D&D 4E A wierd thing I like about 4e

[MwaO]

They could get one around the poor spread of skills but not the enfeebled number trained in ... generally speaking

Everyone and I mean everyone should have taken a multiclass feat in early 4e. Everyone qualified for Ranger usually - 13 Str or 13 Dex, and if you did, well, that was some easy to get bonus damage in Quarry+a free skill from the Ranger skill list. Have that and a background and you're at 4-5 skills, 3 of which you picked from outside your own class. Which is where or better than many of the 5e classes.

 

[Garthanos]

Honestly it was the the not so tacit, Fighters are Unskilled that annoys me.

Everyone and I mean everyone should have taken a multiclass feat in early 4e.

Everyone? Multi-classing being seen as a must have for someone interested in having a decent skill set.... hmmm reminds me of a slightly subtle version of arguments that looked like

"Don't like how we let the fighter fade as they leveled and minimised his decisions in combat, you really want to be an X".... ahem back in the day that was basically the argument as framed when we pointed out the ones who might really be most interested in combat ended up having the least choices there-in and eventually the least power.

4e did a way with that and really tried to level up the playing field at least in combat succeeded they made some headway out of combat too so i am probably spoiled LOL as Rituals roped in utility magic a lot and Martial practices were an interesting idea that almost...

Skills really are the utility abilities of the game.

Although admittedly the 4e multiclassing doesnt necessarily do a super Schwing to the character flavor Knights were commonly hunters too so your suggestion is not super terrible for flavor either

Have that and a background and you're at 4-5 skills, 3 of which you picked from outside your own class. Which is where or better than many of the 5e classes.

Typically 4 (5 only for human or Eladrin fighters right? Humans are on my favorites list for some reason)
The background particularly the ones from Scales of War may open up the selection set as already mentioned
but has no impact on trained number of skills.

What I have heard of 5e has yet to convince me of much, but I am open to changing my mind, I saw some interesting design creativity in the 5e precursors.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They could get one around the poor spread of skills but not the enfeebled number trained in ... generally speaking

I think I heard someone try to argue athletics was just massively more useful than other skills, but looking at theiving smh

I think Athletics is a heavily used skill, though it somewhat depends on the GM. It controls jumping, climbing, etc by RAW. Still, Fighters could have 4 skills, it wouldn't hurt. One of the arguments, maybe what the designers went by, is that fighters get more weapon and armor proficiencies than any other class, so they might have assumed that was 'worth' a skill slot, but it really isn't.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly it was the the not so tacit, Fighters are Unskilled that annoys me.


Everyone? Multi-classing being seen as a must have for someone interested in having a decent skill set.... hmmm reminds me of a slightly subtle version of arguments that looked like

"Don't like how we let the fighter fade as they leveled and minimised his decisions in combat, you really want to be an X".... ahem back in the day that was basically the argument as framed when we pointed out the ones who might really be most interested in combat ended up having the least choices there-in and eventually the least power.

4e did a way with that and really tried to level up the playing field at least in combat succeeded they made some headway out of combat too so i am probably spoiled LOL as Rituals roped in utility magic a lot and Martial practices were an interesting idea that almost...

Skills really are the utility abilities of the game.

Although admittedly the 4e multiclassing doesnt necessarily do a super Schwing to the character flavor Knights were commonly hunters too so your suggestion is not super terrible for flavor either



Typically 4 (5 only for human or Eladrin fighters right? Humans are on my favorites list for some reason)
The background particularly the ones from Scales of War may open up the selection set as already mentioned
but has no impact on trained number of skills.

What I have heard of 5e has yet to convince me of much, but I am open to changing my mind, I saw some interesting design creativity in the 5e precursors.

Yeah, I think the "everyone should MC" thing was an unforeseen effect, but its true, MC feats are just too good to pass up, though of course you CAN pass up anything in 4e and it won't really HURT you... But I think that the flavor is OK too, as you say, and you don't have to frame it as "now I'm a ranger" or whatever, you can just frame it as you learned some tricks, reflavor them however you want.

5e parses the skill/class/subclass/theme space a bit more systematically than 4e. 4e has a pretty good class lineup, but then they got a bit crazy with it later on, and there was never a really STRONG subclass concept, which would have been nice, and which 5e does have. Themes in 4e are nice, but they tend to just clutter the game, especially when you have backgrounds as well, and Power of Skill, MC feats, etc all chipping in more 'stuff'.

I think a good redesign of 4e would try to push a lot more build concepts on fewer classes and do it with less granular choices, so to make 'axe wielding melee dwarf' would be pretty much one class, one race, and one option, like it is in 5e. In 4e you have to keep picking more different feats and etc to really manage your concept. It can get a little more intricate than many players want to bother with.

So for instance in my 4e campaigns I've ALWAYS had one 'gearhead' player (not always the same player) that would deal with character builds and advise the others and find them "some feat that works to make me better at X". Sometimes I had to fill that role myself as DM, but often one of the players would step up, thankfully, and pick up a copy of DDI, code in all the PCs, and print them all, level them all, etc. I never had a whole group where everyone would do their own. Back in the 2e days that would never happen. I noticed that mostly in 5e people could all handle it (even my mother picked out what her elf rogue did, and she's 80!).

 

[Garthanos]

My niece spent a morning and after noon with my books no CB and made three characters she enjoyed the hell out of it ... plus one for her sister who wasn't interested in the choice depth offered

 

[Tony Vargas]

5e parses the skill/class/subclass/theme space a bit more systematically than 4e. 4e has a pretty good class lineup, but then they got a bit crazy with it later on, and there was never a really STRONG subclass concept

Builds and alternate class features seemed strong enough. Calling them 'builds' was weird... as was calling fighter powers 'exploits' instead of maneuvers, as was calling everything 'core.'
'Weird' is not really the word, but I'm not going to spell it out, because I'm trying to be less negative these days.

No, it's not working out that well for me, obviously, or I wouldn't have said all that.

I think a good redesign of 4e would try to push a lot more build concepts on fewer classes and do it with less granular choices

Granular choices can be pretty good, actually, if you don't want to present reams of choices. For instance, you could write a novel by lifting sentences from any other novel ever written - the sentence you need /has/ probably been written before (or one close enough) - but you'd need a pretty big library and a good way of searching it to write just exactly the novel you want. OTOH, you could write your own sentences, at the level of granularity of individual words, with just a Dictionary and Thesaurus on your desk.

ften one of the players would step up, thankfully, and pick up a copy of DDI, code in all the PCs, and print them all, level them all, etc. I never had a whole group where everyone would do their own. Back in the 2e days that would never happen.

AD&D did have a dearth of character choices as chargen and level-up, but 3e was quite the challenges for players not into doing 'builds.' 4e, builds required choices but you didn't have to plan builds, and it was not that many choices at 1st level. After that, it was fairly easy: you all leveled up at the same time, and on the same chart. So 4th level, everybody pick a feat and two stats to increase. 5th, everybody pick a daily.

You could plan a 30-level build like you did in 3.5, but you didn't have to - a character that grew from the few choices at chargen and at each level "organically" was just fine, too.

CB helped, a lot - though it could also present you with too many "choices you didn't even know you wanted."

 

[Rolenet]

No dump stat maybe, but I never saw someone dump (or even relegate) CON and live to tell the tale! At least not with MM3 monsters.
(I remember a new player coming in with a level 1 INT/DEX wizard, CON10. That didn't go well. Following week he had a paladin. But not the buggy CHA type who cannot lift his own armor and even less climb a rope)
Also, while there's only one skill, Endurance tends to be the one linked to lost HS the most in SCs.

BUT there IS the issue with "dumped buddy-stats". It so incredibly tempting to dump the second of each pair of attributes - except CON. It makes the occasional "INT/WIS" invoker or "WIS/CHA" priest an oddity. I think that's a pretty unique 4e "feature/bug" that most agile PCs are not clever, and charming types are not wise...

I think ALL the characters in my games picked a MC feat during heroic. Most of the time it was for the skill training.

So [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], what's your granny's handle on the forum? Will she share her nasty hybrid warlock/ranger recipe?

 

[Garthanos]

BUT there IS the issue with "dumped buddy-stats". It so incredibly tempting to dump the second of each pair of attributes - except CON. It makes the occasional "INT/WIS" invoker or "WIS/CHA" priest an oddity. I think that's a pretty unique 4e "feature/bug" that most agile PCs are not clever, and charming types are not wise...

Could be both feature and bug....

I treat CHA as a form of clever (note the rogue abilities called cunning arent they Charisma linking ones),
it seems to relate to the creative intelligence of bards where as Int is the bookish lore variety intellect

Arguably we have pragmatic intelligence, creative intelligence and analytic intelligence.

In real life fast twitch muscles (str) and slow twitch (con) are opposites and you cannot have the most of both, but that is too realistic

Discipline (wis) and Spirit (cha) are sometimes seen as opposites... too

Dex and Int are maybe wrong in that regards unless you see it as internalized vs externalized emphasis...