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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6239081" data-attributes="member: 6681948">If we need  both other approaches and different mechanics to achieve the desired playstyle, I suggest it is not the playstyle intended by the authors of the specific game. You consistently refer to how mechanics work in other games.  The mechanics of other games has no relevance to the balance between classes in D&D (see thread title).  If the mechanics and style of another game is preferred, the answer is to play that other game. Alternatively, one can write one’s own game (whether from whole cloth, by altering mechanics of an existing game, or by blending mechanics of various games).  But this departs wholesale from any balance within the specific game under discussion.To me, if selling the loot is merely a procedural matter, we don’t play it out. By choosing to play it out, at least in my view, the GM undertakes to make the challenge of selling loot a point “where the action is” in itself.  The error, to me, is for the players to assume that the game must jump from one player/PC objective to the next in linear fashion, and that the players must have complete knowledge of what will take place next, how any given scene may be relevant, etc. The PC’s do not know everything.  To better play my PC, I also do not need, or even want, to know everything.Seems to me 3e has some pretty good abstract rules.  If we want to simply apply the rules that the purchase prices are what equipment sells for, loot can be sold for half its price and the size of the settlement determines the value of both goods for sale and wealth for purchase, we’ve abstracted it pretty well.But if part of the theme of the adventure, or the campaign, is that the PC’s are outsiders in an insular community, that theme may in part be represented by reduced willingness to trade with them, higher prices to purchase goods and reduced prices on selling them. We choose what to play out and what to abstract.Again, you extrapolate “the player cannot dictate the narrative” to be “the PC’s can have no meaningful impact”.  The PC’s might well, on being unable to contact the wizard, use their skills to determine where he has gone, or to determine another possible purchaser of their loot.  The refusal of the Chamberlain to admit them to see the King might lead them to use their skills to determine why the King might not be receiving visitors, what may influence the Chamberlain’s current views, what might change the situation, etc.   But they don’t get to dictate that their skills are capable of generating immediate co-operation of the Chamberlain and an instant audience with the King.  There are degrees of impact, not “either they can dictate the narrative or they can have no meaningful impact”.As this is a thread about 3.5, please identify the mechanics of 3.5 which provide this direct impact on the game world’s fictional content. I don’t dispute that such mechanics exist in other games, and in optional rule changes. I do not believe they are part of the core 3.5e mechanics.It implies that the greater the PC’s streetwise (since when is Streetwise a 3.5 skill, by the way) roll, the more likely it is that the wizard will be willing to purchase their loot. By attaining a bonus by, say, purchasing drinks at the local tavern and hiring a town crier, the PC’s are able to positively influence the Wizard to purchase their loot. To me, these are actions that may help locate someone who might have both an interest and the finances to purchase the loot. It does not influence who that someone might be, where he might be found, or that it would be the wizard we have previously traded with.The mechanics indicate they are causing him to be present – a bonus to the roll causes his presence to be more likely.If our Ranger had not been down 3 WIS from our encounter with that Undead creature, his roll would have succeeded and we would not have all this snow.  If the character’s level of skill is determinative of whether there is snow, it seems to me that the rules indicate the PC’s skills do, in fact, influence whether it will snow.Again, if one must change the rules, then one is no longer playing the same game, but building a different one.  If I consider the wizard overpowered, so I change the spell progression and many of the spell descriptions, and alter the saving throw rules, that may better balance the wizard, but I am not still playing the same game.  It is no longer a discussion of the balance of 3.5, but the balance of a different, modified game.But no one has said the PC cannot cast a Charm Person spell. They have suggested that the King’s Court may be able to detect and/or cancel that spell. They have suggested the spell, as written, does not guarantee instant access to the King, even if successful.  And they have suggested there may be negative repercussions to overriding the Chamberlain’s free will in that manner.  And each of these suggestions has been responded to with the suggestion they are unfair on the part of the GM, nerfing the abilities of the characters, abuse of “secret backstory” and GM authority, etc.Yes, you can cast the spell.  And yes, there may be people in the Court capable of detecting the spell has been cast, that detection may have detrimental results to the PC’s down the road and the spell may, for reasons unknown to the PC’s, still not generate the desired result (the King is seeing no one, is not present or is on his deathbed being three easy examples).I believe many races in the SW universe were immune to Jedi mind tricks. Only weak minds could be influenced, a statement often made.  And the SW universe may well have different mechanics than 3.5 D&D.  But let’s continue this scene analysis.Did Luke need the long-term goodwill of Fortuna or Jabba, or did he take the most expeditious route possible to get in and make his pitch to Jabba, with the expectation he would either get Han back as desired and leave, never to see the Hutt again, or he would destroy Jabba’s operations, so there would be no future interaction with him?  Quite different from forming an alliance with the King -or with the rebellion.  I don’t see Luke using Jedi mind tricks on rebel leaders, or Vader using them on Grand Moff Tarkin, both situations where this short-term extra influence could have long-term negative repercussions.  Similarly, I think the players need to weigh the short term benefit of Charming the Chamberlain against the risk of discovery and the long-term implications to any relationship with the Chamberlain, the King and the Kingdom.</blockquote>

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