Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6052009" data-attributes="member: 996">Ookay.  Command had a one-round duration, so wasn't exactly non-combat.  Charm, likewise, if it failed or there were more NPCs involved than you could charm, probably initiated hostilities.  Hide in Shadows is covered in 3e & 4e by Hide and Stealth, respectively.  Bend bars/lift gates is covered in 3e by raw STR checks and in 4e by Athletics.  4e even has arcane utilities that are explicitly usable out of combat to sway NPCs, though they're not the "SoD/I win button" that Charm used to be. Bend-bars/lift-gates was not exclusive, it was based on STR, which everyone had, and anyone could get very high indeed with a spell or magic item.  Charm was pretty exclusive, but so were a lot of exceedingly powerful things that casters got, which led to the game being badly broken at higher levels.  Wow, I can't believe you just made this point for me.  There is nothing remotely believable about everyone except thieves being unable to hide.  It's profoundly gamist niche-protection, reeking of balance-over-verisimilitude (something 4e catches a lot of flack for).  How can you praise classic D&D for giving the thief niche protection by taking the fairly universal ability to hide away from every other class then go on to praise it for being "grounded in believability?"The system makes some attempt at balance, yes (though the design of classes doesn't really come through in the end, and some classes end up non-contributing in many more skill challenges than other - particularly the tradtional whipping boy of D&D, the fighter, 4e is like every other ed in that respect, the fighter sucks out of combat).  But, a skill has a function as a skill in 3e, as well (the only other ed with skills).  So if Climb lets you get out of a pit, you can get out of a pit with a decent climb check, even if you're not a Thief.  Is that all you're getting at?  Because, really, it'd be patently absurd to claim that only pickpocketing ne'er-do-wells can climb out of pits. Skill Challenges do something D&D never did before: they provide the DM with a mechanical framework for constructing out-of-combat obstacles that are challenging but can be overcome for a party at a given level.  That's a tool no other version of D&D even attempted to provide.  So, yeah, once that tool was actually banged into functional shape, it was 'better' than anything prior to it, by default.  Because there simply was nothing else to compare it to.  Rather like D&D in 1974, when it was the best RPG on the market, because it was the only RPG on the market.Non-combat challenges in 3e were very much like encounters in AD&D:  There were rules elements that could be used in resolving them, but the DM just threw together whatever 'felt right' and counted on his experience to avoid making it too easy or impossible.  Single skill checks often carried the day, making out of combat challenges quick pass/fail tests - which was fortunate, since stats, ranks and items could make the swing on a given skill check between the best and second-best characters so extreme that there was generally no way to include anyone but the best PC in most cases, so making resolution a quick single-roll pass/fail at least kept everyone else from getting bored for a long time.  That is, when a caster with the right spell (perhaps on a scroll or in a wand) didn't obviate the challenge automatically.In classic D&D, non-combat challenges were either instantly obviated by the right spells, fell into the protected niche of the Thief, or were handled using the player as resolution system.  The last is something some players - the one that are good at solving puzzles and snowing the DM, in particularly - have been delighted with.  It gives them a chance to ignore the mechanical weakness of their characters and play a sort of separate mini-game with DM, possibly getting some advantage for the character out of it.  It's great for "immersion" where you get the sense of playing yourself rather than your character, but not so great for actually modeling the abilities of the character.  It's one of those stylistic things, you come down on one side or the other.  But, either way, love it or hate it, it's the result of the game not even trying to handle something.  The failure clearly has nothing to do with the quality of the mechanics presented, nor with the fact that they were presented, at all.  4e failed to capture your 'customer loyalty' or excite your imagination for whatever reason, but the quality of the mechanics wasn't it.  4e is technically a better game.  WotC may have mis-handled it badly, or people may have conceived an irrational emotional hatred for it, or some may even dislike no longer being able to exploit so many profound flaws in the current version of D&D.  Even if you just think that it tried to handle out of combat challenge design, but you didn't care for the way it did, you have to admit that it was the first edition to actually /try/. That's better than not trying at all.</blockquote>

Verification