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Aron Times
2009-10-02, 05:00 PM
My group plays using a combination of PBEM and MapTool. Most of the action takes place on Friday evenings, when we play on MapTool, while we use the rest of the week for behind-the-scenes roleplaying and other stuff through PBEM.

Tonight, the party's mission is to liberate a Clockwork concentration camp without getting detected. The plan is to sneak into the camp, kill the guards, and use Linked Portal to bring the prisoners to safety.

The reason why we have to be sneaky is because if we encounter and kill a Clockwork officer on the way to the camp, it might have a Final Messenger which will then fly off to alert Clockwork forces in the area. The concentration camp may still have someone with a Final Messenger installed, but even if it gets away, it will still take some time for it to get to the closest Clockwork officer and for the Clockwork forces to get to the camp. By then, we would've finished casting Linked Portal and gotten everyone to safety.

Oh, a bit of background information first. The Clockwork Kingdom is made up of constructs (the Clockworks, basically Warforged) and their oppressed organic subjects. Clockworks are powered by souls, specifically, souls stolen from their prisoners. The prisoners in the concentration camp are going to be killed and their final rest denied by having their souls used to power new Clockworks.

1. Thievery - The warlock sets traps to annoy and distract patrol guards. They won't fall for this a second time, but it at least grants a success.

2. Arcana - My character analyzes the ley lines running through town, and figures out how to cut off the power so we can slip in further into Clockwork territory.

3. Perception - The paladin analyzes the guard patrol patterns, allowing us to slip in undetected.

4. History - The wizard learns that the Clockworks are using goblinoid mercenaries to capture prisoners to power new Clockworks. These are the Red Talons, a group the party has dealt with before my character joined the party.

5. Arcana - The wizard searches and finds the Clockworks' surveillance sensors, allowing us to move under the radar.

6. Nature - The ranger keeps us from getting lost while traveling.

7. Insight - The cleric figures out how not to look suspicious and avoid Clockwork loyalists while traveling.

8. Bluff - The warlock fast-talks his way through some guards.

That's a total of eight successes, and we managed to get to the camp without getting seen.

So, how does your group handle skill challenges?

Thajocoth
2009-10-02, 06:31 PM
I let the party complete skill challenges however they want. 4 failures and they lose. I count their successes and failures as we go. If they succeed, I take the total successes, subtract their failures, divide by 2, and give them that many standard monsters of their level of XP.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-02, 06:35 PM
So, how does your group handle skill challenges?

We consider the rules both fundamentally broken and an unnecessary kludge, and avoid them at all costs.

KIDS
2009-10-02, 06:42 PM
I've had some issues with the default Skill Challenge rules, even though I like the concept. The way you did it is great, I just don't believe that the default rules lend themselves well to that kind of fluidity. I usually use a slight modification: Obsidian Skill Challenge System (http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/241440-stalker0s-obsidian-skill-challenge-system-new-version-1-2-a.html).

Aron Times
2009-10-02, 07:07 PM
I'm guessing you don't use errata? My DM does skill challenges by the book, with errata, that is. Skill challenges basically involve picking a skill, figuring out how to justify it, and roleplaying it. I don't see what the problem is.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-02, 07:31 PM
Skill challenges basically involve picking a skill, figuring out how to justify it, and roleplaying it. I don't see what the problem is.
A reported problem in RPGA games is that the most effective way to play a skill challenge is to always pick your best skill, and justify it in whatever the situation is using twisted (or spurious) logic. Essentially, the only relevant skill in a skill challenge then becomes "fast talking the DM".

This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds: justifying why arcana, history or religion is relevant to swimming across a lake isn't any stranger than what many character powers do. Since DMs (tend to) allow the latter they have no real reason to disallow the former.

Saph
2009-10-02, 07:39 PM
We don't. Skill Challenges are an utterly awful piece of game design. They're clunky, dull, and an attempt to fit a square peg in a round hole (trying to make out-of-combat activities work in the same basic way as a combat encounter).

Our players roll skills whenever they seem appropriate, and the DM gives results based on the situation - basically, the same way that every other system handles out-of-combat skills. It works a hundred times better.

TheEmerged
2009-10-02, 08:58 PM
I'm guessing you don't use errata? My DM does skill challenges by the book, with errata, that is. Skill challenges basically involve picking a skill, figuring out how to justify it, and roleplaying it. I don't see what the problem is.

Mine is similar to this, except I ask the player what they're doing and have them roll against the most appropriate skill. I'm toying with adding a bonus success if the DC is exceeded by more than 5, but haven't done this in play yet.

Tiki Snakes
2009-10-02, 10:15 PM
A reported problem in RPGA games is that the most effective way to play a skill challenge is to always pick your best skill, and justify it in whatever the situation is using twisted (or spurious) logic. Essentially, the only relevant skill in a skill challenge then becomes "fast talking the DM".

This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds: justifying why arcana, history or religion is relevant to swimming across a lake isn't any stranger than what many character powers do. Since DMs (tend to) allow the latter they have no real reason to disallow the former.

Okay, you've peaked my interest.

How does History, Arcana or religion aid in swimming across a lake? :D

taltamir
2009-10-02, 10:28 PM
if the skills are written so badly that they DO overlap, then why shouldn't you use the ones you are best at? it can also be different solutions to the same problem. there is more then one way to skin a baby seal.

Arbitrarity
2009-10-02, 10:33 PM
Religion helps you think of a mantra which lets you keep focused while swimming.
History lets you remember effective swimming styles of previous heroes, and inspire yourself with recollection of how other heroes easily swam greater obstacles.
Arcana lets you use cantrips to help propel yourself by shoving water?

Fishy
2009-10-02, 10:40 PM
History: In some famous historical battle, the enemy general brought his reinforcements in across a lake, using his secret infantry-lake-crossing technique that was then recorded in the Art of War.

Arcana: Use the knowledge gained from your exhaustive studies of the Elemental Planes to identify potential rip-currents, eddies and vortexes before they happen.

Religion: Just walk across it. It's a miracle!

oxinabox
2009-10-02, 11:04 PM
We consider the rules both fundamentally broken and an unnecessary kludge, and avoid them at all costs.

Can I sig that?

I just call skill checks as required.
Single skill checks...

Aron Times
2009-10-02, 11:05 PM
Okay, your problem is not so much a flaw inherent to skill challenges but an overly permissive DM. I'm a very permissive RPGA DM, and I wouldn't allow those in my games (RPGA or not).

The key here is that if a task can be accomplished with a skill check or three, it isn't a skill challenge. A skill challenge is a much more complicated task than that.

taltamir
2009-10-02, 11:09 PM
Okay, your problem is not so much a flaw inherent to skill challenges but an overly permissive DM. I'm a very permissive RPGA DM, and I wouldn't allow those in my games (RPGA or not).

The key here is that if a task can be accomplished with a skill check or three, it isn't a skill challenge. A skill challenge is a much more complicated task than that.

whose problem? some have described an overly strict DM that declares one and only one skill to be useful for something, and other applicable skills not.
The few people who came up with "methods" to apply anything to everything were trying to make a point that you can make a far fetched and likely unacceptable arguments for anything... but not that any DM will accept those explanations.

Dragonmuncher
2009-10-02, 11:25 PM
How does the errata change skill challenges?

If I recall correctly, a skill challenge is basically "Get X Successes before Y Failures," right? What did they change?

BobVosh
2009-10-02, 11:53 PM
Okay, you've peaked my interest.

How does History, Arcana or religion aid in swimming across a lake? :D

History: Knowledge of a shallower place, with no tide
Arcana: I'm at a lost
Religion: Baptisms happen over here as it is the easiest place to wade through.


As far as skill challenges go: Neat idea, poor play. Almost every skill challenge you want the players to succeed or its basically over. Then you have to throw a hackneyed plot device to get it back rolling. We avoided them.

However there was occasionally a time to use them, and the OPs example is quite possibly the best example I have heard.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 03:28 AM
Can I sig that?
Sure, if you note in your sig that it's about skill challenges.


if the skills are written so badly that they DO overlap, then why shouldn't you use the ones you are best at?
There's no reason why you shouldn't. The problem is that once you do realize that every skill can be made to apply to every situation, all skills become pointless.


Okay, your problem is not so much a flaw inherent to skill challenges but an overly permissive DM.
Really? Can you give me a solid reason why the things Arbitrarity, Fishy, and BobVosh pointed out shouldn't work? None of them are sillier or more far-fetched than tripping an ooze, or sneak attacking a skeleton.

And that's even aside from all the instances I've seen where the DM points out that we've already solved the in-game task, but still need two more successes; or conversely, when we've not done anything much to solve the in-game task, but have enough successes so it goes away now. Both examples may be called bad DM'ing, but the point is that the SC rules encourage that.

Telasi
2009-10-03, 03:37 AM
Badly. I swear, my players don't catch on when something isn't working, and stop when it does. They are new, so I've cut them a break so far, but still, it isn't good.

Katana_Geldar
2009-10-03, 06:25 AM
It would probably work better if some of us had more than two points ot add to the roll of a skill, like today when we had to make a bunch of Nature checks and we all had terrible Wisdom scores.

But I started playing with SW, and rolling skill checks without the need of a challenge is rather new to me, given that a lot of players shouldn't need to be prompted to make several rolls in a row for the simple reason of a skill check.

Some of them are just self-explainitory.

Tiki Snakes
2009-10-03, 08:36 AM
As far as skill challenges go: Neat idea, poor play. Almost every skill challenge you want the players to succeed or its basically over. Then you have to throw a hackneyed plot device to get it back rolling. We avoided them.

However there was occasionally a time to use them, and the OPs example is quite possibly the best example I have heard.

I was of the understanding, personally, that the official line is that you shouldn't ever really use them when success is 100% necessary to continue, but instead in branching scenarios where pass or fail, the adventure continues, merely in different directions or with differing degrees of difficulty afterwards.

Some good examples of how to use non swimming skills in a skill challenge, above. The arcana one/s are a bit far fetched, but history and even a religion made good sense there, actually, and I'd probably give them as a success in some kind of 'find a way to cross the river for the party' skill challenge.

They wouldn't really get you across on their own, of course, but finding shallows and so on would certainly either lower some DC's or grant good bonuses/etc to eventual athletics checks. Depends what else the party does/comes up with. If you figure out the shallowest part, and the athlete wades across with a rope, maybe you'd avoid having to roll at all, if I was feeling nice.

Likely I'd use such a challenge if it was a matter of attempting to pursue someone or something, because the difference between success and failure is basically how quickly you can get across the river. Perhaps the foe would get away, and instead the party would have to instead divine/figure out it's base, rather than aprehend them in the open, away from it's defences.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 08:59 AM
I was of the understanding, personally, that the official line is that you shouldn't ever really use them when success is 100% necessary to continue,
That is, however, generally what happens in many printed adventures, particularly those for RPGA. At worst, failing a skill challenge will cost you a healing surge or a surprise round; this further contributes to the pointlessness of the system.

Tiki Snakes
2009-10-03, 09:05 AM
That is, however, generally what happens in many printed adventures, particularly those for RPGA. At worst, failing a skill challenge will cost you a healing surge or a surprise round; this further contributes to the pointlessness of the system.

If the way it's being used clashes with how it's intended to be used, doesn't that strike you as a problem with the modules etc rather than the system itself, as such?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-10-03, 09:06 AM
We have some... trouble... with skill challenges from time to time. For example, in the premade adventure our DM is running, we needed to get 4 successes to find out where a nefarious weapons-dealer was. No more than 2 of these successes could come from one source. Because of this, after the second store-owner we diplomacied, nobody seemed to be willing to share any information of their own free will. This was in a city of about 60000 people.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 09:12 AM
If the way it's being used clashes with how it's intended to be used, doesn't that strike you as a problem with the modules etc rather than the system itself, as such?
If the most commonly played modules by the most prolific writers of the officially endorsed RPGA campaign can't even use SCs in a meaningful fashion, then that strikes me as a problem in the system.

Tiki Snakes
2009-10-03, 09:21 AM
If the most commonly played modules by the most prolific writers of the officially endorsed RPGA campaign can't even use SCs in a meaningful fashion, then that strikes me as a problem in the system.

I was of the understanding the the RPGA modules tended to be a bit sucky? really, the system is not a roaring success, but a lot of the problems just strike me as it being used in ways it wasn't intended.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 09:25 AM
I was of the understanding the the RPGA modules tended to be a bit sucky?
They are, but one of the reasons they are sucky is that they are contractually obliged to use the actual skill challenge rules. Essentially, the RPGA uses skill challenges exactly as intended, and it fails. Hard.

Indon
2009-10-03, 11:25 AM
Well, there'll be something you need to do, and then you use a skill to do it. If you make the skill check, you did that thing that required the skill. Otherwise, you failed to do that thing.

And, uh... it's challenging. I guess.

Reverent-One
2009-10-03, 12:22 PM
Essentially, the RPGA uses skill challenges exactly as intended, and it fails. Hard.

Wait, didn't you just say a few posts up that the RPGA modules normally uses skill challenges in situations that are 100% necessary to pass for the adventure? Which is exactly how they are not supposed to be used?

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 12:44 PM
Wait, didn't you just say a few posts up that the RPGA modules normally uses skill challenges in situations that are 100% necessary to pass for the adventure? Which is exactly how they are not supposed to be used?
Wouldn't be the first time that WOTC says two contradictory things, now would it?

(edit) Regardless, skill challenges don't become any better if you only use them for situations that are unnecessary to pass. They're still a mechanical kludge that encourages both poor DM'ing and poor roleplaying.

BritishBill
2009-10-03, 02:02 PM
unfortunately my group is so combat oriented they often forget to roll skill checks. I try not employ to many skill challenges because they often don't like them, yet they complain how 4th edition has far less skills than 3.5. Go figure, lol. I do add skills challenges but I tend to make them brief. I try to incorporate the skills my players trained in so they dont feel that they have made a mistake or regret making their character the way it is.

BritishBill
2009-10-03, 02:03 PM
We consider the rules both fundamentally broken and an unnecessary kludge, and avoid them at all costs.

Some of their skill rules dont make sense to me either, so I tend to make my own up when the rules get outrageous, lol.

Telasi
2009-10-03, 03:29 PM
It seems to me that skill challenges are great opportunities to roleplay. You are out of combat, so it's not usually as if you're under pressure to hurry. See how your PCs behave when asked to solve a problem that doesn't involve hitting NPCs with weapons/blasts of arcane energy. It can get very amusing; the first skill challenge I ran, two of the PCs staged a mock battle to impress an Orc village leader.

Cybren
2009-10-03, 03:33 PM
Skill challenges seem more like a replacement to roleplaying- rules to expedite out of combat actions so people can get back to "the real game".

People say "okay skill challenge!" roll their skills and then later justify their use, rather than being presented with a situation, talking with each other, the DM, and NPCs, and deciding what skills will be necessary in game time, they abstract it all to one set of die rolls and make all the other stuff implied

Telasi
2009-10-03, 03:44 PM
Skill challenges seem more like a replacement to roleplaying- rules to expedite out of combat actions so people can get back to "the real game".

People say "okay skill challenge!" roll their skills and then later justify their use, rather than being presented with a situation, talking with each other, the DM, and NPCs, and deciding what skills will be necessary in game time, they abstract it all to one set of die rolls and make all the other stuff implied

Well, maybe you should try to encourage your players to have their characters behave remotely like real people. The solution to the "roll, then justify" issue is to simply not count skill checks made for no apparent in-game reason.

If you really need to put the roleplaying back into RPG, then break out the smite stick. DMs work hard so our players can actually play, so there's no reason you can't put your players under some pressure; we're under plenty.

Thajocoth
2009-10-03, 03:48 PM
The players should decide only their actions. The DM decides which skill they roll for that action. "Can I use X instead?" should usually be met with "No.", and other times be met with "Sure, but the DC is a lot higher."

To use the example of swimming vs cantriping the water: Pushing 20lbs of water passed you is only going to push yourself under and towards the shore. AND you'd have to be a wizard to have the cantrip. (Or an item, but whatever...) So the answer here is a clear and solid "No."

To use the example of jumping over a pit: Athletics is the standard here. With a running jump, DC is 5*number of squares. Acrobatics may be used instead... Perhaps you find a way to swing across, or do an aerodynamic flip... But the DC for an acrobatic stunt-jump would be double. 10*number of squares if you have a running start (A cartwheel start?). Now, if the person wants to give themselves an arcane boost here, Arcana DC is 40 to assist their jump roll, but cannot be used in place of the jump roll. They still need to do most of the work of the jump themselves. Tenser's Disk cannot get them across because it's always 5 feet above the ground and would fall into the hole, but I'd allow it's use to decrease the DC by a square.

Meek
2009-10-03, 04:16 PM
I use them for "mini-games." For example, there was a chase scene where the PCs would've reached their destination anyway, but if they chased the enemy, they would get there faster because the enemy knows the fastest way to reach their destination. Their skill checks were used to determine how they keep up with that enemy, and therefore follow the fastest path.

If they failed, they got there after the enemy, but they weren't lost forever and weren't completely hosed – they just had to go through a bit more trouble to get what they wanted than if they'd won. I could've just skipped this part and had them roll a single Nature or Perception check to see if they make it through the forest fast, catch up to the critter and clobber it, or if they fail, but having the minigame made it a bit more engaging to us. Plus it gave them a few chances to swing around tarzan style and cartwheel across branches.

Chrono22
2009-10-03, 04:23 PM
The players should decide only their actions. The DM decides which skill they roll for that action. "Can I use X instead?" should usually be met with "No.", and other times be met with "Sure, but the DC is a lot higher."
Reverse those and you're golden. A successful DM employs his players' ideas in tandem with his own.


To use the example of swimming vs cantriping the water: Pushing 20lbs of water passed you is only going to push yourself under and towards the shore. AND you'd have to be a wizard to have the cantrip. (Or an item, but whatever...) So the answer here is a clear and solid "No."
This is a nonsensical analogy. So long as the character remains buoyant, it makes perfect sense that he can push the water behind him in the direction he wishes to travel. And who said anything about a shore?
These examples are overly specific. And once you've made a judgment about how players and DMs should or should not play the game, you've made a mistake. The best you can really say, is that a DM should DM how he wants, and the players should play how they want. The intersection of the players' and DM's desire is the game.

taltamir
2009-10-03, 04:31 PM
It seems to me that skill challenges are great opportunities to roleplay. You are out of combat, so it's not usually as if you're under pressure to hurry. See how your PCs behave when asked to solve a problem that doesn't involve hitting NPCs with weapons/blasts of arcane energy. It can get very amusing; the first skill challenge I ran, two of the PCs staged a mock battle to impress an Orc village leader.

I don't see how "I use diplomacy to convince him to help" "ok, what did you roll" improves roleplaying compared to actually SAYING things to each other in character and actually, you know, role playing.

Telasi
2009-10-03, 04:32 PM
Reverse those and you're golden. A successful DM employs his players' ideas in tandem with his own.


Agreed. "No" should be last on the list of responses. The first should usually be "Yes, but...".

Really, there are only so many ways to legitimately do a task in a skill challenge. However, let your players be creative, and let them learn that sometimes their best skills aren't the answer.

Thajocoth
2009-10-03, 05:03 PM
Reverse those and you're golden. A successful DM employs his players' ideas in tandem with his own.

This is a nonsensical analogy. So long as the character remains buoyant, it makes perfect sense that he can push the water behind him in the direction he wishes to travel. And who said anything about a shore?
These examples are overly specific. And once you've made a judgment about how players and DMs should or should not play the game, you've made a mistake. The best you can really say, is that a DM should DM how he wants, and the players should play how they want. The intersection of the players' and DM's desire is the game.

Definitely in general. That being, in this case, that the player decided to swim at all. That was a decision made by the player. The player doesn't decide both what action they take AND what bonus to use for it. That's what the DM's there for. A skill challenge isn't "Ok, here's the situation, I'm gonna go make a sandwich. Let me know how many successes and failures you got when I come back." It's "Here's the situation. What do you do?" "I do this." "Ok, roll that skill for it." "I rolled a <number>." "Description of what happens as a result.", repeat.

Hal
2009-10-03, 05:43 PM
Skill challenges seem more like a replacement to roleplaying- rules to expedite out of combat actions so people can get back to "the real game".

People say "okay skill challenge!" roll their skills and then later justify their use, rather than being presented with a situation, talking with each other, the DM, and NPCs, and deciding what skills will be necessary in game time, they abstract it all to one set of die rolls and make all the other stuff implied

People offer the same criticism for having character skills at all. "Why does it matter what my character's bluff skill is? Why can't I just role play it? If I come up with something clever for my character to do, why does it matter that he isn't trained in that skill? You're just replacing role-playing with die rolling!"

Kurald Galain
2009-10-03, 05:44 PM
The players should decide only their actions. The DM decides which skill they roll for that action. "Can I use X instead?" should usually be met with "No.", and other times be met with "Sure, but the DC is a lot higher."
That is what it says in the DMG, and it was so heavily criticized that WOTC errata'ed it away within weeks of the game's release...


It's "Here's the situation. What do you do?" "I do this." "Ok, roll that skill for it." "I rolled a <number>." "Description of what happens as a result.", repeat.
Of course, skill challenges also encourage players saying "I use skill X to do this". By mechanics, the SC isn't about what you're doing, it's about which skill you're using. Since most characters only have three or four skills they're actually good at (and since using skills you're not good at in an SC is about as useful as having your wizard make basic melee attacks), stands to reason that the characters will attempt to use those three or four skills all the time. Even if that means using stealth to swim quietly, or using intimidate to bully your teammates into swimming faster.

taltamir
2009-10-03, 06:35 PM
intimidate: "you know, there are sharks in this river"... your teammates now have a morale? bonus to swimming because they are swimming for deal life while infused with adrenaline.
I'd say part of the problem is that skills are too narrow defined, there are too many of them, too few skill points, they can do too much, and they are fundamentally tied to your level... overall they are a crappy mechanic.

Telasi
2009-10-03, 07:06 PM
intimidate: "you know, there are sharks in this river"... your teammates now have a morale? bonus to swimming because they are swimming for deal life while infused with adrenaline.
I'd say part of the problem is that skills are too narrow defined, there are too many of them, too few skill points, they can do too much, and they are fundamentally tied to your level... overall they are a crappy mechanic.

That would be a Bluff, imo. Intimidate would be "Swim, or I'll beat you until you're bluer than the water."

Either way, it's irrelevant for the skill challenge at hand. You still need to swim or think of a way to bypass the swim entirely.

*cough*Tenser's floating disk*cough* :smallwink:

Cybren
2009-10-03, 08:46 PM
People offer the same criticism for having character skills at all. "Why does it matter what my character's bluff skill is? Why can't I just role play it? If I come up with something clever for my character to do, why does it matter that he isn't trained in that skill? You're just replacing role-playing with die rolling!"

No, the difference is that the skills still have use in determining success and failure. The skill challenge take it a step further by making the entire focus on that determination of success and abstracting would could be detailed amounts of roleplaying.

Thajocoth
2009-10-03, 08:48 PM
*cough*Tenser's floating disk*cough* :smallwink:

Tenser's Floating Disk stays 5 feet above the GROUND at all times. In the water, where's the ground? In this scenario, it's really Tenser's Sinking Disk.

I'm not saying there aren't ways to avoid swimming entirely...

Honestly though, is swimming something you do in a skill challenge? Swimming, really, is a way to get somewhere. A skill challenge is more like... A box. And you want to get to the creamy treasure filled center... You can do all sorts of things to the box to try to open it. You can even ignore the box entirely. If there's a lock, you can pick it or try to bust the lock. You can look for fractures in the box. You can attack the box. You can know something useful about this kind of box. You can know what sort of person to bring the box to. You can lift the box if you're strong enough. So many different skills can apply... But they can apply to try different things, not to try to do the same thing that another skill is actually designed to do, like swimming.

You can have a social skill challenge, a knowledge skill challenge or a physical skill challenge. A cutscene style skill challenge (we've had a few challenges of chasing thieves or murderers through cities). And combinations of those too, of course. In one campaign I'm in, everyone has great athletics, so any skill challenge we're handed, we brute force it. "That bridge looks rickety. Let's peel off some of the plating on the wall and walk across that instead. We all have Athletics of at least 20... Should be easy..." Yes, that was a skill challenge we had. 4 easy successes. We didn't walk across and use Athletics to somehow balance ourselves... We found a way to use Athletics AS Athletics and still complete the challenge.

-----

What I do is as follows:

I simply present the party with a situation that they can ignore, but would be useful for them if they don't. I have no pre-planned idea of how they can succeed. That's the player's job. They do whatever they do, trying their best to play to their strengths, and putting forward whoever in the party is the most useful for different tasks... I just count successes and failures.

At 4 failures, the proverbial rocks fall. That is, they've damaged their chances too much to be able to succeed, and I give that last failure a catastrophic effect to what the party was trying to do. If they succeed, I take their successes, subtract their failures, divide by 2, and give the party that many monsters of XP.

That way, I don't wind up with "You would be successful already, but I want six successes for this challenge so roll some more dice." or "You wouldn't really be successful yet, but four successes fulfills this challenge so here's some Deus Ex Machina.", and I'm still giving out the amount of XP recommended based on skill challenge difficulty.

And once they fail, they MIGHT be able to try to move those proverbial rocks out of their way, but it's a harder second challenge. Or, possibly not... If it was diplomasizing somebody so they don't attack the party, then once they attack the party it's a battle instead... It really depends on the specific challenge. And, really, I don't plan for them to bypass fights with diplomacy, but they can always try if initiative has not yet been rolled. MOST skill challenges I have weren't initially skill challenges... They were just "I want to do this here, which is cool and productive." "Ok <Starts recording successes & failures>"