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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6073430" data-attributes="member: 87792">Complete edition warring nonsense. 4e has the best non-combat support of any edition. And 4e doesn't simulate a world because the D&D rules were never intended to do that. They were intended to simulate an adventuring party - and the worldbuilding using these rules is ... clunky. OK, so Frank Trollman's Tome of Awesome gave it a damn good try (including the Wish Economy) but ultimately it shows a lot of the problems with this approach.If I look at the 1e rulebook I see exactly what it was - a hacked tabletop wargame with distances measured in inches, and non-combat mechanisms bolted on. Little out of combat and most of that spells, the remainder being narrowly focussed.If I look at 2e I see they've added a non-weapon proficiency section for PCs to specialise in out of combat. And it clunks. Badly.3e has two major options out of combat. An almost painfully generic skill system in which everyone uses the same skills the same ways (until Complete Scoundrel with a very few feats like Track providing exceptions) and due to the three dozen skills it serves to define what you can't do. And spells, often making the skill system irrelevant.4e has less of the general incompetence 3e imposes due to far fewer skills and the 1/2 level bonus. The spells no longer commonly make skills irrelevant. And most of all it adds stunts to skills - yes, utility powers are extremely overloaded, but a stealth focussed rogue can use stealth in ways almost no one else can. It's a little more focussed than the 3e skill system but is both the best and the most relevant skill system D&D has ever had.  (It doesn't, however, have the Wilderness Handbook, instead preferring applications of a generic system).As for skill challenges, whoever was explaining them botched the explanation badly. Try adding something like the following paragraphs to the skill challenge example involving persuading the duke.  (Yes, I'm aware that these paragraphs need a good editing - but I think they are more than sufficient to explain what was not made explicit in the text.)The players have surprised the DM; they are going to go back to the Duke Malebon, the lord of a villiage they rescued seven levels ago and ask him to return that favour by using his army to threaten the orc flank, keeping the orcs pinned and therefore less likely to raid.  This wasn't something the DM expected but is a sensible course of action.  The DM has only a few memories of this duke, and if he still has any notes on that session they aren't with him, and he wouldn't want to delay play by hunting through his notes for a full refresh on what happened anyway.  Convincing the Duke to help is far more complex than a single skill check will account for, but it will merely help rather than solve the problem.  He therefore decides to make the attempt to convince the Duke a skill challenge, and skips in a few sentences over the PCs asking for an audience (they're local heroes and have interesting war stories by now) and ushers them straight to the audience room. For the skill challenge he first needs to decide a level.  If he had no other clues to go on, he would probably use the PC's level, but although he doesn't have the stats to this duke to hand he has the stats to another duke, and because the Duke is likely to be sympathetic but this is a large request he sets the skill challenge to the Duke's level -3 or 11 (which is a level higher than the PCs are at present) and because the scene shouldn't be over too fast or be impossible he sets it to Complexity 3.  Which means that the skill DCs he will be using for easy, medium, and hard come off the table as __, __, __. [I don't have the table to hand].  He also draws two boxes; one for successes, and one for failures.  Each time the PCs succeed on a primary skill he will put a mark in the success box, and a failure on a primary skill adds a failure.  The PCs succeed if they fill the succeess box before the failure box.  At no point does he mention to the PCs they are now in a skill challenge (although some will probably guess), instead asking them what they (in the role of their PCs) do in the fictional situation. He then mentally runs down the skills he expects the PCs to use, and how he expects to use them dividing them into primary and secondary skills.  Some DMs don't bother with this step, instead judging whether a skill is primary or secondary based on how it is used, but our DM likes to be prepared.  [List of skills for the skill challenge snipped].  Intimidate in this challenge is an interesting skill. Trying to intimidate the duke directly is an automatic failure - he is not going to back down and lose face in front of a few of his knights.  On the other hand those same knights (and in truth the Duke himself) are hotheaded; using Intimidate to convey how threatening the orcs are will imply there's glory to be won on the field - this can be done once as an easy rather than medium skill check.  Whether the PCs will be able to use the Intimidate skill effectively depends on how they read the situation. [A column and a half of skill challenge snipped. This use of History surprised the DM - it was not on the initial list of skills (and privately the DM suspects that the player of the Charisma 8 wizard is doing whatever he can to avoid talking to the Duke directly - a perfectly valid in character decision).  Using history this way is, however, something that would be useful without directly taking a step to persuade the Duke.  A textbook secondary skill, medium difficulty.  It doesn't matter that it wasn't on the list of skills the DM thought of at the start of the skill challenge - it fits the situation so the DM treats it as if it was there all along.  Few DMs or adventure writers are going to be as creative as the best efforts of an entire team of players, and writing down every possibility rather than simply examples would take reams of paper. [The skill challenge continues]That is how I have always both read and run skill challenges.And on recent posts, my wire-fu monk had short distance flight abilities as a level 2 utility power.  Pushing and throwing people off ledges is fun, as is running up the side of the castle wall.  I believe that <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/08/03" target="_blank">Penny Arcade has thoroughly refuted the notion that 4e combat is 2d</a>.</blockquote>

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