Quote from: Acta Est Fabula;537768your (incorrect) assumptions

What are those? Why are they incorrect?

Quote from: CRKrueger;537745No dog in this hunt really, but the difference between the words Legend, Fable, and Myth isn't important?  Seriously?  Saying someone who actually existed isn't a Legend is like saying a Terrier isn't a dog.  Historical existence, or the possibility of such is what separates a Legend from a Myth in the first place.  It's the friggin' definition.

It's totally unimportant in this context or do you think that when the D&D guys were tlaking about powers like from myth and legend in application to high level D&D characters they were refering to high level PCs being like Michael Jordan a legendary ball player or like Beowulf .... When peple say 'of myth and legend' they are talking about larger than life myths and not wow I could be a fighter as good as Ali .....

Quote from: Acta Est Fabula;537716Say what now?  I'm using the common definition of the word used.  There's nothing semantic or pedantic about it.  HJ's the one (and you now) that is trying to say that a "legend' is only actually someone from mythology, which is a very tight and limited sample of what the word actually means and encompasses since it ignores the vast majority people who are literally defined as legendary.

what do you actually think the D&D guys meant in the actual context of their article....

Quote from: jibbajibba;537809When peple say 'of myth and legend' they are talking about larger than life myths and not wow I could be a fighter as good as Ali .....

When people say "of cats and dogs" not surprisingly, most of the time I think they are in fact considering both cats and dogs.

When someone says "out of myth and legend" I think they're referring to both some myth like Hercules and some legend like Leonidas.  Now that depends on context.  Since were talking about heroes in a RPG, you're probably talking about myths and legends and know what you're actually saying, or at least I hope you do.

If you're just blathering on about something and say "out of myth and legend" to make it sound poetic, then no, I don't expect you know what you're actually saying.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;537827When people say "of cats and dogs" not surprisingly, most of the time I think they are in fact considering both cats and dogs.

When someone says "out of myth and legend" I think they're referring to both some myth like Hercules and some legend like Leonidas.  Now that depends on context.  Since were talking about heroes in a RPG, you're probably talking about myths and legends and know what you're actually saying, or at least I hope you do.

If you're just blathering on about something and say "out of myth and legend" to make it sound poetic, then no, I don't expect you know what you're actually saying.  

Well read the actual quote from the article and decide what you think they meant

Anyway can we get back to actually talking about rogues

Quote from: jibbajibba;537697Cuchlain - can not be killed unless he eats dog meat

Being picky here, I admit, but I don't think that's strictly correct. Eating dog meat (and thereby breaking his geas) weakened him but I don't think he was invincible unless he ate dog meat.

Quote from: Dodger;537959Being picky here, I admit, but I don't think that's strictly correct. Eating dog meat (and thereby breaking his geas) weakened him but I don't think he was invincible unless he ate dog meat.

AHHH...
How about he defeats Death in single combat, defends Ulster single handedly against an entire army and has beserk warp spasms (just like Slaine)

The point is generally he is a bit tougher than Davy Crocket, Ali or Michael Jordan ... all absolute legends... hey didn't Davy Crocket kill a bear when he was 3 years old ?

I can see a reluctance to give non-caster high level PCs 'supernatural powers' but its been in the game for a long time. A 13th level Monk can fall any distance and not harm themselves is they are next to a Wall etc etc . The 'exotic' classes have always come with a lot of special mythical abilities at high levels its the just the figther and the rogue that get left behind, despite legends of great thieves and warriors in Western mythological traditions. Again not really my cup of tea I like my rogue / warriors cut from the S&S mould but I can see that there might be a desire to fill that gap.

Back to rogues.
Those people that want to protect rogue skills by separating them out and running them with a unique sub-system, aren't they falling into the 4e exception based design trap. Each class/ sub-class needs unique mechanical rules to protect its niche. Only Rangers can track, only bards can sing, etc .
I see that as lazy design and opens you up to multiple splats and class bloat.
 
I would rather give subclasses access to skill lists based on their background and allow those skills to cross polinate. Just by giving rogues extra skill points they must spend on the rogue skill list you automatically give them the advantage they need to dominate that space without preventing new specialist sub-classes having access to the same skills.

Because all the building blocks are then in the core design you kill the class bloat splat treadmill because the DM already has the tools to create any subclass he can think of and they all draw from the same mechanical design pool which eliminates exception based design.

Of course in a 5e situation you can simply restrict the rogue to drawing from the rogue skill list and remove the skill section from the rest of the game giving you a non skills based old school feel.

Surely that is the simplest solution to deliver all your design objectives?

OK well...
 
1) I don't see what the point of having classes under your system is; it'd be easier to give players 50 points and tell them to go wild... ?
 
2) Classes should have unique rules because they are special. If a class isn't unique, why make it a separate class in the first place? Why offer the rogue less niche protection than the fighter or mage (whose abilities you want to keep as class features) - why let fighters or mages become fighter/rogues or mage/rogues easily when the rogue can't pick up extra fighting or magic ?
 
Also I don't actually want "skills" to operate at a high level of power; I'd rather they operate on the order of something more like non-weapon-proficiencies - things that help define a character concept rather than winning the game. Putting Stealth and Spot on the same list as Profession and Craft is IMHO a bad idea. I'd rather lose the first two skills (by making them class abilities, since they're not going to be as good as the other options) than the last two.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537983OK well...
 
1) I don't see what the point of having classes under your system is; it'd be easier to give players 50 points and tell them to go wild... ?
 
2) Classes should have unique rules because they are special. If a class isn't unique, why make it a separate class in the first place? Why offer the rogue less niche protection than the fighter or mage (whose abilities you want to keep as class features) - why let fighters or mages become fighter/rogues or mage/rogues easily when the rogue can't pick up extra fighting or magic ?
 
Also I don't actually want "skills" to operate at a high level of power; I'd rather they operate on the order of something more like non-weapon-proficiencies - things that help define a character concept rather than winning the game. Putting Stealth and Spot on the same list as Profession and Craft is IMHO a bad idea. I'd rather lose the first two skills (by making them class abilities, since they're not going to be as good as the other options) than the last two.

1) The Classes determine a shape to the characters by limiting spread so rather than getting generic jack of all trades you end up with more focused characters. A fighter who opts to take rogue skilsl will spend more so will be a weaker rogue. Therefore if that characterts wants to go down that path they shoudl play a rogue. The classes add strucutre without acting as straightjackets

2) Again as part of the whole system rogues and fighters could pick up magic and rogues and mages can learn how to fight. In all versions of D&D all classes can fight Fighters are just better at it. The same applies to thief skills in a system like this anyone can try to remove a trap but the thief is better at it. Again I am not in favour of dual/multi classing but happy to have cross polination of skills and powers at a cost.
Again this is common in D&D a ranger gets spells and can fight, a Paladin has the same.
I am less concerned about niche protection as a concept than I am about fitting the classes into the setting.

3) Okay that is fine. I think that Non-weapon proficiencies especially from 1e/2e are actually quite a lot more powerful than that the only issue is they don;t really scale.
The point remans that the theives abilities are skills. It's undeniable. If you want to run a separate sub-system for them then fine but they are still skills. You end up having a 2 speed system. This is the skills list for everyone - pile of crap that just add colour; these are the list of skills that are class based and are useful. You are going to get a lot of skills in that second category as you add classes. Like I said ranger tracking, Bardic social skills, Assasins getting a subset of rogue skills, Black Priests that get hide in shadow, Barbarians that can survive in the wilderness, Acrobats that can leap or pole vault. You will not stop Class bloat and by circumscribing thieves skills as unique to the class you set a precedent for all other classes.

But at least we are talking about rogues

No one can stop Class Bloat
 
2E had separate skills for the thief outside the main skill system, while 3E had them integrated into the core skill system, and I think you'll find that even excluding PrCs there were way more class variants in 3E.
 
There are more than one reason for this ($), but in order for you to stop class proliferation you need way more than just thief skills as core skills - you would need most or all of the classes to have their main features defined by the skill system. Thief skills in the common pool only slows down the appearance of new mutant Thief subclasses.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538014No one can stop Class Bloat
 
2E had separate skills for the thief outside the main skill system, while 3E had them integrated into the core skill system, and I think you'll find that even excluding PrCs there were way more class variants in 3E.
 
There are more than one reason for this ($), but in order for you to stop class proliferation you need way more than just thief skills as core skills - you would need most or all of the classes to have their main features defined by the skill system. Thief skills in the common pool only slows down the appearance of new mutant Thief subclasses.

I think I would go in that direction though.

Combat & combat specialties
Magic and magic specialities
Skills and skill specialities

With classes all being difined on those axes

So The Monk is basically a fighter with a certain set of combat specialities and some Yogic type magic and some skills.
The Barbarian is a figther with a certain set of combat skills and a certain set of skills
The Paladin is a fighter with certain combat skills some divine magic and some skills (or indeed a Cleric with the same combination )

Now this excludes all the feat like class powers. Now I am all for that as I don't think feat like powers that don't scale are great and I think that in AD&D they were poorly distributed. However its easy to fix as you have a pool of feat like Powers and either attach them to classes at certain levels or you allow the PC to select from a sub list of the pool at certain levels typically every odd level or whatever.

When you look at AD&D classes this is basically how they work anyway. Monks and Druids get access to the 'Speak with Animals' feat, Paladins and Clerics get access to the  'Turn Undead' feat, Paladins get the 'Lay on hands' feat which is unique to them but you could easily see it also being taken by a priest of a god of Healing.

So all you are bascially doing is codifying and  revealing the design system used to create new classes to the DM.

You are right it may impact your abilty to sell splats and therefore your revenue stream but from a design perspective I think its more elegant.

Quote from: jibbajibba;538026I think I would go in that direction though.

Combat & combat specialties
Magic and magic specialities
Skills and skill specialities

With classes all being difined on those axes

The problem is that skills and skill specialties doesn't define a Rogue.  It defines what D&D 3.x called an "Expert".  Sure, if you take Rogue skills you've got a Rogue but if you take knowledge skills, you've got a Scholar.  You could use skills to build anything, not just a Rogue.  So what you are really arguing is that there is nothing distinct about a Rogue that makes them distinctly special and so maybe Rogue shouldn't even be a stand-alone class.  Maybe it's just one collection of skills among many that a player could choose, or not, and a party might being along a lock and trap expert into a dungeon just like they might bring knowledge skill expert along for an urban investigative adventure.  They're like a carpenter, plumber, or electrician.  An expert you call in to solve a specific problem, perhaps best handled with an NPC.

Quote from: John Morrow;538225..a party might being along a lock and trap expert into a dungeon just like they might bring knowledge skill expert along for an urban investigative adventure.  They're like a carpenter, plumber, or electrician.  An expert you call in to solve a specific problem, perhaps best handled with an NPC.

Like how the dwarves brought along Bilbo in The Hobbit!

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I agree that fighter's abilities could be classes as skills and so could the wizards. However, I think from a D&D paradigm that is going a step too far. I think one of the main faults of 4e was they ignored the differences between classes and it all became a wash. So I think combat is separate enough for it to merit its own methodology and I think Magic also is.

And if the weird stuff that a Rogue does is not separate enough to merit its own methodology, does the Rogue deserve a distinct class or is Rogue simply a flavor of a generic skill expertise class that could just as easily be a Scholar or Weaponsmith with a different selection of skills?

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591However, I think a thief rolling to pick locks is a skill check. You can dress it up you can claim its a core competancy but you can't deny its a skill check.

I'm not.  But what about backstabbing?  What about scaling sheer surfaces?  What about moving stealthily without being seen or heard?  Sure, all of those things could be handled with skill rolls, but so could combat rolls and spell checks.

Part of what I have in mind goes back to the old GDW board game Asteroid.  One of the characters in that game was a jewel thief by the name of Alex.  The rule with Alex was that if he began and ended his turn hidden from a sentry robot, the robot wouldn't spot him even if he was visible during the move.  A simple rule that requires no skill rolls and is better for it.  How could that translate to D&D?  At first level, a Rogue can cross 5 feet without being spotted.  At second level, 10 feet.  At 3rd level, 15 feet.  Or maybe a somewhat slower progression.  The same thing could be done with sheer surfaces.  The Rogue gets a free 5 feet at first level and more as they go up.  Also give them better saves to dodge out of the way of trouble.  All not skill rolls.  

Movement already has non-skill rules and limits, which is why I focused on it.  It's also something that most of your iconic examples have in common.

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591If you highlight it as different then you have to do the same with skills innate to each class, ranger's tracking, bardic lore etc ... In a world of class propagation and D&D is always prey to that, every magical smith class, animal trainer class, dwarven miner class would have a separate subsystem for their specialist class skill. To me that is a bit daft.

If you want to reduce this to an excluded middle argument, then the flip side of your extreme is that we don't need classes and all class abilities could be handled with skill checks which is, not unsurprisingly, what most non-D&D systems do.  The slope isn't that slippery and there is no problem handling some class abilities with special rules and others with skills or feats.  

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I don't want rule bloat for its own sake and I don;t want to be hemmed in by the tyrany of the unique. My real reason for that is that I want to give the DM the toolkit to create their own sub classes and if every class has unique mechanics I can't do that.

The solution to that set of preferences is to pick any number of other games out there that have unified resolution mechanics and use skills to define characters, but that's not really how D&D does things.

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I don't think you need to reduce fighters skills or a wizards. I think you need to give the Rogue more. So say a 1st level D&D figther gets 3 skill and they have a wilderness warrior template. they can pick tracking, survival, stealth, or riding, climbing and animal handling, or etc etc .... the first level rogue has 8 skills but they must pick 5 from the Rogue class of skills. they might have a wilderness scout template and pick the other three from the same wilderness list as the figther did. I haven't nerfed the figther I have just given the rogue more skills.

Why require them to take the Rogue class of skills, then?  What would be wrong with simply calling your class "Expert" and if a player chooses to be an expert in stealth, picking pockets, disarming traps, and opening locks, then they pick those skills.  If they want to be a Scholar, they pick a different set of skills?

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591Now I think your rogue example is a narrow niche. The Dungeon Scout rogue if you will.  I don't think all rogues should be restricted to that narrow niche I want to play all the rogues I listed.

In AD&D, the description of Thief states:

"The primary functions of a thief are: 1) picking pockets, 2) opening locks, 3) finding/removing traps, 4) moving silently, and 5) hiding in shadows."

D&D originally had a very narrow niche.  In arguing against a fairly narrow niche, I think you are arguing counter to the spirit of character classes which are designed around niche archetypes, not vague broad types of characters.  I think what you are talking about has more in common with the broad Champions categories of "brick", "energy projector", "speedster", etc.

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I agree you could play a swashbuckler rogue like a musketeer, excellent idea.

Not "a musketeer".  I was talking about the titular iconic characters, who should be some sort of Fighter on the basis of their fighting prowess.  They illustrate my point that there are plenty of Fighter character concepts that include rogue-like skills and abilities as well as other skills.  Any character class can make an argument for skills, and if all that defines a Rogue is that they spend even more time on skills, does that really make Rogue a distinct class that warrants forcing players to take Rogues skills to justify its existence?

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591And Bilbo is a first level rogue surely? If we make him a PC at all.

Frankly, I'd rate Bilbo a Commoner.  What Rogue-like skills does he actualy display?

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I have played fat greasy fence characters, not in dugeons but in City adventures. High appraisal, excellent pick locks and forgery.

Sure, and being used to skill-based and point-buy systems, I can think of dozens of character types that have nothing to do with the traditional D&D thief that I could build with a robust skill system and lots of skill choices.  What I don't understand is why you think Rogues should be distinctly blesses in that regard.

Quote from: jibbajibba;537591I would not allow multiclassing at all. I would allow classes to cross buy skills at a high cost. I think Multi-classing represents the very worst of min-max optimisation. However I can conceed that some players want to be able to optimise and min-max so an all inclusive D&D has to allow it.

The desire to multi-class is often simply the desire to play concepts that don't fit neatly into the single class paradigm.

Dude, come on!  Give Biblo the Expert class at least.