Siloing: Good or Bad?

[bardolph]

Nonsense. I'll admit that there is a fair learning curve to come up to speed (a statement also true wrt D&D) but once I was up to speed I could go from character concept to fully statted out character in about 5-20 minutes depending on concept.

I was only speaking from my experience. As much as I like GURPS in theory, the level of effort to get a GURPS campaign off the ground is MUCH higher than D&D.

Fair, 3 feats (ritual casting, skill training and skill focus) and then buy a bunch of rituals for your ritual book. Better off to just have had that system incorporated with the power system, imho.

Also thematically you are saying a dumb barbarians or any other thematically "not the sharpest tool in the shed" can go out and do rituals that have very powerful effects without a hitch. That doesn't seem right too!

Sure it makes sense. Rituals can have a very important "plot impact," and allowing a party access to rituals without requiring them to roll up a wizard only increases diversity between playing groups. Also, I would argue that skill training is optional depending on which rituals are important, and skill focus, while nice, is only gravy -- not mandatory.

All you did was use a feat (for skill focus) in order to make up for a low ability score. If anything this is another example of why I think that 4e isn't really siloed very well... you can still lower your combat effectiveness to be better at non-combat abilities. I mean that's three feats to be able to use rituals (forget the fact that at this point you don't actually have any rituals to cast) that could have been spent on the numerous feats that do enhance a character in combat... I just don't get how this is a siloed system.

One can argue that "good" silo design is the same as "strict" silo design, but I think the flexibility of the feats silo actually enhances the game, because it does allow some degree of cross-pollination without getting out of hand.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Back on topic: Siloing is a good idea. They just didn't take it far enough in 4e. Especially the Utility powers should have been split further down into 'combat utility' and 'general utility'...There's definitely room for improvement, but the initial idea is sound.

This is pretty much my take. I think it could even have more than just combat and non-combat silos: combat, exploration and social would I think cover most campaigns. If the progression for each silo is entirely separate, a game could then add on optional silos like crafting or domain management if the players and DM were interested.

 

[Hussar]

Ooooh, I like the idea of "Domain Management" as a silo. Now there's rules I'd love to see.

A thought occurs. In a system with silo'd abilities, would it not be easier to add silo's than in a non-silo'd game? If you add "Domain Management" as a silo, forex, you don't have to reduce either combat effectiveness or non-combat effectiveness. In previous versions of D&D, gaining a domain was difficult to balance since you had to take from somewhere and "adjusting the sliders" was problematic.

But, if "Domain Management" is a separate silo, it is balanced with itself and only itself. It does not relate in any way to the other silos and thus does not borrow anything from those areas to become better.

Feats, in this sense act to cross polinate silos - feats are not limited to a single silo. If you want to make your Domain Management silo better, your combat silo might not improve, but, it also will not lose either. In other words, burning feats to improve one silo does not actually make another silo less effective.

If you burn three feats for your Ritual Caster bit, sure, you lose out on taking three feats for combat, and someone who takes 3 combat feats will probably be a bit more effective in combat, but, not so dominating as to make you inneffective.

In other words, feats make you a bit better in one silo, but, not taking those feats leaves you simply competent.

Heck, one of the biggest issues I've seen with feats is the +1/+2/+3 feat across 30 levels. I think that's the spread anyway. One of the most contested issues in game balance is a grand total of a +2 spread over 30 levels.

Losing +2 will not break your character. Losing that +2 to gain rituals will not break your character either.

 

[FireLance]

Ooooh, I like the idea of "Domain Management" as a silo. Now there's rules I'd love to see.

A thought occurs. In a system with silo'd abilities, would it not be easier to add silo's than in a non-silo'd game?

I think so - and conversely, it would be easier to take away silos, too. Another advantage to a "Domain Management" silo is: if I don't ever want domain management to feature in my games, I can safely ignore those rules without wondering if it makes the Landed Aristocrat class underpowered.

Similarly, if I just want to focus on combats in 4E, I can do so without worrying that the rogue PC feels comparatively less useful because I'm ignoring a major component of his class abilities.

Whether the fact that it is easy to turn 4E into a purely miniatures combat game is good or a bad is a matter of opinion, of course.

 

[Gort]

Whether the fact that it is easy to turn 4E into a purely miniatures combat game is good or a bad is a matter of opinion, of course.

To be honest, you could do that with any version of D&D. Or indeed, any game featuring combat.

 

[FireLance]

To be honest, you could do that with any version of D&D. Or indeed, any game featuring combat.

Yes, you could, but you would have more balance issues since there are classes which are more effective out of combat, and are thus less effective in combat to compensate.

 

[firesnakearies]

I am 100% for siloing. I, too, think that 4E should have taken this to an even greater level than it does.

 

[Imaro]

One can argue that "good" silo design is the same as "strict" silo design, but I think the flexibility of the feats silo actually enhances the game, because it does allow some degree of cross-pollination without getting out of hand.

I will disagree with you here. The purpose of good siloing, IMO, is to make sure the characters are roughly equal to each other by avoiding the large disparities that a freeform or point buy system would allow... yet feats are just a poorly disguised point system that crosses the boundaries that the siloing creates.

As far as it getting out of hand or not getting out of hand, do you know that a character could conceivably start first level with a 16 in a skill if he places his points...feats right... +4(attribute) +5(trained) +3(focused) +2(background) +2(race bonus). While a character who is just trained with a high ability score is at +9. These two characters would be hard to meaningfully challenge together in the use of this skill. I mean using the recommended DC's for a 1st level character... the one with the 16 will always succeed, even on hard difficulties. So the feats do allow one to uber specialize and (for all intents and purposes) break the system if you want to, thus defeating the purpose of the siloing.

 

[Imaro]

This is pretty much my take. I think it could even have more than just combat and non-combat silos: combat, exploration and social would I think cover most campaigns. If the progression for each silo is entirely separate, a game could then add on optional silos like crafting or domain management if the players and DM were interested.

What happens when a character's concept doesn't fit with a particular silo that the DM has introduced? What if my character has no interest in running a domain, but the other players do? How do I make up for that disparity of power? Or am I forced to run a domain even if I don't want to in order to stay meaningful compared to other PC's? This is the biggest hurdle I see with siloing... In order to stay balanced all PC's must have a level of competency in whatever silo is added... even if they have no interest in it.

 

[keterys]

What happens when a character's concept doesn't fit with a particular silo that the DM has introduced? What if my character has no interest in running a domain, but the other players do? How do I make up for that disparity of power? Or am I forced to run a domain even if I don't want to in order to stay meaningful compared to other PC's? This is the biggest hurdle I see with siloing... In order to stay balanced all PC's must have a level of competency in whatever silo is added... even if they have no interest in it.

What disparity of power? You sit out the domain management part, and you doing so has no harm to your combat, social, investigative, etc abilities.

More importantly, your friends being interested in it doesn't hurt _their_ combat/social/investigative abilities.

That said, if you're playing a game like Birthright or whatever - that clearly has domain management as part of the shtick for the game. What are you doing making a character who doesn't want to? Thankfully there's less impact than a character who "doesn't do combat" in a D&D game... something that has caused problems in the past, but is less of an issue now.