Mishihari Lord
First Post
Other. Toss roles out. I'd like to see some classes that aren't even combat oriented.
Well, it's the way some people like to pretend 4e is to make it easier to criticize.If everyone is supposed to have parity in all situations, then why not just have one class, and one race. "D&D character". You can each do the exact same things at all times.
There, done.
But that's not the way the game is.
Right. But you can give them mechanical 'parity' while still letting each one be different. That's exactly what 4e did - in combat.Some classes are supposed to excel at certain things. The cleric is a better healer than any other character. The wizard is a better blaster. The fighter is the best at armed combat. The bard is supposed to be one of the characters with the best social skills.
You can't make them all exactly the same in terms of capabilities in particular roles, because they're *supposed* to be different.
Well, certain social situations. Court intrigue, getting a free meal at an inn, that sort of thing. Getting the help of an acetic old hermit or getting a band of bugbears to back down, maybe not.The bard should excel in social situations, with better abilities at influencing NPC and monster behaviour than any other character.
But, the bard probably should be good at cunning tricks in combat - flustering an opponent and getting him mad to create an opening, misdirecting an enemy attack, feigning weakness (or strength).But, the flip side is that he shouldn't be as good at ripping them into meat gibbets as the fighter is.
Which is the point of broader balance. Not every game will have equal measures of combat and non-combat, so you /can't/ balance combat resources vs non-combat resources, they have to be balanced independently.If your game is just a dungeon crawl, then yeah....a focus on pure combat balancing makes more sense, as might roles.
But many games aren't just simple like that.
If that's the case, then what did a fighting man, a magic user, a cleric and a thief do in a dungeon adventure?I disagree. Classes have been around since the beginning, but the four role of leader, defender, striker and controller simply havent. That is a new interpretation of the game.
If that's the case, then what did a fighting man, a magic user, a cleric and a thief do in a dungeon adventure?
If the cleric didn't heal, who did?
If the magic user didn't take out group targets with sleep, who did?
If the fighting man didn't keep the magic user alive, who did?
I'm not saying this was the only way to play the game early on, but to say that it wasn't there, and it wasn't intended to be there is rewriting history. If computer games didn't take these concepts from RPGs, where did they come from?
Now you can certainly argue "I didn't play the game that way back then, and I don't want to now," and I'd agree with you. Your game, play it your way. But to say that wasn't the general idea behind the early classes, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't know if you actually played back in the day, but if you did, I'd love to hear how your group was different.
' .
This whole thing smacks of rejecting a concept /only/ because it's found in 4e.
I must have missed it, maybe it was hidden behind all the revisionist history...I think we have made clear this isn't te case at all.
I must have missed it, maybe it was hidden behind all the revisionist history...