One of the things that I loved about 3e classes (and 2e kits) is that they provided a platform to imbue characters with abilities that they otherwise wouldn’t take. I tried to make a “generic class” 3e where all abilities were feats late in my 3e career and pretty quickly discovered that few people were interested in buying “wild empathy” when things like sneak attack were on the table. I don’t blame players; I would probably do the same. But the solutions were to either (a) pile on the prerequisites or (b) make things less powerful. Neither proved to be fun and it helped me understand why abilities are so often siloed into classes—it is an easier method of restricting and allocating abilities.
To that end, I sort of see why 4e basically did away with those flavor powers because they are hard to divvy out. They are, however, still missed and I want them in the game. My working approach is to label them “talents” and assign each class two talents. Characters periodically (presently at each odd character level) select from among their available pool of talents. If you multiclass, you gain access to that classes talents as well. In addition, your race provides a pool of racial talents. As a result, characters have a wide range of talents to select from and can build their character to epitomize any of their classes, their race, or blend all of the above.
Here is the talent table so far:
Talents by class | |||||
Class | Nimble | Resolve | Nature | Tactician | Adventurer |
Barbarian | X | X | |||
Bard | X | X | |||
Druid | X | X | |||
Fighter | X | X | |||
Knight | X | X | |||
Mage | X | X | |||
Monk | X | X | |||
Priest | X | X | |||
Ranger | X | X | |||
Rogue | X | X | |||
Don’t read too much into class names just yet…
A talent is, in general, weaker than a feat. That isn’t to say that they aren’t powerful and they will certainly have an impact on the character, but they aren’t really game changers. They are flavorful, fun, come up sporadically, and help round out the *feel* of a character. Some quick samples:
- Everburning torch bearer: You may draw, light, and, if desired, toss a torch as a free action.
- Trackless step: You do not leave tracks. The DC to track any party which you are in increases by 5.
- Pressure points: Gain a +2 bonus to break or burst common items.
- A healthy gamble: Gain 1d6 hit points.
Admittedly, no one is going to define their character around their talents. They are just a little something extra to let the rules help define a character without complicating the game too much or contributing too greedily to power creep. They're supposed to be fun more than empowering.
There are also higher level talents that require character level of 7+ and I imagine it would be appropriate to add even more at character level 14+ (sort of dividing the 20 levels into three tiers). I also put a little thought into flaws which, if you choose to take one, provide an additional talent. Flaws are much more punitive than a talent is beneficial because of self-selection power creep.
>few people were interested in buying “wild empathy” when things like sneak attack were on the table.
ReplyDeleteReplace "Wild Empathy" with "Everburning torch bearer" and replace "Sneak Attack" with "A healthy gamble". In both cases you have something situational with little bearing on combat and something useful in almost any combat.
Do you have an example of how you silo talents to keep this from being a problem?
I almost didn't post "A healthy gamble" because it is probably one of the more powerful talents and I thought it might raise collars.
ReplyDeleteTalents are divided among the categories listed. Each of the talents above are from a different category and "A healthy gamble" is from "Common" which is available to all characters. So although it might be more powerful, we don't yet have a power discrepancy since anyone can take it.
But say, instead, that everyone takes it since it is probably better than EBTB (Everburning Torch Bearer). First off, I'm not sure it is as good as you think. Because surge value is not a function of max HP, max HP is less powerful. But bloodied now matters more, so maybe it is still just as important.
One of the overriding goals of all of my game design so far has been to modularize rules. The intent is to make it so that if you find out something is too powerful, you can change it with minimal disruption on the rest of the game.
If we find that 75% of characters (or whatever) all take "A healthy gamble," then maybe we should just pull it. There are a half dozen other options in that same talent pool (Common), the character has two more talent pools even if they are single classed, and they have a racial talent pool. It isn't like we just damned them into being an underpowered character. Or maybe we make it d6-1 to emphasize the gamble. Or d6-2; they could all be fun and interesting.
So I agree that "A healthy gamble" is more powerful than "EBTB" and ultimately power discrepancies will be unavoidable. Moreover, from GM to GM different things will be more or less powerful. An urban campaign has less use for Trackless Step than a campaign set entirely in the Wilderness. It is a fool's errand to try and balance all things. My goal, though, is to set up system so that GM to GM can customize the rule set without having to be (a) an expert or (b) willing to commit dozens of hours. I think Talents, as I envision them, do that so far despite introducing power differentials.
Again, thanks for the comment. I think your question was spot on in finding a weakness, I just think the weakness is sufficiently offset by the other strengths it affords. Please keep on pushing back.
To follow up, EBTB is "Adventurer", Trackless Step is "Nature", Pressure Points is "Tactician", and A Healthy Gamble is "Common".
ReplyDeleteI like the basic idea of separating utility abilities and combat abilities so that you encourage people to pick from both pools. That being said, there's no need to have your general utility flavour abilities be WORSE than your combat powers. Nobody is going to be happy if their list of talents boils down to a bunch of small modifiers to small things that rarely come up. That's the sort of thing that bogs down play enormously as everybody searches their character sheet for some situational benefit they might have forgotten about.
ReplyDeleteLook at the examples you posted: Everburning Torch Bearer is pretty neat, and would be helpful right up until the point where everybody has a way to see in the dark. Trackless Step on the other hand is a terrible idea because the DM doesn't actually roll to track the party the way the party rolls to track someone else. Team Monster will either find you or they won't, and at best having Trackless Step on your character sheet is an excuse for the DM to say that the monsters didn't track you. But having that ability will have zero bearing on whether or not the monsters find you or not. Pressure Points is the exact thing that I was talking about earlier, where it's a tiny almost insignificant numerical boost to something you never do. And as someone else mentioned, extra health defeats the entire purpose of splitting up utility and combat powers, because extra health is only useful for combat.
The idea of having different pools of abilities for the different minigames is a good one, but for it to work you need to have interesting abilities in each pool and also no crossover between them. Because if someone can pick a utility power that makes them better at combat it throws off the balance of both out of combat 'stuff' and combat 'stuff' because they will be better than they're supposed to be at combat and not as good as they're supposed to be at noncombat. And then you're right back where you started.
I don't agree that Trackless Step is useless. If "Team Monster" was tracking the players, I would roll to see if they succeed just like the players would.
ReplyDeleteI think the value of a talent can vary a lot depending on how a specific group plays the game, but the perceived value of combat bonuses are more similar from group to group due to combat being a major part of the game in most groups.
No, the perceived value of combat bonuses are more similar from group to group because combat actually has rules describing what happens. It's the primary minigame in both 3E and 4E, and each is built around the core gameplay of squad-based battle. EVERYTHING out of combat, including tracking, boils down to 'make it up'. Skill Challenges were an interesting idea that absolutely didn't work at all.
ReplyDeleteAs far as tracking goes, it seriously doesn't matter. MAYBE if it's the party tracking the enemy, but if the monsters are tracking the party for some reason that's a plot issue, and the outcome depends 100% on what the DM wants to have happen next and 0% on having an ability on your character sheet.
One of the reasons that I put so much emphasis on rule silos is that it helps reduce the importance of these decisions. Neubert would roll and so Trackless Step is useful. CJ would just decide if the monsters catching the PCs better serves the story and so it is useless.
ReplyDeleteIf we are dealing with resources that need to be spent on +1 attack or Trackless Step, then this is an important debate because we're luring players into a trap of spending an important resource (+1 atk) on something the DM doesn't intend to use.
But, instead, we're dealing with Trackless Step vs. EBTB. Honestly, neither *really* matters. They are flavor abilities that let the player feel cool when some event arises. It isn't that big an issue.
That isn't to discount flavor abilities, though, because they are fun and fun is the real currency of the game. What siloing does is parse the importance of various mechanics into different groups so that you can freely add the stuff that is fun for you and yours without having to worry that you just messed up monster challenge ratings.