Expanding Roles - was Dropping Roles

[keterys]

What skill do you use when a player wants to know what happens if he unties or cuts a particular line on a ship? Or how much weight you can put on a plank or bridge before the wood starts to give?

Nature, because it's like dealing with winds and trees?

I mean, I totally get where you're coming on this one, but I hope you also see where I'm coming from and why I've never encountered that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What skill do you use when a player wants to know what happens if he unties or cuts a particular line on a ship? Or how much weight you can put on a plank or bridge before the wood starts to give?

Nature, because it's like dealing with winds and trees?

I mean, I totally get where you're coming on this one, but I hope you also see where I'm coming from and why I've never encountered that.

I don't necessarily think everything deserves a skill. On the other hand PCs probably should be able to do better than ability mod + half level in things that matter to them. I'm just saying it seems like an understanding of structures might fall into that category of things that are not central to all adventuring like say Perception or even knowledge of history but still come up reasonably often.

In any case it seems like dungeoneering as such knowledge seems like a fairly common interpretation in a lot of groups.

 

[Camelot]

What skill do you use when a player wants to know what happens if he unties or cuts a particular line on a ship? Or how much weight you can put on a plank or bridge before the wood starts to give?

Perception, because they would be able to quickly judge the physical results of their action using their wisdom. Want to know how the people on the ship would react? Insight.

I think for most things that seem like a skill check could work, you can pretty much find a skill that covers it. I mean, how often would these obscure situations come up? Unless you're fighting in a lot of buildings, or a lot of ships, it doesn't happen very often. If it does happen very often, say, your campaign takes place in a huge building that the PCs are trying to get to the top of, then you can make Dungeoneering work for structure and architecture because they'll never use it for underground exploration, because there won't be any underground exploration. It would have the same effect as if the adventure were completely in the Underdark.

I see what you're saying, but I think you can give a little more wiggle room under unique circumstances.

 

[keterys]

I'd definitely have gone towards Perception before Nature, yes Of course, by the same logic you can go for Perception for Dungeoneering and I suppose at a certain point you're overloading Perception. But, the Nature was tongue in cheek to show the hazards of rampant association.

Insight to figure out how the sailors will react can leap to how the architect and masons would. History for famous buildings and how they've held together. Athletics for knowledge of climbing and handling weights. Diplomacy to ask someone nearby the answer. Streetwise for the same, or for prior knowledge of the buildings that make up a city. Arcana to magically detect a weak point. Religion to pray to Moradin for guidance. Bluff to convince the wall to work differently.

I imagine a bunch of those are beyond what some people will do, but it mostly illustrates a point. It really is okay to just use ability checks sometimes. There's no need to shoehorn everything into a skill. In a lot of cases, these things don't even need a check at all. Just say 'I blast out the section of the wall that looks like it'll do the most damage' or 'I slash through the rigging so the ship will slow down' or 'I slide the ogre onto the part of the bridge that looked rickety'. And as a DM, mostly then say 'Cool' and/or some variant of Yes

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What skill do you use when a player wants to know what happens if he unties or cuts a particular line on a ship? Or how much weight you can put on a plank or bridge before the wood starts to give?

Nature, because it's like dealing with winds and trees?

I mean, I totally get where you're coming on this one, but I hope you also see where I'm coming from and why I've never encountered that.

An example of ruling, not rules, I suppose?

I rule for certain skills to be useable for that task, depending on my ideas and the players input.

If a player wants an "urban ranger" and the player says he picks Dungeoneering to facilitate that, I can take that into considerating when deciding what skill would be appropriate for a situation.

 

[StAlda]

I don't want to get into anymore of a discussion of what is "specialized" or not. And I understand most of the concerns presented(brashness not withstanding). So how about a different take, what if there were generic Martial Powers (and Arcane, Divine and the rest too). Generic Bow/Crossbow powers, Large blades weapons, etc. This way a fighter could dabble in Long Bow but not loose his ROLE.

Thoughts?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't want to get into anymore of a discussion of what is "specialized" or not. And I understand most of the concerns presented(brashness not withstanding). So how about a different take, what if there were generic Martial Powers (and Arcane, Divine and the rest too). Generic Bow/Crossbow powers, Large blades weapons, etc. This way a fighter could dabble in Long Bow but not loose his ROLE.

Thoughts?

Regarding the Fighter the hard question is: Does a ranged defender actually make sense?

The Defenders role is it to attract enemy attacks. Marks provide incentives to focus on the defender instead of someone else, since you suffer penalties to that. The fighters combat challenge triggers when the mark is ignored, adding an additional incentive to stay with the fighter. The fighters combat superiority makes it difficult to get away from the fighter, making it less likely someone switches targets (succesfully).

These abilities make less sense once you use ranged weapons. Why would you want to get enemies engaging you, possibly in melee, when you're wielding a ranged weapon yourself? In fact, this might either be a trap for the Fighter "damn, in melee again, if I shoot now, the enemies get the opportunity attacks", or it might be overpowered. "Haha, you get all the penalties from my defending abilities, but you can't really close in on me so you cannot harm anyone!"
How do you even threaten people without magical tricks consistently at range (e.g. makes it sense from a believability/verisimilitude/thematic perspective to use such abilities at range?)?

Dabbling is also a bad word for what you want. A Fighter is proficient with a Bow. Dabbling doesn' require you to have special powers to use with your Bow.

 

[StAlda]

Regarding the Fighter the hard question is: Does a ranged defender actually make sense?

This is exactly why my first reaction was "the staightjacket of roles has got to go".

What if the fighter's style is to stand in front of the wizard and fire arrows (and whats to do more than just basic attack) until the enemy approaches and then switches to his main role as toe-to-toe defender.

This just an example, don't caught up in it, it is the pinciple - can we expand the roles a little bit is the question?

 

[Mentat55]

I guess I would turn the question around a bit and ask what, specifically, can the current class (and role) system, including multiclassing and the forthcoming PHB3 hybrid class rules, not achieve. Are there things we cannot accomplish with the current system, or that we cannot accomplish without a prohibitive cost?

Since the example of a fighter using ranged weapons has come up, I guess that is as good a place to start as any. I am not talking about the fighter using ranged weapons to fulfill his role as a defender -- just a fighter using ranged weapons in a useful way. I think the rules support this.

1. A fighter is proficient in military ranged weapons. With a good Dex (which many fighters will have), he can have a good ranged basic attack.

2. By virtue of his Combat Challenge ability, a fighter can mark an enemy and impose a -2 penalty to that enemy's attack rolls with a ranged basic attack. Ranged basic attack + Combat Challenge = 1[W] + Dex modifier damage on a hit; Effect: the target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls (except against you) until the end of your next turn. That is honestly solid.

3. Multiclassing into ranger can give him access to 1 encounter and 1 daily power that works with ranged weapons (and might even work with melee weapons, if he chooses properly). For example, Attacks on the Run is awesome. Two attacks, 3[W]+mod, does not require two melee weapons, so works for any fighter.

4. Taking a paragon path from his multiclass can give the fighter access to 2 more powers that work at ranged (and if judiciously selected, might work for ranged and melee).

5. The fighter could go whole hog and do paragon multiclassing. Probably the weakest idea here, but I think it can work.

Here is an example level 4 fighter (so not even taking advantage of all the options are the paragon tier) that has tried to add some ranged attacks to his repertoire:

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
level 4
Human, Fighter
Fighter Talents: Two-handed Weapon Talent

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 18, Con 12, Dex 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 12, Dex 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.


AC: 19 Fort: 19 Reflex: 16 Will: 14
HP: 45 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 11

TRAINED SKILLS
Perception +8, Streetwise +6, Heal +8, Athletics +11, Endurance +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +5, Arcana +2, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Dungeoneering +3, History +2, Insight +3, Intimidate +1, Nature +3, Religion +2, Stealth +5, Thievery +5

FEATS
Human: Warrior of the Wild
Level 1: Sideways Defense
Level 2: Quick Draw
Level 4: Novice Power

POWERS
Bonus At-Will Power: Reaping Strike
Fighter at-will 1: Footwork Lure
Fighter at-will 1: Cleave
Fighter encounter 1: Steel Serpent Strike
Fighter daily 1: Flanking Assault
Fighter utility 2: Defensive Stance
Fighter encounter 3: Sweeping Blow (retrained to Disruptive Strike at Novice Power)

ITEMS
Scale Armor, Greatsword, Longbow
=========================================================

This fighter's ranged basic attack is only 2 pts behind his melee attacks (1 for proficiency bonus, 1 because of higher Strength). With Sideways Defense, he can mark an enemy at range and then stand adjacent to his allies, giving them a bonus to defense (in additional the effective bonus from marking). If someone does decide to attack his allies, once per encounter he can use Disruptive Strike to interfere with their attack -- and this works not only with the longbow, but with the greatsword as well. It is actually a very defender-like power that happens to come from the ranger class.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is exactly why my first reaction was "the staightjacket of roles has got to go".

What if the fighter's style is to stand in front of the wizard and fire arrows (and whats to do more than just basic attack) until the enemy approaches and then switches to his main role as toe-to-toe defender.

This just an example, don't caught up in it, it is the pinciple - can we expand the roles a little bit is the question?

Well, fighter is in my opinion the single most highly niche class in the game, with the possible exception of ranger. Yet both of them have already been shown to be fairly flexible. Role doesn't seem to be the issue to me, its more like there are certain hero archetypes and specific classes are meant to evoke them.

Maybe in a more mechanical way what we have really are certain sets of capabilities that go well together. The set that is labeled fighter works pretty well. A character of that class CAN step outside that set to a certain extent, as illustrated by the example of the fighter with some ranged weapon capability. He's not going to be the archer that the dedicated archer ranger is, but he can tie archery into his other capabilities and make it useful.

Look at pretty much any and all of the caster classes. It is MUCH more difficult to pigeonhole them. Wizards are deemed to be controllers but they can certainly do a pretty good job of debuffing enemies and single target damage. They can also do a pretty fair job as melee combatants if you want. That isn't even considering MCing. If you throw that into the mix you can do a LOT with your wizard. I don't see where there is any straight jacket at all there.

Fundamentally though I just don't really see where 4e is more this way than any other class based system. Other systems haven't spelled it out for the players, but some degree of specialization is implicit in any system. If it weren't then there would not need to be character design choices at all.