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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4981191" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, you are wrong.  The player can avoid the skill check if he has some other way of obtaining the information that the DM would relate as a result of passing the skill check without passing the skill check.This is most commonly seen in skills like appraise, search, sense motive, and knowledge.  Faced with a skill challenge of an int based skill, the player has one of two options:He can either ask for a skill check, and if he passes the check the DM will tell him the answer.  Then the player can animate his character to act on this discovered knowledge.OR...He can not ask for a skill check and animate his character in such a way that he either discovers the knowledge without passing the skill check or else relies on his knowledge as a player to fill in the missing details.  A character can search a room using a skill check.  A player can also search a room by describing what his character does, eventually reaching a point where its unreasonable that the hidden article would not be found and catching the DM in a contridiction.  A player can obtain knowledge from the DM, or the player can rely on his own knowledge from game books and other sources and not ask the DM for knowledge at all.   For example, there might be a DC 15 religion check to recognize markings on the wall as being a particular obscure dieties holy symbol.  Or, the player might just recognize the markings without the need for a skill check.Any of the the mental stats presents the same basic problems in various situations.  I know all of that, but unfortunately, content and delivery are not so perfectly separatable when it comes to defining what 'diplomacy' or 'bluffing' means.  If we allow the player to define both the content and the delivery, that is to say, we allow the player to role play, the supposedly 'diplomatic' character can in fact deliver disasterous content.  So, we must then ignore both the content and the delivery of the message, at which point, you start wondering why we are roleplaying in the first place.And again, how is this actually different than what I'm saying?  The above seems like a complete confession that you aren't willing to take your argument to its logical conclusion, and that you in fact do agree that it is incumbant on the player to play his character.</blockquote>

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