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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5340076" data-attributes="member: 996">So you're saying a single Diplomacy check can get someone to treat you as a trusted friend?If you believe that Instant Friends delivers the effects of a single successful diplomacy check, then it's going to work just fine when your players use it, fitting seamlessly into any skill challenge that you'd accept a use of Diplomacy in.  Many other DMs may interpret it differently, leading to it bypassing skill challenges or being more or less useless.  I like your interpretation, and would be pleased to see WotC update the spell to provide a Diplomacy success, and move the 'trusted friend' stuff to the fluff text.Don't forget that the subject may react negatively if the power fails or after it wears off. These are all things that were tried - some from the very beginning - to keep the old spells Instant Friends emulates from being problematic.  They never worked consistently.  Some DMs might really lean on the limitations, or have different feelings about what 'trusted friend' constitutes, and make the spell useless, other's might let it be far too powerful.  It's just a badly formed non-mechanic mechanic.  Movement-based challenges are typically 'low level.'  Take 'climbing a cliff' as a Skill Challenge, cliffs are cliffs, climbing is climbing, before too long, climb checks aren't going to be much of an issue even for those not trained in Athletics - bypassing such a minor inconvenience at 10th level isn't such a big deal.  Social Challenges increase in difficulty more smoothly, as the beings you deal with can simply be much highter level.  A utility of any level that /helps/ with social skill challenges is fine.  One that bypasses them isn't really apropriate at any level. I can agree that your take on the capability of the spell (delivering a diplomacy success) wouldn't be out of line for a level 6 power.Really?  So 'make an Arcana Check instead of a Bluff Check,' say, would vary radically from one DM to the next?   Skills aren't the most tightly-defined part of the game, with DMs often needing to make judgement call about which skills might be used to accomplish what tasks.  So I can understand finding that skills don't always deliver quite the same thing from one DM to the next (you let a single Diplomacy check win a trusted friend, for instance, which seems excessive to me), but as far as /how/ a power that substitutes or modifies a skill check will work varying, I don't see it.</blockquote>

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