What concerns me is when we've got someone who wants to play a thief reminiscent of older e's whose player has chosen to eschew combat in favor of being an exploration god, but the game doesn't recognize this as a valid trade-off. This might look like all rogues having sneak attack, or all exploration challenges insisting that you include interaction skills so that the foppish noble can do something.
OK. Let's just reality check this.
You want to play "an exploration God" who is about on a par with the 3.X rogue and AD&D Thief?
To be honest, I'm not sure how to do that. The second you've written "rogue", or worse yet "thief" on top of your character sheet in 4e you're in territory that 3.X rogues and AD&D thieves only wish they were in. You've six trained skills in 4e, with two of them being fixed and covering Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Disable Device, and Sleight of Hand (which is five of the eight skills in the classic rogue list - and have you checked the success percentages in AD&D?) The other classic Thief skills are "Hear noise" (Perception - which also covers Search and Spot), and Climb Walls (Athletics, which also covers Jump and Swim) - I don't count the stunning 0% chance for most of the time of read language. We can take those skills and we're beyond the abilities of an AD&D thief or a 3.X Rogue - and we have two more skills to go. One should be Acrobatics - in 4e the other physical skill. In 3.X you'd need Escape Artist, Balance, and Tumble (and before you mention tumble's combat use (a) we're going out of combat and (b) with all the shifts on rogue powers it's hard to argue 4e rogues have less in combat mobility. And let's round off with Streetwise - which the 3.X rogue would need Gather Information and Knowledge (Local) for.
That's
sixteen skills for a 3.X rogue. Just to match the out of combat skill held by a first level 4e rogue I'm not even trying especially hard with. You were talking about being an exploration god? Off 8+Int skill points? Seriously?
Now. We've already made your supposed exploration gods in the rogues look like the amateurs they are. Let's leave them in the dust.
Instead of rogue, we write "Thief" on our character sheet. Our two first level thief tricks are Acrobat's Trick and Sneak's Trick. Why? Acrobat's Trick gives our rogue a climb speed. They can literally climb anything that can be climbed with a 100% success chance. It's difficult to overstate how much more useful at exploration having
no chance of failure when climbing makes them. We also have sneak's trick. Our rogue can hide where no one else can - again that's huge. They can drop out of sight in ways that should be impossible. Unlike the 3.X rogue, it's not just numbers on a d20. They also have the feat Bardic Ritualist - which gives them training in Arcana (let's just cross-reference that to Knowledge (Arcana) and the ability to detect magic). They are also now a ritual caster - for the purpose of argument I'm going to say that's about equivalent to Use Magic Device.
Now let's bump our thief to second level and round them out a bit. At second level our thief gets an extra skill for being a thief (and gets +1 to all their skills). We'll take the Bluff skill here - matching Bluff and Disguise in 3.X. So our second level thief has the equivalent of six ranks in
twenty different skills. They also get an extra feat (Let's make it Disciple of Shadow). And a Utility Power - let's make it Quick Fingers. Why Quick Fingers? It allows a thievery check 1/encounter as a minor action without penalty. You know what this is? The mechanical representation of a brush pass - our second level thief can steal someone's wallet without ever breaking step. Walk up to someone using their move action. A minor action to steal. And walk on using their standard action. (The 3.X rogue can supposedly do this - but by taking -20 to their sleight of hand check - something that's going to doom them to failure for a long time to come).
So. Tell me. In what way is the 3.X rogue or the AD&D thief an exploration god when the 4e thief is not? Next to the 4e thief, the 3.X rogue is, as I have just shown, a third rate amateur explorer. Half the skills and no way to go above and beyond in the way a 4e thief can.
As for your claims about combat, and not being able to have a non-combat focus, they are, as normal, false. We're going to look at rogues again, and at tenth level this time.
The 3.X rogue has 5d6 worth of sneak attack. Now, to me, that's enough to establish they have a significant combat focus - especially when the 4e thief only has 2d6. So, I think we can quash that argument as invalid unless you want to play an expert rather than a rogue.
So what of the other claim? The one that you can't have a rogue that's not combat focussed in 4e as well as one who is? We're again going to take two tenth level thieves, six feats each.
Our combat-thief has the following feats: Light Blade Expertise, Nimble Blade, Backstabber, Weapon proficiency: Rapier, Scoundrel Training, Improved Defences. They also have Tactical Trick, Ambush Trick, and Thug's Trick. They also have the utility powers Sneak In The Attack, Swift Parry, and Enter the Crucible.
Our non-combat thief has: Bardic Ritualist, Bard of All Trades, Skill Focus: Thievery, Disciple of Shadow, Skill Power, and Skill Training: Nature (which also helps with rituals, of course). They have the tricks Sneak's Trick, Acrobat's Trick, and Escape Artist's Trick. And the utility powers Nimble Fingers, Chameleon, Experienced Arcana, and Persistent Tail.
So. What's the difference between the two thieves?
In melee the combat thief gets +2 to hit (+1 from nimble blade, +1 from Light Blade Expertise), and rather than dex + 3d6 + 2 damage does dex + 3d8 + 3 with combat advantage - a not insignificant boost (especially as between Tactical Trick and Ambush Trick, getting combat advantage is going to be trivial). They also have the ability to add 2d8 damage to someone else, to cancel a hit on themselves, and to give themselves DR 10 occasionally. Oh, and they get a free attack on someone who moves within three squares of them each fight - for an entire extra attack (from Scoundrel Training). I'd call this a big combat difference - in the opening two rounds our combat thief is going to be laying down at least half as much damage again (3 attacks vs 2) and probably twice as much (+2 to hit, about 25% more damage per hit with all modifiers included, with a further sneak attack given to someone - and an easier time getting Sneak Attacks). And Enter the Crucible allows them to tank.
Our out of combat thief is a ritualist who can cast two free rituals per day, and one at half price. They can make a brush pass to pick pockets. They have a wider range of trained skills - and +3 to the roll for all skills they
aren't trained in. They can see in the dark. They can keep hiding even while someone is looking straight at them.
How you can claim that they are both equally good at combat, or equally useful outside combat is beyond me. We have the non-combat god that the rogue promised and never delivered in previous editions and a competent but second rate combatant.
But given the number of times you've made claims about why you don't like 4e and I've shown those claims to be simply, factually wrong and 4e to actually work the way you want it to, please stop. From all your criticisms I've learned one thing. With the single exception of AEDU 4e almost invariably does precisely what you want it to - and does it better than previous editions. On the other hand, as we've found out in previous threads, you haven't learned to play 4e as it's written. You've learned to play 4e as it's interpreted locally - a vastly inferior game. Please stop and go back to the drawing board. Read the books, trying to forget everything you think you know. When you think you can't do something in 4e stop assuming that that means you can't do it. Instead assume that the designers of 4e weren't stupid, but didn't always explain themselves clearly - and what you've learned since is often misleading.
And rather than simply claiming that something can't be done instead try to work out how to do it. If you can't work out how to do it, don't assume that it's impossible. Instead assume that it's just not well documented and ask people.
And to continue after that aside:
I'd like the ability to look at that and say "You can make an untrained CHA check like anyone else, Druid, and even if you make it, it's not going to be the equal of the noble's Graceful Foppery ability, because people are not your strong suit."
Congratulations. You want a 4e style utility power structure. I've already shown how Quick Fingers does this sort of thing. Powers are precisely where you can go above and beyond like that.
Nope! Brief encounters that are relevant to the overall adventure and may cost the party resources, that become more dangerous in aggregate than individually, and that build gradually. Encounters, in other words, that serve the goals of the overall adventure being a potentially deadly undertaking.
You can do those in 4e. The biggest barrier is that healing surges and powers recover too fast - which is why that's one of the few bits I actively house rule.
