Are the core base classes enough to build what you want to play?

S'mon · Aug 9, 2004

I kinda agree with Henry - I don't think that a player who wants to play a Swashbuckler is entitled to be as good a meat-shield-tank as the guy who plays a Dwarven Defender, **but** there needs to be give & take here. If the PC swashbuckler is going to forego wearing medium & heavy armour, a good GM will do what the DMG suggests and **work with the player** to tweak the character's abilities by eg swapping out Medium & Heavy armour proficiencies for something different and useful to a swashbuckler - eg give them Tumble as a class skill (revised Quint Fighter has this as an option, BTW). The Tumbling swashbuckler won't be as good a meat-shield as his plate-armoured buddy, _but_ he will have gained other abilities, he can now do things the plate-wearer can't.

The important principle: if the PC gives up a useful ability, give them a different useful ability in return. Don't give them new stuff without a cost (the unrestricted splatbook approach), but if they are giving up stuff for a concept, give them appropriate compensation. This goes for NPCs too - if the Egyptian-mythos clerics in your game don't wear any armour & never fight, give them d6 hit dice & no armour profs - but give them 6 skill points/level and a better skill selection.

Henry · Aug 9, 2004

BelenUmeria said:
There is no reason to reward people with extra mojo because they choose to play a concept that is not as optimal. Reward them for what they do, not with extra mechanics to make it so that they can be just as effective as the tank doing what the tank does.

They can still be as effective. They just need to do it differently.

Maybe I'm misreading you, but those two statements seem to be contradictory. Reward them not on effectiveness, because they won't be, yet they can still be effective?

I'm just saying that if a Wizard has the spells needed to be a major damage-blaster, the Swashbuckler should have the tools necessary at his disposal to dispatch his enemies. As it is, a swashbuckler built with the fighter class and 3.5 rules will be rather ineffective compared to building an archer or stand-up fighter. In order to fight, he will have to shift offense to defense, without enough offensive might being left over to actually incapacitate an enemy, even over a longer period of time.

Conversely, an evoking mage will have spells at his disposal to be a militant mage; a cleric will have defensive spells enough to support the party; a Barbarian will have enough hit points to act as armor for toe-to-toe combat; a ranger possesses enough hit points, spells, and skills and damage bonuses to be a skirmish fighter; a monk possesses enough abilities to be a skirmish fighter, as well; and a rogue possesses enough skills to be whatever the heck he WANTS to - craftsman, box-man, acrobat, etc.

Barbarian is an excellent example of this idea. Without his d10 hit dice, a barbarian is not as equipped for combat as he should be; he only wears medium or lesser armor, so without an extra compensation, he will not perform the duties his archetype demands. That extra compensation comes in the form of d20 hit dice and rage. Those two abilities, combined with his damage resistance, and unflankability, make up for the feats and heavier armor that a fighter possesses.

Now, one COULD make a bare-chested or hide-wearing barbarian with just the fighter class, but would be be effective in his role? No, hence the need for rage, DR, unflanking ability, hit dice, etc., and hence my point.

Endur · Aug 9, 2004

Everything depends on the campaign the players are in.

A knight-centric, heavy armor campaign should heavily penalize the lightly armored swashbuckler.

Just as ship-board combat should heavily favor the swashbuckler.

Henry said:
To me, acknowledging and preserving the inferior build over the superior is a punishment for wanting to roleplay a different concept than what the rules favor. The guy or gal whose party NEEDS a tank, yet wants to play a swashbuckler, is going to be taking a beating in combat.

Inconsequenti-AL · Aug 9, 2004

Corinth said:
This is nothing new; it's always been that way. For the majority of gamers, PCs are little more than virtual playing pieces with modular parts and destrucable bodies. It's hardly a surprise to see people speak and act in that way.

I'd agree somewhat, but don't think it's necessarily a bad thing...

I've seen a lot of people start with characters that were little more than what you say, hopefully with an obvious and easily accesible roleplaying hook or two bolted on for good measure.

IME, they tend to grow into 'real' characters as a game progresses. Nothing like having history and experience with the character to get some roleplaying going?

I find that process is often helped along considerably if the character is one they like and find memorable. For some this means they should be effective, but just as often it's the messes and mistakes that make for a memorable character?

Still, depending on the game and the group it can be hard to get attatched to a complete dead weight*?

And by that I don't mean slightly suboptimal, but completely useless.

To sum it up, I think having the right numbers in vaguely useful places can enhance the whole roleplaying process?

Belen · Aug 9, 2004

Henry said:
Barbarian is an excellent example of this idea. Without his d10 hit dice, a barbarian is not as equipped for combat as he should be; he only wears medium or lesser armor, so without an extra compensation, he will not perform the duties his archetype demands. That extra compensation comes in the form of d20 hit dice and rage. Those two abilities, combined with his damage resistance, and unflankability, make up for the feats and heavier armor that a fighter possesses.

Now, one COULD make a bare-chested or hide-wearing barbarian with just the fighter class, but would be be effective in his role? No, hence the need for rage, DR, unflanking ability, hit dice, etc., and hence my point.

He should not be only a fighter. He should multiclass as a rogue in order to balance out the choice, thus getting more skills, sneak, evasion, and uncanny dodge.

The point is moot because I have rarely seen anyone choose less than optimal combos.

You do not need to add bells and whistles to justifies someone's choice. As the GM, you can design encounters that make use of everyone's strengths. Characters can have weaknesses. 3e philosophy may say that all weakness is bad and all restrictions are bad, but it is how someone overcomes those problems that make the game.

So let's switch this around. What if a fighter chose to have a good charisma at the cost of a slightly smaller con score? Are we supposed to give them something to balance that too?

(Psi)SeveredHead · Aug 9, 2004

Alas, no, the classes are a little too cookie-cutter.

Some of the more flexible classes (eg mages and fighters) are still getting prestimyopia thrown at them, as well.

I think a series of feats that would make a swashbuckler viable but not better than a tank is doable. Be sure to state that the feats only work in light armor (the way Spring Attack works) so you don't end up with uber-tanks.

RFisher · Aug 9, 2004

What I'll say is that I almost never play Paladins or Rangers. I almost always prefer Fighter, Cleric, or Fighter/Cleric to Paladin. I almost always prefer Fighter, Rogue, or Fighter/Rogue to Ranger.

I also like the Aristocrat/Fighter multiclass.

I kind of annoys me, though, that 3e gives Fighters such a small & boring set of class skills. I'm not really for letting a player pick his class skills either. I'd really like to see some variants on the Fighter with different sets of class skills.

jmucchiello · Aug 9, 2004

RFisher said:
I kind of annoys me, though, that 3e gives Fighters such a small & boring set of class skills. I'm not really for letting a player pick his class skills either. I'd really like to see some variants on the Fighter with different sets of class skills.

Well, that is the purpose of my PDF Character Customization. In it, I take the view that DMs should alter the base classes as needed to provide the flavor they prefer for their campaigns. While the book could be used to trick out custom PC classes for each PC. That's not what the book recommends. It suggests using the class construction approach to tweak existing classes and to create new base classes for campaign use.

This is basically a codification of the DMG advice to allow characters to tweak the classes. The DMG falls down because it assumes all DMs will know if swapping sneak attack for wild shape is an even trade or not. By codifying the class abilities (into tracks) Character Customization makes it easier to feel good about a given swap.

A Character Customization link is in my sig and no, I don't think it'll be ready for GenCon. I'm looking at mid-Sept now (and I'm still not happy about. Dangnabbit real life concerns!!)

Henry · Aug 9, 2004

What the HECK happened to my hit die references in that post? I put d12 in there for both references, and for some reason it came out d10 and d20???

diaglo · Aug 9, 2004

Henry said:
What the HECK happened to my hit die references in that post? I put d12 in there for both references, and for some reason it came out d10 and d20???

thinking faster than you can type. :uhoh: