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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7035207" data-attributes="member: 42582">My response to this exchange was the same as doctorbadwolf's: I don't see how the game running smoothly, or abilities being reliable, has anything to do with tactical combat.A player declares that his/her PC wants to speak a prayer to the Raven Queen to help in a fight against a wight. Wants to win a court case concerning the legaility of a leasehold issued by the baron's corrupt advisor. Wants to evade hobgoblin wyvern riders while racing to town on a flying carpet. Wants to possess a gate guard and read his mind to learn the password.4e makes resolving all these things completely straightforward, because it has a default DC chart, a damage-by-level chart, and a skill challenge framework that allows for finality in non-combat resolution just as the hit point mechanic produces finality in combat resolution.It produces finality. That's completely different from anything found in 3E, or most of AD&D (a few checks in AD&D have a no re-tries rule, but they're single checks, not scene-resolution systems).Classic D&D had some interesting little sub-systems, like the wilderness evasion rules or the morale rules, but (i) they didn't generalise, and (ii) later editions have dropped them.This doesn't seem a special virtue of a system - as you describe it, every system from classic D&D (with its stat checks) through RQ to 5e allows for this.Whether colourful narration counts as stunting is, I think, very much up for grabs - I think a lot of people, by "stunting", have in mind something where the fiction will actually affect the resolution.It's certainly true that 4e tends to eschew mere colour for fiction-driven resolution.</blockquote>

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