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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5575508" data-attributes="member: 2067">I don't think it's a "quantity of skills" problem, either. That certainly doesn't help, but I think 4e made a good choice to consolidate.The thing is, every skill use falls into one of about 3 broad categories:Interaction: Diplomacy or Bluff or Insight, or otherwise interacting with an NPC. Exploration: Stealth, most Nature uses, Endurance, most Athletics uses, or otherwise getting from Point A to Point B. Interacting with the environment.Investigation: Knowledge skills, Perception, Insight to a certain degree, or otherwise revealing the unknown to the party. D&D is a game about all those, and Combat. 4e has extensive, detailed rules for Combat. Powers and AC and defenses and weapons and implements and teleports and shifts and areas and closes and melee and ranged and exploits and prayers and defenders and controllers and hit points and and and and and and and and and and and and....For everything else -- all three other major lures of gameplay -- skill checks and challenges are 4e's lone device. And then the skills themselves are narrow and limited.Pathfinder also has some spells, some skills, some magical effects, some magic items -- a sprinkling of things. What would be great is if 4e followed through on Mearls's statement that things other than combat have roles. Things other than combat should have powers, should have complexity, should be require diverse input, should be dynamic, should raise tension. Lumping everything together into an "everything else" bag and then saying, essentially, everyone is pretty much the same at "everything else," does a great disservice to those who are attracted to D&D because of some other element than combat. I mean, play LA Noire. Interaction and Investigation are much more key to that game than combat and action, clearly, and the mechanics and technology reinforce that choice. Figuring out truth from lies is the core mechanic in that game. Saying D&D can't or refuses to have a compelling investigation mechanic is artificially limiting, when it clearly CAN, if it wants to. It should want to. Lots of people like that mode of playing, and they shouldn't be told to get lost since D&D is all about the swords and mighty thews and raw adolescent power fantasies. I mean, sure, D&D IS about that, but it's a big box, and it can be about Sherlock Holmes with a Vorpal Sword, too. It just has to recognize that there are things that are just as important as combat out there, and no less deserving of attention (and, while we're at it, we can ratchet down the attention lavished on combat so that we don't need to invest another $100 in game boards and minis and tokens just to kill some frickin' goblins).</blockquote>

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