Forked Thread: Should complexity vary across classes?

[TerraDave]

Forked from: How did pre-3E D&D "play"?

Is the narrowing complexity gap between, say, fighters and wizards in 3E, and then again in 4E, a drawback?

S'mon and Shades of Green said, yes, it is a drawback. You should be able to play a simple charecter, and a more complicated one, in D&D.

What do you think?

Yeah, it's a huge drawback for 4e with me. When I play D&D I usually like to play a Fighter and put my brain in neutral gear most of the time. I find it very relaxing - I guess I'm a classic "butt kicker" type player. It seems like with 4e I can't do that anymore, I'm supposed to be thinking all the time, and it's a big turn-off.

This reduction is a drawback from three main perspectives:

1) New players. D&D takes time to learn, especially if this is your first RPG ever. AD&D fighters had significantly less rules and base concepts attached to them than any other class, and thus were ideal for beginners. They also gave the beginner an active role in the game even if they weren't very good or confident in role-playing yet: combat was more or less commonplace, and the fighter was active in every combat. Also, the rules and concepts that did apply to the fighter were the very basics of D&D - to-hit rolls, AC, THAC0, damage rolls, saving throws, HP, role-playing, general in-game concepts and so on; once you learned the basics you could move on to more complex classes such as thieves or rangers, and, eventually, paladins, clerics and mages.

2) Casual players. Some people want to enjoy a D&D game once in a while but don't intend to invest much time or effort into it (such as learning complex rules or spending time studying a wide range of spells). Different complexity levels for different classes meant that the casual player could play and enjoy the game without having to deal with complex rules.

3) Different play styles. Some players like to focus on learning and using the rules (or spells) to their advantage; others like to focus on role-playing (or problem solving, or killing things) without much rule-crunching. Different complexity levels for different classes allowed you to choose how complex the game would be for you.

 

[Lackhand]

Forked from: How did pre-3E D&D "play"?

Is the narrowing complexity gap between, say, fighters and wizards in 3E, and then again in 4E, a drawback?

S'mon and Shades of Green said, yes, it is a drawback. You should be able to play a simple charecter, and a more complicated one, in D&D.

What do you think?

What I find interesting is that the level of effectiveness (not necessarily fun) goes, roughly,
1) poorly-played wizard
2) poorly-played fighter
3) well-played fighter
4) well-played wizard
in 3.x, but I haven't quite measured the diff in 4e; it's likely to have the same relationship between 1&4 and 2&3, though .

Regardless, what this says to me is that the skill gap is now not between classes, but between how you play classes, to whit: they're only as complex as you make them. If you always use your dailies & encounters as soon as they're available, and use some aid to remove the "I don't remember what they do" excuse (a deck of note cards?), there's no decision complexity at all, and it's all resolution complexity.

edit: this also scales pretty cunningly with level -- if you're just introducing someone to the game, you start at low level, and they and their characters grow together. If it's a personal choice, of course, this doesn't mean as much.

Choose appropriate powers there, and Bob's your uncle.

(if you couldn't tell: I like that there's no simple class anymore )

 

[ExploderWizard]

Its nice to have that option. It isn't just about being able to put your brain on autopilot either although thats perfectly good reason to want a simpler class. A player may be very mentally engaged in the events of the game and want to play a character with simple combat mechanics and spend more time and energy thinking about campaign events and whatnot.

It really depends on what the player enjoys most in the game.

 

[Psion]

Forked from: How did pre-3E D&D "play"?

Is the narrowing complexity gap between, say, fighters and wizards in 3E, and then again in 4E, a drawback?

In some ways, yeah.

Fun is not a universal constant. All gamers are not cut from the same cloth. Even back in 2e, one of the "Blue Books" observed that some players are inherently "problem solvers", and like tinkering with resources to meet challenges of the game.

The drawback is that you also cut off some options to some players if you cater to this. But the wizard/sorcerer dichotomy was one clever way to address this.

 

[Cadfan]

1. Varying complexity across classes is inevitable. Even in 4e, which leveled the differences in complexity a great deal, I still think that playing a Fighter is a lower complexity task than playing a Rogue.

2. Pros of varying complexity: It permits new players to select an "easy" class. And it permits casual players to do the same.

3. Cons of varying complexity. It forces new players into certain roles which may not be the roles they want. And it forces experienced players, who might want more complexity, to abandon certain classes (and therefore character archetypes) because those classes won't provide the game experience they want.

I have to say the cons outweigh the pros, at least for me. I really like martial/melee/weapon types. But playing them in 3e bored me to tears. I seriously, seriously hated playing fighters or rogues, but... they're my favorite types of heroes.

 

[Set]

I definitely would prefer for there to be some classes that use simpler systems, but don't sacrifice a bunch of effectiveness.

I'm not sure if that's ever been the case, 'though. Fighters have always been easier, but haven't always felt equal.

There are days when I want to Summon Augmented Beasties and send them into the fray while casting buffs and adjusting everyone's numbers.

There are days when that sounds like a bewildering amount of work, and I just want to step and cleave. Ideally, a game should be able to accomodate either style of play.

 

[blargney the second]

Sometimes I like to play mechanically complex characters, other times not. So yeah, having a variety of complexity is a good thing for me.

 

[GlaziusF]

There are days when I want to Summon Augmented Beasties and send them into the fray while casting buffs and adjusting everyone's numbers.

There are days when that sounds like a bewildering amount of work, and I just want to step and cleave. Ideally, a game should be able to accomodate either style of play.

Well, here's the thing. If I'm next to you in initiative order, waiting for my turn to step and cleave, how am I going to feel about your turn involving all the augmented beasties?

Complexity is best when it's orthogonal to the game, when you can explore it without taking up everyone else's time. Having your turn involve 20 die rolls, each of which are individually resolved in the time it takes to resolve my turn and its 1 die roll, is a bad kind of complexity.

 

[Dausuul]

I do agree that it would be nice to have some really simple classes suitable for players who don't want to get into elaborate tactics and rules options. At the same time, I would not want to sacrifice any of the current classes for that. Speaking as a player at the other end of the spectrum - I love me some elaborate tactics - I'm very glad that I can finally play any archetype instead of being limited to casters.

 

[Umbran]

What do you think?

I think there's probably no one thing that all players love about rpgs - and that includes character complexity. Some folks will love heavy and complicated rules-monkeying, and others won't.

So, I think having a variation of rules-complexity across various charactes to be a positive thing in a game.