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

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why do people who dislike classes play D&D?

Because they like everything else about the game? Because they can't find a group to play any other game?

While I don't dislike classes, that answer would pretty much sum up my response if I did.

 

[Allandaros]

In defense of S&P, I would point out that in my understanding of the rules, you're not allowed to take abilities listed from other classes.

For example, the fighter class has the option to spend points on weapon specialization, move silently (but worse than a thief), getting followers, and stuff like that. The cleric has no access to the move-silently-but-worse-than-a-thief ability, because that's an option only the fighter class can buy.

I don't see how you could make characters like the quote here:

Of course, one could decide to play a cleric, buy all the fighter's abilities, and be left with points to buy more stuff

...because the cleric didn't have access to certain fighter abilities. Some, yes. But not all - and the fighter still had reason to exist, because they could spend their points on other snazzy abilities the cleric didn't have access to.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, in which case someone email me, because I wanna make a fighter/mage with move silently and hide in shadows!

 

[Rystil Arden]

In defense of S&P, I would point out that in my understanding of the rules, you're not allowed to take abilities listed from other classes.

For example, the fighter class has the option to spend points on weapon specialization, move silently (but worse than a thief), getting followers, and stuff like that. The cleric has no access to the move-silently-but-worse-than-a-thief ability, because that's an option only the fighter class can buy.

I don't see how you could make characters like the quote here:



...because the cleric didn't have access to certain fighter abilities. Some, yes. But not all - and the fighter still had reason to exist, because they could spend their points on other snazzy abilities the cleric didn't have access to.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, in which case someone email me, because I wanna make a fighter/mage with move silently and hide in shadows!

Admittedly this was a *long* time ago, but I remember specifically that the Thief skills, Fighter Hit Dice, Fighter THACO (including multiple attacks), and Fighter Weapon Specialisation abilities were all on the Cleric list of things to pick, along with the Wizard schools of magic.

 

[Crothian]

Why do people who dislike classes play D&D?

Because it is the one true game. Lots of people try to game in other systems but only can find D&D players. We are like a plague upon the Earth!!!

 

[Psion]

Admittedly this was a *long* time ago, but I remember specifically that the Thief skills, Fighter Hit Dice, Fighter THACO (including multiple attacks), and Fighter Weapon Specialisation abilities were all on the Cleric list of things to pick, along with the Wizard schools of magic.

Yep.

And what you traded for them were cleric spheres. Half of which sucked, sp you were pretty free to trade them out.

I patched that one over in a hurry. Made a house rule requiring that most of your points be spent on cleric spheres. Also, I strictly enforced the rules disallowing you from spending points obtained by drawbacks in earlier steps.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yep.

And what you traded for them were cleric spheres. Half of which sucked, sp you were pretty free to trade them out.

I patched that one over in a hurry. Made a house rule requiring that most of your points be spent on cleric spheres. Also, I strictly enforced the rules disallowing you from spending points obtained by drawbacks in earlier steps.

Yup exactly! I did the same thing--as I said before, those Spheres sucked but cost so much that it was easy to make an uber-cleric by just taking a few.

Mainly, I wound up forcing players to get my approval on their characters, and for clerics, they generally had to trade away something of actual value rather than the spheres. So the 2e cleric who traded Turn Undead for the Fighting Monk's unarmed combat ability? That was actually cool. The rest of her party constantly made fun of her for sleeping in 'Turn Undead' class back at clerical school whenever they had to fight undead (and those 2e undead were monsters!), but she also had some great moments using her unarmed fighting to protect the party.

 

[Barak]

In defense of S&P, I would point out that in my understanding of the rules, you're not allowed to take abilities listed from other classes.

For example, the fighter class has the option to spend points on weapon specialization, move silently (but worse than a thief), getting followers, and stuff like that. The cleric has no access to the move-silently-but-worse-than-a-thief ability, because that's an option only the fighter class can buy.

I don't see how you could make characters like the quote here:



...because the cleric didn't have access to certain fighter abilities. Some, yes. But not all - and the fighter still had reason to exist, because they could spend their points on other snazzy abilities the cleric didn't have access to.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, in which case someone email me, because I wanna make a fighter/mage with move silently and hide in shadows!

As Mr Arden said, it was a long time ago, but I remember extremely clearly that nothing a normal fighter got wasn't on the cleric list. I should have made that clear in my first post on the subject.

Granted, the fighter list probably had a few "new" things on it that wasn't on the cleric list. But the fighter had very, very few points. To buy any of those, he'd have to suck mightily at being a fighter. Because of the high cost of spheres, the cleric had a humongous number of points, and could buy the complete fighter package, -and many other things-.

Like -any- "point-buy class system", it wasn't balanced at all.

 

[delericho]

In Skills & Powers, Clerics gained 125 points to buy abilities. The spheres had various costs, ranging from 3 points for Minor access to the Astral (and other) sphere, to 15 points for Major access to all four Elemental spheres.

The other options were:

Casting Reduction (5): Reduce all casting times by 1 (minimum 1).
Detect Evil (10): As Paladin.
Detect Undead (10): As the Detect Evil ability, but for Undead.
Expert Healer (5): Cast 1 extra CLW per day.
Followers (5/10)
d10 Hit Points (10)
Know Alignment (10): 1/day
Resist Energy Drain (10): +1 bonus to any applicable save vs Energy Drain attacks
Spell Duration Increase (10): Increase by 1 round per 2 caster levels
Turn Undead (10)
Warrior-Priest (10): Use Fighter Exceptional Strength/Con bonus to HP
Weapon Allowance (5): Use one edged weapon. Did not include weapon proficiency
Weapon Specialisation (15)
Wizardly Priest (15): Cast spells from one Wizard school as Cleric spells

(Skills & Powers p.57)

Yes, Clerics were rather good under that system

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And what you traded for them were cleric spheres. Half of which sucked, sp you were pretty free to trade them out.

Heh...those spheres you say sucked are the very ones my aforementioned "Superman" took, along with arcane Abjuration.

Like I said, the PC was pretty good, and the "Superman" appellation was unwarranted. He was designed as an über-ally, not an über-lone-wolf...and worked wonderfully in that role.

 

[Felon]

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

Missed point of the thread...

OK. To review a few of the finer points here, let's start with A.O.'s post....
Very FOX Newsish. Quite trendy.

Then it's a darn good thing we don't play at the same table then, eh? Because when *I* play a character roleplaying game, I want to play the character *I* want to play, not worry about whether the concept might tick off another player because it's not what he expects.

There's no mistake. A player gets to PLAY the character of his choice.
Whether you think it's a worthless choice is a matter of (faulty) personal opinion.
The group decides what an individual plays? How incredibly ridiculous!

Considering your antagonistic demeanor, it's funny that you bring up FOX news as a pejorative. Consider your tactics so far, telling people that their opinions about role-playing are "faulty" and "ridiculous" and tossing out that condescending "missing the point" mantra whenever they offer a counter-point that you don't care for, and think about how that compares to the tactics of a Murdock pundit.

Just curious, do you think gaming is at all cooperative in nature? So far it comes across like you regard it as being a totally self-indulgent little sandbox where each person comes up with whatever character they want and if these characters fail to mesh with the rest of the party, that's just too bad. If so, let me ask you this: if you're playing a character that's useless or adversarial, don't you expect the disapproval of the other players to have an impact on your continued participation? Are you entitled to a share of a group's XP, treasure, and (most importantly) time without making a contribution that others feel is valuable?