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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Immolate" data-source="post: 4154300" data-attributes="member: 62381">What makes Player characters special in a way that is unmatched by any but classed NPCs? That's really the sell they're trying to make, isn't it? Why is a level 1 PC more capable than a level 1 guard or a level 1 bandit? Mechanically, it is obvious. If the characters aren't a bit more powerful than their opponents, they will die 50% of the time. That isn't a playable system in D&D. But what if there were a logical reason for these people to be special?I think there is. Let's set aside level one for the moment and consider levels two through thirty. What do PCs do that no other profession does? They kill for a living. I'm not talking about Sam and Merry and Pippin. I'm talking about the characters we play in D&D. We kill things and take their valuables. We do it over and over again, in circumstances where the stakes are kill or die for both sides. Who else does that?Guards don't kill for a living. They guard for a living. Soldiers? They train and march for a living. Assassins don't even kill for a living. They stalk and stalk and stalk, and then kill their target in a purposefully staged setting that gives them every advantage and eliminates every possible opportunity for their victim to survive. Gladiators may fight to live, but they're arguably closer to soldiers in their day-to-day lives than PCs, and have a short life expectancy. Nobody else gets up in the morning and thinks "what should we go kill and loot today". They are special because they live the most voluntarily brutal lives possible. Samwise wouldn't last a month tagging along with a party of D&D PCs, unless he started to level. That doesn't make hobbits from LotR invalid or stupid or uninteresting. They are none of those things because they are small and weak and relatively defenseless except in their spirit and character. But in spite of its origins, D&D has never been a game envisioned to get a couple of 0-level hobbits to Mordor alive and intact. Our mechanics have never been particularly good at safeguarding perpetually low-level companions over time. Put them on their own and they die every time. That isn't the model this game is supposed to follow.I also understand that 4E is a change from 3.5, and that it favors gamism more than its predecessor did. I appreciate that this displeases some, and also appreciate that it pleases others. WotC did it intentionally because they think a simpler, less-wonky, more playable game will have greater appeal. They are in a fight for viability in a changing world, and they have to find a way to reverse the trends of recent years and start growing the game again. I don't blame them. I started playing at the start and have lived through every change. We'll survive this one too, and if we're lucky, there'll be a lot more of us a few years from now.</blockquote>

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