Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[I'm A Banana]

The point is that a character at level 10 with 2 ranks in Diplomacy was completely useless at it.

Not every DC varied with level. In fact, this was part of the assumed design -- not every skill was WORTH one point per level, so if you only invested a handful of points in them, you could get as much functionality as you ever would really need.

But anyway, this is kind of a fiddly bit of specific detail. The main point is that 4e lost a significant amount of granularity that made noncombat challenges less fun to run, rather than making them MORE fun to run.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Not every DC varied with level. In fact, this was part of the assumed design -- not every skill was WORTH one point per level, so if you only invested a handful of points in them, you could get as much functionality as you ever would really need.

But anyway, this is kind of a fiddly bit of specific detail. The main point is that 4e lost a significant amount of granularity that made noncombat challenges less fun to run, rather than making them MORE fun to run.

Well, fun is subjective of course. I found that if a skill wasn't scaling per level then I was simply asking for a roll that didn't need to done:

DM: "Ok, make a knowledge(arcana) check to determine what the runes on the wall mean. DC 10."
Rogue: "I have +5 to that. I roll a 5. Whew, I made it!"
Wizard: "I have +27 to that roll. What is it?"
Rogue: "Why did I put ranks in that again?"

DM: "Fine then, you know what the runes are. But make me a search check to search the room. DC 20, it's pretty hard."
Wizard: "Ooh, I have a 28 Int and I'm an Elf. I get +11. I have no ranks in it. I make it."
Ranger: "That sucks, I put 10 ranks into that so I could be good at it. But I have Int of 8, I only have +9."
Rogue: "It seriously doesn't matter guys. I have +25 in Search."

When making a skill check in either 4e or 3e, it doesn't matter what your skill check is if it isn't within 10 of the highest person in the group with that skill unless it was one of the couple skills where individual successes matter(Jump, Climb, Swim, Spot, Sneak, Hide, and maybe a couple of more I'm not thinking of). For most skills, however, it is simply a matter of whether SOMEONE in the group succeeds, not how many or who.

As for the amount of fun to RUN these challenges. My experience is that they are exactly the same:

3e:
DM: "Give me a search check."
Player 1: "I got 17"
Player 2: "I got 20"
Player 3: "I only got 5"
DM: "It was DC 20, you find a blood smear on the floor underneath the table."

4e:
DM: "Give me a Perception check."
Player 1: "I got 17"
Player 2: "I got 20"
Player 3: "I only got 5"
DM: "It was DC 20, you find a blood smear on the floor underneath the table."

 

[RefinedBean]

The main point is that 4e lost a significant amount of granularity that made noncombat challenges less fun to run, rather than making them MORE fun to run.

In your opinion, of course. Not on the granularity, but on the "less fun."

4E non-combat encounters are the same as any other system's non-combat encounters. The only thing that limits the scope of a campaign is the person designing said campaign.

To say that a mechanical system limits your ability to think up something fun for your characters to do is...well. I'll stop there.

Edit: Ninja'd by Majoru, and HE had NUMBERS. Frickin' eh.

 

[ProfessorPain]

The point is that a character at level 10 with 2 ranks in Diplomacy was completely useless at it. It was much better to have a group with a Rogue with max ranks in Search, Bluff, Gather Information, Hide and Sneak and a Cleric with max ranks in Diplomacy and Knowledge(Religion) and so on than it was to have a group whose Rogue had 3 ranks in Knowledge(Religion) and 3 ranks less than max in Bluff with the same Cleric.

Therefore, the granularity of the system wasn't helpful at all except as an illusion. Sure, it let you play a character that you could say "knows a little bit about religion because of his upbringing in the monastery", but in actual play it meant that you rolled and failed to know anything while the Cleric made it and knew everything. Meanwhile, you failed to roll high enough on your Bluff because it was so low.

It's not about hinging on one skill. As everyone else has pointed out, all of the skills that vanished from the list were not useful in solving mysteries at all. There are just as many skills as before for this purpose. You still spread things amongst the skills. In fact, I don't see any change I'd make at all for an investigative adventure in 4e. Other than to rely more on freeform roleplaying and less on skill checks in order to make the actual players do some thinking and figuring things out.

Yes, if he only spent 2 ranks in skills he should be useless at it, no matter what his level.

Your example about the rogue and cleric doesn't matter if the cleric really needs to make a skill check, and can't rely on the Rogue's success to get him by.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Late to the conversation but in my humble opinion I haven't noticed any signifigant decrease in any particular area. I have noticed however a dramatic improvement in being able to pull off stuff like mystery, non-magic campaigns and such.

So for myself of all the D&Ds I have played. 4e has been my best for non-magical classes who like to equally (and that is important) interact and play in non-combat campaigns.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, fun is subjective of course.

In your opinion, of course. Not on the granularity, but on the "less fun."

Sure. But I don't know how one can have more fun with less options and less variety unless one wasn't interested in that aspect in the first place.

4E non-combat encounters are the same as any other system's non-combat encounters. The only thing that limits the scope of a campaign is the person designing said campaign.

To say that a mechanical system limits your ability to think up something fun for your characters to do is...well. I'll stop there.

Well that's just blatantly false, man.

4e is different in non-combat encounters. Unless you happen to be at least a dabbler in game design, not having good rules for something does limit you to basically avoiding that thing (unless you find another game that does it better). A mechanical system can prevent you from having fun doing what you think up because, for instance, there is no difference between the characters.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yes, if he only spent 2 ranks in skills he should be useless at it, no matter what his level.

Your example about the rogue and cleric doesn't matter if the cleric really needs to make a skill check, and can't rely on the Rogue's success to get him by.

True. But you CAN rely on the Rogue if he has max ranks(or if he chose it as a trained skill in 4e). You can also somewhat rely on him in 4e even if he hasn't taken it as a trained skill, since he'll have a reasonable chance of success.

It's the granularity that actually causes an all or nothing:

-If no one has the skill at (near) max ranks, then anyone (or no one) can succeed and there is no point in rolling.

-If one person has a skill at max ranks, then no ranks anyone put into the skill(unless they are also maxed) matter.

-If too many people have the same skill at max ranks, than the max ranks don't mean anything, because if a DM wants to make a skill check have a chance of failing, DCs suddenly skyrocket. Either that or one person succeeds on a 1, making the skillpoints put into everyone else's skills redunant(and better spent elsewhere).

Basically, the granularity of the skill system has no effect at all except to waste skillpoints that aren't in maxed skills (or up the the "effective max", like +24 in Tumble. And I always felt that it was pretty dumb that there were skills with "effective maximums").

 

[RefinedBean]

Sure. But I don't know how one can have more fun with less options and less variety unless one wasn't interested in that aspect in the first place.

Where you saw options and variety, I saw choke-chains and pigeonholing. In my opinion, for non-combat mechanisms in D&D, less is more.

Well that's just blatantly false, man.

4e is different in non-combat encounters. Unless you happen to be at least a dabbler in game design, not having good rules for something does limit you to basically avoiding that thing (unless you find another game that does it better). A mechanical system can prevent you from having fun doing what you think up because, for instance, there is no difference between the characters.

I think the point of 4E is to differentiate characters in combat, and leave things pretty wide open for everything else. Characters can be as unique or similar as they want, with skill training/focus, utility power choice, etc.

Sure, the skill challenge system wasn't perfect at release, but they never said you had to use it. It's not difficult to design non-combat encounters. You have skills, that require checks. The rest is up to the plot. Like I said, 4E is taking a "less is more" approach to non-combat mechanics, and it's one of the reasons I love it.

 

[ProfessorPain]

True. But you CAN rely on the Rogue if he has max ranks(or if he chose it as a trained skill in 4e). You can also somewhat rely on him in 4e even if he hasn't taken it as a trained skill, since he'll have a reasonable chance of success.

It's the granularity that actually causes an all or nothing:

-If no one has the skill at (near) max ranks, then anyone (or no one) can succeed and there is no point in rolling.

-If one person has a skill at max ranks, then no ranks anyone put into the skill(unless they are also maxed) matter.

-If too many people have the same skill at max ranks, than the max ranks don't mean anything, because if a DM wants to make a skill check have a chance of failing, DCs suddenly skyrocket. Either that or one person succeeds on a 1, making the skillpoints put into everyone else's skills redunant(and better spent elsewhere).

Basically, the granularity of the skill system has no effect at all except to waste skillpoints that aren't in maxed skills (or up the the "effective max", like +24 in Tumble. And I always felt that it was pretty dumb that there were skills with "effective maximums").

No. My point was that the rogues success isn't always going to impact the skill roll the other guy makes. The Rogue may make his diplomacy check, but the cleric might fail and be sent to the dungeons. It helps flesh out characters and gives the game much more texture. If everyone is either good or not good at a skill, then things get kind of boring. Especially when everyone at the same level is basically the same on all the skill they took. Allocating skill ranks allows you to flesh out your character, to create degrees of skill.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I'm not totally on board with the idea that this specific granularity (skill ranks and more skills) is the (or even a) big reason 3e does it better, but it is fair to say that overall, 4e's equalization of everyone across the noncombat spectrum is one of the big reason that 4e sucks so hard at giving us an interesting noncombat challenge. In combat, the fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric all contribute in markedly different ways to success. In the skill challenge system (for instance), everyone is equal as long as their case to the DM is vaguely persuasive. This is good if you don't want to focus much on using the skill challenge system (it's a nice patch to get you through that and onto what you really want to focus on -- a fun minigame), but if the focus of your game is on things the skill challenge system would model, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Drawing on the little actual play experience I have in a related system (Star Wars Saga Edition), I'd suggest that it's not the lack of skill ranks per se that makes the difference, but the lack of differentiation in skill types and the de-emphasis on skills in other parts of the system.

In our past two sessions, my group has been playing "The Queen of Air and Darkness" from the Dawn of Defiance campaign. We've had a single combat encounter, and yet the game is moving along at a good clip and appears to be fun for everyone. I know that my PC (a Noble 4/Soldier 1) hasn't fired a single shot, and yet I've been enjoying it tremendously and he's made a substantial mechanical difference in play.

Now, SWSE uses the same basic skill system as 4E, but with two differences:
1) Niche protection in the skill system is stronger, given that you can only learn class skills barring extraordinary circumstances.
2) Greater specialization in other areas keyed off of skills, via feats, talents, organization benefits and the like. Our Zabrak scout can get up to three rolls on Perception checks under the right circumstances, the two Force-sensititives in the group can use that skill to do funky stuff outside of combat, and my organizational benefit from the Force Unleashed Campaign Guide saved our bacon on a Persuasion check in the last encounter.

Therefore, I'd suggest that the problem isn't the trinary skill model (untrained/trained/focused) per se, but the lack of niche protection and possibilities for differentiation and specialization outside it.