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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5644081" data-attributes="member: 42582">This relates to an issue that arose upthread - is the game going to specify, or at least presuppose, some particular sphere of activity as a preeminent site for the expression and resolution of conflicts?As you yourself note, 4e does make such a presupposition:The less the game siloes, the harder it becomes to design a game around this sort of presupposition.Rolemaster uses diminishing returns for skill development (ie the first skill ranks gives +30, the next 9 give +5 each, the next 10 +2 each, etc). It uses another dimension of diminishing returns also, namely, for most skills it costs more to develop a second rank at a given character level than it did for the first rank (some typical skill costs are 1/5, 2/4, 2/5 and 3/7). Depending on version and house rules, overall points to spend per level are likely to be somewhere between 50 and 150. This produces a degree of defacto siloing, in that it is hard to spend all a character's points on just one field of endeavour at a given level, given that (1) in most cases no more than 2 ranks in any given skill can be developed, and (2) there are a limited number of skills that support any one field of endeavour.Nevertheless, it is very easy to build a Rolemaster PC with very poor defences (who, if wizards, may be stereotypical glass cannons), with no ability in combat that does not requires spending spell points, with poor perceptions, or poor social skills, etc.I'm not saying that Rolemaster is the be-all and end-all of diminishing returns as a design approach - but I think that 4e's more explicit siloing, based on a clear conception of the place of combat in the game, does a better job at supporting, out of the box, coherent party design, coherent encounter design, and coherent play.Something closer to 4e's design, that I think someone mentioned upthread or one of the other related threads, would be to replace Feats and Utility powers with skill powers - so use skills as the starting point for siloing. And then think about what mechanic you use to require every PC to at least have some modicum of ability in each skill area (perhaps using stats to help characterise the areas - STR, DEX, CON, WIS for "exploration", INT for "knowledge", CHA for "social").</blockquote>

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