4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[S'mon]

And what exactly is a paladin? Before 4E it was a lawful good divine warrior who fights against evil. In 4E it was a divine empowered fighter of a church. Neither of those definitions requires a hard coded combat style.

4e Cleric, Paladin and Avenger are all "divine empowered fighter of a church" - but they fight in different ways. Invoker is also a servant of the gods, but channels his deity's power directly.

I don't think there's a specific bow-based Divine class, though - most of them are melee or short range powers; the Invoker focuses at tearing up groups of foes at short-medium range. A holy archer of Corellon might be best as an archer Ranger (maybe the Essentials one as it gets Primal powers), perhaps with a divine multiclass. Likewise a holy warrior of the Trickster god would work well as a Rogue with a divine multiclass.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e Cleric, Paladin and Avenger are all "divine empowered fighter of a church" - but they fight in different ways. Invoker is also a servant of the gods, but channels his deity's power directly.

I don't think there's a specific bow-based Divine class, though - most of them are melee or short range powers; the Invoker focuses at tearing up groups of foes at short-medium range. A holy archer of Corellon might be best as an archer Ranger (maybe the Essentials one as it gets Primal powers), perhaps with a divine multiclass. Likewise a holy warrior of the Trickster god would work well as a Rogue with a divine multiclass.

Yeah, the power <-> stat linkage is really the worst effect that 4e has, you're stuck with either heavy refluffing (ranger to bow cleric, ugly), some hybrid/MC kludge, or constructing a whole new option like the Sehanine Cleric (which only works for elves, another issue). I think weapon <-> stat linkage would be better. It may still require a high DEX to be a really good archer but you could at least write powers that would work for a PC either way. The 'warlord solution' was awkward (make a whole set of STR based archer powers). Oh well...

 

[innerdude]

For some reason, I still can't get some variation of the following exchange out of my head:

GM: "Well, your character really cares about fighting evil, eh? Maybe you should play a paladin then, because they get to smite evil, and be heroic and valiant! You'll also get to explore really cool paladin narrative themes, like doing good in the face of evil, and the true meaning of justice!"

Player: "But I don't want to wield a sword and shield. I want to fight with a bow, and be shifty."

GM: "Okay . . . so, play a refluffed [Insert Class Here], and just say you're a paladin."

Player: "But you just told me that if I want to explore thematic 'paladin' narratives, I need to play a paladin character. But I hate the way a paladin fights in combat, I don't want to fight that way."

GM: "Well crap man, what do you want? This is D&D! You have to pick a class!"

Player: *frowning* "Fine, whatever, I'll just play a ranger and shoot things. Even though I'm not really interested in exploring themes of natural balance, hunter / hunted, the power of nature, and the way of the wilderness."

I don't think there's a problem with asserting that "When a player plays a 4e class pretty much according script, certain 'thematic' elements will naturally arise." I think one can equally assert that for many, many groups that it's not a terribly compelling feature of 4e, since they prefer to build "thematics" in other ways. I think I can also safely assert that it can be problematic for some types of players that want more control over their character concept.

 

[pemerton]

I am interested in discussing this because I have seen 2 schools of thought as far as 4e fans are concerned...

The larger group (as far as my experiences go) claims that 4e is, because of it's effects based design, virtually divorced from class or even powers meaning anything...

The smaller group as represented by posters like pemerton, manbearcat, s'mon, etc. claims that 4e's classes and powers have baked in thematic qualities and thus very much have a specific meaning.

I never said there's a specific meaning, and I don't think those others did either. They said "thematic support". That's quite different - as I posted in the other thread, from the fact that someone can reflavour Valiant Strike to fit their paladin based on one of the Three Stooges doesn't stop it given very direct and clear support for the more conventional approach of playing a valiant knight.

What you seem to be missing, to my eyes at least, is that (i) reflavouring is confined by the mechancial parameters, including keywords and effects, of a power, and (ii) the thematic support that I and others are talking about is a direct result of those mechanical parameters.

I don't think both of these claims can be right

And as in the other thread, I have just shown that this is not so. You are foucing on the flavour text of a power (is my magical missile green or blue, screaming or chanting?) and disregarding its mechanical parameters (keywords and effects). But it is the latter that produces (in my view) such tight thematic play in 4e.

Come and Get It is another example. Its flavour text is well-known, but in my game I don't think it's ever been narrated like that. Rather, the polearm fighter uses the forced movement in combination with his billion-and-one enhancing feats and items to completely own the battlefield around him. And we narrate it, typically, as deft work with his polearm. But that doesn't change the fact that Come and Get It - via its mechanics - plays a strong role in establishing and reinforcing the story of that fighter as a dogged, unflabbable, quintessentially dwarven devotee of Moradin, who is no good at ranged combat but who can hold off and defeat seemingly any number of foes in melee. (Which makes it all the more dramatic when, every now and then, he fails to control the battlefield and endure the onrushing hordes, and needs to be rescued as a result.)

In 4e, the fluff doesn't really matter. I could argue the same is true of pretty much any system, but 4e is very up-front about this.

But that does not mean that there isn't "theme" bound up (or, at least, potentially bound up) in the actual effects of the powers and the selections of those powers that are available to specific classes.

Part of that "theme" is hinted at by the "role" assigned to each class, but even that is only a very rough and approximate guideline. In the end, it's down to each individual class - you have to get to grips with what each class has available to it to understand its "thematic content" in full. And, even then, each class covers quite a spread, so there is variance within as well as between classes.

So, "Valiant Strike" seems aptly named for its thematic direction, but if it had been called, say, "Mix It Up!", which would be semi-descriptive and so not beyond the pale, it would still carry some thematic elements of "dude with cojones" because, to use it effectively, you just have to be stuck right into the middle of that swirling melee.

Yep, exactly this.

You can certainly choose class and powers without any regard to the thematics. The beauty of 4e's class & power design is that the thematics are so baked into the mechanics that you act like a brave Paladin just by using the powers effectively.

<snip>

IME players are 'pushed' by the system to play in a thematically appropriate manner, because it is mechanically optimal, but they never feel 'forced'. It's not like Paladin or Cavalier mandates in 1e where players benefit mechanically from 'working around' the restrictions. A player can consciously ignore all the thematics but they still come out in play.

<snip>

And a player willing to cripple his PC mechanically could deliberately go against the thematics of the powers he's chosen (Paladin who lurks at the back and throws daggers); but I don't know why he would want to waste his own time doing so, and I've never seen this in 4e.

And this.

It's also possible to build a PC out in odd directions, but (at least in my experience) the rules can mostly be relied upon to make it clear what is going on.

For instance, when the wizard PC in my game was reborn as an invoker, the player noted that his ranges had dropped from 10 and 20 squares to 5 and 10 squares, and so - in anticipation of finding himself in melee a bit more - he took Melee Training (WIS) so he could beat things up with his Sceptre of Erathis (Rod of 5 (of 7) Parts).

That's certainly not part of any power build - in terms of sheer mechanical outpout, there must be dozens of better feats for an upper paragon invoker - but it comes up every now and then (mostly taking OAs) and he sometimes hits and does a token amount of damage. The player wanted a charcter who would - when melee broke out around him - play as competent, if not uber, rather than as hopeless, and the build rules showed a clear path to that effect.

And even though his melee contributions are pretty minimal, they are noticeably better than either the ranger-cleric or the old wizard (though there was the one time that the wizard needed exactly 20 on an OA, rolled it and therefore critted, and the gnoll died in a burst of fire as the mage struck him with his Tome of Replenishing Flame).

(And for the rules-conscious, yes, I am aware of the two house rules in the above: allowing the Rod to be used as a melee weapon (a regular mace) without having all 7 parts; and allowing a magic tome to do its crit damage even when used as an improvised melee weapon. My 4e game seems to have survived both tweaks!)

 

[pemerton]

GM: "Well, your character really cares about fighting evil, eh? Maybe you should play a paladin then, because they get to smite evil, and be heroic and valiant! You'll also get to explore really cool paladin narrative themes, like doing good in the face of evil, and the true meaning of justice!"

Player: "But I don't want to wield a sword and shield. I want to fight with a bow, and be shifty."

GM: "Okay . . . so, play a refluffed [Insert Class Here], and just say you're a paladin."

Player: "But you just told me that if I want to explore thematic 'paladin' narratives, I need to play a paladin character. But I hate the way a paladin fights in combat, I don't want to fight that way."

GM: "Well crap man, what do you want? This is D&D! You have to pick a class!"

Player: *frowning* "Fine, whatever, I'll just play a ranger and shoot things. Even though I'm not really interested in exploring themes of natural balance, hunter / hunted, the power of nature, and the way of the wilderness."

The last two lines suggest your GM and player are tools, so I'm glad I'm not playing with them

But your player also appears to have comprehension problems: the GM suggests playing a paladin as a way to fight evil, explore themes about doing good in the fact of evil etc, and the player paraphrases that as "needing" to play a paladin to explore those themes. (Which in any event aren't really the themes that I and other 4e GMs have been talking abou - your desription of the themes is at a higher level of abstraction than 4e play delivers - but that's probably by-the-by .)

Also, I am curious - how does someone who fights with a bow and is shifty - a PC who in 4e would be a Dungeoneering ranger, a rogue, perhaps an executioner assassin - exemplify "doing good in the face of evil"? It seems more like "using evil's methods against it" - like Daredevil, Batman or even The Punisher - and the game has the mechanical resources in its class system to handle that.

In the end, then, it seems to me that - in your dialogue - the GM has wrongly extrapolated from "I care about fighting to evil" to "I want to play a valiant warrior" and then the player has, for some reason, inferred from the fact that they don't want to play a valiant warrior to the inability of the game to support a PC who wants to use evil's methods against it.

This only reinforces my conclusion that your two protagonists are tools!

 

[pemerton]

I don't think there's a specific bow-based Divine class, though

The Neverwinter Campaign book has some bow at-wills for clerics. (And maybe some encounter powers too - they're presented in the Essentials cleric domain format.)

I haven't tried to work out how far that goes towards making a bow cleric viable.

It may be that Hybrids cause problems, I've never used the Hybrid rules.

One of the PCs in my campaign started as a ranger, multi-class cleric, but when the hybrid rules came out was rebuilt by the player as a hybrid ranger-cleric (in the aptly named "Operation Have My PC Do Something Other Than Twin Strike").

At least with that build, the tricky thing is that only ranger powers can carry a hybrid ranger's quarry damage. So he has the minimal permitted payload of cleric standard action attacks, and the maximum permitted payload of ranger encounter interrupts/reactions, so that he is always able to get his quarry off once per round. In play he is definitely a ranger, with a few cleric-y tricks (healing, a handful of bursts and blasts) to pull out in the right situation. No rituals, so not quite the same as an AD&D cleric/ranger, but not a million miles away either. (Also, his paragon path is Battlefield Archer, and we treat the +1 to hit vs quarried targets as him cursing his enemies in the name of the Raven Queen.)

Of course you can refluff powers in a lot of ways. That doesn't mean that the game isn't mostly built around playing fairly standard archetypes.

I agree with this. 4e is clearly aimed at supporting, in the first instance, conventional fantasy tropes, plus some of the more comon D&D tropes that have grown up around them.

That's not to say it can't do some suprising things, and hasn't been pushed in new directions (Avengers seem new to me, for instance, though mabye they build on some part of 3E I'm not familiar with). But I think it's going to be very hard to use the game to deliver the same sort of stories and tropes as you'll find in (say) Over the Edge, or even Cyberbunk.

Behaving like a Paladin has nothing to do with your combat style but more about how you RP your character. Why should a paladin be hardcoded to fight a specific way.

Because the paladin is intended to model chivalric knights? As [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has alluded to in his posts, 4e's paladin build achieves something like the same outcome as the chivalric strictures in Gygax's Unearthed Arcana, but in a way that makes the PC viable and rewards the player, rather than in a way that hoses the player and encourages gaming the code.

Except when you look at editions before 4E a fighter could fight in any way he wants.

No. There was no way to make an effective unarmed fighter before Oriental Adventures (in the AD&D PHB you had to be a monk to have good martial arts damage). And a paldin has always laboured under restrictions of the chivalric code, which in Unearthed Arcana precluded ranged weapons altogether.

Sword & Shield? He can do that. Two handed polearm? He can do that. Mobile skirmisher? He can do that. Archery? He can do that. None of those fighting styles were more effective than others because of being hardcoded by the rules.

<snip>

4E started to hard code fighting styles for every class where you are actively penalized by not fighting the way the game designers envisioned your class to fight and that I heavily dislike.

As LostSoul noted, a 4e PHB fighter can be built as a two-handed polearm wielder or a mobile skirmisher (DEX secondary, light armour if desired, probably sword or spear as a weapon). Or as a sword-and-shield fighter. Archery is the only limitation, having been given to the ranger.

[/QUOTE]What about a paladin to Corellon? Why does he have to wade into melee instead of using a bow? Or what about the paladin of a trickster god? Because that is your vision of a paladin?[/QUOTE]The "paladin" of a trickster god would, in 4e, be an Avenger. As S'mon has noted, building a bow-using Divine PC is tricky, though there are some workarounds in later releases. The hybrid ranger-cleric in my game serves the Raven Queen, but could work equally well as a paldin of Corellon, I think, with a bit of tweaking to background and a few feats.

They wanted the Paladin to exemplify a specific set of virtues - valiant, self-sacrificial, that sort of thing. I don't think the Paladin from the PHB is a good fit for all the different sorts of gods out there (or the Cleric, for that matter), and I agree that this causes some dissonance - why does my Paladin of Zehir (god of darkness) shoot light and colour?

<snip>

(For me, the issue lies in the definition of "Radiant" damage. I have changed "Radiant" damage in my game to be a manifestation of the divine character's belief system - so your Paladin of Zehir would inflict "blinding darkness" (0 HP = permanently blind). This requires me to work out exactly what each power is doing with the player of that PC, but I enjoy that. I do the same with the other classes anyway.)

The PC build rules take for granted that, unless you're building a blackguard, your paladin worships a non-evil god. This is clear from the list in the paladin entry (though the cleric entry has the evil gods too), and also the discussion in the DMG of reflavouring radiant as (eg) necrotic or acid for divine NPCs serving dark gods.

This is another way in which I think the game is fairly conventional in its approach to heroic fantasy gaming (warlocks and the like notwithstanding).

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think 4e's skill system doesn't really exist as a useful design in a vacuum though. Its a nice system for reinforcing characterization. I pick Athletics, my character solves problems with physical prowess. Your character is strong, but he doesn't show that bent. He can probably do athletic things reasonably well, but I excel, it is my shtick. For a narrower focus you could say pick a background that gave you a focus (Occupation - Athlete, professional diver, now I can ask the DM for all sorts of bonuses if I use Athletics to swim). I like that separation. The broad skills also encourage things like "Why does my 20th level wizard break doors open pretty well? Magic!" Sure, its his +10 level bonus to STR checks, but I can pretend it is because he knows a lot about Arcana, so he can make himself stronger than a normal person. You can cover a lot of ground that way.

Cool I never said it wouldn't work for you, and I did say it was usable. Personally, I think the mechanics are pretty flawed, based on what you told me. And, personally, I like a lot of nuance in skills. So, it doesn't really resonate with me, despite how I think it fails mechanically. Again, it's definitely a usable skill system, but 4e's skill system is by no means "probably about as strong as any skill system in a feasible RPG of the sort that have skill systems as will ever be", in my opinion. As always, play what you like

 

[S'mon]

The last two lines suggest your GM and player are tools, so I'm glad I'm not playing with them

The player is certainly being a dick. It's not like he could play an archer Paladin in 1e AD&D once Unearthed Arcana came out. He can't be a non-LG Paladin in 3e core-only D&D. Any class-based game has restrictions on the classes, otherwise they wouldn't be classes.

If for some reason I was being really patient with this guy I'd explain that his assumptions about the 4e PHB Ranger are incorrect, probably derived from the 3e Wilderninja. The 4e PHB Ranger covers lightly armoured archers & skirmishers, any Wilerninja element is optional. So play an archer Ranger with Paladin multiclass.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Except when you look at editions before 4E a fighter could fight in any way he wants. Sword & Shield? He can do that. Two handed polearm? He can do that. Mobile skirmisher? He can do that. Archery? He can do that. None of those fighting styles were more effective than others because of being hardcoded by the rules. Other classes were not quite as flexible, mostly the ranger with its 2 weapon or archery focus, but still even when the player decides to use a different fighting style he was not penalized by it.

This is simply incorrect. The AD&D Fighter was proficient in what? Four different weapons at first level? Of which in core 2e they could specialise in a grand total of one. And the secret to their power in 2e was Weapon Specialisation. The highly mobile skirmisher simply didn't exist as opportunity attacks in AD&D were absolute murder. And the claim that "none of these fighting styles were more effective than others" is incredibly dubious at best and falls apart the second you take two weapon fighting into account. So a much more accurate statement would be "When you look at editions before 4e, a fighter could pick any of the mechanically supported ways of fighting".

Even if we restrict "editions before 4e" to 3.X the statement makes no sense. Almost every feat is a tool of specialisation. A fighter can be built to specialise in whatever they like. But a sword and board specialist with the feats Weapon Focus: Longsword, Weapon Specialisation: Long Sword, Power Attack, and Cleave is much more effective with sword and board than he is with a bow - whereas the fighter with Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, and Weapon Focus: Longbow is penalised for ending up in melee.

4E started to hard code fighting styles for every class where you are actively penalized by not fighting the way the game designers envisioned your class to fight and that I heavily dislike.

4e did not "start to hard code fighting styles for every class where you are actively penalised by not fighting the way the game designers envisioned your class to fight".

You try taking a dashing and agile swashbuckler wielding rapier and dagger and wearing a doublet as a fighter into an AD&D session. It's a complete Darwin Award. Your AC is going to suck hard and you're going to go down fast, whatever your dex. In 3e it's going to be a challenge to make such a character playable as a fighter until you can get a prestige class - your AC is going to suck and two weapon fighting is a feat intensive chain. In 4e, you need the Unarmoured Agility feat to make up for no armour (you still are a point or two below expected AC but this isn't so terrible), your at wills are dual strike and footwork lure (already making you a seriously effective skirmisher), IIRC you take funnelling flurry as your L1 encounter power, and you've basically given up a point or two of AC and a feat and you're good.

Alternatively let's say you've been watching too much 90s TV and in particular Hercules and Xena. Your character idea is based on Kevin Sorbo's Hercules. Sword and fist. Occasionally grapling, often just punching people out. I really wouldn't recommend this combat style for AD&D. It just isn't going to work. In 3.X you're better off - you can at the very least invest in Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple, and the TWF tree - it's decidedly sub-optimal, but viable. In 4e this works readily as a brawler fighter from first level.

4e fighters have more flexibility to fight the way you want them to than in any other edition as long as you stick to Melee Badass. AD&D is far more punishing for breaking out of expected combat roles than either 3e or 4e - and 4e has a vast amount of flexibility. It's simply that the techniques for getting at this flexibility are different from the feat-centric 3e methods.

And what exactly is a paladin? Before 4E it was a lawful good divine warrior who fights against evil.

Um... no. "Before 4e" is not synonymous with "In 3e." 3e seriously reduced the restrictions on the Paladin. In AD&D it was a Lawful Good Divinely Empowered Warrior with very high stats (including a charisma of 17+) that follows a specific set and tightly restricted code that included from memory:

• Giving all excess wealth beyond personal needs to the church, and always tithing at least 10%
• Never owning more than 10 magic items (with the types tightly controlled)
• Only associating long term with good aligned people

In 4e it's a divinely empowered warrior who stands as a living exemplar.

In 4E it was a divine empowered fighter of a church. Neither of those definitions requires a hard coded combat style.

The living exemplar (the essentials version being the embodiment of a virtue) is really helped by one.

For some reason, I still can't get some variation of the following exchange out of my head:

GM: "Well, your character really cares about fighting evil, eh? Maybe you should play a paladin then, because they get to smite evil, and be heroic and valiant! You'll also get to explore really cool paladin narrative themes, like doing good in the face of evil, and the true meaning of justice!"

Player: "But I don't want to wield a sword and shield. I want to fight with a bow, and be shifty."

GM: "Okay . . . so, play a refluffed [Insert Class Here], and just say you're a paladin."

Better GM: My misunderstanding. In that case Paladin isn't the best choice. You're thinking of Robin Hood or even Green Arrow rather than Sir Galahad? Or even a Batman or Leverage style character, walking the line and using the tools of evil against actual evil?

Player: "But you just told me that if I want to explore thematic 'paladin' narratives, I need to play a paladin character. But I hate the way a paladin fights in combat, I don't want to fight that way."

GM: "Well crap man, what do you want? This is D&D! You have to pick a class!"

Better GM: I'm sorry, there's been a misunderstanding. I said that a paladin would be good for exploring thematic paladin narratives. Those aren't the ones you want to explore? Robin Hood or Batman style characters would be better played as a ranger, a rogue, or even an assassin.

Player: *frowning* "Fine, whatever, I'll just play a ranger and shoot things. Even though I'm not really interested in exploring themes of natural balance, hunter / hunted, the power of nature, and the way of the wilderness."

Better GM: This isn't a problem. The PHB ranger need not have any supernatural connection or even training in Nature. Instead they can take Dungeoneering, which sounds as if it will suit your stealthy ways with knowledge of catacombs. Or possibly an archer-rogue would suit you better?

The whole conversation arose out of two miscommunications. The first was the DM not understanding what the player wanted to play and suggesting something inappropriate, and the second was the player taking the DM's suggestion that Paladin might be a good idea as a statement that Paladin was the only possible way to do this.

 

[Neonchameleon]

IME players are 'pushed' by the system to play in a thematically appropriate manner, because it is mechanically optimal, but they never feel 'forced'. It's not like Paladin or Cavalier mandates in 1e where players benefit mechanically from 'working around' the restrictions. A player can consciously ignore all the thematics but they still come out in play. My player Stuart played his Wizard PCs completely as pawns, zero personality, but they certainly still acted in a thematically appropriate manner in combat. Whereas I recall 3e Wizard PCs who acted in very un-Wizardly ways that the players felt were promoted/rewarded by the system.

This. For the record Stuart's non-wizards are also pawns but in my game both his warlock and his barbarian acted appropriately. And any game should reward the behaviours it wishes to encourage.

It may be that Hybrids cause problems, I've never used the Hybrid rules. And a player willing to cripple his PC mechanically could deliberately go against the thematics of the powers he's chosen (Paladin who lurks at the back and throws daggers); but I don't know why he would want to waste his own time doing so, and I've never seen this in 4e.

Hybrids do cause problems (they are one of the very few things I ban; my ban list basically amounts to every class in the PHB 3 except the Monk unless you can give me a very good non-mechanical reason to let one of the five other PHB 3 classes in, and hybrids are hard-banned). The basic problem with hybrids is that if you don't know what you are doing you end up with a thoroughgoing mess that gets tangled in its own action economy and does nothing well - and if you do you can get either the combined strengths of two classes (the Archer Ranger gives up very little to go hybrid, and can gain half the healing of a warlord by hybriding with a lazylord) or some synergies that were simply not meant to be like the Executioner/Warlock with a 4d8+Con or Cha Melee Basic Attack at level 2.