D&D 5E Blog Post by Robert J. Schwalb

[pemerton]

The rogue could have no combat focus and instead be a diplomancer or a skill monkey.

Other than BAB, sneak attack and evasion, all of which are core, combat-oriented features of any 3E rogue.

A 4e rogue can be a "diplomancer" too: good CHA (perhaps as an Artful Dodger), training and focus in Diplomacy, even a warlock MC to pick up the Beguiling Tongue encounter power. Or a "skill monkey", taking skill training and/or focus feats, even Ritual Caster, in lieu of combat-enhancing feats.

I agree a 4e sorcerer can't be an illusionist (that would be a wizard) or a shapechanger (that would be a druid).

 

[keterys]

But in 4e, both classes are suddenly equally effective in combat and out of combat. They both deal damage, and while they may not be identical, they both operate in the same "striker range" of damage, which should be higher than the other roles. The classes as always optimized for damage.

This isn't actually true, fwiw.

The rogue is innately more useful outside of combat until you examine utility powers (and feats), at which point either has a chance to focus on combat or noncombat more. Both also have vast variance in how much they choose to focus on damage, so unless your striker range is "pretty much the whole range, from tippy top to just a bit above pacifist clerics" with quite a lot of expected overlap by defenders, controllers (but not usually leaders unless you examine them in a cause-effect lens rather than personal output).

Anyhow, having seen two rogues play next to each other in 4e, one of whom was a king of social challenges, batman like movement stunts, and had "meh" damage (below the fighter's) and the other of whom was basically a stealthy thug who murdered any elite he set his eyes on... and similar for sorcerers, one of whom capitalized on wackiness in and out of combat (while doing steady but unremarkable damage output), and another of whom was surrounded in a constant nimbus of death that the rest of the party worked to capitalize around (flinging enemies in to die).

4e certainly made it harder to be useless in combat. Or outside of combat. That is absolutely true. It really enforced certain bare baselines of competence. Consider that an advantage or disadvantage depending what koolaid you're brewing.

 

[Raith5]

This isn't a shot at the edition. I'm not saying this is bad. It's just how the edition was designed: classes had roles. Rather than individual characters having roles or players maybe trying to fill a role. The game optimized classes for certain tasks. .

This altered a lot over the course of the edition (especially with respect to arrival of 4e essentials) because I think roles did weaken over time with newer classes and a wider range of feats. But my experience is you could significantly modify your role with feats and weapon choices. For instance in my party we have a polearm wielding fighter that has more intense control effects (within reach of his polearm, admittedly) than the wizard in the party (who was more of a debuffer and sage).

I think that roles operated in the sense that no matter how you designed your character, you could still do that role - but you could do other things. I think this is secret to 4th ability to make playable no optimised characters.

But I certainly agree that backgrounds could have been fleshed out more options and depth (ala 5e).

 

[dd.stevenson]

Maybe I've missed it, but I don't see people telling Schwalb to shut up. They're saying that he's wrong.

They're also saying he's edition warring.

Being wrong isn't edition warring; neither is edition warring being wrong.

 

[pemerton]

They're also saying he's edition warring.

Sure, but I don't read that as telling him to shut up. I read that as saying (I) that he's wrong, and part of the manner in which he's wrong is that he's re-hashing tired old characterisations of 4e (and perhaps also 3E - I'm not as familiar with the invective levelled at that edition, other than the old "Diablo" complaints); and (ii) that those characterisations are contentious, widely rejected and well-known to be provocative.

 

[Jester David]

Other than BAB, sneak attack and evasion, all of which are core, combat-oriented features of any 3E rogue.

A 4e rogue can be a "diplomancer" too: good CHA (perhaps as an Artful Dodger), training and focus in Diplomacy, even a warlock MC to pick up the Beguiling Tongue encounter power. Or a "skill monkey", taking skill training and/or focus feats, even Ritual Caster, in lieu of combat-enhancing feats.

I agree a 4e sorcerer can't be an illusionist (that would be a wizard) or a shapechanger (that would be a druid).

A 3e rogue can hurt their combat effectiveness through skill selection, ability scores, and feats in a way that is far less possible in 4e. A 3e rogue without Tumble won't have much mobility, but in 4e even a rogue with a Dex dump stat and no training in Acrobatics will be able to dance through the battlefield.

A 4e rogue can be *better* with the right feats and options, but the base power level is much higher. The range of variance in combat effectiveness is less. Hence: optimized.

This isn't actually true, fwiw.

The rogue is innately more useful outside of combat until you examine utility powers (and feats), at which point either has a chance to focus on combat or noncombat more. Both also have vast variance in how much they choose to focus on damage, so unless your striker range is "pretty much the whole range, from tippy top to just a bit above pacifist clerics" with quite a lot of expected overlap by defenders, controllers (but not usually leaders unless you examine them in a cause-effect lens rather than personal output).

Anyhow, having seen two rogues play next to each other in 4e, one of whom was a king of social challenges, batman like movement stunts, and had "meh" damage (below the fighter's) and the other of whom was basically a stealthy thug who murdered any elite he set his eyes on... and similar for sorcerers, one of whom capitalized on wackiness in and out of combat (while doing steady but unremarkable damage output), and another of whom was surrounded in a constant nimbus of death that the rest of the party worked to capitalize around (flinging enemies in to die).

4e certainly made it harder to be useless in combat. Or outside of combat. That is absolutely true. It really enforced certain bare baselines of competence. Consider that an advantage or disadvantage depending what koolaid you're brewing.

But in all your cases, the rogues are still doing damage. They're not "spymasters" who have no combat skills whatsoever.

Options do help. It certainly became possible to do stranger and stranger things with the edition and characters, but this certainly was not the case when the game started out, or the baseline assumption of the edition.

This altered a lot over the course of the edition (especially with respect to arrival of 4e essentials) because I think roles did weaken over time with newer classes and a wider range of feats. But my experience is you could significantly modify your role with feats and weapon choices. For instance in my party we have a polearm wielding fighter that has more intense control effects (within reach of his polearm, admittedly) than the wizard in the party (who was more of a debuffer and sage).

I think that roles operated in the sense that no matter how you designed your character, you could still do that role - but you could do other things. I think this is secret to 4th ability to make playable no optimised characters.

But I certainly agree that backgrounds could have been fleshed out more options and depth (ala 5e).

I don't disagree, but what an edition becomes and what the edition was designed to be are quite often different things.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Sure, but I don't read that as telling him to shut up. I read that as saying (I) that he's wrong, and part of the manner in which he's wrong is that he's re-hashing tired old characterisations of 4e (and perhaps also 3E - I'm not as familiar with the invective levelled at that edition, other than the old "Diablo" complaints); and (ii) that those characterisations are contentious, widely rejected and well-known to be provocative.

You couldn't substitute "he's edition warring" for (1) and (ii) above without losing almost all of the meaning. The part of the meaning that would remain would be "stop saying these things you're saying".

 

[pemerton]

A 3e rogue can hurt their combat effectiveness through skill selection, ability scores, and feats in a way that is far less possible in 4e. A 3e rogue without Tumble won't have much mobility, but in 4e even a rogue with a Dex dump stat and no training in Acrobatics will be able to dance through the battlefield.

I don't understand.

A 3E rogue without tumble can move through the battlefield, risking OAs. So can a 4e rogue. The only way to avoid OAs in 4e is to Shift - and rogues only get shifting abilities if they choose particular powers.

A 4e rogue can be *better* with the right feats and options, but the base power level is much higher. The range of variance in combat effectiveness is less. Hence: optimized.


But in all your cases, the rogues are still doing damage. They're not "spymasters" who have no combat skills whatsoever.

All 3E rogues have combat skill: medium BAB and sneak attack. (And evasion, too, which I think counts as a combat skill.) There are no 3E rogues who are "spymasters" who have no combat skills whatsoever.

And a 4e rogue who spends all his/her feats on non-combat, skill and utility related stuff will play very differently in combat from one who takes the various light-weapon buffing feats, two-weapon fighting, the feat that boosts sneak attack damage to d8, etc. [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] gave an example of variance in combat effectiveness.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But not every build has a secondary role in the PHB1. The wizard, rogue, ranger, warlord, and cleric don't have strong secondary roles.

Did you even read my post? The secondary role on PHB classes derives from power source. The Wizard is an arcane controller, the ranger a martial striker, and the cleric a divine leader. These are all doubling down.

This isn't a shot at the edition. I'm not saying this is bad. It's just how the edition was designed: classes had roles. Rather than individual characters having roles or players maybe trying to fill a role. The game optimized classes for certain tasks.

And I'm saying that classes had roles, which meant they were good at something. They are also much more flexible than non-casters in any other edition.

When you compare a 3e sorcerer with a 3e rogue things are very different as the what had how becomes very different depending on build. The rogue could have no combat focus and instead be a diplomancer or a skill monkey.

Nope. If a rogue has Sneak Attack and a medium BAB then they have a fairly strong combat focus irrespective of what else they pick. Throw in other class abilities like Uncanny Dodge and your claim becomes risible. And there is no practical way for a 3e rogue to be an actual skill monkey - there are just too many skills in 3.X to the point that it's possible for a first level 4E fighter to make a 3.X rogue turn green with envy.

The sorcerer could be an illusionist or polymorphing shapeshifter.

The sorcerer I will accept. The sorcerer is quite literally the only class where you can do this in the 3.X PHB. A "non-combat" wizard just needs a tiny infusion of spells to become a battlemage. All Bards get medium BAB, Inspire Courage (which takes it up to high BAB), and armour proficiency. That's not a non-combat focus either. The sorcerer on the other hand hard-codes their spells and has no inherent combat ability other than spells.

But in 4e, both classes are suddenly equally effective in combat and out of combat.

Nope. 4E rogues get six trained skills and a lot of them based on dex. One of the highest in the game.

They both deal damage, and while they may not be identical, they both operate in the same "striker range" of damage, which should be higher than the other roles.

The only reason the rogue is in the striker range of damage is Sneak Attack. Something that the 3.X rogue gets - but sneak attack scales faster in 3.X. But mysteriously despite having a massive damage class ability the 3.X rogue can lack a combat focus because...

The classes as always optimized for damage.

Nope.

A 3e rogue can hurt their combat effectiveness through skill selection, ability scores, and feats in a way that is far less possible in 4e.A 3e rogue without Tumble won't have much mobility, but in 4e even a rogue with a Dex dump stat and no training in Acrobatics will be able to dance through the battlefield.

Apples to oranges comparison. A 4e Ruthless Ruffian can, if they choose, pick literally no powers that enable them to dance through the battlefield. Giving them no more way to avoid opportunity attacks than the 1 square shift/5ft step of the 3e Rogue.

Another incorrect assertion.

A 4e rogue can be *better* with the right feats and options, but the base power level is much higher. The range of variance in combat effectiveness is less. Hence: optimized.

Optimised refers to the top of the range.

But in all your cases, the rogues are still doing damage. They're not "spymasters" who have no combat skills whatsoever.

Indeed. But it is, so far as I can tell literally impossible for a 3.X rogue to have no combat skill whatsoever. A rogue is always going to have Sneak Attack. A rogue is always going to have medium BAB. Almost all rogues are going to have Uncanny Dodge. These are all combat skills.

So your claim becomes "You can't create in 4e a type of rogue you can't create in 3e either".

The only core 3e class you can make into a genuine non-combatant is the sorcerer.

Options do help. It certainly became possible to do stranger and stranger things with the edition and characters, but this certainly was not the case when the game started out, or the baseline assumption of the edition.

The baseline assumption of 3.X is that everyone is going to be competent in combat. Something you can only avoid with an oddly built 3.X sorcerer (or arguably a 3.X Monk or 3.0 Bard - but that wasn't the design intent). A wizard with no combat spells is about as much a non-combatant as a fighter who refuses to wear armour - or Rambo becoming a pacifist monk.

I don't disagree, but what an edition becomes and what the edition was designed to be are quite often different things.

You certainly aren't arguing for what 3.0 or 3.5 were designed to be. So what exactly is your point? That what 3.X became was broader than the 4E PHB?

You are literally claiming that a class which gets a feature that just does situational extra damage has no combat abilities. This makes no sense.

 

[Nikosandros]

This last exchange is rather bizarre to my eyes. IMHO, the fact that all classes could hold their own in an effective way in combat, is one of the great (nay, awesome) thing of 4e. And here we have a 4e detractor 'accusing' it of doing so and a 4e lover trying to prove the claim wrong.