Non-combat roles in 4E (Was Forked Thread: When did I stop being WotC's target...)

[Fifth Element]

It does kind of answer the question in a way. Without further explanation it tells me that combat takes the vast majority of playtime and with powergamers to boot. Cannot say how typical this is for everyone though.

Yes, combat does take a great deal of the playtime in recent D&D editions, I think because the combat rules are so detailed while the non-combat rules are not. If we had more in-depth, detailed non-combat rules, its proportion of the playtime would presumably increase.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

It does kind of answer the question in a way. Without further explanation it tells me that combat takes the vast majority of playtime and with powergamers to boot. Cannot say how typical this is for everyone though.

Combat is about 1/2 of total playtime in the games that I run, though this can vary wildly, as I've run sessions that were beginning to end combat as well as running two straight 4hr sessions without a fight. I tend to emphasize combat and social encounters(resolved without mechanics) in my games, with a bit of quasi-freeform problem solving on occasion.

 

[Thasmodious]

1. Lore
2. Diplomacy
3. Scouting/Infiltration
4. Creating resources

That's the trick, though. All those roles are already melded into the system. Lore is represented by knowledge skills. The wizard likely has the highest scores, but several classes offer a variety of knowledge skills so the need for lore is well covered across most parties in which such things are in play. Diplomacy, again, there is no single Face in 4e. Most characters have access to at least one of the social skills and use is dependent on circumstances. I love the circumstance bonus here as well. The cleric has diplomacy, the rogue can bluff his way through, but when negotiating with a council of local clergy, I'll give the cleric a bonus. Scouting/infiltration - still core elements of the thief, but with the ease of feats, the whole party could easily build itself together for this purpose. Creating resources is handled by rituals, which is the wizards area, of course, but still open to others. The warlock in my party is an alchemist, for example, while the wizard has been busy collecting a number of rituals. As other subsystems are introduced to 4e, there will be plenty more options for creating resources, I would imagine.

Still, some of these things could be expanded with feats, like I suggest above. Perhaps -

Loremaster - prereq two knowledge based skills, Int 14 or Wis 14. The Loremaster gets a +2 feat bonus to knowledge checks. If the Loremaster has access to a library (worth at least x gold), and spends an hour researching, he gains a bonus of 2 + Int or Wis mod to the check, and can retry a previously failed check. Alternately, the bonus can be based on hours spend researching, such as Int or Wis mod + # of hours spent researching.

I played a loremaster in 3e that kept a Leomunds Secret Chest stuffed full of books he had collected, so he had a portable library at his beck and call. Knowledge skills played a large role in that game, as well, it was a very lore heavy Eberron campaign.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Yes, combat does take a great deal of the playtime in recent D&D editions, I think because the combat rules are so detailed while the non-combat rules are not. If we had more in-depth, detailed non-combat rules, its proportion of the playtime would presumably increase.

So, combat took less time in previous D&D editions(OD&D, 1E, 2E, and BEMCI) while having almost no rules whatsoever(compared to 3E/4E) for resolving things outside of combat?

Granted I agree with your statement. My memories of 2E involve spending less time on combat and more on situations outside of combat, but that had nothing to do with the mechanics of the game outside of combat which were largely nonexistant.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that you are talking about RPGs that are not D&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

So, combat took less time in previous D&D editions(OD&D, 1E, 2E, and BEMCI) while having almost no rules whatsoever(compared to 3E/4E) for resolving things outside of combat?

Granted I agree with your statement. My memories of 2E involve spending less time on combat and more on situations outside of combat, but that had nothing to do with the mechanics of the game outside of combat which were largely nonexistant.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that you are talking about RPGs that are not D&D.

Try again. You're looking only at the non-combat side of the equation, which is why you reached an erroneous conclusion.

I was referring to the proportion of time spent in combat and non-combat. So it's the relative rulesiness of combat and non-combat that it important.

In 1E and 2E, there were certainly more combat rules than non-combat rules, but not nearly to the extent of 3E and 4E. There are simply many more rules in later editions, and most of those have to do with combat. So while the rulesiness of non-combat situations has changed little, the rulesiness of combat encounters has increased. Leading to more playtime being spent on combat.

 

[Imaro]

I agree there are the mechanical foundations to build some powers on. I just worry the powers will be too bland, and there will be too few of them, to really be worth the bother.

Certainly worth thinking about though.

Like I said earlier...I'm at work right now, but when I get home I'm gonna look through my Exalted and Star Wars SE core books...tons of inspiration in this books for making more relevant, detailed and tactical skill use play. I'll post later (hopefully with morew fleshed out idea). Though honestly I almost feel like Anything is better than add modifier and roll.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Here's an interesting concept: what if you could select both a combat role and a non-combat role for your character? Non-combat roles would have selections of powers available to them that would be useful outside of combat. It would certainly allow characters to be less combat-focused, if you want them to be.

I like the idea. Many D&D classes are actually most strongly known by their non-combat roles (Bard, Ranger, Thief, etc.). You could make Defender-Ranger and Striker-Ranger. Or Leader-Ranger. Or Defender-Thief.

I think my first question would be: okay, can we agree on what basic types of non-combat roles exist? The four combat roles are pretty well-established. What are the non-combat roles?

Probably not, unless the skills are so abstract as to be almost useless, because non-combat roles are pretty much infinite. You've got pirates, ninjas,
knights, con-men, druids, etc.

Edit: How the heck do you change the thread title of a forked thread to something, y'know, useful?

I think you click on the thread title from the forum view. I did that once by accident when I didn't mean to and I got an edit field. But I could be wrong.

 

[Fifth Element]

I wonder if we could build non-combat roles around personalities?

As I mentioned earlier, I think one of the obstacles with non-combat roles is the difficulty in defining roles that work across a variety of types of non-combat encounters. But I think we could define personality types that react in pretty much the same way to encounters within each type.

For instance, we could have a Trickster non-combat role. This type of character will generally behave one way in a social encounter, another way in a trap encounter, another way in an information gathering encounter, etc. So even though he doesn't play the same role in all non-combat encounters, he could play the same role in each social encounter. And play another role in each trap encounter.

A Trickster would be a scoundrel, a bluffer, a sneak. There could be a Thinker role, someone who thinks his way through problems. There could be a Thug, someone who uses brute force or intimidation. Etc.

I think in this way we could develop interesting mechanics for each role, so they don't all have to be giving a bonus or a re-roll or what have you.

 

[Fifth Element]

I think you click on the thread title from the forum view. I did that once by accident when I didn't mean to and I got an edit field. But I could be wrong.

I figured it out. You have to click on 'Edit', and then click on 'Go Advanced' in the Edit window.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Just to throw it out, for however much it did wrong, the WoW RPG had a very interesting class called the Tinker, who had the ability to construct roughshod technological devices. That was pretty much his entire role - he didn't even have spells like the Artificer had, he was pure, 100% crafter. But thanks to some rather good rules on how to make custom items, it's one of my favorite classes in an RPG, period. Many of the pre-made items you could make or buy were very situational, and many completely unsuitable for combat. And still, the class worked amazingly well precisely as the MacGuyver type OR as the thief type, with abilities that let him super-speed his creation from weeks to days to hours, or the ability to scrounge for parts in the wilderness to make something unplanned. Even his actual combat related abilities were tied to his tinkering - he could throw the bombs and grenades he made, and one PrC was based entirely around him constructing a large steam-powered suit of armor to drive around while wrecking havoc. And the extra PrC levels didn't just give him two or three fighter bonus feats - it also gave him increased ability to craft new things for his armor.

I think what I'm getting at here, was that the Tinker class wasn't combat based. He was craft-based. But the crafting gave him combat abilities other classes didn't have. He was, first and foremost, based on non-combat expertise, with his Craft Tech Device and assortment of thieving skills (Also a bonus that made you want to take forgery! Hooray!). Even that PrC, the Steam Knight, was based first on tinkering, second on combat. And it worked. Even the steam armor itself had the ability to hold a number of non-combat modules, such as a large air-tank to make it capable of traveling underwater for a period of time.