The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think the analogue of a leader compared to a striker is someone who can't contribute in social situations, though.

Well, no one is arguing for shutting out any character (there shouldn't be any Always Fails results). The argument is for someone that can't contribute as well as another character might be able to.

A leader does contribute. It's just that the contribution is different. Social mechanics (both PC build and encounter designe) should aim for the same thing, in my view.

Sure, but the leader isn't expected to contribute damage.

The analogue is like this:

Damage, healing/buffing, debuffing, and defense all contribute to the resolving of a combat. Every 4e character can do at least a little bit of all four regions: they can roll attacks, have effects, have an AC, and have second winds. The roles, however, help define what the character is good at and what they are not so good at. A leader is very good at healing and buffing. A defender is very good at defense. A striker deals buckets of damage. A leader or a defender isn't expected to contribute damage (they can even get away with NEVER dealing damage), since that's not their job.

Combat, roleplaying, and exploraiton all contribute to the resolving of an adventure. Every 5e character should (IMO) be able to do at least a little bit of all three regions: they can (for example) roll a Charisma check, make attack rolls, and they can notice a secret door. The pillars, however, can help define what a character is good at and what they are not so good at. A Fighter might be very good at fighting. A bard might be a super social skill beast. A thief is probably very good at finding those hidden doors -- and hidden chests, and hidden traps. However, a fighter isn't expected to contribute much to a social setting -- they can get away with not being very good, socially.

Assuming your major events aren't usually hour-long slogfests, but rather 10-15 minute back-and-forth skirmishes, that you give the character who isn't great some way to contribute (let's cut off the Always Fail end of the bell curve that lets lazylords never attack), and that you grant them some way some way to spice it up or gain some sort of edge from smart play (Advantage seems like just that!), you can avoid the "Bob the Fighter goes to play Xbox for the next 45 minutes while everyone else engages this social part of the game" problem deftly. What you're left with is a framework where everyone contributes to major encounters, without forcing everyone to have an equal chance of success in them.

 

[pemerton]

KM, your example of combat has every PC contributing (although some via defence or healing rather than damage, or via lazy builds which trigger other PCs' actions). But then you go on to describe a state of affairs in which the fighter doesn't contribute so much to a social situation. And you emphasise the time consumed by that situation.

So just to be clear - are you envisaging a pulling back from the 4e approach of everyone can contribute to every situation? But with this being counterbalanced by a change in the time required to resolve an encounter?

My own preference is to downplay minor encounters (the Jester upthread, or in a different thread, canvassed 15 combats in a session! - I'm not interested in that at all), focus primarily on major encounters, which I'm happy to have taking 1 hour+ to resolve, and have all PCs be able to contribute meaningfully to those encounters (as a result of both features of PC build, and of encounter build, and of the dynamics of action resolution).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, no one is arguing for shutting out any character. The argument is for someone that can't contribute as well as another character might be able to.

Actually, you have brought out some gnome artificer who was /completely inept/ in social situations, and either sits them out or comically/dramatically has the 'fun of failure' in them, as an example of the kind of thing you want.

Sure, but the leader isn't expected to contribute damage.

All leaders, pacifist cleric included, /can/ contribute damage. In fact, via buffing and action-economy manipulation, they can indirectly contribute almost like strikers.

The analogue is like this:

Damage, healing/buffing, debuffing, and defense all contribute to the resolving of a combat. Every 4e character can do at least a little bit of all four regions: they can roll attacks, have effects, have an AC, and have second winds. The roles, however, help define what the character is good at and what they are not so good at. A leader is very good at healing and buffing. A defender is very good at defense. A striker deals buckets of damage. A leader or a defender isn't expected to contribute damage (they can even get away with NEVER dealing damage), since that's not their job.

It'd be very hard for a leader or defender to /never/ deal damage. Defender mark-punishment generally includes the threat of damage, and leaders indirectly deal damage through buffs and action grants (and very indirectly by keeping strikers up with healing) even when they consciously avoid directly dealing damage, themselves - and they always have that option, even the Pacifist can't help but end up with /one/ damaging at-will.

Combat, roleplaying, and exploraiton all contribute to the resolving of an adventure. Every 5e character should (IMO) be able to do at least a little bit of all three regions: they can (for example) roll a Charisma check, make attack rolls, and they can notice a secret door. The pillars, however, can help define what a character is good at and what they are not so good at.

Now, this is a very poor analogy, unless your argument is that RP (interaction is a better term, I think, since RP occurs in all the pillars, BTW) and Interaction are not in the same class as combat. If they were (and they are, but I'll get to that), then, as in combat, each character could contribute, only differently depending on role/class. Even then, it'd be a poor analogy, as you have no aspect of combat that corresponds to combat in the second case.

Now, a very strong analogy would be: just as characters contribute meaningfully, but differently in accord with their roles, in combat, they should contribute meaningfully, but differently, out of combat (be that independintely in each of the two non-combat 'pillars' or in a single non-combat amalgam, if the other pillars aren't individually equal in importance to combat).

See, that makes sense.

Assuming your major events aren't usually hour-long slogfests, but rather 10-15 minute back-and-forth skirmishes, ... you can avoid the "Bob the Fighter goes to play Xbox for the next 45 minutes while everyone else engages this social part of the game" problem deftly.

Whether things come in 15 minute chunks or 2-hour chunks, being excluded is no fun. The 'make it faster and it'll be tollerable' idea is a way of dealing with something /bad/. 'Combats are too long,' for instance, is just a variation on the theme of 'combats are undesireable,' because the implied solution is to minimize or eliminate them. If you're having to cut short scenes that some players are enjoying to aviod boring and irritating others, that's a sign that you need to keep everyone interested and eganged (and hopefully having fun, but at least not bored).

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you have a jack-of-all-trades, they are necessarily eclipsed by a party of specialists. On the other hand, if you have a character capable of equalling the specialists in all areas, they are necessarily overpowered -- they have none of the weaknesses of the rest of the party.

Put that way, it does seem an insoluble conundrum, but, as was pointed out above, competence isn't binary. A character can be a bit better at something or a bit different in how they accomplish somethint compared to another without being strictly superior or inferior. The Bard was pretty badly inferior, because 3.x over-rewarded specialization and over-costed generalization, and casters could be become broadly overpowered at higher levels (because they were just plain broken, specailization be damned).

4e, in combat, hit upon a balance in which each role contributes differently, each class aproaches it's role differently, and each character contributes meaningfully.

This discussion really should be about how we can bring the same balance to the non-combat realm.

 

[pemerton]

This discussion really should be about how we can bring the same balance to the non-combat realm.

Agreed with this, and with your previous post too.

Unfortunately, though, I think that 4e-style combat balance seems to be something they're planning to drop, so I'm not sure we'll see it generalised across the other main domains of activity.

Hopefully I'm wrong, though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The emphasis in 5e does seem to be on making the game familiar, rather than making it good.

 

[Lanefan]

Unfortunately, though, I think that 4e-style combat balance seems to be something they're planning to drop.

Fine with me.

Let's hope they manage to drop the 3e/4e-style grind along with it. I mean, I don't mind the occasional significant combat that takes most of a session to resolve, but I also want to be able to now and then get in 9 combats in one night - like what happened here two weeks ago.

Lanefan

 

[Bedrockgames]

The emphasis in 5e does seem to be on making the game familiar, rather than making it good.

Good is pretty subjective here. For some people 3e was good, for others it was awful. For some 4e was good, for others it was terrible. In these discussions i think folks are assuming their oreferences are more universal than they really are (not everyone agrees on the best way to balance, not everyone agrees on parity being good/bad, not everyone agrees on whether unified mechanics are good/bad, etc). The only measure i can think of that would maybe be less subjective is how widely a mechanic is embraced or dismissed by players and GMs. If lots of people like it, then calling the game good probably makes some sense. But just look at how divided people have been over core issues like balance, healing and class features. I doubt it is as simple as one side wanting a "good" game and the other "fearing change".

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sorry, substitute 'functional' for 'good,' if that helps.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sorry, substitute 'functional' for 'good,' if that helps.

again, i think your notion of a functional edition is probably not the same as mine or the same as pathfinder fans. To many people 3e was more functional than 4e and vice versa. Functional is a very broad term. When you say functional what do you mean? Because I suspect if you break it down, you find a lot of people are split on what they prefer in terms of function.