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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5574223" data-attributes="member: 87792">And just what do you think the Bluff and Intimidate skills are other than the skills to make people believe what you are saying and to tug on their heart strings, drawing emotion from them.  Possibly I allow more out of intimidate than canon rules (it's a weak skill otherwise).  About that word "embellished"...  But being serious, you've managed to explain why I have serious problems with detailed skill systems withoug massive lists of defaults.  They say what you aren't competent in.  If there's a skill and you don't have it then you can't be competent in it.  And with so many different craft and knowledge skills you need to take if you are to claim a well-rounded education, you cripple yourself on the directly relevant skills if you wish to be an adventurer.  The only cases I can think of where this is true are The Devil Went Down To Georgia and the story of Arachne (and possibly Tenacious D come to think of it).  And by claiming to be "The best there's ever been", it claims there's an objective scale of who's the best musician.  Who's better - Bethoven or the Beatles?  Elvis or Orpheus?  More commonly in mythology you get stories like the story of Orpheus - where his songs were enough to soften Hades heart.  It's normally about the right performance at the right time in the right way - and showing up with the wrong music for your target would fail utterly. Besides, with incredibly rare exceptions (e.g. Orpheus), most people who take part in such duels are musicians.  Not adventurers.  Their primary focus and skill is music and they'd be about as much use in a dungeon (or combat) as your average barbarian warrior would in a chamber orchestra.  We aren't talking good musicians here, we're talking legendary ones.  Ones whose primary focus is music.  Becoming that good isn't a couple of years at a liberal arts college, it's a lifetime of dedication.  And no, 4e isn't very good at Choirs and Chamber Orchestras.  Nor is 3.x or any other version of D&D.  One little skill isn't a reflection of the overwhelming focus of someoene's life. But if it's an event that can happen very occasionally as a change of pace and with a goal of moving the audience far more than expected rather than claiming to be the best there's ever been, then the skill challenge is up to the job.</blockquote>

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