Siloing: Good or Bad?

[Turtlejay]

- decoupling combat abilities from out of combat so that all characters always have something useful to do? ...good

- anemic non-combat rules, unbalanced rituals, "martial action" chopped into pseudo-vancian powers? ...BAD! bleah!!!




...yuck!

Are you freaking kidding me? Can not one good discussion go a page without someone coming along and dumping their threadcrapping edition-warring hate all over it? Okay, so you don't like 4e? FINE. Don't post in a thread about it's mechanics and how you hate them! For the love of GOD! I usually just read these design/rules threads because heaven knows I am no game designer, and as a casual player I enjoy the insights of others into how the game functions, but just once I'd like to read an intelligent discussion about something, *anything* regarding 4e without someone with nothing better to do dropping in to say that I have the intelligence level of a 4 year old because I play it.

...


As for siloing, I think there could be a bit more of it in the current edition. In 3.5 it was tough to be skillful unless your class was designed for it. Having 2 points per level to spend, and a selection of skills that were pretty anemic really didn't help. 4e improved, but then having feats that deal with combat also used to increase skills through training or specialization is kind of a relic. They are unattractive for the most part, unless it is a skill you can shoehorn into combat (like Stealth or Intimidate). I would like to see a better attempt at siloing in the future.

The addition of Backgrounds, to help you gain skills you want or boost them, and the Multiclassing system, that gives you skills trained, are nice. Going further, it would be cool if milestones in your adventuring career, like Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies affected skills or other out of combat aspects of your character more. While I approve of eliminating some of the odd roleplaying requirements of 3.5's Prestige Classes, I'd like some of the roleplaying *consequences* to be concrete. Sure, a good DM can play up the fact that your character is a Scion of Arkhosia, but having some other, more formal effects to some of the more dramatic paths and destinies would be a good thing.

Jay

 

[UngeheuerLich]

good thing:

Beeing totally incompetent in any part of the game is not really funny... It maybe was a bit to much making nearly every "combat spell" do damage. But the ritual approach was ingenious.

 

[SkidAce]

While I prefer siloing to an extent there is a con I have noticed.

Not many people want to "waste" skills and since they do not affect combat, they tend use skills that were not in their character concept originally. It's like a combo meal, some people dont really need the fries...but they eat them since they came with it.

I always looked at it like specialization, you can't be good at everything, there is only so much time to learn and train. (hence why I was ok with a fighter/mage lagging behind in overall power in previous editions)

But only a small con, overall I'm in favor.

 

[The Human Target]

I'm very pro siloing, and think its a great fit for an action adventure game like DnD.

I don't think you need it in all games. Call of Cthulhu for example doesn't have it at all IMO, and it works out fine. A knowledge check in that system has as much power as a good rifle shot does. But then, CoC is an investigation/horror game.

I do however think 4E, as much as I enjoy the game, focused way too much on the combat silo and left the skill/non-combat/roleplay silo pretty empty.

 

[Cadfan]

I think that siloing is an unambiguously good thing.

And I think that people who feel that siloing makes the game more combat-centric are misunderstanding siloing at a very fundamental level. It would make as much sense to say that siloing makes the game less combat-centric: siloing works equally in both directions.

All siloing does is stop you from sacrificing one type of proficiency to gain another, or limit you from doing so more than a certain amount. I consider this an unambiguous good. It prevents the straight munchkin character from existing, and it ensures a certain minimum combat survivability. The cost of course is that some people want the uber-munchkin character, and resent every resource not spent on combat, and some people (claim to) want to make characters who can't fight effectively, and resent that the game gives them a base attack bonus whether they like it or not. I consider the gain for the median gamer to exceed the cost to these two extremes.

Edited to add: I'd probably have siloed 4e even more. The silos are basically your skills in one silo, and your powers in another, with feats and utility powers crossing over between the two. I'd probably have siloed feats into combat and non combat.

 

[Ahnehnois]

There are different types of players. Some want to play a bard and talk and sacrifice combat utility. Some want to play fighters and bash heads and never do anything else. Some casters want to be sages, others want to blast. The game ought to support different types of characters to represent the interests of different types of players, IMO. Thus, the whole "siloing" concept is antithetical to my style.

 

[Ourph]

Siloing = Good Thing.

I think experience has shown that balancing combat effectiveness against non-combat effectiveness is a fool's errand. Better is balancing each one separately.

This. XP for you.

 

[steenan]

In a game with more simulationist approach, where combat would be just one type of situation you encounter, no more important than any other, siloing would be very bad, as it would create artificial limitations on character concepts possible to represent in the game.

In D&D, a game that assumes a lot of focus on combat and a very gamist playstyle, it is really good. It works both ways - it keeps all characters competent in combat, but it also prevents min-maxers from sacrificing everything for combat efficiency and being useless in non-combat scenes. Without it, the only game balance would be among one-trick combat monsters. Siloed characters may be balanced in combat and still be fun to play out of it.

 

[malraux]

There are different types of players. Some want to play a bard and talk and sacrifice combat utility. Some want to play fighters and bash heads and never do anything else. Some casters want to be sages, others want to blast. The game ought to support different types of characters to represent the interests of different types of players, IMO. Thus, the whole "siloing" concept is antithetical to my style.

Why should being a bard sacrifice combat utility? Moreover, if you want to be a bard that's useless in combat, or a fighter that doesn't roll a dice unless its an attack, siloing doesn't prevent that. The bard character can just not participate in combat, while the fighter can just not ever roll a skill check. Siloing does nothing to prevent that.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Why should being a bard sacrifice combat utility? Moreover, if you want to be a bard that's useless in combat, or a fighter that doesn't roll a dice unless its an attack, siloing doesn't prevent that. The bard character can just not participate in combat, while the fighter can just not ever roll a skill check. Siloing does nothing to prevent that.

Rules don't prevent you from doing nothing, of course.

However, I frequently want to make an NPC who has never been in a fight, yet is competent at something else, and I want my rules to support that. If anything, I would like a more unified point-based system where base attack is treated as a skill (of course, many rpgs are this way). That way, my 10th-level wizard who lives at a library can be appropriately focused in his useful statistics as well as in how I play him. Similarly, I want my 9th-level rogue ship captain to be great at running a ship, but inferior at melee combat as compared to a 9th-level dungeon-crawling rogue. I want my stock NPC fighters to be berserkers who aren't good at anything else. And so on. Flaws and deficiencies define people (and fictional characters) just as much as aptitudes and skills.