Parties screwed without an Int-based PC?

[Herschel]

Which player made the choice not to have a skill (like Arcana)? You keep saying "they", as if "they" were a person, making choices.

All of them. I'll give you an example:

In a recent campaign I started playing in we all came up with characters independently. I play defenders mostly when I play but really wanted to try an Avenger. Well, we came to the table with four strikers and two leaders.

We hashed out roles to cover more bases AS A PARTY.

Two of us became defenders for party composition. We didn't have an INT-based character and we had two Avengers so I switched to a Deva Swordmage vs. the Deva Avenger (still using my Asura mini ). Sure we could have all said "I'm playing what I rolled regardless of what anyone else has" but that wasn't what felt best for the game and the party.

Now we don't have the Arcana weakness, some area blast/bursts for minion clearing and we have a pair of defenders in our six-person PC group. Am I playing what I initially wanted? No, but the game is fun because I cover roles we wouldn't otherwise have covered and making things more difficult.

In another party, Arcana could be covered just by someone having a minimum 13 in INT and Multi-Classing to Wizard. I could have done this with my Avenger had we not also been short defenders.

 

[Herschel]

My philosophy is to give out the treasure pretty freely; they've already earned it by getting past the combat, the puzzle, the trap, whatever the challenge was. quote]

You speak in absolutes again, but this is the point that deserves the most critique.

The treasure is out there. There are occasional traps and even curses. This isn't "screwing" anyone, they're parts of the game. A single cursed item can be worth months of drama and even paranoia when the party knows they have to have a way to look out for it or take their chances. Even when they know something is magic it doesn't mean they know what it actually does. That takes actual effort and thought to discern.

I get it, you play a "gimme" game when it comes to treasure. That's fine, but many of us don't. Some of us come from the pre-3E days when it wasn't all about tables of stuff needed to actually complete encounters and charts of prescribed magic items. That was a 3E contrivance. 4E offers it as a guideline, not a necessity. Tactics in 4E mean more.

Example: I played a fighter through 9th level in 1E/2E who ended with +2 Full Plate and a +1 Two-Handed Sword and couldn't have found a magic item on his own to save his life. And he was still a quite viable character in a fun game where somebody played a wizard and somebody played a cleric. He was building a small keep and all but wasn't laden with magical goodies. He traded most of the stuff he got because he couldn't use it or it wasn't as good as what he had.

Or were just plain fun and not about combat usefulness.

 

[Nail]

We hashed out roles to cover more bases AS A PARTY.

Good job! Very team oriented. You'll note that each individual player made a decision here, not the party as a whole. And someone (you! <thumbs up!>) agreed to "take a hit for the team" by switching his PC concept, to pick up roles and skill he orginally didn't want.

Now, suppose no one wanted to cover "skill X". There can be lots of reasons for this, and there need be no animosity in the decision. Should the DM ignore the deficiency in his encounter planning?

Let's say "skill X" is Arcana, which is not required by RAW for magic item identification, and yet the DM decides to continue using his "must use Arcana to find magic items" house rule to plan encounters. Is there a potential problem here?

 

[Herschel]

A possible way to make Arcana useful for finding treasure, but not perhaps "screwing" them:

Pick two options for a treasure bundle for a given level - one something the party really wants, another something the party is okay with getting. Make the first more difficult to find, and the second only show up if they miss the first.

That way you occasionally get the 'Oooh, we found the hidden foozwat and got the shiny blingwad' effect without making Arcana something the party feels it cannot do without, as opposed to every other skill.

Even then I wouldn't do it too often - it's a lot more interesting for items to be distinctive in my personal experience. The lone item that has ignored the ravages of time on the skeleton, the flaming item used by the chieftain, the carefully wrapped object hidden in the mastermind's strongbox, etc.

Which is also part of what I do. But sometimes that jewel-encrusted sword is just a really pretty ceremonial piece and not a +14 Hackmaster Sword of Beguiling. There's a "business sword" too.

 

[Herschel]

Now, suppose no one wanted to cover "skill X". There can be lots of reasons for this, and there need be no animosity in the decision. Should the DM ignore the deficiency in his encounter planning?

Let's say "skill X" is Arcana, which is not required by RAW for magic item identification, and yet the DM decides to continue using his "must use Arcana to find magic items" house rule to plan encounters. Is there a potential problem here?

I don't think so. Tactics are so powerful in 4E they can make up for a lot.

The other thing I see as a resource is time. Even when you have the ability to play with something for a while doesn't mean you have the time to do so. That short rest may be all you get, and you may not even get that. If you are facing a nasty encounter in a chain, do you really want to wait until you find a nice cozy camping spot to figure out what you have (ie: which sword does what)? I want to know what it is as soon as possible because not all adventures are neatly compartmentalized and if it is something that useful it would be handy to know.

 

[Nail]

The other thing I see as a resource is time.

Me too!

The time I care about most is gaming time. I don't know about you, but I get just 3.5 hours, max. I'm pretty content with not spending gaming time fussing over what's magical and whether I missed the "identify a magic item" check by 1.

 

[Keenath]

Earned.

Such an interesting word.

That is a basic flaw with 4E.

Well, then you aren't disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with the game system this board is devoted to. And in that case, well, there's not a lot to discuss. You don't like one of the basic tenets of the system.

(And really, there's no need. You can give the players a +X bonus to attack, defenses, and AC, based on their level, and eliminate magic items entirely from the game. Easy. The only magic swords they'll find are what you place, and they have no + whatever, just properties and powers.)

My solution is to hand out a wide variety in utility of items instead of just handing out items solely crafted with these specific PCs in mind (as suggested by the DMG). I hand out the recommended amounts, just not cookie cutter tailored especially for the PCs.

Who said I don't do the same? I do give a few items that are "tailored" for the PCs, but mostly not.

But on the other hand, it's not exactly complicated to go use a Transfer Enchantment ritual and make a Vampiric Longsword into a Vampiric Greataxe. (Er, sorry, "Lifedrinker", whatever.) So it's a minor inconvenience at best.

 

[Keenath]

The treasure is out there.

This may be the core of why you don't like my philosophy. I don't pretend there's a real world in there where the treasure is where I put it. The party is supposed to get about X gold and 3 items each level, so I split up that value among the fights necessary to reach the new level. If they miss some of the treasure, they probably also missed a fight, and so they'll be picking up the necessary XP and treasure later on.

I'm still kind of befuddled as to why you're calling me out for 'speaking in absolutes' when I prefaced my comments as my philosophy... yeah, I'm pretty absolutely sure what my own opinions are...

There are occasional traps and even curses. This isn't "screwing" anyone, they're parts of the game.

No disagreement there.

However, I'm certainly not going to have so many of them that the party descends into paranoia, fearful to handle any magic item for fear of turning evil or female. When you talk about "have a Dwarf to handle the stuff first", that's saying you've taught the party that curses lurk in every corner.

But anyway. This isn't really the place to debate the philosophy of game design, so I'll just stop.

 

[Herschel]

However, I'm certainly not going to have so many of them that the party descends into paranoia, fearful to handle any magic item for fear of turning evil or female. When you talk about "have a Dwarf to handle the stuff first", that's saying you've taught the party that curses lurk in every corner.

You'd maybe be amazed at how far a single curse goes in creating tension over a long period of time. Two cursed item in 8 levels one campaign did the trick.

 

[Akaiku]

However, I'm certainly not going to have so many of them that the party descends into paranoia, fearful to handle any magic item for fear of turning evil or female.

If you made them opposite, it'd be a super powerful weapon or even more hilarity would ensue. Just saying.