From the 4e PHB (pp 9, 259):4e on the other hand assumes that this exploratory game - this simulation of the whole world if you will - won't be a big part of play, and instead far and away the dominate focus of play will be on producing exciting and yes cinematic combat scenes. Almost the whole game is assumed to occur within the framework of combat
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The game is paced specifically around 'encounters', which are 'combat encounters', and for which you have 'encounter powers', which are actually 'combat encounter powers'.
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The idea of the open ended negotiation of the scene implicit in 1e is almost completely gone.
Encounters come in two types.
*Combat encounters are battles against nefarious foes. In a combat encounter, characters and monsters take turns attacking until one side or the other is defeated. . . .
Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, skills, feats, and magic items - just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. . . .
*Noncombat encounters include deadly traps, difficult puzzles, and other obstacles to overcome. Sometimes you overcome noncombat encounters by using your character’s skills, sometimes you can defeat them with clever uses of magic, and sometimes you have to puzzle them out with nothing but your wits. Noncombat encounters also include social interactions, such as attempts to persuade, bargain with, or obtain information from a nonplayer character (NPC) controlled by the DM. Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it’s a noncombat encounter. . . .
Noncombat encounters focus on skills, utility powers, and your own wits (not your character’s), although sometimes attack powers can come in handy as well. Such encounters include dealing with traps and hazards, solving puzzles, and a broad category of situations called skill challenges.
A skill challenge occurs when exploration . . . or social interaction becomes an encounter, with serious consequences for success or failure. When you’re making your way through a dungeon or across the trackless wilderness, you typically don’t take turns or make checks. But when you spring a trap or face a serious obstacle or hazard, you’re in a skill challenge. When you try to persuade a dragon to help you against an oncoming orc horde, you’re also in a skill challenge.
In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Powers you use might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail. . . .
You can use a wide variety of skills, from Acrobatics and Athletics to Nature and Stealth. You might also use combat powers and ability checks. The Dungeon Master’s Guide contains rules for designing and running skill challenges.
*Combat encounters are battles against nefarious foes. In a combat encounter, characters and monsters take turns attacking until one side or the other is defeated. . . .
Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, skills, feats, and magic items - just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. . . .
*Noncombat encounters include deadly traps, difficult puzzles, and other obstacles to overcome. Sometimes you overcome noncombat encounters by using your character’s skills, sometimes you can defeat them with clever uses of magic, and sometimes you have to puzzle them out with nothing but your wits. Noncombat encounters also include social interactions, such as attempts to persuade, bargain with, or obtain information from a nonplayer character (NPC) controlled by the DM. Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it’s a noncombat encounter. . . .
Noncombat encounters focus on skills, utility powers, and your own wits (not your character’s), although sometimes attack powers can come in handy as well. Such encounters include dealing with traps and hazards, solving puzzles, and a broad category of situations called skill challenges.
A skill challenge occurs when exploration . . . or social interaction becomes an encounter, with serious consequences for success or failure. When you’re making your way through a dungeon or across the trackless wilderness, you typically don’t take turns or make checks. But when you spring a trap or face a serious obstacle or hazard, you’re in a skill challenge. When you try to persuade a dragon to help you against an oncoming orc horde, you’re also in a skill challenge.
In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Powers you use might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail. . . .
You can use a wide variety of skills, from Acrobatics and Athletics to Nature and Stealth. You might also use combat powers and ability checks. The Dungeon Master’s Guide contains rules for designing and running skill challenges.
From the 4e DMG (pp 34, 70, 72):
Stripped to the very basics, the D&D game is a series of encounters. Encounters are where
the game happens - where the capabilities of the characters are put to the test and success or failure hang in the balance. An encounter is a single scene in an ongoing drama, when the player characters come up against something that impedes their progress. This chapter talks you through running combat encounters . . .
No D&D game consists of endless combat. You need other challenges to spice up and add variety to adventures. Sometimes these challenges are combined with combat encounters, making for really interesting and strategic situations. Other times, an encounter completely revolves around character skills and social interactions. This chapter is your guide to running and creating encounters that feature skill challenges, puzzles, traps, and hazards. . . .
An audience with the duke, a mysterious set of sigils in a hidden chamber, finding your way through the Forest of Neverlight - all of these present challenges that test both the characters and the people who play them. The difference between a combat challenge and a skill challenge isn’t the presence or absence of physical risk, nor the presence or absence of attack rolls and damage rolls and power use. The difference is in how the encounter treats PC actions.
Skill challenges can account for all the action in a particular encounter, or they can be used as part of a combat encounter to add variety and a sense of urgency to the proceedings. . . .
More so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure. Adventurers can fight a group of five foulspawn in just about any 8th- to 10th-level adventure, but a skill challenge that requires the PCs to unmask the doppelganger in the baron’s court is directly related to the particular adventure and campaign it’s set in.
the game happens - where the capabilities of the characters are put to the test and success or failure hang in the balance. An encounter is a single scene in an ongoing drama, when the player characters come up against something that impedes their progress. This chapter talks you through running combat encounters . . .
No D&D game consists of endless combat. You need other challenges to spice up and add variety to adventures. Sometimes these challenges are combined with combat encounters, making for really interesting and strategic situations. Other times, an encounter completely revolves around character skills and social interactions. This chapter is your guide to running and creating encounters that feature skill challenges, puzzles, traps, and hazards. . . .
An audience with the duke, a mysterious set of sigils in a hidden chamber, finding your way through the Forest of Neverlight - all of these present challenges that test both the characters and the people who play them. The difference between a combat challenge and a skill challenge isn’t the presence or absence of physical risk, nor the presence or absence of attack rolls and damage rolls and power use. The difference is in how the encounter treats PC actions.
Skill challenges can account for all the action in a particular encounter, or they can be used as part of a combat encounter to add variety and a sense of urgency to the proceedings. . . .
More so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure. Adventurers can fight a group of five foulspawn in just about any 8th- to 10th-level adventure, but a skill challenge that requires the PCs to unmask the doppelganger in the baron’s court is directly related to the particular adventure and campaign it’s set in.
I've quoted at length both for reasons of clarity, and to provide the texts that explain how encounters, in 4e, relate to the broader context of the adventure/campaign, and the role that mechanics play in them.
Here are some abilities from the 4e PHB:characters were given powers that almost exclusively were meant to be used in combat.
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No one really has daily powers like, "Find secret door." or "Initiate a Parlay" or "Decipher a clue."
Astral Speech (Paladin Utility 2)
Daily * Divine
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to Diplomacy checksuntil the end of the encounter.
Crucial Advice (Ranger Utility 2)
Encounter * Martial
Immediate Reaction, Ranged 5
Trigger: An ally within range that you can see or hear makes a skill check using a skill in which you’re trained
Effect: Grant the ally the ability to reroll the skill check, with a power bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Beguiling Tongue (Warlock (Fey) Utility 2)
Encounter * Arcane
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +5 power bonus to your next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check during this encounter.
Ritual Casting
You gain the Ritual Caster feat . . . as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals . . . You possess a spellbook, a book full of mystic lore in which you store your rituals . . . Your book contains three 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered. . . .
Comprehend Language (Ritual)
Level: 1
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 24 hours
Component Cost: 10 gp
Market Price: 50 gp
Key Skill: Arcana
When beginning the ritual, choose a language you have heard or a piece of writing you have seen within the past
24 hours.
Using this ritual on a language you have heard allows you to understand it when spoken for the next 24 hours
and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to speak the language fluently for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have seen as a piece of writing allows you to read the language for the next 24 hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to write the language in its native script or in any other script you know for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have both heard and seen as a piece of writing within the past 24 hours allows you to understand it in both forms for the next 24 hours, and an Arcana check result of 35 or higher allows you to speak and write the language.
Daily * Divine
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to Diplomacy checksuntil the end of the encounter.
Crucial Advice (Ranger Utility 2)
Encounter * Martial
Immediate Reaction, Ranged 5
Trigger: An ally within range that you can see or hear makes a skill check using a skill in which you’re trained
Effect: Grant the ally the ability to reroll the skill check, with a power bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Beguiling Tongue (Warlock (Fey) Utility 2)
Encounter * Arcane
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +5 power bonus to your next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check during this encounter.
Ritual Casting
You gain the Ritual Caster feat . . . as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals . . . You possess a spellbook, a book full of mystic lore in which you store your rituals . . . Your book contains three 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered. . . .
Comprehend Language (Ritual)
Level: 1
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 24 hours
Component Cost: 10 gp
Market Price: 50 gp
Key Skill: Arcana
When beginning the ritual, choose a language you have heard or a piece of writing you have seen within the past
24 hours.
Using this ritual on a language you have heard allows you to understand it when spoken for the next 24 hours
and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to speak the language fluently for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have seen as a piece of writing allows you to read the language for the next 24 hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to write the language in its native script or in any other script you know for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have both heard and seen as a piece of writing within the past 24 hours allows you to understand it in both forms for the next 24 hours, and an Arcana check result of 35 or higher allows you to speak and write the language.
These abilities can clearly be used to initiate a parlay, to find a secret door or to decipher a clue.