My only quibble with this would be that I read the rulebook pretty extensively, posted a query on rpg.net and got a reply from the designer (Cam Banks), and read several long rpg.net threads where various experienced playes (and Cam Banks) were posting.
So I don't think my approach would be outrageously idiosyncratic! (Session write up
here for anyone who wants to judge.)
I didn't say "outrageously idiosyncratic", only that it would be guided by your style and your interpretation of the rules more so than if you had a group of players who brought their own interpretations to the table, resulting in a discussion of varying interpretations and styles.
Maintain if you like. There are plenty of other examples where from the outlook a reasonable player might have differing expectations for different D&D characters, and I don't think that's a bad thing. A halfling fighter, for example, should not be on par with a half-orc fighter. A cleric of the god of home and hearth should not be quite as good at adventuring as a cleric of the god of war. Even without mechanics, the basic archetypes presented are not equally focused on and adept at combat and other adventuring-related tasks.
Again, I think you adopt a very narrow definition of “fighter”. The half orc will be a tough as nails hand to hand combatant. The halfling’s strengths are elsewhere, and he would better select a style of combat emphasizing his quickness and agility. Let’s build both as expert mounted combatants – the half orc then loses much utility descending into a dungeon where his horse simply cannot maneuver. Our dog-riding Halfling seems much more useful now. Or let’s just build a couple of archers. Suddenly, DEX seems far more useful. Which will be better suited to motivate the army under his command to give 110% and march through hell to emerge victorious, the brutal half orc, lacking any social graces, or the charismatic Halfling?
True, and this example had circumstances that created abnormal challenges for the witch, allowing the party to surprise him and precluding his normal escape method. The same circumstances limited the players too, but not to the same extent. Then again, most battles have some kind of context.
Agreed – context is important. But your original statement was that a bunch of L10-11 martial types beat the L16 witch, and did not include the statement that the circumstances placed the Witch at a significant disadvantage from the outset. Your description above paints a very different picture.
True. The education and/or certification is only part of the picture. But it is a part.
I would call them evidence but not proof.
Editing and even playtesting are not the same as academic peer review. Then again, many professionally written manuscripts don't go through that process, so this is getting further and further on a tangent.
Academic peer review can be stronger or weaker as well. The ultimate “peer review” of publication for profit is sales. You have to get through the editor, of course – if your material is deemed unsuitable for publication, or requires extra efforts on the part of the editor, you are less likely to be engaged again. And if your works do not sell, your future prospects also decline. This is considerably different from the academic world. I have never seen the term “professional academic” used as an accolade.
And this is all fine. What I'm doing here is trying to set a bar for being an expert at something. I think that bar should be pretty high. I don't think a degree gets you over that bar, but it can help. I don't think a list of credits gets you over that bar, but it can help.
I am seeing no potential for anyone to be an “expert game designer” by your standard. That makes your measure useless, in my eyes, as it cannot be used to differentiate individuals in the field in any way.
To give an analogy, even the best doctors and scientists in the world can't compose a diet and publish it en masse that would be better for me than what I can do for myself. They don't know my likes and dislikes, allergies, my budget, availability of food in my area, my own particular health status, etc. Most of them would be smart enough not to try, and instead publish some general guidelines.
Would you then suggest there are no experts in nutrition and diet, or that the field is sufficiently complex that general guidelines are the best that can be offered without more detailed and specific information?
A DM is only part referee, but he isn't really a player either. The role is unique to this hobby.
A DM plays the game, thus he is a “player”. However, he plays a different role than other players, running specific characters.
Your bias seems to sway towards an "adventuring effectiveness" = "strength."
While I agree a halfling shouldn't be on par with a half-orc in regards to strength, wouldn't a halfling fighter employ the advantages he has over the half-orc to remain on par with the fighter? Even in a simple case of better Dex and size he may hit with less punch, but has a better defense than his half-orc peer. He can still be on par and just as valuable a fighter as the half-orc.
Agreed. I would add that a differing result – that there is a single superior race/class combination for each and every role – would be a much poorer game. This is where DM bias often creates issues – DM A loves half orcs, so game changes work to their advantage. DM B likes small, nimble fighters, so his house rules provide advantages to that combat style, to the indirect (or even direct) destriment of the half orc brute.
If the intent is that a specific class be a poor choice for an adventurer, then I suggest that should be an NPC class. The presentation of a Bard as a PC class suggests it should be competitive, overall, with other PC classes. To me, the most common house rule which trivializes a Bard is to use the rules to resolve combat, traps, etc., but resolve all role playing interactions by player skill. “Well, the player of the 8 CHA fighter with no social skills made a good speech, so he persuades the mayor”. “The 22 CHA Bard with +25 Diplomacy has a shy, stuttering player, so he’s just not persuasive”. If I give the Fighter all the benefits of his character abilities in combat and his player abilities (bad role playing to play that brute as a persuasive charmer should be penalized, not rewarded, in my opinion), then I eliminate the advantage of the Bard’s abilities, and the disadvantage of the fighter choosing to focus entirely on brute strength.
The location of where things happen really isn't the point. The point is that consecrating a house or delivering a meal to the table aren't as useful as combat magic, unless your campaign revolves around domesticity.
If one restricts clerics of that deity to this role, sure. Let’s restrict a priest of a war deity to actual war – mass combat with huge armies, not small tactical groups. Now he is not much of an adventurer either.
Examples aside, are you really trying to make the contrary case? That any D&D character concept should be equally adept at adventuring when compared with each other possible concept? That all classes/races/etc. should be exactly equal in power?
If the counterargument is that each class has a single combination that is inherently superior, then I certainly prefer the more balanced approach which creates a wide array of options that have both advantages and disadvantages which weigh out to relative equality. Offering a bunch of “trap choices” is bad design, in my view. Like those CCG’s with a whole bunch of crap cards so we can pad the set and sell more packs as people quest for the few useful cards in the dreck.
Largely, but not exclusively. If I'm exploring the wilderness, I want the guy who knows the wilderness. If I'm attacked or subject to adverse conditions, I want the tough guy. If I'm trying to carry piles of treasure, I want the strong guy.
Now, if I'm trying to gently persuade a group of noncombatants of something, I probably value a bard. But that's not a typical encounter. If I'm out "adventuring" a bard might be useful, but just isn't on par with a barbarian, fighter, wizard, etc.
Again, depends on the bias set by the DM. Does every potential opponent leap to the attack? Seems less than consistent with the source material. Bilbo used trickery to defeat the Trolls, and negotiations were possible with the Goblin King. If all enemies are mindlessly hostile, and we refuse to allow any extraordinary accomplishments with interaction skills, despite permitting them with magic, combat, stealth, etc. then it a bias against heroic successes of diplomacy, not a weakness in the rules or an inherent “silliness” of the Bard as a character vision, which causes the discrepancy.
In combat, the Bard’s ability to inspire his teammates and himself to greater combat skill seems quite useful – and he has the same BAB progression as the Cleric. He can also judiciously apply spells.
That depends on the campaign world and how thoroughly the GM populates it with creatures other than bags of hit points that you get to hit. If you're likely to encounter patrols of soldiers, merchants, pilgrims, woodcutters, or other normal elements of society - even a wilder society - on the road or in the wilds, then having someone capable of doing something other than "hit it" is a good plan. So, yes, I'd say that the barbarian > bard really does come from a combat-heavy way of looking at encounters.
It also helps if you look at bards as something other than effete dandies. This isn't hard when you consider how important music tends to be for rugged, less civilized cultures and how often it is associated with important magic.
100% agreed. Why should our games reward Hercules, Friar Tuck and Merlin, but not Orpheus and Alan-a-Dale?
All fair. But there's no reason to believe that barbarians can't do any of those things either. A barbarian is pretty likely to speak useful languages of savage races, and can intimidate people into doing useful things.
Intimidation is not the skill I attribute to a leader of men. That half orc is three skill points per level behind (due to his INT penalty) out of the gate, and the Bard likely has a far superior CHA as well.
More to the point, a bard can't do any of those things if he's dead, which is pretty unequivocally more likely than the barbarian dying, even if the bard talks himself out of a few risky scenarios. Barbarians are all about toughness.
And none of this is to say that the bard isn't distinctive, useful, or worth playing. As long as you don't play it with unreasonable expectations, it's fine.
If the bard is far less likely to be a successful adventurer, then I can attribute that only to poor game design in providing an adventuring class (not an NPC class) which is unable to compete in comparison to other adventuring classes. In my view, classes presented for PC use should be viable, not a few good classes and a bunch of sub-optimal character choices whose main purpose is a trap for players not wanting to play a brutish thug.
Sure. But...
...it also helps if you look at barbarians as being something other than mindless killing machines. Barbarians are also intimidating and command great respect.
Show me where the rules provide them to command great respect. We could just as easily say that the skill of the Bard makes him a leader of men (the Scots didn’t have brutes to scream their men into battle, they had drummers and pipers).
They have a way with animals, and they know a few things about surviving in the wild and what goes on there. They're also fast, agile, and have feral senses. They don't just hit things. (That's why I picked barbarian as an example rather than fighter, whose versatility is less clear).
If I were to be persuaded that the Barbarian is a superior adventurer to the Fighter, the Bard, etc., then my next consideration would be either enhancing the abilities of those other classes, or reducing those of the Barbarian. The game is not supposed to be “Barbarian and their sub-optimal comic relief teammates”. It is a game of heroes – a variety of different ones, but all with the potential to be heroic and to be successful as adventurers.
Your definition of "bias" appears to amount to "observation I don't like". What if a player wants to play a gnome fighter? Or a kobold fighter? Or perhaps play an intelligent gnat with a few levels of fighter? Perhaps the gnat's superior speed will make up for his lack of strength and inability to wield weapons.
Conversely, the actual definition of bias, "prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair" is exactly what you're doing. You're picking the inferior options and expressing a bias in favor of them. Which is fine for you if you really like halfling warriors and homely priests and magical minstrels, but definitely not the kind of bias I want in my rules.
You are classifying them, sight unseen, as inferior, rather than as different, but capable in their own right. The “bias” I want in my rules is balance. If the only viable character is a Half Orc Barbarian, then the rules should not lead players to select non-viable, inferior characters. Include only half orcs and barbarians, and leave those inferior races and classes to NPC’s. Just as we leave gnats to NPC’s and don’t seem to see deities of home and hearth presented in the rules. If we saw the latter, I would expect them to provide their clerics with the same weapon and armor proficiencies, a choice of four or so domains and the same spell selections and abilities of clerics of other faiths.
I dunno. I think we're seeing a bias that you're imparting to his words. Is he really saying that only big, strong guys are effective fighters or is he saying that big, strong guys should be more effective fighters than small halflings? Your restatement of what you think he's saying suggests effectiveness is a binary quality - you are or you are not. Rather, shouldn't it be a gradation, in which case it may be OK that big, stronger characters are more effective than smaller and weaker because smaller and weaker aren't necessarily ineffective?
If the game struggles to find situations where the small, weak characters have the opportunity to take over the spotlight and be “the very effective character”, then I consider the game biased against small, weak characters. There is no reason a 12 STR, 20 DEX halfling warrior should be inherently inferior to a 20 STR, 12 DEX half orc. Give them all the same stats (with the half orc having a 2 point shortfall in either INT or CHA to equalize the stats) and I see no reason both characters should not be capable of being equal contributors. If they are not so capable, then the halfling warrior should not be presented as a viable choice – if it is an inferior choice, it should not remain a trap for the unwary player who may envision a heroic, agile swashbuckler and instead obtain a character suitable only as a sidekick to the far superior brute.
