Skill Challenge - Keeping a Plaguechanged White Dragon Occupied

If you are not a DM running the Lost Crown of Neverwinter you might want to skip the post.  If you are a PC playing in the same campaign you will most certainly want to skip the post. I will try to keep over arching spoils out of post, but some encounter specific ones might creep in.

So last week our Encounter’s session ended with a massive Plaguechanged White Dragon sweeping down on the party.  Unlike other tables at other stores, my table didn’t end with the benefit of a short rest before its arrival.  Yes, I know I’m sure some of you are thinking that I’m a mean and nasty DM.  You’re welcome to think that I don’t really care. I did it because it tells a better story this way and it certainly is more suspenseful.

So this week I am going to start off my session with a little bit of a skill challenge.  The idea for it came to me from an article I had read on http://www.dungeonsmaster.com It basically used a skill challenge to simulate the effects of a rushed / dangerous short rest.  I figure that a dragon breathing down your neck and trying to eat you will qualify as both.  So it was a really good fit.

The basic idea behind the skill challenge is doing things to keep the Dragon occupied or distracted while the group catches its collective breath.  Various possibilities exist as to how they might achieve this.  A couple that come to mind off the top of my head is to try and convince it to eat Jarvy’s meat pies as an appetizer to eating the PCs.  One of them might also try and draw it away from the main body of the group giving the others the chance to rest.  I like to leave skill challenge options up to the players, anytime I write out ideas for the skills they can and should use the come up with others and it was a waste of my time.

Skill Challenge – Occupy the Plaguechanged White Dragon while trying to catch your breath

• Success means 5 successful checks before you get 4 failures.
• If successful the group will be able to take a short rest and gain all the benefits of said rest.
• If the group fails they may choose up to half of party members who are still taking part in the skill challenge and only they will receive the effects of a short rest. The rest will not gain any benefit and lose a Healing surge
•  Special Rule – A character may opt not to take part in the skill challenge.  Instead they use the time and their bodies to keep the Plaguechanged White Dragon occupied.  This gives the party 1 automatic success. It also removes them from receiving the benefit of the short rest.  If the party is unsuccessful in the challenge those people who chose to do the distracting loose a healing surge.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t run a challenge like this with a Dragon.  They are just too smart fall for anything like this.  In this case however the various effects caused by the Spellplague, allow it to work in my opinion.  I’ll let everyone know how it turned out in my next report if you have any specific questions about what I have plan please comment with them.  I will either answer in the comment or if possible email something back to you.

Once the Skill Challenge is completed then go into the adventures flavour text.