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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 4751678" data-attributes="member: 20805">RW, That sounds like a great encounter.. and I am not too happy about RAW skill challenges either. I love the obsidion system, but do not think this would be a good fit for this encounter.The way I would do it is to have the main raft racing down the river while the Dragon loops around it trying to snatch the PCs off and/or kill them outright. The river is an active opponent that affects the PCs based on 4 'bands' of difficulty. Each band has its own attack check and damage expression.When in the water, the PC has to spend 1 move action swimming to stay afloat and can spend a second move action to swim to a new band in the river {requires skill check}  PCs on the raft can use a skill check to direct the raft into the less violent portions (band) of the river, ala the AV rules.    Each round the river makes a ranged area attack against the raft vs Ref, a hit causes prone and push 3, possibly shoving a PC off the raft and up to a band away. 'Hanging on' is a move action that grants a +1 bonus to REF per hand used, and you can spend a standard action as well, netting a total +4 bonus vs Reflex. +6 if you stay prone. But of course this means you are not dealing with the Dragon....  The river also makes an attack vs Fort against any creatures in the water, dealing  damage and earning a secondary attack against that creature vs Will that dazes for one round. This gives the players choices about how to deal with the river, and potential conflict when a PC is in a higher band but stunned... do they risk the entire raft in more dangerous waters to save thier buddy?The end piece works well as a cut-scene when the raft goes over the waterfall and crashes into the rocks, washing the heroes up into shallow water while the Dragon retreats under the waterfall. Again the choice is in the players hand of pursuing it into its lair or trying to rest up in hopes that the Dragon doesn't benefit more from the respite. The wounded dragon would play kitty-bar the door back through any laid traps/hazards to its main lair where it would have to make a final stand.Using the river and traps/hazards allows you to stick to only a single 'monster' without having to bring other critters inside the Dragons home. You could have 6 or more 'bands' of river strength, with only 4 avalable in any given segment of the river. That keeps the swimming characters within a band or two of the raft and forces the PCs to deal with the rougher water.I too look forward to hearing what you end up going with and how it works <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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