A to Z Blogging Challenge: W is for Water

W is for Water

As I wrote yesterday’s post, I realized I hadn’t talked much about Skill Challenges. Introduced in 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, at their simplest a skill challenge is a series of skill checks where the players need to pass a certain number of checks before failing a different number of checks. ie: Pass 5 checks before failing 2. The number of successes vs. failures changes based on the difficulty of the skill check. What does this have to do with water you ask? Well, water can be at the center of a lot of skill challenges.

1) Pilot a boat down river from one village to another. Along the way you’ll have to steer your way through rapids or risk losing the boat and its cargo.

2) Survive without water, or find a source of water in the arid desert.

3) Dive into a pool of water, racing against an opponent to retrieve an important artifact from the bottom of the pool.

4) As you explore a room its doors slam shut and the room begins filling with water. Can you manage to unlock, or break down one of the doors before you drown?

5) You’re tracking an opponent through a dry creek bed when a storm moves in. The rapid rainfall leads to flash flooding. Can you avoid being washed away by the torrent? And if so, has the rain allowed your quarry to escape, or can you pick up the trail again?

Many other natural occurrences and phenomena make great skill challenges as well, but today is W day, so perhaps another day we can visit things like snow and rock-slides.

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