Why? Are NPCs not good adventurers? Are PCs always good adventurers?
To the former, the Adept, Commoner, Warrior, Expert and Aristocrat are designed, to my mind, to be inferior to PC classes, certainly as adventurers and generally in all respects (ie there are typically one or more PC classes which can do anything the NPC class can do, and do it better). To the latter, the vast majority of games focus around adventures, so it would seem incumbent on the game to present classes for the PC's which are suitable for their use as adventurers. While class designed around being a tea shoppe owner and operator who will stay in town and run his tea shoppe could certainly be designed, I suggest its player would get quite bored running his tea shoppe while the other PC's engage in adventuring activities.
I think the whole thread is in service now of this ridiculous straw man at this point. Simply because choices are not equal does not mean that they are "traps", not viable, or bad design. As long as characters are as good as they are designed to be at the things they are intended for, it really doesn't matter whether character 1 is as good as character 2. I was pretty much ninja'd on this:
Again, I do not perceive the Tea Shoppe Owner class as a viable PC class. It may be the very best Tea Shoppe Owner design which can be created, vastly outstripping any and all PC classes at owning and running a Tea Shoppe. This in no way renders it a fun class for the players, in large part because it is pretty much useless in the Adventuring realm.
Being good at melee combat, ranged combat, stealth and sneak attacking or spellcasting are all attributes which can result in an ability to contribute on an adventure. Here there are valid tradeoffs where we can have a variety of character choices and abilities, none of which are traps - clearly suboptimal choices - but choices between a variety of strengths and weaknesses, all with different but valuable abilities to contribute. The Bard should be one such choice. He should not be the equal of that half orc brute in melee combat, but he should have the ability to shine elsewhere, to shine just as bright and just as often.
Exactly. I perceive that the onus is therefore not on whoever wrote the rules to deal with this kind of stuff. The DM is responsible for managing his players' expectations and engaging their characters in whatever way he sees fit. The rules are responsible for being internally consistent and grounded. End of story.
And here, clearly, lies the disagreement. If we add a class which looks just like the Wizard, except that we compress the 20 levels of spell acquisition and slots into 10 levels instead, would this be good game design? Just toss that class into the mix - let's call him the "spellsage". For the following 10 levels, we'll extrapolate out his growing spell slots from the Epic rules. Other than this, he works exactly like a Wizard. We don't have such a class, because it would clearly step on the toes of the other arcane spellcasters.
Neither do we have a Tea Shoppe Owner (or Bartender) class, whose abilities are all geared to owning and operating his Tea Shoppe (or tending his bar), well away from any danger or adventure. Why not? Because such a character would not be competitive with adventurer classes, and would therefore be unbalanced. If the feats, classes, spells and races consisted 1/3 of abilities I as a GM was going to ban for being overpowered, and 1/3 of choices so clearly sub-optimal they will never be used, why am I paying 100% of the purchase price for a book when I will only use 1/3 of it?
The game, to succeed, must also be playable by new gamers who pick it up off the shelf. That means building balance into the game so players do not have the unfortunate experience of their first gaming experience being "Lucky Guy who made the best choice and his comic relief sidekicks", but where all the players have fun playing their respective heroes, with differing abilities and differing time in the spotlight, but all viable in the game.
I agree, the example given is two fighters built dissimilarly and delves into DEX-Fighter discussions that might be outside the scope of what we're talking about.
If the two fighters are built similarly, let's say 18 STR, 14 DEX, 10's otherwise, the two should have different but relatively equal capabilities.
The half-orc (using the bonus only design of 4E) ends up 20 STR and 14 DEX. The halfling 18 STR and 16 DEX. Any size penalties of the halfling should be offset by equivalent bonuses IMO (like smaller weapon choice offset by an AC bonus). There is no reason why the halfling need be saddled with downsides that outweigh his bonuses. And the two different approaches remain relatively capable compared to each other.
Trade-offs allow you to decide which approach is better for you. While penalties that outweigh benefits lead to players in-the-know to avoid the inferior choices, while less knowledgable players fall into a trap. System mastery was the biggest problem with 3E for my group and I don't want to see it rear its head again.
Well said.
Generally I don't think you do. If you're a fighter and you want to blow a feat on Skill Focus (Profession: Barkeep) to represent your plans for settling down and owning a bar when this is all over, you're still probably a good enough fighter even though you've taken a clearly suboptimal choice.
emphasis added
Have you? It seems like tending bar could be an excellent way of making contacts, picking up on rumours, gathering information and otherwise participating in aspects of adventurers that, commonly, players of fighters complain leave their character with nothing to do. Plus, you can generate some extra gold in your down time, which never hurts. Of course, if the GM decides that he will not permit the fighter to make any use of his Profession skill, then the choice will be useless, but it is the GM, not the game system, which has made this a
clearly suboptimal choice, largely by assuming the only thing a Fighter should do is lay down damage in combat, and anything which does not contribute directly to the fighter's ability to do so must therefore be suboptimal.
D&D, being class-based and having linear math as it does, makes it very difficult to make a truly useless character; differences between things like "bard" and "barbarian" are shades of gray, not black and white. One is incrementally better than the other, but the other is still good enough to play.
This seems a far cry from the "all bards are silly" approach which started this discussion. I would say that the Barbarian is a superior combatant, but the Bard ought still to be able to contribute in combat. Out of combat, the Bard ought to shine, but the Barbarian should still have the ability to contribute. Of course, then we get the "optimization" theory which suggests the Barbarian (and the Fighter) ought to focus all of his character resources on combat - failure to dump INT and CHA in order to eke out another CON or STR bonus is "suboptimal", and those few remaining skill points should clearly be used to max out physical skills which may see some combat use. Then the player of our tweaked out Combat Brute Barbarian will wail and gnash his teeth whenever a challenge which cannot be solved by chopping it up with an axe presents itself - and he will blame "the game" for making his barbarian "useless out of combat". So he starts pushing for more combat and less "anything which is not combat" and/or the ability to "role play" success with any and all abilities he invested no character resources in, so his -1 Diplomacy Check should be just as able to succeed because the player made a persuasive speech, as the Bard's +16 check, since he didn't make a speech. [I'm good with that provided we also "role play" the Barbarian's shoulder roll coming up to smash into the Orc, and his shrugging off the blast of flaming dragon breath to the face...]
I suggest it is really those who insisted the Barbarian fulfils his role only if he focuses exclusively on increasing his damage capacity, to the exclusion of all else, who have forced the combatant into the role of one trick pony and, by extension, forced less combat-oriented characters to focus even more intensely on their non-combat abilities, as there is no sharing of the chores in those areas. So we get the Bard who is useless in combat, but a social God , and the Barbarian who can barely communicate, much less be in any way persuasive, and only one of the two characters can be useful (and only one of their players enjoy the game) at a time. If we then make the game all about combat, and gloss over any social or other challenges, then we complete the cycle, and it is silly to choose to play a bard, or any character other than a damage-dealing melee machine.
And as a nod to @
Mistwell 's question upthread, I at least am wondering whether the final playtest packet next September will be flexible across these differing approaches to PC build and action resolution.
Agreed - I want to see classes which are balanced, able to operate in multiple spheres of influence, albeit with greater and lesser effectiveness, where every character has the ability to contribute in all realms of the adventure, where each character will shine in some areas and take a secondary role in others and where a wide variety of character choices can all be equally viable in game. As I consider it, I think I also want to see some point of diminishing return, such that the one trick pony is the least viable choice of all, encouraging (whether subtly or bluntly) players to select a variety of skills and abilities for their characters, and not build characters whose ability to contribute is restricted to a single narrow field (whether that be "melee combat" or "social interaction" or any of a number of other possibilities).
And, unlike Ahnehnois, I want the game designers to consider balance between character choices to be largely their responsibility. In fact, spell it out in the book that it is intended characters take a wide range of abilities, and that the game not reward unbalanced one-trick-pony characters, but feature a wide variety of challenges such that these characters spend far more time being fish out of water than showing off their narrow field of expertise.
And I want to see meaningful character choices - choices that change the feel and flavour of the character, down to his approach to resolving challenges, where a variety of different approaches can make for equally viable characters. Halfling and Half Orc melee combatants should have a very different feel and style, but be capable of contributing equally in their area of specialty, melee combat, over the course of the adventure.
