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Community
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The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5818991" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>This is an important point. Customization and balance often seem at odds. I guess one question is, why is it important to be /bad/ at something? Are you being bad at it to fit a character concept, or are you being bad at it to be better at something else? The former isn't in conflict with a balanced aproach - you can decline to take (or use) the full set of abilities your character 'should' get in order to meet a concept, and at worst, you're under-contributing a little, some of the time. OTOH, if you're minimizing one area to maximize another - well, that's obvious, and how a lot of brokeness gets done. </p><p></p><p>A high degree of customization could still be available with a blanced aproach, it's just customizeability within each pillar. Say you want a character who is tounge-tied and uncomfortable in social situations. You could trade out all capability in that area for superlative ability in exploration. When exploration comes up, you dominate, and the rest of the party might as well go play angry birds; when social comes up, you're non-contributing, and others have to carry your dead weight. Neither of those is a desireable state of affairs. OTOH, you could take your retiring, inept character, and customize him social-aplicable abilities that don't involve being glib and charismatic. He might have knowledges that can contribute or high insight or he might use the same keen perception that makes him good at finding traps to notice details with useful implications (even if he has to take someone aside to nervously convey his insights because he's so flustered). In-concept, balanced, and contributing - and not overpowered in another bailiwick.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5818991, member: 996"] This is an important point. Customization and balance often seem at odds. I guess one question is, why is it important to be /bad/ at something? Are you being bad at it to fit a character concept, or are you being bad at it to be better at something else? The former isn't in conflict with a balanced aproach - you can decline to take (or use) the full set of abilities your character 'should' get in order to meet a concept, and at worst, you're under-contributing a little, some of the time. OTOH, if you're minimizing one area to maximize another - well, that's obvious, and how a lot of brokeness gets done. A high degree of customization could still be available with a blanced aproach, it's just customizeability within each pillar. Say you want a character who is tounge-tied and uncomfortable in social situations. You could trade out all capability in that area for superlative ability in exploration. When exploration comes up, you dominate, and the rest of the party might as well go play angry birds; when social comes up, you're non-contributing, and others have to carry your dead weight. Neither of those is a desireable state of affairs. OTOH, you could take your retiring, inept character, and customize him social-aplicable abilities that don't involve being glib and charismatic. He might have knowledges that can contribute or high insight or he might use the same keen perception that makes him good at finding traps to notice details with useful implications (even if he has to take someone aside to nervously convey his insights because he's so flustered). In-concept, balanced, and contributing - and not overpowered in another bailiwick. [/QUOTE]
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The danger of the Three Pillars of D&D
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