Two days ago I made a post called “Opinion on Character Creation in 4th Edition” It got a very active response from some of the community. I did post my response but since I do not have a way for people to subscribe to comments to a particular post (yet) I am posting my response here.
As I said I haven’t played a 4th edition game yet so my opinion of character creation in 4th edition can change when I finally play a game (It will probably be a long time because none of my group wants to try it but me).
No when I used bluff, diplomacy and Intimidate for an example I made a mistake. I got fixed on it because of something I was doing and misplaced it in my head and it ended up in here. That was just a stupid mistake on my part.
I agree that skills in 4th edition are probably more flexible. However I believe that to be a problem in its self. For example, look at Athletics. Someone who is good at climbing might not be a good swimmer. Someone might be a good swimmer but couldn’t jump more than an inch to save their life. In 4th edition if you take athletics as a skill you are good at climbing, jumping and swimming. Now there are some feats that will boost certain aspects of a skill, or at least appears that way. Example: Sure Climber. It allows you to climb at normal speed and +1 to all Athletic checks. So in 4th edition if you are good in one thing you are good in all things. 3x allows you to be good at one thing but not necessarily all. Now before you jump down my throat I am also away if the player is a good role player he will be able to decide on his and role play out if he is good at climbing but not at swimming. But that is still hard to do.
RE: Patriarch
I really like your idea of adding fluff to skills where characters explain how and/or why they are good at a skill.
My next 4th edition character should be out next week (classes just started so my time became more limited, and I am currently getting over a cold). I look forward to more comments so keep them coming.
Tags: 3x, 4th Edition, character, Character Creation, D and D, d&d, dragons, dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons and Dragons, entertainment, hobbies, hobby, role playing, role playing games, RPGs, rpgs, third edition
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A couple things to dovetail on to the previous comments…
Saying “it sucks!!!!” is different than “it’s not what I want in a skill system.”
I love the streamlining of skills, because it fits with D&D very well. I can say my fighter is athletic without having to divide my skill points between climb and swim, and having him be anemic in both. It’s also easier to pick up a roleplaying-specific skill (like maybe my fighter is a history buff) instead of it being almost impossible to have a decent enough bonus.
There are some games where I love to have tons of skills to chose from and be able to say that my character is a good climber but not a good swimmer, but D&D has never been one of them for me. I’d much rather play something like GURPS that covers all the skills specifically, or another system where you make up your own skills, but 3e’s inbetween list between streamlined and general never jived with me.
Hmm, your experience seems to have been totally different from mine. I don’t care if a character is a better swimmer than an climber. To me, this is totally useless information. It slows down the game, adds unnecessary record-keeping and is a general bother. General and flexible skills are both easier to use, and more useful in the context of a game, which is what we’re doing here – playing games. Things that promote fun, ease-of-play and smooth mechanics are good.
Addressing your specific issue of Athletics. I’m a athelete, although admittedly, not as good a one as I was in the past… I’ve trained my reflexes, stamina, my hand-eye co-ordination, strength through a variety of sports, martial arts and exercises. I have friends who are not atheletes. When I go out and try out a new athletic activity, guess who picks it up faster and is competent more quickly? Me, or the non-athletic person?
Same pricipal with computers, or RPG’s. Someone who is experienced (dare I say “trained”) picks up new applications of the skill faster and more easily than someone who is less experienced. This system doesn’t address fine gradiations of various skills, but it addresses the general issues of who is good at what in a way that is both appropriate and consistent with the type of game that 4e is trying to be – more streamlined, more flexible, more action-hero style.
Sorry to rant, but I think you should step back from what you’re used to – what wanting to play DnD has made you willing to put up with, really, and take a look at why you play – what parts you really enjoy and what parts you just deal with. 4e seems to me to have minimized the “just deal with it” and maximized the “cool stuff with my friends”. I think that not knowing if my character is better at climbing than at swimming is no loss. I didn’t really care before unless I had to make a climbing roll, and I really don’t care now.
As a one time 4E hater, I can sympathize. It does seem to kill the suspension of disbelief a bit, but does it REALLY matter?
The tradeoff in saved time, and versatility more than makes up for this little shortcoming, IMO.
D&D 4E is at once different and the same. It still has Dungeons, Dragons, and loot. It still has magic, heroes, and villains. What is it specifically that makes it “less” D&D than 3rd edition? Endless bookkeeping? Long drawn out character creation? Unbalanced Splat feats and classes? There are 100 games that have dungeons AND dragons in them…so which one is “Real” D&D?
I found that once I started playing and DMing, I became less and less tolerant of 3E’s quirks. It was a gradual process that has culminated in actually liking it.
Having a longer list of very specific skills does allow you to create a character sheet that expresses a very nuanced set of skills. While it’s great for a character sheet, it doesn’t seem to add much to the actual gameplay. Did you make your character a great climber and a lousy swimmer because he grew up in the mountains with no large bodies of water nearby, or because you had a low intelligence and didn’t have enough skill points to make him decent at both? And don’t get me started on tying every skill to int…
If it’s really important for a character to be a better climber than a swimmer, ask your GM to grant you a +2 to Athletics climbing checks in exchange for a -2 to Athletics swimming checks. Done. Easy.
If it’s not really important… then why worry about it in the first place? Just train Athletics.
And if you want your fighter to have studied History or to know how to pick a lock? Much, much easier under 4e. Spend one feat and you’re set. In 3e, cross-class ranks meant you could never be good enough at it to succeed on picking any lock that was meant to be a challenge — and any lock you could pick, the rogue would have already opened. With his eyes shut.
On an unrelated note… I find your page very difficult to read. Can you maybe eliminate the background image, at least for the actual text area? White on black would be pretty easy to read, but white on bright purple isn’t, and purple on bright purple is just maddening.
I think what it boils down to is whether you want to play a simulation or a game. A simulation is packed with all the distinctions you identify (and is what 3.x became, in my opinion.) My response to that as a DM was to wander away from D&D for a year because the housekeeping burden of a simulation was no fun to me.
I ended up “writing” my own homebrew rules (using the SRD as a starting point.) Curiously enough, when 4e came out, there turned out to be many similarities. My guess is that enough people were more interested in gaming than full simulation to warrant the rewrite.
I believe many of the details can be left to the role-player (so much so that in my homebrew, even the races are an RP-element only, there are no penalties or benefits to choosing different races as far as abilities are concerned.) I know that won’t satisfy some people, but I’d bet that WoTC sensed (or discovered through research) that it would satisfy enough of their audience to make it worthwhile (beyond just selling more products).