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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4071621" data-attributes="member: 4937">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.</blockquote>

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