Filling Party Roles

As I've been thinking about filling party roles (here and here), I've been also wondering about how I might "fix" an old school D&D game up a bit. But now my requirement is minimal tinkering with the rules. I'd love to somehow turn thief skills into the feats or skills of older D&D, but that's a lot of work.

You know what isn't a lot of work though? Handing out a couple additional "thief" skills.

I'm now of the opinion that classes like Paladin, Ranger, and Druid are successes not only because they do seem to have a nice, narrow, and (by now) traditional archetype. They also can ape their "base" classes quite well, though they're no longer really subclasses in more recent editions. Illusionist and Assassin failed as subclasses because they could never quite do what their base class did: Assassins were down two levels on thief skills, and Illusionists just didn't have access to the same slate of skills as Magic Users.

So while one solution is to ditch the big four classes in favor of slightly specialized classes (e.g. fighter is out and soldier, weaponmaster, and berserker are in; wizard/magic-user is out and enchanter, necromancer, conjurer, and elementalist are in, etc.) another simple solution is to augment the list of thief skills a bit and pass them around. I really heart the idea of the first suggestion though, particularly for mages where the generalist is removed in favor of a couple thematic specialists. But the latter option is quite implementable in an old school game.

If we look at 2nd Edition, we can take the Bard's Legend Lore ability, plus additional Thief skills from Skills and Powers: Bribe, Detect Magic, Detect Illusion, Escape Bonds, Tunneling). We might even be able to nab a few Druid and Ranger powers (ID plants/animals, Tracking) or the Assassin's disguise ability. Then we can give a few additional powers out so that the lame classes can still participate.

Now the illusionist can have a few powers that legitimately might be in their domain (Detect Illusion, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Pick Pockets) and they can fill in as needed. Wizards might get Detect Magic and the bard's History ability so they can actually function as someone who has studies magic extensively. Assassins might only have a subset of the Thief skills (i.e. no pick pockets) but actually be able to use some of their abilities.

It could go beyond class too. Race might allow some characters to help fill in some missing roles. Dwarves and/or Gnomes might have find/remove trap and open lock skills, Halflings might have scouting skills, while Elves might have scouting, nature, or magic detection skills.

It would mean that, since trapfinding and opening locks is such a vital role in a party, a smaller party (or really any party) could get by without a thief character (because assassin just doesn't cut it). Likewise a couple characters might be able to take the scouting role a thief has. Clerics of a knowledge or magic deity might be able to legitimately provide the Encyclopedia support that a wizard could.

And whither the thief? Well, if we just added the 2nd Edition bonus thief skills (Yes, they're in Skills and Powers but some of them are also seen in Dark Sun) that should up the power of the thief class slightly (already a weak class to begin with). Additionally, I think the 2nd Edition system where thieves assign points per level is rather nice compared to the older editions where each thief has the same chances (modulo dex and racial modifiers).

To some extent, this is actually what we see after 2nd Edition: any class can take cross-class skill ranks in third edition to (crappily) ape most rogue skill and 4th edition explicitly links the "Thievery" skill with other classes (warlock and artificer come to mind). This does make me enjoy 5th Edition a bit more now since it seems like its going to follow these advancements.

Roles for exploration and interaction

Last night's game got me really thinking about exploration and interaction roles. I'm running Against the Cult of the Reptile God as my summer D&D fling game, and the party began infiltrating the church.

Now, I'm sure the player of the fighter was just tired, but the party didn't get to much fighting in general last night. So the fighter seemed bored as well as tired. The party's good planning reduced the need for combat dramatically, so people probably only took a swing or two each at enemies before they went down.

But the problem is that with the skill system, the fighter really doesn't have much that he can do outside of combat.

Fixing the D&D Fighter

I've never been particularly fond of playing fighters in D&D. I've done it a number of times, but usually for one-shot games. I'm a bit of a caster at heart, but there are ways to play a warrior with a little magic that satisfies my cravings. Except the fighter class is rather dull. I think we find some of the insight to fixing the fighter in the 4e essentials line, the Book of Nine Swords, and also back in the Complete Ninja's Handbook.

Simple is good, don't get me wrong. But there aren't a lot of options one could opt into. My real beef, mostly, is that fighter options tend to force them into being one-trick ponies. And even Pathfinder really didn't do much to fix the lack of real options for the fighter. Some of these ideas are there, but they're overshadowed by a focus on weapons and armor.

Look at weapon specialization, for example. In earlier editions of the game, it is just plain superior to some basic magic weapons. Meaning its better to just keep using your longsword (or upgrade to a magic +1 longsword) than that +2 battle axe that you found. In some iterations of the game/class, you might focus on all axes, rather than just the battle axe, but the effect is the same: every fighter becomes the kensai or weapon specialist.

These specialist feats say: use the flail for bonus x. Use the spear for bonus y. Use the axe for bonus z. In and of itself, this isn't bad. Except there's multiple feats or options for each weapon. So you stack them all up until your fighter really isn't nearly as awesome without his specialized weapon.

Now, some of this comes about from all weapons being functionally equal as well. In 4e, there's no difference between slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning weapons. In third edition there is, but I'm not sure if it ever came up in play for me, except maybe with skeletons. At any rate, the fighter should be able to switch weapons as needed and still be pretty awesome, unless he consciously chooses an option to be the kensai.

What does that leave for fighters to specialize in? Fighting styles. And I don't mean styles that emulate weapon specialization like a spear and shield, rapier & main-gauche, or sword & board type specializations. I'm talking about martial arts.

Filling the grid: races, classes, and roles

The fourth edition of D&D really cemented the old D&D roles by explicitly labeling them and putting them front and center in the game. No longer did a party require a cleric, since a warlord could fulfill the same party role, albeit in a slightly different way. Though, in third edition, a regular supply of wands of cure light wounds also provided plenty of healing if someone had the Use Magic Device skill.

Now, these combat roles have been around since the dawn of the game, and they were even explicitly discussed in the third edition of the game to some extent, though they were also mixed with non-combat roles. They can be broader or narrower, but here's one stab at the list:

Combat: Defense, Offence, Healing, Buffing, Battlefield Control
Exploration: Perception, traps, doors, scouting/stealth, tracking, orienteering, nighttime watches, nature lore
Interaction: Lies and knavery, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Information Gathering, setting lore