Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Parmandur]

IMHO 5e's skill system is flawed by comparison to 4e's in a number of ways. Its not terrible or anything, but it is strictly inferior in actual play.

Being trained is of limited value, you just aren't that much better at a skill, and no amount of trying will take you numerically to the point where you can pull off stuff nobody else can. OTOH you also never get to a point where you can do most things without a chance of failure either, this is weird.

There are too many skills (and tool proficiencies, which are just back-door skills that are poorly explained). Its not too bad, the list isn't stupid long, but it exceeds what is strictly necessary and yet some critical and obvious areas are not covered clearly by any given skill. At least if 4e's list was going to be extended couldn't you fill gaps instead of creating MORE gaps?

Without an SC system there's a void in terms of how to leverage skills into encounters and just what it means to have exploration and social 'pillars' (not that I buy into that concept at all, but WotC does, yet they don't support it!).

4e also had a somewhat richer background system (its less mechanically detailed, but that actually makes it better in some ways). You can quite effectively attach a mechanically acknowledged "I know all about X" to a character, without it being a significant resource that has to be justified against some other resource, and thus become a 'skill' that required implicit incompetence for lacking it.

I simply saw no logic by which 5e's skill system was an improvement over 4e's. It doesn't do anything better. 4e's skill system, within the totality of 4e, is really quite good. Leaps and bounds better than in any other edition.

The trained/untrained dichotomy is intended to be more than just a bonus; someone untrained in Arcana is not going to be able to decipher glyphs on the tomb door, somebody untrained in sleight of hand can't pickpocket the Sheriff, etc. Again, at DM discretion.

We were able to use skills in 3.x (a mess of a skill system) just fine without a skill challenge system, and 5E as well: a system for that can be useful, but it is not needed in a game with a DM.

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[Parmandur]

It works more reliably for tactical combat, non tactical combat, interaction, exploration, investigation, chase scenes, crafting, improvising, hell I'd even rather do TOTM stuff in 4e than in 3.5, because we know what all the bits do and he DM doesn't have figure out every little detail as we go. Largely because powers and skills and skill challenges and the basic rules are all fundamentally reliable and balanced, so they don't need extra adjudication most of the time. The system runs smoothly, and that has literally nothing to do with tactics.

But the system also ran smoothly in 3.x and in 5E, pretty much across the board (grappling in 3.x was fairly ridiculous)...?

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[AbdulAlhazred]

Going by the numbers, sure. But, the resolution system actually calls for the DM to narrate success/failure /or/ call for a check & set a DC. Under the former, the DM can allow a proficient character to causally succeed at skill checks he'd call for a roll or narrate failure of in the case of an untrained character.

Well, this isn't a 5e analysis thread, but I love it when a designer basically just punts and tells you to make up because apparently they can't design a subsystem that works (even though they actually already HAVE one if they'd just use it).

I agree that tool proficiencies' being open-ended and clearly less useful than skills in many cases, while having almost the same opportunity cost ( you do get a more or less 'free' one with your background) isn't great.

Well, beyond that they don't actually explain how they work at all, and what exactly they're good for. Beyond that some of them, like the Thief's Tools one, why do I actually need these tools to accomplish things that don't require tools? Why isn't it just a skill since there's stuff that doesn't involve tools and how does the game envisage I structure those checks as it is written?

I mean, you could argue that 4e Thievery covers a lot of ground and maybe it would be cool to distinguish the lock breaking expert from the pick pocket, but at least there's clearly a specific skill that covers those options, and it can also be used as a 'knowledge' (IE you can check Thievery to see what you KNOW ABOUT a lock, something that doesn't require tools).

Plus, in 4e, you have lots of options to differentiate things. You could have a power that gives you better pocket picking, or an MP that works for learning how to crack a lock, or etc.

I totally buy into the pillars, thank you. And there is a rudimentary exploration system. And there are group skill checks.

The problem is, being good at exploration doesn't excuse being bad in combat. That design IMPOSES either a specific mixture of adventure elements, or making some characters just plain less important in play. Honestly, I'm not sure how 'rudimentary' the exploration system is, I think you could play an exploration game, but I didn't see a lot of the procedural stuff from classic D&D emphasized. Obviously group skill checks fall FAR short of 4e's SCs.

I mean, what is brilliant about 4e is you can (and I do) literally run ALL OF THE GAME within encounters (with VERY limited exceptions that are probably more related to my own inability to muster up the elements of an encounter every table minute). There's always direction, plot, goal. Something is happening, and its bearing on things the players are choosing to engage with. Its just much harder to do that with 5e, the tools are partially missing (though in all fairness you could just use SCs verbatim out of 4e in 5e, the issue of XP costs aside).

 

[Parmandur]

Well, this isn't a 5e analysis thread, but I love it when a designer basically just punts and tells you to make up because apparently they can't design a subsystem that works (even though they actually already HAVE one if they'd just use it).


Well, beyond that they don't actually explain how they work at all, and what exactly they're good for. Beyond that some of them, like the Thief's Tools one, why do I actually need these tools to accomplish things that don't require tools? Why isn't it just a skill since there's stuff that doesn't involve tools and how does the game envisage I structure those checks as it is written?

I mean, you could argue that 4e Thievery covers a lot of ground and maybe it would be cool to distinguish the lock breaking expert from the pick pocket, but at least there's clearly a specific skill that covers those options, and it can also be used as a 'knowledge' (IE you can check Thievery to see what you KNOW ABOUT a lock, something that doesn't require tools).

Plus, in 4e, you have lots of options to differentiate things. You could have a power that gives you better pocket picking, or an MP that works for learning how to crack a lock, or etc.



The problem is, being good at exploration doesn't excuse being bad in combat. That design IMPOSES either a specific mixture of adventure elements, or making some characters just plain less important in play. Honestly, I'm not sure how 'rudimentary' the exploration system is, I think you could play an exploration game, but I didn't see a lot of the procedural stuff from classic D&D emphasized. Obviously group skill checks fall FAR short of 4e's SCs.

I mean, what is brilliant about 4e is you can (and I do) literally run ALL OF THE GAME within encounters (with VERY limited exceptions that are probably more related to my own inability to muster up the elements of an encounter every table minute). There's always direction, plot, goal. Something is happening, and its bearing on things the players are choosing to engage with. Its just much harder to do that with 5e, the tools are partially missing (though in all fairness you could just use SCs verbatim out of 4e in 5e, the issue of XP costs aside).

But the beauty of the system is that it allows the DM to set everything up and make common sense calls: pick a DC off the screen and roll. Easy as pumpkin pie. No muss, no fuss.

Tools are meant to be open-ended; what the group and DM want to do with them, same as languages.

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[AbdulAlhazred]

Elegant *in practice* rather than in theory, absolutely: the rules facilitate really slick play, perhaps because of the oddities as much as anything.

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Not IMHO. Even my 5e-appreciating table-mates scrapped the skill system and rewrote it. There's nothing elegant about it, either in practice OR in theory. Confusing and awkward are better descriptions.

 

[Parmandur]

Not IMHO. Even my 5e-appreciating table-mates scrapped the skill system and rewrote it. There's nothing elegant about it, either in practice OR in theory. Confusing and awkward are better descriptions.

Well, experience may differ: but it's been a beauty in my experience, slick and fast-moving.

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[doctorbadwolf]

But the system also ran smoothly in 3.x and in 5E, pretty much across the board (grappling in 3.x was fairly ridiculous)...?

I disagree.

But more to be point, this exchange started with me stating that my friends and I enjoy 4e for reasons that have nothing to do with tactical combat. In our experience, 4e runs more smoothly, in every aspect, than previous editions.

Not IMHO. Even my 5e-appreciating table-mates scrapped the skill system and rewrote it. There's nothing elegant about it, either in practice OR in theory. Confusing and awkward are better descriptions.

Same.

 

[darkbard]

But the beauty of the system is that it allows the DM to set everything up and make common sense calls: pick a DC off the screen and roll. Easy as pumpkin pie. No muss, no fuss.

Tools are meant to be open-ended; what the group and DM want to do with them, same as languages.

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Except this virtually inevitably leads to DM fiat. At this point, why not dispense with dice entirely and just play Vampire? 4E's beauty is (I almost wrote was!) that it gives DMs a fair and balanced system with which to work, one that doesn't rely upon whim, fancy, or inclination.

The party wants to try something? Set up the skill challenge and let them narrate (and then roll based upon their declared actions) how they approach it. Let the dice and the characters' skills (not the players' skills) determine how the outcome develops.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But the beauty of the system is that it allows the DM to set everything up and make common sense calls: pick a DC off the screen and roll. Easy as pumpkin pie. No muss, no fuss.

Tools are meant to be open-ended; what the group and DM want to do with them, same as languages.

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How does it improve on 4e's system? It doesn't!

I can simply let people do stuff without checks in ANY system, I don't need to be told that not everything has to be a check (but 4e does actually point that out too).

Likewise, you pick DCs as you wish in 4e. Normally you'd imagine that the DCs would be commensurate with the level of the challenge (IE its a level 8 party, in an appropriately challenging setting, so a DC is likely to be a level 8 Medium DC and the situation described accordingly), you still have easy, medium, and hard options, plus you COULD always set the DC to some other level based on whatever reasoning the DM cares to use (or nothing but whim).

Well, here's another problem with tools, if you need proficiency to use them then why do they exist? I mean, if my non-proficient-in-carpenter's-tools guy uses a hammer, either he can't succeed or else its just a DM arbitrary call that the use is so easy that he can 'just do it'.

Is it a system at all? lol. I mean, why does this 'rule' even exist? Its pointless, just say that using tools is situationally up to the DM, they may be useful, required, or not, and presumably you are familiar with the uses you have skills which cover, and otherwise use your INT or whatever.

 

[Parmandur]

How does it improve on 4e's system? It doesn't!

I can simply let people do stuff without checks in ANY system, I don't need to be told that not everything has to be a check (but 4e does actually point that out too).

Likewise, you pick DCs as you wish in 4e. Normally you'd imagine that the DCs would be commensurate with the level of the challenge (IE its a level 8 party, in an appropriately challenging setting, so a DC is likely to be a level 8 Medium DC and the situation described accordingly), you still have easy, medium, and hard options, plus you COULD always set the DC to some other level based on whatever reasoning the DM cares to use (or nothing but whim).

Well, here's another problem with tools, if you need proficiency to use them then why do they exist? I mean, if my non-proficient-in-carpenter's-tools guy uses a hammer, either he can't succeed or else its just a DM arbitrary call that the use is so easy that he can 'just do it'.

Is it a system at all? lol. I mean, why does this 'rule' even exist? Its pointless, just say that using tools is situationally up to the DM, they may be useful, required, or not, and presumably you are familiar with the uses you have skills which cover, and otherwise use your INT or whatever.

I wouldn't necessarily say it improves on 4E, though a flat 1-30 range of absolute possibility is nice, as with AC and any other check. The system, in either case, works dandy as intended.

Tools are for character flavor: the Dwarf Fighter can brew, the Barbarian plays a recorder during rest interludes. Any use past flavor uses the same check system as anything else, with DM adjudication.

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