DogBackward
First Post
That's one of the things I like most about what I'm seeing with Next. With flat math, a 14 in Charisma gives you a suave Fighter, even if you don't take a social Background. A not-horrible Dexterity and a Background that grants Stealth gives you a very sneaky Fighter. It's so much easier to have a character that can do things outside of their "schtick", even if the schtickers are better at it.In every edition of D&D, fighters have terrible non-combat class abilities. They aren't sneaky, aren't suave (unless the player is and the DM allows that to overrule lack of charisma and social NWPs or skills), and don't have utility abilities (non-combat spells, ranger's tracking, etc.). Even 4e sticks them with a bad class skill list and fewer trained skills than almost everyone (though at least backgrounds make your class skill list fungible).
After our Rogue and Cleric got captured, my Fighter snuck past the goblin patrols (not wanting to fight alone), all the way to the back room where they were being kept, took out their guard in one silent attack with a rock, and used his key to free them. Untrained in Stealth, even.
I'm really loving the way they handled skills.
There's a differnece between "Everybody should be as good at everything as everybody else." and "Everybody should be good at something." Balance is important, but you have to take balance in whole, not in each individual area. If my Fighter is good at fighting, okay at stealth and bad at social stuff, but the Rogue is good at stealth, okay at social stuff and bad at fighting, then we're still balanced overall. It's okay to be bad at something, that's what you have teammates for. Doesn't mean you can't contribute, you'll just have to be smart about it.If it is fun, then it'd because your group would have just as much fun doing improv theather as playing D&D, because the rules are actively discouraging fun in an unbalanced game. Or because everyone accepts it's unbalanced and the rules acknowledge it ala Ars Magica or Buffy/Angel.
Now, I do believe that discussion is important here, but if your DM says they're running a social heavy game, and you play a Fighter with no Charisma or social skills, that's your fault. You can still play a Fighter, just make sure to take a social Background, or at least have a good Charisma.
If everybody is good at everything, there's no reason to have classes or separate abilities. Or teammates. You're right, in that everybody should have options in a given situation, and not be useless. But that doesn't mean that everybody has to be equally useful in a given situation.