Schmacker's page

One thing that I see as being an advantage of including the 3.5 XP in any listing of encounters is that it will give you a gauge as to how the standard party is expected to level through out the AP. This in turn lets you (once we have 4th XP rules) compare and contrast the levels as they were, to the levels as they are. This lets you build a coherent picture of when you could/should be aiming to level the PCs. It could also help in deciding what level you will be aiming the AP to finish at.

Frankly said, the entire use of skills to minimize the playing of a role sucks. It works well when used to support role-playing, but if it means that people just roll dice to see if they convince someone or other of whatever, sorry... that ain't roleplaying at all.

And while that is an admirable goal, not everyone is good at that side of the game. Wouldn't it be nice to include a system for those of us who have trouble playing out a social encounter? I for one would love to have seen a better system in 3E then the simple Dip roll, and I know that my players have never been the best at playing out those sides of things.