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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6206556" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yes, his predisposition was adversarial toward the players (but malleable/un-fixed because his ultimate disposition would have - was -decided via action resolution) so it is similar.Why was this more difficult?  I'll go stage/check by check.  This was a considerable length of time ago but I'll try to capture it.  The short of it is that the (i) fictional positioning dictated such that deployed resources were not optimal (not in the sweet spots of player builds), (ii) there was some extraodinary bad rolls, and (iii) things "snowballed" and a few player decisions (while not wrong ones...in the "monday-morning quarterbacking" is unfair sense) based off of reaction to that snowballing (and trying to regroup and rally from a mechanical standpoint) just turned out to be the wrong ones.1 - This was a Ranged Basic Attack versus Average AC for the level (medium DC).  Soldiers are effectively high AC (+ 2 above average) and Brutes are low (- 2).  I believe the Bladesinger needed a 10 to hit the average AC.  However, this was a copy/paste from an older thread and what I didn't canvass there (and didn't realize when I copy/pasted here) was that there was a deployed resources.  This was an elven bow that was gifted to the Eladrin (I don't want to get deeply into the mechanics behind its existence but it wasn't a situation where it was "charged" in the PC's item budget.  It was just a thematic tool to play to archetype.  His Magic Missile had the same range, auto-hit, higher mean damage, and cost him nothing in the action economy to deploy.  The bow just allowed him to play up a "natural hunter shtick" with a long range).  The bow had True Strike (Encounter power reroll; the Elven race encounter power) on it.  The elf marginally missed the first roll, deployed True Strike to reroll, rolled a 1 on the reroll.  He was quite proficient (but not mastery level) with archery (his MBA was well above average - high Dex/prof/magic bonus - but not extraordinary) and (due to deployment of True Strike) this was an extremely difficult check to fail.  Nonetheless, a failure was accrued in the Skill Challenge; and offense taken by the Huntsman and one of this men.2 - Insight wasn't trained but an extremely large Wisdom bonus (Druid) helped to mitigate.  Easy DC was easily achievable.  Probably only needed a 3ish.3 - Diplomacy wasn't trained but the Rogue had a fairly high Cha bonus and the + 2 from the succcessful Insight.  I believe he needed an 8ish on the roll for success.4 - Both History and Arcana are trained, the character has secondary bonuses to them from race, and a huge Int.  Both History and Arcana were a cinch for the medium DC.  He went with History as it was readily leveragable now in the fictional positioning, allowing him to use the more fictionally malleable Arcana (Spook - sub Arcana for Intiimdate) for his next turn (which would have been decisive (if it would have gotten to him).5 - Intimidate wasn't trained for the Druid and her Charisma was low.  Still, she only needed a 7 or 8ish for the Easy DC and with all of the other poor rolls, the dice had to change.  Or not.6 - The dynamics behind the failure of action resolution for the Rogue's use of Athletics failure was outlined in the original post.  He probably should have stayed with the Medium DC and let the Bladesinger handle the Hard DC with Spook.  Tactically-speaking, that was user error.  However, if the Druid wouldn't have failed her support action, he would have been able to take 10 and succeed and the Bladesinger could have then used Spook.No, I read you and I do agree; there is value for passive observers.I'm just of the position that I'm interested in dialogue about the marriage of techniques, creative (table) agenda/expectations, and how system either supports/plays well with or is at odds with/pushes against those means/interests.  I really have no interest in an edition war and I really, really have no interest in spilling a lot of words in one.  I'm seeing the dialogue move from an examination of techniques, creative agenda and system interface to a potential focus on 4e (and mistaken assumptions that I will either have to leave be or spend, again, considerable words to correct...of which may ultimately move the needle not an inch).  I hope that isn't a theme.  And I was just making note that if I would have used another system, that loaded baggage likely wouldn't have found its way into the conversation.</blockquote>

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