Two Simultaneous Skill Challenges

[DragonBaneDM]

...That are also at the same time!

Background:

So my party has gone from being a "group of rag tag dragon hunters" to a "group of rag tag undead hunters". In my new campaign, Arkhosia is back and is in a war with Hantumah, the Asian-themed undead empire from Open Grave.

In this war Arkhosia is getting it's face bashed in, so when a mysterious undead figure tells the Dragonborn commander "Stay out of the Temple of the Sun", I'm really hoping the PCs decide "Hey, let's go to the Temple of the Sun!" If not, I've got other stuff lines up, no big deal.

The Temple of the Sun is controlled by the Lightbringers, super religious fanatics who abuse Pelor's holy power. They've set up a shield that provides a massive penalty and radiant damage to any undead near/in the Temple. (I'm thinking -5 to all attack rolls, skill checks, and defenses and 5 radiant at the start of the turn. -2 and no damage if they're part undead, that's important!)

So my party has a Revenant and a Dhamphyr in it. Those two will be affected and hopefully not want to go within the temple. So Skill Challenge One is the other three members of the party sneaking/lying through the temple and it's angelic guardians to break the shield so that the other two can join up and they can investigate as a team.

Skill Challenge Two is as follows: shortly after the rest of the party leaves, the Dhamphyr and Revenant notice a periscope, an undead skull raised up out of the ocean near the Temple. A force of Hantumah undead are camped out and waiting for the shield to be lowered. My plan is to have them in some sort of underwater siege engine that those two try to push down into a nearby underwater chasm.

My issues that I'm seeing:

What skills are used to sink a large, Renaissance-era submarine?

Is that idea too far fetched? I don't want my undead members to be bored, so what else could I have them doing? Miniature combat encounter with a landing party?

What if they don't split up? It's against the nature of the PC to split the party, especially well into Paragon Tier. Will the penalties be enough of a hint?

Oh snap, what if the Revenant gets left by himself because the Dhamphyr decides to just take the -2?

What are some good ideas you guys would have for bluffing your way into a league of overzealous undead slayers?

Feel free to even address just one of these in your posts, or bring up something I might have missed!

[Yakk]

At "-2 and no damage if they're part undead, that's important!", I would expect the part-undead (the PCs qualify? Or not?) to just join the PCs breaking in.

Do not split the party.

So the way to block this is that even "part undead" take some burn.

Sinking that craft: everything from recruiting some nearby allied craft (Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate), swimming down and breaking their buoyancy tanks/opening something/etc (Athletics/Endurance/Thievery), convincing nearby water fauna to attack the craft (Nature).

[DragonBaneDM]

convincing nearby water fauna to attack the craft (Nature).

I can't wait to step up and see who wants to be Aquaman.

Okay, so don't split the party. I want to follow this advice. It's just difficiult given the McGuffin I'm planning:



So help me Cubone JD you close this spoiler right now.

The temple has the Hand of Vecna inside it. It's my present to the party's Sorcerer, cause he hasn't gotten an artifact yet.

Soooo how can I rework this skill challenge to be about infiltrating a morally confusing enemy's lair while it still makes sense? Anti-undead shield works plot-wise, but encourages splits.

Thoughts, Yakk?

[RochtheCrusher]

Skill challenges are pretty good at speeding up play, actually. I wouldn't say that splitting the party was such a huge problem if there will not be actual, mechanical combat on either side.

That's what really takes the time, and makes people feel like going to sleep during the other side of party splits.

[Yakk]

To be clear: "do not split the party" is the rule that parties should follow.

If you make it "just a bit bad" to be in the temple, the party will follow that rule. If they split the party, only one will stay outside, which makes that skill challenge tough.

If you make it abysmal for 2 of the party to be in the temple, they may either split the party, or not go in.

Making it "sorta kinda -2 penalty" means "go in, and suffer", not "stay outside".

Another problem is that it seems like those outside have nothing to do. I'd start off with something for them to do, so it doesn't look boring: even a weak-ass combat encounter. For the party to split, there needs to be lots of time pressure on the PCs going in as well (otherwise, they sweep the combat encounter, then at best leave the 2 PCs outside to be bored, or at worst continue to try to find a way in while bringing those 2 PCs along).

The right set of incentives requires
1) Time pressure, so they cannot afford to find another solution than splitting the party, or consequences (note: these consequences should be fun as well, advance the plot, even if in the wrong direction)

2) Something for those left behind to do *so they do not look as if they are going to be bored*. It should at least look like a combat encounter or something. (otherwise the PCs may meta-game and decide not to bore their friends)

3) A strong, forced reason why 2 PCs cannot enter (escalating auto-damage each round: 1 the first round, 2 the next, etc. Bounded by how close you get to the center of the shrine: the outer edge might cap out at 1 to 10 radiant damage/round, the center might cap out at 100 radiant damage/round. "Part" undead take half damage (which is still enough that you aren't going in there)).

Overall, this will be extremely tricky to pull off. And you need to have plans for all of the alternatives (PCs fail to split party, PCs force their way in despite the burning, PCs insist on finding a way to shield their allies from the burning).

If you have strong plans for the various alternatives, you could reduce #1, and thus reduce the railroad.

So...

There is reasonably strong time pressure: maybe you are given X days to do this mission.

Entering as an undead or partial is suicide (see above).

The trick to bringing down the shield requires two teams anyhow, one inside and one outside (so there is something for team #2 to do).

There are ways to shield you from the damage besides bringing down the shield, but they involve some dark magics (one of the ingredients is the soul of the love of a good person, slain by that good person).

[MunkeeGamer]

Just gotta say, this encounter/these encounters sound like a lot of fun. I really need to get more creative with my environments during combat to mix things up for my party!