An edition war, for this?

[Thurbane]

This forum needs the sarcasm font. It's hard to convey emotion over the Internet, and I've seen people post things like that who seemed to be serious about it (for example, on another forum, there was a discussion about a certain group of people, and one person was loudly advocating killing them all).

I usually find [ s a r c a s m] tags to be adequate, but I am intrigued by the concept of this font.

[Starbuck_II]

This forum needs the sarcasm font. It's hard to convey emotion over the Internet, and I've seen people post things like that who seemed to be serious about it (for example, on another forum, there was a discussion about a certain group of people, and one person was loudly advocating killing them all).

I'd add it if he was finished.

[Thane of Fife]

To those saying that a 4e rogue makes a good swashbuckler:

What is it that makes it so? (I'm not being snippy - I'm genuinely curious). As far as I'm aware, the 4e rogue is a striker, which basically means dealer of lots of damage.

And that's about as far from my mental image of swashbuckler as it's possible to get without entering spell-slinger territory. If anything, I'd say that a swashbuckler is a defender, pure and simple. I can't for example, imagine a swashbuckler rushing through enemy lines to stab an enemy wizard, but I can totally see him interposing himself between a young lass and a horde of orcs, risking his life to protect her (or her life to protect him, in the case of a female swashbuckler protecting a young lad).

Is it entirely because the rogue wears little armor and uses a rapier?

[Jokes]

Going from the adaptability of 3.5E, where you could make a Wizard into a Tank with the right feats and spells if you wanted, to the strict "play your class role the way WE say or you are useless" of 4E is maddening to me.

Hmm, a melee wizard? Start with Shadar-kai and go with Staff Mastery and take Reapers Touch (Dragon 372) to make magic missile a close touch power (and melee basic), take thunderwave as your other at will and focus on Close powers (no Close dailies yet, though ). Take armour proficiency up to Hide, and by level 11 with +3 Earthide armour and a Defensive Staff +2, your AC should be around 28, comparable to a big weapon paladin of the same level.

The reason we can't do all the fun things yet is because there aren't enough sources to support them.

[Draz74]

I can't for example, imagine a swashbuckler rushing through enemy lines to stab an enemy wizard,

Really? Methinks you need to watch Pirates of the Caribbean some more. Or Zorro. I guess I'm not the most informed on old Errol Flynn stuff, but I think it's a similarly mobile, striker-ish style.

The hold-off-the-horde element is definitely in the archetype too. Most of the Swashbucklers in The Princess Bride, for example, don't go in much for the sneaky sudden-attack-lots-of-damage style. But still, the rogue at least does some things right.

Is it entirely because the rogue wears little armor and uses a rapier?

Also because he has social skills, acrobatic skills, and powers that actually use Charisma in a melee. (Something the 3e Swashbuckler class was very sadly lacking.)

[Myatar_Panwar]

To those saying that a 4e rogue makes a good swashbuckler:

What is it that makes it so? (I'm not being snippy - I'm genuinely curious). As far as I'm aware, the 4e rogue is a striker, which basically means dealer of lots of damage.

And that's about as far from my mental image of swashbuckler as it's possible to get without entering spell-slinger territory. If anything, I'd say that a swashbuckler is a defender, pure and simple. I can't for example, imagine a swashbuckler rushing through enemy lines to stab an enemy wizard, but I can totally see him interposing himself between a young lass and a horde of orcs, risking his life to protect her (or her life to protect him, in the case of a female swashbuckler protecting a young lad).

Is it entirely because the rogue wears little armor and uses a rapier?

You don't always have to take just plain "deal Xd6 damage and thats it" powers. The rogue actually has quite a few powers which focus on moving about quickly and such.

In fact, I don't really know what you are looking for in a swashbuckler. When I think of one, I think of a fighter who uses finesse and charisma to trick and defeat his foes. Much like Elan likes to think he does in the comics.

The rogue in 4e has a whole array of abilities which complement this.

[Thurbane]

In fact, I don't really know what you are looking for in a swashbuckler.

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[Kurald Galain]

Also because he has social skills, acrobatic skills, and powers that actually use Charisma in a melee. (Something the 3e Swashbuckler class was very sadly lacking.)

But here, "use charisma in melee" is defined as "people who can't see you find you nevertheless so cool that they find it harder to attack you". The rogue isn't really using charisma in melee, the rogue is applying Ability Score #6 to his Type-One attacks.

[Tengu_temp]

Heavily refluffed swordmages make great swashbucklers and fit the defender role.

[FatR]

Opinions can be inaccurate if they are clearly not rooted in reality, but misconceptions.

Then mine aren't. Because that's my reality of 4E.

Maybe your groups had bad luck with dice rolls, or refrained from using encounter/daily powers and action points for some weird reasons? The fights I've experienced were against challenging enemies as well. As for duels, are we talking about duels between player characters, or player vs monster/NPC? In either case, "minutes without hurting each other" is extreme exagerration - the chance of hitting an oponent of roughly the same level should oscilate around 50%, and characters who aren't leaders have very limited self-healing capabilities.

Yet they can't fight for minutes without hurting each other, because HP damage is explicitly described as unrelated to actual wounds in 4E. 3.X characters are like characters from One Piece that can remain standing after being repeatedly shot, blown away by explosions and hit by an object that weights a ton. 4E characters are like characters from action movies, that can get dirty, bruised, but rarely, if ever, take actual wounds. Obviously, the former suits deliberately high-powered games more than the latter.

I'm talking about varied tactics - sometimes players went melee and concentrated on flanking opponents, sometimes they stood away and attacked from distance, someone they used the terrain to their advantage by creating choke points.

Is this what you consider "varied"? In 3.X you can do all of that (except standing away and using ranged actually works and does not break the game in the process, and some classes can manipulate the terrain by yourself - although at low level even fighters manage to do that with items and stuff) and also ambushes, baiting and battlefield control, if we talk about things that non-casting characters did in the games I ran/played. Use casters and the variety of options increases greatly. Although I admit, that most non-caster options lose validity at high levels, but, well, that's because everyone there is too powerful for mundane tactics and "greatly reducing the game's power level" is not a solution that I appreciate.

Several dozens? Any power that's a Blast 5 or more, or Burst 2 or more - if enemies are huddled together, you can hit even 25 of them with a fireball, and there are powers with area of Blast 7, allowing you to attack 49 enemies at once.
And no, damaging multiple enemies is not a crutch - one of the Controller's jobs is quick and efficient disposal of minions.

Ooookay, I forgot about freaking square fireballs. Although this still is quite unimpressive compared to 3.X area spells, you got me here. But note, that gathering free XP from minions is included in "auto-hitting" part.

[hamishspence]

in old teletext 888 subtitles, sarcasm was denoted with (!) for a sarcastic comment and (?) for a sarcastic question- maybe it could be used for talking on net as well?

[FatR]

In fairness, that goes both directions.

You can't make as good of a Swashbuckler out of the 3e PHB as you can by making an Artful Dodger Rogue with Rapier proficiency.

Except artful dodger rogue is a poor choice for already-underwhelming class. And, as already mentioned, Fighters/Rogues do okay as swashbucklers.

[Tengu_temp]

Yet they can't fight for minutes without hurting each other, because HP damage is explicitly described as unrelated to actual wounds in 4E. 3.X characters are like characters from One Piece that can remain standing after being repeatedly shot, blown away by explosions and hit by an object that weights a ton. 4E characters are like characters from action movies, that can get dirty, bruised, but rarely, if ever, take actual wounds. Obviously, the former suits deliberately high-powered games more than the latter.

I'd like to point out that 4e characters start taking actual wounds when they get Bloodied.

Is this what you consider "varied"? In 3.X you can do all of that (except standing away and using ranged actually works and does not break the game in the process, and some classes can manipulate the terrain by yourself - although at low level even fighters manage to do that with items and stuff) and also ambushes, baiting and battlefield control, if we talk about things that non-casting characters did in the games I ran/played. Use casters and the variety of options increases greatly. Although I admit, that most non-caster options lose validity at high levels, but, well, that's because everyone there is too powerful for mundane tactics and "greatly reducing the game's power level" is not a solution that I appreciate.

I was talking about tactics that my groups used so far, not all tactics available - what exactly prohibits 4e groups from using ambushes?

[Kaiyanwang]

I'd like to point out that 4e characters start taking actual wounds when they get Bloodied.



I was talking about tactics that my groups used so far, not all tactics available - what exactly prohibits 4e groups from using ambushes?

Sometimes, 10 minutes casting time silence.

[Tengu_temp]

Yeah, the long casting time of rituals sucks - it should be 10 times less for most of them, if you ask me.

[Kaiyanwang]

Yeah, the long casting time of rituals sucks - it should be 10 times less for most of them, if you ask me.

Yeah.. in 3rd edition, some standard action spell should have 3 hour casting time.
In 4th, some ritual should have lesser CT.

[Thane of Fife]

Really? Methinks you need to watch Pirates of the Caribbean some more. Or Zorro. I guess I'm not the most informed on old Errol Flynn stuff, but I think it's a similarly mobile, striker-ish style.

Right, they are very mobile fighters, but they don't rush out of the tough situations to stab the weak guys! It's not the mobility I'm arguing against, but the striker aspect. My vision of a swashbuckler fight is one which generally takes a long time, and two people with relatively low armor classes and hit points who do large sums of damage does not seem conducive to that.

Also because he has social skills, acrobatic skills, and powers that actually use Charisma in a melee. (Something the 3e Swashbuckler class was very sadly lacking.)

I'll accept the social skills and acrobatic skills, but using Charisma in a melee would be one of those things which I think someone just threw in to make the swashbuckler archetype less sub-optimal. I can't think of any examples whatsoever of a swashbuckler using his charisma in a fight in a movie or story (swashbuckler adversaries, sure - I could totally see Milady seducing the fighter away from his party before shoving a poisoned dagger in his ribs). The closest example I can think of with someone who could possibly be considered a swashbuckler would be Leonardo, in TMNT 3, tricking an enemy mook into holding his swords so that he can slug him.

In fact, I don't really know what you are looking for in a swashbuckler.

Errol Flynn is a good answer.
Thinking about it, I guess my image of a swashbuckler in 4e, from what I know about it, would be a defender who wears relatively little armor, and who engages multiple adversaries and then somehow controls the movement of those whom he's fighting. And he'd probably need powers that give him an AC boost, or something.

[Tengu_temp]

Thinking about it, I guess my image of a swashbuckler in 4e, from what I know about it, would be a defender who wears relatively little armor, and who engages multiple adversaries and then somehow controls the movement of those whom he's fighting. And he'd probably need powers that give him an AC boost, or something.

I repeat, you want a Swordmage, most probably refluffed to get rid of all the magic elements.

[Cainen]

I repeat, you want a Swordmage, most probably refluffed to get rid of all the magic elements.

Not just refluffed, but retrofitted. The stats don't do it for a Swashbuckler.

[Artanis]

But here, "use charisma in melee" is defined as "people who can't see you find you nevertheless so cool that they find it harder to attack you". The rogue isn't really using charisma in melee, the rogue is applying Ability Score #6 to his Type-One attacks.

If you want to look at things that way, then this sort of statement can apply to any ability in any edition of any RPG in history.

[Kurald Galain]

If you want to look at things that way, then this sort of statement can apply to any ability in any edition of any RPG in history.

That is incorrect.

The reason is that (unlike every other RPG) D&D4 is full of rules that cannot be explained from an in-world perspective.

[Tengu_temp]

Not just refluffed, but retrofitted. The stats don't do it for a Swashbuckler.

I'd say they fit pretty well - Swordmages need high dexterity for sword-related feats.

[Artanis]

That is incorrect.

The reason is that (unlike every other RPG) D&D4 is full of rules that cannot be explained from an in-world perspective.

Such as?

I thought the powers' flavor text did a pretty good job of explaining them. What else is there?

[Kaiyanwang]

Such as?

I thought the powers' flavor text did a pretty good job of explaining them. What else is there?

Hit points? A monster hits me with the power "thunder eviscerating of gut random distribution" and I'm not actually hurted unless i'm bloodied.

Ok, that should means that the blow was near to catch me, an my PC is getting tired in the action of dodging it, and my PC shouldn't do it forever, but you'll admit that is a little bit akward.

More, assume I'm bloodie. The warlod says :"No, Kay. You now gather up your gut, and continue the fight, or you make me a sad panda". then BAM. I'm not longer bloodied. Even more akward, IMHO.

[Asbestos]

I think KG takes more issue with things like Strength boosting AC, Strength boosting spell damage, um... some other stuff like that, it came up in a discussion about the sorcerer. Basically, IIRC, he feels that ability scores are divorced completely from their in-world meaningfulness, meaning that he can RP a strong wizard or genius fighter if he wants because the stats are 'just numbers' that only matter from a mechanics POV. The quote from KG in the sig of the poster above demonstrates his opinion well.

@KG: I maintain that your logic for separation of ability scores + in world meaningfulness goes a bit too far, the Sorcerer piece is the only one so far that requires serious wondering about (well, that and Con boosting AC, but that's boggled my mind since 3.x) but even so, people have thought up decent ways of explaining it 'in world'. It would be helpful if WotC provided a little flavorful sidebar with a few examples of how it might work. This could be a jab at the lack of flavor in 4e, but I don't recall them ever explaining how Constitution boosts AC or how Charisma can be used to make attacks back in 3.x, I think they've just sort of hand-waved it for a while.

[Kaiyanwang]

@KG: I maintain that your logic for separation of ability scores + in world meaningfulness goes a bit too far, the Sorcerer piece is the only one so far that requires serious wondering about (well, that and Con boosting AC, but that's boggled my mind since 3.x) but even so, people have thought up decent ways of explaining it 'in world'. It would be helpful if WotC provided like a little flavorful sidebar with a few examples of how it might work.

I see you point (and maybe I'm forewarned, i can admit it) but as you said, players have an effort to explain how things works. IMo, this is a big issue.

And about HP, sometimes I think that the abstraction has been forced to keep the warlord valid as a martial leader.

(now, stop, or after the signature, KG could think I've a crush for him)

[Oracle_Hunter]

Thinking about it, I guess my image of a swashbuckler in 4e, from what I know about it, would be a defender who wears relatively little armor, and who engages multiple adversaries and then somehow controls the movement of those whom he's fighting. And he'd probably need powers that give him an AC boost, or something.

Well, generally swashbucklers fight guys one at a time; they are modeled after duelists, after all.

But look again at the Rogue:

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- Artful Dodgers get an AC boost against OAs. This means that Artful Dodger Rogues are very good at moving around and avoiding attacks; they're slick.

- DEX is added to light armor; this represents the flair of the swashbuckler hopping around in little armor but not getting hits.

- Many Rogue powers give controller effects. Dazing Strike, for example, allows you to Daze 1 opponent an encounter at 1st level; that pretty much takes him out of the fight for a round.

- Shift powers control the movement of your opponents; and Artful Dodgers get a lot of shifting powers. Trick Strike, a 1st level Daily, lets you shift someone 1 every time you hit him for the rest of the Encounter.

That said, a Swordmage can produce your kind of Swashbuckler. Sure, he's not as good at swinging from chandeliers and doing wild tricks, but he is very good at defending folks.

For me, Inigo Montoya is my favorite swashbuckling figure; flamboyant, athletic, and deadly with his blade. But you can make many types of swashbucklers if you try a bit.

EDIT:

The reason is that (unlike every other RPG) D&D4 is full of rules that cannot be explained from an in-world perspective.

I heavily disagree with this. It is not that they cannot be explained, it is that some people do not want them to be explained in a particular fashion.

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I've written fluff before for pretty much every feature of 4E and I've always been told "no, that doesn't make any sense either" from the same people. I, for one, don't see why Priests must get more spells for being able to see things really well (that is, having a High WIS), but I accept it because it is part of the laws of this particular universe.

I will also note that every system makes some abstractions that are absurd when closely examined. It is in the nature of abstraction, after all; they never quite mesh with reality, and some assumptions made for the sake of simplicity would horrify a perfectionist. It is the nature of the beast.

Anyhow, I'm not going to get into a fight here, so that's my take on the matter.

[Asbestos]

I see you point (and maybe I'm forewarned, i can admit it) but as you said, players have an effort to explain how things works. IMo, this is a big issue.

Yes, this is a problem and I wish that WotC would at least provide some helpful hints or something rather than just pretty much saying 'because it does, you think up reasons why'. Still, I believe that if we started a thread that said 'think up fluff reasons for why Con/Int/Str/Cha can boost AC' we'd be able to generate a list of explanations, some of which might be reasonable, for how those things work from an in-world perspective.

Just because WotC isn't explaining things in a satisfactory manner isn't an excuse for us not to exercise our imaginations a little. I'm not so cynical to believe that the designers have the same view of ability scores that Kurald does, but I will admit that they are being a bit lazy. Some 4e supporters might say that this is more 'liberating' and gives us 'more freedom to RP', but whatever, it wouldn't inhibit me either way. I'd just like to exercise my right to be lazy a little or at least have something to set my brain juices flowing in a helpful direction.

[Myatar_Panwar]

But here, "use charisma in melee" is defined as "people who can't see you find you nevertheless so cool that they find it harder to attack you". The rogue isn't really using charisma in melee, the rogue is applying Ability Score #6 to his Type-One attacks.

This kind of attitude will ruin the game for anyone. I am truly sorry you feel this way.

If you cannot use your imagination to describe what you are doing, then well I really have no idea on how you can play the game at all.

[Sebastian]

The DM changing the rule has no basis on the rule itself.

True, but 3rd edition (3.0 for sure, 3.5 I don't remember) had at least a paragraph about adapting existing classes to different concepts (the one where they mention the "fighter trained by the thieves guild" that drop the bonus armor and tower shield feats and trade them for move silently and some other as class skills.) so making up a swashbuckler swapping weapon finesse at 1st level in exchange with, for example, taking disable device and open lock as cross-class skill it is not exactly so out there or houserule-ish.