The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D

[Crazy Jerome]

It's sort of the old bard argument.

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.

You kind of have to have all characters be equally competent on all the pillars, or you have to have a character with strengths and weaknesses...

The typical jack of all trades, (First 3E bard version being a great example), is too far the other way from what I'm talking about. Of course, one of the reasons he doesn't work is because the rest of the party are hyper-specialists. But mainly it is because the system is designed to heavily reward hyper-specialization. (4E doesn't really solve this with its +1/2 level to all skills, either, because of how skills work.)

However, I think you might have missed the "hyper" part of that in the argument. I'm not arguing against specialization. I agree you need some of it. Rather, I'm saying that most walking, breathing people are generalists in a lot of walks of life, while specialists in some areas and weak in a few things. Even in our relatively hyper-specialized modern world, this is often still true. The world-class violinist, practicing 6+ hours a day and traveling a lot, is necessarily deficient in general skills compared to the average population (barring genius or other such average skewing effects). Yet even he or she has some general things that they do well enough to bother doing them.

4E says that a fighter should be broadly but mildy competent in all the activities of riding, discussing with a young noble, researching history, swimming, climbing, sneaking into a lax camp at night, etc. Not super at these, or capable of performing them well in difficult situations, but enough to get by in lesser situations.

3E says (roughly) that the fighter can pick one of those to be a bit better than mildly competent in, but the rest are out of reach. In those, he will be inept.

I say that the fighter should have weaknesses in those area, preferably chosen to aid characterization of the particular fighter, but not be broadly inept. He performs like the 4E fighter was expected to (but does not always manage) in maybe 50% to 75% of those situations, perhaps excels at one or two if he works at it, and sucks at the rest. You know, like real people do. That should be the default assumptions of each character (albeit with somewhat moving targets on the list, depending on class, theme, etc.)

 

[JohnSnow]

It's sort of the old bard argument.

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.

You kind of have to have all characters be equally competent on all the pillars, or you have to have a character with strengths and weaknesses.

I vastly prefer the latter. It is more varied, more chaotic, more interesting, more fun.

I would have to agree with you. Characters with strengths and weaknesses are vastly more interesting, especially in a team game. The trick is to make sure that the class has one area where they excel, and that they can still contribute meaningfully in the other areas. Nobody likes to be sitting on their hands (or effectively so), but as long as THAT doesn't happen, there's nothing wrong with having areas where one character is "more equal" than the others. It basically comes down to a matter of degree. Get close, and it's fine, miss the mark widely, and someone feels hosed.

I would also point out, to those who think it can't be done, that the bard of 2nd Edition WAS an extremely well-balanced and playable "jack-of-all-trades" class. It could fight effectively, double for a rogue in certain fields and had the ability to pull off useful magical spells. And on top of that, bards had a few special abilities, like their song and legend lore aspects, that was unique to them. It was an extremely playable and fun class.

And I say that if it's possible to make a proper JoAT class, then striking the balance while allowing variability is certainly doable.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm sympathetic to the idea that real folks have fairly broad skills. However, in a game of heroic fantasy, some measure of specialization (often followed up with decades of flanderization) is very much part and parcel of the genre. The highs are DRAMATICALLY high, and the lows are DRAMATICALLY low. It's not a mathematical relationship by any means, but it certainly should be part of any D&D game I'd like to play!

And again, this is excluding the extremes. You've gotta make SOME concessions for gameplay purposes, and excluding the "Always Wins" and "Always Fails" results seem fine to me, as long as the difference can be dramatic enough to matter in play.

4E says that a fighter should be broadly but mildy competent in all the activities of riding, discussing with a young noble, researching history, swimming, climbing, sneaking into a lax camp at night, etc. Not super at these, or capable of performing them well in difficult situations, but enough to get by in lesser situations.

3E says (roughly) that the fighter can pick one of those to be a bit better than mildly competent in, but the rest are out of reach. In those, he will be inept.

I'd take a bit of an issue with your characterization of the 3e skills. By my estimation, 3e supported a diversity of skills by not having the DC's you need to hit be very high -- anyone who can hit a DC 10-15 could be fairly "average person" in any skill, and only if you wanted to be significantly powerful (or were up against opposed rolls that would be significantly powerful) was it wise to bother investing more than a few points into a given skill. You don't need a Diplomacy bonus of +15 to be a good diplomat.

I don't think that quite worked, because people functionally just kept putting points into the stuff they were already trained in without really looking at what they could functionally accomplish with the bonuses they have, but given 3e's crunchy, rulesy nature, that's not too shocking.

I do think the idea of 4e's "everyone learns a bit of everything, and specialists get more" (the +1/2 level bonus) is pretty solid. It's why my Aspergaficer can still make diplomacy and bluff checks, but generally shouldn't. I think the bigger problem in 3e and 4e tended to be the proliferation of cheap, easy skill bonuses. The curve of the d20 can only support a divergence from average of about up to +10 (assuming the DC has no modifiers) and still have the roll matter in play, and my Aspergaficer already has an Arcana skill of +12 (without using Backgrounds) at second level.

That...probably shouldn't happen. I couldn't get an attack bonus that high, (though mine do hover at about +7, which is pretty big, though it's against a defense that rises reliably, too), and for good reason.

Mitigating hyper-specializtion in my book is first about mitigating those stacking bonuses, and second about DMs putting a variety of challenges in front of the players. In 4e, you wouldn't just use Brutes in every combat for your campaign, right? You use a variety of threats, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. In 5e, expanding this view to the entire adventure, you wouldn't just use combat as the perfect solution for everything. You use a variety of challenges, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. Hyper-specialization results in failure in a variety of challenges, and your big success in that one area doesn't count for more just because it was bigger.

But I think we're mostly in agreement, anyway. Specialization yay. Overly narrow specializtion or overly broad characters boo. Exclusing the ends of the bell curve is great, I just don't want to play in the middle of that bell curve.

Which goes back to my overall gaming philosophy that swinging from "Booo!" to "Yaaay!" more often is a lot of fun.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm sympathetic to the idea that real folks have fairly broad skills. However, in a game of heroic fantasy, some measure of specialization (often followed up with decades of flanderization) is very much part and parcel of the genre. The highs are DRAMATICALLY high, and the lows are DRAMATICALLY low. It's not a mathematical relationship by any means, but it certainly should be part of any D&D game I'd like to play!

And again, this is excluding the extremes. You've gotta make SOME concessions for gameplay purposes, and excluding the "Always Wins" and "Always Fails" results seem fine to me, as long as the difference can be dramatic enough to matter in play.

Agreed. I almost added something along those line to my first reply, but thought I had too many qualifications already to communicate my point. It is a rather narrow line to walk on for any game, and D&D has an even harder time than most because it needs to edge towards hyper-specialization compared to other games (and certainly real life). Yet the problems of hyper-specialization (in any game) are still there.

Mitigating hyper-specializtion in my book is first about mitigating those stacking bonuses, and second about DMs putting a variety of challenges in front of the players. In 4e, you wouldn't just use Brutes in every combat for your campaign, right? You use a variety of threats, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. In 5e, expanding this view to the entire adventure, you wouldn't just use combat as the perfect solution for everything. You use a variety of challenges, and that variety challenges different characters in different ways. Hyper-specialization results in failure in a variety of challenges, and your big success in that one area doesn't count for more just because it was bigger.

But I think we're mostly in agreement, anyway. Specialization yay. Overly narrow specializtion or overly broad characters boo. Excluding the ends of the bell curve is great, I just don't want to play in the middle of that bell curve.

Which goes back to my overall gaming philosophy that swinging from "Booo!" to "Yaaay!" more often is a lot of fun.

Yes, I think we are primarily in agreement. Please note too that my earlier point was not necessarily advocating for a particular mix of generalization versus specialization (though I do have preferences), but rather explaining why I think that reconciling "characters have weaknesses" with "balance" is impossible in an overly specialized environment. It is of course an option that the 5E design team could decide that reconciling those is not all that important, and then hyper-specialization would remain on the table (whatever else you might say against it).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I would also point out, to those who think it can't be done, that the bard of 2nd Edition WAS an extremely well-balanced and playable "jack-of-all-trades" class. It could fight effectively, double for a rogue in certain fields and had the ability to pull off useful magical spells. And on top of that, bards had a few special abilities, like their song and legend lore aspects, that was unique to them. It was an extremely playable and fun class.

And I say that if it's possible to make a proper JoAT class, then striking the balance while allowing variability is certainly doable.

Agreed. It's always been possible. The bigger question to me is whether the designers and fans are willing to give up other things (outside of this discussion) to get it?

I personally think making a system where a JoAT class can work is worth a very high price elsewhere in the system. So many other problems get solved in the process, that it isn't merely a lot of effort for some simple playstyle accommodations.

In addition to what has already been discussed, that kind of system is far more resilient in the face of different sizes and compositions of parties. If the system is such that you need highly specialized arcane magic (or might as well not bother and find other ways to compensate for this complete weakness--AKA "DM plays nice"), then the bard brings nothing in that area. OTOH, if several classes can provide the baseline for arcane that you need, but a wizard brings something extra, then the wizard is a great and useful upgrade, but not necessary.

Or I guess, in the scope of what activities can be done in a particular area, as graphed below, I prefer the latter to the former (where "weak" and "strong" represent the practicable, mechanical limits of useful things):

useless------------------weak--standard--strong------------------over-powered

useless--weak------------------standard------------------strong--over-powered

 

[JohnSnow]

Agreed. It's always been possible. The bigger question to me is whether the designers and fans are willing to give up other things (outside of this discussion) to get it?

I personally think making a system where a JoAT class can work is worth a very high price elsewhere in the system. So many other problems get solved in the process, that it isn't merely a lot of effort for some simple playstyle accommodations.

In addition to what has already been discussed, that kind of system is far more resilient in the face of different sizes and compositions of parties. If the system is such that you need highly specialized arcane magic (or might as well not bother and find other ways to compensate for this complete weakness--AKA "DM plays nice"), then the bard brings nothing in that area. OTOH, if several classes can provide the baseline for arcane that you need, but a wizard brings something extra, then the wizard is a great and useful upgrade, but not necessary.

No comment on the graph because it was a bit confusing to me...

As to the rest, I generally agree. It would be nice if the game wanted a certain minimum level of arcane (or other magical) capability and any of several classes could provide it. Sure, it makes sense that a single-classed wizard would bring something extra, but I would love it if he weren't "necessary."

Broadening the system would possibly even enable things that have been traditionally "weird" in D&D (like the all-fighter party), but pretty common in fantasy fiction. I'd love it if a party of diverse fighters could take on your average D&D adventure - it would enable Seven Samurai or The Thirteenth Warrior kind of games. And that is NOT a bad thing.

Similarly, flattening the power curve and broadening the "acceptable" range of contribution in a given scenario could open up the game to realistic "experienced agent" and "who they can recruit to help" games. I'm reminded of The Wheel of Time and many other fantasy series here, where a few more experienced characters are able to contribute a bit more than the others, but aren't so much more powerful that the less-experience members of the party seem worthless. I'm not talking "Hobbits in LotR" here, but more like "Bilbo in The Hobbit" and "everyone in the Fellowship who isn't Gandalf."

I guess I'm saying that it would be nice if dropping a higher-level NPC (or two) into a party of low-level characters didn't overshadow them completely. And that's another benefit of a system that opens the door for proper JoAT characters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I also think that "Balance" is highly overrated, and trying to enforce it through the rules does too much to "lock down" playstyle.

I guess it might depend on what you mean by balance, but the way I see it, balance enables a broader range of playstyles to work together. Imbalance is what yanks a game into one specific style or another. D&D has always had significant balance problems around encounters and resources, leading to the very un-genre '5 minute workday' for instance. You can avoid it, but the impetus is always there, and the things you do to avoid it (like constantly aplying time preasrue as the DM) also put you in a stylistic rut.

The same is true, here. If each class is viable in each 'pillar' the DM does not have to slave his playstyle to the demands of balancing among the pillars, and the players are free to explore the pillars they want without balance issues (either among them if there's some who didn't specialize in the 'right' pillar, or between them and the challenges they face if they're a hyper-specialized party).

It would be very nice, as a DM, to be able to emphasize a 'pillar' in a campaign without having to mod the rules, ban whole classes (or at least warn players away from them), and/or face overpowered campaign-buster specialist characters.


As far as specialization goes, I think D&D has tended to over-reward specialization. A very marginal benefit is all that's required to make a specialist better than a generalist. A +1 to hit. A +3 to skill checks. That's quite noticeable, especially if 'the math' is tight like the 4e treadmill, or 'flat' like classic D&D.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

No comment on the graph because it was a bit confusing to me...

The graph is just another, abstract way of looking at the same thing already discussed in the text.

For a particular example, think of it terms of different ratios of hit points, damage resistance, and damage effects. Say that you have a game where early creatures routinely have 5 DR and 6 hit points. This is bad, because it leaves no appreciable room between standard and strong. Roll 5 damage or less, do nothing. Roll 6 or more, kill the target. And there is no "weak" at all--you go from standard to useless in one point of damage.

So then some wise guy decides to fix this by making a mechanic where the wizard doesn't have to roll an attack roll. Now, depending on his damage, he is either useless (always hit but never does anything) or overpowered (always hits and kills).

The point of the graph is that there have been too many mechanics like that in D&D, where they try all kinds of weird stuff to make up for the fact that there is insufficient design space between "weak" and "standard" and "strong". Not that extreme, usually, but still too small a space--especially when you could fix it by maybe not having 5 DR and 6 hit points.

 

[pemerton]

If you design mechanics for all three pillars such that hyper-specialization is rewarded and expected, you cannot reconcile the preferences of those who want some broad competency with those that want more weaknesses.

I would add - if you design encounters, or the base assumptions of encounters, so that they can be successfully tackled by specialists rather than needing the whole party, you will generate either hyper-specialist PCs, or players who are irritated as their PC who is good but second best is never called upon to contribute.

For me, this plays into the nature of D&D has a party game. You could say that 4e's combat roles work similarly. Everyone can deal damage, not everyone is a Striker, and some classes (Pacifist Cleric; Lazylord) don't deal damage themselves at all. Everyone can roll check for a social skill success, but not everyone is equally good at it. That's the job of the specialist.

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

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.

 

[hikaizer]

Social mechanics (both PC build and encounter designe) should aim for the same thing, in my view.

This is essentially my view on the matter as well. Rethinking social and exploration encounters such that every class can contribute will be a challenge for both GMs and the designers. But a worthwhile challenge I believe.