The origins of Ishaarl are shrouded, but none dispute: he is god of the Flaming Sea. A titanic fire elemental who slumbers underneath the molten sea that seperates warring efreet kingdoms, Ishaarl awakens rarely, devouring with flame and lava unfortunates crossing his domain. The crews of crimson galleons pay fortunes for wardings and prayers for deep slumber. None pay tribute, for no gift survives the burning lord’s grasp.

Aware of the dangers, you foolishly seek entry into Ishaarl’s demense and expect to exit. Protected by the field of magical force that allows the galleons to traverse the volcanic sea, fortune for a time blows a gentle and quiet wind in the ship’s mast. In your second day of travel, fortune’s wind grows still.

The captain cries orders to his men that are half-lost in the hissing and battering of lava waves against the galleon’s wardings. You steady yourself, seeing where you can assist in the sudden chaos. For moments all sense is lost, the ship whirling and bucking through the tides. All anyone can do is clutch the railings, and pray as the captain had warned you previously for the swift coming of death.

The chaos ebbs. You look up and see a creature of flame in the distance, hip deep in lava. It wades through fire to cross the distance between it and your companions.

The burning lord rises.

Synopsis: The players are crossing the Flaming Sea and must face the gargantuan fire elemental Irshaal.  They must defeat or evade the burning lord!

Encounter level: PC Level+3 (This Skill challenge is designed for high paragon/epic tier characters)

Complexity: See Goal, below.

Goal: Destroy the Fire Elemental before your ship is consumed in flames. You are attempting to get ten successes (or six escape successes) against the fire elemental before the fire elemental gets ten successes against your ship.

The Battle

In this skill challenge, all PCs will make their checks, and then Irshaal will make his attack.  Play will continue this way until the skill challenge is defeated.

The Ship “The Dead Forge”

Crimson galleons are ships specially prepared to cross the Flaming Sea. They are regular wood and sails galleons that possess a “heart”. A Crimson galleon’s heart generates a magical forcefield that encircles the ship and protects it from the sea’s destructive nature.

In this encounter the PCs will be aboard the ship attempting to evade or defeat Ishaarl. PCs can use their own powers to fight the elemental, but also have access to many features in the ship that can aid them.

Staging: Make sure that the PCs are aware of the various components of the ship, detailed below. The challenge isn’t for them to discover what the ship can do. The challenge is using the ship to the player’s advantage.

Skill Used:

The skills used will in part be based on where on the ship the characters are.  It is assumed that the PCs are on the upper deck.

Movement

To get from one place to another on the ships in this turbulent situation is difficult.  When moving from one portion of the ship to another, a PC must make an Acrobatics (moderate DC) or Athletics (moderate DC) check.  If the check is failed, the player gets tied up and is unable to make it to the desired location.

The Heart

Below deck, in the center of the ship is a small room where the heart of the Dead Forge lives. As the ship’s hull takes damage, the forcefield will gradually lose power, leaving the ship to quickly burn up in the sea.

A player can spend his turn to reach the heart (using the rules for movement below). He can refuel the heart by using his own life force or arcane/divine powers.

Feeding the Heart

Expending an arcane or divine daily power deprives Ishaarl of one success.
Expending three healing surges deprives Ishaarl of one success.

Skills Used:

Arcana (hard DC):  With magical sight you peer deep into the heart.  You divine its true nature, making your contribution to it more efficient.  When feeding the heart, you can deprive Ishaarl of one additional success. If this check fails you must lose a healing surge.

Religion (hard DC): You contact the heart’s essence and the divine simultaneously. The instant of connection generates a tremendous amount of energy from just a tiny, divine spark.  you may expend a Channel Divinity encounter power instead of a divine daily power when feeding the heart. If this check fails you lose a channel divinity power with no effect gained.

Ice Cannons

Another magical construct aboard the Dead Forge, the ship’s ice cannons are mounted on the port and starboard hulls, meant to deal with mephit hordes and other creatures known to waylay ships making the hazardous crossing.

Characters can make a shot with an ice cannon by moving under the deck (using the rules for movement) and manning the ice cannons.

Making a successful shot with an ice cannon requires making a basic ranged attack against AC (16 + average PC Level) and scores one success for the PCs. A critical hit counts as two successes.

Skills Used:

Distracting Shot (Insight, moderate DC, maximum two successes):  You shoot a burst of ice to get the burning lord’s attention somewhere else temporarily.  Ishaarl suffers a -4 to his next attack.

Vitals Shot (Perception, hard DC): Even a creature of flame has weak points.  You aim for Ishaarl’s ruby eyes.  Make a basic ranged attack against AC (16 + average PC Level).  If this attack succeeds, you score two successes against Ishaarl.

Calm the Tide (Nature, moderate DC): Instead of attacking Ishaarl, you shoot the the ice cannon at the lava below.  Temporarily cooling it, even for a fraction of a second, makes traversal a bit easier for a time.  +2 to the next Navigation check.

The Helm

The ship is normally navigated by the captain, but a successful Diplomacy (hard DC + 4) or Intimidate (hard DC +4) check can convince the captain to give up command of the helm temporarily (2 rounds) to a PC.  Moving to the helm require movement checks as normal. The PC at the helm can make Navigation checks, detailed below.

The Captain, Ritom Kiv

The duergar Ritom Kiv has encountered Irshaal before.  His body bears the burns and scars from that encounter.  Just barely managing to escape in an ash-skiff, he survived his crew and seeks revenge on Irshaal.  If PCs do not take control of navigation, Ritom will take direction from them on what navigation checks to make each turn.  He will ignore any orders to flee, choosing to take a pass action instead.  If Irshaal ever scores 7 or more successes against the ship, Ritom will steer the ship right at the elemental, on a suicide pass.

Staging:  As the battle escalates, you want to play up Ritom’s rising madness.  As the ship takes more damage, Ritom becomes more consumed with battle lust and becomes more and more unhinged.  If Ritom takes the ship on a suicide pass, you can also stage a combat with the captainand his crew versus the PCs.  The PCs will have eight combat turns to defeat or pacify them to have time to steer the ship on a new course.

Navigation:

All navigation checks are Dexterity checks.  The additional numbers on each check is what Ritom needs to roll if he is in control of the ship. Navigation successes do not count toward total successes against Irshaal.

Flee (hard DC) (N/A): you seek to do the impossible –escape from the grasp of the burning lord. With clever navigation, you might be the first.  If successful, you earn an escape success and raise the DC for the next flee check by one.  If the check is failed, Irshaal gets a +2 to his next attack.

Evasive Actions (moderate DC) (11): Escaping is not an option, but you buy yourself some time to come up with a suitable attack. Irshaal gets a -4 to his next attack.  If this check is failed, all checks for PCs on the ship suffer a -2 next round.

Far Pass (moderate DC) (11): The ship circles the fire elemental, setting up shots from the ice cannons.  PCs may use powers against the elemental with a range of 20 squares or more.  If this check is failed, Irshaal gets a +1 on his next attack against the PCs.

Close Pass (moderate DC) (11): you risk a bit more, but seek to gain more in your assaults against Irshaal.  PCs may use powers against Irshaal with a range of 10 squares or more.  +2 to ice cannon attacks.  If this check is failed, Irshaal gets +2 on his next attack.

Suicide Pass (automatic three successes) (NA): You drive the ship into the god of the flaming sea, hoping your end will bring his.  PCs can use any powers they have.  Make 1 round of attacks, and then the Dead Forge and everyone aboard is incinerated, whether the flame elemental is destroyed or not.  The forcefield is immediately overwhelmed and the ship is immediately burnt to nothing in the lava.

The Crow’s Nest

The crow’s nest allows a PC to get a clearer view of the battle. A character in the crow’s nest can, on his turn, make Perception (hard DC) to provide a bonus success to any other PC’s successful action taken.

The crow’s nest is also close to the shield’s borders , and precarious position in general. Any time the ship is hit by Ishaarl, a PC in the crow’s nest must make an Athletics check (hard DC) or be tossed out of the crow’s nest.  The PC takes 3d10 falling damage and suffers a -2 on his next movement check.

Upper Deck

The middle of the ship is where the crewmen are running around frantically trying to keep the ship in order.

PCs can use their powers most easily from this location.

Skills used:

Diplomacy (moderate DC): “Did you think this was a recreation in the Flaming Sea?  Fight men, fight for your lives and souls!” +2 to the next round of checks.

Thievery (hard DC, maximum two successes): Quick jury-rigging of the masts optimizes them to catch the rapidly changing thermal winds more easily.  Adds a permanent +1 to Navigation checks.

Powers

Players may wish to use powers to assault Irshaal.  The defenses for Irshaal are:

AC (16 + PC Level)
Fort (18 + PC Level)
Reflex (10 + PC Level)
Will (16 + PC Level)

Forced movement will result in a penalty to Irshaal’s next attack equal to half the number of squares moved, rounding down.
Any power with the cold or psychic keyword adds 10 to the damage rolled against the fire elemental.
Irshaal is immune to attacks with the fire keyword.

Damaging Irshaal

If a PC inflicts 40 damage in one attack (or one round of attacks) he scores one success against Irshaal.
If a PC deals 80 damage or more in one attack (or one round of attacks) he scores two success against Irshaal.

Ishaarl

The burning Lord has several methods of attacking the ship. He can make one attack each round.  The number in parenthesis is what he needs to successfully land each attack.

Lava Tide (8): Irshaal pounds his fist into the sea, battering the Dead forge’s shield with lava.  Counts as one success. Each PC takes 2d6+8 damage on a successful attack.

Fire Breath (12): Irshaal exhales and releases a searing flame gout.  The force field sparks and crackles under the assault. Counts as two successes, and each PC takes 3d6+8 damage.

Fist of the Fire God (16): Irshaal rakes the ship fiery claws.  Counts as 1d6 successes. Each PC takes 3d6+8 damage and ongoing 20 damage (save ends).

Success (Escape): You can tell your descendants the epic tale of how you tricked and evaded the fire god Irshaal!  The captain does not seem happy, but you’ll accept keeping your life for one more day.

Success (Defeat): You have defeated Irshaal!  But is the burning lord ever defeated?  He will rest for a long time, that’s certain.

Failure: As the Dead Forge’s force field fades, you and your companions flee to the ash-skiffs.  Powered by miniature hearts, they allow you to sail away while Irshaal savors the burning of the crimson galleon you fled.  you arrive at the shores alive but fatigued from the fire and ash.  You begin your next encounter weakened (save ends).

(Special Thanks to Mike at Sly Flourish for getting me going on this. )

I’ve got countless tricks that I use to get around, but here’s something you can use in your game immediately: a deck of cards.  You know what a particular skill challenge is going to be about, so you can create a deck (a chart works too but I like the feel of cards) that contains micro-situations that players react to and focus on.  Go through  several of the situations and you have a skill challenge with a built-in narrative.  In a second I’ll detail how I use them, but first:

The Thing is not the Thing.

By this I mean that if you run a stealth skill challenge, the worst way to look at it is as a scene *about* stealth.  The scene is really going to be about ways that the players clear obstacles to using stealth in the encounter.  Stealth will be rolled eventually, but that roll will be the result of the other skills used in its place.  The basic pace we use is that everyone makes a secondary check first, and then they make a group check.  It’s slightly unconventional but I’ve had success with it.

Failures are penalties.

There’s no ‘X before 3′ here. If the group falis the group check, what you are going to do is assign them a penalty.  This isn’t the right methodology for you if you want to make a skill challenge where there is a definitive good or bad ending.  It is perfect when you have a skill challenge that is a hazard, that taxes or delays the players.

So if you’re using this approach you’re going to make each failure have some basic penalty.  The players lose some resource -time, healing surges; you name it, you  can take it.

So let’s start:

Make a deck of at least six cards.

On each card, make a complication.  An evocative title will do. Decide what skill is the primary, and pick a difficulty (moderate is usually best).  Pick a few skills as secondary and set DCs.  Put all that info on the card.

Running the Challenge

Flip over a card.  This is the current challenge facing the players.  The primary skill is the group check  that they need to make. They make that check second.   The secondary skills are what players can use to get a bonus on the skill check roll.  Each player narrates what they do and makes one check to help themselves or another player with the group check.  A successful check on the secondary skill grants a +2 bonus too a check.  A character can use a secondary skill that is not on the card, but they might raise the DC by 2 unless they have something particularly clever or breaking.

An important rule here:  No double-dipping!  You can’t use endurance to help you with a primary skill endurance check.  Again, the thing is not the thing.

Go around to each player in turn, and discuss how they are helping themselves do well on the primary skills.  They are using the secondary skill to help them out.  Anyone who passes their secondary test gets a bonus to their primary skill check.  If the group passes the primary skill group check, then they get the success result for the challenge.  Otherwise, they get whatever the fail result is.

It’s simple, but it works really well for many different basic types of skill challenges; overland skill challenges in particular. Overland travel skill challenges notoriously become these grinding mills of enduring the same thing over and over again. But using this concept, you can add diversity and interest back into it — the players encounter one difficulty and then another.  If you make a big enough deck you can use the deck repeatedly for different situations.

These skill challenges will never take the place of a set piece encounter but they are a strong way to add some more challenge or drive to a scene. They also work great for skill challenges  on the fly, or to mechanize scene types that are common to the campaign and therefore important , e.g. desert travel in a DarkSun game rather demands that you have some challenging desert travel.
So in summary, you will use this as follows:

• Decide length of the challenge (3 draws from the deck is usually good)
• Draw card, narrate situation. Let them know that they are first using a helper skill for the primary skill of the challenge.
• Players narrate the use of a secondary skill to help themselves or their allies.
• Make a group check on the primary skill, narrating success or failure.

…Just another word for Chart

I’ve talked about a  deck but you can easily use the technique as a chart and roll.  As a matter of fact, I’ve got a skill challenge in this format that do just that.  Try it out as a deck or in chart form and see what you think!

Skill Challenge: Desert Overland Travel

This challenge deck is used when you must travel through the desert.  Obviously this works great in Dark Sun, but any desert  world could use this.

Suggestions for Failures: players lose a healing surge; players lose rations and survival gear; players lose time; desert creatures attack. Basically, decide what the challenge is stressing.  Are the players trying to make it somewhere on time?  Make each failure increase the travel time. If it’s just survival, healing surges and the like are better.  Customize the penalties and rewards to your game.

1 – “Siltstorm Maze”

A blinding sandstorm; Endless rock formations obfuscating the path.
Primary: Nature
Secondary: Perception, Athletics, Endurance

2 – “Blazing Heat”
Searing heat; A merciless sun bearing down on the adventurers.
Primary: Endurance
Secondary: Nature, History, Stealth

3 – “Deadly Mirage”
Shimmering illusion leads to unknown dangers
Primary: Perception
Secondary: History, Insight, Bluff

4 – “Broken Land”
Cracked soil and treacherous dunes; dangerous precipices and cliffs.
Primary: Nature
Secondary: Athletics, Acrobatics, History

5 – “Predator and Prey”
Stalking creatures from the waste; escape in harsh terrain.
Primary: Athletics
Secondary: Nature, Perception,Insight, Stealth

6 – “Without Water…”
The desert steals precious water magically; survive dehydration
Primary: Endurance
Secondary: Nature, Perception, History

Arcana as Platform

Arcana as Sense

Arcana as Social Skill

So it is that you find yourself travelling through the desert  You must protect your body and your will to reach your destination without harm.

Throughout the challenge each player accumulates survival points for successes. Each failure accumulates “sand” for the failing player.

Survival represents the steps the character has taken to inure him/herself from the dangers of the environment.  Sand represents the dangers of the desert as they seek to overwhelm a character.  The balance between these two values is used at the very last part of the SC, and can be used to gain a boon or a disease.

Players will automatically accrue a point of sand every other day, starting with the first day. Track the total of survival and sand each player gathers over the course of the challenge.

Each day, each player can choose an approach (you’ll want to let players know what each approach is) and then use one of the associated skills for that approached. If the player chooses not to use an associated skill, increase the difficulty of the challenge by two. The intent here is that a player will choose a basic strategy and then describe how they use a skill to implement that approach. Players can devise their own approaches different from those listed here; this will of course require GM adjudication to determine the results.

Day1: Blistering Heat

The desert oppresses you with its heat, the sun high overhead and demanding.

Survival Tactics(Moderate): The desert is cruel, but not clever; you use knowledge and your wits to deal with the harsh desert heat. Skills: Nature, Heal, history, Perception. Success: gain 1 survival. Failure: gain 1 sand.

Dogged Determination (Hard): The flesh is always weak; Your willpower will drive you through the desert by itself. Skills: Endurance, athletics, religion, intimidate.  Success: gain 1d4 survival . Failure: gain 1d4 sand.

Child of the Desert ( automatic): You embrace the desert and all of its challenges. It is unclear whether this can help or hurt you in the end. Gain 1 survival, 1 sand and gain a +2 on your next skill check.

Day 2: Dessication

Dealing with the heat is one thing. The true test of the desert is keeping enough water inside of you. everything conspires to steal your precious water. Even your skin betrays you, ofering it up to the sands and maybe the vultures that circle overhead.

Each player chooses one approach to Dessication:

Water Hunting (hard): You search for underground reserves or plants that hold water. Hopefully the search is not fruitless. Skills: Nature, Perception, History, Dungeoneering. Success: gain 1d4 survival. Failure: player chooses 1: gain 1d4 or lose 1d4 healing surges until the journey ends.

Reserved movement(moderate): It is better to limit one’s movement, conserving what water there is until more can be found. Skills: Endurance, Heal, Stealth. Success: gain 1 survival. Failure: player loses two healing surges until the journey ends.

Day 3: Burning Cold

You are beginning to learn that the nights are the true threat of the desert. The freezing nights can slay the unwary as easily as the heat of the day, which you keep in mind as the cold settles in your bones.

Each player acquires 1 sand.

Each player chooses one approach to the Burning Cold.

Seek Warmth (Hard): You can “rough it” but prefer to increase your odds by finding aids to survival. Skills: Perception, Insight, Nature, Heal. Success:  gain 1 survival.  lose 1 healing surge until journey’s end to gain 1 extra survival.  Failure: gain 1 sand.

Endure the Night (Hard): Again you rely on your own toughness to make it through the desert’s challenge. Skills: Endurance, Athletics, Heal.  Success: gain 1d4 survival.  Failure: either gain weakness on the first round of a combat encounter until the journey ends or gain 1d4+1 sand.

Call to the Spirits of the Desert (Moderate): In desperation you call out to the spirits of the desert.  How will they answer?  Skills: Religion, Arcana, Diplomacy. Success: gain 1d6 survival and gain 1d4 sand. Failure: gain 1d4 survival and 1d6 sand. Special: If you have more survival than sand, regain 1 healing surge or gain a +1 on skill checks during the journey.  If you have more sand than survival, lose 1 healing surge for the remainder of the journey.

The desert burns your body and your mind. What illusions does the desert present to you? Find out in part II of Seven Days in the Desert.

Don’t go looking in your core rulebooks for this because you’re not going to find it.  It’s something I’ve  cribbed from other games and ported into 4th Edition D&D.   How often have you been adjudicating a skill challenge and one of your players makes a check that goes beyond a simple secondary skill, in a way that is both creative and reasonable but doesn’t directly contribute to winning the challenge?  Many times, you dole out a +2 to the next check and go on with it, but as a DM, I found that got really lame really fast.  It increases the odds of  the next check succeeding by 10% but if it doesn’t help (or isn’t necessary), the player may not feel particularly inclined to come up with another unique idea later and I definitely want to encourage that sort of thinking.

When one of my players goes in a direction with a skill check that I didn’t expect and passes a level-appropriate  DC, I throw them a little chip with the word “Bonus!” on it.  (I play mostly on MapTools VTT so I can make all sorts of weird virtual stuff).  It tells the player that I officially recognize the successful skill check and feel that it was somehow appropriate but have no idea how to incorporate that check at this exact moment.  I also take particular care to NOT describe that check in the game story when it’s made.

In this way, I don’t feel like I ever have to say “no” to anything, but the pressure to come up with the result immediately is lifted.  Later on in the challenge, players can ‘cash in’ their tokens for other effects related to the skill check.  Here’s an example – the players are chasing a thief through a busy town.  The primary skills are Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Endurance and Streetwise.  Your player’s Cleric is not trained in any of these things, so she decides to use Religion; she prays to Erathis, the goddess of law and civilization for help.   That seems both creative and reasonable, so upon making her check, you throw her a bonus token.  When the thief is caught, the cleric asks “is the thief part of the evil cult we’re looking for?” and waves her token.

If the thief wasn’t already a cultist, but you’re prepared to play it that way you have her return the token and you say “yes, in fact he is and he has the entry password tattooed on his left hand.”  Perhaps you don’t want to go just hand your players quite so much information.  You could trade that token for  “no, he isn’t, but one of the guards that comes to arrest the thief comments that the last couple burglars they’ve caught were dead and marked with a strange sigil in blood.”  Now if  the PCs were about to botch the challenge and had only one or two failures left, maybe the cleric player could decide to use the token more mechanically, say to add 2 to a check an ally has already failed in the hopes that it would then succeed or grant a new reroll altogether (much like the way the LFR card system works).

However you do it, the purpose of the bonus token is to teach your players that a unique, creative idea will pay out somehow in a meaningful way.  A simple +2 bonus may be the DM’s best friend, but after a few sightings, that Bonus Token will become your players’ best friend.

You push your way shoulder-first through the packed cobblestone streets, your minds and mouths a touch weary from haggling. It’s been a successful venture, and it’s time to make your way back to the inn. The crowd parts suddenly in front of you, and a man crashes into one of your party. Both tumble to the ground, but the entanglement is brief. The man leaps up, bows his apology, and continues to run. As your party member dusts himself off, he realizes that he is a bit lighter than before.

And here you thought you were only to be robbed by the merchants!

The thief leaves a wake of staggering people as he makes his retreat. Act quickly or say farewell to the item he stole.

Synopsis: The PCs must chase a cutpurse through the streets and over the roofs of the city in order to recover their possessions.  This requires street savvy as well as physical skill to keep up with the thief and spot their belongings.

Goal: Make your way to the thief through the crowded winding streets of the city before he can get away, retrieving your stolen items in the process.

Complexity: 2 (6 successes before 3 failures).

Wrapping up

Failure in this skill challenge could lead to the party having the stolen item placed at the scene of a crime. They might also see the item in the employ of one of their enemies…

Aware of the dangers, you foolishly seek entry into Ishaarl’s demense and expect to exit. Protected by the field of magical force that allows the galleons to traverse the volcanic sea, fortune for a time blows a gentle and quiet wind in the ship’s mast. In your second day of travel, fortune’s wind grows still.

The captain cries orders to his men that are half-lost in the hissing and battering of lava waves against the galleon’s wardings. You steady yourself, seeing where you can assist in the sudden chaos. For moments all sense is lost, the ship whirling and bucking through the tides. All anyone can do is clutch the railings, and pray as the captain had warned you previously for the swift coming of death.

The chaos ebbs. You look up and see a creature of flame in the distance, hip deep in lava. It wades through fire to cross the distance between it and your companions.

The burning lord rises.

Synopsis: The players are crossing the Flaming Sea and must face the gargantuan fire elemental Irshaal.  They must defeat or evade the burning lord!

Encounter level: PC Level+3 (This Skill challenge is designed for high paragon/epic tier characters)

Complexity: See Goal, below.

Goal: Destroy the Fire Elemental before you ship is consumed in flames. You are attempting to get ten successes (or six escape successes) against the fire elemental before the fire elemental gets ten successes against your ship.

The Battle

In this skill challenge, all PCs will make their checks, and then Irshaal will make his attack.  Play will continue this way until the skill challenge is defeated.

The Ship “The Dead Forge”

Crimson galleons are ships specially prepared to cross the Flaming Sea. They are regular wood and sails galleons that possess a “heart”. A Crimson galleon’s heart generates a magical forcefield that encircles the ship and protects it from the sea’s destructive nature.

In this encounter the PCs will be aboard the ship attempting to evade or defeat Ishaarl. PCs can use their own powers to fight the elemental, but also have access to many features in the ship that can aid them.

Staging: Make sure that the PCs are aware of the various components of the ship, detailed below. The challenge isn’t for them to discover what the ship can do. The challenge is using the ship to the player’s advantage.

Skill Used:

The skills used will in part be based on where on the ship the characters are.  It is assumed that the PCs are on the upper deck.

Movement

To get from one place to another on the ships in this turbulent situation is difficult.  When moving from one portion of the ship to another, a PC must make an Acrobatics (moderate DC) or Athletics (moderate DC) check.  If the check is failed, the player gets tied up and is unable to make it to the desired location.

The Heart

Below deck, in the center of the ship is a small room where the heart of the Dead Forge lives. As the ship’s hull takes damage, the forcefield will gradually lose power, leaving the ship to quickly burn up in the sea.

A player can spend his turn to reach the heart (using the rules for movement below). He can refuel the heart by using his own life force or arcane/divine powers.

Feeding the Heart

Expending an arcane or divine daily power deprives Ishaarl of one success.
Expending three healing surges deprives Ishaarl of one success.

Skills Used:

Arcana (hard DC):  With magical sight you peer deep into the heart.  You divine its true nature, making your contribution to it more efficient.  When feeding the heart, you can deprive Ishaarl of one additional success. If this check fails you must lose a healing surge.

Religion (hard DC): You contact the heart’s essence and the divine simultaneously. The instant of connection generates a tremendous amount of energy from just a tiny, divine spark.  you may expend a Channel Divinity encounter power instead of a divine daily power when feeding the heart. If this check fails you lose a channel divinity power with no effect gained.

Ice Cannons

Another magical construct aboard the Dead Forge, the ship’s ice cannons are mounted on the port and starboard hulls, meant to deal with mephit hordes and other creatures known to waylay ships making the hazardous crossing.

Characters can make a shot with an ice cannon by moving under the deck (using the rules for movement) and manning the ice cannons.

Making a successful shot with an ice cannon requires making a basic ranged attack against AC (16 + average PC Level) and scores one success for the PCs. A critical hit counts as two successes.

Skills Used:

Distracting Shot (Insight, moderate DC, maximum two successes):  You shoot a burst of ice to get the burning lord’s attention somewhere else temporarily.  Ishaarl suffers a -4 to his next attack.

Vitals Shot (Perception, hard DC): Even a creature of flame has weak points.  You aim for Ishaarl’s ruby eyes.  Make a basic ranged attack against AC (16 + average PC Level).  If this attack succeeds, you score two successes against Ishaarl.

Calm the Tide (Nature, moderate DC): Instead of attacking Ishaarl, you shoot the the ice cannon at the lava below.  Temporarily cooling it, even for a fraction of a second, makes traversal a bit easier for a time.  +2 to the next Navigation check.

The Helm

The ship is normally navigated by the captain, but a successful Diplomacy (hard DC + 4) or Intimidate (hard DC +4) check can convince the captain to give up command of the helm temporarily (2 rounds) to a PC.  Moving to the helm require movement checks as normal. The PC at the helm can make Navigation checks, detailed below.

The Captain, Ritom Kiv

The duergar Ritom Kiv has encountered Irshaal before.  His body bears the burns and scars from that encounter.  Just barely managing to escape in an ash-skiff, he survived his crew and seeks revenge on Irshaal.  If PCs do not take control of navigation, Ritom will take direction from them on what navigation checks to make each turn.  He will ignore any orders to flee, choosing to take a pass action instead.  If Irshaal ever scores 7 or more successes against the ship, Ritom will steer the ship right at the elemental, on a suicide pass.

Staging:  As the battle escalates, you want to play up Ritom’s rising madness.  As the ship takes more damage, Ritom becomes more consumed with battle lust and becomes more and more unhinged.  If Ritom takes the ship on a suicide pass, you can also stage a combat with the captainand his crew versus the PCs.  The PCs will have eight combat turns to defeat or pacify them to have time to steer the ship on a new course.

Navigation:

All navigation checks are Dexterity checks.  The additional numbers on each check is what Ritom needs to roll if he is in control of the ship. Navigation successes do not count toward total successes against Irshaal.

Flee (hard DC) (N/A): you seek to do the impossible –escape from the grasp of the burning lord. With clever navigation, you might be the first.  If successful, you earn an escape success and raise the DC for the next flee check by one.  If the check is failed, Irshaal gets a +2 to his next attack.

Evasive Actions (moderate DC) (11): Escaping is not an option, but you buy yourself some time to come up with a suitable attack. Irshaal gets a -4 to his next attack.  If this check is failed, all checks for PCs on the ship suffer a -2 next round.

Far Pass (moderate DC) (11): The ship circles the fire elemental, setting up shots from the ice cannons.  PCs may use powers against the elemental with a range of 20 squares or more.  If this check is failed, Irshaal gets a +1 on his next attack against the PCs.

Close Pass (moderate DC) (11): you risk a bit more, but seek to gain more in your assaults against Irshaal.  PCs may use powers against Irshaal with a range of 10 squares or more.  +2 to ice cannon attacks.  If this check is failed, Irshaal gets +2 on his next attack.

Suicide Pass (automatic three successes) (NA): You drive the ship into the god of the flaming sea, hoping your end will bring his.  PCs can use any powers they have.  Make 1 round of attacks, and then the Dead Forge and everyone aboard is incinerated, whether the flame elemental is destroyed or not.  The forcefield is immediately overwhelmed and the ship is immediately burnt to nothing in the lava.

The Crow’s Nest

The crow’s nest allows a PC to get a clearer view of the battle. A character in the crow’s nest can, on his turn, make Perception (hard DC) to provide a bonus success to any other PC’s successful action taken.

The crow’s nest is also close to the shield’s borders , and precarious position in general. Any time the ship is hit by Ishaarl, a PC in the crow’s nest must make an Athletics check (hard DC) or be tossed out of the crow’s nest.  The PC takes 3d10 falling damage and suffers a -2 on his next movement check.

Upper Deck

The middle of the ship is where the crewmen are running around frantically trying to keep the ship in order.

PCs can use their powers most easily from this location.

Skills used:

Diplomacy (moderate DC): “Did you think this was a recreation in the Flaming Sea?  Fight men, fight for your lives and souls!” +2 to the next round of checks.

Thievery (hard DC, maximum two successes): Quick jury-rigging of the masts optimizes them to catch the rapidly changing thermal winds more easily.  Adds a permanent +1 to Navigation checks.

Powers

Players may wish to use powers to assault Irshaal.  The defenses for Irshaal are:

AC (16 + PC Level)
Fort (18 + PC Level)
Reflex (10 + PC Level)
Will (16 + PC Level)

Forced movement will result in a penalty to Irshaal’s next attack equal to half the number of squares moved, rounding down.
Any power with the cold or psychic keyword adds 10 to the damage rolled against the fire elemental.
Irshaal is immune to attacks with the fire keyword.

Damaging Irshaal

If a PC inflicts 40 damage in one attack (or one round of attacks) he scores one success against Irshaal.
If a PC deals 80 damage or more in one attack (or one round of attacks) he scores two success against Irshaal.

Ishaarl

The burning Lord has several methods of attacking the ship. He can make one attack each round.  The number in parenthesis is what he needs to successfully land each attack.

Lava Tide (8): Irshaal pounds his fist into the sea, battering the Dead forge’s shield with lava.  Counts as one success. Each PC takes 2d6+8 damage on a successful attack.

Fire Breath (12): Irshaal exhales and releases a searing flame gout.  The force field sparks and crackles under the assault. Counts as two successes, and each PC takes 3d6+8 damage.

Fist of the Fire God (16): Irshaal rakes the ship fiery claws.  Counts as 1d6 successes. Each PC takes 3d6+8 damage and ongoing 20 damage (save ends).

Success (Escape): You can tell your descendants the epic tale of how you tricked and evaded the fire god Irshaal!  The captain does not seem happy, but you’ll accept keeping your life for one more day.

Success (Defeat): You have defeated Irshaal!  But is the burning lord ever defeated?  He will rest for a long time, that’s certain.

Failure: As the Dead Forge’s force field fades, you and your companions flee to the ash-skiffs.  Powered by miniature hearts, they allow you to sail away while Irshaal savors the burning of the crimson galleon you fled.  you arrive at the shores alive but fatigued from the fire and ash.  You begin your next encounter weakened (save ends).

(Special Thanks to Mike at Sly Flourish for getting me going on this. )

As the shadow makes its presence known to you more and more frequently, you realize that you are inside a darkness that lives. It breathes shadow and speaks a cryptic dark speech.  It is unintelligible at first, the language of darkness, but with horror you realize you are beginning to learn the darkness’ idioms, its tone, its meanings.

A thought eclipses all others: The Darkness wants you dead.

Summary: The party navigates through an area of living darkness that feeds off the life energy of all those that pass through. It seeks to trap them in a shadow maze and feed off of their life essence. The players must resist the lifedraining of the dark while navigating through the perilous dark of the Blackreach.

Complexity: 3 (6 successes before 3 failures)

Goal: Escape the clutches of the blackreach before accumulating three failures.

Encounter Level: PC level +1

Shadow and Light

Players attempting to move through the Blackreach can either resist it’s powers and illusions or merge with the shadow, “blending in”.

Before any skill check, a player must choose to fight the darkness or become one with the shadow.

When a player chooses to fight the darkness, if he succeeds in the roll, he gains 1 point of Light. You may give expend Light points to rid an ally of Shadow points.  you remove one point of Shadow for each point of light spent.  The ally does not receive your Light points.

When a player chooses to embrace the darkness, he gains 1 point of Shadow immediately, whether he fails or succeeds at the skill check.  Whenever making a skill check , a player gets a +1 to the roll for every point of Shadow he has.

Any player who aids another character receives Light or Shadow as chosen by the character he is aiding.

Skills Used:

Arcana (hard DC, maximum two successes): It is obvious that this shadow is magical.  You extract the shadows secrets just the shadow drowns you in yours.

• 1st roll:  The shadow feeds of the negative energies of those it envelopes.
• 2nd roll:  The Blackreach creates illusions that are partly real, so they cannot be completely ignored.

Insight(hard DC, maximum two successes): The darkness slowly reveals itself to you.

• 1st success: The shadow doesn’t want to destroy you…it wants you to join it.
• 2nd success: The shadow feeds off of your despair until you have no choice but to surrender to it.

Endurance (fighting the darkness, hard DC, maximum two successes): The darkness will not overcome you!  Through pain and humiliation you will endure.  You will never give in to the Blackreach.  You will not become what it wants you to become.

Endurance (embracing shadow, easy DC, no maximum successes): You swallow all the painful memories and image the Blackreach projects until you can no longer stand it.  Then you swallow some more.  The shadow will keep hurting you until you give in.

Dungeoneering (moderate DC, maximum one success): In times like this, the pragmatic thing is to put one foot firmly in front of the other and navigate your way out of your mess.  And that is exactly what you plan to do.

Religion (moderate DC, maximum one success): You steady your mind with prayer, pitting the words and energy of your god against the darkness

Failure: The PCs become lost for a time but eventually stagger out, harrowed by their experience.

If the players fail the skill challenge, each character loses an amount of healing surges equal to the twice the amount of Light points that they have gained.  If a PC has no healing surges remaining, he lose hit points equal to the value of one healing surge for each healing surge he cannot remove.

Players with Shadow become afflicted with the curse of the Darksoul.  Players afflicted with this curse gain vulnerable (5 + points of Shadow) all until they have  had the ritual Raise Dead cast upon them.

Success: The character emerge from the Blackreach unscathed, but somehow changed.

A character with Light points gains a number of healing surges equal to the amount of Light she possesses.  If she reaches maximum and still has Light remaining, she gains resist 2 + the number of extra Light until her next extended rest.

Players with Shadow gain vulnerable (5 + each point of Shadow) radiant and resist 5 necrotic until the next until the ritual Raise Dead has been cast on them.

The big news from the land of the Wizards this week was an announced change to D&D Insider.  You may recall that just a few weeks ago they announced the official separation of player content and DM content, into Dragon and Dungeon respectively.  This week the big announcement is that starting July 7th, they will be debuting complete, playable sections from the Player’s Handbook 3 each month until the book is released next March.  Oh, and they will be raising the rates for DDI subscriptions to $9.95 a month ($71.40 for a year, 40% off).

In other news two new products released this week, Monster Manual 2 and the new set of D&D Minis, Dangerous Delves. Tomorrow, May 23rd is the second World Wide D&D Game Day celebrating the release of these two products.  I have volunteered to DM for my Friendly Local Game Store, how about you?  To find locations near you hosting Game Day events head over to the Store & Event Locator.

Episode 41 from the Brilliant Gameologists was released earlier this week.  This was the last episode from their second season and discussed the topic of organizing a gaming group.  As always I found some good advice within this episode.

Warning: The Brilliant Gameologists are NOT safe for work.  They can’t even tell you that they are not safe for work without it having offended people at your work.  You have been warned.  And yes, you should go listen to them anyway.

Uncle Bear was recently listed in Wired.com’s 100 Geeks You Should be Following on Twitter.  In response to that list he created his own, the 101 RPG geeks you should follow on Twitter.  Congrats to gamefiend for making the second list.  I am not on the list, but you can find me @Milambus.

NewbieDM is offering an excellent FREE DM Starter Kit to assist new DMs run the Kobold Hall adventure that comes in the back of the Forth Edition’s Dungeon Master’s Guide.  The kit includes battle maps for all 5 encounters, tokens for each of the enemies, tokens to track conditions, and an initiative tracker.

While I’m discussing battle maps and tokens, I want to share with you a series of articles posted over on theIcosahedrophilia blog.  (Listen to their podcasts to find out how to pronounce it.)  This series of articles, titled Nanotechnology, covers a wide range of topics all dealing with D&D Minis.  From storing D&D minis, to distingusing identical minis, to tracking conditions on your minis.  They also have reviews of the Player’s Handbook Heros line of minis and the just released Dangerous Delves minis.  (Yes, that is a lot of links… you can thank me later.)

Finally, to round out our week The Game posted his Lessons from the Heroic Tier over at Critical Hits.  He discusses several of the problems that he and his players have discovered while playing through the Heroic Tier of 4e. In the end he states that despite all the problems, 4e is his favorite version of Dungeons & Dragons.

If you wish to see more of my writing, you can head on over to Milambus.com.  There I write about various game mechanics, house rules that I may implement and whatever else that comes to my mind.

Basically what it would be is this: three linked Skill Challenges that form a mini-adventure, similar in operation to a Dungeon Delve.
One benefit of the Skill Delve format is that it is compact enough to run in a limited frame of time but is still story-based. Another benefits are that it lets you run different types of stories like, say….a murder mystery! Or something more exotic, like:

Waking the Titan

A boy drifts into sleep. His body begins the  slow journey into becoming stone. His village, isolated on the borderlands, has sent townsfolk to find help but they have had little success.  The PCs stumble across this town and the villagers plea with them to keep the boy from becoming a statue.  The players agree to help and now must find what affliction the boy has then find the cure.

The boy is afflicted with a condition known as the Titan’s Sleep.  It is a rare, once-in-a-generation curse left behind by an evil Titan long ago.  There is a cure for this curse, but as the party finds out, the cure is as rare and more dangerous.  To reverse the Titan’s Sleep requires the miniature sun that is the heart of a colossus.

The players must search for clues, explore strange dimensions and then finally slay the Colossus to save the boy’s life. Can they accomplish this before the Titan’s Sleep brings eternal rest?

At-Will is working on the first part adventure, “The Child of Stone” and is looking for playtesters!  Contact gamefiend ( AT) omnivangelist (dot) net if you’re interested.

We’re also discussing this on the forums so stop in!