Smarter not harder is good, but one roll should not invalidate one hundred potential combat rolls. Even the most excellent of diplomats should not be able to diffuse any hostile situation, otherwise we would live in a very different world. It should require a clever plan, rolling an 18 on a die does not indicate smarter, it indicates luckier.
Allowing a party to bypass much of an encounter with one roll means there is no *downside* to trying. Roll diplomacy. On a success, you just nerfed the encounter. On a fail, you just pissed off the guys you were about to muder anyhow. Win-win. For something to qualify as smarter, not harder, there should be a plan behind the roll, and several rolls to follow it. And even then, as has been repeatedly stated, not every situation can be talked out of.
Jay
I disagree. The whole point of "SKILLS", is that they are trained that a person is good at. Just because its a roll doesnt make it "LUCK" within the game itself. Its luck at the table, NOT in the game.
The roll of a die, whether lucky (good roll) or unlucky, doesn't make something in the game lucky by associaton. The whole point of the die roll is to add variability, and that variability, being table top luck, is meant to change the story in the game.
As an example, diplomacy is a "SKILL". Skills are designed to get the best result for their goal. Medicine is designed to get the best result for the body, wood crafting is designed to get the best result from wood. Diplomacy, intimidation, etc, are all designed to get the best result from their use against others.
Diplomacy is designed to get a more peaceful solution, intimidation could also be said to do this, but both are designed to have a more favorable outcome for the person using such a skill.
When it was very easy to die in D&D, people would obviously crave this ability to have their
character skilled at doing something, like disarming a trap, sneaking past a guard, etc because this is how you avoid the very unfavorable aspect of dying.
Since its harder to die in 4e, people start complaining that skills get used because PCs should be just as capable as blowing through combat with ease.
Lets look at this problem another way. Consider strangers you see around you. A person could see someone, and confabulate and describe a very interesting tale as to who that person is, what they do, and how they interact with others. To me, its no different than rolling a dice to see if a skill succeeds, because if it succeeds, then you can describe it as, this person because of their ability to speak well and influentially,
an ability that they trained in, just liike politicians do, they persuaded something to occur.
There's a reason that intimidate and diplomacy get -bonuses to skill check, with increasing growth of that - based on whether the target is neutral, unfriendly, or hostile.
In my view, the roll of the dice is a tabletop event, not an event in the world of d&d that your character is in. Its only purpose is to forward the story in more random ways. I think you're getting hung up on the idea that its easy. But isn't the point of the game to reach your objectives in whatever manner you can? Isn't the point of skills so that you can reach your objectives by alternative means than just playing hack and slash through the entire thing?
By the same consideration, rolling a dice and adding modifiers to attack, and blowing through an encounter of hobgoblins is also "easy". So I think that realistically, perhaps the GM needs to increase the required minimum modified roll for an encounter like that, probably to the point where its impossible to make said roll with any given PC that is there. Quite a number of enemies are actually intelligent enough to consider not fighting if they believe they will die.
The quick DMG in the 4e starter set states that hobgoblins, goblins, humans, etc (in their own descriptions on tactical behavior) will all retreat if they think they will lose. They aren't dumb. Neither are PCs. And always choosing only hack and slash as the means to the end means the PCs are dumb, because they aren't using skills that could acheive the result in a less dangerous fashion. Thats not really roleplaying at all.
In summation,
skills are meant to be used, they are to be considered something the character has worked for, and just because it creates a near instant resolution (IN THE REAL WORLD WE LIVE IN, WITH OUR TABLETOP DICE ROLLS) doesnt mean that in the world of D&D, the PC didnt spend a lot of time working months to perfect their skill, and also doesn't mean the action happened instantaneously in the game. It can be considered the same as a movie. People do things over a period of days to months in movies, yet each time, the movie is only 1 and a half hours long. Does that suddenly make the movie less meaningful, or annoying because it instantaneously glossed over parts that we want to see happen in real time because we think its not right it should happen instantly?
This is a game, and also its like a movie, as per the DMG, PH, and quick starter material. The main factor is FUN. its not fun to have skills be useless because you're considering it luck simply because its a dice roll. it IS luck for the player, but for the PC in the game, it changes the description and events of what occurs in their world and is a way of defining their successes or failures in the game.
out of game rolling =/= in game luck of PCs.
