So I had the chance to read a friend's Races & Classes from cover to cover. It was an ok-book until i came to page 68 where I read in first paraphraph the following line:
"But when was the last time you saw a PC make a profession check that has a usefull impact on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is proablity not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry)"
I don't know, why I was so upset upon reading this, but i stopped reading. Perhaps it was someone telling me my games are not fun because my players use skills such as Perform, Craft or Profession. That someone dictates how I should play the game?
/sarcasm on/ Man, your so right: these skills suck. They can be used for roplelaying purposes and if you are using them you are not cool. Roleplaying is not cool. Cool people play cool characters with cool powers. Cool people rollplay. Who would play a character with ranks in profession. And what GM would use such skills in his game?
Let me tell you something: I use things such as Craft and Profession. Not only does it help fleshing out a character, but it can also be important and helpful - So you have fumbled your attack roll and your sword is damaged. Make a Craft (weaponsmithing) when camping and all is good again. Or do you want to travel to the nearest town which is a few days away and look for a smith. Or, alternatively, you can fight on with that sword until its destroyed and you can continue with your bare hands... /sarasm off/
I'm not someone usually ranting around. What i wanna really say is this: Do NOT use such commends or sentences in products yoo want to sell to future or current costumers. That's bad business...
Wow - that line insults me more than the whole "killing/looting fairy ring thing"
It's further proof they aren't aiming this game at the current gamer and towards people who want a pencil and paper computer game. They can't market a 2 hour roleplaying session, that has little dice rolling aside from a couple skill checks and no killing. Most of us know that those are some of the most important and fun parts of our games - they don't dominate the campaign, but they are key nonetheless.
I can't wait to see what other insulting lines are in the book - since I'm not spending $20 on it - oh - and next month we get more!
So, you use a profession skill and the game gets to be less fun?
Then WTF did they make Profession and Craft available as class skills to everyone?
Was it just to make it look like there was going to be some role-playing in the game?
If nothing else had soured me on 4e, this would have done it.
Skills like profession and craft DO have an impact on my games. My games are more than dungeon crawls and combat. Quite a bit more, thank you very much.
I guess I should let me players know that we aren't having fun.
What bunch of presumptive, condescending <EDITED>.
Dangit! I knew I was playing this game wrong. /sulks/
I think they should stop using the word 'cool'. It's nice that they think their new game is good, but man I'm getting sick of that word.
The party in my DS campaign just had to make all their own weapons. Wish I had known beforehand how badly we sucked. Thanks WoTC!
The thing that still amazes me is that they are trying to tell you what "fun" is, as if it were some universal truth.
The arrogance of their statement regarding the profession skill amazes me.
I don't understand how you can have a marketing campaign which is insulting to anyone who likes various aspects of the game they way this campaign is going. Why would you want to (potentially) insult your customers?
It's like saying, "your homebrew sucks - use our game worlds to ensure more fun."
It's like saying, "your homebrew sucks - use our game worlds to ensure more fun."
I think that sums it up nicely.
One has to wonder where all the chairs come from in their world though.
It's like saying, "your homebrew sucks - use our game worlds to ensure more fun."I think that sums it up nicely.
Yep! Hit the nail on the head right there. Well you would if you knew how to wield a hammer and strike a nail....
PC's don't just materialise out of thin air. They have parents, siblings, friends, employers.
And they likely underwent some sort of training. That is why in my homebrew campaign I required everyone to have a craft or profession (I gave them a couple of ranks) to reflect the fact that they had lived a life before they began adventuring.
No one told me creating a background to the world and people in it was not fun. They should put this information in the rule books!
So i suppose they intend to replace it with a more "cool gamer" version:
Player: I wish to make 10 swords please.
DM: Got the mats? and Pattern?
Player: Yep.
DM: Whats the Patterns colour?
Player: Orange!
DM: Ok then go for it!
Player: Sweet, right I make 10 Felsteel Longblades.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 360. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 361. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 362. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 363. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 364. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
DM: You gain one point in swordsmithing, you're skill is now 365. You have a Felsteel Longblade.
Edit:
I do find it rather insulting, a crafting profession can be very useful, from the basic making your own sword which whilst not central to the game is a good plus, to being able to put an artifact back together which is central to the game.
They are starting to remind me of the kind of person who when a certain MMOs expansion was announced with epic quality tailored cloth started to whine on the forums that crafting was boring and all epic items should be from dungeons and raids only. Only with more insulting to various minorities because they where immature idiots.
Wow Beastman...I never want to game with you. Apparently your no fun! You know what....neither am I. I have a rank or two in dance and musical instrument, I speak more than one language, I am a bit of a local history buff as well (Greyhawk if your wondering). I guess I'm boring as well. Wow, imagine the incredibly boring game we could have together? We could roll dice to see who falls asleep first.
Regretfully it appears that the cool people at WOTC have ruled out roleplaying as being an intergral part of the game. A shame they never mastered it before they condemned it. There are all sorts of players....hack and slash, number crunchers, roleplayers....apparently this game isn't big enough for all of us. Funny, perhaps I'm being a bit of an elitest but I always thought that reaching the roleplaying stage when playing these games was kinda the goal to attain as a player type. Guess I was wrong!
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"But when was the last time you saw a PC make a profession check that has a usefull impact on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is proablity not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry)"
Well crap! Now they tell me.
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I always throw a couple points into a Roleplay mostly skill, I once tossed a couple points into Profession: farmer, and would talk about crop-rotation and proper irrigation techniques. Did it help me in combat? Hell no! But it helped to define who the character is. I got a dude in MWBeeler's Dark Sun PBP with ranks in Weaponsmithing. We have(had) weapons! Amazing! My dude in Searn's PBP is a sorcerer who likes to sing (ranks in singing)! He sings his verbal components and puts together Dio-esque lyrics in praise to his god. Does it give him a modifier in combat? No. But it shows who he is and helps me get into his character.
Guess I don't know how to have fun, I better take some lessons from WotC, they would never steer me wrong!
This is why I constantly have to make saves against crushing people's head on a daily basis. Arrogant f**ks.
Its stuff like this that really make me feel sorry for the decision makers at Paizo. I mean they have make their products even better in order to compensate for crap like this should they ever go 4E. I mean, the only way I'd ever give serious thought as to whether or not to go 4E is if Paizo goes 4E. But with stuff like this in there, ... I don't really know if I would pick up the 4E PHB, even if Paizo made the switch anymore.
I don't envy Mona in the slightest.
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Just gonna play devil's advocate here...
Does anyone have an anecdote that actually addresses the offending quote? Several people have mentioned crafting, which I will admit is also very often useful in my campaigns (especially weapon and armor crafting). One person even mentioned having taken a few ranks in a profession for flavour. However, no-one has yet mentioned a profession check actually having a significant impact on their game. This doesn't have to be a combat or crunch impact, any impact would be fine.
Devil's advocacy over...
In my campaigns, I'll have to admit that a profession check has only come in useful once (playing once a week for the entire length of third ed.) That was when a PC was standing trial for murder. One of the other PCs happened to have invested some ranks in profession: lawyer. The PC got his buddy acquitted, and in so doing derailed my plot and gave me a lot of extra work to do, but it was fun seeing the group use their "flavour only" abilities in a meaningful way.
I've played in or run many games where profession: sailor and profession:herbalist have come into play - often. In addition, one of my characters at a very low level was able to use profession: blacksmith to make enough money between levels to buy a few things that proved very important in his low-level dungeoneering life - and earn him a valuable ally in the town blacksmith where he worked.
Profession checks I admit crop up infrequently, but are other skills that are more flavour and are rarely used.
Put a dragon in front of the PC's and they know exactly what to do....
But put them in a social encounter where they need to impress some noble with Perform(Dance) and there will be trembling hands as they roll those dice.....
However, no-one has yet mentioned a profession check actually having a significant impact on their game. This doesn't have to be a combat or crunch impact, any impact would be fine.
In one campaign, I played a character with profession-comedian. I used it in quite a few situations in order to make friends with locals. Great role-playing time, especially when I had to come up with stuff on the fly; keeping the DM thinking as well. We had a blast with that session! Also comes in handy when you try to get someone to shoot ale through their nose. :)
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"But when was the last time you saw a PC make a profession check that has a usefull impact on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is proablity not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry)"
I don't know, why I was so upset upon reading this, but i stopped reading. Perhaps it was someone telling me my games are not fun because my players use skills such as Perform, Craft or Profession. That someone dictates how I should play the game?
Yeah, I've been getting this feeling since they killed Dragon and Dungeon. It's been down hill since then. I guess I'm just bitter over being fired...
I have to disagree with all of you. My four ranks in basketweaving have made me the joke of all male Shoanti everywhere. Not cool.
I'm currently a player in an Eberron campaign. I play a Dragonmarked elf of House Thuranni. For those unfamiliar with Eberron, House Thuranni is known for the Shadow Network and on the mundane side, producing great artists. My character has high ranks in painting. My character has regular gallery showings in Sharn between adventures. Besides earning my character some extra cash, it also provides contacts with the upper crust of society which also allows me to play the Shadow Network connection. So, this not only provides additional personality to my character but has also provided tips and leads to adventures.
The paladin crafted her sword and eventually had magic entered into it. It is pretty much her keeper for life.
I make diplomacy checks every game, sometimes several times a game. I talk our way out of a lot of fights....does that count?
But put them in a social encounter where they need to impress some noble with Perform(Dance) and there will be trembling hands as they roll those dice.....
Not if I do the dance...I like to dance...and people like to watch me dance....heck, I bet some would even like to dance with me. These kinds of skills balance out the game. Without them...D&D could become just another fantasy so-so game and nothing special. Part of the greatness is the overall fill in the blanks that if offers...such as craft, dance, feats, etc.
I've had players in my campaign use Profession: Merchant to know about trading coasters and trade routes, imports and exports of various lands, and where various coins come from. From an adventuring point of view, this can be very important for figuring out clues to plots that the PCs are investigating.
I've also had a character with Craft: Carpentry figure out if wood is local or imported, or if a fortress was being kept in good repair on the inside, and has built makeshift sledges to carry innocents and treasure away from a dungeon.
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For what it's worth, it's this kind of presented cr@p that has lead to my "taking it too personally" their whacked marketing decisions. At GenCon, this same additude of using the word "you" and "your" when pointing out at the crowd at that presentation put me in the state of mind where...yes, maybe I am taking this a bit personal, but then they're the ones presenting it that way. Again, whatever.
Another line from an obviously cluless berk who's lost their way. Sad, really. :-)
-DM Jeff
I've had players in my campaign use Profession: Merchant to know about trading coasters and trade routes, imports and exports of various lands, and where various coins come from. From an adventuring point of view, this can be very important for figuring out clues to plots that the PCs are investigating.
I've also had a character with Craft: Carpentry figure out if wood is local or imported, or if a fortress was being kept in good repair on the inside, and has built makeshift sledges to carry innocents and treasure away from a dungeon.
Errant Jr., what no Knowledge: Archmages, used to locate one of the 59,326,018 Archmages running around the lovely lands of Faerun?
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Actually, I completely understand why they did it (and I think if I remember correctly...don't have the book in front of me) they explain why in R&C.
They removed or reduced the role of a bunch of skills and features that do not have encounter based applications, as they do not want to weaken any characters ability to contribute (note that I said encounter based, not combat-based, so as to include social encounters). Things like crafting and out-of-game professions can flavor a character and there is no reason you can't say that your character is a blacksmith or a lawyer (ewh) or whatever, just that the game system isn't going to try to figure out how to balance that against skills that can be applicable in more situations.
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IMO, professions and crafts and some other skills (Knowledges) have a lot of overlapping. Most PCs take craft over profession because they are more interested in individual projects. But almost all our characters in my games have taken some sort of craft or knowledge for flavor and fun.
And it is fun to know what your characters are doing when not killing things.
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The quote is specifically about profession - not craft, and not perform.
Profession is the single most boring and useless skill in the game. It is easily replaced by craft or a set of skills. Profession: sailor could easily be replaced by navigation, balance, use rope, etc.
Further more you could just role play being a sailor as a part of your character's background.
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The quote is specifically about profession - not craft, and not perform.
Profession is the single most boring and useless skill in the game. It is easily replaced by craft or a set of skills. Profession: sailor could easily be replaced by navigation, balance, use rope, etc.
Because everyone knows that making three rolls instead of one is more fun. Right.
Would it kill you to add a YMMV or a IMHO everynow and then? If a person enjoys a character who has profession: farmer or profession: courtesan, why must you denigrate them by insisting they are enjoying something boring?
Crosswiredmind:
What about my point regarding the need for successful Profession (siege engineer) checks *required* to reload a catapult with any speed?
It would be much more fun to replace Profession (siege engineer) with Knowledge (siege engineer) and the game would flow much better then as well. /sarcasm
crosswiredmind wrote:
If a person enjoys a character who has profession: farmer or profession: courtesan, why must you denigrate them by insisting they are enjoying something boring?
I knew it.....I just knew I was boring....thanks for helping me with my esteem issue....this sets me back at least 6 months in therapy. I think I will send the bill to Crosswiredmind.
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Profession is the single most boring and useless skill in the game.
this is just your opinion. Actually, it is your opinion phrased in a belligerent fashion. boring? useless? what does that say to those who disagree with you? If someone enjoys a style of play that embraces these types of skills, you have just trashed their preferred play style, and by transference, you trashed them as well.
It is easily replaced by craft or a set of skills. Profession: sailor could easily be replaced by navigation, balance, use rope, etc.
sure. OF course ONE skill that covers all three of those skills is simpler to play, but I guess this is progress?
Further more you could just role play being a sailor as a part of your character's background.
telling folks to ignore what they object to in every 4ed thread on the site is getting a little old. WE GET IT. If you have no new arguments to add, can you at least consider passing up on a thread or two just for variety?
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The quote is specifically about profession - not craft, and not perform.
Profession is the single most boring and useless skill in the game. It is easily replaced by craft or a set of skills. Profession: sailor could easily be replaced by navigation, balance, use rope, etc.
Further more you could just role play being a sailor as a part of your character's background.
While I hate being told how my game isn't fun by anyone else but one of my players (jeez - not that I would love that, but at least it is useful critizism), I personally rather use craft or perform skills for most actions of the PC. Profession is a skill to earn your pay by your, well, profession and these days are over for most adventurers (granted most adventurers even those less lucky own more cash than most rofessional craftsman, farmers or merchants at mediocre levels and no adventurerer can send the time and efford to actually run a big business - and for owning a business and have others run it, you certainly don't need a profession check). Profession is best used as a character background - and I can imagine several ways to use it without making it a skill - the crafts and arts used in a profession however schould remain skills by any means! (My games are rather heavy on roleplaying and interacting, where such skills are at least as useful as combat maneuvers.
In my opinion you really don't have to use profession skills (in fact I would rather not) but I doubt the alternative I have in mind (craft/erform/knowledge are used instead) is what WotC's designers have in mind.|
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The quote is specifically about profession - not craft, and not perform.
Profession is the single most boring and useless skill in the game. It is easily replaced by craft or a set of skills. Profession: sailor could easily be replaced by navigation, balance, use rope, etc.
Further more you could just role play being a sailor as a part of your character's background.
This is not actually in response to the above quote; just wanted everyone else to know what I was talking about.
I'm sure Crosswiredmind means well; he just doesn't seem to realize that he's not going to change anyone's mind about 4th Edition.
To Crosswiredmind: why do you feel that you need to enter every single anti-4th Edition thread and refute every single complaint about said edition? We come here to rant; we come here to complain. EnWorld and the WOTC boards have no respect for those that need to vent. Thank the gods that Paizo seems to understand these needs (Vomit Guy notwithstanding).
We get it: you think 4th Edition is the bomb! Any possible doubters to that fact have long since left the room. Whoohoo for you! For a lot of the rest of us; this is the death of our favorite hobby. Try and show a little compassion for those that don't share your furious excitement, and I'll try to stay out of your happy, gushing threads that are pro-4th Edition.
And for the record: I like skills like Profession and Craft and Perform. It's not all about combat you know.
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Wicht: I do not personally think that Profession skills are useless, trivial, irrelevant, boring, or otherwise inapplicable in the game. I am trying to present an example of a profession that even on their own terms the 'professions are irrelevant' group will have difficulty denying can have a realistic chance to impact on a game.
I agree with you :)
hence the "/sarcasm"
Sarcasm seems to be popular, let's go with it: Haven't read the whole book, but looking at it in my FLGS, I've already found lot of things lacking in my games. Of course my games have not been any fun because of few annoying and useless skills, but I haven't even been able to play the character I wanted to play. According to Races&Classes, this is going to finally change with paths and destinies. "New ones like the weapon master, prince of knaves and cavalier will let you play the character you've really wanted to be all this time. You want to be Robin Hood? No problem". Whew, finally.
Actually I heard you send them your name, address, and bank account number and they send you the character they know you want to play - already made, with weekly newsletters of what your character did for the entire length of the campaign. You never even have to pick up a dice or pencil!
Will I be able to watch my character do cool stuff with the virtual table in DI? If so, I just might subscribe. Save some money in movie rentals and so.
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I just finished reading the book yesterday.
First to the OP and all the others that seem upset I am sure that no matter what they wrote in the book someone could find something to be offended about. I see where the offense was taken but when I read that line it did not trigger me - I think a lot of people are looking for reasons to be angry about 4e and that sentence is another excuse to say they are wrong for putting out a new edition.
I have been back and forth of 4e on whether I am interested in 4e. I think that every edition has improved the game. I had taken a break during the 2e times because my group dispersed across the world.
I started playing again shortly after 3.0 came out and was an early advocate in my groups for 3.5. After reading the book I am very interested in what 4e may bring to the table. Some of the changes do not appeal to me much (if there were skills that I really liked that they did away with then I would keep them). Some changes I think are great. I am actually really looking forward to some of the changes in classes and even races. I like a lot of the changes they talk about. I do not think I will be happy with just the core books because I think that some of the classes I would like in the game will not be in the first book. But that is okay. I have at least two or three years of 3.5 things just from Paizo I want to run and that does not cound other things like City of Brass and such...
I think that by the time I am ready to run 4e games it will be well established and it will have all the classes and such that I am interested in having in my games. And if something I love from 3.5 is missing I can add it back in with houserules and be happy.
And all this depends on what Paizo does because as I have stated a few times I will follow them - if they stay with 3.5 then I shall also.
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We come here to rant; we come here to complain. EnWorld and the WOTC boards have no respect for those that need to vent.
Well, again, YMMV.
I don't really want to rant or complain (much). I want intelligent discussion.
Actually what I really want is for someone to convince me to buy the 4th Edition for a reason other than Paizo is going with it eventually. I like buying RPG books and I don't mind switching editions if the new edition is better.
Dogmatic, arrogant and thinly veiled insults is not going to persuade me. Either from WotC or Crosswiredmind.
So far no-one is doing a great job of convincing me I need to spend another $100 for new rulebooks. (Other than, again, Paizo switching would convince me at this point).
I actually like the skills and feats as they are now. I like alignment. I like elves that live 600-1000 years. Telling me that I can change all those things back after I buy the new rules is not good salesmanship on the part of the 4e people.