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Let's break the ice with some wild hyperbole. Skills in 4e are broken. Skills are the most broken part of the edition. When they're selling 5e in 1-3 years they will be mocking skills like they mocked grappling and THAC0. Skills were only given a half-assed update between editions and not subjected to the same rigorous balancing or "hard math" they subjected on the combat system.

Backblog

Before I start (attempting) to justify that statement, this isn't my first blog on skills. I've mostly focused on Skill Challenges in prior blogs, so those have received the bulk of my attention.

I wrote about Secondary Skills, Non-Combat Skill Systems, new rules for Skill Challenges, Failure in Skill Challenges, and most importantly for this discussion my Problems with Skill Challenges. I'll reiterate

Something short today, for a friend.

I just finished listening to the Tome’s recordings of the announcements from DDXP, which had a slight focus on organized play. There’s now three different types of play: Encounters, which is focused on new players and an introductory experience; Living Forgotten Realms, which is focused on story; and the unnamed new program, which will be focused on challenging tactical play. My initial response was: since when was LFR focused on story?! That campaign is a combat-heavy game with a dash of player-meat-grinder, where people blow through the role-playing to get to the next of the three mandated fight, which is often hard enough in the limited time allotted.

The two curiosities of the organized play remain. Where do the new players