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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 3771287" data-attributes="member: 5143">Strangely enough, this sounds more like an example of balancing combat benefits against role playing disadvantages.  Just with a mechanical factor(and one that didn't matter most of the time) to that role playing disadvantage.  The actual rule is "Since you are slow to learn things, you get to be better than everyone else for all the levels you are likely to play at."The best examples of why not to do this are:-Bards aren't very powerful in combat because of their role playing potential and all the non-combat abilities they have.-In 2e, Paladins got to be better than all other fighting classes because of their alignment restrictions-In 2e, the Swashbuckler kit for thieves let them have the THACO of a fighter in exchange for the fact that "trouble finds them".The bard problem is just less obvious, since you are still trading numbers for numbers, so it wasn't noticed as easily.  Someone just failed to consider that not all numbers are equal.That isn't it at all.  The problem is that role playing disadvantages can be wormed out of or even turned into an advantage.If you are a Swashbuckler Kit from 2e and "trouble finds you more often", it meant that either the DM now had a bunch of work throwing encounters at you that he hadn't originally planned in order to make sure there was a disadvantage for your advantages, in which case you got more XP for defeating more enemies.  Or, he forgot about your disadvantage and you just got benefits for nothing.  Plus, the strength of your disadvantage depended entirely on how much trouble the DM felt was appropriate.In Skills and Powers in 2e, you were able to get more points to build your character based on taking disadvantages like "disagreeable" and "loner".  I originally thought this was a GREAT idea.  Give the players a REASON to role play out their disadvantages.  Then I had a friend show me why it was a REALLY bad idea.  He took nearly every role playing disadvantage he could find in the book and bought nearly every combat power he could afford (d12s for hit points, best saves in every category, THACO of a fighter, able to get full bonus from his con, cast wizard spells and cleric spells, with max str, con, and dex).I said "Fine, but you generally make everyone around you angry all the time, people who have never met you get into fights with you, you get arrested for no good reason at all.  The character will be unplayable."  He said "Let's see."So, we started the campaign in a tavern.  He roleplayed his character perfectly, being belligerent, ornery, and downright mean to everyone he met.  So, a really big guy challenged him to a fight to make up for the insult he gave him.  The player just pulled out his sword and cut him in half with damage like I had NO idea anyone could do.  So, everyone in the bar stared in amazement.  A couple of more people challenged him trying to beat him.  He killed them without blinking.  Then the watch showed up and I figured I'd finally show him why it was a bad idea to play this character.  I figured they'd be around 3rd level with a 6th level leader.  There were 4 of them plus their leader and I figured they were used to dealing with adventurers so I gave them some magic items that I figured would turn the tide in their favor.So, he then proceeds to kill all of them, getting hit only once.  I then tell him "Well, that was only the first group, they didn't know how powerful you were, they'll send more powerful people next time."  He says "Good...they'll likely have better items for me" as he proceeded to put on the better armor and weapons he collected from the corpses.  "Oh, and could I get my xp from all the people in the bar and the guards, I think I might be level 2 now?"That was pretty much the day that I saw that if you are going to give a character a mechanical advantage in combat, you need to give them a mechanical negative in combat.  You can't give someone a negative in something they already wanted to be bad at in exchange for a bonus to something they wanted to be good at.</blockquote>

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