D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay but performance (This is what I'm assuming you are talking about since there is no actual Perform skill) states the following description in the PHB...

Your Charisma(Performance) check determines how well you can delight an audience with music, dance, acting, storytelling, or some other form of entertainment...

This seems to be a more broad skill set than proficiency with one instrument... thus it exists to represent your proficiency with a single instrument. As to which one applies...If he's playing the instrument he's proficient in...it's whichever one the PC wants... However in any other circumstance, including a different instrument or any other type of performance, it's the performance proficiency... it doesn't seem that hard or confusing to me since prof. bonuses don't stack in 5e... is there a situation here I'm not accounting for?

Why would anyone become proficient with an instrument then when they can instead have the Performance skill? It just isn't coherent.

Oh, I agree with you about the mapping of the Investigation skill, it is a broad based skill... in the same way that Arcana in 4e doesn't map to a specific action... or Perception in 4e and 5e account for numerous ways of noticing things... but again I'm unclear on what the actual issue is. Investigation is broadly defined as noticing clues and making deductions. IMO it's an insight skill for situations or physical objects as opposed to being for people...

When do I use it? When there are clues from which information could be deduced... though I think most players will let you know when they want to use it...

You can take me through an actual example of play where I would ever roll a check using Investigation? I can't. If you look for a physical clue, Perception. If you talk to someone, a social skill. If you research something, the requisite knowledge skill, etc. There is no action you can perform which corresponds to the abstract activity of 'Investigating', its not concrete AT ALL.

Is it quite clear?? What skill do I use in 4e to deceive someone? How about if I wanted to disable a trap... do I need tools... do they just give me a +2 or can I just use the Thievery skill without them?

In 4e you use Bluff to deceive people, that is QUITE clear. Disabling a trap doesn't REQUIRE tools, again 4e is entirely clear on this. Both in the writeup of thieves tools and the thievery skill it clearly states they grant a +2 bonus. Of course the DM is free to indicate that in some situations they are mandatory, but that would be specific rules for specific situations.

As for knowledge skills in 4e, I don't think there's anything ambiguous about the uses of Arcana at all. Its a knowledge skill which is used whenever a character needs to know some item of arcane knowledge, or when certain specific actions are attempted, or perhaps more generally whenever any action is deemed to depend largely on skill with magic. Likewise with other knowledge skills, though Arcana is usually the one that has the most uses of this sort.

 

[Imaro]

Why would anyone become proficient with an instrument then when they can instead have the Performance skill? It just isn't coherent.

Because you may not have the choice to be proficient in Performance but you can be proficient in a musical instrument, usually via a background... not understanding why that is incoherent? Aren't there people in our own world who can play guitar but can't act?


Edit: Better yet why would anyone get a bachelor's degree when they can get a masters? Is that choice also incoherent?

You can take me through an actual example of play where I would ever roll a check using Investigation? I can't. If you look for a physical clue, Perception. If you talk to someone, a social skill. If you research something, the requisite knowledge skill, etc. There is no action you can perform which corresponds to the abstract activity of 'Investigating', its not concrete AT ALL.

I disagree... as a simple example... I am trying to determine the answer (or perhaps just a hint depending on how the DM plays it) to a riddle in a dungeon... or a puzzle to unlock a vault... Or maybe I have a map, a partially burnt letter and an overheasrd partial conversation concerning information about a villains plan, through "investigation" perhaps I can put it all together. All of these things have clues and require deduction, as I said earlier.

In 4e you use Bluff to deceive people, that is QUITE clear. Disabling a trap doesn't REQUIRE tools, again 4e is entirely clear on this. Both in the writeup of thieves tools and the thievery skill it clearly states they grant a +2 bonus. Of course the DM is free to indicate that in some situations they are mandatory, but that would be specific rules for specific situations.

I agree about Bluff... but the tools, not so sure...The firsdt sentence of the thieving tools states...

"To use the thievery skill properly you need the right picks and pries, skeleton keys , clamps and so on."

That doesn't seem clear cut to me... It seems incoherent with what the tools do mechanically...

As for knowledge skills in 4e, I don't think there's anything ambiguous about the uses of Arcana at all. Its a knowledge skill which is used whenever a character needs to know some item of arcane knowledge, or when certain specific actions are attempted, or perhaps more generally whenever any action is deemed to depend largely on skill with magic. Likewise with other knowledge skills, though Arcana is usually the one that has the most uses of this sort.

Wait what are the "specific actions" it covers? Isn't the action of casting a spell largely dependent on skill with magic? Would this allow one to determine things about Primal, Divine, or Shadow magic... if not what skills align to these types of magic? Oh, and what skill covers psionic knowledge and actions?

IMO... it seems you've internalized how you want these skills to work and that is why you feel there is less ambiguity in the 4e skills...

 

[JamesonCourage]

I'd just finally like to observe that its hard for me to imagine the likes of either @JamesonCourage's or @Saelorn's versions of objectified DMing holding here. Epic level play is particularly laden with narrative considerations and mechanically open-ended and complex interactions in ANY system that allows for genuinely "we're just a few steps below the gods" sort of play. IMHO no lists of modifiers or DM pre-determination of the rules of the road is going to get much closer to nailing things down than 4e already has. At this limit you just have to rely on some sort of adjudication of how things work and what mechanics to use and how to use them. Maybe in Jameson's case it is the players doing that instead of the DM, I don't know, but how do you then leave the DM in charge of narrative?

If I were to try to capture godlike powers in my system (which it only tries to do at the lowest of godlike levels of power), I would first sit down and think of what "godlike powers" include. Then I'd attempt to codify those powers, translating them into mechanics. Then I'd make play stick to the mechanics, hopefully emulating those godlike powers.

This is somewhat like 4e. It has epic powers, epic destinies, epic monster abilities, etc. It's just loose on skills, but it's like that for all of play (from Heroic through Epic).

In 3.X, I had to wing epic (my campaign went from level 2 all the way through 31 over some 2,200+ hours of play). I had to throw out most of the rules, come up with new things, and allow random checks that I had to adjudicate all throughout the session. It was incredibly burdensome, and the thought of having to do that again is more than simply discouraging, it's a firm "never again."

Now, 4e is better than 3.X was for this (in my opinion), in that Epic play in 4e is much more balanced and narrow (only through level 30, etc.). So I'd do some things very similarly to 4e (which codified many things, as I mentioned; powers, monster abilities, epic destinies, etc.), but then I'd take it even further. I'd codify skill uses (checks to shape the world, for instance), traits (like omniscience), etc.

Now, godlike play isn't very interesting to me. Demigods are pretty interesting, though. But nearly all-powerful beings, with the ability to shape the world in sweeping motions, not so much. Which is why I didn't flesh that out for my RPG. But that's just my personal preference.

Anyway, for my system, think of it like 4e, but more codified. You would have rules for shaping worlds, omniscience, pushing your power against another god, getting power from followers, or whatever else I decided I wanted to model.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'd just finally like to observe that its hard for me to imagine the likes of either JamesonCourage's or Saelorn's versions of objectified DMing holding here. Epic level play is particularly laden with narrative considerations and mechanically open-ended and complex interactions in ANY system that allows for genuinely "we're just a few steps below the gods" sort of play.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I have zero interest in epic level play, or that the inclusion of the epic tier in the core rulebook is not one of my favorite things about 4E.

As far as I measure things, anyone who can return the dead back to life is already just a few steps short of being a god, and it's simple enough for the DM to figure out how that actually "works".

 

[S'mon]

THAT is exactly what many of us are taking issue with in terms of 5e. Such a situation can lead to nothing BUT some form of 'Illusionism'

Illusionism requires a GM pre-conceived outcome regardless of player choice, but with the appearance that choice matters. It doesn't mean "the GM decides what happens" per se. If the players' choices affect the outcome then there is no Illusion, no illusionism. You can have zero illusionism in a completely free kriegspiel, rulesless game where everything is rulings.

And you can have illusionism in 4e, eg where the result of a successful or failed skill challenge is the
same. I pretty much did that* in my 4e game a few sessions back, actually.

*PCs arrived on the same mushroom cavern battlemat with a failed Dungeoneering check that I would have used if they'd passed, only a worse start location vs the zombies bursting out of the ground.

 

[S'mon]

You can take me through an actual example of play where I would ever roll a check using Investigation? I can't. If you look for a physical clue, Perception. If you talk to someone, a social skill. If you research something, the requisite knowledge skill, etc. There is no action you can perform which corresponds to the abstract activity of 'Investigating', its not concrete AT ALL.

Reminds me of 4e Streetwise.

 

[JamesonCourage]

And you can have illusionism in 4e, eg where the result of a successful or failed skill challenge is the same. I pretty much did that* in my 4e game a few sessions back, actually.

*PCs arrived on the same mushroom cavern battlemat with a failed Dungeoneering check that I would have used if they'd passed, only a worse start location vs the zombies bursting out of the ground.

This is pretty much what I meant when I said that I might argue that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] engages in illusionism to some degree. As far as I can tell, he believes that it is his duty to frame challenges for the PCs, and thus it's basically okay to send them up against a set scenario regardless of their choice; that is, it doesn't matter if they turn right or turn left at a fork, you present them with the same interesting situation regardless.

That's not a shot at his particular play style (and I might have it wrong to top things off with anyway), but it's part of why I think that 4e doesn't buck particularly hard against illusionism. Buck some? Sure. More than AD&D? I've never played/run it, but it looks like it to me. But pushing hard against illusionism requires a lot of player empowerment, and I didn't feel that in 4e as much as the majority of people seemed to. (Player empowerment -usually via powers and their reliability- seemed like a big deal to a lot of 4e, and I understand why; I just think it's not a very strong form of empowerment, when all is said and done.)

 

[Sadras]

I agree with @JamesonCourage and @S'mon illusionism was definitely possible in 4e. The mechanics helped some to mitigate it to a degree, but it definitely existed if I wanted to input it. We try play mostly sandbox (whatever the edition) so I find that it assists in pushing against any form of illusionism that I, as DM, might be predisposed to infect the game with.

 

[Imaro]

Reminds me of 4e Streetwise.

Yeah this had to have been the least used skill at our table... not totally worthless but I think it was just as abstract and hard to map to specific actions as [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] is claiming the Investigation skill is in 5e.

 

[Imaro]

Admittedly I may not have a full grasp on the boundaries of illusionism... but it seems to have alot of similarity to both how I have seen SC's explained and ran by many 4e fans... there is a "success" condition and a "failure" condition... but these are usually pre-set before the actions of the PC's are taken into account. The other instance is in the "fail forward" premise, which again seems like a possibly less hard form of illusionism... where no matter what the PC's actions they will get their goal... but with a cost/consequence/etc... Can anyone tell me why these both aren't a form of illusionism?