4E Muscles, BD&D Bones

[Dausuul]

As regards the thief's role outside combat, my thinking is that thief abilities should be extraordinary--things that a normal person would not be able to do. Anybody can sneak around. Not everybody can disappear in a shadow with no other cover. Anybody can search for a trap. Not everybody can sense a trap just walking past it*. Et cetera. This would allow "mundane thievery" to be handled by ability checks, while giving thieves some unique tricks available to no one else.

For skills... well, to some extent the system already has skills, in the form of ability scores. Core class features and primary combat mechanics are mostly divorced from ability scores; you can now be a perfectly good fighter with a Strength of 8. So your stat allocation will be dictated less by "I have to have these stats to be good at my class" and more by "I want to be good at the following skill-type activities." If you want to be good at sneaking and doing backflips, raise your Dexterity. If you want to be good at fast-talking, raise your Charisma.

I do like the idea of some sort of profession mechanic along the lines of 2E's Secondary Skills, where each PC gets one or two. (Instead of giving a bonus, though, I'd list "simple" and "trained" activities under each profession. Simple activities are things that a normal person could attempt with an ability check; those with the profession succeed without rolling. Trained activities are things that normal people can't even attempt; those with the profession can make ability checks. So a blacksmith could perform field repairs on metal equipment without a roll, or forge a sword with an ability check.)

However, professions ought to be very much a background thing, not the sort of stuff that comes up regularly while adventuring. If Profession: Huntsman gives you the ability to spot ambushes while Profession: Blacksmith gives you the ability to make horseshoes, you're going to see a whole lot of Huntsmen and nary a Blacksmith in sight. Think of it this way--stuff like spotting ambushes, sneaking around, and knowing how to kill trolls so they stay dead is the province of Profession: Adventurer. All D&D characters have this profession by definition. So it cancels out, and ability scores and class are the determining factors in who's good at what.

[size=-2]*This particular ability also has the nice side effect that paranoid parties won't have to stop and declare "I search X, Y, and Z" every five feet of dungeon.[/size]

 

[KidSnide]

As regards the thief's role outside combat, my thinking is that thief abilities should be extraordinary--things that a normal person would not be able to do. Anybody can sneak around. Not everybody can disappear in a shadow with no other cover. Anybody can search for a trap. Not everybody can sense a trap just walking past it*. Et cetera. This would allow "mundane thievery" to be handled by ability checks, while giving thieves some unique tricks available to no one else.

That makes a lot of sense, although I tend to think of the thief's specialness being more about how they interact with combat. I think anyone with the proper abilities and traits should be able to participate effectively in a "sneak into the guarded building encounter", but only a thief should be able to reliably sneak around the periphery of a combat to deliver a backstab.

For skills... well, to some extent the system already has skills, in the form of ability scores. Core class features and primary combat mechanics are mostly divorced from ability scores; you can now be a perfectly good fighter with a Strength of 8. So your stat allocation will be dictated less by "I have to have these stats to be good at my class" and more by "I want to be good at the following skill-type activities." If you want to be good at sneaking and doing backflips, raise your Dexterity. If you want to be good at fast-talking, raise your Charisma.

I agree that the ability scores should be at the core of non-combat activities, and I think the separation between ability scores and class abilities is a great strength of this system. My concern is that I would want to allow a rules-light mechanism for providing more PC differentiation. If there are no rules for skills / traits, then the Cha 17 character is strictly better than the Cha 15 character at everything Cha related. I think it would be better if the two characters could have separate spheres of expertise. The Cha 17 swashbuckling rogue might be better at faking nobility than the Cha 15 noble is at taking streetwise, but each is still superior in their own area of experience.

Of course, this concern might be an artifact of my own D&D experiences in which we spend most of our time talking to NPCs (and so differentiation between areas of social expertise is a vital part of niche protection).

-KS

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My concern is that I would want to allow a rules-light mechanism for providing more PC differentiation. If there are no rules for skills / traits, then the Cha 17 character is strictly better than the Cha 15 character at everything Cha related. I think it would be better if the two characters could have separate spheres of expertise. The Cha 17 swashbuckling rogue might be better at faking nobility than the Cha 15 noble is at taking streetwise, but each is still superior in their own area of experience.

Another simple way to handle this issue with mechanics is to let each character take a bonus/penalty on a pair of skills (or skill options). If you are worried about some of the choices being too min/max inducing, limit the possible combos via traits:

Bookworm: The character gets a +2 to checks when searching or studying written materials, but takes a -2 to checks when jumping, swimming, or climbing (player picks one).

You don't even need a complete list--merely enough to show how they are put together, then encourage people to make their own.

 

[Dausuul]

That makes a lot of sense, although I tend to think of the thief's specialness being more about how they interact with combat. I think anyone with the proper abilities and traits should be able to participate effectively in a "sneak into the guarded building encounter", but only a thief should be able to reliably sneak around the periphery of a combat to deliver a backstab.

I think we're more or less on the same page about the thief. TSR D&D always struggled with the question, "What happens when the fighter takes off her armor, puts on soft shoes, and walks real quiet-like?" Clearly we agree that a fighter should be able to try this, with some chance of success. So if thieves are extra-good at stealth, either they need big bonuses that the fighter doesn't get (too crunchy and fiddly for my taste), or they need to be able to do stuff where the DM could reasonably tell the fighter, "No, you just plain can't do that"--like ghost right past a guard with no cover but a shadow.

I don't view a thief as being primarily about combat specialness--but a thief should have special things to do in combat, that nobody else can do. This is one of 4E's crucial insights. In a game where combat plays an enormous role, every class needs a place in the combat spotlight.

If there are no rules for skills / traits, then the Cha 17 character is strictly better than the Cha 15 character at everything Cha related. I think it would be better if the two characters could have separate spheres of expertise. The Cha 17 swashbuckling rogue might be better at faking nobility than the Cha 15 noble is at taking streetwise, but each is still superior in their own area of experience.

That's a good point; still, I think professions can be made to cover this scenario. The noble would presumably have Profession: Aristocrat. The rogue has a very good roll to imitate the manners and behavior of a noble... but the real noble doesn't have to roll at all.

Really, this is less a question of complexity and more a question of DM load. An open-ended trait system such as you describe is not much crunchier than professions, but it does require more work from the DM, who has to constantly adjudicate what is or is not covered by any given trait. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it coexists well with ability scores and the rest of D&D; the marginal gain is not enough to justify the cost. Open-ended traits are best used as the central mechanic of a system built around them.

Using professions rather than traits doesn't remove the need for DM adjudication, but it confines it to a more limited space. (We're arguing some fairly fine details here. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of distance between your vision and mine, mostly just a question of how defined the "secondary skill" system is and how much application it should have in regular play.)

 

[KidSnide]

That's a good point; still, I think professions can be made to cover this scenario. The noble would presumably have Profession: Aristocrat. The rogue has a very good roll to imitate the manners and behavior of a noble... but the real noble doesn't have to roll at all.

Using professions rather than traits doesn't remove the need for DM adjudication, but it confines it to a much more limited space.

I guess I'm not quite sure what the difference is between a profession system and a more open trait system. (Except in that a player would have to choose "Profession: Courtesan" instead of "Sexy" or "Seducer".) How do you see professions as working?

-KS

P.S. A PC in my current campaign has a custom feat that grants a power bonus for skill checks during flirting...

 

[Dausuul]

I guess I'm not quite sure what the difference is between a profession system and a more open trait system. (Except in that a player would have to choose "Profession: Courtesan" instead of "Sexy" or "Seducer".) How do you see professions as working?

Mostly what I'm worried about is that a PC with the "Sexy" trait would end up saying (if the PC is female) "I'm batting my eyelashes and flashing my cleavage" in order to finagle a bonus to the Charisma check every time the character interacts with a straight humanoid male. This puts the burden on the DM to figure out what the scope of each trait should be, and leads players to pick traits for their adventuring usefulness rather than fleshing out the character. If one PC is using "Sexy" to get information and favors all over the place, the PC who took "Blacksmith" instead is going to be left out in the cold (figuratively and literally), because it's really hard to find as many in-play applications for blacksmithing as for sex appeal.

Now, if traits are more strictly defined in terms of what you can achieve with them, I could see it working. "Sexy" wouldn't be a problem if its sole use was to get people into bed. But then you run into the issue of "What qualifies as a trait and how do you define what each one can be used for?"

Limiting the list to professions rather than personal traits helps guide the setting of limits overall. If you have "Profession: Courtesan," you know the professional skills of a courtesan--applying makeup, preventing unwanted pregnancy, being good in bed. An ordinary PC might have to roll Charisma to please a sexual partner, whereas the courtesan can do it automatically. But when it comes to eliciting information from a suspicious guard, the courtesan has no particular advantage over the silver-tongued rogue or the knight whose every word breathes honor and sincerity.

Moreover, you can make a list of professions that covers most of the options in a medieval society, give a quick (2-3 lines) rundown of what each one can be used for, and still fit it into a couple of pages. (I think. Haven't tried. Possibly harder than it seems.) Now and then you'd get a player who wanted something outside the box, but in most cases the standard list would do the job. But a list of traits could fill the entire book. You'd have to leave it up to the players and the DM to hash out the details on a case-by-case basis, which goes against the goal of fast and simple chargen.

 

[KidSnide]

Mostly what I'm worried about is that a PC with the "Sexy" trait would end up saying (if the PC is female) "I'm batting my eyelashes and flashing my cleavage" in order to finagle a bonus to the Charisma check every time the character interacts with a straight humanoid male.

In my experience - both in RL and in game - women to attempt to do this in every situation quickly incur the displeasure of (1) other women, (2) straight men who dislike being obviously manipulated and (3) people mistaken for straight men.

In any case, I think it's hard to balance the value of professions. "Navy Captain" would be useful for navigation, weather prediction, rope climbing, ad hoc engineering, certain types of mathematics, being heard at long distances, logistical planning and organizing large groups of men.

I see your concern -- it is certainly easier to create an overly useful trait than it is an overly useful profession. I just think that "blacksmith" (to pick a canonical example) just isn't useful enough to be worth representing in the rules. I would much rather have NWPs/Professions/Traits represent abilities that come up.

...and this comes from someone who spent several years playing a blacksmith. Unless your character is one of the greatest smith's in the known world, it's just not that relevant.

-KS

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If one PC is using "Sexy" to get information and favors all over the place, the PC who took "Blacksmith" instead is going to be left out in the cold (figuratively and literally), because it's really hard to find as many in-play applications for blacksmithing as for sex appeal.

Not if at least a few people in the group understand what "Blacksmith" in a medieval society means. "Blacksmith" implies not specialized as weapon smith or armor or such. And that means, probably learned in an environment where he did all kinds of work. A real blacksmith of the period would be better than average (your average person) at carpentry, handling horses, understanding basic economics, and other such supporting skills related to pounding and forging metal into useful shapes. And most of them are either in a town (and thus involved in guild politics and the like) or a village smith (and thus also doing some farming on the side).

The problem with "Blacksmith" is that it is overpowered. And the problem with traits, is that they assume everyone is one the same page on what each trait covers, when they seldom are. I think the only way to have them and keep them simple is to use them as basic labels for something much more circumscribed, and thus explained.

 

[howandwhy99]

To my understand RC is a collection of all the BECMI items, plus miniatures and skirmish combat rules. It isn't a monolithic whole, but rather a hodgepodge of pieces reprinted, though with some, mostly slight, changes.

So my suggestion would be to keep this modularity for the design. Want a immortal level system? Here's a few. Want a mass combat system? Ditto. I understand the desire for each to fit with the another, but this isn't impossible with good design. Plus, you can keep putting out variant designs as a publisher. Don't know your current set up as a designer though.

 

[Keldryn]

As regards the thief's role outside combat, my thinking is that thief abilities should be extraordinary--things that a normal person would not be able to do. Anybody can sneak around. Not everybody can disappear in a shadow with no other cover. Anybody can search for a trap. Not everybody can sense a trap just walking past it*.

This is something that I think gets overlooked about how thief skills originally worked. I know that in those early days, we missed the whole point that a thief's abilities are extraordinary. I think this is in part because the "Basic" D&D sets had very brief descriptions of thief skills and didn't really emphasize that they represented extraordinary capabilities.

From the AD&D Player's Handbook:

Finding/removing traps pertains to relatively small mechanical devices such as poisoned needles, spring blades, and the like. Finding is accomplished by inspection, and they are nullified by mechanical removal or by being rendered harmless.

The thief's ability to find and remove traps is primarily about finding small traps on doors or chests, and represent very specialized knowledge and skill. Anybody can find pit traps, trip wires, pressure plates, floor spikes, and the like by using some common sense and logical thinking. The mechanisms by which these types of traps are triggered are understandable by someone without specialized knowledge -- such as the players themselves, who can describe how they go about looking for such traps.

Moving silently is the ability to move with little sound and disturbance, even across a squeaky wooden floor, for instance. It is an ability which improves with experience.

A thief is able to move with near complete silence, which is not the same thing as moving quietly so as to avoid being noticed. Anybody who is not a clumsy oaf or who is not wearing noisy metal armor can move quietly and avoid detection when there is some amount of ambient noise. Only a thief can sneak past an observant guard in a quiet area, moving across wooden floors or dried leaves without a sound.

Hiding in shadows is the ability to blend into dark areas, to flatten oneself, and by remaining motionless when in sight, to remain unobserved. It is a function of dress and practice... Success makes the thief virtually invisible until he or she moves.

Anybody can hide where there is appropriate cover -- a thief can make use of the environment to essentially hide in plain sight, so long as she isn't being observed while doing it.

Et cetera. This would allow "mundane thievery" to be handled by ability checks, while giving thieves some unique tricks available to no one else.

I think we're more or less on the same page about the thief. TSR D&D always struggled with the question, "What happens when the fighter takes off her armor, puts on soft shoes, and walks real quiet-like?" Clearly we agree that a fighter should be able to try this, with some chance of success. So if thieves are extra-good at stealth, either they need big bonuses that the fighter doesn't get (too crunchy and fiddly for my taste), or they need to be able to do stuff where the DM could reasonably tell the fighter, "No, you just plain can't do that"--like ghost right past a guard with no cover but a shadow.

Mundane thievery might not even need to be checked much of the time. If there is sufficient noise in the environment, the party can move without being heard. Anybody can hide around a corner or behind a large piece of furniture. Anybody can find a pit trap or trip wire by probing. In the case of traps, it's on to the DM to place them where they make sense and not in random locations just to catch PCs off guard; they should be protecting something valuable, they should be set up at the entrance of an area to delay/deter invaders while warning the inhabitants, and they should not be where inhabitants will accidentally trigger them.

If the fighter strips off his heavy armor and puts on soft shoes, he can move quietly enough to avoid detection if total silence is not required. He can't move across a squeaky wooden floor without making noise unless he's wearing Boots of Elvenkind. He can hide where there is adequate concealment, especially if he has a few moments to squeeze into a tight spot, but only a thief can flatten his back against the wall in a split second and avoid being seen. There is a fair bit of room here for the DM to make a judgement call as to just how stealthy the fighter can be, and the fighter's dexterity score can be taken into account. However, thieves will always be better at these "mundane stealth" attempts; perhaps the fighter needs to make a dexterity check of some sort, but the thief should be able to succeed automatically.