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

[unobserved]

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?

I've been following this conversation between you two since near the beginning and hadn't quite been able to put my finger on what it was that Lizard wanted to create that made sense to me in a DnD sense, but I think his last comment made it click. I assume you've read the Heirs of Ash series, how might you think a character like Dalan d'Cannith would be best represented in 4e terms?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I DID say "(It should be noted that the character that is all combat and nothing outside of combat is equally bad: see fighter 3.5) "

The knife cuts both ways, overspecializing in a combat role and overspecializing in a non-combat role hurts the other side equally. If your rogue insists on rolling diplomacy against every foe or your fighter insists on rolling initiative against every foe, your pretty much stuck in the same mentality, just the opposite side of it.

It doesn't hurt nearly as bad, I don't think. I've played in a group with 5 characters who were useless out of combat and one person who was good out of combat.

The players who were bad out of combat screwed over themselves and their own fun, for sure. However, it didn't prevent the party from finishing the adventure. They made it to the end through pure combat and threatening people with combat.

On the other hand, I've played in a group that had 5 characters who were useless IN combat. They were unable to finish an adventure as they nearly got a TPK from the first encounter and had to run away. Without defeating the combat, they could not make it to the end.

You'll find that when it is put to the test that combat monster parties are MUCH better at getting to the end of any given adventure than ones who are bad at combat. Very rarely there is a non-combat problem that can't be solved by killing the problem.

 

[catsclaw]

I assume you've read the Heirs of Ash series, how might you think a character like Dalan d'Cannith would be best represented in 4e terms?

As an NPC?

I think it's clear there are some fantasy archetypes that won't be supported by 4e. One of these is the noncombatant. You can get some of that back through roleplay--I had a friend whose barbarian didn't yell as he raged into battle so much as scream like a 6-year-old, cover his face, and wave his club around wildly--but based on your stats and abilities you're still gonna be halfway good at combat, by design.

And frankly, that's a good thing. I played a lot of Living Greyhawk, so I played at tables with a lot of different builds, and one of the most memorable was when I sat down at a battle interactive next to someone playing a half-elf diplomonkey. He had a 2nd level Cleric/ Marshal with the Mind and Community domains and Motivate Charisma. That's a +28 diplomacy check at level 2, but all he did was sit on his horse in the back, watch us fight, and complain about how useless he was. I think he expected to be able to talk us past most of the encounters--and strictly by the rules he could have done it, turning a hostile enemy friendly with a rushed diplomacy check on a 7 or better--but the GM (rightly, IMHO) decided that was idiotic and didn't let it work.

If 4e is going to help avoid those kind of characters, I'm all for it.

 

[Clawhound]

My take on the oldest editions was that all the combat stuff was the crunch, but all the out-of-combat stuff was the fluff. Thus, everyone could participate in combat and everyone could participate equally out of combat.

In 3e, out-of-combat got crunch, and that gave us winners and losers. There were classes that could do anything in-or-out of combat, and classes that were limited both in-and-out of combat.

I see 4th returning to the pre-3e days, where all classes can again be part of the out-of-combat game.

 

[Lizard]

You'll find that when it is put to the test that combat monster parties are MUCH better at getting to the end of any given adventure than ones who are bad at combat. Very rarely there is a non-combat problem that can't be solved by killing the problem.

This assumes the adventures aren't designed for the characters. I never use published adventures, and have never been in a game where they were common.

 

[Dragonblade]

My take on the oldest editions was that all the combat stuff was the crunch, but all the out-of-combat stuff was the fluff. Thus, everyone could participate in combat and everyone could participate equally out of combat.

In 3e, out-of-combat got crunch, and that gave us winners and losers. There were classes that could do anything in-or-out of combat, and classes that were limited both in-and-out of combat.

I see 4th returning to the pre-3e days, where all classes can again be part of the out-of-combat game.

Interesting insight. I agree with you.

 

[Klaus]

Well, bear in mind I haven't seen all the rules. So there could be lots of things that either I haven't seen, or that have changed since I've seen them. Not saying there are, of course - simply that I'm not an official or fully reliable source here.

"Stepping out of discussion", eh?

Yeah, right!

 

[Zinovia]

Great thread, full of insights and interest. Thanks.

It's encouraging to hear from this and other sources that one of my biggest fears about 4E may not be a problem. I have been concerned that the characters would feel too similar to each other. Is every wizard just a choice of fire or ice? But the answer seems to be, "No, there are more options that genuinely feel different". That's good to hear.

I also liked the description of characters in Keith's game. A warlock archaeologist with streetwise? Sounds fun. I want people to be able to play interesting characters with unique flavor without totally sucking in combat.

What I'm really looking for is a system so robust that the Bard 11/ Ranger 4 in our current party can make a new character (she wants a wizard next time), that will be fun for her both in and out of combat. Right now in our 15th level 3.5 game, she dislikes combat entirely, and claims that she always has. I doubt that last part only because I remember her seeming to have fun feathering the bad guys at lower levels, but now she uses her bow mainly to propel magic arrows that cause spell effects. She really wanted to raise her non-combat skills such as Diplomacy and her bard spells, so started leveling exclusively in bard.

A good part of the issue is broken 3.5 rules - we're past the place where the math works. What we're seeing is the point where iterative attacks and recalculating attack bonuses due to buffs, debuffs, stat damage, etc make combat painfully slow to resolve. But whatever system we go with, our campaign will always need to include a good mix of combat and non-combat encounters. Intrigue and roleplaying are very important to some of our players, while kicking butt is important to others.

Here's hoping that 4E is fun, and that the preview adventure in May isn't focused on combat to the exclusion of the non-combat skill systems. If there's no chance for roleplaying in that module, I'll either have to make something up myself and insert it, or else worry that the players will denounce 4E as "not RP friendly".

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This assumes the adventures aren't designed for the characters. I never use published adventures, and have never been in a game where they were common.

Ahh, that explains it. I've run nothing but published adventures for years. Plus ran Living Greyhawk adventures, which are designed knowing that we have no idea what type of party will play them.

If you design an adventure specifically for a party then you end up having the choice as to whether to play to their strengths or their weaknesses. So if you have a party entirely designed for non-combat encounters, you can give them more of them or make all the combat encounters easier to make up for it. So, at that point the balance of the game doesn't matter that much. You simply adjust accordingly.

I just have the time or desire to do that. I prefer to show up at my own game and read the next page of my adventure in the 10 minutes before we start playing and be ready.

 

[Bishmon]

See, this confuses me. There's a number of people with legitimate concerns. There's a playtester who would help assuage those concerns by providing information about the game. But he can't do that because WotC hasn't yet revealed the information. And WotC doesn't seem eager to reveal much information.

I'm not sure what WotC is waiting for. There's ten weeks left. I don't understand why they're keeping us in the dark about major parts of the game (out-of-combat abilities, paragon paths, rituals, item creation, advancement, muticlassing, etc.) and hamstringing the people they could be leveraging to address our concerns about the game with their own experiences in ways other than, "Well, I can't talk about it, but it's great."