D&D 5E If an option is presented, it needs to be good enough to take.

pemerton · Oct 6, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
in two cases feats

I know the Languages skill in 3E becomes the Linguist feat in 4e. What's the other one?

pemerton · Oct 6, 2012

Obryn said:
There were some pretty shallow bugs in the PHB - V-shaped classes, a few insane powers, Solos that were a grind, the so-called "expertise gap", and so on.

I don't mind the V-shaped classes, although I can see that they obviously create some complexities - and suck for humans wanting to take their bonus at-will!

What I like about the V-shaped classes is that they allow an Essentials-style pooling of utility powers for classes that have (at least sometimes) different attack powers, and whose different stats capture something archetypically important. For example, STR paladins are Lancelot whereas CHA paladins are Galahad. That's a meaningful distinction that the V-shaped design captures nicely.

The only MM solo I've used is the Young Black Dragon - it was an enjoyable fight, but the set up wasn't careless on my part. (In particular, the wizard had a statue of the Summer Queen which he was using to dispel the darkness that the dragon kept setting up - a page 42 Arcana-based Dispel Magic improvisation.)

We don't use the Expertise feats in my game, but (at 18th level) I'm starting to notice it as a factor in resolution. The party does have quite a bit of to-hit bonus - the Demonskin Adept action point power, and the Battlefield Archer quarry benefit, as well as plenty of ways of getting combat advantage - so I don't think I just want to drop the Expertise feats in. Given that many opponents (particularly the equal or higher level ones) are getting to the point of being "named" opponents of some sort or another, I am thinking about ways of trying to bring in "targetted" bonuses - a bit like some of the ideas for circumventing divine discorporation.

None of this is meant by way of contradiction - just some of my personal reflections on some of the more contentious aspects of early 4e design.

pemerton · Oct 6, 2012

Derren said:
Yeah, its not that the edition with unified mechanics which allowed for, compared to other D&D editions, a lot of non combat play was widely successful and that the edition which focused completely on balanced tactical combat was a huge failure...

4e doesn't focus completely on balanced tactical combat. This is for two reasons. First, it doesn't focus on balanced combat. It is easy - and, judgingn from posts around here, common - to design combat encounters that will be unbalanced in various ways. What 4e offers is transparency for the GM as to how a combat is mechanically likely to resolve.

Second, 4e doesn't focus completely on combat encounters. It has a core non-combat resolution mechanic - the skill challenge, discussed well on this thread - and also a range of core non-combat XP rewards (quests, skill challenges, time spent in meaningful freeform RP) which permit the game to move forward without combat being the focus.

As for 3E, I don't see how it allows for non-combat play any better than B/X does. It has no scene-framing advice for non-combat challenges, no XP system for non-combat rewards, and no meaningful non-combat action resolution mechanics. It does have mechanics for paying for non-combat labels on your PC sheet (Craft, Perform, Profession) but the game doesn't have the mechanics to actually engage these in any meaningful way. It's social resolution is also notoriously weak.

Tony Vargas · Oct 6, 2012

Derren said:
Yeah, its not that the edition with unified mechanics which allowed for, compared to other D&D editions, a lot of non combat play was widely successful and that the edition which focused completely on balanced tactical combat was a huge failure...

Ironically, the combat/non-combat emphasis of both those editions was very similar.
3e leaned more towards enabling non-combat by giving detailed rules for non-adventuring activities, while 4e did it more by 'silo'ing combat and non-combat resources, so both were generally options regardless of class or spell load. Both also gave the DM guidelines for non-combat challenges, DC's, obviously, experience for completing non-combat challenges, expanded, in 4e, to Skill Challenges.

So that one 'succeeded' by some estimation (perhaps due to the success of the OGL), while one 'failed' (perhaps due to the rejection of the GSL), really says nothing about the prevalence of combat in D&D. That both modern versions of D&D devoted far more and better-done rules to non-combat systems than classic versions, doesn't say that much, either, since those systems were still virtual after-thoughts compared to the equally expanded and evolved combat systems they sported.

D&D has always put a heavy emphasis on combat.

Steely_Dan · Oct 6, 2012

Tony Vargas said:
1) Both also gave the DM guidelines for non-combat challenges, DC's, obviously, experience for completing non-combat challenges, expanded, in 4e, to Skill Challenges.

2) D&D has always put a heavy emphasis on combat.

1) Which is the antithesis of role-playing.

2) True.

GreyICE · Oct 6, 2012

Skill challenges can aid roleplaying quite nicely. They're a good format for a structured challenge that has concrete goals and stages for resolution.

It also just makes the game better by generally embracing a fail forward concept (while 3E mostly ran with fail backwards assumptions) but that's not really a roleplaying thing. That's just a fun thing - fail forwards is nearly always better than fail backwards.

Overall I've found a lot of the criticisms of skill challenges either involve truly terrible DMs, or just fall flat.

Steely_Dan · Oct 6, 2012

GreyICE said:
Skill challenges can aid roleplaying quite nicely. They're a good format for a structured challenge that has concrete goals and stages for resolution.

It also just makes the game better by generally embracing a fail forward concept (while 3E mostly ran with fail backwards assumptions) but that's not really a roleplaying thing. That's just a fun thing - fail forwards is nearly always better than fail backwards.

Overall I've found a lot of the criticisms of skill challenges either involve truly terrible DMs, or just fall flat.

All totally in your opinion, which i don't agree with.

GreyICE · Oct 6, 2012

If I have successfully had great roleplaying sessions with skill challenges, they cannot be the antithesis of roleplaying.

You might have had bad experiences with some DMs, I'm sorry for that. But bad DMs can plague any edition (I remember a 2E game where the DM would make sure the NPCs wouldn't die except when he wanted them to in all sorts of amazing ways, and my last 3E dm had actual cutscenes (literally scenes where we, the players, would be unable to alter events as they occurred no matter what we did).

Steely_Dan · Oct 6, 2012

GreyICE said:
1) If I have successfully had great roleplaying sessions with skill challenges, they cannot be the antithesis of roleplaying.

2) You might have had bad experiences with some DMs

1) I find them a kludge (would not force it on children, actually, especially children).

2) Alas, I am aways the DM (never the bride, always the bridesmaid...*breaks into inconsolable sob*)

pemerton · Oct 6, 2012

Steely_Dan said:
Which is the antithesis of role-playing.

GreyICE said:
Skill challenges can aid roleplaying quite nicely. They're a good format for a structured challenge that has concrete goals and stages for resolution.

It also just makes the game better by generally embracing a fail forward concept (while 3E mostly ran with fail backwards assumptions) but that's not really a roleplaying thing.

I agree with GreyICE. Anyone who follows the link in my post above (which I just fixed) and who follows links from that post can see skill challenges facilitating role playing.

The most obvious objection to the "skill challenges = antithesis of roleplaying contention" is that skill challenges are a version of the complex resolution mechanics found in such indie games as Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling, and - whatever one might think of such games - they are very obviously not the antithesis of roleplaying.

The one disagreement I do have with GreyICE is that "fail forward" is not really a roleplaying thing. I think it's hugely relevant to roleplaying (and Burning Wheel really brings this out nicely in its rulebooks; Robin Laws tries to also, in HeroWars/Quest and the 4e DMG2, but I personally think BW does a better job of explaining the technique). "Fail forward" means that the players have an option other than winning or turtling. They can afford to try and fail without thereby being hosed. And in my view this is the single best thing a system can do to open up a space for players to roleplay in. My own view is that D&Dnext's professed aim of enlivening all 3 pillars will fail unless it looks seriously at how it can open up that sort of space via some sort of "fail forward" approach.

The biggest obstacle to "fail forward" is a strong commitment to simulationism - because the GM, in a "fail forward" aproach, has to narrate consequences and complications that are grounded more in the metagame than in the ingame causal logic of the particular skill check that failed (eg a faild lockpick check doesn't mean you didn't open the lock; it means the guards are arriving before you've finished the job!). And this sort of approach is obviously anathema to most of those who dislike 4e, and to date there is not even a hint of it in the playtest materials.