angle view.
What you need to imagine is that this is a scene in which the PCs are scrambling out of the cavern in a movie -- the camera isn't on all of the PCs at the same time, and the chase is still going on -- if the PCs are not on camera, they're just jogging along, sweating, etc. So make each skill check (check, rather than round) represent 30 seconds of actual time. If a party of 5 each makes a skill check, that's two and a half minutes. No PC can make a second check until everyone has made a first one. PCs who are really unsuited to the challenge can "punt" by making a perception check, but they're still costing time. Then, you can put the PCs on a grid with something like five or ten spaces behind them. Every check -- succeed, assist, or fail -- one of those spaces disappears as the lava advances.
In terms of simple math, that's just a limit on the number of actual skill checks the PCs are going to be able to use to complete the challenge. You should make sure it's more than the total of successes and failures they can achieve to allow for some of the assist-style checks. This sets a hard limit on the number of assists they can make, though, and you need to be careful about that -- allow to many, and the Pcs will never feel the lava nipping at their toes. Allow them too few, and you may doom them to the lava bath.
