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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5028249" data-attributes="member: 58197">The way I see it, there are two schools of thought as regards character creation. I'm going to call them the "prix fixe" and the "a la carte" schools.The "prix fixe" school gives you a set of prefab character concepts. If you want to be a sword-and-board fighter, you pick the Fighter class with the Sword-and-Board specialty, and that's it. Your powers and abilities are dictated from those choices.The "a la carte" school gives you a set of discrete components, and you can mix and match to taste. If you want to be a sword-and-board fighter, you put high stats in Strength and Constitution, pick a set of attack maneuvers suitable for use with a one-handed weapon, plus some shield-oriented defense maneuvers, specialize in the longsword, get proficiency with heavy shields, and so forth.As geeks, we instinctively gravitate toward "a la carte," because it seems to us to offer much greater flexibility and the ability to create highly tailored and customized characters. We're control freaks and "a la carte" appears to offer us control. D&D's evolution up through 3E followed that trend. I used to think that was a good thing. I disliked character classes and wanted to see them go away.Now, however, I'm starting to believe that that view is naive. The reason is simple: Most of the apparent options granted by "a la carte" design contribute little or nothing to the character concept, and serve mainly as a way for experienced players to demonstrate system mastery at the expense of newbies. What's the difference (in 3E) between a fighter with Power Attack and one with Toughness? Concept-wise, very little. The only real difference is that one is a better fighter than the other, because Power Attack is one of the strongest feats a fighter can take, and Toughness is teh suck.So, I think the game should re-focus on making choices serve concept, moving toward a more "prix fixe" model. What does this mean in game terms? It means that you don't generally make multiple choices within a given sphere of activity. If you want to play a sword-and-board fighter, that's the only decision you make about your combat style at chargen. All of your combat abilities follow from that one decision. No combat feats, powers, et cetera - it's all laid out for you from the get-go.BUT, you do get to independently choose other aspects of your character concept. For example, background: You can be a sword-and-board fighter who's a noble, or a free citizen, or a peasant gone adventuring, or a former slave. Likewise, race: Human, elf, dwarf, and so on. The important thing is that none of these choices has a significant impact on your performance as a sword-and-board fighter. Each operates within its own sphere, largely separate from the rest... in WotC-speak, siloing.This would go a long way toward making the game newbie-friendly. It would more or less eliminate the danger of making a "wrong" choice (except insofar as certain classes turn out to be stronger than others). It would also reduce the daunting array of mechanical decisions that the newbie has to make with little or no guidance, while at the same time retaining the ability to make the decisions the newbie wants to make: Are you a fighter or a wizard? Sword-and-board or two-handed weapon? Human or elf? Noble or slave?It would also enable the designers to create much greater complexity and depth in play. Because each class would be designed as an integrated whole, instead of trying to make everything modular, each could be custom-tailored to offer a variety of tactical options.Of course, the problem with this is that it conflicts with WotC's business model, which is based on constantly expanding the menu of "a la carte" items. If players don't have to pick new feats and powers as they level up, then how can you sell them a new book full of feats and powers? WotC would have to develop a new business model before they could make such a change.</blockquote>

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