NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 3969121" data-attributes="member: 29398">I think this is a matter of perspective, on many fronts.In a short campaign or one-off adventure, the unit of play for the DM is probably the entire campaign/adventure, but is much smaller - a session, an encounter, a day, or similar - for the players.In a long campaign, the unit of play in my own experience as DM is the adventure, and as player it varies widely - anywhere from the individual encounter to the entire adventure, depending on the situation.The bigger question is, whose unit of play matters more in design - the DM, or the players?  As DM, I'll look at the game I run in terms of adventures; and if something's out of whack for a session or two I won't care, but if it stays out of whack for longer than an adventure then I'll look at it.  But I'm not going to even try to micro-balance things down to the point where everyone is equally effective in almost every individual encounter - it's a hopeless goal and a colossal waste of time.And the same should go for classes in D+D.  Each class has its "thing" that it does well, and put 'em all together and you've got an adventuring party.  However, it *has* to be made clear to all that not every class' "thing" is going to be in demand in every situation: it's a fact of life that sometimes you're the party's fifth wheel.  As long as this isn't constantly happening to the same character, who cares?Fighters generally can't sneak very well.  Rogues generally can't fight very well.  Seems fine to me.That said, someone above has pointed out one larger problem that needs a very serious fix at the root design level: numbers creep.  When a foe starts with 50 h.p., hitting it with a thrown dagger for 4 points now and then is a useful contribution.  However, when same foe starts at 150 h.p., the dagger becomes nearly useless as everyone expects to be able to dish out loads more damage.  *This* is where the problem stems from; giving Rogues an always-on sneak attack seems a very makeshift way of trying to fix it, as does giving Wizards some always-on magic to replace their dagger and staff attacks once they run out of spells.Lane-"if the above doesn't make sense, tell me and I'll try again"-fan</blockquote>

Verification