as a DM I have recently discovered Skill Challenges. I very much like the idea and decided to implement them in my games. But I am still a bit struggling with how to run them and how to define them. I lack experience with them. So far we had only like three. That is why I decided to ask for your experience, advices and suggestions.
I have learned that there are many types of Skill challenges. In the internet I found several rule sets for that. Most of them are similar and share a lot, but there are some differences in rules. I have used currently this setup for Skill Challenge: As preparation I define DC and number of successes necessary to be reached in order for the complete Challenge to succeed. - I describe the challenge, what is the goal of characters in this Skill Challenge. - PCs roll initiative to define the order in which they will act. - During each turn each character explains how to contribute to achieve the goal and uses related skill (or I decide what skill is to be used based on the description of activity). - during one turn the same skill can be used only once. - during the whole Skill challenge a character can use each of their skill only once. - once number of successes equals the target number, the goal is reached and Skill Challenge ends with success. Depending on number of failures, there might be some drawbacks. - there is fixed number of failures (3). Once the third failure happens, the Skill challenge ends with failure.
Even though players mostly liked this Skill Challenge, there were some issues we had. 1) Skill use restrictions - I understand that the rules restricting repetition of the same skill use per turn or per character are there to motivate players to come up with original ideas how to solve the situation. But it is difficult to justify these rules from logical point of view. As an example, where this came up, we had skill challenge to escape a underground temple, which was collapsing. They needed to get to an exit as fast as possible before the temple bury them. One player just wanted to use all his attention to running. He just wanted to run towards an exit as fast as possible. But the issue was, that other player already used the Athletics, so according to the rules this second player could not use the Athletics again. Then there was an argument why he cannot use it. I guess any chase scene can have similar issue. 2) Preparation: the skill challenge requires, that I prepare it in advance, similarly as any other combat encounter. This is mostly fine. But there was an occasion that players ended up in a situation, where Skill Challenge was fitting to be used. But since I have not anticipated it, it was not prepared from my side. I needed to improvise and created the Skill Challenge on the spot and it was not very good. This brought me to an idea, if there is some kind of simplified Skill Challenge or some template maybe, which can be applied in these unexpected situations and still get good Skill Challenge. 3) How to handle spell uses - there might be spell which helps a lot in the given Skill Challenge. But spell is not any skill, so I ruled that use of that spell is automatic success (since it depletes spell slot). Later i realized I could use spellcasting ability check for casting a spell. But again we hit a problem, if two players want each use a spell. The first use of the spell would block the other, because skills cannot repeat.
I am looking for your advices and ideas how to tackle these issues.
I love skill challenges. I use them decently often in my campaigns, and my favorite one I've experienced as a player actually replaced a combat halfway through. So I have some ideas and advice for you.
Limited Skill Repeating A happy medium for you might be to restrict the use of a skill to once per character rather than once per skill challenge. That way allows multiple characters to try the same kind of thing (like athletics in your example), but keeps things a little fresh by forcing the monk not to use the same trick every time.
Increased Difficulty for Skill Repeating You might also consider allowing characters to use the same skills multiple times, but increasing the DC if they don't branch out. So if the dungeon's collapsing and the monk wants to run, maybe the terrain gets more and more hazardous the longer she does. Sure, she could keep running, but maybe using Survival to plot out a better path, or Nature to identify what rocks are less likely to crumble, or even Investigation to analyze the architecture for its sturdiness would have a lower DC than just...doing the same thing as before. The trick with skill challenges is that the environment/situation needs to change so that the players have something new to react to.
Spells Spells are never auto-successes in my skill challenges. Every spell requires a spellcasting ability check to determine how well the magic actually solves the problem. I don't care that the party is burning resources; I want them to burn resources in encounters. That's what they're for. I'm not forcing them to use their spell slots in my skill challenges, so if they choose to, that's entirely on them. Heck, maybe an Arcana check or a cantrip might have worked instead.
Preparation That's something, I think, that you will get better with as you grow more comfortable DMing these scenarios. Anything can turn into a skill challenge. I've used them for resurrection rituals, in lieu of combat, to deal with an escalating social encounter...any time there is a definitive goal and a time-sensitive situation, you can use a skill challenge. You can decide on the fly how many successes sounds about right, and coming up with consequences for good or bad rolls is just normal DMing.
Final Thoughts Personally, I don't use initiative for skill challenges because I find it slows things down. I just track rounds and ask who wants to contribute - or I'll ask what each player does. Sometimes my skill challenges require all party members to act during each round, and other times I just ask for one person to do something on behalf of the group. I think I prefer one person, just because the skill checks are more meaningful and it allows more breathing room for people to think and be creative/collaborative.
I have found that skill challenges need to have a narrative to avoid feeling like a roll-off of your best skills until you hit the magic number of successes. And the players need to know that they can contribute to that narrative rather than just reacting to what you tell them.
For instance, with the collapsing underground temple I might have an obstacle in front of the exit and falling debris. Players could act to move/get past the obstacle or protect the party from debris, but they could also ask to look for another way out, find the safest place to stand, calculate that another way out may be just past that crumbling wall, etc. I encourage them to ask questions about the situation, and if I don't know the answer I figure it out on the spot.
Then from the first initial success or failure, you come up with new challenges and obstacles depending on what happened. In this case you would have a decent idea of the temple's layout and a prepared list of obstacles, but you'd also be improvising a bit to tailor the escape to the actions the party takes.
The other issue with skill challenges is that you need to know what total failure looks like, cause it's a possibility. Generally, total failure should probably not be a TPK unless you're playing a pretty deadly game. So you need to figure out what the lose conditions are. Does the party take damage, drop items, lose time, lose reputation, lose the chance at loot or saving an NPC? Be ready to roll with failure.
As for spells or other expendable resources, I will absolutely count them as successes if their use makes sense. The whole point of a skill challenge from a mechanical perspective is to provide an alternative to combat that drains party resources in a similar manner. Blowing a third level spell only to get nothing from it because you biffed your Arcana check is not fun, and if you teach your party that an Arcana check is as likely to succeed as a spell, they will never, ever use a spell in a skill challenge. Why would you if you could succeed for free?
I would also add, in response to concerns about prep time, that if you recognize a situation may be appropriately resolved by a skill challenge, you could;
1. Figure out a DC on the fly using the DM guide suggestion 5 = Very Easy, 10 = Easy, 15 = Moderate, 20 = Hard.
2. Determine success vs failure requirements.
3. Announce "This is a skill check. You need X Successes before Y failures", then ask the players what skills they want to use and how.
Something like that would give you a plan to follow and you may find you don't ever need to prepare skill checks in advance.
Skill challenges were a really interesting idea from 4th edition that didn't make it into 5th edition. The core concept is excellent, the actual implementation has issues.
I don't really like the limited number of failures rule, because it results in "my best action is to pass so someone with a better chance of succeeding can try". As such, I usually just do it with a maximum number of rounds. I just go around the table (you can use initiative, but I generally don't bother because it rarely matters) and ask each player what they're doing to contribute to success; they succeed when they reach some threshold, fail if they don't succeed in the allowed number of rounds. Simple challenges are probably one round, complicated may take multiple.
Thank you all for your feedback. I really appreciate it. I think I will do some changes to the Skill Challenges I am running. Many of these ideas are really good.
The Initiative - somehow, I also did not like rolling initiative, but it was important because of that "skill use restrictions". It was not possible to use the same skill more than once during one round. So, the first player which used particular skill, blocked it for all others, until the round was over. But if I remove this restriction and allow repeating skill use, than initiative is not really needed.
Spells - this is still not completely decided for me. I think I like use of some skill as part of casting the spell better. I do not think that just using a skill (Arcana for example) can replace casting a spell. In my underground collapsing temple example, one of players used levitate to lift them to the hole in the ceiling to escape. I do not think any Arcana check could achieve it. At that time I gave them one automatic success for using spell like that. But then it felt too easy. They could collect these easy successes with several spell casts and then the skill challenge would not be so much challenge, only resource depletion. But on the other hand, later we had another Skill challenge, which was escaping (running) from a combat. One of the players used invisibility, but at that time I was trying this method of rolling Spell casting ability check together with casting the spell. In this case the player rolled low and it was quite difficult to explain narratively, what does it mean that Invisibility spell failed. So, I am a bit unsure whis approach is better.
One more question poped out to my mind. Do you allow that player do not do anything, basically skipping their turn? I understand from some of your answers that yes. What is then the consequence, if one character pass on contributing? Should it be considered as an automatic failure?
It is also quite interesting idea, not to define number of successes and failures, but instead number of rounds. And once the rounds are completed count how many successes and failures the party got and according to that, have a final result of skill challenge.
One more idea. It would be interesting to me, if anyone would be willing to share examples of skill challenges you had in your plays and how exactly they were played.
-create a scenarios that can not be solved by simply hitting stuff or casting fireball. ( an animal stampede in my case)
- come up with 5 problems and possible solutions
EG: a Child in danger ; stampede approaching a bussy market or the city slums full of people and poorly build huts; option to react quickly and close the cages or a city gate they are near …
-have an idea what DCs you want to set
- ask what your players want to try to solve the problems and roll with it, improvise new problems or relocate your pregenarated ones.
- make sure your players take turns, pause a bussy/vocal one to give others a go if needed
But on the other hand, later we had another Skill challenge, which was escaping (running) from a combat. One of the players used invisibility, but at that time I was trying this method of rolling Spell casting ability check together with casting the spell. In this case the player rolled low and it was quite difficult to explain narratively, what does it mean that Invisibility spell failed. So, I am a bit unsure whis approach is better.
The way I personally handle spellcasting check failures is mostly to lean into the limits of the spell. You went invisible? Works fine, but unfortunately you happened to run through a muddy puddle and they can track your footprints for a little while. For a spell that didn't have a reasonable justification or limitation, I think I once ruled that a player was too distracted to finish casting, and I let them keep their spell slot. Not saying this is a good fix or anything, but in the moment it felt reasonable.
In one scenario, I actually banned spells as a viable option just to challenge them. Skill challenges are all about thinking outside of the box, and some people really struggle with that. It can help to give them suggestions of possible things to try. "The orc horde is trying to break down your keep's door. You can use athletics to push it closed, or maybe a Charisma skill to shout something through the crack at them. Do you have anything in your inventory that might help right now?" Sometimes all a player needs is a little brainstorming nudge.
One more question poped out to my mind. Do you allow that player do not do anything, basically skipping their turn? I understand from some of your answers that yes. What is then the consequence, if one character pass on contributing? Should it be considered as an automatic failure?
I do not, personally. Either I require a representative to roll each round or I require everyone to participate. I have had someone once choose the Help action when they were totally at a loss, though. Again, it made sense in-game at the time. It's not a standard option for me.
One more idea. It would be interesting to me, if anyone would be willing to share examples of skill challenges you had in your plays and how exactly they were played.
The most recent one I did was an alchemy internship entrance exam, copied from the technical challenge on the Great British Bake Off. Party had to recreate a strange potion in a time crunch (6 rounds) based off an incomplete recipe. They needed 3 successes before 3 failures, otherwise they would be sent home. There were two arcana checks (one per participant) to figure out what the test meant by "catalyst" (which is a plot point in my campaign) and what step was missing in the instructions. The first succeeded, the second failed (leading to a loss of a round while they sat there confused). There was one nature check to try to tell the difference between two vials of dark liquid. That failed, and the concoction reacted violently, causing 1d4 damage. One player decided to replace the mysterious catalyst ingredient by infusing the vial with transmutation energy via a spell. I called for a spellcasting ability check, and it succeeded. That was the third success, so they moved on to the next round of the internship.
How i use Skill Challenge is highly influenced by 4E. I establish the goal that need to be accomplished during the challenge and consequence if it succeed or fail, determine the skills that can be used both primarry and secondary with a brief exemple of how so, set a DC for each ability checks using such skill and finally how many success before failure. I like to use multiple skills so that a greater number of characters can participate in primary skill checkss to count toward success or failure, or secondary to give advantage or disadvantage to them, keeping myself open for suggestions of different ability or skills use as well.
How i use Skill Challenge is highly influenced by 4E. I establish the goal that need to be accomplished during the challenge and consequence if it succeed or fail, determine the skills that can be used both primarry and secondary with a brief exemple of how so, set a DC for each ability checks using such skill and finally how many success before failure. I like to use multiple skills so that a greater number of characters can participate in primary skill checkss to count toward success or failure, or secondary to give advantage or disadvantage to them, keeping myself open for suggestions of different ability or skills use as well.
What happens if a player chooses to use a secondary skill (and assuming they succeed)? My vague recollection from 4e is that it doesn't count as an overall success in the challenge, but it does grant some other benefit, such as advantage on a future roll, removal of a failure already earned, etc. I guess I have the same question if they fail - does it count as an overall failure in the challenge, or does it have a less dire consequence?
How i use Skill Challenge is highly influenced by 4E. I establish the goal that need to be accomplished during the challenge and consequence if it succeed or fail, determine the skills that can be used both primarry and secondary with a brief exemple of how so, set a DC for each ability checks using such skill and finally how many success before failure. I like to use multiple skills so that a greater number of characters can participate in primary skill checkss to count toward success or failure, or secondary to give advantage or disadvantage to them, keeping myself open for suggestions of different ability or skills use as well.
What happens if a player chooses to use a secondary skill (and assuming they succeed)? My vague recollection from 4e is that it doesn't count as an overall success in the challenge, but it does grant some other benefit, such as advantage on a future roll, removal of a failure already earned, etc. I guess I have the same question if they fail - does it count as an overall failure in the challenge, or does it have a less dire consequence?
A success or failure to a secondary skill check grant advantage or disadvantage on the next primary check.
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Hi,
as a DM I have recently discovered Skill Challenges. I very much like the idea and decided to implement them in my games. But I am still a bit struggling with how to run them and how to define them. I lack experience with them. So far we had only like three. That is why I decided to ask for your experience, advices and suggestions.
I have learned that there are many types of Skill challenges. In the internet I found several rule sets for that. Most of them are similar and share a lot, but there are some differences in rules.
I have used currently this setup for Skill Challenge:
As preparation I define DC and number of successes necessary to be reached in order for the complete Challenge to succeed.
- I describe the challenge, what is the goal of characters in this Skill Challenge.
- PCs roll initiative to define the order in which they will act.
- During each turn each character explains how to contribute to achieve the goal and uses related skill (or I decide what skill is to be used based on the description of activity).
- during one turn the same skill can be used only once.
- during the whole Skill challenge a character can use each of their skill only once.
- once number of successes equals the target number, the goal is reached and Skill Challenge ends with success. Depending on number of failures, there might be some drawbacks.
- there is fixed number of failures (3). Once the third failure happens, the Skill challenge ends with failure.
Even though players mostly liked this Skill Challenge, there were some issues we had.
1) Skill use restrictions - I understand that the rules restricting repetition of the same skill use per turn or per character are there to motivate players to come up with original ideas how to solve the situation. But it is difficult to justify these rules from logical point of view. As an example, where this came up, we had skill challenge to escape a underground temple, which was collapsing. They needed to get to an exit as fast as possible before the temple bury them. One player just wanted to use all his attention to running. He just wanted to run towards an exit as fast as possible. But the issue was, that other player already used the Athletics, so according to the rules this second player could not use the Athletics again. Then there was an argument why he cannot use it. I guess any chase scene can have similar issue.
2) Preparation: the skill challenge requires, that I prepare it in advance, similarly as any other combat encounter. This is mostly fine. But there was an occasion that players ended up in a situation, where Skill Challenge was fitting to be used. But since I have not anticipated it, it was not prepared from my side. I needed to improvise and created the Skill Challenge on the spot and it was not very good. This brought me to an idea, if there is some kind of simplified Skill Challenge or some template maybe, which can be applied in these unexpected situations and still get good Skill Challenge.
3) How to handle spell uses - there might be spell which helps a lot in the given Skill Challenge. But spell is not any skill, so I ruled that use of that spell is automatic success (since it depletes spell slot). Later i realized I could use spellcasting ability check for casting a spell. But again we hit a problem, if two players want each use a spell. The first use of the spell would block the other, because skills cannot repeat.
I am looking for your advices and ideas how to tackle these issues.
I love skill challenges. I use them decently often in my campaigns, and my favorite one I've experienced as a player actually replaced a combat halfway through. So I have some ideas and advice for you.
Limited Skill Repeating
A happy medium for you might be to restrict the use of a skill to once per character rather than once per skill challenge. That way allows multiple characters to try the same kind of thing (like athletics in your example), but keeps things a little fresh by forcing the monk not to use the same trick every time.
Increased Difficulty for Skill Repeating
You might also consider allowing characters to use the same skills multiple times, but increasing the DC if they don't branch out. So if the dungeon's collapsing and the monk wants to run, maybe the terrain gets more and more hazardous the longer she does. Sure, she could keep running, but maybe using Survival to plot out a better path, or Nature to identify what rocks are less likely to crumble, or even Investigation to analyze the architecture for its sturdiness would have a lower DC than just...doing the same thing as before. The trick with skill challenges is that the environment/situation needs to change so that the players have something new to react to.
Spells
Spells are never auto-successes in my skill challenges. Every spell requires a spellcasting ability check to determine how well the magic actually solves the problem. I don't care that the party is burning resources; I want them to burn resources in encounters. That's what they're for. I'm not forcing them to use their spell slots in my skill challenges, so if they choose to, that's entirely on them. Heck, maybe an Arcana check or a cantrip might have worked instead.
Preparation
That's something, I think, that you will get better with as you grow more comfortable DMing these scenarios. Anything can turn into a skill challenge. I've used them for resurrection rituals, in lieu of combat, to deal with an escalating social encounter...any time there is a definitive goal and a time-sensitive situation, you can use a skill challenge. You can decide on the fly how many successes sounds about right, and coming up with consequences for good or bad rolls is just normal DMing.
Final Thoughts
Personally, I don't use initiative for skill challenges because I find it slows things down. I just track rounds and ask who wants to contribute - or I'll ask what each player does. Sometimes my skill challenges require all party members to act during each round, and other times I just ask for one person to do something on behalf of the group. I think I prefer one person, just because the skill checks are more meaningful and it allows more breathing room for people to think and be creative/collaborative.
Matt Colville did a great video on skill challenges that you might enjoy, if you haven't watched it before.
I have found that skill challenges need to have a narrative to avoid feeling like a roll-off of your best skills until you hit the magic number of successes. And the players need to know that they can contribute to that narrative rather than just reacting to what you tell them.
For instance, with the collapsing underground temple I might have an obstacle in front of the exit and falling debris. Players could act to move/get past the obstacle or protect the party from debris, but they could also ask to look for another way out, find the safest place to stand, calculate that another way out may be just past that crumbling wall, etc. I encourage them to ask questions about the situation, and if I don't know the answer I figure it out on the spot.
Then from the first initial success or failure, you come up with new challenges and obstacles depending on what happened. In this case you would have a decent idea of the temple's layout and a prepared list of obstacles, but you'd also be improvising a bit to tailor the escape to the actions the party takes.
The other issue with skill challenges is that you need to know what total failure looks like, cause it's a possibility. Generally, total failure should probably not be a TPK unless you're playing a pretty deadly game. So you need to figure out what the lose conditions are. Does the party take damage, drop items, lose time, lose reputation, lose the chance at loot or saving an NPC? Be ready to roll with failure.
As for spells or other expendable resources, I will absolutely count them as successes if their use makes sense. The whole point of a skill challenge from a mechanical perspective is to provide an alternative to combat that drains party resources in a similar manner. Blowing a third level spell only to get nothing from it because you biffed your Arcana check is not fun, and if you teach your party that an Arcana check is as likely to succeed as a spell, they will never, ever use a spell in a skill challenge. Why would you if you could succeed for free?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Everything Theologyofbagels said, 100%.
I would also add, in response to concerns about prep time, that if you recognize a situation may be appropriately resolved by a skill challenge, you could;
1. Figure out a DC on the fly using the DM guide suggestion 5 = Very Easy, 10 = Easy, 15 = Moderate, 20 = Hard.
2. Determine success vs failure requirements.
3. Announce "This is a skill check. You need X Successes before Y failures", then ask the players what skills they want to use and how.
Something like that would give you a plan to follow and you may find you don't ever need to prepare skill checks in advance.
Skill challenges were a really interesting idea from 4th edition that didn't make it into 5th edition. The core concept is excellent, the actual implementation has issues.
I don't really like the limited number of failures rule, because it results in "my best action is to pass so someone with a better chance of succeeding can try". As such, I usually just do it with a maximum number of rounds. I just go around the table (you can use initiative, but I generally don't bother because it rarely matters) and ask each player what they're doing to contribute to success; they succeed when they reach some threshold, fail if they don't succeed in the allowed number of rounds. Simple challenges are probably one round, complicated may take multiple.
Thank you all for your feedback. I really appreciate it.
I think I will do some changes to the Skill Challenges I am running. Many of these ideas are really good.
The Initiative - somehow, I also did not like rolling initiative, but it was important because of that "skill use restrictions". It was not possible to use the same skill more than once during one round. So, the first player which used particular skill, blocked it for all others, until the round was over.
But if I remove this restriction and allow repeating skill use, than initiative is not really needed.
Spells - this is still not completely decided for me. I think I like use of some skill as part of casting the spell better. I do not think that just using a skill (Arcana for example) can replace casting a spell. In my underground collapsing temple example, one of players used levitate to lift them to the hole in the ceiling to escape. I do not think any Arcana check could achieve it. At that time I gave them one automatic success for using spell like that. But then it felt too easy. They could collect these easy successes with several spell casts and then the skill challenge would not be so much challenge, only resource depletion.
But on the other hand, later we had another Skill challenge, which was escaping (running) from a combat. One of the players used invisibility, but at that time I was trying this method of rolling Spell casting ability check together with casting the spell. In this case the player rolled low and it was quite difficult to explain narratively, what does it mean that Invisibility spell failed. So, I am a bit unsure whis approach is better.
One more question poped out to my mind. Do you allow that player do not do anything, basically skipping their turn? I understand from some of your answers that yes. What is then the consequence, if one character pass on contributing? Should it be considered as an automatic failure?
It is also quite interesting idea, not to define number of successes and failures, but instead number of rounds. And once the rounds are completed count how many successes and failures the party got and according to that, have a final result of skill challenge.
One more idea. It would be interesting to me, if anyone would be willing to share examples of skill challenges you had in your plays and how exactly they were played.
The way I did it with a group of kids:
-create a scenarios that can not be solved by simply hitting stuff or casting fireball. ( an animal stampede in my case)
- come up with 5 problems and possible solutions
EG: a Child in danger ; stampede approaching a bussy market or the city slums full of people and poorly build huts; option to react quickly and close the cages or a city gate they are near …
-have an idea what DCs you want to set
- ask what your players want to try to solve the problems and roll with it, improvise new problems or relocate your pregenarated ones.
- make sure your players take turns, pause a bussy/vocal one to give others a go if needed
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]The way I personally handle spellcasting check failures is mostly to lean into the limits of the spell. You went invisible? Works fine, but unfortunately you happened to run through a muddy puddle and they can track your footprints for a little while. For a spell that didn't have a reasonable justification or limitation, I think I once ruled that a player was too distracted to finish casting, and I let them keep their spell slot. Not saying this is a good fix or anything, but in the moment it felt reasonable.
In one scenario, I actually banned spells as a viable option just to challenge them. Skill challenges are all about thinking outside of the box, and some people really struggle with that. It can help to give them suggestions of possible things to try. "The orc horde is trying to break down your keep's door. You can use athletics to push it closed, or maybe a Charisma skill to shout something through the crack at them. Do you have anything in your inventory that might help right now?" Sometimes all a player needs is a little brainstorming nudge.
I do not, personally. Either I require a representative to roll each round or I require everyone to participate. I have had someone once choose the Help action when they were totally at a loss, though. Again, it made sense in-game at the time. It's not a standard option for me.
The most recent one I did was an alchemy internship entrance exam, copied from the technical challenge on the Great British Bake Off. Party had to recreate a strange potion in a time crunch (6 rounds) based off an incomplete recipe. They needed 3 successes before 3 failures, otherwise they would be sent home. There were two arcana checks (one per participant) to figure out what the test meant by "catalyst" (which is a plot point in my campaign) and what step was missing in the instructions. The first succeeded, the second failed (leading to a loss of a round while they sat there confused). There was one nature check to try to tell the difference between two vials of dark liquid. That failed, and the concoction reacted violently, causing 1d4 damage. One player decided to replace the mysterious catalyst ingredient by infusing the vial with transmutation energy via a spell. I called for a spellcasting ability check, and it succeeded. That was the third success, so they moved on to the next round of the internship.
How i use Skill Challenge is highly influenced by 4E. I establish the goal that need to be accomplished during the challenge and consequence if it succeed or fail, determine the skills that can be used both primarry and secondary with a brief exemple of how so, set a DC for each ability checks using such skill and finally how many success before failure. I like to use multiple skills so that a greater number of characters can participate in primary skill checkss to count toward success or failure, or secondary to give advantage or disadvantage to them, keeping myself open for suggestions of different ability or skills use as well.
What happens if a player chooses to use a secondary skill (and assuming they succeed)? My vague recollection from 4e is that it doesn't count as an overall success in the challenge, but it does grant some other benefit, such as advantage on a future roll, removal of a failure already earned, etc. I guess I have the same question if they fail - does it count as an overall failure in the challenge, or does it have a less dire consequence?
A success or failure to a secondary skill check grant advantage or disadvantage on the next primary check.