D&D 4E 4E Rogue for non-4E enthusiast

[Celebrim]

The broader pattern in complaints here is kind of interesting. It seems like a lot of people are upset that the new rogue is too limited (in equipment, skills, etc). Celebrim is a good example here. Personally, I kind of see this as a logical step for 4e. In 3e you had some classes (like monk and paladin) with super-restricted flavor and abilities, and others (rogue and fighter) that verged on "classless" in their flexibility. If you were playing a 3e "face" character who never snuck around or did anything remotely dishonorable, but who liked 8+Int skill points per level... do you really consider that a "rogue"?

Yes, of course I do.

As for your broader complaint, I detested classes like the monk, paladin, druid, barbarian, and ranger that seemed to me to be specific character concepts rather than a class of concepts. Paladin is a specific case of a divine champion. I didn't see why such a champion not only had to be LG, but had to carry flavor suitable to an idealized medieval Christian knight. Barbarian is a specific case of a cult warrior fanatic - in this case a Viking inspired beserker. I saw no reason why cult warrior fanatics had to be wilderness primitives, or why wilderness primitives had to be chaotic. I saw druid as a particular case of an animistic primitive priest, carrying lots of unnecessary northern european baggage. I saw these as very poor designs. The reason I saw them as bad designs is that they showed a poor understanding of the core idea of the class, and forced the creation of a new PrC's and new core classes just to allow very basic variants on the class to be created. This led to a proliferation of mechanics, inelegance, and game imbalance.

I did not see the extremely flexible classes like fighter, cleric, and rogue to be badly designed. Rather I saw these as extremely elegant designs suggesting how the other classes might be designed. Thus, I replaced paladin with 'Champion' (based on BotR's 'Holy Warrior/Unholy Warrior'), I replaced druid with a more generic 'shaman' class, I replaced Barbarian with a 'Fanatic' class that did not require 'wildernes primitive' as part of its description, and Ranger with a more generic 'Hunter' class. I felt that this was in keeping with the positive trend toward greater and greater flexibility seen from 1e to 2e to 3e. I fully expected 4E to move the game in the direction I went with it. Instead, it seems intent on moving it in the opposite.

A guy sneaking around in a chain shirt with a club isn't exactly a "typical" rogue either.

You are making the very same mistake here as the 4E designers. You are defining the concept of a class principally by the superficial trappings of the class. You are neglecting the core idea of the class, which in the case of a 'rogue', is something like a skillful individual that survives by his wits. I can very much see a guy sneaking around in a chain shirt with a club as a skillful individual that survives by his wits, whether that means his quick reflexes or his quick thinking or his fast talking - or possibly some combination of all of that.

This doesn't mean it shouldn't be possible, but it doesn't bother me overly that you'll need to take an extra feat or two to make it happen.

Feats are a very limited resource. You shouldn't need to use feats in this manner. If you force too many feats to be spent to do something, then you are effectively forbidding it by pricing it out of existence. I shouldn't need a feat license to do something which should be part of the flexibility of the class. Third edition proves that.

I predict that people here will be similarly disappointed by fighters and wizards, which are being "honed" to more restricted archetypes, and they'll be happy about the new flexibility of rangers, paladins and warlocks.

Well, yeah. Although personally, 'warlock' always struck me as among the most blatant of the 'inspired by limitations in the mechanics of the game' classes, and I have no idea why it needs to be ported into the new edition. It seems to me that you could take everything that is interesting about 'warlock' and fold it into everything interesting about 'sorcerer' and make a better game.

 

[Celebrim]

Would you say that this applies equally, or at all for that matter, to the classes found in the 3e PHB?

I'm not not sure that either option reflects the actual situation, but certainly you can site the case of the Bard from 3E as a class which certainly wasn't balanced as a combat option versus other classes. It's rather notable in its absense from 4E.

But I think you are rather missing the point.

A 3rd edition rogue wasn't necessarily balanced with fighter as a combat class. You had the option of going that route with the build if it was appropriate to your campaign needs (high combat, low social interaction, low problem solving) and it would be against most foes capable of fighter like feats of martial prowess, but the same class could be used to build classes that strongly favored non-combat approaches to problems if that suited your character concept and the needs of the campaign. You weren't being told how to play the game by the design of the class.

 

[Lizard]

Y'know, I think people criticizing what we've seen of the 4e rogue are not putting in the other pieces we've seen of 4e. It is allegedly going to be easy to pick up other class abilities. Want a chainmail rogue? Just take the armor proficiency! Want to use other weapons? Learn them! Following D20M and SWSE, you will have feat picks coming out your...character sheet, enough to make it much easier to build a 'non standard' character without giving up vital choices (which will be in your class talents).

Despite the ridiculous steps backwards with the shrinking skill list and the 'design by exception' monsters, I do not think they'll turn the clock all the way back to 2e and make it so you can't learn any weapons/armors/skills outside your 'class definition'.

 

[Reaper Steve]

If you mean by 'not seen the tip of the iceberg of powers and feats', 'what do you think that new Player's Handbook every year, plus assorted class specific splatbooks are for?', then I absolutely agree. But if you mean by it, 'This is only an excerpt of the thief write up in the upcoming Player's Handbook', then I think you are going to be really disappointed.

Nope, I won't be disappointed. What I've seen is fine for me.

I know that confidence is high. Some people have been fully confident that 4E was going to solve every problem they've ever had while role-playing and wash the dishes too since before the first preview. But at some point the tired old argument that we can't make a judgement until we've seen everything gets a little ridiculous.

So far, 4E is appearing to solve every problem I have with previous editions. As for the dishes, my wife usually takes care of those! (BUt I'm smart enough to help on occasion.

Let's keep this in context. Everything about the design thus far suggests that there will be no attempt to balance classes between combat and non-combat powers. The idea of a 'face man' who sacrifices combat ability for some non-combat ability seems antithetical to the design approach we've seen.

That is an expressly stated goal of 4E. Combat functions will not be balanced by non-combat functions, and vice versa. I think that is a huge leap in game design. But I do think that you will have the choice of selecting feats/powers/whatevers that better emphasize a combat function or a non-combat function. Your sneaky faceman will still be an effective martial striker, but maybe not quite as much as my focused dirty skirmisher.

 

[Aus_Snow]

But I think you are rather missing the point.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't either missing 'the point'. . . or not missing it. More to the point, that's not the point: I was actually just asking a question. The reason why, was that I would hopefully gain some insight into where you're coming from here, and therefore what might inform some of your conclusions, other than simply the data as presented by WotC.

The question was not a statement in disguise. Not one of those "aha! but you didn't think of this, did you" kinds of 'question', IOW.

A 3rd edition rogue wasn't necessarily balanced with fighter as a combat class. You had the option of going that route with the build if it was appropriate to your campaign needs (high combat, low social interaction, low problem solving) and it would be against most foes capable of fighter like feats of martial prowess, but the same class could be used to build classes that strongly favored non-combat approaches to problems if that suited your character concept and the needs of the campaign. You weren't being told how to play the game by the design of the class.

Agreed. This is in fact one of the things (or 'arrays of things', perhaps) that bothers me most so far.

Thanks for taking the time to explain.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Let's keep this in context. Everything about the design thus far suggests that there will be no attempt to balance classes between combat and non-combat powers. The idea of a 'face man' who sacrifices combat ability for some non-combat ability seems antithetical to the design approach we've seen.

I believe that this is, in fact, an explicit goal of this edition.

I might argue with you over the significance of this, in particular the idea that sacrificing combat ability is necessary to the 'face man' concept, but in so far as we know if there is in fact a way to hardcode a character who sacrifices combat ability for non-combat ability then the designers have failed in their aims.

You as the player are free to cripple any character's combat abilities. The designers as the crafters of the rule's set are not.

On the other hand, that should give hope for the idea that you can build up a character's non-combat abilities just as strongly as you can it's combat abilities.

It's worth noting that creation of INT as a dump stat and consolidation of skills dissolves the combat vs. non-combat schizophrenia that characterized much of the prior versions of the Rogue. In which sense the game is providing you wtih fewer restrictions.

 

[Ahglock]

That is an expressly stated goal of 4E. Combat functions will not be balanced by non-combat functions, and vice versa. I think that is a huge leap in game design.

I think it is a huge leap in game design as well, unfortunately to me its a huge leap backwards.

 

[Celebrim]

Despite the ridiculous steps backwards with the shrinking skill list and the 'design by exception' monsters, I do not think they'll turn the clock all the way back to 2e and make it so you can't learn any weapons/armors/skills outside your 'class definition'.

I didn't say that they would. However, the ability to pick up extensions to the class in terms of weapons, armor, or skills is not progress. I've already got that capability in 3E.

I don't see why those 'extra feats' should need to be spent restoring options that could have been included in the class with no loss of game balance. Is Diplomacy so much more powerful than Bluff that it couldn't have been an option in the class skill list? The problem is that games tend to punish you for taking 'breadth' options. If I spend a limited resource like a feat to get trained in 'Diplomacy', that's a feat I didn't spend improving my 'Bluff'. If I spend a limited resouce like a feat to be able to use a light crossbow, then that's a feat I didn't spend getting better at the handcrossbow or dagger.

 

[Celebrim]

I believe that this is, in fact, an explicit goal of this edition.

I think that is what I just said.

It's worth noting that creation of INT as a dump stat...

That phrase in and of itself would be enough to turn me off to 4E no matter how much I'd been previously excited by it. This is such a huge step backwards to the bad old days, that if WotC had the capacity to forbid me from playing 3.X, then I'd go back to GURPS. Period.

The idea that INT is once again a dump stat for most characters makes me sick.

...and consolidation of skills dissolves the combat vs. non-combat schizophrenia that characterized much of the prior versions of the Rogue. In which sense the game is providing you wtih fewer restrictions.

That's a pretty tortured definition of 'fewer restrictions'.

 

[FireLance]

I think it is a huge leap in game design as well, unfortunately to me its a huge leap backwards.

I see it as a logical progression of the 3e idea of not balancing a mechanical advantage with a role-playing restriction. Essentially, keep combat and non-combat abilities separately siloed so that a character's overall effectiveness will not depend on the relative frequency of combat and non-combat encounters.