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

Derren · Oct 8, 2012

GreyICE said:
I don't understand why making a separate background system for non-combat elements that encourages every character to show off their own unique background and expand on their history would DISCOURAGE roleplaying here.

Just switch it around.
You have two pools of abilities. When you level you get 1 ability from each pool.

Pool 1: Climbing
Abilities from this pool make you better climber

Pool 2: Everything else
Fighting, Diplomacy, Exploring (not including climbing), stealth, etc. Everything is in this pool.

Would you say that the game is heavily about climbing and that most players, especially when new to this system will automatically build a good climber (as far as they can avoid building one as they are guaranteed to get climbing abilities)?
In the end, every character ends up being primarily a climber and something else in addition.

You think that even just having a pool with non-combat abilities dumped into is a great gift for role players. I see it as more like a garbage bin where everything else not combat is put into to throw a bone to those strange people who don't want to play a miniature skirmish game.

Lanefan · Oct 8, 2012

Derren said:
You have two pools of abilities. When you level you get 1 ability from each pool.

Pool 1: Climbing
Abilities from this pool make you better climber

Pool 2: Everything else
Fighting, Diplomacy, Exploring (not including climbing), stealth, etc. Everything is in this pool.

Would you say that the game is heavily about climbing and that most players, especially when new to this system will automatically build a good climber (as far as they can avoid building one as they are guaranteed to get climbing abilities)?
In the end, every character ends up being primarily a climber and something else in addition.

You think that even just having a pool with non-combat abilities dumped into is a great gift for role players. I see it as more like a garbage bin where everything else not combat is put into to throw a bone to those strange people who don't want to play a miniature skirmish game.

In fact there's nothing really wrong with this but it needs to be class-specific.

A warrior type should get most of her abilities from a "combat pool" and have somewhat limited access to everything else. A bard type should get most of his abilities from a "social pool" and have limited access to everything else. A rogue type might get abilities mostly from an "exploration pool" (including but not limited to climbing), and so forth.

And the ratio could vary as well. Instead of always getting one "pool" ability and one other at each level you could say a character gets one non-pool ability for every three or two or five pool abilities it has, depending where you want the characters in each given class to be on the generalist/specialist scale. For true generalists you might even say no ability can come from the same pool as any of the last three abilities you gained...

Lanefan

Neonchameleon · Oct 8, 2012

Derren said:
You can say that D&D was quite successful in the past with its combat focus, but in my opinion the the 3E/4E split showed, among other things, that there are a lot of people who care about the "other" stuff besides combat and they were among them who were driven away by 4E.

Change the record. Please. One of the reasons I consider 4e the best version of D&D since the White Box (and the two are so different as to be not comparable) is that 4e has much better rules for out of combat play as long as you are doing the sort of out of combat stuff you expect from an adventurer. The skill system lets you be generally competent. The spell system doesn't overwhelm the skills.

This is one major reason I'm now playing D&D and mostly played other games in the 3.X era (I played more sessions of GURPS than 3.X) - the out of combat experience is something I find much better; it's cleaner, smoother, more flexible assuming you want to be an adventurer, and less fiddly. And not overwhelmed by magic. And you have a semi-decent scene framing tool.

Derren said:
No, having a separate system for combat and "everything not combat" only emphasizes that combat is special and more important than everything else as you have to take it no matter what you play.

Welcome to D&D. It is, after all, a hacked tabletop wargame. If you want something more skill-centric I recommend either GURPS or Spirit of the Century, depending on your tastes. Or Dogs in the Vineyard.

Derren said:
Would you say that the game is heavily about climbing and that most players, especially when new to this system will automatically build a good climber (as far as they can avoid building one as they are guaranteed to get climbing abilities)?
In the end, every character ends up being primarily a climber and something else in addition.

Or primarily something else and a climber in addition. And I'd say D&D was a game about adventurers and adventuring. Part of the clue is in the name - Dungeons and Dragons. If I don't want to play an adventurer I'd use a different system.

You think that even just having a pool with non-combat abilities dumped into is a great gift for role players. I see it as more like a garbage bin where everything else not combat is put into to throw a bone to those strange people who don't want to play a miniature skirmish game.

Tell me, why are you on a D&D forum? And once you are on a D&D forum, why are you running down 4e? Which is the edition that gets furthest from doing that.

GreyICE · Oct 8, 2012

Derren said:
Just switch it around.
You have two pools of abilities. When you level you get 1 ability from each pool.

Pool 1: Climbing
Abilities from this pool make you better climber

Pool 2: Everything else
Fighting, Diplomacy, Exploring (not including climbing), stealth, etc. Everything is in this pool.

Would you say that the game is heavily about climbing and that most players, especially when new to this system will automatically build a good climber (as far as they can avoid building one as they are guaranteed to get climbing abilities)?
In the end, every character ends up being primarily a climber and something else in addition.

You think that even just having a pool with non-combat abilities dumped into is a great gift for role players. I see it as more like a garbage bin where everything else not combat is put into to throw a bone to those strange people who don't want to play a miniature skirmish game.

I would say that most people would build a good climber, and use the other abilities to make their characters truly unique.

As you say, in such a system it would be hard to build a bad climber. Perhaps that's the point. Such a system would clearly be about climbing after all, but with a purpose. Why are you climbing? Going somewhere? Trying to rescue someone? Do you want to find a dragon in its cave, or are you just trying to climb the tallest mountain in the world to show that you can?

The other skills would come to define the characters as much as climbing. And in such a system, could you not see everyone at the table being annoyed at a bad climber? "Our system is about a group of people who climb mountains to rescue people who are stranded in snowstorms, and you can't climb a mountain? What sort of character did you make? Why would you do this stupid, ridiculous thing?"

Certainly for such a system of "Mountain Rescue Roleplaying" it would make sense for everyone to be a good climber AND do other things. After all, the defining aspect of your character is that they're part of a Mountain Rescue group, they'd be expected to climb mountains as a matter of course. It would be the other parts of their lives that truly differentiated them.

JamesonCourage · Oct 9, 2012

GreyICE said:
"Our system is about a group of people who climb mountains to rescue people who are stranded in snowstorms, and you can't climb a mountain? What sort of character did you make? Why would you do this stupid, ridiculous thing?"

That's the part where you're saying the game is about combat. Since "climbing" was the comparison for combat, you're saying "Our system is about a group of people who engage in combat to kill things in dungeons, and you can't fight a monster? What sort of character did you make? Why would you do this stupid, ridiculous thing?"

And if the system is fundamentally about combat, I don't think it's on the track I want it to be. I want to be able to make a character who sucks in combat. It wouldn't work for your group; fair enough. You'd never need to make one. But my group eats that kind of character up sometimes. But, this is all going back to the feats and siloing thread. If you want my views, or for me to expand, let me know and I'll link you to that thread. As always, play what you like

Hussar · Oct 9, 2012

The problem is JC, D&D has ALWAYS been a game about combat. That's pretty undeniable. The vast majority of the rules focus on combat and always have. Heck, we went a number of years where the only rules we had were combat oriented. It wasn't until 2e that we started adding more.

So, why are we trying to change what D&D has always fundamentally been about?

pemerton · Oct 9, 2012

KaiiLurker said:
Getting an extra language was relatively easy in 3.x, you just sacrificed a trivial amount of skill points

<snip>

when the same language has to compete with a mandatory +1 to hit or to a defense which happens only every two levels, things obviously get nasty.

A PC in my game has the Linguist feat, plus a Book Imp familiar to give him mastery of another language. This being so, I set up situations where speaking languages matters. It's not that hard within the context of the default 4e setting. (The same PC also has two Skill Training feats, as well as a multi-class feat. And is the party ritualist. And is planning to take the Sage of Ages epic destiny.)

Now maybe my player is the only such example around - I don't know. What proportion of players in 3E spent skill points on languages? And maybe I'm the only GM who, having Linguist PCs, framews situations in which language matters. Who else does that?

But I regard the example as sufficient proof that 4e offers viable support for non-combat oriented PC builds.

Derren said:
No, having a separate system for combat and "everything not combat" only emphasizes that combat is special and more important than everything else as you have to take it no matter what you play.

It has always been true of D&D that it lavishes more fine-grained attention on combat than on other fields of endeavour. As I noted upthread, 3E cares whether your sword training is in shortsword, longsword, scimitar or rapier. Yet, when it comes to the Perform skill, all we have for a clarinetist is the following category: Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet). Not only does this not distinguish different schools and techniques within interests (say jazz trumpet vs classical trumpet), it doesn't even distinguish woodwind from brass!

Derren said:
You have two pools of abilities. When you level you get 1 ability from each pool.

Pool 1: Climbing
Abilities from this pool make you better climber

Pool 2: Everything else
Fighting, Diplomacy, Exploring (not including climbing), stealth, etc. Everything is in this pool.

Would you say that the game is heavily about climbing

I would say the game would involve a lot of climbing, yes. It may not be about climbing: it may be about (say) human endurance, or compassion, or folly. I can't tell what it's about from your limited description of it. (Trail of Cthulhu makes investigation skills special; I'm not therefore sure that it's a game about investigation.)

JamesonCourage said:
That's the part where you're saying the game is about combat. Since "climbing" was the comparison for combat, you're saying "Our system is about a group of people who engage in combat to kill things in dungeons, and you can't fight a monster? What sort of character did you make? Why would you do this stupid, ridiculous thing?"

And if the system is fundamentally about combat, I don't think it's on the track I want it to be.

I don't think that there need be any claim or implication that the game is about combat. But I agree with [MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION] and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] that combat is a fundamental mode of action resolution in D&D.

Anyone who thinks that 3E cares as much about musicianship as about swordsmanship needs to explain the anomaly I identify above: that it distinguishes longsword and scimitar proficiency, yet treats skill with the jazz trumpet and skill with classical flute and skill with folk bagpipes as not worth distinguishing.

The game has made clear choices about which distinctions it thinks are worth drawing, and which are not. Having made those choices, the rest of the character build rules should affirm them, not occlude or lie about them.

MoonSong · Oct 9, 2012

pemerton said:
A PC in my game has the Linguist feat, plus a Book Imp familiar to give him mastery of another language. This being so, I set up situations where speaking languages matters. It's not that hard within the context of the default 4e setting. (The same PC also has two Skill Training feats, as well as a multi-class feat. And is the party ritualist. And is planning to take the Sage of Ages epic destiny.)

Now maybe my player is the only such example around - I don't know. What proportion of players in 3E spent skill points on languages? And maybe I'm the only GM who, having Linguist PCs, framews situations in which language matters. Who else does that?

But I regard the example as sufficient proof that 4e offers viable support for non-combat oriented PC builds.

Support no doubt, it just feels too lacking and almost like an afterthought. BTW nice way to sumarize my opinion on a few lines, and don't think bad of me, I'm the kind of player that would usually pick such feats.

pemerton said:
It has always been true of D&D that it lavishes more fine-grained attention on combat than on other fields of endeavour. As I noted upthread, 3E cares whether your sword training is in shortsword, longsword, scimitar or rapier. Yet, when it comes to the Perform skill, all we have for a clarinetist is the following category: Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet). Not only does this not distinguish different schools and techniques within interests (say jazz trumpet vs classical trumpet), it doesn't even distinguish woodwind from brass!

Well at least 3.x has a Perform skill to speak of, it is a mediocre one, but that is way better than not having it at all. If I want my 4e bard to play a lute or a mandoline, I find myself with no mechanics to support it beyond DM Fiat.

GreyICE · Oct 9, 2012

JamesonCourage said:
That's the part where you're saying the game is about combat. Since "climbing" was the comparison for combat, you're saying "Our system is about a group of people who engage in combat to kill things in dungeons, and you can't fight a monster? What sort of character did you make? Why would you do this stupid, ridiculous thing?"

And if the system is fundamentally about combat, I don't think it's on the track I want it to be. I want to be able to make a character who sucks in combat. It wouldn't work for your group; fair enough. You'd never need to make one. But my group eats that kind of character up sometimes. But, this is all going back to the feats and siloing thread. If you want my views, or for me to expand, let me know and I'll link you to that thread. As always, play what you like

Then Dungeons and Dragons is not the game for you.

I am serious, there are many, many, many games that are not about combat. ANY Fate game. Any of the White Wolf systems, except Exalted and Hunter (and even Hunter is more about traps and planning than combat). Ars Magica.

We can go on, and on, and on. If you don't want to fight anyone, and don't want to do combat, don't play D&D. It's not built for it.

Let D&D be built for combat, and let the roleplaying build on that. If you truly want to play a total incompetent at combat, build them! But don't build them in a D&D game.

KaiiLurker said:
Well at least 3.x has a Perform skill to speak of, it is a mediocre one, but that is way better than not having it at all. If I want my 4e bard to play a lute or a mandoline, I find myself with no mechanics to support it beyond DM Fiat.

Yes, and this is superior to 3E's system. 3E's system punished players who tried to roleplay by making them bad at the central focus of D&D. At least 4E is neutral on the matter, and lets the DM rule how they like.

Why, why, why would you take one of the best combat RPGs in the business, the premier combat simulator, the most entertaining combat roleplaying system around, and mess it up in order to allow people to make non-combat characters, something the system wasn't built for at all?

If your party is truly into you being awful at combat, just use Player Fiat and remove all your combat skills from your character sheet. Seems like a much better solution.

Hussar · Oct 9, 2012

KaiiLurker said:
Support no doubt, it just feels too lacking and almost like an afterthought. BTW nice way to sumarize my opinion on a few lines, and don't think bad of me, I'm the kind of player that would usually pick such feats.

Well at least 3.x has a Perform skill to speak of, it is a mediocre one, but that is way better than not having it at all. If I want my 4e bard to play a lute or a mandoline, I find myself with no mechanics to support it beyond DM Fiat.

The question is, what function does that Perform skill check serve? As it stands, as written, it allows you to make a small amount of money. That's it. It doesn't affect anything else. So, as you say, it's not really doing anything at all, other than serving as a skill tax on bards.

Now, say I want to impress the king with my playing. Ok, fair enough. In 3e, I'd use the Perform check, even though that's not really what that skill does. In 4e, I'd use Diplomacy because that's exactly what that skill is supposed to do. Because the 4e skills are decoupled from any specific narrative, you are free to do so.

In 3e, I actually cannot do that. At least, not under RAW. Granted, it's a trivially easy ruling to make and one that virtually every table will make. But, if that's so, then why have the Perform skill in the first place? If the only thing Perform is being used for is affecting the reactions of NPC's, why not tie it up under the Diplomacy skill where it's supposed to be?

I mean, even with a 30 perform check, I'm averaging 9 gp per day. Is any player ACTUALLY going to do this? At the levels where you can reliably make those perform checks, that amount of money just doesn't matter.

IOW, the Perform skill is an afterthought tacked on and has no real function. Not when you have a perfectly good Diplomacy skill right there.