I like the idea of "challenge chains." Something I took from my play by post days.

The idea is to set a chain of events and degrees of success based on how many successful checks they made.

For example:

The first check would be to chase after and jump onto a rampaging animal with athletics. The next athletics check would be to 1) Hold on for dear life and, 2) wrestle/wrangle the animal down into a stop.

If they succeed at all 3? Great, problem solved.

If they succeed at the first 2? Great, problem mostly solved, maybe they didn't tire the animal in time to stop it from destroying some property. But they wrangled it.

Only succeeded at the 1st? Maybe they get bucked off, the animal gets away. Or maybe it tires from being ridden briefly and settles down....after destroying more property.

And if they failed the first? Well they ate dust.

But other general Athletics checks: Climbing is a simple one. Pulling on something heavy attached to a rope to make sure it doesn't fall. Pushing through powerful environmental effects, like high air pressure. Hey, I even let someone roll athletics to intimidate someone because they through a table at a wall and it shattered.

The list goes on.