Classes ... Much Less Flexible than Advertised

[Raduin711]

The two sentences should be quite clear. The first sentence is a descriptive sentence, listing two specific skills that a rogue gets and stating that a rogue has a total of four other skills. The next sentence is an imperative sentence, instructing the reader, who supposedly is in the process of creating a rogue character, to pick four skills, the total of the other skills a rogue knows, from the given list.

And that's the way a lot of people are reading it but that just isn't what it says.

The word more. The separation into two different sentences. This is what I am basing this reading on. What are you basing your reading of it on?

 

[DSRilk]

The example you gave is very broad

I fail to see how I could get more specific than my merchant example - literally a real, individual character I created for a D&D campaign I played in -- it doesn't get much more concrete than that. I also am not sure how on earth that character concept was at all influenced by the rules. Seriously - what class or feats in the PHB are associated with creating a merchant/amateur artist, much less would lead one to see that as a D&D character archetype? What skills scream, merchant? Or artist, for that matter. None. After I had the concept, I picked skills that came as close as possible to fitting with the character. He ended up with diplomacy, for example. Why? Because that was as close as I could come to a skill that represented haggling the way I saw him doing it. Certainly not because I viewed him as diplomatic. To the point, I had no intention, nor did I, play him as a diplomatic character excepting during circumstances where it involved dealing for something (as opposed to winning favor, or what-have-you). I could see your point far more if I created a concept that involved a diplomatic character that could bluff a bit. But that wasn't at all how it was. As is evident by the traits that were described up front during the concept phase that had nothing to do with any game mechanics whatsoever. The concept truly grew from the title character on a TV show called Lovejoy - a mystery series in Britain.

While there are certainly times where character concepts are derived from the rule set, such as when I specifically set out to create a character that was a fighter who was convinced he was a paladin, and went around detecting evil based on what he thought was evil (as he obviously didn't have the power, but truly believed he did). Given that several characters I have created had literally no connection to the rule set at all (the above merchant being an extremely non-broad example), the word "always" that you used is inaccurate. However, it doesn't hurt me in the least if you want to think you're right on this, so if I haven't misunderstood what you meant, or you haven't misunderstood my previous post, feel free to consider yourself correct.

 

[mach1.9pants]

The two sentences should be quite clear. The first sentence is a descriptive sentence, listing two specific skills that a rogue gets and stating that a rogue has a total of four other skills. The next sentence is an imperative sentence, instructing the reader, who supposedly is in the process of creating a rogue character, to pick four skills, the total of the other skills a rogue knows, from the given list.

I think you are right, but it still is rubbish wording. "A Rogue gets 6 trained skills at first level: Stealth, Thievery and 4 others from this list:...." No ambiguity there.
Especially helpful for people like myself who don't know their imperatives from their pro-nouns...or whatever.

 

[mach1.9pants]

"A Rogue gets 6 trained skills at first level: Stealth, Thievery and 4 others from this list:...."

Or even better: "A Rogue gets 6 trained skills at first level: choose from this list:...."

 

[DSRilk]

I believe that the description in the spoiler is horribly written. It is grammatically vague. The statements appearing in two sentences does not imply from a grammatical standpoint either reading. However, both readings can be reasonably inferred. Why on earth they wrote:

"Stealth and Thievery plus four others. From the class skills list below, choose four more trained skills at 1st level."

Instead of either:

"Stealth and Thievery, plus four others from the class list below at 1st level."

or

"Stealth and Thievery, plus four others from the class list below, and an additional four more skills of any type."

is beyond me. I can't imagine, however, that they reduced the skill list in half, then gave the rogue 10 skills, which would effectively bring their equivalent total to 20 3e skills at first level. It seems much more likely that they brought the total up to an equivalent of 12. While only one reading makes sense to me from a game design standpoint, I believe either reading makes sense otherwise.

 

[Incenjucar]

I really really hope they have a better editor for the books than for the previews.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I really really hope they have a better editor for the books than for the previews.

[/holdbreath]

 

[DSRilk]

<mach1.9pants dies of suffocation />

 

[Incenjucar]

[/holdbreath]

Sage Advice and Errata are going to be working over time.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Yeah. Never you mind that the 3.0 PHB had fewer pages and allowed for several different kinds of rogue, fighter, ranger, cleric, wizard, sorcerer, druid, monk, etc. :\

Several different kinds of each class, through class feature choices/spell choices and feat or ability score choices. Rogues could sneak attack with whatever the heck they felt like wielding, even if it was just a handy rock or broken bottle. They could be sneaky or not. They could be thieves or not. They could be spies or not. Fighters could be better archers than rangers, better two-weapon fighters than rangers, or better sword-and-boarders than rangers, or better two-handed weapon wielders than rangers. Etc.

4e so far seems to pigeonhole the classes more.

Really? This must be a joke.

Player chosen class features in 3.0:
Skills
Feats
Spells(maybe)
Domains/School Specialization(maybe)
Equipment - limited, sort of, by proficiency and cost


Player chosen class features in 4.0:
Skills
Feats
Spells/Rituals(maybe)
Domains/Warlock Oaths(maybe)
Equipment - limited, sort of, by proficiency and cost
At-Will Powers
Per Encounter Powers
Per Day Powers
Tactics(maybe)
Weapon Specialization(maybe)
etc.??(maybe??)

You can argue in some arbitrary sense that 4.0 classes are more limiting, but it is empirically wrong to argue that players have fewer choices in determining their class features or builds. Just because some choices for two classes - fighter and rogue are the only things where I see people crying foul just yet - have been (arguably) deselected doesn't mean that the player has fewer choices as a whole or fewer builds to choose from.

At least, it's wrong to argue that at this juncture. Maybe there will come a point when the PHB comes out that we can actually enumerate the trade off in skills, feats, spells, equipment, and other choices between the two editions of the PHB and maybe at that point 4.0 will come out behind.

But categorically, the 4.0 class building system offers players more options and choices.