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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4503927" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't say that you could. I said that a PC can use diplomacy on a Burglomancer (a species of wizard I coined for the purposes of my post), and that when confronted with a door might remember something that Burglomancer told him/her which would be useful to open the door. In the skill challenge, the player explains how and when the diplomacy was used, as I illustrated in my example.The only person in this thread who has suggested using diplomacy on a door is you. I showed how a player might have his/her PC use diplomacy to contribute to a skill challenge involving a door - by retroacively using diplomacy on a person who has the requisite knowledge of how to open the door.Hence, in my example, the PC acrobatically dodges the Watcher in the Water, a very strong creature, so that the Watcher's tentacles hit the door.I don't understand what you mean by "there is nothing that says your acrobatics will even cause the tentacle to reach the door." To use the language of the PHB, the player has thought of a way that his/her PC can use his/her skills to meet the challenge faced. It is now up to the GM to set a difficulty (as per the DMG, and as a number of skill descriptions in the PHB note). The dice roll will tell us whether or not the tentacle actually hits the door. As a mechanical system, that is not terribly different from when a player says "I try to slice the goblin with my sword", the GM determines the AC, and the dice roll then tells us whether or not the PC's attack succeeded.Like combat, it requires dice rolling (well, the DMG canvasses alternatives to dice rolling, but dice rolling is the norm). But it is not just dice rolling, any more than combat is dice rolling. In combat I also have to have my PC move, choose who to attack, choose what power to use to what effect, etc. In a skill challenge I have to choose which skill to use, and the onus is on me as a player to explain what my PC is doing in using that skill.Is this a claim about the purpose of skill challenges? What is your evidence for it? There is no textual evidence. And the designers have expressly mentioned the influence of indie games (eg HeroWars/Quest) on their design. And those games are not intended to be used for resolving conflicts through a few quick dice rolls. If you don't want non-combat encounters, just skip them.That's one way to handle differences among players in a gaming group.This is not how 4e is written to be played. Like other games with similar conflict-resolution mechanics, these mechanics are not an alternative to the game. They are the game.I don't know it to be true. In fact, I think it's false. Also, you seem to be suggesting that the only alternative to 1st-ed AD&D style play is rolling the dice with no narration. You seem to be disregarding that there is another sort of play (which HowandWhy calls "storytelling") which is what the DMG and PHB actually talk about. The skill challenge mechanics assume that the GM, like the players, will enjoy seeing how the players use their PC's skills to solve the challenge (eg they are looking for things like the burglomancer story).If this is your idea of how to run a skill challenge, I don't think you've really seen what sort of play the system is meant to support (and which the rulebooks describe in the passages I've quoted upthread). Do you regard HeroWars and The Dying Earth in the same dismissive way? It's one thing to say you don't want to play those games. Fair enough. I don't really want to play old-school D&D. But I don't need to mock it by way of misdescription.</blockquote>

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