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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5624286" data-attributes="member: 3424">This is my own personal subjective opinion, of course, but I happen to like it that all classes are able to contribute more or less equally to combat.That said, non-combat challenges are an area that 4E could do better in. I think the key problem with non-combat challenges is that they tend to be quite varied and unstructured. While it is fairly easy to come up with powers that would be useful in most combats, a power that opens a lock is seldom useful in wilderness survival (unless the party just happens to come across a locked chest full of supplies), a power that creates food and water is seldom useful in a negotiation (unless the NPC just happens to be starving), and a power that influences thoughts is seldom useful when unlocking doors and disarming traps (unless the party just happens to find the person with the key). You could give each PC a suite of non-combat powers that cover several possibilities, but I think that would lead to significant character sheet bloat (think pre-4E style spell lists). That is why I think the 4E design philosophy is express character resources to deal with non-combat challenges mostly in terms of skills and rituals. Of course, players can also bring their player resources of creativity and imagination to the table, but that would happen regardless of edition.</blockquote>