Classes ... Much Less Flexible than Advertised

[Zaruthustran]

But that isn't what we're actually getting. What we're getting is classes that have a great deal of inescapable flavor. And not just metagame flavor like feat names - this is highly visible in-game flavor. Let's take our first case, the Rogue:
[SNIP: A bunch of rogue-flavored abilities]

I don't see a problem with classes having flavor. D&D is class-based, after all. And if those classes are to mean something, they have to have flavor.

Compare to 3E. I know many, many players who "took one level of Rogue" at first level just for the skill points and the 1d6 sneak attack. And that's all they took. After that they dipped into ranger for TWF, a little fighter for the feats, and so on. It was a mess, and got so bad that in the RPGA, when mustering, no one used class names at all. Instead we used role names, like "heavy infantry", "artillery", "scout", and so on.

That was fun for what it was, but 4E is not 3.75--it's an entirely new edition. And I *like* that Class seems to actually mean something in this edition. If you're a Rogue--an arr oh gee you ee Rogue--then yes, you sure should be able to pick a lock and hide in shadows. That's your *class*, it's what you're supposed to do.

If you want to play an "agile warrior", that's fine, but you shouldn't expect the Rogue to be that guy. The Rogue is, well, a Rogue.

 

[Cadfan]

Sure, there may be several pages of unreleased rogue material involving feats, other "builds", other powers and so on that completely and totally address the various expressed concerns about the narrowness of the class. But what if there isn't? What if the preview more or less encapsulates the theme and styling of the 4E Rogue? Is that okay?

It is essentially impossible that this encapsulate the whole of the rogue, precisely because there are several pages of unreleased material. Even leaving aside the feats, the powers alone are obviously nowhere near completed. I think its safe to say that, while we may not know the exact number of rogue powers in the book, it will be at least enough that for every level at which you choose a rogue power, there will be enough powers that you cannot choose them all. The specific options that people want may or may not be in those powers, but there most certainly will be more powers.

 

[JohnSnow]

I think this will be THE determining factor of whether the rogue (or any other 4E class) is too narrowly defined or not. From what I've seen so far, it seems like the 3E rogue is more flexible, though less flavorful, than the 4E rogue. Weapon choice, complete control over selected skills, and the lack of something like Rogue Tactics that encourage one or the other secondary stat, rather than leaving that more or less up to the player, seem to be the biggest differences, IMO.

Without getting into multiclassing, I think people are missing the point.

They've told us, since the beginning, that every class would have a defined role to play in combat. The rogue's combat role is "sneaky martial striker." My guess is that the ranger's role is "mobile martial striker."

I can't believe people are getting so wound up about the rogue getting 2 skills for free that we know next to nothing about. Stealth is, I suppose, pretty obvious. But what skills does "Thievery" entail? Based on previews to date, we know it covers disable device (probably including picking locks), but it might also include a lot of other things.

Chances are good that "extra trained skills" are gained via a feat. My guess is something like the following:

Skill Training
Tier: Heroic
Benefit: When you take this feat, you gain additional trained skills equal to 1 + your Intelligence Bonus (if any).

And we know that there's a LOT more than those powers. My evidence?

The preview article lists different powers for two separate rogue builds at level 1! So presumably, all the powers they mention are 1st-level. They mention 4 "at-will powers," and preview only 2. They mention 2 "encounter" powers and preview both (along with another that's a 2nd-level utility power). Under the builds, they mention two 1st-level "daily" powers (Easy Target and Trick Strike), but preview neither, instead giving us Crimson Edge, which is 9th-level!

I'm guessing there will be at least 4 (and probably more) "at-will" powers per level, plus some number of "per-encounter" and "daily" powers at each and every level as well. And that's where your options will come from. That means there's a LOT of powers missing. Probably upwards of 90% of them.

On top of that, you'll have feats. Since it's now looking like characters will get powers every level, does anyone want to take a crack at when they'll get feats?

Dare we hope that you get a feat every level as well??

Cuz that would be

 

[Celebrim]

Sure. It is most of the basic information. But do you think there are only going to be 12 powers total for the rogue in the PHB? That seems really small. 36 seems closer to what it would be. That would give a power a level, plus a few extras. Maybe the article is the whole ball of wax, but I doubt it.

Thaumaturge.

I don't think it is the whole ball of wax. That isn't the point.

I'm sure that there are many other powers. Heck, there are many powers listed in the builds not found in the articles. That isn't the point.

I'm sure that the builds are configurable. That's explicit. But, that isn't the point either.

The point is that 'brawy rogue' and 'tricky rogue' proceed from the choice of rogue tactics, and the powers choices are designed to complement that core area of ability.

The thing about Sherlock Holmes ('detective') and to a lesser extent Indy (classic 'Adventurer'), is that they are rogues whose choice of rogue tactics seems missing from the article. And its not easy to put it back in, because rogue tactics interacts in various ways with the powers. You need a whole new suite of options to suit them. The available talents and choices tend to support different sort of roles and archetypes. If other options were available, they would have at least been hinted at in the 'builds' section much as powers not in the article were hinted at in describing the builds.

And in context, we can be fairly sure that 'tough' and 'smart' rogues aren't going to be supported options. For one thing, we know that the article doesn't list Intelligence and Constitution as being particularly important for rogues, so if those options were available to support Intelligence, for example, they wouldn't be able to say that. We also know that 4E has a strong emphasis on combat. So we are very very unlikely to see alternate 'rogue tactics' that enhance the rogues social skills and problem solving rather than enhance thier combat ability. Why? Because if such options existed, it would be balancing character builds with slightly less combat relevance by having slightly more non-combat relevance, and that go against the grain of the design.

I would also like to say that very high on the list of complaints people had with 3rd edition was that many types characters weren't supported at 1st level. They required multiclassing (something you could somewhat do at 1st level in 3.0, but which was taken out of 3.5) or prestige classes. I would have thought it high on the list of things to fix that core classes became more flexible so that you could play a 'gish' or an arcane trickster or whatever starting at 1st level. I would have thought it high on the list of things to fix that we would not require 40 splatbooks with variant core classes just to be able to play very basic archetypes. I would have thought it high on the list of things to fix that we avoid the problems of late 3.5 were unconsidered synergies between the numerous published classes resulted in highly broken builds being available. In short, why is that the very same sorts of complaints people were making about 3E a few months ago have suddenly become the means by which the design of 4E is being defended?

Of course, in the abstract, I might be able to capture the flavor of a detective type character by multiclassing between rogue and warlord, and maybe a dash of ranger. But how is that actually a defense? Of course, in the abstract, it might be that 'Master Detective' is an available Paragon path. But how is that actually a defense? Moreover, it is equally possible that in fact multiclassing between rogue and warlord won't produce something with a strong 'detective' flavor, won't be all that elegant, and so forth. The 'black box' defense - you can't judge the quality of whats out of the box because the stuff still in the box is going to be so overwhelmingly good - is getting really old. We've got pretty big peices now. If you think narrower less flexible rogues capture the flavor better, are easier to use, and retain thier archetypal feel better, well then great. You are probably right. Enjoy 4E. But lets not put our hands over our eyes and refuse to see what we are seeing.

 

[ThirdWizard]

It looks to me like there's too much focus on what the 4e rogue can't do instead of what it can. With class systems, you really have to come at it as 1) read the class 2) decide what kind of characters you can make out of it. Instead of 1) Decide what kind of character you want to play with a rogue 2) try to make it. That just seems, to me, to be totally backward.

 

[Thaumaturge]

<snip> The 'black box' defense - you can't judge the quality of whats out of the box because the stuff still in the box is going to be so overwhelmingly good - is getting really old. We've got pretty big peices now. <snip>

Due to time constraints (I know, lame) I'll address this one issue. I don't believe I said it would be overwhelmingly good. I didn't say it'd be good. I make no judgment of that which I haven't seen, which, incidentally, is my whole point. It could be better than a Mona burger. It could suck. I haven't the foggiest. We have pretty big pieces, but the picture is still very disjointed. , and making blanket statements about how archetypes will be unattainable with the information we have is unfounded speculation.

By the way, I haven't sold off my 3e books yet, and Iwon't for awhile, because I'm not sure how 4e will play. I like most of what I've seen, but I'm not sold.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Cadfan]

The thing about Sherlock Holmes ('detective') and to a lesser extent Indy (classic 'Adventurer'), is that they are rogues whose choice of rogue tactics seems missing from the article.

What, precisely, are Sherlock Holmes' combat tactics? Should he have powers like Eviscerating Quip? The Subtle Put-Down? The Knowing Smile (in D&D terms, the Smile of Knowing)?

For Indiana Jones, I don't see a problem with taking whatever the 4e equivalent is of Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Whip, and Improved Unarmed Strike. Will those suck? Heck, we don't know, we haven't seen them. Whip sucked in 3e. Maybe it will still suck in 4e. But saying that a Whip wielding rogue with a solid left hook isn't a possibility is awfully premature. I could justify him as either a Brawny rogue (he punched a lot of people) or a Tricky rogue (he ran away a lot).

But the Sherlock Holmes one is a mystery to me. The Rogue Tactics choices are combat modifications to the basic rogue. Sherlock Holmes was never in combat. It seems that if you want a non violent character who talks a lot and solves mysteries, you have some more genre compatibility issues than could really be addressed in the rogue character class.

And if you're willing to modify the Sherlock Holmes archetype to fit a game in which fighting is a regular occurrence, this rogue isn't THAT bad at it. The only thing he's missing is Knowledge skills, which, while pretty important 1) are barely available to the 3e rogue either so if your comparison is that the rogue's diversity shrank this is a loser position for you, and 2) are handled in some manner that we basically don't know- possibly by just roleplaying them as your DM permits.

Sherlock Holmes- probably can't do it, because he doesn't fight people.
Lord Vetinari- probably CAN do it, and makes a good Sherlock-Holmes-Who-Stabs-People.

 

[Imp]

Interminable theory-loving yaps about "stronger class definition" and "the game not being everything to everyone" aside, I'm simply not going to play an RPG that doesn't allow me to make the characters that I want to play – I'd rather go back to 3e (E6, probably) and its flaws and yet actually be able to create characters that I like rather than wait years for 4e's gods-be-praised business model bleeding-the-consumer-strategy to come out with PHB 6 (power sources: Moxie, Spunk, and Runecrafting) that finally has the class that strikes my imagination.

4e multiclassing is strictly in believe-it-when-I-see-it territory at this point.

Also all the stuff "not being everything to everyone" carries with it an implicit surrender of, well, sales. The game is popular because it can be so many things. You want the new edition to sink, that you may direct disappointed would-be players to GURPS or whatever, well, good for you, because the game designers seem to be on board with that plan.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What, precisely, are Sherlock Holmes' combat tactics? Should he have powers like Eviscerating Quip? The Subtle Put-Down? The Knowing Smile (in D&D terms, the Smile of Knowing)?

Um, considering he knows kung fu ("Chinese Wrestling", as he calls it) and beats the hell out of people with sticks on a fairly regular basis, I'd suggest that he was a bit more melee-oriented than that.

I've also never read him use:

A) A put-down.

or

B) A quip.

On anyone but Watson. Who is purportedly his ally, so... I think you must be confusing Holmes with House or something. Definately, in fact, because you claim that "Sherlock Holmes was never in combat"? What?!

 

[Celebrim]

What, precisely, are Sherlock Holmes' combat tactics?

He's pretty handy with a revolver, although Watson is an even better shot. He's an expert at hand to hand fighting, and particularly skilled as a grappler.

Should he have powers like Eviscerating Quip? The Subtle Put-Down? The Knowing Smile (in D&D terms, the Smile of Knowing)?

No but he should have things like, 'Perfect Timing', 'Master of Surprise', 'Pinning Strike', ' and 'Right Place at the Right Time'.

But saying that a Whip wielding rogue with a solid left hook isn't a possibility is awfully premature.

I didn't say it wasn't possible. I'm just saying that Indy's player doesn't get the choice to move that +1 bonus from dagger to whip, just as Holmes's player doesn't get to move it to unarmed strike. And neither get to do 'sneak attacks' with thier weapon of choice.

Sherlock Holmes was never in combat.

Err.....you do realize that he doesn't smoke a pipe, right?