An Essay to Wizards of the Coast

[Umbran]

I honestly dont get where the "I want to play the guy who doesnt do anything useful at all in combat" comes from. I must not be reading the right books, or watching the right movies. Or what ever kind of media you get these kind of things from.

Oh, they're there. They just may not stick in your mind very much.

As one example: the movie, The Fifth Element. Chris Tuckers' character, Ruby Rhod. Pretty useless in combat, and when the guns start firing, he squeals and hides under tables and stuff. But Tucker seems to have a ball playing him.

As another example: most Hobbits in Tolkien. They aren't there for their ability to skewer orcs.

There are others, and I could continue, but I think the point is made that such characters do exist in fiction and media.

 

[herrozerro]

Oh, they're there. They just may not stick in your mind very much.

As one example: the movie, The Fifth Element. Chris Tuckers' character, Ruby Rhod. Pretty useless in combat, and when the guns start firing, he squeals and hides under tables and stuff. But Tucker seems to have a ball playing him.

As another example: most Hobbits in Tolkien. They aren't there for their ability to skewer orcs.

There are others, and I could continue, but I think the point is made that such characters do exist in fiction and media.

I recall that Ruby Rhod didnt contribute much at all to the overall story. But anyways, if comic relief is your example of playing a non combat character... more on you.

The hobbits are a bad example as well. sure they started out weak and needing protecting but they quickly grew into their characters and were quite combat proficient by the end of the movie.

The hobbits are more of an example of 1st level characters jumping into a 12th level game, they start out not doing much at all but they catch up quick with all the XP they are gaining.

Your first line really pushes my point, they dont stick out much. IMO PCs are what the story is about. Ruby Rhod is a companion character, the plucky sidekick added in halfway through the movie who really contributes nothing except color commentary and pointing out how badass bruce willis is.

If Ruby would have had any kind of contribution, I might think you have a point, but he is a background character.

 

[nightwyrm]

Your first line really pushes my point, they dont stick out much. IMO PCs are what the story is about. Ruby Rhod is a companion character, the plucky sidekick added in halfway through the movie who really contributes nothing except color commentary and pointing out how badass bruce willis is.

If Ruby would have had any kind of contribution, I might think you have a point, but he is a background character.

But it's entirely possible that somebody somewhere would want to play such a sidekick character. It's not my cup of tea but it may appeal to someone.

Now, my beef is that if someone end up with a sidekick character, it should be because they chose to, not because some newbie blundered into it by putting monk on the class section or thought that TWF was really cool when they didn't have a source of extra damage per hit.

If 5e decides to go back to 3e mundane/caster (lack of) balance, they need to clearly state those imbalance in the text.

 

[Henry]

But it's entirely possible that somebody somewhere would want to play such a sidekick character. It's not my cup of tea but it may appeal to someone.

So is "freedom to fail" really what this particular problem with 4E design boils down to? I can certainly see it; if I wanted to make a character whose competence was entirely in a noncombat arena, it's really really tough to do in 4E, and this is by design.

 

[nightwyrm]

So is "freedom to fail" really what this particular problem with 4E design boils down to? I can certainly see it; if I wanted to make a character whose competence was entirely in a noncombat arena, it's really really tough to do in 4E, and this is by design.

Yeah, I guess this is what it boils down to. Some people wants to be able to trade all their combat competence for non-combat advantages and 4e doesn't let them. 4e characters, unless you totally dump their attack stat, always have a relatively high level of minimum combat competence.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, that's mostly there to protect people. That way, if you do want to make that decision, you can just consciously choose not to select or use your relevant combat powers.

In editions other than 3e, tbh, it was pretty hard to make non-combat characters. Even in 3e, the way to do it is to take "non-player" character classes or to intentionally ignore all of your combat spell options. D&D as a game just isn't actually about not being combat capable.

Your combat capabilities not being terribly important compared to your roleplaying? Well, that's wholly campaign (not edition) dependent.

 

[kitsune9]

5e is going to have to do something really spectacular in order to win back the old fans. We'll see how that goes.

 

[kitsune9]

As one example: the movie, The Fifth Element. Chris Tuckers' character, Ruby Rhod. Pretty useless in combat, and when the guns start firing, he squeals and hides under tables and stuff. But Tucker seems to have a ball playing him.

As another example: most Hobbits in Tolkien. They aren't there for their ability to skewer orcs.

I played in RPGA games where players had bards who could only do inspire confidence, but they didn't fight or really cast any useful spells. The guys who played them liked having "handicapped" characters and were more into rp'ing bard songs while combat was going on.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This thread seems to me to reinforce the idea that there's a lot of different ways that people play this game.

I really hope 5e can cater to all of the different ways we, as an audience, play.

 

[molepunch]

I'd like to hear more from people who love both PF and 4E. Any thoughts?