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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6206261" data-attributes="member: 6696971">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?6681948-N-raac" target="_blank">N'raac</a> I'll post a reply to your post in the coming days.  I'm very short on time as of now, I just wanted to acknowledge it.  I still want to do a 3.x DMG post as well.  Suffice to say, that I'm in agreement with @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?205-TwoSix" target="_blank">TwoSix</a> and @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?27570-sheadunne" target="_blank">sheadunne</a>      posts immediately upthread (I'm glad you had a takeaway that may provide some functional worth for your home game sheadunne).  There is plenty of rising action there to find, there is plenty of engagement of the players on their own thematic grounds, forcing them into the aggressor role via specific adversity/pressure related to the stakes at hand.  Further, all of those (internal inconsistency) questions you asked (as TwoSix notes in hs post), those are all questions that we can address during play and have more fun for it!I'll address your concerns and thoughts in the coming days in the greater post regarding table/creative agendas and how this situation may be addressed/resolved as it dovetails with the process simulation/causal logic/internal consistency primacy interest inherent to serial, open world exploration/world-building/sand-boxing/deep immersion in actor stance.  That is your creative agenda and accompanying principles.  Naturally the conflict above is going to bear out a lot of discord with you given that agenda and those principles.  The principles and agenda (and mechanics) that guide play for the conflict resolution of the chamberlain scene above are very much at tension (not quite working in opposite direction, but primacy and subordinate interests are deeply in flux).I think an extremely abridged way to look at outcome-based (rather than process-based), "Big Damn Hero, "Indie play" of 4e is the same way that you look at Die Hard, Indiana Jones, James Bond, and the Avengers.  HISHE and Honest Trailers does a pisstake of the movies, waxing on about the internal inconsistency of the movies when viewing their genre conceits of "Big Damn Heroes" through the prism of tight coupling of cause and effect and granular accounting for "how in the world could this possibly happen" or "why wouldn't they just do this".  But the answer is always "Uh, who gives a crap!  Big Damn Heroes and these movies are awesome!"However, as can easily enough be seen with movie expectations, if you go into "Die Hard" looking for Cormac McCarthy and the Cohen Brother's perfect marriage of "No Country For Old Men"...you're going to be disappointed.  I'm an enormous fan of both, but I expect those genre conceits to be estranged from one another and hold neither to the others when watching the films.And finally, the primary reason that you are seeing such a "beatdown" of this Skill Challenge is because you have a Chaladin (primary Cha Paladin), and Bilbo-like Rogue, both armed to the teeth with social skill resolution capabilities.  The Ranger, not so much, but he filled his role thematically and coherently.  If you subbed that Chaladin and Rogue for a poorly social-skilled Warden and Monk...you're probably looking at a lot of untrained skills being leveraged with a lot of non-primary stats bulwarking those untrained skills (somewhere around + 9 - 10 in bonus on average and maybe even creeping down to 8ish).  Different classes, and different builds in those classes, have different conflicts that they can bring their "big guns" to.  They can all contribute (a Warden with Intimidate can contribute and pass a check somewhere between 55 - 65 % of the time) in their own thematic way, and maybe the fiction will unfold that they can leverage some of their "off-strengths".  But don't expect the Warden to dominate a social skill challenge like a Chaladin who can channel the very voice of his god for giant bonuses (that buff his already considerable numbers) and sprout wings and all sorts of other stuff.</blockquote>

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