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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6176326" data-attributes="member: 6681948">I didn't say "outrageously idiosyncratic", only that it would be guided by your style and your interpretation of the rules more so than if you had a group of players who brought their own interpretations to the table, resulting in a discussion of varying interpretations and styles.  Again, I think you adopt a very narrow definition of “fighter”.  The half orc will be a tough as nails hand to hand combatant. The halfling’s strengths are elsewhere, and he would better select a style of combat emphasizing his quickness and agility.  Let’s build both as expert mounted combatants – the half orc then loses much utility descending into a dungeon where his horse simply cannot maneuver.  Our dog-riding Halfling seems much more useful now.  Or let’s just build a couple of archers.  Suddenly, DEX seems far more useful.  Which will be better suited to motivate the army under his command to give 110% and march through hell to emerge victorious, the brutal half orc, lacking any social graces, or the charismatic Halfling?  Agreed – context is important. But your original statement was that a bunch of L10-11 martial types beat the L16 witch, and did not include the statement that the circumstances placed the Witch at a significant disadvantage from the outset.  Your description above paints a very different picture.  I would call them evidence but not proof.  Academic peer review can be stronger or weaker as well.  The ultimate “peer review” of publication for profit is sales.  You have to get through the editor, of course – if your material is deemed unsuitable for publication, or requires extra efforts on the part of the editor, you are less likely to be engaged again.  And if your works do not sell, your future prospects also decline.  This is considerably different from the academic world.  I have never seen the term “professional academic” used as an accolade.  I am seeing no potential for anyone to be an “expert game designer” by your standard.  That makes your measure useless, in my eyes, as it cannot be used to differentiate individuals in the field in any way.  Would you then suggest there are no experts in nutrition and diet, or that the field is sufficiently complex that general guidelines are the best that can be offered without more detailed and specific information?  A DM plays the game, thus he is a “player”.  However, he plays a different role than other players, running specific characters.  Agreed. I would add that a differing result – that there is a single superior race/class combination for each and every role – would be a much poorer game.  This is where DM bias often creates issues – DM A loves half orcs, so game changes work to their advantage.  DM B likes small, nimble fighters, so his house rules provide advantages to that combat style, to the indirect (or even direct) destriment of the half orc brute. If the intent is that a specific class be a poor choice for an adventurer, then I suggest that should be an NPC class.  The presentation of a Bard as a PC class suggests it should be competitive, overall, with other PC classes.   To me, the most common house rule which trivializes a Bard is to use the rules to resolve combat, traps, etc., but resolve all role playing interactions by player skill. “Well, the player of the 8 CHA fighter with no social skills made a good speech, so he persuades the mayor”.  “The 22 CHA Bard with +25 Diplomacy has a shy, stuttering player, so he’s just not persuasive”.  If I give the Fighter all the benefits of his character abilities in combat and his player abilities (bad role playing to play that brute as a persuasive charmer should be penalized, not rewarded, in my opinion), then I eliminate the advantage of the Bard’s abilities, and the disadvantage of the fighter choosing to focus entirely on brute strength.  If one restricts clerics of that deity to this role, sure.  Let’s restrict a priest of a war deity to actual war – mass combat with huge armies, not small tactical groups.  Now he is not much of an adventurer either.  If the counterargument is that each class has a single combination that is inherently superior, then I certainly prefer the more balanced approach which creates a wide array of options that have both advantages and disadvantages which weigh out to relative equality. Offering a bunch of “trap choices” is bad design, in my view. Like those CCG’s with a whole bunch of crap cards so we can pad the set and sell more packs as people quest for the few useful cards in the dreck.   Again, depends on the bias set by the DM. Does every potential opponent leap to the attack?  Seems less than consistent with the source material.  Bilbo used trickery to defeat the Trolls, and negotiations were possible with the Goblin King.  If all enemies are mindlessly hostile, and we refuse to allow any extraordinary accomplishments with interaction skills, despite permitting them with magic, combat, stealth, etc. then it a bias against heroic successes of diplomacy, not a weakness in the rules or an inherent “silliness” of the Bard as a character vision, which causes the discrepancy. In combat, the Bard’s ability to inspire his teammates and himself to greater combat skill seems quite useful – and he has the same BAB progression as the Cleric.  He can also judiciously apply spells.  100% agreed.  Why should our games reward Hercules, Friar Tuck and Merlin, but not Orpheus and Alan-a-Dale?  Intimidation is not the skill I attribute to a leader of men. That half orc is three skill points per level behind (due to his INT penalty) out of the gate, and the Bard likely has a far superior CHA as well. If the bard is far less likely to be a successful adventurer, then I can attribute that only to poor game design in providing an adventuring class (not an NPC class) which is unable to compete in comparison to other adventuring classes.  In my view, classes presented for PC use should be viable, not a few good classes and a bunch of sub-optimal character choices whose main purpose is a trap for players not wanting to play a brutish thug. Show me where the rules provide them to command great respect. We could just as easily say that the skill of the Bard makes him a leader of men (the Scots didn’t have brutes to scream their men into battle, they had drummers and pipers).  If I were to be persuaded that the Barbarian is a superior adventurer to the Fighter, the Bard, etc., then my next consideration would be either enhancing the abilities of those other classes, or reducing those of the Barbarian.  The game is not supposed to be “Barbarian and their sub-optimal comic relief teammates”.  It is a game of heroes – a variety of different ones, but all with the potential to be heroic and to be successful as adventurers. You are classifying them, sight unseen, as inferior, rather than as different, but capable in their own right.  The “bias” I want in my rules is balance.  If the only viable character is a Half Orc Barbarian, then the rules should not lead players to select non-viable, inferior characters. Include only half orcs and barbarians, and leave those inferior races and classes to NPC’s. Just as we leave gnats to NPC’s and don’t seem to see deities of home and hearth presented in the rules.  If we saw the latter, I would expect them to provide their clerics with the same weapon and armor proficiencies, a choice of four or so domains and the same spell selections and abilities of clerics of other faiths. If the game struggles to find situations where the small, weak characters have the opportunity to take over the spotlight and be “the very effective character”, then I consider the game biased against small, weak characters.  There is no reason a 12 STR, 20 DEX halfling warrior should be inherently inferior to a 20 STR, 12 DEX half orc.  Give them all the same stats (with the half orc having a 2 point shortfall in either INT or CHA to equalize the stats) and I see no reason both characters should not be capable of being equal contributors.  If they are not so capable, then the halfling warrior should not be presented as a viable choice – if it is an inferior choice, it should not remain a trap for the unwary player who may envision a heroic, agile swashbuckler and instead obtain a character suitable only as a sidekick to the far superior brute.</blockquote>

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