Will someone define "Siloing" for me?

[Doc_Klueless]

Unfortunately, I keep seeing "siloing" showing up in posts, but it appears as if everyone but me already knows what it means. So, while everyone else is nodding thier head in understanding, I'm goin' "Whaaa?"

 

[Larrin]

siloing is to keep spells (and other powers i guess) seperate so you don't have to choose between them.

for example, a wizard with 2 level 3 slots has to make a choice. Do i have 2 battle spells, 2 untility spells, or 1 of each. It would be nice to be able to throw two fireballs in one battle, but what if we need that untility spell, he'd have to rest and thats kinda lame, but if he goes 1 and 1, then he runs out of usefulness in battle alot faser and may never even need that utility spell.

siloing would be if he had 2 slots for battle spells AND 2 slots for utility spells. thus in combat he's as effective as a non-siloed wizard would be that decided to choose to put all his slots towards battle and out of battle he's just as effective as the non-siloed wizard who put all his slots to utility. The wizard is not more POWERFUL he's just more USEFUL.

 

[JDJblatherings]

siloing is to keep spells (and other powers i guess) seperate so you don't have to choose between them.

for example, a wizard with 2 level 3 slots has to make a choice. Do i have 2 battle spells, 2 untility spells, or 1 of each. It would be nice to be able to throw two fireballs in one battle, but what if we need that untility spell, he'd have to rest and thats kinda lame, but if he goes 1 and 1, then he runs out of usefulness in battle alot faser and may never even need that utility spell.

siloing would be if he had 2 slots for battle spells AND 2 slots for utility spells. thus in combat he's as effective as a non-siloed wizard would be that decided to choose to put all his slots towards battle and out of battle he's just as effective as the non-siloed wizard who put all his slots to utility. The wizard is not more POWERFUL he's just more USEFUL.

He's more powerful. If they were scrolls what is a sign of a characetr with MORE...2 scrolls or 4 scrolls?

 

[Wolfwood2]

siloing is to keep spells (and other powers i guess) seperate so you don't have to choose between them.

for example, a wizard with 2 level 3 slots has to make a choice. Do i have 2 battle spells, 2 untility spells, or 1 of each. It would be nice to be able to throw two fireballs in one battle, but what if we need that untility spell, he'd have to rest and thats kinda lame, but if he goes 1 and 1, then he runs out of usefulness in battle alot faser and may never even need that utility spell.

siloing would be if he had 2 slots for battle spells AND 2 slots for utility spells. thus in combat he's as effective as a non-siloed wizard would be that decided to choose to put all his slots towards battle and out of battle he's just as effective as the non-siloed wizard who put all his slots to utility. The wizard is not more POWERFUL he's just more USEFUL.

Well, actually siloing is probably more like if he has 1 slot for battle spells and 1 slot for utility spells. He no longer has the option to go all one or the other, but it's okay because the bad guy wizard is in the same boat, and the game is designed with it in mind that he'll only have 1 slot for each.

 

[Glyfair]

"Siloing" was brought up by David Noonan as a term, IIRC. He pointed out that in 3.5 Fireball is clearly a better choice of a spell than Phantom Steed, overall. Which of the following things would you want to tell the rest of your party as their wizard? *

"Sorry guys, I'm all out of fireball, but I have phantom steed left."

or

"Sorry guys, I'm all out of phantom steed, but I have fireball left."

The solution to this issue is apparently "siloing" abilities. Make it so the wizard doesn't ever have to choose between a spell like fireball & a spell like phantom steed. That doesn't mean there won't be choices. However, the choices won't be such that one is almost always a better choice than the other. Maybe combat spells will be siloed together, while utility spells will be siloed together as well. That's been assumed, but it's not the only option.

* Yes, I know there are people who play D&D that never have a use for fireball in their game, but phantom steed is critical. Those are aberrations and this is about D&D overall.

 

[Drammattex]

Well, actually siloing is probably more like if he has 1 slot for battle spells and 1 slot for utility spells. He no longer has the option to go all one or the other, but it's okay because the bad guy wizard is in the same boat, and the game is designed with it in mind that he'll only have 1 slot for each.

Plus he gets those "per day," "per encounter," and "at will" abilities, which we don't know much about yet.

 

[Glyfair]

Plus he gets those "per day," "per encounter," and "at will" abilities, which we don't know much about yet.

Which probably factor into "siloing" in 4E, but aren't really germane to what "siloing" actually is. They just likely deal with how 4E will silo the abilities.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Thanks! Now I actually kinda understand some of the posts around here.

 

[Irda Ranger]

The solution to this issue is apparently "siloing" abilities. Make it so the wizard doesn't ever have to choose between a spell like fireball & a spell like phantom steed. That doesn't mean there won't be choices. However, the choices will be such that one is almost always a better choice than the other. Maybe combat spells will be siloed together, while utility spells will be siloed together as well.

Correct. Just to be clear to Doc_Klueless (whose name is very appropriate for this thread ), (1) silos are not new to 4e (all versions of D&D have them), and (2) it's not just applicable to spells. You might "silo" class abilities too, so that a Fighter could get "1 combat feat and 1 skill-use related feat", or a Rogue could get three Skill Point pools: one for Social Skills, one for Tumble/Balance/Escape Artist, and one for Open Locks/F-R Traps/Search. etc.

It's really a question of just how 'interchangeable' your discretionary resources are. There are already barriers in 3e to perfect conversion (you can't just cash in a Feat for 8 Skill Points to spend however you choose, or vice versa), so what the designers are really saying is that in 4e there will be more barriers (aka, more silos) between various character development and action choices and resource allocations.

A "one silo" leveling system would be a system where you cash in XP (a universal currency) to buy BAB, Saves, Spell Progression, etc. a la carte. D&D doesn't use this philosophy, but rather has classes that "silo off" various progression tables. They're (mostly) not inter-changeable; to advance your Fort Save you have to advance everything one level. The genius of the Feat system was that you get to have some wiggle room in that, but in a somewhat controlled manner. You could improve your Fort Save by +2 relative to your class and level peers, but not +10.

3e wizards have a spellcasting system with nine "horizontal silos" . Any 1st level spell can be swapped for any other 1st level spell, but not a 2nd level spell. Arcana Unearthed did away with this restriction by allowing the player to "weave" lower level spells into higher ones, or tear down higher spells into lower spell slots. A 20th level magister could memorize 20 9th level spells or 536 1st level spells (I made those numbers up), as he chose. There was only one silo. But there was still a "spellcasting silo", since you couldn't use spell slots for anything except casting spells. I expect that 4e will impose a vertical siloing on top of the 9 horizontal silos to create sort of a "grid", where you can't exchange the "at will" Kill Things With Fire ability for your "per day" Do Useful Stuff spells.

Taking the Arcana Unearthed philosophy to its natural conclusion, Psionics uses a "one silo" system of power points. Fighters have a "one silo" feat system. Every "feat" costs "one feat" (there isn't even a word for the currency, since it's always "one"). Some feats are better than others though, which is why they have pre-requisites. I considered a system where there were no pre-requisites and no automatic feat progression; you just bought Feats with XP (instead of leveling) .... but that way lies GURPS.

The "problem" with this, however, is that you can over-specialize; being wildly effective in narrow setting, but leaving big gaps in capability in what "the party" is capable of. You can leave yourself (and the people who rely on you) very open to certain threats. Also, if you don't know what you're doing, you can "under specialize" and make a very ineffective character. Imagine a Fighter who spent all his Feats on Skill Focus ....

So, by increasing the number of silos, the 4e designers accomplish two things:

1. Characters are more predictable in what they can do. By allowing for choices only intra-silo, and not inter-silo, you can say with 100% certainty that an 8th level Fighter will be able to do X, Y and Z. This is good for DM's and the guys who write adventures.

2. Characters are more predictably bad-ass. By removing the choice to spend all your Feats on Skill Focus, newb players and casual gamers who have not made a study of "effective character builds" will not be able to shoot themselves in the foot. They will be "protected" from the side effects of not memorizing enough Fireballs.

Neither of these changes are good for the inveterate tinkers and rule hackers. The guys who are "do builds" are the RPG equivalent of pre-Ubuntu Linux users. Or better yet, big iron UNIX admins. They don't want protection, they want control. More silos means a loss of some of that control. It's an inevitable trade-off.

I think it will be more accessible to more users, and the DM (the Network Admin of the dining table) will have an easier time riding herd on his PC's. What remains to be seen is whether the game is still fun for "the d20 hackers."

 

[Glyfair]

2. Characters are more predictably bad-ass. By removing the choice to spend all your Feats on Skill Focus, newb players and casual gamers who have not made a study of "effective character builds" will not be able to shoot themselves in the foot. They will be "protected" from the side effects of not memorizing enough Fireballs.

You missed the converse of this choice.

3. Characters are less one-sided. Without the option to dump all of your abilities into one type of ability you'll have more versatile characters, and fewer of the one-trick pony type characters.