The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Xeviatsparkletwist, I think you're being dramatically unfair to D&D4E. Your dislike of the system shows through in every single word you say. I disagree with you almost entirely; this doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does stress the fact that our opinions are opinions.

Yes, I dislike 4e. Yes, my dislike of 4e is my opinion. However, my opinion is grounded in concrete issues with the system's incoherent logic or bad math that I can point out and express quite clearly. I've barely mentioned purely subjective and unrelated things I don't like, such as disliking being forced to play on a gridmap or thinking the GSL was toxic-- because I was trying to stick to the point. I don't really see how I haven't been fair.

You and EE have both made detailed responses to my critiques, so I'm not sure if I can address them point-by-point, but I will try to reply without generating an out-of-control wall of text.

So. How did they eliminate everything except combat? By eliminating everything except combat. Look at the 4e PHB: one piddly chapter about skills, and the skill system has been reduced to this bare skeleton of "trained or not." And then there's a little six-page chapter called "Adventuring" that is supposed to cover the rest of it. Monsters no longer are living creatures with quirks and behaviors; they are more or less just stat blocks. Spells no longer have out of combat uses at all, except for rituals, and rituals are slow and cost money so whatever. Where are all the little tables listing how much a pound of flour or a donkey costs? Where is the talk of socialization, of politics, of crafting, of doing all those other little things in the world that aren't dungeon delving? Where are the high-minded screeds on alignment... never mind, I don't miss those. But, anyway, where's the fluff, other than this half-baked "points of light" thing?

Anyway, I do want to say, the DMG2 "fix" for skill challenges didn't actually solve anything because they insisted upon keeping their mathematically untenable "get X successes before Y failures" system. The worst part is that they seemed to acknowledge that, yes, it is indeed an issue (although they drastically understated the problem) but then made half-baked suggestions like "include other skill checks that the people who wouldn't participate are the best at." So their solution to the problem that skill challenges are only attempted by whoever is best at the skill is... to artificially introduce more rolls so that everyone gets to be best at something. Instead of actually fixing the defective math at the core of this.

I don't really think a greater amount of transparency in 4e's math is the source of its problems. While I think it's a correct assertion that having the inner works laid bare makes it easy to see the flaws, that also means it's easier to get in there and fix them. The designers of 4e chose not to, by doing things like introducing a feat tax instead of actually fixing weirdly scaling monster power... but I also contend that was only a problem to begin with because they insisted upon having encounter difficulty powering up in lock-step with players in an artificial way. I'm all for trying to create a somewhat balanced game-- I don't like enormous disparity in player/player or player/monster ability because I think it hurts everyone's fun-- but I also think that's going too far and is sort of untenable.

Don't get me wrong. I'm big on player empowerment. I am 100% with you against the DM that wants to "educate" players. "Smart play" is so often just a synonym for "a play style the DM agrees with." However, I think wishlists aren't so much a tool for player empowerment as a symptom of everything wrong with 4th edition. As Xeviat observed, you need a certain amount of magic items to get a certain bonus so that you can keep pace with the treadmill of steadily improving challenges. I counter that there's no organic feel to any of it. In the end, it's all about making the numbers work, and doesn't actually empower the player at all.

So, about fighting hobgoblin warriors. The 4e version gets special things while the 3e version can "just hit things." Largely, this is because 4th edition has no actual consistent rules from one monster to another. They just make up some arbitrary abilities that each monster has and put them in its stat block. For example, it gets an AC bonus because it's next to another hobgoblin... but why? Are hobgoblins interlocking like little nasty lego bricks? Does it have to do with "being a warrior"? The 3e hobgoblin could get this ability, too, if you gave it a feat that said "get an AC bonus when next to other things of your race," and the added bonus to that is, it's actually comprehensible why the bonus occurs and how other people/characters/monsters can get it. You said that you could give the hobgoblin a magic item, but I contend that it's actually not that easy to just drop in items because monster attacks are listed as discrete powers without clear relationships stated as to what affects what or even any consistency between powers of the same name between different monsters. "Evil Eye" is the most infamous but far from the only example of this. To me, this is frustrating and confusing. I completely agree with the basic idea that monsters and players should be built on the same chassis, and that chassis should be consistent and work right.

Anyway. Hopefully I've managed to respond to most of the major points made. :)

Quote from: Xeviat

Quote from: SteerpikeThis is a bit off-topic, but Xeviat, I'm curious - what do you think of fantasy RPG alternatives like GURPS, Burning Wheel, or "OSR" retroclones like Castles & Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, or Lamentations of the Flame Princess?

I haven't played any retroclones. The only thing close to another fantasy RPG I've played was L5R; I didn't like it's lack of a challenge level system and had constant arguements with the GM (out of the game) about things he threw at us being impossible (and we only won because he'd throw us bones during the fight). Likely, he was using the system for the wrong thing (combat over court?).

L5R is an amazing system but it is definitely not heroic fantasy. It has one of the highest lethality of any system I have played. You are never, ever supposed to fight in that game unless you absolutely must. L5R is not a system where you go out into the wilderness and clear out dungeons. You will die if you do. Hell, just walking around outside and getting attacked by bandits usually means you will either die or be horribly wounded. The game has a completely different mentality than D&D. I remember the first time everyone at the table realized this when an Archer in a tree two shot-ed one of the samurai in the party, then proceeded to slay two other characters before, finally, he was flung out of the tree and killed.

L5R is a game where you possess the skills for war but rarely, if ever use them outside of first blood duels and practice. The game instead pushes players to focus on non-combat skills that would seem superfluous in other settings (like playing Go, tea ceremonies, poetry, painting, calligraphy) as well as dialogue/talking based skills.

Quote from: Steerpike
As a fan of 3.X/Pathfinder over 4E, this is exactly the approach that turns me off the edition so much - balance hrough homogeneity, at the cost of diversity.

You and I definitely see Diversity as a strength (I *love* the Unearthed Arcana) but others completely disagree.  It's no difference than 3.5. I know tons of people that loathe 3.x because there are so many different mechanics, many of whom are completely unrelated and often ill-tested. They cite all the weak (Hex Blade, Dragon Shaman, Binder) and useless (True Namer, CoW Samurai, etc.) classes as examples of why diversity isn't always a good thing (especially when you're paying money for these books). 

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I disagree.  Some are bland, but most of the boring humanoids can be made more exciting and challenging with class levels, feats, spels, magic items, and templates.

Here are a few examples of very un-bland 3.X Monsters:

Ettercap: a monster that can climb, be stealthy, sets traps, throw webs, use poison, and synergize with other monsters (lesser spiders).  A tribe of these things - maybe some with Rogue or Ranger levels - could be a force to be reckoned with.

Gibbering Mouther: It has some very unique and interesting abilities- a sonic-based confusion effect that can be countered through interesting spells and equipment (Silence, ear-plugs, etc), ground manipulation can alter the terrain mid-combat, its special "once every 1-4 rounds" acid attack that can blind foes, its creeping engulf and blood-drain thing, and its horrifying ability to ooze through tight spaces.  And it can swim.  And see 360 degrees.  Truly terrifying.

Devourer: It runs on souls that fuel its powers - a truly unique mechanic.  It can slay you with a touch, use your soul to curse your allies, and then raise your body as a zombie.  With telepathy, a high intelligence, and an array of social and knowledge skills, it could make an interesting role-playing encounter, and a brilliant villain/boss monster.  There are interesting variants of the creature depending on its origins.


I dunno, I think all of these are pretty weird and unusual.  Calling any of them bland would be a major stretch; all of those monsters can do something different in different rounds of combat, all have unique powers and mechanics, many can be tweaked and modified in some way.  If these creatures come off as bland in play, the GM is not doing their job.  I'm not saying every monster in 3.X was brilliant, but you can't tar them all by the same brush.

In my haste to respond, I misspoke. I should re-phrase. What I meant was that most monsters in 3.x were fairly mundane and boring, especially at the lower level. Even the most powerful were generally just a series of spells, skills and high attack values. The best monsters were ones that did something unique. 3.x monsters rely much more heavily on DMs to make them feel scary and unique. Heck, a lot of 3.x monsters are pretty cool but that coolness is often hidden behind those terrible stat blocks (especially in the early days of 3.x). In 4E monsters' special abilities are pumped up and brought to the forefront. I think 3.x was headed in this direction already, and Paizo definitely adapted it to their game. I just feel monsters look and feel better in 4E MM's than the MM's of 3.x. 

What I think 4E really lacked - and it's a crying shame that it does - is all the great background information that accompanies monsters in 3.x and PF. They did this because there was a vocal minority of DM's that decried WotC pushing so much cultural, physiological and environmental information for monsters as both filler (so WotC could pint fewer monsters per book) and WotC's attempt at homogenizing the game. Meaning that those vocal DM's saw that extra information as completely useless for them because they had written their own cultures and motivations for monsters living in their campaign settings. They fervantly opposed WotC's inclusion of fluff in MM's. I agree with those DM's to an extent because some of the fluff in the MM 5 was very, very specific and not entirely useful, especially if your world was more fairly divergant from the assumed setting. Having said that, it was still enjoyable fluff (one of my players fell in love with the Illithids from the MM5). 4E eliminated much of that fluff because a vocal minority demanded it and, in many ways, 4E lost some of the heart that was present in previous editions.

Quote from: Steerpike
I think one thing that people who like 4E really care about that doesn't really bother me is the whole monsters/pcs/treasure scaling issue, which feeds into the entire obsession with balance that kind of puzzles me.  Like, when I DM, I do not always pick challenges that are "appropriate" to my characters at all, and I reward treasure as I feel like it (or, really, more in ways that make sense in-universe), not in accordance with a chart.

I use the Challenge Ratings as the roughest guidelines.  I routinely throw monsters at players that are much higher in CR than they're supposed to take, and I routinely throw easier challenges at them when it makes sense in-setting.  Like, if my 8th level players in my Planescape game decide to go to Baator and start kicking ass and taking names, they're going to get eaten by Pit Fiends.  Likewise if they decide to muck out the tavern-keeper's cellars they're only going to encounter the odd cranium rat.

That feeds back into players and a sense of entitlement that many possessed, especially those that were more influenced by video games than traditional RPGs. They are used to being forced to get new gear as they level up, so not getting new gear feels wrong to them. The appropriate challenge is also a video game thing where people want to be constantly challenged but never face overwhelming opposition. Look at how Bethesda dealt with this issue in Oblivion - every combat was level appropriate. Compare that with Morrowind where there were whole swathes of the map where a low level character simply could not go. Those areas were not demarcated (like zones in an MMO) nor were players given much warning about the danger before heading in. This is also true in other video games as well.

Personally, I have never understood the idea that every combat has to be level-appropriate. Fantasy worlds are very dangerous and PCs are often heading into areas where scary monsters live. If you delve into a Dungeon, then you should expect to find things in there that maybe you can't handle. That makes the world feel real in ways that making everything level appropriate does not.

I suppose this feeds into the old "where did all the wolves go?" question, which asks why PC's fight wolves in random encounters at lower levels but after leveling up a fair amount, they never encounter any wolves. From a story perspective, it can be hand waived away as "the PCs are killing the same number of wolves but those encounters are no longer interesting, therefore no longer shown on screen." I'm not sure I entirely agree with the hand waving but it is a common trope, especially if you sub any other low level monster in place of wolf.

What I liked about 4E was that it gave DMs a better guide for creating exciting encounters. 3.x's system relied much more heavily on experience and gut instinct than anything else. I can more accurately tell what kind of encounters will be hard or easy than in 3.x. I would never stick to level appropriate encounters (how boring) but it is nice knowing the players won't walk all over the fight (which is always disappointing when you had an epic encounter in mind).

Quote from: SteerpikeThe same applies to treasure.  If they decide they want to burglarize the Temple of the Abyss in the Lady's Ward then if they manage to somehow trick their way past the high-level evil Clerics (mug some acolytes, use a few Alter Self spells to take their places, reserarch some rituals to fit in...) and pickpocket a key or something, they might be able to get their hands on something like an Unholy Staff even though it's way more powerful/expensive than their average gold-per-level is supposed to dictate.  But if they just mess around in the Hive fighting low-level thugs they'll probably get small change.

Something I loved about 1st edition AD&D in that they had a rule where by PCs would gain XP equal to how much gold they looted. I loved this rule because it allowed PCs to jump past the idea that the only way to get XP was to kill monsters. It rewarded players for creative thinking and well executed plans.

Quote from: Steerpikein my 3.X games, there's no such thing as "just a +1 sword," ever).

I'm the same way. Nothing disinterests me more than than a flavorless +1 Sword or a +1 Feat.

sparkletwist, I'm beginning to see where you're coming from on many things. As a world builder, I'm very surprised that some of those issued bugged you. Some of them go back to the difference between simulation and narration; the players don't need to know how much a bag of flour costs because the game is about killing monsters and taking their stuff, not baking cakes. The missing world fluff is/can be made by the DM, as many of us here do (who actually ran Grayhawk after getting their feet wet? The first game I ran was in my setting ...). Oh, and that world fluff is in the DMG, by the way (in a chapter titled "The World").

You say spells didn't do anything outside of combat; aside from breaking stuff with damage spells (I know, a stretch), many utility spells work out of combat. Just going through the wizard's powers in the PHB 1: ghost sound, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, thunderwave (it doesn't set a weight limit, powers that target creatures can target objects, so one could use it to shove big things if you aren't worried about damaging them), expeditious retreat (short duration, but it does move you double your speed for a single action), feather fall, jump (arguably more useful out of combat than it would be in combat), shield (interrupt, could be useful during exploration for dealing with traps or other natural hazards), Dimension Door, Disguise Self (entirely non-combat), Dispel Magic (breaks zones, less useful than ye olde version, but it can still be used out of combat), Invisibility, levitate, wall of fog, blur (defense bonus doesn't help, but it makes you invisible to people 25 feet away from you), resistance, displacement (interrupt, again, useful for traps and hazards), fly, greater invisibility, mass fly, mordenkainen's mansion ...

That's all without taking the logical leap to say that cold spells (ray of frost) can make things cold/freeze water, and that fire spells (scorching burst) can burn things or make things hot/melt ice. Now, you may point out that the wizard couldn't learn very many of these. The Essentials wizard was expanded to knowing 2 utilities of each level, but even that might not have been enough for more people. I fully believe learning new powers/spells should have been able to be done with feats/gold, like in the old day; as long as you didn't get more slots, just more options, it would have been fine.

So what that rituals cost money? Money isn't needed for characters to be as strong as they're assumed to be (like in 3E); it's only assumed that players have 3 items and improve them every 5 levels or so (there's even a sub system for giving these bonuses out with level progression to get away from that; 3E only had that in the Vow of Poverty feat). Rituals costing money means the casters aren't able to divine their way out of every problem without the group pitching in with some money (or even some skill checks), making it a group effort instead of one person always saving the day.

Remember, you "needed" a certain amount of money, in magic items, to be at the assumed strength in 3E; the system just didn't tell you what you needed. I will continually point to Vow of Poverty to show you exactly what progression was assumed (add it up, it's consistently worth 80% or so of a character's expected wealth).

You ask how "Phalanx Soldier" increases the AC of a hobgoblin when they are next to their allies ... when it's in the name; they form a Phalanx. It is a "feat" that the Hobgoblin was assigned; does it somehow make it different that it's in their stat block instead of in a list of feats that you then need to look up elsewhere? I'm pretty sure such a feat actually exists. Want the hobgoblin to not have it? Simply take it away and give them something else (need to make sure it's balanced? Balance it against a feat).

You say you can't drop a magic item onto the hobgoblin? This suggests a lack of familiarity with the system. Monsters have a "magic threshold" baked into their stats. If you give them a magic item, you subtract the magic bonus from the item's bonus before modifying the monster's stats; if the magic bonus is larger than the item's bonus, it doesn't change anything. A level 6 monster's magic threshold is +1; so you could give it a +2 weapon and that would increase it's to hit and damage by 1 (you have now voluntarily made the monster more challenging, but also given the players some treasure in the process).

As for the math of skill challenges being incorrect, the only thing that was mathematically incorrect was that the number of failures needed scaled in the initial version. The true failing was not giving more examples and walking DMs through creating them until a much later book.

So, in support of my essay, your dislike of the system seems to partially come from it lacking (arguably) superfluous elements that supported simulation but didn't add to the core of the game? Yes, a lot of that fluff adds character, which is why I've said that part of 4E's failing with many people was its presentation.

And almost everyone agrees the feat taxes were bad. Looking at their companion rules (NPCs who hang out with the party), the companions scale faster than the PCs. In all the material posted about companion, npc, and monster creation, the designers have made assumptions that the players will be spending some of their feats on these things. The exact language is this:

Quote from: DMG (4E) pg 187Level bonuses and Magic Threshold

As player characters gain levels, they choose feats and gain magic items that increase their attack bonuses and defenses. The level bonus, shown on the table below, is an abstraction that helps NPCs keep pace with characters. You can think of it as representing feats you're not bothering to choose, low-level magic items, or the NPC's intrinsic power.

Whether or not this was the correct decision, it was the assumption the designers made.

E_E, there was really nothing in the DMG that said you couldn't throw the party against a higher or a lower level threat. It recommends a level range (something like -4 to +7 for individual threats; -2 to +4 for encounters themselves), but that's only really the range that's beatable; those are easy, medium, and hard encounters. Throw the party against something higher if you want, but the guidelines are there to tell you that this isn't going to be a fight, it's going to be a slaughter. Likewise if you throw them against something below them.

If a DM is trying to create a living, breathing world, rather than a "just" a game setting, then a few encounters vastly below or above could add that color. The wolves don't have to disappear (though one might think the wolves will just keep their distance).

Quote from: XeviatAs a world builder, I'm very surprised that some of those issued bugged you. Some of them go back to the difference between simulation and narration; the players don't need to know how much a bag of flour costs because the game is about killing monsters and taking their stuff, not baking cakes. The missing world fluff is/can be made by the DM

Yes, I am a world builder, but if I'm building a world for a given system, I'd like to know how what I'm building works in that system. The table of costs was a glib example of something that I think is sort of iconic to D&D, or at least was in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions: the big list of prices of every random thing you could possibly want to buy. Is it absolutely essential? Of course not. However, the bigger point here that I was making is that 4th edition leaves a lot up in the air that the rules should address. By saying "the game is about killing monsters and taking their stuff, the DM can make up the rest" you've essentially agreed with me that 4e eliminated everything that wasn't combat and left it all up to DM fiat. So I guess we agree on that point after all?

Quote from: XeviatYou say spells didn't do anything outside of combat; aside from breaking stuff with damage spells (I know, a stretch), many utility spells work out of combat.

The thing is, though, the reason many of them work is due to DM fiat. I actually probably should have said "spells often have no documented effects in the rules outside of combat," which is mostly true. For example, ray of frost just talks about how much damage it does. Sure, the DM can rule that you can freeze water, but how much water? Does it freeze it solid or just make it slushy? To be fair, the 3e version is vague as well, but 3e also had plenty of spells that enumerated both combat and non-combat applications, and, maybe this is just bias, but 3e's spell descriptions always felt like they had more useful information in them. (Maybe they were just longer, or something...)

The 3e version of burning hands stipulates that flammable materials catch fire if the spell touches them and that characters can extinguish this fire as a full-round action. The 4e version... says nothing. Except the damage it does. Even stuff that seems non-combat oriented is still combat-biased. The 3e version of invisibility has long explanations on what happens to your gear, your light sources, how you can interact with the world, and so on. The 4e version basically just says "monsters can't see you when you're running around the gridmap, and it ends when you attack," because that's the entire game world that 4e mechanics interact with, or more or less.

Quote from: XeviatIt is a "feat" that the Hobgoblin was assigned; does it somehow make it different that it's in their stat block instead of in a list of feats that you then need to look up elsewhere?

It matters because these names are just convenient identifiers and don't actually mean anything. If I have the feat "Power Attack," then I know how that feat works, and I know that it'll work the same for everyone else who also has that feat, because it's coming off of a master list somewhere of feats. On the other hand, in 4e, the powers are pretty much unique to each monster and the rules for how to use a monster are essentially baked into that monster's stat block. You can throw together a supposed master list but it doesn't actually mean anything because powers like "Short Sword" and "Evil Eye" vary from monster to monster in ways that cannot be logically discerned.

Quote from: XeviatYou say you can't drop a magic item onto the hobgoblin? This suggests a lack of familiarity with the system. Monsters have a "magic threshold" baked into their stats.

Where? This certainly isn't included anywhere in their stat block.

Quote from: XeviatAs for the math of skill challenges being incorrect, the only thing that was mathematically incorrect was that the number of failures needed scaled in the initial version.

A system where you need to "get X successes before you get Y failures" discourages participation, because anyone more likely to add a failure than a success shouldn't even bother picking up the dice. This is just how the math works, and this also means skill challenges boil down to the best party member spamming their best skill, all the time. I'd argue a skill challenge system that was mathematically biased to encourage monotony and discourage participation was fundamentally broken.

Quote from: Xeviatyour dislike of the system seems to partially come from it lacking (arguably) superfluous elements that supported simulation but didn't add to the core of the game?

No, I really think the game has deep structural problems, which I've tried to highlight here.

Quote from: XeviatWhether or not this was the correct decision, it was the assumption the designers made.

Ok, fine. It was the assumption the designers made. It was a bad assumption, and I dislike that they made it.

Quote from: Elemental ElfYou and I definitely see Diversity as a strength (I *love* the Unearthed Arcana) but others completely disagree.  It's no difference than 3.5. I know tons of people that loathe 3.x because there are so many different mechanics, many of whom are completely unrelated and often ill-tested. They cite all the weak (Hex Blade, Dragon Shaman, Binder) and useless (True Namer, CoW Samurai, etc.) classes as examples of why diversity isn't always a good thing (especially when you're paying money for these books).  

Yeah, I will definitely cop to this.  There was a ludicrous amount of broken stuff in 3.X, and it really did rely on DM/player judgment and/or houseruling.  I definitely come down on the diversity > balance issue, though.  As in, if I have to pick one, I'd prefer a sometimes-unbalanced game with variety and interesting stuff in it to a balanced but samey one.

I totally get what you mean, though, that 4E can play as an excellent "WARGAME/rpg."  I guess one's mileage varies on 4E to the extent that that sounds like fun.  I actually love wargames (I was into Warhammer 40000 years before I got into D&D) and even wargame-rpg hybrids (I played a fair bit of Mordheim).  It's just not what I want from D&D, and it was disappointing to see D&D go in that direction, for me.

Quote from: Elemental ElfWhat I liked about 4E was that it gave DMs a better guide for creating exciting encounters. 3.x's system relied much more heavily on experience and gut instinct than anything else. I can more accurately tell what kind of encounters will be hard or easy than in 3.x. I would never stick to level appropriate encounters (how boring) but it is nice knowing the players won't walk all over the fight (which is always disappointing when you had an epic encounter in mind).

I can totally see that.  4E definitely does have some advantages, and one is that it's a lot less challenging for a rookie DM.

Quote from: sparkletwistTo be fair, the 3e version is vague as well, but 3e also had plenty of spells that enumerated both combat and non-combat applications, and, maybe this is just bias, but 3e's spell descriptions always felt like they had more useful information in them. (Maybe they were just longer, or something...)

There were also so many more of them, and some had some real character.  Magic Jar.  Rope Trick.  Ironwood.  Clone.  To be honest I don't know if some of these made it into 4E (a few might have),  maybe as rituals, but I remember looking through the lists and seeing that a lot had been cut, presumably sacrificed on the altar of balance.  There were lots of spells added as well, but a lot felt like variations of the same thing - tweaked damage numbers and types, area of effect, and saving throw types with a different name slapped on (there are some good variations and neat things, but nothing wild, and nothing worth the loss of diversity).

Quote from: sparkletwistThe 3e version of burning hands stipulates that flammable materials catch fire if the spell touches them and that characters can extinguish this fire as a full-round action. The 4e version... says nothing. Except the damage it does. Even stuff that seems non-combat oriented is still combat-biased. The 3e version of invisibility has long explanations on what happens to your gear, your light sources, how you can interact with the world, and so on. The 4e version basically just says "monsters can't see you when you're running around the gridmap, and it ends when you attack," because that's the entire game world that 4e mechanics interact with, or more or less.

This is so perceptive - this is exactly the issue.

Earlier editions of D&D were broadly focused on adventuring - everything from hiring porters and cohorts, buying torches and rations, setting up camp, dealing with dungeon inhabitants, sometimes even getting lucky, and, yes, fighting monsters.  4th edition is hyper-focused on that last part, and basically throws up its hands at the a great deeal of the rest of it - not completely, or anything, but by and large.

Quote from: sparkletwist"Smart play" is so often just a synonym for "a play style the DM agrees with."

This is kind of what I meant by 4E's authoritarianism - instead of the play style the DM agrees with, 4E substitutes the play style the designers agree with.  No longer can I play a CN zombie-oriented tanner-turned-necromancer Wizard/Ranger/Rogue with a forbidden school in Evocation and maxed ranks in Craft (leatherworking) and Profession (tanner), because that character isn't optimized to the standards of munchkiny powergamers concerned only with their DPS, I have to play another Warlock or Wizard with the standardized selection of damage-causing spells and debuffs, I guess because they assume I'm going to get jealous of the Evoker's mechanically optimized fireballs.

To me, skill challenges as presented in the books are pretty boring, doubly so when the DM tells you exactly which skills you can use and makes every PC roll a check. Those are the worst kind of challenges and, sadly, the variety I think many have been involved in.

What I generally use them for is... Let me give a few examples.

Say the PCs are in the last room of a dungeon where the BBEG is working on a blood ritual where by he will sacrifice the Princess to his dark deity and summon a big demon. The BBEG has placed a dome-shaped force field around himself and the alter, thereby preventing the PCs from assaulting him. To keep his enemies distracted, he has his zombies attack the PCs. The force field spell partially relies on a complex network of ancient elven runes (located on the floor through out the room) to stay active. To eliminate the Force Field, the PCs can try to use thievery to carefully etch away select pieces of the ancient elven runes, use their knowledge of the arcane to determine exploitable weak point in the force field or use perception to find those spots with a keen eye. After the PC's etch away enough of the runes or determine where the weak points are, the Force Field will either collapse instantly (runes) or after one attack (finding the weak point).

Let's say the PCs need to break into a Castle's dungeon. The PC's need to learn about the shoft rotations of the guards, the various secret entrances to the castle, where guards are likely to funnel out of if something goes wrong, learn about the natural surroundings of the castle (for exploitable terrain) and its history (perhaps there are other who have attempted to gain illicit entrance before). To figure all of this out, players can roll a variety of skills from Diplomacy, Intimidation, Bluff, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Perception, Stealth, Thievery, etc. It's all in how the PCs go describe how they want to obtain the information. Heck, even outright Bribery would count for a success (or more than one if the right cog was greased).

The PC's are in a blistering hot desert. They are two days march out of the nearest town. Supplies and morale are running low. What does each PC do to aid the cause? One PC might use Athletics to march ahead of the party and scout out a better path, while another might use endurance to bare the hardship of the unforgiving environment. A third might use his knowledge of nature to track some animals and see if he can get some food. One character might use Bluff to perform a song to lift the spirits of the men, another may recount a religious tale to do the same. A healer might tend to the sunburns of his allies and help them avoid heatstroke. Another might use Perception to keep an eye out for game, or for Bandits.

There can be as many or as few rounds as necessary for the challenge. It is often best to push the PCs to be as creative as possible with the descriptions of what they do during a skill challenge and allow them to do weird/crazy things if it is within the bounds of plausibility.

For example, what if the party Barbarian in the first example wants to ignore the Zombies and instead hurl slabs of tile or pieces of crumbling columns at the Force Field? I'd totally allow it as it sounds cool and is well within the realm of plausibility. In the second example, a PC could just bribe a guard to get some info. That would work without a roll and may count as more than one success if the right wheel was greased (subsequent bribes might alert a higher up and thus equal a failure). In the third example, I might allow the PC's trying to find game a chance to roll an attack to see if they catch/kill their prey (that attempt counting for or against the PCs, depending on success).

Skill Challenges are a weird concept until you really think of more creative ways to integrate them into your game.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: XeviatYou say you can't drop a magic item onto the hobgoblin? This suggests a lack of familiarity with the system. Monsters have a "magic threshold" baked into their stats.

Where? This certainly isn't included anywhere in their stat block.

Page 174 of the DMG. The Monster Magic Threshold is very easy to remember because goes up by 1 every half-tier (1-5 is +0, 6-10 is +1, etc.).

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: XeviatYou say you can't drop a magic item onto the hobgoblin? This suggests a lack of familiarity with the system. Monsters have a "magic threshold" baked into their stats.

Where? This certainly isn't included anywhere in their stat block.

DMG, The DM's Toolbox, Customizing Monsters, Adding Equipment, pg 174. It's also discussed on page 187, in the section on creating NPCs, which are built using the same classes, powers, and I suppose feats, that the players have access to.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: XeviatAs for the math of skill challenges being incorrect, the only thing that was mathematically incorrect was that the number of failures needed scaled in the initial version.

A system where you need to "get X successes before you get Y failures" discourages participation, because anyone more likely to add a failure than a success shouldn't even bother picking up the dice. This is just how the math works, and this also means skill challenges boil down to the best party member spamming their best skill, all the time. I'd argue a skill challenge system that was mathematically biased to encourage monotony and discourage participation was fundamentally broken.

Except that the game is designed so that everyone has skills, and skill challenges are supposed to involve a wide enough variety of skills so that people can participate. If a skill challenge can be won by spamming the same skill over and over again, I'd argue that it shouldn't be a skill challenge (getting someone to be convinced that your name is Charles and that you went to school with him probably isn't enough of something to warrent a challenge, just a single check). The later rules for skill challenges even limit the number of successes that can be achieved by a single skill.

Though you are correct, it does make participating feel like you're going to hurt things. I've always argued that skill challenges should have been X successes in Y rounds, so everyone is going to scramble to make attempts. So you're right, there is a flaw with them. I wouldn't say broken, though; from my experiences, people don't feel left out when they're left out of a non-combat encounter, but if they can't contribute in a combat encounter they're going to feel weak.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: Xeviatyour dislike of the system seems to partially come from it lacking (arguably) superfluous elements that supported simulation but didn't add to the core of the game?

No, I really think the game has deep structural problems, which I've tried to highlight here.

A number of your highlights seem, to me, to be misunderstandings of the game. You also argue about things that are entirely fluff, like the name of a power getting reused from one monster to another, or that the "shortsword" power (actually a weapon attack, even though all attacks are written with the power block) doesn't mean anything from one monster to another (aside from that it is, you know, an attack involving sticking someone with the pointy end of a shortsword). You in one paragraph say that the "Phalanx Tactics" ability doesn't tell you what it is, yet the "Power Attack" feat does?

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: XeviatWhether or not this was the correct decision, it was the assumption the designers made.

Ok, fine. It was the assumption the designers made. It was a bad assumption, and I dislike that they made it.

That's fine. We both agree on that, actually. Part of the work I've been doing in my houserules is removing the entire notion of "mandatory" feats. The trouble is that it does constrain the design space for feats. If there's a feat that grants +1 to attack, then it disrupts the math if it doesn't need to be taken or it is required if it needs to be taken. If Players got 5 feats as they leveled up, and feats were all balanced against each other (+1 attack, +1 AC, +2 NAD, +1 damage/tier), then they'd be fine.

The other way to balance the feats is to make none of them affect the default math. Power Attack is a good example; it's a trade off. Learning a new maneuver is another good example; if it doesn't give you another use, just another option, it is horizontal growth rather than vertical growth. But this means that no feats can grant a blanket bonus to things (unless that bonus doesn't stack with something else that's assumed; one could have quasi-magical feats grant enhancement bonuses, since the game assumes them; the feat would be away of getting around needing an item; I also think spells could grant enhancement bonuses too, so they'd feel like they're scaling when really they wouldn't be).

This is getting really heated, far more than it should. I've been trying to not use personal language, and I thank you for not either.

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: Elemental ElfYou and I definitely see Diversity as a strength (I *love* the Unearthed Arcana) but others completely disagree.  It's no difference than 3.5. I know tons of people that loathe 3.x because there are so many different mechanics, many of whom are completely unrelated and often ill-tested. They cite all the weak (Hex Blade, Dragon Shaman, Binder) and useless (True Namer, CoW Samurai, etc.) classes as examples of why diversity isn't always a good thing (especially when you're paying money for these books).  

Yeah, I will definitely cop to this.  There was a ludicrous amount of broken stuff in 3.X, and it really did rely on DM/player judgment and/or houseruling.  I definitely come down on the diversity > balance issue, though.  As in, if I have to pick one, I'd prefer a sometimes-unbalanced game with variety and interesting stuff in it to a balanced but samey one.

I don't think Balance and Diversity are mutually exclusive but a lot of thought and testing has to be put into the relationship between the two from the get go. One of my all time favorite classes from 3.x was the Warlock. He epitomizes a lot of the problems with diversity, balance and how they relate. From the look of it, the Warlock is an awesome class that can shoot beams of raw arcane energy at his foes and channel his infernal gifts to manifest cool powers. When compared to Wizards, Clerics and Druids he comes off as a very good class. Obviously not stronger than those three but obviously not falling that far behind (like the Fighter), most especially when you factor in how good he is with Use Magic Device. However, look at the Warlock and compare him to an Archer. The base damage for Eldritch blast increases at the same rate as a Rogue's Sneak Attack. After 5 or so levels, you're dealing a lot of damage. To hit your enemies, you are rolling against their Touch, which means even a poorly min/maxed Warlock will be hitting most of the time against everything save the most acrobatic of foes. The poor Archer Ranger will never equal the raw output of a Warlock on a single attack, and even after a few iterative attacks may not be able to keep pace because he will be rolling against the much higher AC value. In that way the Warlock is much stronger than the Ranger. The Warlock will also have a wider breadth of spells to cast via magic items but, will always risk failure; where as a Ranger will never fail at casting a spell from a wand so long as the spell is on his spell list.

From a design standpoint, the creators of the game gave the Ranger more skill points, cool nature abilities, real spells and an animal companion. Even then, a min/maxer would never really chose an Archer Ranger over a Warlock because the Warlock is more powerful. However, another player may really like the idea of casting a few spells, fighting with an animal and tracking enemies for the party. For that person, picking an Archer Ranger is a no brainer. The two may not be even with one another and both lag behind CoDzilla but they have enough non-comparable abilities to allow someone a reasonable choice between the two.

That is how you strike a good balance when living in a world of diversity - try to keep everyone on the same playing field but make sure to include enough unique abilities in each class that it makes it difficult to compare the actual power of each class to one another.

Having said that, the elephant in the room will always be Clerics, Druids and Wizards that can perform many of the same unique abilities possessed by other classes on top of doing really powerful and cool things of their own.  

Quote from: SteerpikeI totally get what you mean, though, that 4E can play as an excellent "WARGAME/rpg."  I guess one's mileage varies on 4E to the extent that that sounds like fun.  I actually love wargames (I was into Warhammer 40000 years before I got into D&D) and even wargame-rpg hybrids (I played a fair bit of Mordheim).  It's just not what I want from D&D, and it was disappointing to see D&D go in that direction, for me.

Exactly. When I'm in the mood for a more tactical game, if often turn to 4E. It scratches an itch I often have when I don't have the time (or inclination) to bust out my 40k or Warmachine models. The system also works better, in many respects, in an online environment because it has far fewer rules debates than 3.X (and older editions).

Quote from: SteerpikeI can totally see that.  4E definitely does have some advantages, and one is that it's a lot less challenging for a rookie DM.  

It has advantages too when your players run off in a completely unanticipated direction (which happens often in my game since I abhor railroading) :)

To be honest, I almost wish a game could be developed where by it had both 3.p and 4E stat blocks. 4E is great for busting open the MM, slapping some monsters down and running a fun combat. The 3.p stat blocks are better for generating complex enemies (like bosses). 4E has a lot of functional templates to apply to monsters but it does not have the breadth of 3.x (like say I want to make a Half-Minotaur, Half-Dragon Balor - easy to do in 3.x, much harder to do in 4E (without feeling like a cherry picker)).

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: sparkletwistTo be fair, the 3e version is vague as well, but 3e also had plenty of spells that enumerated both combat and non-combat applications, and, maybe this is just bias, but 3e's spell descriptions always felt like they had more useful information in them. (Maybe they were just longer, or something...)

There were also so many more of them, and some had some real character.  Magic Jar.  Rope Trick.  Ironwood.  Clone.  To be honest I don't know if some of these made it into 4E (a few might have),  maybe as rituals, but I remember looking through the lists and seeing that a lot had been cut, presumably sacrificed on the altar of balance.  There were lots of spells added as well, but a lot felt like variations of the same thing - tweaked damage numbers and types, area of effect, and saving throw types with a different name slapped on (there are some good variations and neat things, but nothing wild, and nothing worth the loss of diversity).

At the same time, all of those spells are very potent and almost all of them can be cast by a single class. That's the problem with Wizards - you want them to have a ton of spells but then the amalgamation of all those spells propels them into the stratosphere in terms of power. Something I've oft considered is forcing Wizards to be a specialist Wizard and only allowing them a handful of spells outside their particular purview. In that way, a Conjurer would feel vastly different then a Transmuter, who would look nothing like an Evocationist. The Wizard's raw power is stamped down but they still have access to a wide variety of spells (especially with new spells added in almost every book ever released).

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: sparkletwistThe 3e version of burning hands stipulates that flammable materials catch fire if the spell touches them and that characters can extinguish this fire as a full-round action. The 4e version... says nothing. Except the damage it does. Even stuff that seems non-combat oriented is still combat-biased. The 3e version of invisibility has long explanations on what happens to your gear, your light sources, how you can interact with the world, and so on. The 4e version basically just says "monsters can't see you when you're running around the gridmap, and it ends when you attack," because that's the entire game world that 4e mechanics interact with, or more or less.

This is so perceptive - this is exactly the issue.

Agree completely. In 4E's rush for brevity it forgot some of the most important subtleties of the game.

Quote from: SteerpikeEarlier editions of D&D were broadly focused on adventuring - everything from hiring porters and cohorts, buying torches and rations, setting up camp, dealing with dungeon inhabitants, sometimes even getting lucky, and, yes, fighting monsters.  4th edition is hyper-focused on that last part, and basically throws up its hands at the a great deeal of the rest of it - not completely, or anything, but by and large.

To be fair, 3.x did quite a good job of eliminating that aspect of the game when compared to 1st and 2nd editions (where minions and cohorts where necessary and classes eventually leveled up to the point where they earned Wizard Towers, Castles, Thieves Guilds and etc.).

Quote from: xeviatthe players don't need to know how much a bag of flour costs because the game is about killing monsters and taking their stuff, not baking cakes.

The flour wasn't there for baking cakes, any more than the flasks of oil were for lubing engines. Flour was there so you could see invisible creatures, find footprints (and maybe discover an ambush) on your way back to the surface, use it as a weight in crude improvised traps, etc. If you happened to need it as part of your rations on a long trek, that was just an added bonus.

Quote from: xeviatYou say spells didn't do anything outside of combat; aside from breaking stuff with damage spells (I know, a stretch), many utility spells work out of combat.

Keep in mind that it is very difficult (if not impossible) in 4e to focus on these utilities at the expense of blasting etc. Basically there is a core concept that you can tack stuff onto but not escape. It's one of those homogeneity things. Moreover, if the bulk of the stuff on your character sheet is "hurt things" and "hurt things harder but less frequently" and you've only got a few little occasionally applicable things (and no bags of flour) you're going to default to hurting things and hurting things harder.

Quote from: xeviatThrow the party against something higher if you want, but the guidelines are there to tell you that this isn't going to be a fight, it's going to be a slaughter. Likewise if you throw them against something below them.

One sided slaughters are a feature and not a bug of older editions. The whole point is that the party is supposed to do everything in their power to self-select their challenges and sometimes deliberately bypass the logic of the fight. Sometimes they're supposed to sit on the mummy's sarcophagus, drill holes in the lid, and find a way to burn it to death instead of letting it out to fight. It's part of the old survival horror bit.

If everything is meant to be fought, there probably should have just been fewer levels. It's a valid option if you want to trade in the old survival horror elements for an action adventure game. As with a less restrictive smaller pool of options, this would probably be a nice time saving option for a homebrew.

Quote from: XeviatThis is getting really heated, far more than it should. I've been trying to not use personal language, and I thank you for not either.

I think we're all doing OK.  No one's mentioned the Third Reich yet.  I think we're just having a spirited debate.

I will say this - is this thread about deciding which edition is objectively better (4E vs 3E)?  Is it about defending 4E?  Is it just comparing the pros and cons of each edition?  Or is it about trying "to understand what some fans of 3E didn't like about [4E]" as you say at the start of the essay?  I've been answering the lattermost question - describing those things I don't like about 4E, as a fan of 3rd/Pathfinder.  While this necessitates some comparing of editions, it hasn't been my focus - I'm not trying to win an argument, per se, I'm just pointing out those things about 4E I don't like and trying to explain why.  I don't think I'm "mistaken" about these things, or that all it would take me to like 4E would be to look at it in a different light; I don't think it's just that 4E presents itself badly, either (although it does that, too).  I think this is where sparkletwist is coming from, too, highlighting those things she doesn't like.  It's not that we're trying to prove our superiority as gamers for not liking 4E, it's that we're trying to help you identify the things about 4E we don't like so that you can understand the widespread dislike of the edition and so create a hack that attempts to fix/mitigate these issues.

Quote from: Elemental ElfTo be fair, 3.x did quite a good job of eliminating that aspect of the game when compared to 1st and 2nd editions (where minions and cohorts where necessary and classes eventually leveled up to the point where they earned Wizard Towers, Castles, Thieves Guilds and etc.).

I definitely agree.  If I'd been designing 4th edition, these are the kind of things I'd have been exploring more - adding tools to further customize and individualize and expand and richen and deepen a group's game.  It felt like, in order to create a balanced combat game, 4th edition did the opposite - took things away.

The thing is, adding in those sorts of rules would annoy those people who wanted a more streamlined edition.  You can't please everyone - there is no perfect edition, no perfect balance.

Quote from: Elemental ElfTo me, skill challenges as presented in the books are pretty boring, doubly so when the DM tells you exactly which skills you can use and makes every PC roll a check. Those are the worst kind of challenges and, sadly, the variety I think many have been involved in.

I think sparkletwist's objection to skill challenges is mostly mathematical?

I like your examples a lot, but I don't really understand what skill challenges add.  In a 3.X game, all the different characters can do all of the different things you described as individual skill checks.  Some are going to succeed, some fail, and the consequences will be altered depending on their individual results.  What is gained by grouping it all together into a skill challenge, where if you lose a certain number of the rolls you lose it all?  It just feels like a minigame from a video game - artificial and immersion-breaking.  Skill checks worked just fine, especially when there were more than the barebones of skills.

Quote from: beejazzOne sided slaughters are a feature and not a bug of older editions. The whole point is that the party is supposed to do everything in their power to self-select their challenges and sometimes deliberately bypass the logic of the fight. Sometimes they're supposed to sit on the mummy's sarcophagus, drill holes in the lid, and find a way to burn it to death instead of letting it out to fight. It's part of the old survival horror bit.

This is what I was trying to get at with my "I don't really care about scaling" rant.  3rd edition was bad enough about this, but 4th edition elevates this to a fine art.  Why does the game need such a finely calibrated assumed-default set of challenges, treasure, power, etc?  Why does there need to be such a ridigly defined assumed arc to progression?  If this is what player empowerment means - where players are expecting a certain challenge level, getting annoyed if they can't kill everything they encounter, and whining that they didn't get the +1 Wounding Short Sword they put on their wish-list - I want none of it.

Quote from: SteerpikeThis is kind of what I meant by 4E's authoritarianism - instead of the play style the DM agrees with, 4E substitutes the play style the designers agree with.

I agree with this. Perhaps my perspective is skewed/narrow, but it really seems to me that 4th edition is designed around a relatively specific play paradigm and rapidly falls apart if you diverge from it. Granted, every system falls apart if you diverge too much from certain intended play paradigms, but I feel like the problem with 4e was that a great many of the excluded play styles were things that were perfectly within most people's definition of what "playing D&D" meant.

If your DM ran a very hack-and-slash oriented game that strictly followed CR, a lot of the problems you're feeling might arise in 3e games, too. However, I feel like that was just one way to play 3e. It's more or less the only way to play 4e.

Quote from: SteerpikeIf this is what player empowerment means - where players are expecting a certain challenge level, getting annoyed if they can't kill everything they encounter, and whining that they didn't get the +1 Wounding Short Sword they put on their wish-list - I want none of it.

I think I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of "player empowerment" on this forum, and I completely agree with you. :grin:

Quote from: XeviatYou also argue about things that are entirely fluff, like the name of a power getting reused from one monster to another, or that the "shortsword" power (actually a weapon attack, even though all attacks are written with the power block) doesn't mean anything from one monster to another (aside from that it is, you know, an attack involving sticking someone with the pointy end of a shortsword). You in one paragraph say that the "Phalanx Tactics" ability doesn't tell you what it is, yet the "Power Attack" feat does?

This isn't just about fluff. This is about being consistent.

In 3rd edition, any character or monster that has "Power Attack" has the same ability. If you see "Power Attack" somewhere, you can look it up on a table and know what it does. For convenience, you can write out what Power Attack does every time you give it to a monster, like what 4e does in its stat blocks, but you don't necessarily have to, because the thing called "Power Attack" is the same everywhere in the game that you find it.

Monster powers in 4e do not work like that. Each monster puts the complete rules for how its powers work in its stat block not just for convenience, but because each monster's power is essentially a one-off that is defined only in that stat block. This is like back in the bad old days of AD&D where monsters had their own fiddly mechanics that were explained nowhere but in that monster's own entry in the monster manual. It is just plain awful from the standpoint of any sort of consistency or creating a "master list" or whatever... and far from merely a fluff issue.

Quote from: XeviatThis is getting really heated, far more than it should. I've been trying to not use personal language, and I thank you for not either.

I do admit that I'm something of a hard-liner when it comes to specific game design concepts, and it does take debate in a certain direction fairly sharply and immediately. I think that making my own system (Asura) has really solidified in my mind what I consider to be good design principles, as well as a strong desire to have consistent rules that work right "out of the box." I've also been hammering away at numbers and probabilities long enough that I have probably become a bit overly sensitive to inconsistent/bad math.

Quote from: sparkletwistI think I'm probably one of the biggest advocates of "player empowerment" on this forum, and I completely agree with you.

I figured you would - if 4E had decided to stress player empowerment through mechanics that deliberately put control of the environment/plot into PC hands to some degree - or perhaps simply suggested a series of optional rules, tweaks, or variants for those who wanted a more "story-based," narratavist, cinematic, or dramatic game emphasizing collaborative storytelling and high action, as opposed to gritty, hard-nosed simulationism or whatnot - that would have been a bold and somewhat avant-garde approach.  Instead 4E's player empowerment seems largely limited to the players getting l33t loot at regularly scheduled intervals and being resassured their attack bonus is going to scale nicely with monster armour class provided their DM sticks to the Recommended Encounter Levels.

Quote from: steerpikeThis is what I was trying to get at with my "I don't really care about scaling" rant.  3rd edition was bad enough about this, but 4th edition elevates this to a fine art.  Why does the game need such a finely calibrated assumed-default set of challenges, treasure, power, etc?  Why does there need to be such a ridigly defined assumed arc to progression?  If this is what player empowerment means - where players are expecting a certain challenge level, getting annoyed if they can't kill everything they encounter, and whining that they didn't get the +1 Wounding Short Sword they put on their wish-list - I want none of it.

Some words have a few meanings.

In Borderlands, the starting town begins surrounded by little pup skags. Level up a little, and the starting town graduates to skag whelps. That's scaling.
BUT, in older editions of D&D, attack bonuses scale a lot while defense values scale relatively little. I could go into how cool this is and why, but that's kind of besides the point.The point is that the third sentence in this paragraph uses the word "scale" differently than the fourth.

With the latter, it can hurt you BADLY not to think about how things scale. Easy example: 3x diplomacy. There are no higher level challenges for diplomacy. By mid to high levels it can basically be used to bypass *every* fight, at least according to the given DCs. Another good example would be the widening gap between saves. By high levels, one character can have no fail chance and another can have no success chance within the same fight. This goes beyond what allowing the party to self-select challenges can fix. Now, a lot of this bad math can be "fixed" by feats or gear. This is where you get feat taxes. And this is also where you get the sense that specific gear is necessary at a specific point. Basically, if things are scaled badly enough (in this sense) you may be stuck scaling (in the former sense) the world around the PCs.

I get the concept, and I get that characters should improve in such a way that challenges don't become impossible/trivial, like having ridiculously low/high saves, but when scaling comes up it often seems that it gets caught up in assumptions about what kind of enouncters are "appropriate" for characters of that level, which sort of wearies me - that's all.  I totally understand the idea that progression needs to be modelled carefully.

Incidentally, I've never really understood the Diplomacy issue - unless I am reading the rules wrong, according to the 3.5 SRD it takes a full minute to change anything's mind (10 consecutive full-round actions) and "in some situations, this time limit may greatly increase," giving the GM essentially unlimited room for hand-waving and meaning that any creature which begins Hostile and is in a position to attack the characters (i.e. isn't tied up or something) can never be swayed with Diplomacy, because they'll attack before the Diplomacy can be completed.  Technically there's the "-10 penalty for a full-round-action" rushed Diplomacy thing, but the whole "in some situations, this time may greatly increase" thing gives DMs an easy way out of that, and personally I'd never let players use Diplomacy in the heat of combat unless the circumstances were very specific.

For those who aren't happy with the precise wording in 3.5 and still want to abuse Diplomacy, Pathfinder pretty much solves the issue - in Pathfinder, attitudes can only ever increase by one step, DCs are tied to Charisma, results only last for 1d4 hours, there are penalties for failure, you can only make one attitude change (of one step) every 24 hours, it explicitly doesn't work on low-Int creatures and requires a shared language (which any DM worth their salt would have assumed anyway) and furthermore "Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future."  So Diplomacy actually can't be used to bypass any fights at all, at least not in Pathfinder, and functionally not in 3.5

In 3.0, Diplomacy is weird.  It's actually handled with opposed rolls, but a straight-up Charisma check (no ranks allowed) can be used to alter attitudes using a set DC.  But I don't really count 3.0, here; I don't think many people would run 3.0 over 3.5 or Pathfinder.