D&D 4E Are Talents Trees still in 4e?

[Demigonis]

Well, this sucks.
Another point for the "4e sucks" column.

Wow, welcome to snap-judgment-ville.

Perhaps 4E's system and choices will be even better than a super-linear talent tree.

 

[Voss]

I don't know that talent trees ever actually existed outside, 'Well, if its like Saga', speculation.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Voss: I've never seen anything by WotC that said talent trees were in 4e apart from the comparison with SW Saga.

When I first saw talent trees - in the Diablo II skill system, I think - I thought they were a great mechanic, but with time I've become a lot less impressed. Trees encourage a build mentality, especially trees like Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack. "Get a near-useless feat and an occasionally useful feat before you can buy the feat you want! Be the character you want to be in 4 levels time!"

 

[Voss]

Voss: I've never seen anything by WotC that said talent trees were in 4e apart from the comparison with SW Saga.

When I first saw talent trees - in the Diablo II skill system, I think - I thought they were a great mechanic, but with time I've become a lot less impressed. Trees encourage a build mentality, especially trees like Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack. "Get a near-useless feat and an occasionally useful feat before you can buy the feat you want! Be the character you want to be in 4 levels time!"

I feel the same way. If there isn't any 'sacrifice now in hopes of gaining later' garbage in 4e, I will feel a lot better about it.

 

[Kordeth]

Just to play devil's advocates against both sides--talent trees in SWSE were neither a straightjacket nor super-linear--the vast majority of talents had no other talents as prereqs, and I can't think of any, with the possible exception of one or two lightsaber talents from the Jedi Knight prestige class, that had more than one other talent as a prereq. Likewise, you weren't forced to stick with one talent tree at any point in your development. The only real purpose talent trees served was to break down the vast number of choices available into more easily-quantifiable groups.

IMHO, 4E breaking down powers by level accomplishes the exact same goal, and if anything does it better, since a) now class powers don't need any prereqs at all, and b) as seen in the sample pages of wizard powers, "combat" powers and "utility" powers appear to be broken up by different levels, meaning you never have to sacrifice a cool attack power to get a useful buff, or vice versa.

 

[psionotic]

I feel the same way. If there isn't any 'sacrifice now in hopes of gaining later' garbage in 4e, I will feel a lot better about it.

Word. Keep restrictive talent trees in Diablo 2 and WoW (both great games, not bashing them). But I like to create my D&D characters in a more free-form, random chunks of fun-or-weird abilities style.

I also love the separation of combat vs utility powers. This means that those sweet utility abilities I've always wanted to use, but weren't able to (or were browbeaten against by my party) due to some ridiculous idea of enhancing combat maximization will always be available.

 

[FireLance]

I'm still hoping that there will be continuous powers which classes can select, effectively making talent trees a subset of power selection.

If not, I'm fairly sure it will be quite easy to create them.

 

[Just Another User]

Huh what? They replaced a straight-jacket Tree with a suggested Build of powers and feats (thereby allowing greater flexibility in character design), and you put this in the "4E sucks" column? Did you think that one through all the way?

I admit I wrote that in the spur of the moment. Depending on what powers (and maybe feats) they put out talent tree could be unneccessary, or even be present under a different guise.
And yet, judging from the not-so-few powers we have seen until this point I must keep my vote of suckyness.

But, mind you, it is just one vote, There is still a lot of room ready to be filled in the "4e rules" column.

 

[Just Another User]

I don't know that talent trees ever actually existed outside, 'Well, if its like Saga', speculation.

I distinctly remember comments about use of talent trees to customize character in some of 4e designer comments (even if maybe they said "talent-tree likes")
PErsonally Iliked very much D20 modern talent tree, they are a good tool (imho) to customize a class without the need to create scores of different classes, for example if you want a fighter-mage you could create a talent tree with talents that allow you to i.e cast spell while striking with a weapon, or reduce armor penalties to spellcasting (I'm talking in 3.x terms here but I don't see why something similiar could not apply to 4e). Of course many of them could be replaced by well designed feats, so I suppose we should see some more feats before to say they are out.