My Gripe with 4th Ed.

[malyss]

Yes, Ross, I know you love it.

Yes, there are things I like about it.

Yes, I do play 4th Ed.

I actually play 4th Ed. more than anything else. I run a Pathfinder game about once a month, and played 3rd and 3.5 for years. I also played 2nd. And 1st. And GURPS, Palladium spin-offs, Champions, etc. etc.

It just really bugs me that when I want to actually challenge players with something other than a fight or social situation, I have to basically use athletics or acrobatics as the catch-all.

Can't they just add one or two more skills to cover role-playing interests? The groups I play with like to have their characters have other talents (such as blacksmith, sailor, cook etc.) and there is just no real mechanism for measuring their talent in that area. If you say your character is the best blacksmith in the land, how could anyone challenge you? There is no measure of ability.

It also bugs me how un-special wizards are now. It does feel like the public school system now - no one is more special than anyone else... bleh.

Anyway, there is my little rant.

[clockworkjoe]

The lack of secondary skills is a problem in 4E - there are several homebrew solutions out there - you might give each PC a 'class skill' - i.e. a warlord has a warlord skill that covers anything a warlord might have to do - train soldiers, assess a battlefield, repair equipment, etc.

As for wizards not being special - do you think there should be character classes that are just inherently better than others? What do you say to the fighter PC who gets outclassed by the wizard - don't be a fighter?

[Tadanori Oyama]

I resolve things like that using ability checks and modifying them using collectively gathered "points". Basically I let my players gain ranks in new skills.

All my players survived an adventure in the Shadowfell, so I had them add "Shadowfell +1" under their class features. The wizard, however, spend alot of time talking to their guide and asked questions via roleplaying. She got "Shadowfell +2".

If a character is the greatest blacksmith in all the land, give them "Black Smith +10". That way when he uses his abilities to do blacksmithy things, he had 10 to whatever he rolls (in addition to half his level and the ability mod). Information about blacksmithing? Intellegence. Making a fine piece of iron? Dexterity. Making something unusually big? Strength. Making alot of things without stopping? Constitution.

Not the simplest system, just one I like to use.

[Boyos]

All my players survived an adventure in the Shadowfell, so I had them add "Shadowfell +1" under their class features. The wizard, however, spend alot of time talking to their guide and asked questions via roleplaying. She got "Shadowfell +2".

And what would that shadowfel help with? history? I do agree that if your fighter wants to be a black smith let him add the skill. its all D20 checks, if he wants to drop skill points in it let him, just be sure you can set up challenges for him to use the skill. proving hes the best, repairing the partys gear, or helping a broken down wagon fix its wheel, what ever you want. As allways DnD is pretty easy to set up extra home rules, if its a skill challenge the standerd rule of 3 sucesses befor 2 fails.


p.s. welcome back tad. was starting to get worried you sacrficed your self to a dark god.

[Tadanori Oyama]

"Shadowfell" adds to attribute tests regarding the Shadowfell, as outlined above using blacksmith. If a player uses a skill, no bonus. The listing is designed to be used in places when there is not a fitting skill.

[Murph]

I will admit, rules as written, I find the skills in 4th to be the weakest part of the system.  That said, I have the same feelings about pretty much all the d20 systems (Sage, Pathfinder, 3.5).  Either way, all those system benefit heavily from a give and take from both DM and player.

Were wizards all that specialized in 3.5?  Specialization meant you lose access to 1/8th of spells, most of which you'd never cast anyway.

I've found the separation of fluff from the mechanics in 4th ed more liberating, with more chances for reskinning.  I'm playing a druid in a maptools game, and the best part of character creation was writting my own fluff for my powers.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Oh, god what would I do without reskinning? It is so simple to make any encounter thematically appropriate using the monster blocks in 4E. Maybe it was just as easy before, I don't know, but I can pick any level fitting monster and just say it looks like whatever I want while using the stats infront of me.

Hell, I made the characters fight an Ancient Gold Dragon's stats but the monster was a single, living city. It's a level 30 Solo encounter, that's what matters.

[clockworkjoe]

Iron Heroes had a great skill system - it took all 3E skills and classified them into groups - you could specialize in individual skills or just hte groups - characters had enough skill points to make competent characters who were well rounded

[Murph]

Iron Heroes had a great skill system - it took all 3E skills and classified them into groups - you could specialize in individual skills or just hte groups - characters had enough skill points to make competent characters who were well rounded

That sounds like the Shadowrun 4ed skill system.  All the skills were placed in about 10 skills groups.  You could purchase ranks in the group, up to rank 4, and since you were buying in bulk, you got a discount.  If you purchased an individual skill, you could purchase it up to rank 7, but you could no longer buy the skill group or something.  You could also buy a specialization for specific circumstances,  so for the pilot skill, you could buy a bonus on cars, or for the melee weapon skill, axes.

It was an ok system.

[Tadanori Oyama]

By my count nearly a thirds of the skills in Shadowrun 4th Edition aren't in any skill group, granted the ones not included are more highly specialized skills. Shadowrun uses a WoD style system where your skill ranks adds to a dice pool which you use to try and get hits against a static target number. The number of six siders can get crazy with Shadowrun. I mean, I love being able to throw twelve dice down when I make a throw attack, or throwing fourteen for a knowledge check its just alot of dice.

[Setherick]

Iron Heroes had a great skill system - it took all 3E skills and classified them into groups - you could specialize in individual skills or just hte groups - characters had enough skill points to make competent characters who were well rounded

I thought that IH was a great all around system for Conan-style cinematic melee combat. I understand how the magic lite characters turned people (i.e. Tom Church, I know you are reading this Tom, and I'm specifically calling you out) off of the game system.

[Akiira]

As for wizards not being special - do you think there should be character classes that are just inherently better than others?

Yes thats exactly how it should be. In real life everything isnt fair and blanced so why should everything be like that in games?

[Tadanori Oyama]

As for wizards not being special - do you think there should be character classes that are just inherently better than others?

Yes thats exactly how it should be. In real life everything isnt fair and blanced so why should everything be like that in games?

Games are designed with the idea of rules in mind. Really the concept of a game is that it is an activity which has rules, or guidelines, even if they are very light in nature. Part of those rules, typically for player benefit and fairness, is a balance between classes (or other character options).

I've been trying to form a better, more thought out arguement and I can't seem to so I'll cut to my core point: That's fucking stupid.

Real life isn't fair or balanced so obviously the wizard should get to be awesome? Seriously, what the fuck? Your begging the question.

[Akiira]

Well i cant exactly counter "its stupid". Hope you got something better then that. also I hope I'm just reading it and wrong and you arent implying that an unbalanced game means a rule-less game?

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'm saying that if a game is designed to be balanced, which most class based games are assumed to be, and the rules lead to the classes being unbalanced than they are bad rules and bad design because they do not achive their desired function.