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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ferratus" data-source="post: 4759614" data-attributes="member: 55966">How in God's holy tetragrammaton name is it any different in 4e?  3e consolidated NWP's into a consolidated skill set, and 4e consolidated the skills so that all 4e skills would be equal.  There is nothing missing in terms of "roleplaying options" between 4e and prior editions, and all editions had a hard split between combat and non-combat mechanics.  If you say "D&D is either freeform in an extremely illogical setting which requires a big noticeable split between the combat world and non combat world" then we can all be on the same page again.I do think there needs to be a development of the non-combat side of the D&D game beyond skills challenges, and skill challenges need to be tweaked.  Calling them broken is a bit strong, but they are definately underperforming, and need some tweaking in concept.   Skill challenges should be used when each skill can be applicable to a complex situation.  For example traversing a wilderness is a good example of a skill challenge because Endurance can set the pace and endure the elements, Athletics can traverse the obstacles, Nature can find the path and keep yourself stocked with provisions, Perception can spot the dangers, and Stealth can avoid monsters and hide your trail.  When you fail any of these checks, you can easily see what the penalty for failure is, and what a partial success would look like.In contrast, the first skill challenge we were introduced to (negotiating with the duke for aid) is a really bad skill challenge.  Not only does it divide the flow of conversation into artificial die rolls, but it is multiple die rolls for a single pass/fail resolution.  You want a skill challenge to be a case where you want to set an entire scene around it and it gives a sense of time passing.  You do not want it to be a drag on a relatively short task, where one skill check will do.Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to have a "battle of wits" mechanic that resembles combat and you defeat your enemy in some way, but I don't think skill challenges are the solution.  It is perhaps equivelant to what I don't like about combat in prior editions, which is that melee combat was uninteresting because you just moved adjecent to an enemy and hit them till they fell over.  Skill challenges do the job of resolving the defeat of an enemy, but it is repetative and a blunt instrument.  Unfortuneately, unlike my Talent system, I have no solution for this problem.Speaking of which, I'm kind of dissappointed that I didn't get any feedback on that, but I guess this forum is for kvetching.  I'll take it to the 4e house rules forum.</blockquote>

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