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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rechan" data-source="post: 4188791" data-attributes="member: 54846">Thanks for your postin'. As someone who's played 3.x without a mat (because I played it on line), let me tell you it's a real headache. First things first: A PLAYER roleplaying what his character says to an NPC isn't always automatically going to succeed or fail depending on what the player says. You have to roll to succeed. It's the same reason why you don't have to roleplay a fight to see if you succeed at a hit; your character is doing it, not the player. A lot of RPGs have roleplaying skills (Intimidate/Diplomacy/Lieing), and no computer game I've ever seen has one (except say, a skill that helps you haggle for better prices on equipment). And the skill challenge thing is a new thing in this edition.It was a quick chase scene; spending thirty minutes to an hour on a foot race really doesn't play up the tension. But the lack of detail was probably due to the fact it was a Demo (and for expedience). When we were doing that, for instance, the party ran into a crowd of drunks pouring out of a tavern and one of the PCs used some skill to try and blend in among the revelers. However he failed; the drunks noticed us and started asking stupid questions, being loud, and drawing attention.Another player used Streetwise to get merchants to cause a distraction. But the DM glanced over the distraction, the conversation, etc. The lead-up To, and the aftermath of the die-roll would have been fun to play out in roleplaying, correct. But whether you succeed at blending in, or not being noticed by the drunks or the guards, hinged on the die roll.The purpose of the skill challenge (which is what this was) is just an out-of-combat sort of challenge that you use your skills to overcome. If you Succeed, you win; if you fail, you get a setback. A good situation for a skill challenge would be... say, climbing down a cliff face, in a thunderstorm, while very big birds nest in crags on the cliff. If this wasn't a skill challenge, all the PCs would individually have to roll athletics rolls - and if they failed, they'd fall to their death. But in a skill challenge, one player is using athletics to help everyone get up the cliff. Another player is using acrobatics to say, make sure everyone stays on the cliff. A third player is using his Nature skill to keep the birds from attacking the party. But in this situation, a failured roll could mean "Someone sprains their leg; you take a negative to your athletics rolls, and this slows down the climb." Failure at the climbing of the cliff could mean "You were spotted by some enemies, who know a short cut to get up on the cliff; you're going to get ambushed soon."Part of the skill challenge, at least that I got, was that a player has to come up with a creative use of his skills. If this weren't a demo, I'd look at my DM and say "I want to roll a history roll; I want to know if I remember anything about sewer construction in the era this town was built, so we can find a sewer to hide in." I'm sure that I could have used my Scorching Burst to set a few houses on fire, to cause a distraction. Or</blockquote>

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