Skill Challenges

A skill challenge is a system to resolve a noncombat encounter that the entire party participates in. To succeed in the skill challenge, the players will declare what actions their individual character will attempt to resolve the issue. Turn order will be determined by the players. The players may only use skills that they are proficient in for these skill challenges. If the player can't give an example of how they will use their skill, they will roll at disadvantage. A player may use an appropriate spell or class ability to give themselves advantage on their check. Additionally, a player may only use a proficient skill once per skill challenge, but other players may still use that skill as long as they are proficient in it. Each challenge will have a different number of individual successes needed to pass depending on the difficulty, generally four to ten. Three individual failures results in the group failing. The DM will declare when a skill challenge will start, what the DC is, and how many successes you will need to succeed overall.

Example: A boy went missing and you need to quickly find him before he gets hurt. This challenge is DC 12 and requires 3 individual successes. The players succeed, find the boy, and bring him home. Or perhaps the players find the boy as a wolf stalks him. Roll initiative!
 * Player 1 rolls survival to try to track the boy. (Success)
 * Player 2 rolls persuasion to get some townspeople to help. (Success)
 * Player 3 rolls athletics to climb a tree to get a better view of the area. (Failure)
 * Player 4 rolls animal handling to get the boy's dog to find his trail. (Success)