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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5775406" data-attributes="member: 42582">By the skill challenge rules as stated in the DMG, a skill challenge can't be resolved without the players thinking about how their PCs engage the scenario, then engaging it, and then having the GM narrate through the consequences of each skill check.Again, in my view this is pretty contentious. A 4e bard, for example, has an encounter boost to social interactions, a class boost to untrained skills, and free access to rituals, as class features. And also one of the best skill lists in the game.For example, some players would regard the 4e system as more robust in its support of non-combat action resolution, by avoiding the issue of skill bonuses that become irrelevant as DCs scale.About half the wizard and warlock utility powers in the PHB are non-combat powers. And low-level rituals are pretty trivially affordable for mid-to-high level PCs.In my experience the issues here are with WotC adventure design - which provides no support for non-combat activities and action resolution - and also with the guidelines in the DMG, which provide inadequate advice to GMs on how to prepare and adjudicate such scenarios, not with the action resolution mechanics themselves.I don't have enough familiarity with 3E to have a firm view on that comparison, but my memory of the 3E MM is that most of the information in it  - HD, hp, attacks, damage, special attacks, special qualities etc - pertains to combat resolution. This is certainly true of Basic D&D and AD&D 1st ed monster stats.There is a degree of confusion in 4e's presentation of NPCs/monsters as to whether their stats are meant to figure in non-combat action resolution at all, or whether the default DCs should do this work.Which seems consistent with my claim that this is contentious! I mean, we haven't even got to the XP rules yet, or the treasure guidelines, both of which - in 4e - disconnect PC advancement from combat encounters more than in any other edition.This is why I think WotC have a hard time on their hands with their "unity" edition. My own feeling, at this stage, is that it is tending towards a reactionary edition, but it's early days.</blockquote>

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