Class concepts that you just can't work out neatly in DnD

[Moonstone Spider]

Why? Because that's exactly what WotC wanted to do: Punish players who want to play anything other than the basic races. There's a quote floating around the net from one of the designers of Savage Species that says, to effect, WotC told him to purposely make playing a "monster" race less appealing than playing a non-monster race.

Yes, I know of that quote. I've never understood the reasoning, apparently somebody just thinks playing a non-basic (Really non-human) race is badwrongfun. Obviously I disagree with the sentiment.

 

[Reynard]

I'm still at a loss as to why we need rules systems to 'support' non-high-adventure/Sword-and-sorcery style scenarios. D&D can perfectly well handle such things, within the core rules even; it handles them slightly better when you use some of the optional rules (such as the Urban ranger variant, or non-LG-paladin variants). Apparently you don't think so, but I'm here to tell you it does. I've played in many a D&D game where we never cast a spell or drew a sword.

You're missing my point by a mile. I will try and make it concise (which will inevitably lead to folks misinterpretting what I say here, for the purpose of making some point or another, but whatever): Player Characters in the default genre of D&D are action-adventure heroes, and in addition to being able to perform in their niche (whatever that may be), they need to be able to perform action-adventure type actions, including, but not limited to, combat and surviving great falls. For the Core Rules to provide support for characters that cannot engage in the action-adventure type stuff -- no appreciable combat or magical abilities, for example -- doesn't make a lick of sense because the game is designed for fantasy action-adventure.

This is not the same as saying "your game" has to be an action adventure, high fantasy swords and sorcery game. But if it isn't, it is different than core D&D and it is unreasonable to expect official support material for "your game".

 

[heimdall]

To put a nicer spin on it, the group decides what an individual doesn't play. As in "You can make "Innocent Slaughterer McBackstabbity", but he's going to join some other adventuring group, not ours".

It only happened once in my group. One player made an assassin, and then came to join the group. Cleric: "Hmm .. detect evil? Thanks but no thanks, our group is full".

I'm all for player rights to make the character, but the DM sets boundaries and the group has a more limited right to control who joins the party.

Yup and even when a player follows the basic rules for character creation, that's no guarantee the player won't run himself/herself out of the group. My group basically decided it did not like the actions of one of the players who always insisted on being his own man. Even after numerous in game warnings (getting into situations he couldn't handle because they were designed for the whole party), he finally died. To get him reincarnated they used all of his gold. And that led to him griping about having no gold. So that led to them tuning him out even further. He's not in the group any longer because he could see the writing on the wall. He had been written off as useful and was seen as a huge liability. But that was an accurate description of what he had chosen to make his character into.

 

[heimdall]

For the Core Rules to provide support for characters that cannot engage in the action-adventure type stuff -- no appreciable combat or magical abilities, for example -- doesn't make a lick of sense because the game is designed for fantasy action-adventure.

This is not the same as saying "your game" has to be an action adventure, high fantasy swords and sorcery game. But if it isn't, it is different than core D&D and it is unreasonable to expect official support material for "your game".

On the same token, the core rules do provide a decent amount of support for non-action oriented games, especially compared to some other roleplaying games. Most of my campaigns have a moderate amount of combat/adventure, but I tend to run heavily social games. No, it's not going to give exact numbers on the effects of a courtier's special perfume on the king, but that's what judgement is for. And a great example of non-action support is the Expert class from the DMG. Put together a 2nd or 3rd level merchant with max skills in bluff, sense motive, and diplomacy and see how hard it is for a PC to haggle price unless he or she has done the same.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Okay, My turn... if i may that is, i'd like to review some of the overarching themes of this thread, and discuss the various points / counterpoints, as they arise:

It all started with driddle asking why he couldn't make Everything he wants in a D&D character.

Ever want to play a character who studies magic and has a natural empathy for animals ... but doesn't want all the nature-lovin' baggage of a druid or ranger class? How about a paladin of a chaotic gawd?

Well, (1) It's called a fighter / wizard with max ranks in handle animal. who prestiges into Animal Lord. (2) Paladins happen to be paragons of order and reliability... and chaos... isn't.

Then he asked about the ordering Chinese approach.

But wouldn't it be nice to have that class-designing flexibility incorporated in the rules from the git-go? To be able to pick from a menu of class abilities that best define what you envision for the career, and put a title on it yourself

Of course, he then decides to make the classic "Why can't I do this in D&D" class: the social-fu monster.

-- for example, the knowledge and social skills suite, plus bardic lore and maybe a few diviner spell-like abilities, without bardic music, and call it a "Rumormonger" class all the way from 1st to 20th level?

Basically asking "Why can't I dump a major class feature for no appreciable difference from a straight bard?"

The lack of a Social-fu class has long been the counterpoint to D&D. Primarily, i think the fact that Divination does not actually tell the future in D&D is a major hinderance to that. Since it's effectively asking the DM to guess at what the players will do. Also, Social-fu tends to be very... how to put this. DULL. Especially in a Table-top game like D&D where social contact, while important, simply does not get the blood pumping the way that a well-designed set piece battle against the big bad evil guy does. Honestly, did Pride and Prejudice ever make anyone argue about the stats of a Jane Austin character?

Now, a lot of back-and-forth about "point buy" this and "sub optimal" that. it's all pretty dull, so i'll skip ahead to the next bit that matters... I'll skip the bit when Driddle started making veiled insults...

And, yes, like it or not, there are many gamers who simply couldn't handle such a system for any number of reasons.

And get to the sensible stuff... here's pawsplay's thoughts on the subject.

I think it's a mistake to think you have some inalienable right to play a character who is useless, evil, from the wrong continent, anachronistic, whatever. Roleplaying is a group endeavor. If someone wanted to play a half-elf commoner, I would totally vote against allowing that.

A statement with which i wholeheartily agree! Just as has happened many times before in real life, people who don't want to associate with other people, don't.

"Listen, Willie..."
"That's William. William viscount of Honeymeade"
"Yeah, about that. Thraxnar and I were talking and... well, sure, your knowlege of courtly ways and proper etiquette is interesting an' all, but, well, yesterday, when the zombie hoarde was approaching, you didn't even draw that sword you carry..."
"Of course not. It's a ceremonial blade given to me by the high queen of...
"Yeah, Yeah stop. Listen. Maybe you should stick to, i dunno, places where there are down comforters on the beds and suchlike? See, we're going to man an assualt against the necromancer-king who threatens..."
"King? Surely i can reason with him!"
"Sure, if by 'reason' you mean 'Become part of his mindless hoarde of zombies'. I'm afraid chasing down villany just isn't your style, and you've shown no inclination to change that... we took a vote... maybe you need to find a new group of comrades?"

Now, of course, this is a little over-dramatized, but it's hyperbolie for hyperbolie's sake.

So, getting back on track, we came to Barak, whose analysis was pretty straightforward.

Because point-buy systems are -never- fully balanced with a class-based system, no matter how it's designed. So characters built using point-buy will either be too
weak compared to class-based, or have the potential of easily being much better.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. though, the last time i encountered a system that had both point buy and pe-made, it was "VORE: The Malestrom" Minis game, which had great mechanics... but included a how-to system in their first book, and the "build your own army" system happened to produce better armies than what their pre-statted miniatures lines did. They never even got to make some of the armies before going under.

 

[Psion]

How about a paladin of a chaotic gawd?

Look here for that.

But wouldn't it be nice to have that class-designing flexibility incorporated in the rules from the git-go? To be able to pick from a menu of class abilities that best define what you envision for the career, and put a title on it yourself -- for example, the knowledge and social skills suite, plus bardic lore and maybe a few diviner spell-like abilities, without bardic music, and call it a "Rumormonger" class all the way from 1st to 20th level?

If I wanted to play GURPS, I'd play GURPS.

But one of the reasons that I like class based systems is that I like the idea of a self-consistent package of abilities and don't like to deal with the sort of mishmash characters that free-buy systems often created.

I could see a bit more flexibility in some of the classes in order to minimize the number of new classes needed (the above mentioned holy warrior is a great example of making a "over paladin" that prevents us from needing a flurry of palading classes), but I am not particularly interested in seeing some of the attrocious mismatches that a full on kitbash system would produce.

 

[Driddle]

It isn't even that Rumormonger isn't a strong concept -- it is that it isn't a strong concept for a fantasy adventure game. D&D is not a generic fantasy game. It never has been and never will be. That people don't understand this after thirty-odd years astounds me. D&D is a lot of things, and it has some range to it, but when it comes down to it, it is a fantasy adventure game. Complaining that it doesn't have good rules for courtly intrigue or seafaring mercantilism is just absurd. It is like complaining that Vampire doesn't have rules for playing leprechauns.

That's cute. You've missed the mark on at least a couple of points:

1. D&D is whatever the gamers want it to be, as determined by the playing style of the GM and interaction of the players. If any or all of them want their characters to be nearly average and thrust reluctantly into adventure, for example, they can start with "average" attributes and portray their scenes with wide-eyed shock and fear. Your assumption is faulty.

2. The initial part of this thread didn't address anything concerning "rules" for elements that can already be acted out in the game -- i.e. your examples of intrigue and mercantilism. You made a big leap of logic there. It's nothing at all like leprechauns in Vampire. Bad parallel.

And honestly, if I were crazy enough to try to play in the same game as you, I could find places for a "rumormonger" -- or nearly any other character concept -- to be interesting and useful. It comes with experience and imagination. ... Unless you've confused your game realities and we're actually talking about World of Warcraft. Might be. A lot of D&Ders assume the two are the same.

 

[Driddle]

Expert. It is in the DMG. Ask your DM if you can have a free feat every 4 levels or so to make it a PC-worthy class. Ta-da.

Missed point of the thread: Shouldn't have to ask for special consideration and GM-approved tweaks. It's doable.

 

[harmyn]

Or just play GURPS and use a series of basic templates to represent initial class choices and leave a number of additional points that players can spend to more fully customize their characters to better fit their desires.

I have quite enjoyed running many games in 3e and 3.5, and truly love playing Classic D&D, but the system will only flex so much. If you want total versatility then GURPS, HERO, and from the sounds of it Rolemaster (not seen any of the new stuff so this is only based off what was implied earlier) might be a better fit for your tastes.

For my part, there is a fantasy setting myself and a friend are developing and we turned to GURPS from D&D for it because it gave us the flexibility we were wanting in races, magic, and concepts.

 

[Driddle]

OK. To review a few of the finer points here, let's start with A.O.'s post:

Okay, My turn... if i may that is, i'd like to review some of the overarching themes of this thread, and discuss the various points / counterpoints, as they arise...

At this point he starts microparsing previous messages and fails to actually provide a valid recap in the "point/counterpoint" structure. Just a thinly veiled ad hominem attack on the stuff he doesn't agree with.

Very FOX Newsish. Quite trendy.