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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6028561" data-attributes="member: 85870">This is sort of the point of &quot;bounded accuracy&quot; in my mind. If I'm reading the point of bounded accuracy correctly, the idea is to allow a broader range of character effectiveness, i.e. a lower amount of &quot;optimization&quot; is required for a character to remain effective at task resolution for a longer period of time. This is something Savage Worlds manages very effectively by assuming that the baseline competency for a proficient skill is actually quite high. A d4 skill in Savage Worlds is functionally equivalent to a +7 bonus in a d20-based system, and a d12 skill is equivalent to around a +15. Yes, there's a definite sense that one is more qualified than the other, but the difference is not so overwhelming in game play that the lower skilled character has no hope of contributing. This reality also tends to push players away from min-maxing (though it can still certainly be done), because the mechanical reward for maximizing a &quot;one trick pony&quot; character is far, far less valuable. Players who min-max in Savage Worlds end up with characters with obvious weaknesses, who are very much tied to their specific &quot;role.&quot; They're very good at their &quot;schtick,&quot; but unable to contribute in as many situations as other characters.In some ways, the established D&amp;D-ism of class-based advancement assumes that some options are naturally going to be inferior for some classes; there's just no getting around it. If you want to play a game where there are literally NO inferior choices, only choices that agree or disagree with your character concept, then don't play a class-based game, or just fully embrace the 4e paradigm that every character will have to exist in a rigid mechanical structure.That said, there's also a difference between &quot;inferior&quot; and campaign-specific assumptions. For example, if you're going to be playing a high-combat oriented campaign in GURPS, you should probably take some combination of the Combat Reflexes / High Pain Threshold / Toughness advantages. You're certainly not required to, but you're definitely going to role play your characters differently if you don't.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 6028561, member: 85870"] This is sort of the point of "bounded accuracy" in my mind. If I'm reading the point of bounded accuracy correctly, the idea is to allow a broader range of character effectiveness, i.e. a lower amount of "optimization" is required for a character to remain effective at task resolution for a longer period of time. This is something Savage Worlds manages very effectively by assuming that the baseline competency for a proficient skill is actually quite high. A d4 skill in Savage Worlds is functionally equivalent to a +7 bonus in a d20-based system, and a d12 skill is equivalent to around a +15. Yes, there's a definite sense that one is more qualified than the other, but the difference is not so overwhelming in game play that the lower skilled character has no hope of contributing. This reality also tends to push players away from min-maxing (though it can still certainly be done), because the mechanical reward for maximizing a "one trick pony" character is far, far less valuable. Players who min-max in Savage Worlds end up with characters with obvious weaknesses, who are very much tied to their specific "role." They're very good at their "schtick," but unable to contribute in as many situations as other characters. In some ways, the established D&D-ism of class-based advancement assumes that some options are naturally going to be inferior for some classes; there's just no getting around it. If you want to play a game where there are literally NO inferior choices, only choices that agree or disagree with your character concept, then don't play a class-based game, or just fully embrace the 4e paradigm that every character will have to exist in a rigid mechanical structure. That said, there's also a difference between "inferior" and campaign-specific assumptions. For example, if you're going to be playing a high-combat oriented campaign in GURPS, you should probably take some combination of the Combat Reflexes / High Pain Threshold / Toughness advantages. You're certainly not required to, but you're definitely going to role play your characters differently if you don't. [/QUOTE]

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