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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6177275" data-attributes="member: 6681948">I both agree and disagree here.  For example, if the player has chosen to play a naïve character who has, to date, lead a sheltered life, trained in areas largely revolving around issues other than combat (the bookish knowledge-focused Wizard the Temple-sheltered Cleric) or even a non-tactical warrior role (a Battlerager, Ranger scout or soldier Fighter/Paladin whose role was to fight, not direct the tactics or strategy of the overall battle, and then plays the character as a tactical genius, I see that less as skill in the game and more as a poor ability to role play.  Similarly, if the choice was made to play a brute lacking in social skills, but suddenly he knows all the right things to say and do to get bonuses on interaction skills (rather than saying the wrong this as his personality and skill set would indicate), I again perceive poor role playing much more strongly than I see tactical skill. That said, a bonus to persuade the Duke to, say, begin defensive fortifications for bringing back war orders from the Orc Chieftan found in a raid on an Orc lair?  Sure - that's like getting a bonus for flanking your opponent or having a magical sword.  Any character should be able to obtain that bonus.  But if it's coming from the 18 CHA bard with 5 ranks in Diplomacy and a class skill bonus (so +12), the desired result should be MUCH more likely than when the same info is presented by the 8 CHA Brute character with no social skills (so -1) - even with the +2 bonus for having the "perfect to" to persuade the Duke.The Bard's presentation will lead the Duke to trust his word.  The Brute's may lead to suspicion that this is a bluff to get a reward, or simply less than full engagement so he passes it off to his advisors for verification rather than taking immediate action.  How good the Bard or Brute's speech were?  Irrelevant - the character's skill at speechmaking matters (and is reflected by CHA and skills).  The player's skill, represented  by the player's speech, does not matter - any more than the player's archery skill changes the odds of his Ranger archer (or 8 DEX sorcerer with no bow proficiency) splitting his first arrow in the bulls eye with his second from his Longbow.No question.  If you want a character who is good at diplomacy, bluff, etc., then invest character resources in the skill.  Don't expect the player's skill to overcome the character's deficiencies.This reflects making both 2 handed warriors, and is also skewed by pumping STR to a base 18, such that we get an odd number and rounding further skews the result.  Instead, I would see the half orc capitalizing on his STR advantage, so by L4, he has a 21 STR and a 2 handed weapon, just as you suggest, so he gets, let's say, +7 to hit (+5 STR + 4 BAB - 2 for Power Attack) and does 2d6 (average 7) +5 (STR) +2 (2 handed) + 3 Power Attack, for an average of 17 damage.  He has some other combat feats, of course.  We'll keep them each to one for simplicity.  Let's give him an AC of 19 (with a 12 DEX) and hp of 35 (10 + 5.5x3 + 8 for a 14 CON).Now, our Halfling puts the same scores into INT, CHA and WIS (but he gets a +1 bonus on all INT and CHA abilities over the half orc since he gets no penalty.  Rather than an 18 STR/12DEX/14 CON (for 26 points allocated),He puts a 16 in DEX (so he gets an 18) instead of STR, a 16 in STR, leaving a 14, and a 14 in CON (same 26 point investment, so 14/18/14).  He wears a Breastplate (+1) and a Large Shield (for a slightly lower cost than Full Plate) for an AC of 22 (+6 armor, +2 Shield, +3 DEX, +1 Size), and the same hp of 35 (10 + 5.5x3 + 8 for CON).  He likely wants a Rapier and Weapon Finesse, so he has +9 to hit (+4 BAB +4 DEX +1 Size) but only 1d4 + 2 damage , so only 4.5 on average, a shortfall of 12.5 points, albeit with a better chance to hit, and to crit, and a better AC.  His extra cash could Masterwork his rapier, but let's not get too picky.But we're assuming they both focus on a "melee Brute" build, which is the half orc's forte and the halfling's weak area.  Let's now change the playing field - they are battling a flying opponent, and cannot engage in melee.  Our Half Orc pulls out his Longbow (Brutes don't invest in magic and he already spent more than the Halfling on his armor) and has a +5 to hit (+4 BAB +1 DEX), and average 4.5 damage (1d8).  Our Halfling draws his Long Bow (reducing his AC by 2 since he has to drop his shield - still better than the 1/2 Orc) and has +9 to hit (+4 BAB + 4 DEX +1 Size) with a 3.5 average damage.  Advantage:  Halfling.I suggest the Halfling will focus on ranged combat (maybe abandoning his shield and weapon finesse so he can pick up another 3 melee damage,2 from weapon and another +1 from STR, with a halfling Greatsword if forced into melee), and probably add elemental damage with enchantments to his bow.  This is his area of expertise.  I suspect we can build a halfling archer who is a pretty fair warrior, even compared to that melee brute.To compare to your figures, I get a Halfling with a much greater damage deficit but a much better chance to hit in melee, and only a small damage deficit, but a substantial to hit advantage, at range.  If we build both characters out to their strengths, rather than forcing the Halfling to focus away from his area of strength just because that's the half orc's area of expertise, I think we get two characters with much more comparable utility.  And we haven't discussed the Halfling's +3 save advantage against Cause Fear, his +1 overall save advantage or his extra skill point.Yet you try to force the Halfling to focus on the mechanics that are to the half orc's advantage, rather than being a Halfling focused fighter.  Build a half orc archer and let's see how that works out!I think the question is balance.  In a game of roughly equal combat and persuasion/subterfuge, those characters seem pretty equivalent to me.  The Bard can do SOMETHING in combat, at least.  I'd say even a slight preference to combat challenges would be equitable.The problem comes when, with a third to half of the challenges related to social interaction, the Barbarian player complains because he can't do much, if anything, for that part of the game.  And the Bard can at least do SOMETHING in combat, so to be "fair", we'll have more combat and less social interaction.  And/or we'll let the Barbarian use his player's eloquence and look the other way at the character's low CHA and lack of skill ranks.  So the Barbarian's combat prowess becomes relevant much more often than the Bard's social skills and/or the value of the Bard's social skills gets reduced to make the Barbarian player happy (but his combat prowess is not curtailed in any way).Over the editions, player choice in attributes has become greater, first in allowing players to assign rolls to stats rather than taking the rolls for each stat as they come, with the big shift from 2e to 3e, where point buy has become much more prevalent, again favouring equal resources.  The last to go is the luck of the hp roll.  Maybe it's time that went away as well.  That swing has a much greater impact on warriors than on wizards - the wizard can roll 1.5 below average and 3 below max, where the Barbarian can roll 5.5 below average and 11 below max.  Who can offset low rolls with Toughness or CON items more effectively?This, to me, is why multiclassing works poorly in 3e and above, and will continue to work poorly until/unless some way of making a L5 F/L5 W equate to a L10 F or a L10 W is found/created.  2e kept the multiclass about a level behind the single classed character for about the first 10 levels, and he got the best of the two classes abilities.  Maybe we need some way to generate a hybrid "single class" to reflect a more "multiclass" character.  However, with additive saves, BAB's, etc., rather than "pick the best of the two", it's mainly class abilities (especially spells for the spellcasters) where a Multiclass lags significantly behind.However, the fact that multiclass creates a weakening is, to me, a separate issue that should be addressed, not a reason that we should accept that some base classes will just be "superior".  3e dealt with this, to the extent it did at all, with prestige classes that provided a greater portion of the benefits of each class than could be obtained by simple multiclassing.  To me, that's less a solution and more an acknowledgement that 3e multiclassing was much less than perfect.Which, coming back to the thread topic, makes the lack of any multiclass rules in the playtest to date somewhat worrying.</blockquote>

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