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Tehnar
2008-06-03, 04:55 PM
First I don't think anyone posted on this, and believe it deserves a discussion.

Frankly it seems silly to me for ability checks to improve as you gain levels. Actually I read the description 5 times in a row just to make sure I got it right. Very silly that a lvl 10 whatever with 8 strength can break doors or bend bars better then a lvl 1 with 16 strength.

Now while I haven't read the skill chapter fully, I hate that they removed skill ranks. I always loved that my characters had the option of putting ranks into proffesion (cooking), craft (basketweaving) and so on.

Actually from what I've seen on the boards and the little I have read, these are my two biggest complaints:

1) the lack of character customisation (and I dont mean feats/powers or spells), just the little things (like cross class skill ranks, or ranks in profession or craft) that make a character unique

2) A poorer model of a fantasy universe then 3.5 (yes it is simpler to run, but harder to create, imo)

kc0bbq
2008-06-03, 05:01 PM
Now while I haven't read the skill chapter fully, I hate that they removed skill ranks. I always loved that my characters had the option of putting ranks into proffesion (cooking), craft (basketweaving) and so on.
Whatever other problems I have with your post, why do you need to have a mechanic to represent what can be handled with a couple words of backstory? I can cook well. Nay, I can cook supremely well! I make great baskets, even underwater. Why waste time statting out things that don't need to be handled in any way other than in the abstract?

Tehnar
2008-06-03, 05:12 PM
Whatever other problems I have with your post, why do you need to have a mechanic to represent what can be handled with a couple words of backstory? I can cook well. Nay, I can cook supremely well! I make great baskets, even underwater. Why waste time statting out things that don't need to be handled in any way other than in the abstract?

First, because you need restrictions on your character to make it come to life.

Secondly, sometimes those skill uses come up. For instance using proffesion (cooking) to make trail rations from excess food gathered with your survival skill.
Or using the same skill to help disguise the ingested poison you placed in the soup, etc.

And thirdly, it was handled so elegantly in 3.X.

RukiTanuki
2008-06-03, 07:50 PM
Sure, but as I mentioned elsewhere, you sacrifice abilities from other places to do it, and it's a little disingenuous to insinuate that it's an equitable exchange (that points spent in Use Magic Device are as useful as points spent in Craft(Basketweaving)).

As Penny Arcade put it on Monday, "...fourth packs up the old ways very tightly and then kicks them through the uprights, scoring in the process... the alterations are radical. I mean radical in the sense that evokes a skateboard launching from the lip of a pool..."

Fourth Edition took Third's idea of "everything needs a mechanic," drew a big honking red X over the sentence, then turned and said, "how much fun can we have by ignoring this rule?" The answer: quite a bit, as long as you stop staring longingly at the sentence crossed out before you, and quit reaching for the Wite-Out.

Ask yourself: are you really, really going to have trouble portraying the son of a baker without that one cross-class rank in Craft(bakery)? Is having that "1" scribbled in a long-forgotten corner of a piece of paper that important to getting into the role? Or did you just feel a bit foolish playing a game that told you "you don't actually have this trait unless you paid for it," and felt like you were betraying your (PC) self by living a facade and leaving it blank?

I never treated D&D as a model for a fantasy world. For me, it was a tool to look into that world, as it already existed in the imagination of my players and myself. I needed an easy way to resolve actions whose results I didn't want to decide on my own; I didn't treat it as a simulation for what actually takes place in the game world. I suspect that mindset is easing my transition quite a bit.

Friv
2008-06-03, 08:39 PM
1) the lack of character customisation (and I dont mean feats/powers or spells), just the little things (like cross class skill ranks, or ranks in profession or craft) that make a character unique

Note that you can take cross-class skills, and better than before; if you buy the Skill Training Feat, it does not have to be from your class's skill list. Only your starting skills come off the list.

Similarly, you could make a feat that allows for "you get skill training in X minor skills; these are mostly background, but might come up". I would say three skills would be about right, probably, if you like minor skills existing.

Also, you should allow for everyone to start with a small number of starting minor skills.


2) A poorer model of a fantasy universe then 3.5 (yes it is simpler to run, but harder to create, imo)

Depends. If you assume simplicity in certain areas, it works. If you want a complex, fully-detailed economy, not so much.

Morandir Nailo
2008-06-04, 12:28 AM
Fourth Edition took Third's idea of "everything needs a mechanic," drew a big honking red X over the sentence, then turned and said, "how much fun can we have by ignoring this rule?"

QFT man, QFT. I've said as much elsewhere, but this is a nice way of putting it. I've been tempted to refer to "Everything needs a mechanic" as the 3rd Edition Fallacy, but I think we have enough "fallacies" as it is.

And, to be a bit nitpicky: Profession checks were for determining how much money one could make by practicing that profession, not seeing how well you could cook something. Using it to determine whether or not you were successful at making trail rations is, well, an example of the 3rd Edition Fallacy. You simply don't need a skill check for that.

Mor

Ceiling009
2008-06-04, 01:00 AM
Also, the whole half per level thing works... Seriously, you're an adventurer, doing things that most normal people can't, and doing it every day. Your experience alone is enough to make sure that you can break those very bars that at level 1, only someone with 16 strength can do; somewhere along your adventuring life you've learned a lot, and somehow in all seriousness, you've learned body mechanics, and have gotten feasibly stronger from adventuring (running, jumping, slaying monsters, wooing women, etc) and now those bars are no where near as hard to break. I'm okay with that.

RTGoodman
2008-06-04, 01:06 AM
Frankly it seems silly to me for ability checks to improve as you gain levels. Actually I read the description 5 times in a row just to make sure I got it right. Very silly that a lvl 10 whatever with 8 strength can break doors or bend bars better then a lvl 1 with 16 strength.

Well, I believe the others (especially Ruki) have covered my opinion on Profession and skills like that, so let me say something about ability checks.

In 4E, and maybe even in 3.x depending on your setting, 10th level means you're a freakin' legendary hero. Well, maybe not, but you're definitely on your way. In a world where most people don't even get stats (and let's not argue about that here, because we've all heard enough bickering about it already), a guy who's traveled the world and slain enough monsters to be 10th level is GOING TO BE GOOD AT STUFF, or at least better than Joe Schmoe the commoner. He may be weak, but maybe his, you know, experience has taught him just the right way to go about opening a door. Wasn't that a whole big part of Pirates of the Caribbean or one of those movies like that? Knowing the "trick" to breaking down the bars/door?


EDIT: Ninja'd by a Ceiling! Oh well, we had the same point...

Tehnar
2008-06-04, 08:04 AM
I guess this all depends on your play style. I don't perceive a adventurer to be out of the ordinary on the basis of abilities, just that he/she was stupid, crazy, desperate enough to go slay the goblins in their lair instead of guarding the farmstead or whatever. I perceive adventuring t be a quick but risky and tough way to power over lets say the slow but sure way of let say studying magic in a tower for 50 years.

Because in the games I run, while most people are commoners, not all of them are. Actually most of the people PCs in my campaign interact are NPCs with more then one level. And the PC's wont go and kill wizards in their arcane tower and take their stuff because as characters and as players they know that some of those wizards are probably powerful enough to kill them. That is why I would like to have the option to have some mechanics to represent stuff you can do that is not directly related to combat or adventuring. And I believe the 3.X system did that great.


And, to be a bit nitpicky: Profession checks were for determining how much money one could make by practicing that profession, not seeing how well you could cook something. Using it to determine whether or not you were successful at making trail rations is, well, an example of the 3rd Edition Fallacy. You simply don't need a skill check for that.

Actually in third edition you used profession:sailor to pilot a boat/ship. And what happens when Salik the desert fighter comes to the ocean for the first time in his life. In 4E (lets say you use a wisdom check for that), but then he is probably as competent as anyone else (despite having seen for the first time in his life more water then he could jump across) to pilot a ship.


Ask yourself: are you really, really going to have trouble portraying the son of a baker without that one cross-class rank in Craft(bakery)? Is having that "1" scribbled in a long-forgotten corner of a piece of paper that important to getting into the role? Or did you just feel a bit foolish playing a game that told you "you don't actually have this trait unless you paid for it," and felt like you were betraying your (PC) self by living a facade and leaving it blank?

It depends on the type of game I am playing. If Im playing a hack and slash where you essentially compete with the other players and the DM to see who kills the most monsters/players etc, then yes those few skill points in craft(bakery) will probably hurt when you can't make the jump check. If you are playing a game with more emphasis on roleplay, then putting those few ranks (or even max) into craft(bakery), might represent your wish that your character clings to his past (and thus develops his baking skills) over his ability to jump/climb better. Few if any mechanical benefits may arise from that approach, but I feel that doing so makes your character more fleshed out. Think of it as a hobby to your work. Yes your work is important to you, but having a hobby makes your life fuller. The difference between putting ranks into craft(bakery) and saying my character is a good baker, in my opinion, is that your character doesn't make any sacrifice to be a good baker.

Saph
2008-06-04, 08:11 AM
I actually like the ability check rules - it means you don't have to dread them so much. (Even my 12th-level sun elf wizard had a good chance of failing intelligence checks, despite being more intelligent than some minor deities.)

I don't like losing all the rules for skills like Craft and Perform, though. I like having ranks in them. It gives some substance to the idea that my character's more than a monster-killing machine.

- Saph

KillianHawkeye
2008-06-04, 08:24 AM
Don't forget that the real reason that ability checks have to improve with level in 4e is because they seem to have replaced BAB. BAB doesn't exist anymore. All the powers are "Str vs. AC" or "Int vs. Will" or whatever. Basically, "<Ability Check> vs. <Defense>" format, with various associated bonuses being added (such as from weapon, power, proficiency, class feature, etc.).

Charity
2008-06-04, 08:26 AM
I don't see why a sentence to that effect could not carry the same weight Saph.

Saph
2008-06-04, 08:33 AM
I don't see why a sentence to that effect could not carry the same weight Saph.

Because one's supported by the rules, and one isn't?

If I want a character to be really good at a skill that isn't covered by the rules system I'm playing, then I have to convince the GM of it, and that's a hassle. Usually if a system doesn't cover it I just don't bother to bring it up in a session, since it isn't worth the time spent for the GM trying to come up with some way of ruling it on the fly.

- Saph

Charity
2008-06-04, 09:04 AM
Do you have to negotiate other areas of your background?
If you are the son of a nobleman, or a fisherman.
If you are an orphan or the eldest of a dozen children of some dirt farmer.
Loads of background stuff has a distinct bearing on your outlook, skill set or approach... I don't really see why these incidental skills are any different, if there is a background reason why your character can repair the wicker balloon basket then he repairs it, if there is a time imperative I would include a stat roll to see relatively how quickly he performs the task.

Why over complicate matters that can be resolved in character through roleplaying and hand waving, I've yet to see an opposed craft skill or a critical non bardic perform check.

Saph
2008-06-04, 09:09 AM
Loads of background stuff that has a distinct bearing on your outlook, skill set or approach... I don't really see why these incidental skills are any different, if there is a background reason why your character can repair the wicker balloon basket then he repairs it, if there is a time imperative I would include a stat roll to see relatively how quickly he performs the task.

For one thing, I don't want to have to recite my background as justification for having a skill. I'd rather just have the skill.


Why over comlicate matters that can be resolved in character through roleplaying and hand waving.

Because I'd like to have them, and I enjoy the game less when I don't have them. (And if you ask 'Why can't you . . . ?' one more time, I'll take that pile of stuff in your avatar and empty it over your head and sit on you. :P)

- Saph

Matthew
2008-06-04, 09:12 AM
Whilst I understand the desire to have numerically expressed skills, I am with Charity on this. I don't think they are a very good way to express much of anything, least of all the way it was implemented in D20.

I am not even all that convinced that the 4e skills that remain are worthwhile having.

Charity
2008-06-04, 09:23 AM
Because I'd like to have them, and I enjoy the game less when I don't have them. (And if you ask 'Why can't you . . . ?' one more time, I'll take that pile of stuff in your avatar and empty it over your head and sit on you. :P)

- Saph

Remind me to send you a copy of Space master :smalltongue:

*dons helmet*

But seriously though, fair enough; each to their own I guess.
I prefer to keep the dice out of it as much as possible, If the party barbarian wants to bury food around the place "just in case" (no word of a lie I have some odd players) then fair enough, no need to worry about how well he disguised the ground disturbance or the subtle signs, just let the guy do it he presumably has done it before.

kc0bbq
2008-06-04, 11:35 AM
I am not even all that convinced that the 4e skills that remain are worthwhile having.Explain, because they each do more than before and are all quite useful.

As opposed to 1ed where no one could really do anything due to the poorly thought out nature of nonweapon proficiencies. Hey, Mr. Fighter, save ALL of your NWPs until like 5th level if you want to be a Weaponsmith. You won't be a very good one, though, not like the Magic User, who could do it at first level and whose prime requisite is the defining attribute. Same goes for Rangers, Paladins, Cavaliers... Meanwhile, the wizard in his tower is happily forging away. :) It's why the dwarves were always looking to kill orcs. They couldn't be the iconic dwarf unless they really hit the level treadmill.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-04, 11:40 AM
As opposed to 1ed where no one could really do anything due to the poorly thought out nature of nonweapon proficiencies. Hey, Mr. Fighter, save ALL of your NWPs until like 5th level if you want to be a Weaponsmith.

That's second edition, actually.

And the reason weaponsmithing is so ludicrous is because adventurers aren't supposed to be weaponsmiths.

The 4E skill system is actually a mix of the 2E system (you're either trained, with certain benefits, or you're not) and the 3E system (the dice mechanic).

Matthew
2008-06-04, 11:58 AM
As opposed to 1ed where no one could really do anything due to the poorly thought out nature of nonweapon proficiencies. Hey, Mr. Fighter, save ALL of your NWPs until like 5th level if you want to be a Weaponsmith. You won't be a very good one, though, not like the Magic User, who could do it at first level and whose prime requisite is the defining attribute. Same goes for Rangers, Paladins, Cavaliers... Meanwhile, the wizard in his tower is happily forging away. :) It's why the dwarves were always looking to kill orcs. They couldn't be the iconic dwarf unless they really hit the level treadmill.
I don't usually like to say this, but what you're constructing there is a strawman (or so I am told). I think you're probably doing it accidently, as it sounds like you are not particularly familiar with AD&D.

Basically, it is for the same reason as you don't need skills at all. If you want your fighter to jump, he jumps. You want him to ride a horse, he rides. you want him to sneak, he sneaks. You want him to learn weaponsmithing, he learns weapon smithing. Sublimating these ideas into experience and levels as numerical expressions of skills is a flawed (in my opinion) approach. In D20, you end up with 20th Level characters who are 95% better at jumping than 1st level characters.

Now you may say, but he's 95% better at hitting stuff, why wouldn't he be 95% better at swimming? Fact is that first is also stupid, but the entire combat system was designed that way from the get go (well, not quite, but I'm not going to lecture on how OD&D worked). You don't need to apply the same logic to skills, though you can if you want.

RTGoodman
2008-06-04, 01:16 PM
Actually in third edition you used profession:sailor to pilot a boat/ship. And what happens when Salik the desert fighter comes to the ocean for the first time in his life. In 4E (lets say you use a wisdom check for that), but then he is probably as competent as anyone else (despite having seen for the first time in his life more water then he could jump across) to pilot a ship.

Yeah, but that wasn't in Core, was it? It always seemed to me like people started saying, "Hey, WotC! I want to be a pirate! How do I pilot a ship?" And WotC said, "Umm... Profession (Sailor)?" And thus it was.

Or, at least, that's what it seems like to me.

Also, I don't know about the 4E DMG, but my 3.5 version sitting right here by me has several paragraphs (on pg. 30) about what they call the "DM's Best Friend" - situation modifiers to checks where the DM can decide to throw on some -2 penalties for various reasons. In your example, were I Salik's DM, I'd throw on a -2 for him never having been near the ocean and not knowing anything about ocean travel, a -2 for having never worked with boats, maybe a -2 if the locals don't speak his language or are unwilling to help him learn, and maybe even some others if there are good reasons for them. And look! Now Salik the desert fighter is considerably less able to pilot a ship that the average guy. If he's really intuitive (high WIS) or has some good luck (good roll), maybe he picks it up better and won't have as many penalties next time.

kc0bbq
2008-06-04, 01:43 PM
I don't usually like to say this, but what you're constructing there is a strawman (or so I am told). I think you're probably doing it accidently, as it sounds like you are not particularly familiar with AD&D.
I'm plenty familiar with it. And despite that, there are rules for jumping. Rules for creating things. You can choose to ignore that aspect of the rules all you want, but it still exists. Do I need to break out my books and scan pages? In fact, they cover the whole weaponsmithing thing in multiple places - Wilderness Survival Guide, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, etc.

Draz74
2008-06-04, 01:55 PM
In D20, you end up with 20th Level characters who are 95% better at jumping than 1st level characters.

Now you may say, but he's 95% better at hitting stuff, why wouldn't he be 95% better at swimming? Fact is that first is also stupid, but the entire combat system was designed that way from the get go (well, not quite, but I'm not going to lecture on how OD&D worked). You don't need to apply the same logic to skills, though you can if you want.

Hooray for E6 rules nerfing this particular silliness.

Matthew
2008-06-04, 02:02 PM
I'm plenty familiar with it. And despite that, there are rules for jumping. Rules for creating things. You can choose to ignore that aspect of the rules all you want, but it still exists. Do I need to break out my books and scan pages? In fact, they cover the whole weaponsmithing thing in multiple places - Wilderness Survival Guide, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, etc.

Mate, those are optional rules from 1986 and almost universally despised by any AD&Ders (mainly because they're post Gygax) you're likely to meet. Even the proficiency rules from Oriental Adventures (1985) get panned for being crap and those were done under Gygax's auspices.

To put it another way, D&D had been played for 12 years by then (AD&D 7+) without need for proficiencies. In Second Edition the entire proficiency chapter is labelled "optional". The nature of your strawman is setting up optional rules that I haven't even mentioned and saying, well "4e is better than this".

Even then, though, I would still argue that the proficiency rules are way better than the D20 Skill Rules because they don't go up by level, aren't capped by level, don't make use of arbitrary universal DCs, and are completely optional to the game.



Hooray for E6 rules nerfing this particular silliness.

Indeed.

kc0bbq
2008-06-04, 02:39 PM
The nature of your strawman is setting up optional rules that I haven't even mentioned and saying, well "4e is better than this".Not once did I claim you were saying it, I was making a blanket statement to make a point. At no point did I even mention 4e being superior, so insert strawman strawman I can say it too strawman. I said to explain why you think none are even useful.

AD&D's system may have been better on a few accounts, but they were worse on others. Success was purely random due to the tiny ratio of ability modifier to d20 range. If you chose to use the rules you were never consistent at anything but failure.

Matthew
2008-06-04, 02:51 PM
Not once did I claim you were saying it, I was making a blanket statement to make a point. At no point did I even mention 4e being superior, so insert strawman strawman I can say it too strawman. I said to explain why you think none are even useful.

Okay, fair enough (though to be honest it still looks to me as though you were saying "1e bad, 4e good", but I will take you at your word). By way of explanation, you did say that 1e uses Non Weapon proficiencies as though it was some sort of standard against which to measure 4e, which I read to imply that you thought I would agree (as the assumption, as far as I can see, was that I would either defend AD&D on those grounds or admit that 4e skills are a good idea, otherwise why bring it up?). Regardless, you were wrong. Non weapon proficiences are optional rules in AD&D and not required for task resolution of any sort.



AD&D's system may have been better on a few accounts, but they were worse on others. Success was purely random due to the tiny ratio of ability modifier to d20 range. If you chose to use the rules you were never consistent at anything but failure.

Success is random if you roll a die to model probability less than 1. If you don't roll a die, it's not random. In my opinion, attribute modifier inflation is one of the worst aspects of D20, certainly nothing to consider laudable.

The degree of randomness for none combat activites in AD&D was completely at the whim of the DM and had nothing to do with attributes (unless he wanted it to). I am certainly not saying that AD&D is some sort of perfect system (preferences abound), quite the opposite in fact. I'm saying that systems (especially complex systems) problematise abstract task resolution and that you can be better off without them (depending on what you prefer). Hence: "I am not even all that convinced that the 4e skills that remain are worthwhile having."

Indon
2008-06-04, 03:19 PM
Do you have to negotiate other areas of your background?
If you are the son of a nobleman, or a fisherman.

Player: "I'd like to be the son of a nobleman."
Me (DM): "Yeah, sure. Hey, why is your weapon masterwork? You don't have that much money."
Player: "...dad does!"

So, yes. At least, if they might have a significant impact on the rules, such as your character has a wealthy patron, or perhaps a usable non-adventuring skill.


Why over complicate matters that can be resolved in character through roleplaying and hand waving, I've yet to see an opposed craft skill or a critical non bardic perform check.

Then your characters have never participated in Iron Chef or a Battle of the Bards.

Matthew
2008-06-04, 03:26 PM
Player: "I'd like to be the son of a nobleman."
Me (DM): "Yeah, sure. Hey, why is your weapon masterwork? You don't have that much money."
Player: "...dad does!"

So, yes. At least, if they might have a significant impact on the rules, such as your character has a wealthy patron, or perhaps a usable non-adventuring skill.

This where the expectation of the reasonable player comes in. From my perspective (and I suspect Charity's) the game shouldn't be a competition to build the most powerful character ever or milk every advantage you can bleed from the rules. I can imagine it mattering in a tournament game, but in your average game where the DM is supposed to be impartial referee, not so much.



Then your characters have never participated in Iron Chef or a Battle of the Bards.

Ha, ha. I would say you would be right about that. Still, it doesn't sound a particularly difficult thing to emulate to me. Either there's a guy there who's better than your character, or there isn't. If you decide the victor by random die roll, you modify it in the necessary direction.

Charity
2008-06-04, 05:49 PM
Player: "I'd like to be the son of a nobleman."
Me (DM): "Yeah, sure. Hey, why is your weapon masterwork? You don't have that much money."
Player: "...dad does!"

So, yes. At least, if they might have a significant impact on the rules, such as your character has a wealthy patron, or perhaps a usable non-adventuring skill.

That was sorta the point I was making really, though not exactly...
Let me try to explain, Saph prefers to have a mechanic in place to define his skill in bakery or whatever ( I am not using this as a stick to beat Saph his preferance is entirely as valid as mine) in his own words.

If I want a character to be really good at a skill that isn't covered by the rules system I'm playing, then I have to convince the GM of it, and that's a hassle. Usually if a system doesn't cover it I just don't bother to bring it up in a session, since it isn't worth the time spent for the GM trying to come up with some way of ruling it on the fly.

and I prefer to leave the dice/rules out of it as skill definitions too often hinder or straightjacket a players choices.

I was using the example of birth status to demonstrate other things that have a bearing on the game and the way the character is played but do not have a mechanical basis, so you are kinda supporting me... yeah sorry to break it to you like that I should really have tried to soften the blow a bit more. :smallwink:




Then your characters have never participated in Iron Chef or a Battle of the Bards.


you are right, there has been a glaring oversight in my RP background... though I have had an IC/OOC pickled onion eating competition with another player/character... surfice to say I won a truely phyrric victory that night.