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Hi All,

I've made a earthquake skill challenege for my group to reflect the fact that Dark Sun is coming to the end of it's life. If you could take a look at it and tell me what you think.

This skill challenge is designed to be used with the Dark Sun Setting for the Dungeons and Dragons game (4e). I created this skill challenge so that I could shake the PC’s up and give them a scare. The heroes are traveling across a desert region of sandy wastes when the earth shakes beneath their feet and the ground opens up threatening to swallow them.

Earthquake Skill Challenge (XP 350)

Set-up: The PC’s must escape the earth quake as it opens up the earth forming chasms they can fall into if they are not quick enough.

Level: 3 

Complexity: 1 (requires 4 successes before 2 failures).

Primary skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Endurance and Nature.

Acrobatics (DC 15): You somersault, cart wheel, roll or do some tricky maneuver to avoid falling into a crack in the earth.

Athletics (DC 15): You jump away or climb out of the chasms that appear beneath your feet.

Endurance (DC 15): You attempt to out-run the earthquake by sprinting across the sand dunes.

Nature (DC 15): You are able to predict where the next crack appears and avoid the worst areas of the earthquake. 

Secondary skills: Perception. Secondary skills can be used to improve the chances of avoiding the cracks in the earth that the quake makes.

Perception (DC 15): You notice small cracks in the ground before they can open up into a wide chasm. Gain a +2 bonus to any primary skill check.

Success: The character avoids the worst of the earthquake. 

Failure: The character is thrown around and suffers 2d8 damage. Otherwise they can fall into the chasms created, but get to make a series of DC 20 Athletics checks to catch hold of the rock wall. It’s a deep chasm so allow as many checks as the character requires, but they will take 1d6 points of damage grabbing the rock face.

Yeah, I see this as a trap/hazard, too. A skill challenge is (usually) something the entire party works on, and succeeds or fails as a group. But each of these elements are individual efforts to survive. My making a successful acrobatics check saves me, not the party.

Run it exactly as you have listed it, but drop the skill challenge reference and the "four successes before two failures" thing. Everyone simply has to succeed or fail for however many rounds the quake lasts. TO make it really effective, have it occur during a battle!

Another vote for having something else going on during the challenge, even just another challenge.

another vote for hazard.  Running this (with the checks being forced, not take actions) during an easier combat could make the combat more interesting...likewise, the monsters can give meaning to the event by freaking out or perhaps outright fleeing...more intelligent monsters could try to even monologue to the players about how their puny minds couldn't comprehend what is happening, or how their plan to destroy the world is working! MWAHAHA...*ahem*


alternatively:
i could see, with a group with the proper motivation, running an "earthquake" as a party skill challenge, but NOT for the purposes of damage/survival.  The only way i see a skill challenge earthquake really working would be in order to set up 2 divergent story paths....

say that someone is behind the earthquakes.  The earthquake hits, great big honking tears appear in the ground.  Cue skill challenge: 4+ before 3- or 6+ before 3- work well, anything longer can get boring fast.  The skill checks are basically a series of checks to save EACH OTHER as holes appear under their feet (and everyone around them/in the same town/whatever is thematically appropriate).

Now, success means they stay above ground.  Hopefully they would be given plenty of cluestuff about finding the dastardly perpetrator and dealing with him....straightforward and positive end to the situation.  On a failure, on the other hand, they fall deep within the "earth" and black out....waking up in whatever appropriately dramatic fashion and surroundings you like.  They then run into a subterranean race of something-or-other down there that has concerns about the earthquakes and their affects on the subterranean ecology (or "pillars of the world" or somesuch if you want to be dramatic).  The PCs engage in a fun and engaging side-quest to reinforce the substructure of the world/immediate area to keep the entire region from collapsing into the underdark.  PCs are unsung heroes, but feel prety good, until they get back to the surface and realize how well Dr. Dastardly has done in their absence!

classic case of skill challenge with 2 fun results that both pertain to the story, but affect it in different ways (without making one feel like the "failure branch")   

Jan 13, 2012 -- 11:45AM, Prom wrote:

I could include a battle with some lesser earth elementals. I would have to resructure it a bit to be a hazard, but I'll have a go.

Check the Compendium because there are a few examples of earthquake hazards in there you can use and/or adapt.

Describe the context of the scene a bit and I can help you come up with a storyboard for the encounter.