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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6029263" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think I agree with this: it soaks up PC build resources and delivers nothing but confusion in return. There is no mechanic, for example, for making my guy able to produce a pleasant tune on the pan pipes without also making him able to play the trumpet and bagpipes - which is to say, that there is no mechanic for capturing anyone but the expert musician. At which point the categories make no sense - in the real world, how many people can play trumpet and flute expertly, yet are hopeless on drums, guitar or piano?Plus there is no mechanic for using a performance to please people.I agree with this.Which also drives home that, in 4e, there is a way to bring out my bard's skilled mandolin playing: use that to narrate Words of Friendship, and thereby to make a Diplomacy check without having to actually speak to someone.Combat can be a part of roleplaying. But in D&D it is a special snowflake because the rules make it so. Just as in Ars Magica spell casting is a special snowflake, and in Trail of Cthulhu investigation is a special combat.There are some RPGs I know of that treat non-combat and combat action resolution as basically in terms of action resolution and PC build mechanics: HeroWars/Quest; Maelstrom Storytelling; The Dying Earth; The World, the Flesh and the Devil; and other indie RPGs.D&D in any edition has not been such a game. All PCs get level-based attack bonuses and hit points. The bulk of the action resolution mechanics are framed by reference to combat situations (and this is true even in classic D&D, despite the odd protestation to the contrary - in B/X, for example, reaction rolls are clearly framed in terms of negotiations between potential belligerents, and other non-combat action resolution is confined to movement rules, opening doors, and searching for traps and secret doors). The only edition of D&D with conflict resolution mechanics for social situations is 4e, and it has a wide range of utility powers to support that mechanic.D&D has always had forced proficiency in combat. All D&D thieves can backstab; all D&D rogues can sneak attack. The class table in Gygax's PHB characterises classes primarily by reference to their hit dice and weapon and armour proficiencies.It's a feature of the game.You can modulate your degree of combat proficiency in any edition - but I don't think it supports the game to allow PCs to be built that bring no combat proficiency to the table. (Of coures that might be metagame proficiency, like a lazy warlord.)Because the game doesn't have the scene framing or action resolution mechanics to handle it.For example, there are no cross-cut augment mechanics that allow the alchemist, beavering away in his/her tower, to generate metagame buffs to the warrior's fight. And there aren't even aid another mechanics that allow the alchemist to make a check that would produce an ingame aid to the warrior's fight - it's all mediated via complex item creation and crafting rules, that militate against rather than facilitate party play. (Contrast Burning Wheel's linked test rules!)There are no rules (other than the Sanctuary spell - an odd spell, give that clerics are pretty buff in combat) for a non-combat PC to stay outside a fight, and not be targeted. (The default framing of combat, when the party is together, is that everyone in the party is a target - 3E deals with this problem for familiars via the ad hoc expedient of giving them Improved Evasion as an ingame EX ability, rather than via the obvious metagame expedient that is required.)There are no very adequate rules for soothing the savage breast via negotiation or song once combat is afoot - 4e comes closes to this with its skill challenge mechanics, but the interaction between these and combat resolution is one of the weaker points of that edition's action resolution rules.I could give further reasons if you want, but the ones I've already given are pretty illustrative, I think.</blockquote>

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