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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7005165" data-attributes="member: 42582">Then you would have recognised that skill challenges are a D&D version of the sort of "closed scene resolution" mechanics that indie RPGs pioneered, beginning probably with Maelstrom Storytelling in 1997.What was distinctive about 4e compared to those games was it's attempt to integrate that sort of system for non-combat with a version of traditional D&D combat that combined Gygaxian abstraction (AC, hp) with 3E precision (tactical positioning, 6-second rounds). A tall order, and probably not an unalloyed success, but I think the job done was not bad either!The only reason I mention this is because you criticised 4e creature stat blocks for focusing on combat. And my point was that the game has a whole other system for supporting non-combat resolution. And because, in that system, only the players make action declarations (in some ways, that's a bit like Dungeon World) the GM doesn't need monster stat blocks to support it. Just flavour text. (Which actually seems to be something you have been advocating in other comments.)The fact that you didn't care for skill challenges, or found them problematic, doesn't change the fact that they were there, as the mechanic to handle non-combat resolution. And hence the absence of non-combat stats from monster stat blocks is not some sort of whole or gap in the game, nor some comment about the focus of the game; it's about the way the game uses various systems to resolve different sorts of ingame situation.</blockquote>

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