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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 4996135" data-attributes="member: 51942">In general, it is not considered acceptable to "sacrifice" out-of-combat skills to gain an edge in combat.This is partially due to the fact that it is abominably hard to really define and recognize such a loss; many losses don't really mean much anyhow since out-of-combat, roleplaying counts for more, and that's not a statistic on your charsheet you can sacrifice.Secondly, (and as has been mentioned before by various WotC articles) it's not fun to have a character that "just can't do anything" outside of combat.  By forcing players to choose between out-of-combat and in-combat utility, you are risking that they don't take the middle road but focus on one; this is problematic in a party where players don't all have the same balance, since it means the party's interests will diverge and it'll be harder to keep everyone entertained.  Thus, it's a good idea to keep combat and roleplaying as mostly orthogonal concepts:  trade-offs between the two are minor.Furthermore, with the current set up, having a low defense is not a balancing factor.  Since it is virtually assured that all PC's will have at least one defense which is trivially hit, and the rest will be poor too.  Many PC's have terrible defenses without having a compensatory benefit.  Focusing on these low defenses simply screws up the game.  Of course, if FRW actually became competitive, this could be a balancing factor (and would, for instance, neatly balance hide armor expertise somewhat for the barbarian - since a Str/Con build will inevitably have lower ref than a Str/Dex build).Looking at the barbarian in question, however, I'd say his AC is certainly not problematically high.  Even a level equivalent foe has no trouble hitting him; and that's without combat advantage and without considering that enemies of a bit higher level aren't uncommon at all.Summary: neither the out-of-combat factor nor his will defense are very appropriate balancing factors (they should never play more than a minor role as balancer), but the barb. doesn't look problematic.</blockquote>

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