Mike Mearls on Combat vs Non-Combat roles

[ruleslawyer]

Note that if this works as promised, you also have to have Sir Hacks-a-lot (Fighter 10, all combat feats and skills) being *almost* as good at diplomacy as Lord Suave (also Fighter 10, but all social feats and skills). Why bother with feats if they aren't going to do anything meaningful?

Not necessarily. It may simply mean that baseline combat power for all classes is reasonable. We already know that skills are more evened out across the board in 4e, which makes it even *possible* for a fighter-type to be good at Diplomacy; compare with the 3e skills system, in which being good at Diplomacy would entail multiclassing and some serious skill expenditures, something that would be a wrench for a close-to-vanilla fighter.

My guess is that it's not as easy as that, but easier for a character to develop a non-combat role without sacrificing too much in the way of combat power. To riff on Mearls's analogy, I think of measuring the difference between Lord Harran and Kilmore in terms of dekameters rather than kilometers.

Note also that this sort of thing is already present in the game in terms of "extra" core class design; the designers have done a lot over the evolution of the game to enable, say, a paladin to develop some stealth ability without sacrificing too much in the way of core abilities (Shadowbane __ PrC), or a fighter to develop magical ability without sacrificing too much in combat power (Eldritch Knight). It's just a question of taking that philosophy further into the realm of class function vis-a-vis combat/non-combat ability.

 

[kennew142]

I am hoping that this works as well. I believe that it could if they made a few a few changes from 3e:

1) All characters have more trained skills available to them (or more ranks in 3e terms).

This would allow for more varied characters. In Bo9S, no class had fewer than 4 skill points per level.

2) All characters have some way to add skills to their class skill list (feats, occupations, whatever).

A fighter (or any class) should be able to add skills to represent their interest, hobbies, occupations, training or personality idiosyncracies. I prefer the concept of occupations, or just a general rule that allows each character to add two skills to their class list, but I suspect it will be done through feats such as ranger training, rogue training, etc....

3) All characters get enough class bonus feats that they don't have to spend their basic character feats to improve their class.

If 4e follows the path of D20 Modern and SWSE, we can expect classes to get a bonus class feat every even level (and a class talent every odd level). In this case, a fighter (to pick on one class) will get a large enough number of feats from his class levels that he can afford to spend his character feats on other things. Will he be more optimized if he takes all his feats as combat feats? Yes. But the sheer number of combat feats, coupled with the talents, will hopefully make it more attractive to take feats that round out the character.

Since the fighter is the one trick pony class that I am familiar with in 3e, I pick on them. Every time I played a fighter in 3e, I wished that it was possible to build him as a single-classed character with a broader range of skills and abilities. The mechanics of the game didn't really support it.

In 3e, wizards (and especially sorcerers) had the same problem, with the number of feats to enhance spellcasting making it very difficult to expand the character's skills and non-spellcasting traits.

Just my 2 cp.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Note that if this works as promised, you also have to have Sir Hacks-a-lot (Fighter 10, all combat feats and skills) being *almost* as good at diplomacy as Lord Suave (also Fighter 10, but all social feats and skills). Why bother with feats if they aren't going to do anything meaningful?

Maybe non-combat feats give more of a boost than combat ones. This would be the same as 3e where Weapon Focus gives a +1 bonus, but Skill Focus gives +3.

 

[Incenjucar]

What COULD be done is if they have "package" feats... like those "dip into another class feats."

Package feats could be a double-whammy of sorts... providing one combat advantage AND one non-combat advantage as part of a theme. Say granting access to one skill type and one minor ability, with a caveat that ensures it doesn't become useless if you multiclass into the theme.

Say skill access becomes a +1 if you obtain normal access to that skill, for instance...

 

[Rechan]

I am hoping that this works as well. I believe that it could if they made a few a few changes from 3e:

1) All characters have more trained skills available to them (or more ranks in 3e terms).

Honestly, what I would like? Classes have no defined skills.

Fighters, pick 4 trained skills.

Rangers, pick 6.

Rogues, pick 8.

Of course, you end up with the Fighter with Perception, Stealth, Diplomacy and Athletics, but hey.

 

[Kraydak]

Maybe non-combat feats give more of a boost than combat ones. This would be the same as 3e where Weapon Focus gives a +1 bonus, but Skill Focus gives +3.

Remember that if combat feats have little mechanical impact and social feats have substantial mechanical impact, then you force people to take the social feats. For the design concept to work, the social gap between a combat focused character and a social focused character cannot be substantially greater than the combat gap or the problem that was supposed to be fixed (forcing people to take combat feats) resurfaces (forcing people to take social feats).

You either bite the bullet and allow mechanically meaningful character customization in both aspects, or you don't in either aspect. Note that siloing *will* work (rather than getting 1 feat every three levels, you get 1 combat and 1 social feat every three levels) and, by giving the optimizing crew real options to play with (as opposed to having no mechanically significant choices), is probably the all around winner.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Well, note that Mearls isn't implying combat and non-combat parity in all situations for all classes; rather, he's trying to give everyone, as Incenjucar put it, "at least one mini-game."

It wasn't my intent to suggest that all PC's will be all things to all encounters. Perhaps I overstated my train of thought.

No, the thought was more related to the Roles. Has D&D defined itself as a game where only these four Roles are need, and all four are needed all the time? What if you step outside a normal dungeon situation and fifth Role is needed? For instance, I bet the Warlord (despite the name) only provides benefits to combatants in his immediate vicinity. Where's the master of logistics and grand strategy that can lead the legions to victory? Where's the master of court intrigue?

And what happens when you suddenly don't need one or more of the Roles (like in my Assassins vs. Thieves on Rooftops example)? Has the DM violated a social contract by not providing the Defender with a nice flat dungeon floor to make his stand on? What do any of the combat-roles do if the opponents are insubstantial, immune to weapons, and only want someone to play them a harp? What happens if your group's striker is a Rogue and the group finds itself stranded in the wilderness.

My point is that every campaign is different. Every quest is different. The shared-imagined-spaces are so vast that Mearls (no matter how brilliant) cannot create a Role Graph with 4-5 equal sized quadrants that cover all possibilities. So maybe 4E should stop pretending that "You only need the 4 roles, and if you have all 4 roles you'll be fine." Maybe they should just be a little more honest and say "Here's a bunch of roles we have designed. Pick any two (but not more than one combat-role) to make the character of your choice; but make sure he's appropriate for your campaign. You need to talk to your DM and co-players to make sure everyone's on the same page."

And yeah, this is what a lot of us do anyway. No one allows someone to make a human PC only to tell them on the second sessions "Most of this campaign takes place under water (hence why the rest of us are all water genasi). Why don't you go play Wii while we talk to the merfolk." If the basic assumptions are different we are sure to communicate that.

But the 4E design team & marketing seem (to me) to have a very limited scope of campaign possibilities, and they're "Not doing what everyone else is doing." They made halflings taller and tieflings core to recognize standard conventions and popular choices. But they're narrowing the scope of the play-space. It feels to me that before Roles were defined as being four in number we had more flexibility in imagining new character concepts. They're nice as training wheels, but a hindrance to the advanced player (which most people become pretty quickly) who wants to push the system (not everyone, admittedly).

At least, that's how I feel at the moment.

Having played as much IH as I have thus far, I think it's a good idea. If anything, even the restrictions that IH places on its hardcore warrior classes are a bit difficult if you don't have multiclassing to open up more skill points.

Sing me a song I don't know.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I am just glad that it seems Fighter even have diplomacy as a choice in 4E. In 3E, having a Fighter be anything other than a brute with no skills outside of battle is a complete impossibility.

While some here are complaining that they didn't give every class a non-combat role, I am glad that they did not go that route. It is stifling to character identity, since it results in the 3E situation where you are trapped by stereotype, with no possibility of escaping it without severe sacrifices in combat viability.

 

[rkanodia]

I agree that siloing combat and non-combat feats would work well, but I think that the 'non-combat feats give combat bonuses too' paradigm seems to be what they are leaning toward, and I think I'm OK with that.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Remember that if combat feats have little mechanical impact and social feats have substantial mechanical impact, then you force people to take the social feats.

What? Why? What if you want to be 5% better at Fighting even if it makes you 25% worse at Diplomacy? What if the game never involves Diplomacy? What if your character's idea of "Diplomacy" is "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, because I got all the Whirlwind Attack Feats and you don't."

It all comes down to preferences, IMO. If you want to play Sir Haran, you do. If you want to play Killmore Goblinkicker, you do. You can't "win" D&D, so if you aren't playing the concept that you're having the most fun with, maybe you should ask the DM for a rebuild.