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<blockquote data-quote="Thasmodious" data-source="post: 4527057" data-attributes="member: 63272">I love using skill challenges for this sort of thing.&nbsp; Tying such a rich opportunity for a long encounter of roleplaying and strategy to a perform check just seems like such a waste to me.&nbsp; Building a challenge around it, with multiple skills, and the whole party involved is just fun.&nbsp; I remember a 3e game a friend ran, online, with an all halfling group.&nbsp; It was a low magic, low power game that was just awesome, heavy RP, character development and story.&nbsp; Anyway, while we were all hanging out in the local inn, one of the PCs started playing for the crowd.&nbsp; The grumpy, mal adjusted local bard took offense and pretty soon a battle kicked off.&nbsp; It was a very dramatic scene and the DM did not want to end it with just a &quot;make a perform check, highest roll wins.&quot;&nbsp; We ended up with a skill challenge of sorts even without the rules support for such a thing (running rather contrary to Midgets position that if the rules aren't there to do something, you won't do it).&nbsp; The NPC bard quickly tried to gain the advantage with Fascinate, my character, a cleric/wizard countered with a bless, which the DM rules could be used to counteract the effect of the other spell on the crowd while the PC bard played.&nbsp; Another character used diplomacy or bluff (I forget) to talk up the crowd, making supportive gestures, reacting emotionally to the songs, generally trying to encourage their involvement.&nbsp; More powerful magic became involved when the local big scary halfling witch intervened, being a fan of the NPC bards depressing music.&nbsp; It was a tense, varied scene with all party members engaged, something to gain and lose, and miles ahead of the mechanics of &quot;roll perform&quot;.&nbsp; It was a skill challenge before skill challenges and that 4e builds around the idea of encounters like this is one of my favorite aspects of its development.&nbsp; Treating social situations like this as actual encounters provides a solid framework for building dynamic, interesting scenes.BTW, if aren't exactly satisfied with the actual nuts and bolts of skill challenges right now, check out Stalker0's two tweaks.&nbsp; They are in his sig, the Obsidian system is a more involved skill challenge system and his other is some minor tweaks to the math.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thasmodious, post: 4527057, member: 63272"] I love using skill challenges for this sort of thing. Tying such a rich opportunity for a long encounter of roleplaying and strategy to a perform check just seems like such a waste to me. Building a challenge around it, with multiple skills, and the whole party involved is just fun. I remember a 3e game a friend ran, online, with an all halfling group. It was a low magic, low power game that was just awesome, heavy RP, character development and story. Anyway, while we were all hanging out in the local inn, one of the PCs started playing for the crowd. The grumpy, mal adjusted local bard took offense and pretty soon a battle kicked off. It was a very dramatic scene and the DM did not want to end it with just a "make a perform check, highest roll wins." We ended up with a skill challenge of sorts even without the rules support for such a thing (running rather contrary to Midgets position that if the rules aren't there to do something, you won't do it). The NPC bard quickly tried to gain the advantage with Fascinate, my character, a cleric/wizard countered with a bless, which the DM rules could be used to counteract the effect of the other spell on the crowd while the PC bard played. Another character used diplomacy or bluff (I forget) to talk up the crowd, making supportive gestures, reacting emotionally to the songs, generally trying to encourage their involvement. More powerful magic became involved when the local big scary halfling witch intervened, being a fan of the NPC bards depressing music. It was a tense, varied scene with all party members engaged, something to gain and lose, and miles ahead of the mechanics of "roll perform". It was a skill challenge before skill challenges and that 4e builds around the idea of encounters like this is one of my favorite aspects of its development. Treating social situations like this as actual encounters provides a solid framework for building dynamic, interesting scenes. BTW, if aren't exactly satisfied with the actual nuts and bolts of skill challenges right now, check out Stalker0's two tweaks. They are in his sig, the Obsidian system is a more involved skill challenge system and his other is some minor tweaks to the math. [/QUOTE]

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