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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7760786" data-attributes="member: 42582">Frankly, with that sort of thing the absurdity is in the GM who accepted that as a viable action declaration. The way you impress a king (absent rather unusual circumstances) is to talk to him: so the barbarian who wants to impress a king should be making a Diplomacy check like anyone else would!Participation by other characters is how I manage high bonuses on the Sage of Ages in my 4e game. But participation by other characters is - in my experience - not very hard to achieve. How do you get a wizard PC to participate in combat? Threaten something the player cares about (either the wizard him-/herself, or perhaps some other party member the wizard is committed to defending).How do you get the player of the barbarian to particiapte in the attempt to talk to the king? Threaten something the player cares about - this can be as easy as having the king ask the barbarian to tell him (the king) something about his/her (the barbarian's) valiant exploits. Is the player of the barbarian going to refuse to talk? Then an automatic failure is notched up, as the king clearly won't be impressed by that!No one thinks it's unfair to engage a wizard PC in melee; but for some reason there seems to be some idea that it's unfair to frame the barbarian into a situation where s/he has to talk to get what s/he wants. Personally, I don't understand this way of thinking.</blockquote>