Weiley31
Legend
Probably.Doesn't this thread exist to discuss play style preferences, and the pros and cons of each approach?
Probably.Doesn't this thread exist to discuss play style preferences, and the pros and cons of each approach?
You wrote "drawback" and that's it. Forgive me if I misunderstood your meaning.There's a reason I didn't say treasure and actually gave, you know, an example of something that would balance it immediately.
I said a few posts ago that you could balance it with like a permanent -4 con penalty(or whatever you deemed appropriate). That's immediate and costly.You wrote "drawback" and that's it. Forgive me if I misunderstood your meaning.
It feels like it's always been a dial or slider somewhere between the two, and not a simulate everything/don't reflect any detail switch. Attempts at weapon speed, encumbrance rules, ASIs due to age, darkvision based on the infared or ultraviolet... to not so muchThe problem, though, is that D&D has never (despite 3.xe's best efforts) been a simulationist game. Even Gygax got up on a soapbox about this. The game mechanics are not the game's laws of physics, they are rules to provide players (including DMs) a fair and consistent (lol, mostly) framework through which they can play pretend about elves and dragons. Trying to insert simulationist "sensibilities" ionto D&D is an object lesson in futility. If you prefer a simulationist standpoint, other games (like GURPS, so I'm told) do it far better. D&D and games based on its chassis are a bad fit for a simulationist mindset, and this is something that has been noted since nigh the beginning.
No. I'm saying that giving an enemy a unique non-racial ability that cannot possibly be gained by a PC is nonsense.
Built with unique abilities. Not built in such a way that the DM cannot allow a PC who is interested in learning the ability to find a way to learn it. So yes, I am playing 5eWell, I expect that you are not playing 5e since most enemies are built that way.
Nothing nonsense about it. So what if an NPC has a unique learned ability. The DM can by 5e rules(the rules serve the DM and not the ther way around), allow a PC to learn it.So, actually, seeing that most people playing 5e (and 4e, actually) probably don't bat an eye at this, I suggest that, rather, your proposition above is nonsense, and unsupported by anything in the games themselves.
Er, it's literally the opposite of a constraint. I'm giving the PCs something extra that makes the game more sensible.You can impose that constraint on your games if you want, but please don't try to impose it on others and tell them that they are doing wrong.
Bodyguard isn't an NPC class, either. It's a job. A job that a PC fighter, ranger, paladin, monk, cleric, etc. can all do.
Further, PC and NPC are purely metagame constructs. There is no difference in the game world, so in world restrictions based on those things make no sense.
I agree. The question isn't whether the PC WILL want to learn the ability and do what it takes. The question is whether or not the PC is capable of learning an ability that there is no in-fiction reason to be unable to learn.But, at equal training or cost, not as well as a specialist who trained specifically for that rather than for fighting monsters in dungeons. Moreover, the adventurer probably wants more than sitting as a bodyguard all day.
I don't understand what this has to do with my argument.And you have still not explained how you would design a simple merchant good at his trade but with zero fighting ability with a PC constraint.
By 5e RAW some NPCs can. Not all NPCs have no class levels, but this is a Red Herring anyway. Whether or not NPCs gain levels is entirely irrelevant to whether or not a PC should be able to learn a skill that has no in-fiction reason to be barred from the PC.Actually, there are differences, the PCs can progress in level, whereas the NPCs can't.