Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[I'm A Banana]

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.

People see the same thing in combat roles, though -- one character can't heal, sneak attack, mark, and use fireball all with equal proficiency, so people see that as pigeonholing and limiting.

Basically, less is only more if you want less. In a campaign focusing on combat, you don't want that much noncombat stuff gumming up the works and you only need quick resolution rules for things. In this respect, 4e works fine, but that doesn't make noncombat more fun, it just makes it get out of the way faster so that the fun part of the game is done more. It makes it less of a problem, but if it wasn't a problem to begin with, it breaks it further.

I think the point of 4E is to differentiate characters in combat, and leave things pretty wide open for everything else.

That weakens the support to do "everything else."

Characters can be as unique or similar as they want, with skill training/focus, utility power choice, etc.

But when it comes to actually putting those to use to influence the game, all those choices are meaningless. It's a similar beast to railroading: whichever path you go down, you'll get to the same thing. Whatever skill you choose, whatever training or focus or utility power you have, it doesn't make you any different in the skill challenge.

Sure, the skill challenge system wasn't perfect at release, but they never said you had to use it.

They never said you had to use anything. They did say that the skill challenge was there to help you resolve conflicts that didn't involve combat, but it fails to do that in a satisfying way.

It's not difficult to design non-combat encounters.

No more so than it is to design combat encounters. They're both forms of resolving conflict.

You have skills, that require checks.

And combat is just an elaborate "attack check."

The rest is up to the plot.

It's usually not very fun just being taken along for the DM's ride.

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.

Less isn't more, though. Less is less. It's only great if you want to do less of it. Not every campaign style and genre wants less noncombat resolution. For 4e to assume this is the case across the board is for 4e to be absolutely wrong, and rather limited (not that it has to stay that way). This was, effectively, the OP's finding: If you want to resolve conflict without fighting things, 4e is worse than earlier editions. Conversely, if you want to do a beat-down, 4e rocks.

IMO, videogames rock more than 4e for combat, and my D&D games were never about combat (though combat was a necessary element to them).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think it is really a individual thing. I know for myself 4e has allowed much more flexibility for non-combat then previous editions. I can finally have mystery, noir style fantasy games I have been wanting to do properly in D&D with 4e.

A combination of Skill Challenges (yes they work quite well for me), lack of overpowering magical abilities such as Detect Evil, everyone having generally equal capacity out of combat (I have always viewed non-combat stuff to be the area where it is more about the player then the PC), the openness of the system (I have found that Powers can be used quite nicely even if combat-focused in non-combat), easy to determine non-combat.

I found with previous editions it was essentially either single dice-rolls from skill-master classes and/or magic spells overpowering whatever the obstacle was.

 

[Lanefan]

Though I'm far from what one might call a fan of 4e, it's hard to blame its system for this one. Any edition of the game can handle a very broad spectrum of campaign ideas and play styles, provided the DM is willing to make the necessary tweaks; as-written is often not enough:

Want a gritty investigation game? Chop out some divination spells, disallow information gathering via any means other than spoken-word roleplaying (in 3e terms, ban non-physical skill checks), and keep the magic and wealth down to a dull roar.

Want a Cthulu-esque horror game? Play up the fright aspect, maybe kill off a few entire parties until players learn not everything can be solved with combat, and overlay some pre-published or homebrew sanity rules.

Want historical quasi-accuracy? Downplay - but do not eliminate - magic, pick a culture or historical era you want to replicate, and go. (many fantasy authors have done quite well in overlaying magic into an otherwise historically-reasonable setting; Katherine Kurtz' Deryni series is but one example) Oh, and in 4e take about 20 hit points off everything except minions; such that one blow *can* kill or severaly hurt an inexperienced adventurer.

D+D in all its iterations is at its core a surprisingly robust system; it has to be, to allow for all these different flavours and remain playable. In car terms, all the engine models have been reliable but it's always been up to you to choose the body style, trim, colour, etc. that make it the car you want to drive.

Lanefan

 

[RefinedBean]

People see the same thing in combat roles, though -- one character can't heal, sneak attack, mark, and use fireball all with equal proficiency, so people see that as pigeonholing and limiting.

Well, people are...dismissive, maybe. This is what MCing is exactly for. And MCing helps both combat and non-combat aspects in 4E (and 3E, if I remember correctly).

Basically, less is only more if you want less. In a campaign focusing on combat, you don't want that much noncombat stuff gumming up the works and you only need quick resolution rules for things. In this respect, 4e works fine, but that doesn't make noncombat more fun, it just makes it get out of the way faster so that the fun part of the game is done more. It makes it less of a problem, but if it wasn't a problem to begin with, it breaks it further.

I see what you're saying here, but if you're running a non-combat oriented game, why would you use ANY edition of D&D? Plenty of other games provide an epic feel with little focus on combat. 4E gives you what you need to do non-combat stuff, without hassle or pointless mechanics (skill challenges being an exception, based on opinion). Skills. Rituals. Villains. Drama. It's all there.

That weakens the support to do "everything else."

Perhaps. Or maybe that "everything else" doesn't need any support. Heck, in my opinion, I think skills are pretty pointless, but they remain. We probably just have a difference of opinion stemming from play-styles here.

But when it comes to actually putting those to use to influence the game, all those choices are meaningless. It's a similar beast to railroading: whichever path you go down, you'll get to the same thing. Whatever skill you choose, whatever training or focus or utility power you have, it doesn't make you any different in the skill challenge (or the ritual use).

I don't see it that way. The skills presented allow for quite a bit of flexibility in how they're presented by various characters, in my opinion.

They never said you had to use anything. They did say that the skill challenge was there to help you resolve conflicts that didn't involve combat, but it fails to do that in a satisfying way.

How does it fail, other than the mechanics needing to be eratta'd? My groups have had nothing but fun with skill challenges. One thing I love about them is they can be extended and hidden from the players, or plain to all, depending on what mood is called for.

No more so than it is to design combat encounters. They're both forms of resolving conflict.

True, except that there's probably a better chance of a character dying in a combat encounter than a non-combat one, which means most players enjoy a bevy of options in-combat to make things go their way. Out of combat, things are a bit looser, and players can take a simple system and run with it (i.e. skills)

And combat is just an elaborate "attack check."

Well, you got me there. Maybe this whole "check" thing is a problem.

It's usually not very fun just being taken along for the DM's ride.

Never said that was the outcome. All I'm saying is non-combat encounters in D&D, no matter how complex, are basically 1 part RP, 1 part skill check, thrown into a giant stew that the DM is stirring. 4E seems to have realized this, and gives us a small set of tools for non-combat encounters that I find highly adequate. But your opinion differs, and that's fine.

Less isn't more, though. Less is less. It's only great if you want to do less of it. Not every campaign style and genre wants less things not involving combat. For 4e to assume this is the case across the board is for 4e to be absolutely wrong, and rather limited (not that it has to stay that way). This was, effectively, the OP's case: If you want to resolve conflict without fighting things, 4e is worse than earlier editions.

And I think the OP is wrong. If characters want to resolve things in 4E without fighting things, they're perfectly able to. What's stopping them?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I have always viewed non-combat stuff to be the area where it is more about the player then the PC

That's the difference there in a nutshell.

I don't consider combat to be more about the player than the PC. That doesn't change just because the swords are sheathed.

To me, both are ways to accomplish a PC goal using a PC's abilities.

Resolving a conflict is done with the PC's abilities, not the player's, no matter if it involves stabbitty death or not.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Resolving a conflict is done with the PC's abilities, not the player's, no matter if it involves stabbitty death or not.

But the rules are there for answering the question "Did it work?" (where 'it' is whatever the PC was trying to do). In a combat context you want clear, unambiguous rules because the DM doesn't have a better method for answering the question. In a roleplaying situation allowing some flex makes a lot more sense because roleplaying is inherently more open-ended and subjective than combat. It's just sensible to have different levels of specificity for combat and roleplaying scenarios if you want equally good results in both situations.

 

[Thasmodious]

The core of my D&D gaming looks nothing like what the first three core books actively support (that is, minis combat). The designers, with regards to my campaign anyway, were wrong.

So? They were wrong for the guy in Wisconsin who uses D&D to play a non heroic game of Postmen & Pitbulls. That doesn't make the designers wrong, it means your expectations are flawed.

Here's a clunky Rituals system in a tacked-on chapter because people liked the old problem-solving spells. Oh, and here's some broken skill challenge rules because some people don't want to fight everything. Oh, and here's an encumbrance system that still measures things by the pound because who DOESN'T love that?

4e doesn't get a pass in the "providing useless rules" thing.

Clunky? Rituals are easy and generally well liked. My players love them. Skill challenges are the best innovation of 4e, imo. I love them, have ran dozens, they work great in doing what they are intended to do. Especially if you apply the general wing it attitude of DMing in 4e to the structure of skill challenges. Running multi-phase challenges, challenge/combat hybrids, challenges that run for months behind the scenes...

Only thing you get right there is that encumbrance sucks, has always sucked, and probably will always suck. Games are better off without an encumbrance system. The only groups that need them are groups with players that specifically look to abuse equipment issues and the DM of that group can handle things as needed.

The D&D game has always embraced a diversity of playstyles, and 4e even tries to (it just fails to, so far). D&D was what each DM defined it to be, not what TSR or Gygax or WotC defined it to be.

No, the game really hasn't. D&Ds players have embraced a diversity of playstyles over the years, the game itself has never deceived anyone (except you, apparently) about what is built to do. As someone else said - D&D is great at being D&D. The 3PP playground was built off bringing different playstyles to a published form using and tweaking D&Ds basic kill-things-take-stuff model. D&Ds given nods to other types of games, and 4e is no different.

That doesn't change what 4e clearly supports in the rules as published thus far, and that is combat.

Yeah, because skills like diplomacy, streetwise, and arcana cry combat only, as do rituals, skill challenges, extensive sections on campaign design and world building in the DMG, a Roleplaying section in the PHB before any real crunch appears...

The entire philosophy of 4e thus far believes that combat is the One True Fun.

That idea is wrong.

In fact, for me, if I wanted to fight goblins, I'd go play a video game. D&D, especially for me, is not a game about fighting goblins, and never, ever has been.

That's simply wrong. You want it to be true, for some reason, but in your arguments you dismiss everything that 4e does that isn't combat as "not working" when legions of players feel otherwise. Yes, the math with skill challenges was off on publication. This doesn't mean the system itself sucks for handling things out of combat, it means there was a mistake with the math. One that has been corrected in Errata. Skill challenges beat the heck out of the way 3e and, indeed, all other editions of D&D, have approached non-combat situations. It's a method to make such scenes involved and challenging, rather than just applying your diplomacy roll to the reaction table, "sorry DM, your angry arch villian is now Helpful, says so right here in the book." The development of skill challenges and other touches show me that 4e is more focused, not less, than 3e was on things that happen outside of combat. The desire was to make those situations as tense and exciting as combat encounters, and, from the experience I've had both as a player and a DM with skill challenges, they succeeded.

 

[Wik]

This was, effectively, the OP's finding: If you want to resolve conflict without fighting things, 4e is worse than earlier editions. Conversely, if you want to do a beat-down, 4e rocks.

IMO, videogames rock more than 4e for combat, and my D&D games were never about combat (though combat was a necessary element to them).

Yeah, this sums me up pretty nicely. I like 4e, I like running some awesome combats... but I'm personally thinking 3e handled the skill side of things better. Maybe I just haven't adjusted to the 4e dynamic yet. But I can't see CSI: Eberron (or some other thereotical campaign I'll think of a month down the line) working in a 4e context AS WELL as it would with 3e.

 

[Wik]

That's simply wrong. You want it to be true, for some reason, but in your arguments you dismiss everything that 4e does that isn't combat as "not working" when legions of players feel otherwise. Yes, the math with skill challenges was off on publication. This doesn't mean the system itself sucks for handling things out of combat, it means there was a mistake with the math. One that has been corrected in Errata. Skill challenges beat the heck out of the way 3e and, indeed, all other editions of D&D, have approached non-combat situations. It's a method to make such scenes involved and challenging, rather than just applying your diplomacy roll to the reaction table, "sorry DM, your angry arch villian is now Helpful, says so right here in the book." The development of skill challenges and other touches show me that 4e is more focused, not less, than 3e was on things that happen outside of combat. The desire was to make those situations as tense and exciting as combat encounters, and, from the experience I've had both as a player and a DM with skill challenges, they succeeded.

Two things:

1) You seem to be taking things a bit personally. This isn't an edition war, though it seems to be heading that way unfortunately.

2) I think we're allowed to be annoyed at what is an "error in the math" - it more or less shows that something like Skill Challenges didn't get nearly the same amount of attention as something like combat, which is sort of the point of all this.

Skills are a big part of this discussion, but they aren't the only part. Another big part on why I don't think 4e works as well outside of combat has to do with abilities themselves. In earlier editions, while abilities had combat uses, a creative player could often use them in non-combat situations. You could, for example, use Burning Hands to burn through a rope, or Reduce to get through a tight squeeze. In 4e, unfortunately, powers are pretty much all mechanics, and it is a bit harder to use the powers in non-combat situations (not impossible, but spotty at best). Can I, for example, use Ray of Frost to freeze water? Can my ranger use Armour Splinter to knock off an ally's armour (maybe the armour is cursed, or something)? You can point to the stunt rules in the DMG (the famous "page 42"), but that's not what I'm getting at. Can I use my powers (something like 30% of the PHB, and easily the biggest part of my character) to do things not explicitly detailed in their description? Or, more to the point, can I use my powers outside of combat? The answer, for most of them, is no. Even utilities are often aimed primarily towards combat functionality.

Really, a 4e character outside of a fight is not much different from a BECMI character outside of a combat. The 4e character has some skills that weren't present in BECMI, but beyond that... not much difference. The BECMI character probably has more magic items useful outside of a fight, though. The BECMI character may have spells and scrolls useful outside of a fight, while the 4e will have rituals, so I'll put them on even grounds there.

What I'm saying is, if you want a game with interesting mechanical details outside of a fight, 4e is probably not your game. Most characters will look too much alike outside of the fray.

3e does not have this problem - it suffers instead from a divide between combat and non-combat characters (a fighter is built entirely for combat, while a bard is pretty bad at combat, but great outside of it; in a fight, one player will be awesome, while outside of a fight, he'll be bored and useless while the other character shines).

 

[Thasmodious]

Two things:

1) You seem to be taking things a bit personally. This isn't an edition war, though it seems to be heading that way unfortunately.

Oh, I am definitely not. No worries there. I was just objecting to Midgets language implying that every last element in 4e that is not combat oriented has been factually established as "sucking". They don't.

2) I think we're allowed to be annoyed at what is an "error in the math" - it more or less shows that something like Skill Challenges didn't get nearly the same amount of attention as something like combat, which is sort of the point of all this.

There are a lot more errors fixed from the Combat and Powers sections than anywhere else, so using it as proof of lack of attention falls flat. Throw in the hype over skill challenges, as they were being talked up long before release, Mearls was going on about them for months before release, and continues afterward. Like I said, I've had nothing but success with them, even before modifying the math.

You could, for example, use Burning Hands to burn through a rope, or Reduce to get through a tight squeeze.

Those, at least burning hands, were uses outside of the descriptions as well. That was before and is now up to the DM, but there is no rule or reason to not allow such things now if you allowed such things before.

Can I use my powers (something like 30% of the PHB, and easily the biggest part of my character) to do things not explicitly detailed in their description?

This, as in 3e and previous editions, is up to the DM. As I said, if the DM allowed it before, what's to stop him now. Certainly no rule found in 4e that says you can't do things like this.

Really, a 4e character outside of a fight is not much different from a BECMI character outside of a combat. The 4e character has some skills that weren't present in BECMI, but beyond that... not much difference.

I think that's a bit ...light. Just the presence of Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate show a huge intention towards social design, something BECMI did not have. These skills were among the better additions of 3e as it let players build characters with the intention of being good at social situations. This carries through in 4e and is strongly, strongly enhanced with skill challenges. Rather than a single roll, you can play out an entire evenings worth of social interaction, backed by firm character mechanics. It's hard to support the argument you are making when you look at things like this.

What I'm saying is, if you want a game with interesting mechanical details outside of a fight, 4e is probably not your game.

I understand perfectly well what you're saying. I disagree, completely.

3e does not have this problem

It does because the systems involved are clunky. Skills are based on static DCs unless its opposed, so things are often impossible or far too easy. Social situations too often come down to a single die roll, rather than a complex encounter where the group must work together, play to their strengths, and apply themselves. Craft skills? Don't get me started, clunky and unworkable for what it intended to do.

4e is fluid in non-combat situations where 3e was not, mechanically.