Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4936806" data-attributes="member: 2067">Mostly because everyone gets SOME skills they focus in, and, 90% of the time, you're going to be able to use that skill in some respect in a skill challenge. In other words, it reads better than it plays at the table. That +6? Why would you ever use it? The DM doesn't tell you what skills to use in a skill challenge, you make that decision, and if the challenge it broad enough, and you're persuasive enough, you get to do it. An average party of 5, even if they are super-diverse and have their highest skills being 5 totally different skills (say, Athletics, Bluff, Sneak, Perception, and Nature), are mostly going to be able to use those skills in a given challenge. Mostly, it doesn't work out that they're quite that diverse, especially given the "duality" of ability scores (Str/Con; Dex/Int; Wis/Cha), you're more likely to have 3 different skills as the party's "highest skill." If the DM is permissive, and "says yes," more often than not, you get your highest bonus on the check.And, heck, even if you need to take a 2-3 point hit, the DC's are low enough that it's not a big loss. So, in the end, everyone winds up having a +17 to the check. That +6 only gets used in specific, limited, obvious instances, depending wildly on how flexible your individual DM is.The gulf never comes into play, due to 4e's "Everyone gets to try their best skill!" skill challenge design. If you can think of a way for your Athletics to convince the Duke that he should give you the MacGuffin (maybe you challenge his fastest scout to a foot race!), you get +17. You never have to use your +6 in Diplomacy or your +10 in Bluff. Maybe, at worst, you have to use your +14 in Insight. Since the DC is only 20 anyway, it doesn't really matter. Everyone contributes basically the same thing. There are other ways that noncombat in 4e is exceptionally homogeneous (rituals, for instance, do a slightly better job, and are getting better, but are kind of an expensive crapshoot).</blockquote>

Verification