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

[Remathilis]

True -- you can't build a 'totally non combat' character with the core classes (and trying to build a 'non combat fighter' strikes me more as an exercise in masochism than an attempt to make a believable character). What I was referring to is that many classes -- especially rogues, bards, and casters -- had the ability to trade off combat or non-combat (but still useful) skills. Pick Diplomacy or Sleight Of Hand? Pick 'utility' spells or 'nuke' spells? This option made the non-combat character more unique; perhaps he lagged a bit in damage output, but there were things he could do no one else could. From what I've seen of 4e, there are no -- or very few -- such choices. The bulk of one's abilites come from class powers, and feat picks have a relatively minor impact. While this makes some character concepts that 3e handled poorly much easier -- the noble-born fighter is the canonical example -- it also seems to punish those who liked to define their character by their out-of-combat skills. 4e's non-combat-encounter system, what I've seen of it, lets "everyone participate" by virtue of making almost any skill a "non combat skill", if you can figure out a way to convince the DM to let you solve a riddle via Athletics or learn about the local gang structure via Nature.

However, take this from a different point of view.

Who would you want to back you up in s street fight; Stephen Hawkings or Indiana Jones (assuming he was a real person)? Stephen can give you insight beyond your wildest dreams on scientific topics, and is probably a helluva lot smarter than Dr. Jones, but when you have 4 guys with table legs coming at you, Mr. Hawking's insights don't amount to much.

D&D, by its very nature, is a game where a street fight can break out at any time. And its assumed that a character should be able to handle his weight in the combat. Granted, not equally (a wizard shouldn't be as good of a fighter as a fighter) but they should all add something. A non-combat character (one that has no offensive capacity) essentially becomes deadweight in combat, while a character who has some ability in combat and some out of combat is extremely desirable (It should be noted that the character that is all combat and nothing outside of combat is equally bad: see fighter 3.5)

Thus is the tale of the rapier-wielding fighter, the diviner wizard, the pacifist cleric, the diplomat rogue, the floofy bard, and countless other non-combatant class and builds. They drag the group down, unless the DM is especially designing a game to emphasize non-combat encounters and actively seeks to minimize combat, but that is a niche area of D&D's overall style (which emphasizes dungeons, monsters and exploration).

I don't mind the idea that it is impossible to build a weak combatant; it means everyone is holding up their end in the street fight and doing something useful outside of it.

 

[Vermonter]

First of all, awesome thread! I appreciate that while folks have their own concerns there appears to be genuine debate and listening going on. Given the amount of speculation involved in these discussions this isn't easy.

I wanted to throw in my own perspective. To be up front about it, I'm really looking forward to 4E, but there are some specific reasons why.

I played the original red box and 1st ed D&D heavily. Bought into second edition, but didn't play all that much and took a decade + hiatus from D&D. I just came to 3.5 about two years ago and started running my own campaign about a year ago. I would consider myself a very experienced game master.

With all that said, I do find the 3.5 NPC rules tough to work with. Not at all because I'm unwilling to just fudge stats. I do that automatically by now. The problem is figuring out what the right stat to fudge is! I have six players/characters all mid level (8), some with LA, some with templates giving them odd abilities, (flight, DR, diminuitive size, invisibility). Some are experienced, for one it is her first and only RP game. Their builds range from optimized to thematic.

My goal as a DM is to set challenging but surmountable encounters for them. Quite simply I've found that the CR system doesn't work. So, I end up fudging wildly. But, say I have a creature I like thematically, but I know it isn't tough enough. I want to add to it's AC, attack bonus and damage. HP are probably ok. But how much to add? I end up flipping around looking at other creatures trying to get the numbers right. Other times I just do the class level advancement.

On the same token, I have found that they are now at the power point where fighting groups that don't have spell caster support gives my players a real advantage. So now I'm into selecting spells for their opponents for every encounter. Finding the right spells to address the parties abilities and make it "fun" isn't easy. I finally used web to isolate the group in an encounter prompting the new player to ask how it could possibly be such a low level spell.

What I'm expecting of 4E isn't the fact that I can DM fiat, it is that the rules will tell me how to do so in a balanced way so I can save a lot of time building numbers and instead focus on the story and cool abilities. I know some of you understand the ins and outs of the system well, but for me, I still need to review half the second level wizard/sorceror spells in the PH and Spell Compendium just to fill out the likely actions of my lieutenant spell caster in each encounter I make.

Simply put, 3E is very DM unfriendly for all but the experienced or highly dedicated. Any change to the system that puts more tools in the DMs hands will be a good thing.

 

[Lizard]

Thus is the tale of the rapier-wielding fighter, the diviner wizard, the pacifist cleric, the diplomat rogue, the floofy bard, and countless other non-combatant class and builds. They drag the group down, unless the DM is especially designing a game to emphasize non-combat encounters and actively seeks to minimize combat, but that is a niche area of D&D's overall style (which emphasizes dungeons, monsters and exploration).

Actually, in the game I'm in, my half-ogre paladin with 1 sp/level is often 'dragging the group down', as he's useless outside a fight (except for comic relief). I don't think I'd like to play in, or run, a game where the characters you describe are useless or seen as 'dead weight'. I think most games I'm in or run are 50% combat, at best, so I expect party resources -- either by character or overall -- to be divided the same way.

(And I'd say a diplomat who can let the party overcome the challenge without actually draining their resources in melee is being very, very, useful...)

 

[Hellcow]

(And I'd say a diplomat who can let the party overcome the challenge without actually draining their resources in melee is being very, very, useful...)

Sure. The question is whether in a game like D&D - in which combat is expected to play a significant role in the typical campaign (how many adventure paths have you see that are entirely social?) - should it have to be a choice? Or should characters be able to shine in both melee and noncombat - just in different ways?

Looking at the party I mentioned before, in combat each character has their role. The paladin is healer and steadfast defender. The warlock is the eldritch blaster raining down destruction from afar, while the ranger gets in close and does the dicing. The cleric heals and provides general support on both attack and defense. The wizard adds a level of versatility andis extremely helpful when dealing with large groups.

Yet all of these characters has something unique to offer out of combat. The ranger is the expert in stealth and reconnaissance, backed up by the (changeling) cleric. Not only can he scout unseen, his sharp eyes will notice things the others may miss. The cleric is the expert diplomat and master of insight, able to read the people around him with ease. And yet, he's a good-hearted person with little understanding of the ways of intrigue - that falls to the warlock, expert in Bluff, Intimidate, and Streetwise. He knows the streets, he lies with ease, and he's the bad cop to the cleric's good. Beyond this, as a historian, he can recognize relics and ruins. The wizard is a linguist and scholar, version in all forms of arcana and academia. And the paladin is as intimidating as the warlock, but has the physical might to face challenges of strength and endurance (and could have gone in other directions if he so chose; it's not "Paladin = Jock", but rather that the group otherwise was lacking jockness). And then there is noncombat magic, about which there's little I can say at this point.

The wizard is a expert in Arcana. Not only is he substantially better at the skill than any of his comrades, he can perform trained actions with this skill that none of the others can. If he wants to be a true MASTER of Arcana, he'll eventually want to put a feat into Skill Focus, and this admittedly would be a minor drop in combat efficiency. But by and large he doesn't have to make a sacrifice to shine out of combat.

So the system ISN'T designed to let you make a character who just basically sucks, aside from willfully putting bad scores in your key attributes and the like. All characters should have something useful to contribute to any situation, combat or otherwise. You DO have certain choices which lean towards combat or noncombat - for example feats. They don't have a HUGE impact, so you're neither crippled in one area nor overwhelmingly powerful in the other - but it is still a point at which you can choose whether you want Skill Focus (Diplomacy) or something with some direct combat application. And as I've said all along, it does let you creating interesting and colorful characters; three fighters aren't all cookie-cutter combat clones.

(Bear in mind, I didn't list every skill each character possesses; the description focusses on the skills that define their characters and non-combat abilities. As it turns out, the Ranger is also trained in the Heal skill, but it's not hugely relevant to the point.)

And NOW I'm going to step out of the discussion. Really.

 

[Nytmare]

Like all my monsters, when Bodaks aren't being sliced up by PCs they spend their time backstage at the craft services table.

But how many healing surges does the Crafty table have?

 

[Hellcow]

As a side note, I'm not suggesting that the fact that characters have something to do out of combat is somehow new or unique to 4E. Cleric-as-Diplomat, Ranger-as-keen-eyed-spy is classic D&D. Which is essentially my point. 4E doesn't somehow take away the ability to make a character who shines in a noncombat role; it also doesn't force you to sacrifice significant combat efficiency for that role. It's true that you can't CHOOSE to make a comically handicapped character - or, for that matter, a tragically handicapped one. A rogue will have some form of combat power (just as all 3E rogues get sneak attack regardless of build). But the system does support combat and noncombat roles for PCs, and allows PCs of the same class to take different directions in both of these arenas.

 

[Benimoto]

Actually, in the game I'm in, my half-ogre paladin with 1 sp/level is often 'dragging the group down', as he's useless outside a fight (except for comic relief). I don't think I'd like to play in, or run, a game where the characters you describe are useless or seen as 'dead weight'. I think most games I'm in or run are 50% combat, at best, so I expect party resources -- either by character or overall -- to be divided the same way.

(And I'd say a diplomat who can let the party overcome the challenge without actually draining their resources in melee is being very, very, useful...)

Well right, that's the exact same problem, just reversed. I think that if a goal is that everybody who wants to play the game should be able to participate in a meaningful way, that being able to build a character who skews heavily towards combat or noncombat is not reaching that goal.

Combats in D&D are usually an easy place to get everybody contributing since there's obviously things at stake, plus there's already mechanics to get everybody involved. At the most basic level, everybody in a combat gets a turn. Plus, just the way the system is set up, it's actively difficult to make a character who can't move, attack, etc. What's not actively difficult, some would argue, is to make those actions ineffective in 3rd edition.

Out of combat situations are a little trickier to balance. There's no guarantee that every player is going to be interested in diplomatic challenges, much less other noncombat stuff like mountaineering, gathering information, chasing a bad guy, solving a mystery, doing research or other things. In 3rd ed, a lot of that stuff is either trained only, or the DCs are set so high that a character without maxed ranks can't really contribute beyond assisting the specialist.

So that's why I'm liking what I hear about the skill challenge system. It sounds like it's set up so that every player gets a turn, and every player can try to contribute towards an overall goal. Sure, not all skills are applicable to every challenge, but from the looks of the DDXP character sheets, every character has at least 4 trained skills, so that widens the range of tasks they can help at. Plus with the automatic skill advancement, if you have to use an untrained skill, it looks like you're usually mathematically better off to try to score a success for the party than just assisting a specialist.

So it sounds like the system is set up to keep everybody playing in all types of encounters. I think reducing the things that only one character can do, and only because he sacrificed a bunch of other capabilities, is a good thing.

 

[Spatula]

Thus is the tale of the rapier-wielding fighter, the diviner wizard, the pacifist cleric, the diplomat rogue, the floofy bard, and countless other non-combatant class and builds. They drag the group down, unless the DM is especially designing a game to emphasize non-combat encounters and actively seeks to minimize combat, but that is a niche area of D&D's overall style (which emphasizes dungeons, monsters and exploration).

I'm not sure some of your examples mean what you say they do... the only actual 'non-combatant' classes & builds involve playing pacifists (like your cleric, but even then, BoED provides options for that sort of thing) or some NPCs classes. In what way is a rapier-wielding fighter, a diviner, a rogue with diplomacy maxed out, or a bard (they're all foofy) not combatants?

 

[Goobermunch]

I'm glad you're commenting to the extent you can.

Incidentally, Keith, my coworkers Mr. Russet & Mr. Zirpoli presumably say hi.

Tell Dan hi from Thomas.

--G

 

[Henry]

I'm not sure some of your examples mean what you say they do... the only actual 'non-combatant' classes & builds involve playing pacifists (like your cleric, but even then, BoED provides options for that sort of thing) or some NPCs classes. In what way is a rapier-wielding fighter, a diviner, a rogue with diplomacy maxed out, or a bard (they're all foofy) not combatants?

As a guess, I'm thinking he means more that they're not very good at it. And if you compare a rapier-wielding fighter in the core 3.5 rules, it's true. It takes a good bit of splat-bookery to make a swashbuckler comparable to even your stock core-rule Zweihander with power attack and Cleave. And to some people, that's as it should be, for purposes of plausibility.

Diviner Wizard? Actually, that one's a good example of a dual-role character. He's still got plenty of "oomph" in addition to his divination spells.

Diplo-Rogue? Well, since a rogue takes a good four or five skills to be what's considered "thievish" (hide, silent, open lock, sleight of hand, search), the one who's maxxed for crafting, or tracking, or deciphering ancient scripts in moldy tombs, actually doesn't have enough room to do both, short of a 16 INT. I can kind of see the point on this one, though he's not in nearly as bad a shape as, say, the rapier-fighter, as he can let one or two things lapse, but the rapier-fighter NEEDS to be good on damage-per-round average output, or he's nowhere near fulfilling his role.

The Bard, however, I really can't buy into people's arguments about uselessness, even with core rules only. The bards I have played are excellent at boosting attacks and damage, creature control (between the musical suggestions, the charm persons, and the bluff and the diplomacy skills, the bard can effectively TAKE AWAY the opposition forces, and use them against said opposition!) and on top of those, still fill out the "linguist and ancient scholar" roles. The bard is one of those I never had as much problem with as some other people throughout the years; the only time bards have problems is in a "nothing but total meatgrinder" dungeons, but even then most characters except fighters and clerics will have problems in that kind of environment.

P.S. You asked about my "sales viability" comment yesterday: I was remarking on the argument that some people have that too much information released before a product is finalized can cause harm to their sales, especially where rules that aren't finished yet are concerned. "Paladins can mark things and then run away! This Game Sucks! I'm never buying it!"