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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5341386" data-attributes="member: 996">We've been down that road.&nbsp; No, Instant Friends does not just deliver the effects of a single skill check, it delivers much more.&nbsp; Yes, winning trust or friendship - let alone both - is a valid goal for a skill challenge, and quite a lot of other potential social skill challenges wouldn't be necessary if someone was already a trusted friend.&nbsp; As written, this power could very easily be interpreted as 'winning' such skill challenges by itself.&nbsp; That's not a good idea, and it could be updated, quite easily, to avoid it.You can argue all you want that the skill challenges it could potentially break might have been better as part of a larger skill challenge, or as a single diplomacy check, or whatever - that's fine, that's more interpretation.&nbsp; That some interpretations of the power could situationally render it broken, others reasonably balanceable, and others worthless is just further evidence that it could be better worded.&nbsp; I'll grant that if you're a sophisticated enough DM to split hairs over what constitutes a skill challenge like we're doing, and to nest simple skill challenges into complex ones, you probably won't have much trouble dealing with a utility like Instant Friends, and keeping it in line with the level of effectiveness a level 2 utility deserves.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5341386, member: 996"] We've been down that road. No, Instant Friends does not just deliver the effects of a single skill check, it delivers much more. Yes, winning trust or friendship - let alone both - is a valid goal for a skill challenge, and quite a lot of other potential social skill challenges wouldn't be necessary if someone was already a trusted friend. As written, this power could very easily be interpreted as 'winning' such skill challenges by itself. That's not a good idea, and it could be updated, quite easily, to avoid it. You can argue all you want that the skill challenges it could potentially break might have been better as part of a larger skill challenge, or as a single diplomacy check, or whatever - that's fine, that's more interpretation. That some interpretations of the power could situationally render it broken, others reasonably balanceable, and others worthless is just further evidence that it could be better worded. I'll grant that if you're a sophisticated enough DM to split hairs over what constitutes a skill challenge like we're doing, and to nest simple skill challenges into complex ones, you probably won't have much trouble dealing with a utility like Instant Friends, and keeping it in line with the level of effectiveness a level 2 utility deserves. [/QUOTE]

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