How can we add non-combat crunch without mangling the rules?

[mattdm]

I agree with infax!
1) Everyone gets gets 2 non-Combat (*) skill of their choice, plus 1 per Int modifier bonus.
IMHO that should also apply to Languages, but that's another matter.

This weights non-combat skills heavily in favor of the wizard and slightly towards the warlord. I suggest either making an inherent penalty for classes with Int as a primary skill (currently, just wizard), or not basing it on Int — either just a flat number, or allow high Cha to let you get extra Cha-based skills and high Wis to get extra Wis-based skills.

 

[nothing to see here]

I agree with infax!

My suggestion:

1) Everyone gets gets 2 non-Combat (*) skill of their choice, plus 1 per Int modifier bonus.
IMHO that should also apply to Languages, but that's another matter.
-Use the Lists from 3.5 or other sources.

2) Everyone gets 1 encounter and one daily non-Combat (non-PHB) power skill.

3) To make a less combative character, a 4th edition Expert Class, a sage, smith etc here's my sugegstions:


(*) basically, for PHB characters, any skill except those in the PHB. For non-combative characters, some skills would be suitable: Arcana, Nature, Healing, Thievery (to make clockwork, traps), etc

My issue with this is that I don't want to make character creation necessarily more complicated than what the default assumption the PHB. I have players who are happy with the combat role/clarity they contain.

What I want is to be able to give a player who wants to tweak his charcter away from damaging enemies, a mechanical means by which he can do so *without* imposing house rules on the others.

That's why I like building on utility powers for non-combat usage, and that's why I like the idea of spending feat to trade away damage potential (through encounters and dailies) for more versatility in picking utilities.

 

[rankarrog]

I love the base assumptions of D&D. I understand that giving eveyrbody something fun to do in combat is important.

I also deeply miss having the ability to make non-combat focussed characters using the rules-set. If you want to create the fast-talking con-man, or super-investigator or any other non-combat adventuring hero, you still end up with a charater sheet that is 80% about how you kick ass.

So how do we fix this, without starting off a terrible chain reaction.

You expand the 20% non-combat stuff without cannibalizing the 80% of ass kicking. This may not be what you had in mind, but everything else is pretty much guaranteed to cause the chain reaction you fear.

Make (for example) a dozen nonadventurer Skills, two dozen noncombat Feats, and perhaps even a few "universal powers" (Perhaps give them other titles such as talents for feats and competencies for skills to make them diffrent from from the adventurers stuff) and let each player select a handfull (+1 each odd level or so), without "making them pay" with their combat-abilities.

This way even a powergamer has little restraint to give a character more depth and your "con-man type character" (Now hopefulle consisting of 80 points of Combat crunch and 80 Points of diffrent things, for a nice 50%/50%) will not drag the party down in combat.

 

[Szatany]

I haven't read every post, but I think the best idea would be to combine existing encounter/daily/at-will power paradigm with skill challenge system. Independently of combat abilities, each character could get some at-will/encounter/daily abilities that are usable only with skill challenges.

At Home Between Trees
Ranger lvl 1 exploit
Encounter - Free Action
Skill: Perception
If in forested area, reroll a Perception check you just failed.

Peeble to Rockslide
Rogue lvl 5 exploit
Daily - Free Action
Skill: Athletics
Use this power with a successful Athletics check when climbing a mountain or other natural hazard. Anyone following you the same way suffers a -5 penalty to Athletics checks.

 

[gonesailing]

All utility powers can be USED in combat, but they are not about damaging enemies. There is a difference. If you don't want to be all about doing damage, you should have an option other than ignoring 80% of your class features.
......
As for rituals, they are nice, but the casting times, as written make them more of player initiated plot device than an accessible character action.

There has to be a middle ground between having to attack someone and having a 10 minute casting time.

I have two ideas that involve MUCH less rule-mangling than you propose.

1) Write up "non-damaging" powers and give them the flavor/power/etc of At-Will, Daily, and Encounter Powers. Swap them out 1 for 1 with another power.

Very, Very Simple Example
EXTREME PERSUASION
ENCOUNTER
Character gains +2 to all Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy Skill Checks until the end of the Encounter.

2) Shorten the casting time of Rituals to something that feels better.


Edit - ok I like the ideas that Ninja'd be better

 

[VBMEW-01]

You could open them up to gain new traits (versatilities maybe, I wouldn't call them powers) by spending feats. If you made them class specific (like Szatany wrote above for the ranger) then you could also allow multi-classers to access those of another class (which would strengthen the multi-class decision a bit).

You should, of course, require the ones that use skills to be "trained only"

 

[Ambush Bug]

I have two ideas that involve MUCH less rule-mangling than you propose.

1) Write up "non-damaging" powers and give them the flavor/power/etc of At-Will, Daily, and Encounter Powers. Swap them out 1 for 1 with another power.

Very, Very Simple Example
EXTREME PERSUASION
ENCOUNTER
Character gains +2 to all Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy Skill Checks until the end of the Encounter.

2) Shorten the casting time of Rituals to something that feels better.

These are both excellent ideas. A list of "universal" powers that characters could take, regardless of class, would go a long way toward creating non-combat specialists. If you had 12 at-will, 6 encounter, and 4 daily powers to start with, you could create a whole bunch of interesting builds.

Shortening the ritual casting time would make sense in some games. Sometimes you just need to arcane lock a door in 10 seconds, not 10 minutes.

 

[Deadstop]

Currently, the Rogue and Ranger especially have some Utility powers that are aimed more at making them expert skill-users than at combat functionality.

The Paladin also has a couple Utility prayers (Astral Speech, especially, and the telepathy one to a degree) that allow for fitting, flavorful skill use.

Building on those, as a couple folks have already suggested, would be my proposal for adding more noncombat crunch to characters.

Since there are feats that add new powers, one could also add some of those so that the acquired Feat Power would be available to anyone trained in a given skill, regardless of class.

I think this would go a long way toward giving social- and other skill-based characters a flavor all their own, instead of just slightly higher pluses. (They gave the fighter special powers for much the same reason, so skill-enhancing powers seem a logical add-on.)

For people who specifically want to play characters with fewer ways to damage enemies and more utility tricks as compensation, the OP's swap idea doesn't seem too bad. It does break a design conceit of 4e, but if the group understands that's what's happening, and a change in the combat/noncombat balance is exactly what a given player wants, it seems fine. Instead of two-for-one on dailies, I'd just let encounter attack powers swap out for encounter utility powers and daily attack powers swap out for daily utility powers. Not sure about the few at-will utilities (some of which are the very "skill-enhancing" kind we want more of).


Deadstop

 

[nothing to see here]

I have two ideas that involve MUCH less rule-mangling than you propose.

1) Write up "non-damaging" powers and give them the flavor/power/etc of At-Will, Daily, and Encounter Powers. Swap them out 1 for 1 with another power.

Very, Very Simple Example
EXTREME PERSUASION
ENCOUNTER
Character gains +2 to all Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy Skill Checks until the end of the Encounter.

2) Shorten the casting time of Rituals to something that feels better.


Edit - ok I like the ideas that Ninja'd be better

I really, really like your idea and agree it is a much simpler fix than what I proposed. This kind of constructive feedback is what the House Rules forum should be all about.

Now the challenge is be building a 'universal' list of non-combat powers that covers as many achtypes as possible.

 

[Inf Class]

Honestly, I've read this sort of post on many forums and I can't say that I "get" it. I'm a self-proclaimed "slayer" sort of player, but that's mostly a product of my group. I LOVE how everyone gets to excel In AND Out of combat.

So you want to sacrifice your usefulness in a very combat-oriented setting... why? 4e is set up so that you can succeed in both. I think it's a very 3.x mentality to have to sacrifice one for the other. I'll also admit that 3.x is when I started, so I'm not the most knowledgeable person on how it worked before then or in other groups.

Anyway, aren't there feats that increase your skill ability, effectively moving your feat choice from combat to skills?

This brings me to my main point: why can't you just specialize in skills? Almost everything I can think up for non-combat has been covered by skills with the ONE exception of the cool spells that have been taken out or changed to rituals.