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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6364710" data-attributes="member: 42582">This seems to me to be a matter of playstyle preference.Some people prefer process-oriented resolution: the rolls made to resolve a situation correlate, more-or-less, to the steps needed by the PCs to sort things out. For those who prefer that sort of approach, if the players declare an action that renders the situation resolved in a single roll, or with no need for rolls, the situation resolves itself.The "rigid" framework of a skill challenge isn't meant to support this sort of resolution. It's mostly a pacing device: it keeps the scene alive until it has delivered the desired narrative impact. The results of checks, therefore, can include not just the processes deployed by the PCs, but external complications introduced by the GM as part of keeeping the scene alive.It seems to me that hit point combat is more like the second sort of resolution approach - no matter how good a player's plan to decapitate the orc, or no matter how foolproof the player's description of his/her PC's feint and strike, the combat can't end until the hit points are all depleted. (I know some people treat hit-point combat in a proces-oriented way, but I don't really get that.) Crit-based resolution (RM, RQ etc) is more like the first approach.Hopefully the "modular" DMG will talk about the rationale behind these various sorts of approaches to resolution, and give a range of options.</blockquote>

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