Classes ... Much Less Flexible than Advertised

[Cadfan]

The smell.

Its his trademark. He's an assassin. The wealthy fear the smell of grilled, fatty meat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If, upon release of 4e, I read the PHB and discover that intelligence is of ZERO OR NEARLY ZERO VALUE to a rogue, and that therefore a rogue for whom "smart" is a character descriptor is no longer viable, I HEREBY PROMISE to come to this forum and issue a mea culpa. But until then, I'm going to be convinced that "smart rogue" is fully compatible with "brawny rogue," creating the lovely hybrid "smart brawny" rogue. And that any other similar combination is AT LEAST as viable as it was in 3e, if not more so.

Promises are worthless if you know you'll never have to deliver on them.

INT will probably have some value that we haven't seen for all characters, and it's definately possible that the value of a high INT for a given rogue is higher than for many other characters.

The complaint isn't so much incompatibility as it is that the archetypes are not reinforced. I may be a "smart brawny rogue" but if I have 30 levels worth of abilities dedicated to how brawny I am and just happen to have an Int of 12 and a few extra skills....that wouldn't do the trick for me, I'm afraid.

 

[helium3]

However, I think that Third Edition put the designers firmly in the "not-flexible" class role - to an extent. Without some form of niche protection, you end up with classes like the bard, who have no niche, and therefore no role. They're suboptimal at everything, which is hardly conducive to play. At the other extreme, there are classes like the cleric and druid, who can outdo everyone else.

Well, that's not true. Bards are good at things, they just aren't good at things that players who demand constant ego-validation require from an RPG.

 

[Spatula]

I'll give you Thievery, that should probably have been recommended rather than automatic. As a DM I would likely let someone who wanted to use the class more as a skirmisher than a thief choose another skill instead. Stealth makes sense enough to me. The lightly armed and armor guy is better able to sneak around? I buy it.

The skill issue is more about making sure people don't shoot themselves in the foot, I think. Certains tasks are expected of certain classes, so it's best to not assume that all players will automatically know this. Have the expected abilities built into the classes and there's no problem.

I think your jumping way too soon here. For all we know all character classes are automatically proficient in simple weapons, or simple weapons simply don't require proficiency to use.

This has been brought up as a possibility before, but given that dagger & sling are specifically on the rogue's list of proficiencies, I do not think that it is likely.

 

[Celebrim]

Just something else about what weapons are useful: multi-classing. The rogue gets sneak attack at first level for +2d6 damage, which means a fifth level ranger might be able to take 1 level of rogue and be able to sneak attack.

So a rogue 6 does the same sneak attack as a ranger 5/rogue 1, but the ranger can use better weapons for it.

You are making some huge and I think very unwarranted assumptions here.

I don't think multi-classing is going to work anything like 3e multiclassing. I'm not at all sure at this point that a ranger 1/rogue 1 is going to have alot in common necessarily with a rogue 1/ranger 1. We just don't know how multiclassing is implemented, but I'm just about positive that the 3E model is impossible to integrate with what we've seen so far. If it does allow obvious frontended exploits like you suggest, then the certainly haven't 'fixed' multiclassing.

 

[Spatula]

And making razor-precise attacks with a shuriken, sling or long bow? Err.... no. At least not in the middle of combat.

"Sneak Attack
Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and are using a light blade, a crossbow, or a sling"

You were saying?

 

[Cadfan]

That's interesting because one of my fears since they moved to the 'everyone is a spell caster with per encounter powers' model, is that there would be extensive mechanical overlap between different classes abilities and that classes would primarily be differentiated by flavor.

I do think that's somewhat likely. "Hit an enemy and make them move" is generic enough that it can be used in a striking, defending, or leading role. I'm not bothered by this, particularly as it applies to low level abilities- because these low level abilities seem to be how the game intends to make things like "bull rush" function. In fact, I think that its healthy to have slight mechanical differences with general mechanical similarities in order to represent accomplishing the same overall effect in multiple ways.

In 3e, for example, if you wanted to trip someone there was basically only one way to do it- superior strength. Lots of people wanted tripping through trickery or agility. The current system provides the outline on how to do this, and Positioning Strike may be the first clue.

The complaint isn't so much incompatibility as it is that the archetypes are not reinforced. I may be a "smart brawny rogue" but if I have 30 levels worth of abilities dedicated to how brawny I am and just happen to have an Int of 12 and a few extra skills....that wouldn't do the trick for me, I'm afraid.

What WOULD do the trick?

 

[jaer]

Well, that's kind of what we have now with weapons and the 3.5 version of sneak attack.

There's no damn good reason for a rogue NOT to simply take one level of FTR and then simply use a greataxe for sneak attack/damage. Thus, for the non-TWF rogue, getting the biggest weapon made mechanical sense.

Of course, the optimal solution was use TWF which gave birth to the 3E TWF rogue.


The only question is, "do you consider this a problem?" For some people, no, for others, yes.

True. Was it a problem for 3e? No particularly - PrCs like the blackguard were designed for heavy weapon sneak attack, so for a rogue not to be able to do so as well would have been somewhat skewed.

However, it once again comes back to balance issues with weapons and 4e. Perhaps WotC didn't want a high level fighter dipping into 1 level of rogue for sneak attack awesomeness, but perhaps they did design it so that a high level rogue would not have the same problem.

Again, completely base-less idea, but there could be higher level powers that allow rogues only to sneak attack with different weapons. If a ranger wants to sneak attack with his longbow, he'll need five levels of rogue to do it. But the elf rogue will be able to manage just fine as he does from 1-30 in his class.

Fairly similar to what they did with paladin's Divine Grace and the ranger's weapon styles in 3.5: they stopped letting people get these useful abilities with only 1 level. Only this time, you get the cool ability at first level...you just can't use it without restriction until you take a few more levels in the class.

 

[Spatula]

Okay.

A single light weapon is stupid. Period. Nobody in their right mind fights this way. Even if you are using a single weapon (á la "single sword" style), you tend to make use of your off-hand for parries, grabs, and the like. If you're not doing so, you're handicapping yourself.

Presenting a narrow profile to your opponent is hardly stupid.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What WOULD do the trick?

Being closer to an even split of abilities for one. 30 levels of Rogue, about half of which are "smart rogue" abilties, about half of which are "brawny rogue" abilities, would probably help define a "smart brawny rogue" for me pretty clearly.