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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5439567" data-attributes="member: 2011">Some people have written some of this, but you seem to have missed it. I'll give it a try.Note: I personally think that 4E has some significant issues, so I am not a 4E cheerleader. So, I work around those issues in my game to compensate. And, some of those issues have been resolved (like weak monster damage).1) 4E is by far the easiest D&D version for the DM to prepare for. Monsters have smaller stat blocks. The game is now played on a tactical board, so the encounter areas are easy to set up. The DM can focus more on his story and spending a smaller percentage of time preparing for encounters which can make for better gaming overall (since the DM has more time to figure out ahead of time non-combat details and flavor).2) 4E uses a middle of the road approach for PCs with respect to number of combat abilities. Most PCs of the same level more or less have the same number of combat abilities and similar numbers of skills. This accomplishes several things: a) if a player struggles with the number of options, he can just repeatedly use a few of them until he gets more familiar with the PC, he's not forced to use them all right away, b) PCs can be played in combat by other players (note: not all games do this, my game does, a different player fills running the PC in during combat for the missing player) without the other player having to know every detail about the PC, and c) there is no 3+ minute Wizard (or other higher level caster) round where the DM and players wait for the player of the spell caster to not only figure out which spell s/he is going to cast, but also how that spell works because the player has 20+ or even 50+ spells to choose from.3) Most powers are immediate, until the end or beginning of the next round, or until the end of the encounter. The concept of taking out 30+ minutes at the beginning of a "gaming day" so that PCs can cast spells on each other that last an hour or more in game no longer happens. That's 30+ minutes that the players can play the game instead of doing in game bookkeeping.There are still some downsides (too many conditionals, but Essentials is helping some with that) to 4E combat, but the overall game itself runs smoother. Combat appears to take the same amount of time more or less (but if there were fewer conditionals, 4E combat would be faster).Skill challenges have to be used properly. The DMG example is a bit weak. There are also some skill challenges in some of the adventure modules that are just terrible (what do you mean that we have to do a skill challenge of perception rolls and nature rolls to merely walk 100 feet north through the unoccupied and untrapped woods, and if we fail, we get lost?).The best way to use skill challenges is for more concrete skill use and to allow roleplaying to just flow with a few occasional Diplomacy rolls thrown in to assist the players.For example, use a skill challenge to climb over a cliff face or to escape from a town.But, to convince the bartender to keep a lookout for the man in gray, I just roleplay normally in order to set the DC based on how well the players roleplay and then just use a single Diplomacy (or Bluff or whatever is being attempted) roll to see if the PC was successful. Or, sometimes I just wing it based on how well (or how badly) the players roleplayed.Don't let the dice rule you completely, but also give the players a chance to use the skills that their PCs have.Take skill challenges with a grain of salt, use them sparingly at first, and you might eventually find that you like them for some types of things and absolutely despise them for some other things.</blockquote>

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