Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[Dragonblade]

Regarding skill systems, 1e essentially had none. 2e had the crude non-weapon proficiency system. Only 3e and 4e have a fully developed skill system. Its debatable whether the Trained/Untrained 4e model, or skill point 3e model is better, but functionally the systems are the same. Its purely personal preference over which method is better. But 4e does offer the mechanical framework for the skill challenge system which 3e does not.

Therefore, with the addition of the skill challenge framework, 4e does offer more in a skill system than any prior edition of D&D. This is a material fact.

Regarding character options and customization, a lot of class abilities such as Rage, Trap Sense, Evasion etc. either don't make sense in the new rules, or have been folded into the 4e feat and powers system instead of being prescribed abilities built into a class. The feats, powers, and rituals that 4e offers at every level for every class exceeds or matches the character options available in all prior editions of D&D. The only classes that even come close to the sheer amount of options available to a 4e character are the 3e fighter, 3e spellcasters, or 3e multi-classed characters. 1e/2e classes are not even close.

Really, the only thing at issue is whether open-ended abilities are good or not. For example, is Charm Person broken? Is it a valid tactic to get information from an NPC, or is it an end-run around the DM's plot and a crutch for players? Purely a matter of personal opinion but an interesting discussion.

 

[ProfessorPain]

Regarding the original question - how is the campaign scope changed between 3E and 4E due to skill points vs skill training?

I answered that question, and I was immediately attacked for suggeion that 4E doesn't handle mystery and investigations very well. The OP wanted to know what styles 4E wasn't well suited for out of the box. That was my answer. And the reason is the trained/untrained skills, and the consolidation of skills (which matters if skills are important in the game).

To the person who says skills in 4E are given more treatment than 3E and it is material fact. I think that is highly debatable. Though it does offer the skill test-which I think most people who really like skills were not all that impressed with (though it is an interesting idea)-it rolled skills together (which some might like from a balance perspective, but it is a simplification and it allows for less variety) and the section itself is much smaller.

 

[ProfessorPain]

The only classes that even come close to the sheer amount of options available to a 4e character are the 3e fighter, 3e spellcasters, or 3e multi-classed characters. 1e/2e classes are not even close.

But 3E was built around multiclassing. The only characters I rarely saw multiclassed were wizards and druids. You could do a lot, even with just the core books, by multiclassing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I answered that question, and I was immediately attacked for suggeion that 4E doesn't handle mystery and investigations very well. The OP wanted to know what styles 4E wasn't well suited for out of the box. That was my answer. And the reason is the trained/untrained skills, and the consolidation of skills (which matters if skills are important in the game).

But how does this reduce the ability to handle mysteries or investigations? Is it a gut feeling, can you give an example on how this reduces it?

The way I see it, the consolidation of skills and the removal of skill ranks makes it more likely that the party has skills that can contribute them to such a scenario and be able to do something in such a scenario.

If that is a sign that 4E can't handle mystery or investigation, it also can't handle combat, because classes gets lots of tools for that, too, and every character is important and useful in combat!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But 3E was built around multiclassing. The only characters I rarely saw multiclassed were wizards and druids. You could do a lot, even with just the core books, by multiclassing.

I disagree with that. D20 Modern was build around in multiclassing might be true, but D&D 3E was not.

There were to many flaws. Multiclass Fighter/Barbarian, and you have a character that is mostly better then a single classed character of either race. Multiclass Wizard with Sorcerer, and you get one worse then a single classed character. Fractional BAB lead to problems if you didn't multiclass only Full BAB classes. On the other hand, saves skyrocketed.

The 3.0 Ranger was extremely front-loaded (Two-Weapon Fighting, Ambidexterity and Track at 1st level) and made him a very good multi-classing choice, while he later gained little to motivate taking levels in it. And even in 3.5, this didn't change much.

Unless you mean "built around" means you could easily break or gimp your character and it was an important choice to make when to multiclass and with what. That's certainly true.

Of course, with the idea of "system mastery" build into the design, maybe I am wrong. Maybe this was all intentional?

 

[ProfessorPain]

But how does this reduce the ability to handle mysteries or investigations? Is it a gut feeling, can you give an example on how this reduces it?

The way I see it, the consolidation of skills and the removal of skill ranks makes it more likely that the party has skills that can contribute them to such a scenario and be able to do something in such a scenario.

If that is a sign that 4E can't handle mystery or investigation, it also can't handle combat, because classes gets lots of tools for that, too, and every character is important and useful in combat!

It reduces 4Es ability to handle mysteries, because it reduces the overall significance of skill choices, and that is what makes a mystery work well. It would be as if they had taken the same consolidation-trained/untrained approach to combat. What if everyone was either trained or untrainedtrained in ranged attack, AC, HP, Melee attack? Sure more people would probably be able to contribute their abilities to the scenario, but the flavor and the stakes are gone. And what if the powers were all consolidated to smaller groupings that everyone had access to? Maybe all wizard ranged attacks would be called Blast, and all characters could take trained or untrained in it. And to top it off, the number of powers to choose from would be greatly reduced. With skills in 4E there really isn't that much variation from character to character, and certainly not party to party. For a mystery to be intersting, in my view, you really need that richness and texture that comes out when there are tons of skills to choose from and varying grades of ability in each one.

Also this notion that everyone has to be equally important and useful in every scenario, doesn't suit my style of play. I don't really enjoy the whole tightly coordinated team thing every time. Sometimes it is fun to have a party of all wizards for example. Or just fighters and clerics.

 

[Dragonblade]

But 3E was built around multiclassing. The only characters I rarely saw multiclassed were wizards and druids. You could do a lot, even with just the core books, by multiclassing.

I think that 3e multi-classing was indeed a very elegant and powerful game mechanic. I'm still not entirely sold on the 4e feat based multi-classing. But 3e multi-classing did have some issues. It was oftentimes either too good, or resulted in subpar characters. Prestige classes like the Eldritch Knight, or the Mystic Theurge existed solely to patch the flaws in the 3e multi-classing system.

ToB seemed to offer some innovations with other martial classes counting as your effective Martial Adept level, and SW Saga multi-classing seems to work better than 3e primarily because the rate at which feats and talents are gained is not affected by multi-classing.

I would really be interested in seeing a balanced classless system for 4e. The uniformity of class mechanics would seem to lend itself well to such a system.

 

[ProfessorPain]

I disagree with that. D20 Modern was build around in multiclassing might be true, but D&D 3E was not.

There were to many flaws. Multiclass Fighter/Barbarian, and you have a character that is mostly better then a single classed character of either race. Multiclass Wizard with Sorcerer, and you get one worse then a single classed character. Fractional BAB lead to problems if you didn't multiclass only Full BAB classes. On the other hand, saves skyrocketed.

The 3.0 Ranger was extremely front-loaded (Two-Weapon Fighting, Ambidexterity and Track at 1st level) and made him a very good multi-classing choice, while he later gained little to motivate taking levels in it. And even in 3.5, this didn't change much.

Unless you mean "built around" means you could easily break or gimp your character and it was an important choice to make when to multiclass and with what. That's certainly true.

Of course, with the idea of "system mastery" build into the design, maybe I am wrong. Maybe this was all intentional?

Multiclassing always played a huge role in my campaigns and in the characters I made (both as a GM and as a player). Class dipping was fun, and I enjoyed it alot. Yes, system mastery was important. And without it, you were at a disadvantage, which could be a problem. I thought the intention of 4E was to fix that, but retain the full range of multiclassing. Which is why I was dissapointed. Instead they went the other way completley, and some people like it. But I feel like my choices don't matter. No matter what character I build, it feels like it is designed to make everyone equal no matter what. I understand some people enjoy this. But for me, it just isn't my game. 4E just doesn't get me excited. That doesn't mean it is an objectively bad system, any more than it means 3E is objectively good. They perform different functions. 4E is tight and balanced. 3E is a little chaotic, but its great if you like lots of choices and variety in power levels when building a character. It also had a very loose multiclassing system. Which made it very easy to realize character concepts. I know many have pointed out you can build anything in 4E, but I have found it is much harder to do so.

The fun, for me, of 3E was using multiclassing to create characters that really excelled at something specific or had a unique niche. And you did that by multiclassing. It didn't have to be about power either.

 

[RodneyThompson]

However, I've seen many of them have either very limited effects (Holy Lantern is only a lamp, after all), or are useful just as much in a combat as outside of it (Dark One's Own Luck).

I don't think I understand why that's a problem. If I can give a player a tool that is useful both in and out of combat, why is that worse than one that just works in one, or the other? To me, that sounds like the mentality that believes that to be good at combat, you have to sacrifice non-combat ability, and vice versa. 4E doesn't make you do that, nor do I think it should. I think it's a conceptual fallacy that was introduced by point-based roleplaying games that treated game balance like a see-saw, rather than like a series of silos.

Yeah. You're right, that some can see them as "I wins". I instead see them as tools.

I actually don't like calling them "I win" buttons, because that implies that a kind of smug, "I used the rules to outsmart the DM" attitude in my mind. As I said, they are spells that provide the result directly, rather than providing assistance in finding the result.

You can run CSI: Eberron if you want using 4e, but I still don't feel that 17 skills and a handful of rituals accessible by all PCs if they're willing to burn a feat is enough to differentiate characters in a setting that is primarily non-combat in nature.

Practically speaking, how many 4E parties have multiple ritual casters with the same rituals? I suspect that parties who have PCs that get Ritual Caster as a bonus feat rarely see their fighters, rogues, warlords, etc. spending a feat on Ritual Caster. You really only need one or two, depending on what skills the ritual caster is trained in. And, as a further point, I think that the ritual system keeps the magic option open to parties that DON'T have a wizard, or a cleric. I think it's a benefit of Ritual Caster's flexibility that I can have an all-martial party and someone can spend a feat on Ritual Caster to give the party access to those bits of magic.

As for skills, I don't think the number of skills really matters much here. The only skills that really got left behind were Craft, Profession, and Perform...and none of those do much more than tinker with the economy. I can see the argument that skill overlap does make individuals "less special," but even in my game with 7 PCs everyone has at least one or two skills that are specifically in their own domain.

I'd do it by increasing the skill list,

What skills are you adding/unfolding?

breaking rituals up into groups, so that PCs can specialize in a ritual of the type they like (one could specialize in Divination Rituals, while another could specialize in transport rituals).

I suspect parties with multiple ritual casters do this anyways, though I think the division line is more along Arcane/Divine.

I'd encourage the purchasing of non-combat feats, perhaps by splitting feats into two grades, and requiring PCs to balance their choices.

I'd think that if you told your players up-front that the balance between combat and non-combat was going to tip toward non-combat that your players would actually pick these feats on their own, without needing a numerical incentive. Given the fact that XP and treasure are rewarded for skill challenges and quests alike, it seems like the players will want to maximize their ability to complete those challenges and achieve those quest rewards.

And I'd add in the optional Contact Rules from 3e's Unearthed Arcana.

Fair enough, but worth pointing out that you're talking about an optional rule in the first place. Incidentally, I have done some stuff with contacts in Saga Edition that I think would work pretty well in 4E; if you are a Star Wars player, you might check out the noble talents in The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide.

Personally, though, I feel as if 3e suits the genre better, and would generate better results (and more interesting results from the players' perspective). Your tastes may vary, and all that jazz.

Certainly you're entitled to your opinion. I think it ignores or undervalues a lot of things in 4E (skill challenges, powers that work outside of combat, the robust improvisation guidelines) and overvalues having a lot of skills and the supposedly non-combat only nature of many 3E spells.

One last observation and then I'll fade back into the ether. It seems like part of your bone of contention is that it's harder in 4E to have "exclusive" abilities that a character can use in non-combat situations. Since "anyone" can take Ritual Caster, obviously this means individuals are less specialized. How many of those non-combat spells in 3E are specific to an individual class? It seems to me that many of them are on multiple class' spell lists, which is comparable to having multiple ritual casters in the party. Likewise, given the powers I listed in my earlier post, I think that provides a decent number of powers in the exclusive domain of that class, since those powers don't appear in any other class' powers list.

 

[ProfessorPain]

I would really be interested in seeing a balanced classless system for 4e. The uniformity of class mechanics would seem to lend itself well to such a system.

The way 3E was meant to be balanced, was by GMs taking a close look at each prestige class and splat book before allowing them into his campaign. They really could have done a better job balancing new material and old material. No doubt. But if you were attentive when players requested things (and if you paid some attention to what was going on on the character optimization boards) most of these problems could be averted.

In order to make the multiclass system more balanced, each new addition to the game, should have been vetted more. Simple as that. They just didn't do a good job checking powers and combinations against one another in 3E.