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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thasmodious" data-source="post: 4670413" data-attributes="member: 63272">Skills weren't "omitted".  A different system, based loosely on the previous one, was designed and put into place.  It's semantics, a bit, but it's also an important distinction.  3e didn't have a skill for everything.  It had a skill for a bunch of things, and a number of those weren't about the business of conflict resolution.  They were a nod to the idea that you have to rules to do something.  The 4e books talk about this distinction, between roleplaying and mechanics in both the PHB and DMG.  The intent of the DMG is to teach players that have a problem with the kind of open play that has largely defined D&D for its history, with the exception of late 2e (the rules heavy Options years) and 3e with its significantly different take on such things.Little differences are big differences in 4e.  In 3e, it didn't matter if the fighter had a +3 in a skill and the wizard a +10, they were irrelevant to the +23 of the rogue, and their only use was in aiding the rogue against tough DCs.  In 4e, a difference of a couple points is the difference between adequate and masterful.  A warlock with a moderate dex of 12 and trained in thievery is going to pale in comparison to the rogue with his extra +4.  In a system that does not use static DCs (much), that +4 is a consistent and significant difference through all levels of play.  The rogue is also certainly more likely to take feats and items that enhance the skill.  4e characters don't get better at "everything".  They get better at adventuring, and this makes a nice bit of sense.  The fighter is going to pick up a few things about magic while traveling for years with a wizard, sorcerer, and warlock, facing magical creatures, arcane traps and puzzles, and all the wide weird world of magical effect.  The studious wizard is going to pick up a bit of athletics and acrobatics from all that dungeon delving, mountain climbing, and exploring.  The 4e skills don't pretend to cover everything, just the job skills of the adventurer.  And even then, just those with real consequences for success and failure within conflict resolution, and not extras like appraise or use rope.  Noted.  And I apoligize. It was meant to be condescending, responding in kind to Wik, but Wik is not the only one to have that opinion.  Behind the condescension, though, there is some truth to that.  I think a lot of people have just not clocked enough experience, whether in play or in working with or thinking about, what is a fairly different way of going about things that looks, on the surface, quite similar to 3e.  In reality, it's not at all, and is a fairly strong departure from 3es method.  I think as the life of this edition goes on this is one of those arugments that will die a quiet death, like many of the early 3e arguments.  Only to be replaced by some actual problems/disparities emerging in the system, no doubt, just like 3e.Argumentative, not arguable.  It's nonsense meant to offend and not inform.  It's the same kind of tripe that was thrown at 3e by 2e grognards when that system came out.  Video games are an entirely different medium, based largely on ours, but in a very limited fashion.  It emulates aspects of RPGs.  4e is not heavily influenced by MMOs.  They used an aspect of MMO design to inform their ideas of character balance.  Balance is of high importance to MMOs and how they build off the powers of traditional character roles and achieved balance helped inform game designers of how to do that in tabletop gaming.  Those people would be arguing from ignorance of 4e, since Speak with Dead is a level 6 ritual and not absent from the game at all.  What 4e has done is remove the instant win spells from the noncombat arsenal.  Really, how much fun is investigative games when detect evil, zone of truth, and charm person completely eliminate the need for actual investigation.  Casting one spell and winning is hardly the way to run an investigative campaign.  There are a number of divination rituals that would be useful as tools in an investigative game.  They all offer help, but wouldn't instantly "win" the investigation.  Only move it forward or in a new direction.</blockquote>

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