Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[Obryn]

I don't see how you get from the first sentence to the second one.

The first is obvious: you have skill points in 3e, you mostly only have training/focus in 4e.

However, to make a game skill-dependent - which I take you mean a game where most challenges are resolved by skill use - does not have anything to do with the first. What you need there is a good skill resolution system... and the success of that in 3e is quite debatable. As we've discussed, at higher levels the numbers become quite disparate and problematic. (Indeed, they can do that at lower levels with specific application of feats and magic items).

Do the skills cover the actions your characters need to take?
Do the PCs have enough skills to face the challenges?

One of the biggest failures of specific 3e character design occurred in one of the early adventures I ran of the Mark of Heroes Eberron campaign. My good friend Sarah took the pregenerated Changeling Rogue... only to discover, a short time into the adventure, it didn't have the Disable Device skill. Of course, as she was the only "rogue", she was the only one with the possibility of even using it for trapfinding.

That's the reason I like the Thievery skill in 4e so much: the Rogue always has the skill to carry out the tasks most associated with the class.

But 4e does go further than that: characters are more skilled than in 3e; and that is a key point for making it a much better system for me for skill-based challenges.

Cheers!

That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a game style wherein characters are mostly defined by their skills rather than their classes. Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of the 4e skill system - but if you are running a game where skills are the primary focus of character differentiation, players can more easily tweak a 3e character.

How characters are differentiated is a major contributor to gameplay. For some kinds of games, it's important that someone have access to most any skill. For others, it's more important to have specialized characters who don't always have the perfect tool for the job. And, for some campaign styles, this is important.

As a non-D&D example, I'm running Call of Cthulhu d20 right now. I would never consider using the 4e skill system for it. The 4e system does an awesome job for my group when we're playing D&D; in a game like CoC d20, skills are really all you have.

It's also important for some campaign styles that skills be more granular. That is, instead of a skill like "Science" or whatnot, it would help to have "Biology," "Physics," "Chemistry" and so on.

That's what I'm talking about when I'm referring to a skill-based campaign. No, I don't think it's the default way of playing D&D. It is, however, a way of playing D&D. Are there better systems out there for a skill-based campaign? Personally, I think so, but if you want to play one of the D&D's, 3e offers a degree of character customization that 4e presently does not.

I agree 100% that the math can get wacky at high levels for 3e skills - high level math is a problem endemic to the entire system. And yes, skill challenges are an excellent framework for non-combat encounters.

Both ways of approaching skills have their perks and their problems. It's silly to speak in general terms about which one is better. I think, though, that there's an interesting conversation to be had about which system is better for which style of gameplay.

-O

 

[Lizard]

There's really two debates here: Whether skill granularity is good and whether 3e had balanced DCs for skill checks. I think it's worth noting, though, that 4e also has some balance issues with skill checks, though tilting the other way -- the DCs are set so that every shmuck has a chance, and thus, the specialists don't even need to roll.

At first level, the difference between an expert and a non-expert can be immense: +5 trained, +3 focus, +1 from background (if being used), +4 from stat (minimum +2), and +2 from race (often). This can be a +15 bonus at first level, enough to make a "hard" skill check (using errata'ed DCs) 100% of the time. An untrained person with an average attribute is at +0. Since skill bonus magic items are still pretty common, this difference will only grow with level, even assuming no more feats which can raise skill checks (but we now have Tribal feats for an additional +2 to +5, kicking the bonus up even more). In order to keep the "Everyone gets to play!" feature, the DCs have to be low enough that 1/2 level alone has around a 25% chance of success.

Maybe this is deliberate design, 4e's version of "system mastery" -- the munchkin who pours everything into being an expert at a skill will not gain a meaningful mechanical advantage since the DCs are scaled back; he'd be just as well off taking fewer skill bonus feats and tricks since, if a DC is 25, the difference between a +26 bonus and a +30 bonus is meaningless, success is success.

 

[Pbartender]

Yeah, Fireball can light stuff on fire in 4e - but really, only if the GM either writes it into the terrain description, or thinks on his feet. And Fireball is a limited spell in most editions.

Now, I don't have my books with me, but isn't there a passage in the 4E DMG that reads (paraphrasing) something like, "Some materials are especially vulnerable to certain types of damage (like fire vs. paper), while others are virtually immune (like fist vs. stone wall). You are the DM, so you can use a little common sense and decide."

In other words, if you want a fire ball to ignite paper and cloth and dry leaves and other combustibles, go right ahead. If you don't want PCs to carve their way through a stone wall with a magical dagger, then they can't.

 

[GnomeWorks]

In other words, if you want a fire ball to ignite paper and cloth and dry leaves and other combustibles, go right ahead.

How much fire damage can these items take before they are useless? How resistant to it are they? Does this burning cause other things in the room to set on fire? Do things that aren't immediately combustible take fire damage, and if so, how much? Do they continue to burn, and if so, how long?

And I'm not saying that 3e necessarily had the answers to all these questions, either, though it did to some.

 

[D'karr]

How much fire damage can these items take before they are useless? How resistant to it are they? Does this burning cause other things in the room to set on fire? Do things that aren't immediately combustible take fire damage, and if so, how much? Do they continue to burn, and if so, how long?

And I'm not saying that 3e necessarily had the answers to all these questions, either, though it did to some.

Since the DM is already adjudicating that the fire damage effect is going to have a "rider" then he can as easily adjudicate the rest of those questions.

Damage per item? 1d6 for paper, 1d4 for dry leaves, 1d8 for cloth.
How resistant? Not resistant at all.
Immediately combustible? No
Continue to burn? Yes
How long? Until the end of the next turn

It took me longer to type those answers than to come up with them on the fly. It would also take longer to look that information up in a manual if there was a "rule" for everything, which was one of the "problems" with the previous design paradigm. I'm really glad 4e's design did away with that idea. That is what DM empowerment is about. The majority of DMs don't need a rule for every situation, that is why the DMG states to use your own common sense. Being able to adjudicate those "corner" cases is what a Pen & Paper RPG really excels at.

 

[malraux]

How much fire damage can these items take before they are useless? How resistant to it are they? Does this burning cause other things in the room to set on fire? Do things that aren't immediately combustible take fire damage, and if so, how much? Do they continue to burn, and if so, how long?

[superhero voice]This sounds like a job for.....DM MAN[/superhero voice]

Seriously, this sounds like something that the DM is perfectly capable of adjudicating without further guidelines. If I light a book, pile of leaves, or oil soaked rag, I could come up with decent rulings on what happens next without rules in the book. In fact, if there were rules in the book, overall I'd see that as a bad thing, because now I need to memorize the rules or lug the book around to games, check it to see if it has rulings on this, etc.

 

[LostSoul]

1. How much fire damage can these items take before they are useless?
2. How resistant to it are they?
3. Does this burning cause other things in the room to set on fire?
4. Do things that aren't immediately combustible take fire damage, and if so, how much?
5. Do they continue to burn, and if so, how long?

1. Int vs. DC attack roll. Hit = useless.
2. No special resistance at all; it's covered by the DC.
3. It does if the player wants it to, or if I as DM specifically made that a feature of the terrain. How does he set things on fire? Int vs. DC attack roll.
4. Same answer as above. The DC might be higher to melt stone than it is to burn leaves, but if you're a more powerful wizard you can melt that stone.
5. Until the end of the encounter. And they do 5 damage per tier of the character who created the effect if you begin your turn in that square or enter that square.

 

[GnomeWorks]

It took me longer to type those answers than to come up with them on the fly.

Fire is an easy one. There are certainly more difficult things to adjudicate, and adjudications take time if you want to (1) try to make sure that your adjudication is reasonable and (2) want to keep track of your adjudications so that the same effects (lighting things on fire with fireball) has roughly the same effect in roughly the same sorts of situations.

It would also take longer to look that information up in a manual if there was a "rule" for everything, which was one of the "problems" with the previous design paradigm.

No, you're right, having a rule specifically pointing out how much fire damage objects take when lit on fire with fireball would be ridiculous.

However, rules can be written in such a way that unforeseen rules interactions, such as the one in the fireball example, can be handled by application of one subsystem to another and/or an extension of guidelines that exist for similar effects.

 

[GnomeWorks]

[superhero voice]This sounds like a job for.....DM MAN[/superhero voice]

I, as a DM, am interested in having an internally-consistent setting, which is achieved - at least partially - by having a consistent ruleset. Requiring adjudications from me opens room for that internal consistency to be put into jeopardy, because I may not always be consistent in my rulings or decisions.

 

[malraux]

No, you're right, having a rule specifically pointing out how much fire damage objects take when lit on fire with fireball would be ridiculous.

However, rules can be written in such a way that unforeseen rules interactions, such as the one in the fireball example, can be handled by application of one subsystem to another and/or an extension of guidelines that exist for similar effects.

The issue is that having to look up rules can greatly slow down the game. That's the trade off for slightly increased consistency.