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Nov 26, 2012 -- 1:00AM, Xguild wrote:

We aren't talking about the same thing here.  Strength is an attribute, it determines how strong you are.  If that attribute didn't exist in the game, players would define it narratively and make it exist.  Whatever is or isn't part of the mechanic, if needed, is defined.  For example you can define that your a prince and have political power.  There is no attribute or mechanic that determines that, but in a good role-playing game it still exists.

You can do this in 4E as well. I have a Knight who is borderland nobility. He has some political clout in the northlands. In order to make use of that clout effectively, I trained in Diplomacy, took a background that gave me a bonus to Streetwise, and did not make Charisma my dump stat.

If you want your Wizard to be a prince and a political mover and shaker, see how far you get if you don't take the mechanics to support it (in any system, not just 4E). If you dump Charisma and don't take any social skills, your prince is going to look a lot more like Black Adder than Machiavelli (which might be just as, if not more fun to roleplay).

When you define your character as was the case in 4th edition where all of his abilities are strictly combat oriented and you do it so thoroughly that there is no room for player invention you do two things at once.  Define what he can do and define everything he cannot do.  A fighter with a strength of 15 is a generic thing which is than layered by a story created by the player.  When you want your fighter to be great at shield bashing, you don't need to take a power for it, you create that aspect of your character narratively because if you add it as a class feature, being good at shield bashing becomes the exclusive right of that character class and becomes something no one else in the game is allowed to do (else its cheating or at the very least makes taking that power useless).

While Fighters have some shield bash powers, much of the stuff a fighter does relating to his shield is represented by feats. Any shield wielding character can benefit from these by MCing Fighter.

Or are you going to claim that you want your Wizardto be good at shield bashing when he isn't proficient with the shield at all, because it should be part of the narrative?

4th edition is over defined, as a result, it has created a very limited scope of actions players can take, an unrealsitic limited scope.  Its created a world where Im not allowed to boost the morale of my friends unless my class allows it....

You can make an inspiring speech if you want. Tell the DM what you want out of it, see if he'll go for it. 4E does support the "rule of cool." I'd allow you to make a speech as a standard action to give your allies a +1 to the next attack roll they make (after a successful Charisma check). I'd allow you to use Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate in place of Heal to allow and adjacent ally to use their second wind (without the +2 to defenses).

That is the definition of a game system designed for everything but not role-playing.        

I put it to you that 4E was the first edition that did not get in the way of roleplaying. You say that it is the overdefinition of things that impedes roleplaying. 4E has almost no rules to control your roleplay. You don't need to be 10th level to construct a castle. You don't need to take the leadership feat in order to lead troops in battle. You don't have ten different professional skills and seven different performance skills. You are encouraged to come up with a background for your character, and your DM is encouraged to give you a +2 to +5 bonus to any skill check that relates to your background.

4E freed the roleplayer to define their character, but because there aren't dozens of mechanical fiddly bits and forty skills (30 of which are applicable only in narrow RP situations) to control your roleplaying, the uneducated or uncreative claim that 4E does not support roleplaying.

Nov 26, 2012 -- 8:25AM, professordaddy wrote:

Nov 26, 2012 -- 8:19AM, Garthanos wrote:

Classes are big humongous elements of your characters capability with broad reaching effects. Designing them poorly results in... 
 

Stop right there.  There is no "poorly" designed character, objectively.

Stop right there.

He didn't say anything about porrly designed characters. That is all on the player and the group.

He said poorly designed CLASSES. That is all on the designers of the game. Poorly designed classes are traps for unwary roleplayers. Traps that fail to evoke the feel that they are supposed to bring to the table. In 4E, the OAssassin is the perfect example of this. By having it's burst damage be a delayed mechanic often resulted in your allies killing your target before you could invoke that damage. The damage potential was there, but the potential was rarely realized. As a result, the Assassin is a very poor choice for a player who wanted to do what Assassins do, which is kill things. That is the very definition of a poorly designed class.

In a combat light, RP heavy campaign, the OAssassin mechanics would make a terrific spy. Shroud might even be useful with a little help from the DM in such a campaign.