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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6241291" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>Interaction isn't the same thing as Diplomacy (Intimidate can get just as efficient results -- sometimes more so!). And in 4e, whether or not you succeed at an Interaction challenge is couched in the Skill Challenge system so ultimately all that matters is if you succeed at skill checks or not. If training in a skill means you usually succeed at those skill checks (which it probably <em>should</em>), then being trained in Intimidate means you'll usually succeed at Interaction checks. And if you're not trained in any social skill whatsoever, you've still got a really good chance of success thanks to the 1/2 level bonus and the no-ability-scores-below-8 giving you a roughly 45-55% chance even if you're not focused. </p><p></p><p>Yeah, it's probably possible to build a 4e fighter who is Dumb Thog the Brute, who *only* succeeds on about half his Interaction checks rather than about 3/4, but it's not true to say that 4e fighters as a whole are crap at interaction. They're solid. They can do pretty much what bards can do: succeed most of the time at Interaction checks. Bards do it a little more often still (like, 3.5/4 times), and with more variety (Diplomacy!), but in a party without a Cha-monkey, a Fighter could totally be your face, Intimidating every challenge into submission by standing in the corner and being a badass at all the non-hostile NPC's. </p><p></p><p>Which is only really ultimately to say that class equality is <strong>very important in 4e</strong>, and anyone who even dumps a stat shouldn't suck at contribution to any Challenge or combat, because these things should eat up significant chunks of table time, by design. 4e was designed with the assumption that encounter-level balance was key because encounters (especially combat encounters, but to a lesser degree others) were where most of the play time should be spent, because that's the fun part of the game. This all is a good idea, assuming the underlying assumptions are true.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I'd dispute those underlying assumptions and assert that <em>adventures</em> are the fun part of the game and encounters are just stones along the road that takes you there and back again. That changes the assumptions you might have about balance among the classes (it's not about how Samwise and Aragorn both contribute to that one fight against the orcs, it's about how Samwise and Aragorn both contribute to the adventure to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom), but there's still plenty of room for debate about that! </p><p></p><p>(As an aside, this plays more into the issues with skills and Skill Challenges in 4e, and I think that steps like the 4e Bard's <em>Words of Friendship</em> are getting toward what I'm looking for, with 5e's more detailed interaction system being pretty much the grist I might want for this mill).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6241291, member: 2067"] Interaction isn't the same thing as Diplomacy (Intimidate can get just as efficient results -- sometimes more so!). And in 4e, whether or not you succeed at an Interaction challenge is couched in the Skill Challenge system so ultimately all that matters is if you succeed at skill checks or not. If training in a skill means you usually succeed at those skill checks (which it probably [I]should[/I]), then being trained in Intimidate means you'll usually succeed at Interaction checks. And if you're not trained in any social skill whatsoever, you've still got a really good chance of success thanks to the 1/2 level bonus and the no-ability-scores-below-8 giving you a roughly 45-55% chance even if you're not focused. Yeah, it's probably possible to build a 4e fighter who is Dumb Thog the Brute, who *only* succeeds on about half his Interaction checks rather than about 3/4, but it's not true to say that 4e fighters as a whole are crap at interaction. They're solid. They can do pretty much what bards can do: succeed most of the time at Interaction checks. Bards do it a little more often still (like, 3.5/4 times), and with more variety (Diplomacy!), but in a party without a Cha-monkey, a Fighter could totally be your face, Intimidating every challenge into submission by standing in the corner and being a badass at all the non-hostile NPC's. Which is only really ultimately to say that class equality is [B]very important in 4e[/B], and anyone who even dumps a stat shouldn't suck at contribution to any Challenge or combat, because these things should eat up significant chunks of table time, by design. 4e was designed with the assumption that encounter-level balance was key because encounters (especially combat encounters, but to a lesser degree others) were where most of the play time should be spent, because that's the fun part of the game. This all is a good idea, assuming the underlying assumptions are true. Personally, I'd dispute those underlying assumptions and assert that [I]adventures[/I] are the fun part of the game and encounters are just stones along the road that takes you there and back again. That changes the assumptions you might have about balance among the classes (it's not about how Samwise and Aragorn both contribute to that one fight against the orcs, it's about how Samwise and Aragorn both contribute to the adventure to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom), but there's still plenty of room for debate about that! (As an aside, this plays more into the issues with skills and Skill Challenges in 4e, and I think that steps like the 4e Bard's [I]Words of Friendship[/I] are getting toward what I'm looking for, with 5e's more detailed interaction system being pretty much the grist I might want for this mill). [/QUOTE]
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