Agreed.I have no problems with the 4e fighter saying "You should put your highest score in Str".
I agree with this.It isn't really about competition for people that are after balance either, at least not usually so.
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I would classify it more as "contribution". We do not want that the choice of a particular character class automatically means that character has less to contribute.
I think your first para is correct. But I feel that your second para perhaps misses a couple of issues: (i) the player of the druid who is two fighters gets double spotlight time; (ii) the weaker PC is, in some sense at least, valuable only because the druid opts not to completely dominate the situation - there's a bit of a "hero and sidekick" flavour to it, I think.But of course in gaming terms it's certainly frustrating when someone in the group too often has a trick to skip a challenge, because the player's purpose is in the challenge.
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if the Druid can fight as well as 2 Fighters then the game is still fine IF the combat is arranged so that while the Druid fights his 2orcs then my Fighter fights her own orc, and both players are challenged enough. If that's so, I don't see why I should be worried about playing the Fighter, except of the worry that in a fight me and the Druid make the mistake of engaging the wrong opponents, in case e.g. there's an orc and an ogre and the weaker PC takes on the ogre while the stronger PC mops the floor with the orc in a round.
I like this way of thinking.If we don't want to give the Fighter the ability to teleport and summon animal companions, and the Rogue the ability to cast Silence, Invisiblity and Knock, and we don't want to take these abilities away, there may be other ways than 4E. But they'll probably be heavily meta-game focused, like giving the Fighter and Rogue "Karma Points" or "Bennies" or "Possibilities" or some other metagame resources which they can use to bend the rules for their benefit. Say spend Karma so the Fighter can say "No, I can't teleport, but I once worked as body guard for a local Wizard and he still owes me a favor or two, I think he can teleport us wherever we want" or the Rogue may say: "Oh, I think I remember the kitchen servant of the BBEG, she can smuggle me in, so we don't need Invisiblity" or "I just spend Karma so the enemies ignore my failed stealth roll".
And to [MENTION=6696705]Underman[/MENTION], there is nothing special about teleport here. It's about functionality in general - if the fighter or rogue is going to be weaker or less functional in straightforward ability terms (fewer attacks, lesser social skils, whatever) then metagame resources of some form or other are the obvious way to make it up.
I don't think anyone talking about skills has mentioned damage until you bring it up in this post.It's a rare case that craft or profession skills add much to the adventure. They do on occasion I'm not arguing but it's rare. None of them are as good though as stealth.
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If though you say that it has to be equally value to every other skill when on the adventuring trail then I think you are taking a lot of fun elements out of the game.
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I just think we need to stop obsessing over damage combo powers (basically make each class do it's damage intrinsically) and then let the powers/feats/spells etc.. be the way we vary how it works flavorfully. Then those choices become about fun instead of powergaming.
Doing damage is not the only measure of effectiveness, and in fact is largely irrelevant outside the combat "pillar". But my view is that, if an ability is purchased as part of PC building (be it via skill choice, feat choice, background choice etc) then it ought to be comparable in effectiveness/contribution to the other options foregone in making the choice.
Otherwise it has been mispriced.
I think framing it as an issue of fun vs powergaming is unhelpful. What is the source of fun? If it is the case that the GM will frame scenes around it, for example, then the ability is doing its job and is paying its way. (For this reason, Burning Wheel makes players pay for PC disadvantages - because they increase spotlight time by sucking up energy and attention at the table.)
But the rules need to call all this out, both for players and GMs.
I don't think anyone is denying that some RPG players value simulation in their games, even ahead of balance. (Look at Classic Runequest or Travelle, for paradigm examples of this.)A game that's about creating a reality doesn't need to simulate anything? Hard to take any of your posts seriously if you don't acknowledge the value of simulation (and implicitly put balance ahead of it).
But if you're saying that an RPG can't generate a shared fiction unless it has simulating mechanics, you're just wrong. HeroWars/Quest and Maelstrom Storytelling, and to a somewhat lesser extent 4e, are all counterexamples.
If you're wondering how it works, here is an explanation from Ron Edwards:
Gamist and Narrativist (ie non-simulationist) play often share the following things:
*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. . .
*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.
*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.
*Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a pre-stated plan of play.
*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.
*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.
*Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a pre-stated plan of play.
Notice the eschewel of simulation at each point. PCs and NPCs are played with reference to metagame priorities ("Author stance") rather than simply by "inhabitation"/immersion. Resolution is often FitM, as a particular instances of a more casual approach to establishing the shared fiction, using the results of the mechanics to set parameters for permissible narration rather than actually specifying the results (in 4e, this is utterly crucial for skill challenges, but is important to a lot of other stuff too, such as narrating forced movement and psychic damage). And "rewards", which in the context of D&D is mostly PC development, is based not on ingame causation (think the skill gain rolls in RuneQuest) but on metagame priorities of the participants.
In short: an RPG with a shared fiction among the participants; but no simulation. 4e doesn't go this way completely. HeroWars/Quest, and Maelstrom Storytelling, both do.