D&D 4E Keith Baker on 4E! (The Hellcow responds!)

[Psion]

Another thing I'll point out about the principle of all rules applying to all people is that once you give the first-level commoner access to all feats, skills, combos etc that PCs have, you can then run into the logical question of how you ever get a 1st-level blacksmith who DOESN'T have a minimum +8 to his check. He's human, he's got the skill points, he's got two feats - if he's not putting at least one of them into Skill Focus, what's he putting it into instead? What about that other feat?

The master guitar player is actually a good example of this. He's a human expert 3. That means that he's got 30 skill points you haven't accounted for, Klaus.

Wow. The amount of brain sweat people spend on commmoners never ceases to amaze me.

This is a classic example of what I call "letting the rules use you". When GMing, I really don't care if I don't allocate all the points.

For that matter, I don't care if players allocate all their points or feats. Or BAB (I had a player complain he had to have his sage-like wizard be good at combat. I told him that's a limit, you can take less. Strangely enough, he was elated. I told him I wouldn't GIVE him anything for it, though.)

So this has never been a particular problem for me.

That doesn't mean if I want to make a more PC-like character, I don't find the structure helpful.

 

[Dragonblade]

Wow. The amount of brain sweat people spend on commmoners never ceases to amaze me.

This is a classic example of what I call "letting the rules use you". When GMing, I really don't care if I don't allocate all the points.

For that matter, I don't care if players allocate all their points or feats.

So this has never been a particular problem for me.

That doesn't mean if I want to make a more PC-like character, I don't find the structure helpful.

Exactly. You play this way. I play this way. I think most people play this way. So if most people don't bother allocating all their points, why even bother with points that even need allocation?

So here is a radical design idea: Why not change the game to match the way most people play?

IMO, WotC did just that with 4e.

 

[Wormwood]

Exactly. You play this way. I play this way. I think most people play this way. So if most people don't bother allocating all their points, why even bother with points that even need allocation?

So here is a radical design idea: Why not change the game to match the way most people play?

IMO, WotC did just that with 4e.

I didn't want to be the one to point that out---but yeah. That.

 

[Hellcow]

Exactly. You play this way. I play this way.

And personally, I play this way. The only reason I'd spend all that brain sweat is because if I'm writing a sourcebook, it's expected... because it's the rules. If I create an NPC whose points don't add up, you can bet you'll see it called out in reviews. Some people don't care, because it's clear that the point of the healer is to heal, and nothing else really matters; but others care deeply.

So if most people don't bother allocating all their points, why even bother with points that even need allocation? So here is a radical design idea: Why not change the game to match the way most people play?

IMO, WotC did just that with 4e.

I agree.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Average ability scores and Skill Focus is going to get you +7 for Profession or Craft; both are class skills for commoners. For the healer, certainly, and in fact this is essentially the route I took with Maza Thadian, the 18th level commoner in Sharn. She's probably the greatest chef in Khorvaire. With all her skill points, she could also be the greatest blacksmith and the greatest animal handler. Instead, she's on the City Council and has put most of her skill points into cross-class skills needed for that role - making her an excellent diplomat, but not substantially better than the 7th-9th level experts she works with, who get Diplomacy, Bluff, and Sense Motive as class skills (and who are themselves pretty bad@$$ at 7th-9th level). But NOBODY comes close to her in the kitchen.

There's lots of ways around this. Again, I'm not saying it's a fatal flaw of 3E; I've been playing with it in 3E for years, pushing for more NPCs with NPC classes and creating people like Maza Thadian. My point is simply that the 4E approach is in my mind even BETTER for Eberron than NPC classes are. The NPC has the skills he needs to have, and that's it - there's no question of where those unused skill points or feats got to.

you are completely right... i should not have deleted that sentence in my former post...
I thought abot healing as cross class skill...

the 4e approach would have saved me much time when i converted night below... even with handwaving and so on it was somewhat time consuming.

But to defend 3rd edition: although monsters were much harder in 3rd edition than in 2nd and characters leveled a bit faster, most encounters designed for 2nd edition worked perfectly in 3rd edition. Looking at the statcards for some crucial monsters, i have doubts that 4e encounters can be used unchanged...

 

[Hellcow]

But to defend 3rd edition...

I'll just note that I'm not trying to ATTACK 3E. Personally, I'm enjoying the heck out of 4E and think it's a good system for Eberron. But as I've said, I'm sure there are people who will prefer 3E to 4E - and companies like Paizo are embracing this and will continue to support the system, which is great. And even for Eberron players, if you want to use all of the current material - if you want to use your kalashtar psion and dragonmarked artificer - there will be a transition period even if you WANT to shift.

i have doubts that 4e encounters can be used unchanged...

It's a valid concern. It's not my place to to say, but just take a look at the 1st-level characters from DDXP and you'll see that a first level 4E character is very different from his 3E counterpart. Someone on another board talked about just using 3E psionics in 4E until 2009... and that wouldn't be a trivial challenge.

 

[Psion]

And personally, I play this way. The only reason I'd spend all that brain sweat is because if I'm writing a sourcebook, it's expected... because it's the rules. If I create an NPC whose points don't add up, you can bet you'll see it called out in reviews.

Right. That makes me wonder if blowing away the structure is really serving anyone, or just a ground war with John Cooper.

 

[Klaus]

And personally, I play this way. The only reason I'd spend all that brain sweat is because if I'm writing a sourcebook, it's expected... because it's the rules. If I create an NPC whose points don't add up, you can bet you'll see it called out in reviews. Some people don't care, because it's clear that the point of the healer is to heal, and nothing else really matters; but others care deeply.


I agree.

I certainly understand the pressures of writing up sourcebooks and adventures (penned a couple of those myself, with more to come... dum, dum DUUUUUM).

A few months ago I was having this same conversation (minus the 4E part, as it wasn't known back then) with a ruleslawyering friend of mine who derided D&D because of the "skill to level to hp" connection. So I did pretty much what I did here, statting up a perfectly serviceable NPC in a couple of minutes, with low hit points (in that case it was a sage with Con 5... and he accused me of cheating because I used a very low Con to give the sage low hp!).

Sidenote on the "blacksmith with modifier less than +7": in a larger town, where craftsmen can afford to focus on their profession, it is hard to find a dedicated blacksmith with a lower modifier. But in a smaller town, where the blacksmith also doubles as a member of the militia, and grows vegetables on the backyard, etc, those Skill Focus feats become Martial Weapon Proficiency (longsword), or Toughness, etc, and those skill points that would maximize Craft end up in Heal, Profession (farmer) or Intimidate.

And now that it's all been said, I go back and say that I *am* looking forward to 4E. The GSL can't get ready soon enough.

 

[hong]

What can I say, I like to read.

I have an awesome set of RPG rules here that I can sell you. It's called "Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus (4th Edition)", by Bill Venables and Brian Ripley. Now I feel I should warn you, the rules aren't actually very useful for gaming with, but I can guarantee that it's a good read.

 

[lkj]

I have an awesome set of RPG rules here that I can sell you. It's called "Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus (4th Edition)", by Bill Venables and Brian Ripley. Now I feel I should warn you, the rules aren't actually very useful for gaming with, but I can guarantee that it's a good read.

Heh. That is actually a very useful book. Now, a good read? Well. To each his own.

AD

PS: Might not be good rules for gaming with, but perhaps an excellent guide for doing completely unnecessary and extremely nerdified statistical analyses of combats.