Are Rituals Vaporware?

[Just Another User]

What non-combat spells do you personally think are essential?

That is a good question. to me it translate in "if you were a wizard in real life, which spells would you want to be able to cast?" and my answer to this would be "certaily not 100+ variations of "kill enemies with magical energy blasts".
3.5 was quite lacking from that point of view, IMHO. 4e seems to have the potential to be even worse, but it is still too soon to be 100% sure.

 

[Will]

Lizard, can you name one ability/skill/character anything in 3rd edition which had absolutely nothing to do with combat?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Lizard, can you name one ability/skill/character anything in 3rd edition which had absolutely nothing to do with combat?

Profession

Unless you meant a USEFUL one

That said, I don't remember Diplomacy having many in-combat based uses, unless you count "avoiding combat" as having to do with it. For that matter, quite a few skills didn't directly effect combat - again, unless you count avoiding it.

 

[Lizard]

One of the 3.5 mechanics the group I game in found really drive roleplaying is Affiliations, as per 3.5 PHII, especially in the Savage Tide adventure arc. It's a late invention, and not core, but I really hope it gets ported to 4 as soon as possible...

I agree. To keep this on-topic, let me note that having affiliations be a source of rituals makes wonderful sense and provides world-building depth and DM control.

"Sure, wizards can teleport. The secret is known by the League of Voyagers Far, and they'll let you in on it once you've done them a few favors..."

 

[Lizard]

Lizard, can you name one ability/skill/character anything in 3rd edition which had absolutely nothing to do with combat?

Profession, Perform for non-Bards, most craft, Knowledge (Nobility) (and many other knowledges that didn't give you monster stats on a good role), any Feat which raised non-combat skills or offered bonuses in social situations, etc.

That said, there were a lot of places in 3e where there was a clearly forced and artificial attempt to make things "useful in combat". This keeps on in 4e.

On the subject of rituals -- it will be interesting to see how many aren't just 3e utility spells renamed. The concept opens up some tremendous opportunities for things 3e couldn't do, precisely BECAUSE spells tended to be castable in combat. Control the weather across a barony. Create an earthquake that topples a city. Sway the minds of a kingdom to follow your chosen leader. I would like to see rituals be "plot engines", either in terms of players needing to find them or players needing to deal with their effects, and to have a system behind them which isn't simply "whatever the DM wants".

For example, in Hero, I would often design massively powerful spells, things no PC could ever hope to learn, but the point cost let me gauge what kind of power would be needed to cast/control them and how much effort it would take. It was a very useful mechanism for defining the limits of power in the context of the world.

In my D20M game, I basically had to majorly handwave the climactic magic of the campaign; it was based on 100% pure "Because I'm the DM, that's why". My players went along with it, because they're good players, but I knew they felt it was at least vaguely "cheating" because there was no rules basis for it at all. It didn't fit the way the universe -- defined by the rules -- worked and I wasn't introducing a new framework to support it, I was just declaring it to be so. If the 4e ritual system cures this, I will give credit where it's due and steal it for 3x if needed.

 

[AZRogue]

In my D20M game, I basically had to majorly handwave the climactic magic of the campaign; it was based on 100% pure "Because I'm the DM, that's why". My players went along with it, because they're good players, but I knew they felt it was at least vaguely "cheating" because there was no rules basis for it at all. It didn't fit the way the universe -- defined by the rules -- worked and I wasn't introducing a new framework to support it, I was just declaring it to be so.

I think this is the perfect example of the other side of the spectrum. Where your group thought of what you did as vaguely cheating, my group and I would consider it standard gaming as usual. But I'm also a DM who takes no pleasure from setting up a campaign world and "cascading" the effects of the rules through the world. That approach has alway turned my stomach and I set the world up the way I want it and don't even crack a book for any of it (though the 1E DMG remains some of the best idea fodder that's ever existed).

Not that there's anything wrong with your approach. I just realized how far on one end of the meter you were in relation to myself. A lot of the things, I imagine, that are turning you off to 4E are the exact things that I find exciting.

The good thing is that I think we're both Rolemaster fans, so we can obviously live in peace.

 

[Teemu]

I really wonder, sometimes, at the 4e supporters, who seem shocked, amazed, and overwhelmed by the fact 4e lets them keep doing exactly what gamers have been doing since, oh, 1973. Here's some revolutionary features of 4e:

You can MAKE STUFF UP! Wow. I guess I was dreaming yesterday when, burned out after a long week, I went to DM my regular 3x game and just improvised my ass off, using PCGen to make up one major bad guy (a gnoll bandit king) in the car (asked my wife to drive, used my laptop), then making his followers up in the minutes before the fight by looking at gnolls and deciding they'd have roughly 2 more warrior levels, so +2 BAB, and lessee weapon focus for a +1 and kick the base saves up by 1, that ought to be good enough for a slaughter. (During some player-on-player interaction, I did have a minute to get them statted in PCGen, too, so the final figures were accurate).

I began DMing with 3.0, shortly after it was released. The DMG didn't exactly encourage this, at least not for a new DM. I tried my best to follow the rules as written, as they were described in the manual for the DM. Only after several years did I realize that I didn't have to obey the written word as slavishly as I'd thought. If the 4e DMG specifically tells the DMs to ignore the rules when they're too cumbersome to follow, I consider that a major improvement.

 

[DandD]

The important thing the DMG for the 4th edition should have is to tell how to make stuff up so that it still feels balanced, and in line with the relative power of the player characters. Making stuff up is easy. Making stuff up that won't result in a disaster might be much more difficult. I wonder if the 4th edition DMG will be able to accomplish that. According to the game developers, it will.
Of course, they might be like the game developers of 3rd edition who purposefully let stuff in like suboptimal choices, like the Toughness-Feat, Monks, Two-Weapon-Fighting and so on.

 

[pemerton]

While you are as free to roleplay in 4e as you were in any other edition, there's nothing added to the game to enhance or drive roleplaying -- no non-combat skills, no flaw/merit system, for example, no rules for contacts and connections, nothing which adds mechanics to anything other than hitting people with sticks. Not only are there no such things, they have been explicitly disdained by the developers as trivial and unworthy of mechanics, with the infamous, "Yeah, whatever, if you want to be a blacksmith, just write it on your character sheet, not like it ever matters" and "If a game session ever involved a Craft check, you weren't have enough fun" comments.

Profession, Perform for non-Bards, most craft, Knowledge (Nobility) (and many other knowledges that didn't give you monster stats on a good role), any Feat which raised non-combat skills or offered bonuses in social situations, etc

I don't understand why "non-combat skills" such as Craft, Profession and Perform are seen as enhancing roleplaying but combat skills are not. (I'll put Knowledge (Nobility) to one side, as it seems likely that 4e incorporates it either via the History skill or the Diplomacy skill).

Crafting, performaing and pursuing a profession are, like fighting, nothing more nor less than activity undertaken by a character. Thus, I am no more "playing the role" of my character when I resolve a situation using the craft mechanics than when I resolve a situation using the combat mechanics.

Likewise, to turn to rituals, spells and powers, I am no more "playing the role" of my character when I resolve a situation by forging spearheads out of a wall of iron than when I use a Wall of Iron power to advantage in a combat situation.

Is the real issue not about roleplaying, but rather about a game which has mechanics to handle ingame situations other than combat? Well, 4e (via the skill challenge mechanics) seems better suited to that, in my estimation, than any earlier edition of D&D. 3E gives the illusion of such mechanics, by incorporating non-combat skills into the character build rules, but then does not deliver: it has virtually no mechanical support for the generation and resolution of situations using those skills, it does not consistently incorporate the use of those skills into the player-reward mechanics - meaning that if I trade combat skills and feats for non-combat skills and feats I also trade away my capacity to improve my character by winning fights to earn XP and treasure - and it does not solve the problem of how these situations are to be successfully incorporated into a game whose principal focus is on party rather than solitary play.

In these respects I think 3E compares somewhat poorly to RQ or RM (both mainstream fantasy RPGs, both about 20 years older than 3E), which both dealt with the encounter-design problem and the reward problem more-or-less effectively. With respect to encounter design, both have semi-universal action resolution mechanics (RQ moreso than RM) which support non-combat encounters (and I know these are quite prevalent in published RM modules). With respect to reward mechanics, in RQ improvement in any given skill is generally independent of improvement in other skills, and depends only on the use of that skill (so there is siloisation and reward for skill use). In RM, there are more development points available to the typical character than can be usefully spent on combat skills, and XP are awarded for successful ideas and manoeuvres (so again there is a degree of siloisation and reward for skill use). Neither directly solves the problem of integrating diversely skilled characters into party play, but siloisation does facilitate a degree of Jack-of-all-Tradesishness in all PCs to help this along a little bit.

4e's siloisation of spell use via powers vs rituals seems to offer some of the same benefits as RM's spell lists (in RM, a spell-using character can develop sufficiently many spell lists that combat lists need not crowd out utility lists, and PP usage is flexible enough that using utility magic need not significantly undermine a PC's combat effectiveness). And skill challenges plus the power system for combat seem to effectively solve the party play problem by delivering the right degree of siloisation and hence universal ability to contribute.

As for the other mooted mechanics, flaw/merit systems (of which the AD&D alignment system, and the 3E paladin code are examples) are not essential to roleplaying, and indeed can frequently operate as a constraint on it by acting as obstacles to a player's playing of his or her character. And I don't think we know yet (or do we?) what the rules are for contacts and connections, although it seems likely that they will respect the action economy, and it seems unlikely (although you never know your luck!) that they'll be as well-developed as (for example) the follower and relationships rules in HeroWars/Quest.

 

[Will]

Perform is clearly used to earn money in down time to further combat ability. It DOES power bard powers used for combat. It can serve as a distraction in combat. Therefore, it is a combat ability.

Profession is also used for money. Each individual Profession can have great relevance in identifying potential combat abilities; helping you hunt down criminals or understand what enemies are up to. Therefore, another combat ability.

Craft, money. Identifying objects important in combat or to combatants. Heck, creating weapons and armor for combat! It's all combat.

Knowledge (nobility) is of vital importance when fighting noblemen, privateers, and recognizing heraldry in the middle of combat. It provides a synergy bonus with Diplomacy, which can influence and stop/start combat. All knowledge skills are there for combat.

All feats are about combat, all skills, all abilities.


At least, as much as the 4e information we've seen is. So glad to see 4e is at least as good as 3e in this respect.