On the subject of powers, builds and "sub classes"

[Reynard]

I'll respond with ranger after I fully read the class.

However, for your "burglar," all you need is Perception, Thievery, and Stealth and maybe a couple of the stealthy/athletic utility powers from the class and you can burgle away. There's no need to create anything new for this archetype.

I disagree. Rogues -- or more properly, thieves -- are not front line combatants that can hew down foes with the same ferocity as axe wielding barbarians and shining knights. they are sneaky and crafty and get by on their wits and luck, not strength of arms. Every edition so far has made the "rogue" archetype more and more ridiculous in combat. But the power/build system put forth in 4E suggests this can be changed by a solid mix of "burglar" utilities, "luck" defenses and movement powers and "wiley" attacks and 'debuffs'.

Can you honestly not imagine such a character under the 4e ruleset? I am not making a dig, just asking, because of 4e's buggest proponents don't think 4e can handle anything besides high octane combat badasses, I'm more than a little concerned.

 

[SSquirrel]

Perhaps by developing a suite of 'utility' powers to handle it?

You mean like Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth and Thievery? Climb Walls, skulking on rooftops, picking pockets, opening locks, etc all covered with 4 skills.

I disagree. Rogues -- or more properly, thieves -- are not front line combatants that can hew down foes with the same ferocity as axe wielding barbarians and shining knights. they are sneaky and crafty and get by on their wits and luck, not strength of arms. Every edition so far has made the "rogue" archetype more and more ridiculous in combat. But the power/build system put forth in 4E suggests this can be changed by a solid mix of "burglar" utilities, "luck" defenses and movement powers and "wiley" attacks and 'debuffs'.

Can you honestly not imagine such a character under the 4e ruleset? I am not making a dig, just asking, because of 4e's buggest proponents don't think 4e can handle anything besides high octane combat badasses, I'm more than a little concerned.

Thief is kind of a tag like Barbarian to me. Anyone can learn to steal stuff. Barbarian should be a type of people, not their class. In Palladium RPG terms Barbarian is their RCC not their OCC The build system you're putting forth is already half done w/wiley attacks, extra shifting and such in the Sneaky Rogue subtype. Rogues have had backstab since at least 1st Ed (not digging out my basic set right now) and have been used for pretty good damage for quite awhile.

It's not so much that I don't see a way it could be made to work, I just see it as extra complexity thrown into a system that already handles it w/just a few skills. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see a few more rogue atatcks that drop them into stealth or anything.

 

[Reynard]

You mean like Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth and Thievery? Climb Walls, skulking on rooftops, picking pockets, opening locks, etc all covered with 4 skills.

Those aren't powers.

 

[SSquirrel]

precisely the point. They don't need to be handled w/powers. I thought the skill system was a pretty elegant solution. Powers are focused on combat, skills more used out of combat by and large.

 

[Intense_Interest]

I disagree. Rogues -- or more properly, thieves -- are not front line combatants that can hew down foes with the same ferocity as axe wielding barbarians and shining knights. they are sneaky and crafty and get by on their wits and luck, not strength of arms. Every edition so far has made the "rogue" archetype more and more ridiculous in combat. But the power/build system put forth in 4E suggests this can be changed by a solid mix of "burglar" utilities, "luck" defenses and movement powers and "wiley" attacks and 'debuffs'.

According to my observations of page 119 of the PHB open in my lap, Rogues do a lot more debuffing and skirmishing attacks than front-line fighters, and according to my observations of page 116 they aren't able to do the toe-to-toe thing as much as Fighters or other shiny knights.

And further, a quick power comparison of the 15D of Rogues to Fighters show that even without taking into account the performance gap of weapon damage between the classes, Fighters are more powerful in combat than Rogues.

So, yeah. Just because the Rogue isn't a cripple in combat doesn't mean he's turned into a "Badass".

 

[Reynard]

Powers are focused on combat, skills more used out of combat by and large.

This, of course, is precisely the problem. By limiting the "fun" mechanics to combat, you essentially limit the game to combat. Or, as hong would put it, you've failed to reconcile mechanics with noncombat somethingorother.

I mean, wasn't one of the great complaints against 3e that it reduced problems to singular skill rolls? Well, turning it into multiple skill rolls doesn't seem to be much of an answer when the designers have built in an entire support structure for making die rolling (which is all combat is) more fun. In the end, all the powers are simply exceptions to "roll 1d20 and add x" basic assumption and therefore could easily be applied to any situation in which dice play a part.

It would not be hard to imagine, for example, a "rhetorical combat" system in which physical maneuvering and attacking were replaced by verbal maneuvering and attacking.

 

[SSquirrel]

I never had a problem w/the DM saying "ok beat an 18 on a Diplomacy roll and the treaty goes down the way you want it to". The game already provides you answers on how to do this stuff. Verbal maneuvering and attacking sounds like debating to me and I would assume that would fall under Diplomacy

A "fun" encounter for stealing something would be like Raiders of the Lost Ark and they have the trap system for handling things like that. Sneaking into someone's house to steal something special could easily be handled w/that system and you would probably make ability and skill checks for proceeding thru it. I dont' see how that is unfun.

Oh yeah and no. Hong would have made sure to make some comment about how this involved ice cream heh

 

[hong]

Part of the intent, at least as stated, of 4E is to expand the definition of an encounter, right? And the important thing is, one would hope, not that every character can be super badass, but every play has fun, meaningful decisions to make during an encounter.

This is best achieved by making every character a super badass.

If these things are true, a less combat oriented, more exploration oriented build for ranger or rogue should work out fine. Think of Shadowrun: very often, there's character like hackers and deckers doing other fun stuff while the street samurai and combat mages blast away. D&D could be run the same way.

No. Let us not think of Shadowrun. In fact, let us think of Shadowrun only so that we can remind ourselves what "15 minutes of fun compressed into 4 hours" means.

 

[Reynard]

This is best achieved by making every character a super badass.

Only if you think that the definition of fun is "being badass" as opposed to "being involved".

No. Let us not think of Shadowrun. In fact, let us think of Shadowrun only so that we can remind ourselves what "15 minutes of fun compressed into 4 hours" means.

Shadowrun 4e solves a lot of these problems by integrating hacking, decking and going astral into the same game space as walking around shooting things.

What kind of amazes me is that while I, an avowed 4E skeptic, am suggesting that perhaps the game system is more robust than it appears on the surface and might have already in-built tools for doing something other than fighting (because, as important as combat is to D&D, we all know it isn't the be all and end all of the game -- there's better systems with less baggage if that's what you want), it is the 4E prosalatizers that are essentially saying, "No, combat is all that matters."

Blows my mind.

 

[Intense_Interest]

Only if you think that the definition of fun is "being badass" as opposed to "being involved".

So you agree that waiting around during the ascribed "Skill Monkey Moment" isn't a good thing, then?

Shadowrun 4e solves a lot of these problems by integrating hacking, decking and going astral into the same game space as walking around shooting things.

The Decker problem is what we're talking about. You're taking the issue far beyond what was said.