Tristalt - What would you build?

[Celebrim]

If you gave them every single class feature for all the base classes in all the books... they would be extremely powerful, but they would be, by no means, invincible.

I didn't say that the standard was whether or not you are invincible, although obviously, true invincibility is functionally equivalent being good at everything. No, it is simply enough to violate the fundamental law of role playing to be good at everything, even if that doesn't imply absolute invincibility.

I believe that RPGs as we know them have several origins, but not the least of these are the sorts of games that children play back when they are innocent enough to enjoy play for its own sake. One of the things that ultimately disrupts these games is one or more children try to be good at everything so as to always be the center of attention. All adult RPGs are built around ways to prevent this from being a problem. It's one of the reasons that we focus so carefully on the idea of 'balance'. In essense, the adult RPG helps deal with player conflict and spot light grabbing by fairly distributing the spot light and by teaching the players to maturely accept the possiblity of losing. This is one of the features that allow people to keep role-playing as adults long after the innocence is damaged or gone.

Batman might have some seriously compelling storylines... but so does Superman.... and there's a guy who can do pretty much everything.

Superman is not (originally) a character in a RPG. As an RPG character he absolutely sucks.

 

[Visigani]

Superman sucks why? Because he violates your made up rule?


Further, "true invincibility" is not functionally equivalent to being good at everything. Good does not, by any means, imply you are "the best".

Most of the above characters would become little better or potentially worse than a single class character if they found themselves in the middle of an anti-magic field, without spell components, or against a foe to which their tertiary abilities had no significant use.

The measure of a players power is directly related to the challenges they face.

 

[Jack Simth]

Superman sucks why?

As a character in a work of fiction, he's fine if the author is skilled. As a character in a multiple player Pen & Pencil RPG, he doesn't do so hot. He's very nearly the epitome of the "Anything you can do, I can do better"; he *is* a deus ex machia. If you check your comic character histories, kryptonite was made up for the express purpose of acting as an anti deus ex to make the villain actually work for story-lines - which is why it shows up so often; it's needed.

Put him in an RPG, though and... he's nearly the ultimate detective, the ultimate fighter. If everyone else in the party goes and takes a nap, Lois Lane will still be rescued, Lex Luthor will still be carted off to jail again... unless the DM decides to put in Superman's Anti-Dues-Ex-Machina, Kryptonite. In which case, Superman is close to useless.

That's not a fun way to play a game for very long - even less, for everyone else at the table.

It can totally make for good fiction, with a few concessions it can make for a good video game or some solo play, but it doesn't make a good cooperative RPG.

Most of the above characters would become little better or potentially worse than a single class character if they found themselves in the middle of an anti-magic field, without spell components, or against a foe to which their tertiary abilities had no significant use.

Actually, most of the builds suggested have both skillmonkey and melee components to them - which is to say, while an AMF would turn off their primaries, they'd still be useful characters.

 

[kitcik]

Most of the above characters would become little better or potentially worse than a single class character if they found themselves in the middle of an anti-magic field, without spell components, or against a foe to which their tertiary abilities had no significant use.

I think I agree with the gist of your post, but this statement is just silly.

A Warblade / Factotum / Wizard Tristalt will be worse than which of those individual classes in an anti-magic field?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I think I agree with the gist of your post, but this statement is just silly.

A Warblade / Factotum / Wizard Tristalt will be worse than which of those individual classes in an anti-magic field?

There is a reason that combo was my first choice.

Ok, many, many reasons.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There is a reason that combo was my first choice.

Ok, many, many reasons.

Indeed. While i've yet to get ot even play a gestalt game to use the combo, I always have a hard time deciding, "Factotum, Wizard, Warblade; pick 2." Psion could work too, I just don't like psionics. So, yeah. Factotum//Warblade//Wizard. You're batman, good at melee, and can give yourself free actions and be good with any skill.

 

[domino]

I'd go Sorceror//Paladin//Rogue. Skills, BAB, casting, you'll get a lot of use out of Cha, though suffer a bit of MAD from needing pretty much anything but int.

 

[Visigani]

I did not say of a single class character based on their individual parts. Simply a single classed character. I'm not familair with "Warblade" but if it's crazy potent it is because the class itself is . A barbarian would almost certainly rape either a wizard or a Factotum in anA ntimagic field. Whether he would a Warblade I don't know. However, Said barbarian could do significant damage or possibly kill the Warblade/Factotum/Wizard in an Anti Magic field.

No matter how badass you seem to think your character is, the DM will win. Simple as that. If you can create the character, I can create the circumstance or situation that gimps it. Even pun-Pun is not immune to this.

 

[kitcik]

I did not say of a single class character based on their individual parts. Simply a single classed character. I'm not familair with "Warblade" but if it's crazy potent it is because the class itself is . A barbarian would almost certainly rape either a wizard or a Factotum in anA ntimagic field. Whether he would a Warblade I don't know. However, Said barbarian could do significant damage or possibly kill the Warblade/Factotum/Wizard in an Anti Magic field.

No matter how badass you seem to think your character is, the DM will win. Simple as that. If you can create the character, I can create the circumstance or situation that gimps it. Even pun-Pun is not immune to this.

OK, let's go one by one.

1) The point is that a character that benefits from 3 sets of class abilities has ab ADVANTAGE over one with only one set, even in an anti-magic field. This seems pretty obvious. Forgetting Warblade vs. barbarian since you are not familiar, what about barbarian vs. barbarian / rogue / wizard? Even if the wizard branch is 90% gimped by the AMF, why wouldn't the tristalt still have a huge advantage? Stop thinking about how badass your barbarian is and start applying some logic.

2)"The DM will win." I am not sure what game you are playing? D&D is not players vs. DM it is players vs. environment with DM as creator and arbitrator.

3) In any case, the power of the DM has nothing to do with the relative power of two characters, See #1 above.

4) Again, it is very unclear to me how the DM's ability to gimp a chracter bears on this conversation.

 

[Jimlock]

It can totally make for good fiction.

not even that...