Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5343156" data-attributes="member: 59082">With regards to class balance, varying XP tables, etc, I'm mixed on this and I don't think there is a simple solution. On one hand I like how 4E has made it so just about every class is fun to play and there isn't a sense that one is missing out by taking the non-kewl class option or combo or the tried and true Path of Maximizing Optimization. In other words, in 4E system mastery is de-emphasized in favor of tactical savvy; it isn't as much what you are or have but how you use it. I like that. That said, I don't like how in a sense there are only four classes--controllers, strikers, defenders, and leaders--but with different fluff. OK, it isn't that simple, but there is a formulaic quality whereby all strikers do roughly same thing, all defenders, all controllers, all leaders. It would be nice if there was more functional differentiation between what, say, a martial striker can do and what an arcane striker can do. Maybe I'm focusing too much on damage out-put, but with the de-emphasis and marginalization of non-combat capacities, most of what a character is comes down to three things: causing damage and resistance to damage. There is a sense that 4E has become a sport in which it comes down to scoring and preventing runs; everything else is secondary and funnels into those two functions.On the other hand, I didn't like how 3.5E quantified everything that a player could do, that a number was necessary for a character to be able to do anything; in some sense 4E's more vague rules with regards to non-combat capacities--especially with regards to monsters and NPCs--has freed us up from a lot of unnecessary book-keeping, number-crunching and dice rolling. I honestly don't need to know Demogorgon's Craft skill.What I would like to see is some kind of player created mechanic whereby the player chooses non-combat capacities and quantifies them; so rather than having a number in every possible skill, or broad skills that cover every possible action, the player makes up things like "I want to be good at basket-weaving" and gets a score in basket-weaving. But basket-weaving doesn't need to be on every character, monster, and NPC sheet, nor does Craft. In other words, I'd like to see built into 5E more rules for free-form character design. Hopefully we'll see that with the Hero Builder's Handbook.</blockquote>

Verification