Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Adamaro23 Aug 21, 2010 10:53:55	I've seen it mentioned before on these boards, but I also agree that my favorite skill challenge for traversing the world comes from The Vault of Darom Madar. Unlike the others it presents interesting downsides to failure, and in general, I believe it is simply well designed. However, I don't know entirely how it interacts with Survival Days. The skill challenge itself is an abstraction of all the things the characters endure to reach their destination, but the amount of time it takes is up to you as the DM. It includes "group checks" where each PC makes a check, and if more than half of the PCs succeed, its a success. But if more than half fail, it not only counts as a failure, but penalizes the ones that failed. One of the failed ones (Endurance) gives Athas's Sun Sickness an attack vs the failures. So, what I'm gathering here is not only am I making them spend survival days each day to avoid an attack from sun sickness, but also occasional endurances during the skill challenge which presents another opportunity to get sun sickness. I really don't believe the skill challenge is replacing the normal survival day method, just tacking this on. Am I correct in this? I don't feel it's so bad, and I suppose makes sense, it's just occasionally Sun Sickness gets an extra attack here and there... I guess some days are worse than others?
#2 sir_sparhawk Aug 21, 2010 16:51:05	I wrote two different skill challenges but I think I can figure out how to make them one.  There's a scene in my adventure where the PC's must travel off the roads to Breakshore.  The first part is just the navigation portion of the skill challenge if they have sufficient survival days.  I figure that since they have survival days, that's taking care of the endurance issues since there's enough water, food and protection from the elements to survive efficiently enough.  However once a single PC lacks a survival day, that triggers the next skill challenge which is more focused on gathering supplies, avoiding dangers, etc. in order to survive the harshness of the sun and desert.  Sun Sickness doesn't attack until they're on this part of the skill challenge. I just don't see the point of making sure you have survival days if sun sickness gets to attack you regardless if you have them or not.