Impact of "fixing" the MAD classes?

[Garthanos]

It would highly depend on what method of character generation one was using, but with some variation of 4d6 method there was a pretty good chance you would end up with a low low stat. The majority of characters didn't have anything below 8, and there were certainly plenty of rather bland characters out there, but there were also a goodly number that had one (or sometimes even 2 or 3 low stats).

The throw the character out if you don't like it option... got rid of the true out lying cases if I recall.. no 2 or 3 low stats, heck DM's i recall actively discouraged those. Somebody might have kept a character who had a 6, because the character also had an 18 and a 17. But a good majority were way far to the high end middle, shrug. Like I said I think a different mechanic other than stats (disads) needs to be used if you want characters with "character"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The throw the character out if you don't like it option... got rid of the true out lying cases if I recall.. no 2 or 3 low stats, heck DM's i recall actively discouraged those. Somebody might have kept a character who had a 6, because the character also had an 18 and a 17. But a good majority were way far to the high end middle, shrug. Like I said I think a different mechanic other than stats (disads) needs to be used if you want characters with "character"

It wasn't at all like that in our games. There was no unequivocal "I'm throwing this character away and starting over" notion. Not that a DM was going to make someone play a character with all horrible stats or no good ones either for that matter. But it was understood in our games that you took what you were dealt and the fun of it was to make the character interesting and workable. If you said to the DM "I just can't work with this" or "this stat array just won't let me do some interesting thing I want to try" then usually either you could start over or tweak one of the numbers. There were always the power gamers around that wanted all 18's, but we mostly just found that amusing.

I cannot recall anyone insisting on running a totally bad stat character, but we probably would have allowed it just for laughs. Characters with 2 low stats though were not all that gimped and the really memorable characters in our games were mostly of that type.

Gilladian, the dwarf with 6 int and something like maybe 3 or 5 wisdom. The character was still the toughest fighter in the group, but it was hillarious when he would do something amazingly blockheaded.

Grog the half-orc, another super low int character, with horrible charisma to boot, but a happy-go-lucky personality (and again a pretty tough character).

Etc.

I also recall the contrary character my sister had, "Thayson" the Bard. All ridiculously high stats. You could win a million in Vegas with the luck of that set of stat roles. It was a really powerful character, but much more lacklustre than the more interesting ones.

That is what 4e is missing out on a bit.

Sure, you can stick in some 'disad' rules, but it just isn't the same thing. First of all every disad system I ever saw was always an invitation to game the system, so it inevitably creates charop problems. And while you can certainly come up with plenty of decent personality stuff to go with disads it provides a lot less variety, less basic "who am I". One other nice thing about stats as an RP device, even the less RP focused players are at least getting some kind of an idea of what their character is and what it can do. If the character has a low dex, he's clumbsy. Maybe the player doesn't work with that much, but at least once in a while the DM has a logic to make the character fall down and go bump. That's something.

 

[Garthanos]

Sure, you can stick in some 'disad' rules, but it just isn't the same thing. First of all every disad system I ever saw was always an invitation to game the system, so it inevitably creates charop problems. And while you can certainly come up with plenty of decent personality stuff to go with disads it provides a lot less variety, less basic "who am I". One other nice thing about stats as an RP device, even the less RP focused players are at least getting some kind of an idea of what their character is and what it can do. If the character has a low dex, he's clumbsy. Maybe the player doesn't work with that much, but at least once in a while the DM has a logic to make the character fall down and go bump. That's something.

You must have missed the disad rules where you get compensated only at the time where your limit creates problems for your character in actual play... its pretty common in modern rpg games. It corresponds "roughly" to old school... rewarding somebody for good roleplay. When a quality of your character brings something cool to the table that is an actual problem for the character (DMs choice) the player gets rewarded with something..

You can also play it the other direction if they want there personality feature for instance to bring them some advantage, they might even pay for that. The economy of it is rather easy to keep under control.

 

[KarinsDad]

I like this solution a lot. I guess you'd also eliminate the Expertise feats. What would you do about the defense buff feats? Is this by itself enough to balance non AC defenses?

I allow the feats in the core rules, but not the ones in PHB II (like Epic Iron Wind or the Expertise feats). I will most often allow bonus feats, even from PHB II, if they do not happen all of the time (e.g. +2 to hit until the end of the next turn type feats will probably be ok).

Effectively what this does without feats or powers is:

to hit: PCs gain +28, NPCs gain +29 armor
AC: PCs gain +27, NPCs gain +29 to hit
defenses: PCs gain +27, NPCs gain +29 to hit

With all of the synergies and special abilites in the game, having the PCs be 2 behind the 8 ball (~5 behind the 8 ball for low defenses) at high levels is fine. They can make that up in a variety of ways. They just could not make up the 4 behind the 8 ball for high defenses and 8 behind the 8 ball for low defenses as per the core rules. The core rules are:

to hit: PCs gain +25, NPCs gain +29 armor
AC: PCs gain +27, NPCs gain +29 to hit
defenses: PCs gain +22 to +25, NPCs gain +29 to hit

 

[evilbob]

So, PHB2 has decided that the way to go is for all classes to have one ability which is used for all their attacks, and a choice of secondary abilities which can provide modifiers to the attacks.

But what about the poor PHB1 classes that are lumbered with half their powers depending upon one ability and half upon another?

Well, one option would be for the Cleric to say "Choose either Str or Wis to use as the basis for all your attacks". Another option would be to say "Use Wis for all your attacks". Paladins could be either "Choose either Str or Cha to use as the basis for all your attacks" or "Use Cha for all your attacks". same for Warlocks with their Con or Cha power choice.

I think what I would be tempted to do is

a) Clerics use Wis for all their attacks
b) Paladins use Cha for all their attacks
c) Infernal warlocks use Con for all their attacks
d) Fey warlocks use Cha for all their attacks
e) Star warlocks choose at chargen time whether to use Con or Cha for all their attacks.

Rangers... their selection of "Str with a melee weapon, Dex with a ranged weapon" for a lot of their powers (and then with some melee only and some ranged only) works OK for me at the moment.

Downsides to doing this? Fighter/Cleric and Fighter/Paladin multiclasses look less attractive.

Other than that, how does it look? Workable? Good/bad/indifferent (and why)?

Cheers

Buddy, you are so preachin' to the choir on this one! I have been saying this for months. Months!

In my own game I made the decision long ago to go with the following house rule for all dual-stat classes: pick one stat that is an attack stat your class can choose; that works for all of your powers for both attack and damage. In my game I have a cleric and a warlock. Interestingly, only the warlock has taken me up on it. Or at least, the cleric never bothered to take any Str powers anyway.

Here are a few consequences/observations that I've noticed:

- Clerics need 13 Str. It's sad, but they do. They start with Chain and no shield profs; if they ever want more AC they've got to burn feats and suck up the Str and Con requirement. This is a pretty sad thing, because it means they will suffer in Cha - they can't get more than a 15 to start out with two 13s (and a 16 in Wis, of course). Sure, you can play a Con-Wis race or wait until epic to get your scale on, but what they REALLY need is a Wis-Cha race, period. And then it will be easier to dump Con and accept the fact that they should never be in melee - it's called "laser cleric" for a reason.

- Paladins need 13 Con, and can be fine with 8 Str. Same reason, in reverse: they've already got all their armor profs. Plate specialization takes 15 Con, so if you start with 13 you'll make it by epic. You'll NEVER qualify for the cool paragon weapon-based feats (Heavy Blade Opportunist takes how much Dex?) nor will you get the 19-20 crits, either (except for Bows, of course). Half-elves (and hobgoblins) are great because they have a natural Con boost and can spend some of those extra points making their Reflex not suck... But again, what is really missing is a Wis-Cha race.

For both of these classes, the new "use any stat for basic melees" feat is a really awesome patch- er, choice. Paladins, being defenders, need it even more than clerics.

Like you said, rangers almost don't need any help. A quick look at the CharOp forums will let you know that Str-based rangers are already doing fine. The only "fix" that would work here is to make everything Dex-based, which wouldn't hurt the core class but it'd make the 1700-damage-nova-round ranger a bit harder to pull off.

Warlocks are fairly similar as well, only because their stats synergize with their builds so well that a Con-based lock is rarely going to want to take a Cha-based power and vice-versa. Sure, it'd be nice when they want to switch it up, and I've not see a starlock in play so I don't know if they REALLY get the short end of the stick, but again the best solution is probably to just pick one and stick with it. Making it Cha makes locks play more nicely in multiclassing, while making it Con means they're at least original even if they can't swap well with anyone else.


ALL THAT TO SAY that your idea (above) is easily as good as any other, and that's because there is no definitive way to solve this problem. Dual-stat classes just have a disadvantage. Period. Until that disadvantage is removed, the best you can do is band-aid the problem in whatever way makes the most sense to your campaign.

Sorry most of this was a rant and only partially answered your question.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just to give the opposite viewpoint again (probably redundant, but what the hay), I see the classes in PHB1 as essentially several single-build classes packaged as multiple builds of a single base class.

Straladin and chaladin are just in essence different classes. Granted each is a class with a limited power selection, but DP should fix that, or at least one would hope so. If it doesn't, then that would be disappointing.

 

[Sadrik]

Straladin and chaladin are just in essence different classes. Granted each is a class with a limited power selection, but DP should fix that, or at least one would hope so. If it doesn't, then that would be disappointing.

My hope is that they include a feat that allows you to use all your powers off of one stat. Basically to open up all of the options for those 4 gimped 1/2-classes. The classes are not gimped in power but gimped in versatility and variability. Having 1/2 power selection is really a big limiter and they did not make the classes any more powerful for the hit.

Something like:

Cleric Training
Prerequisite: Cleric
Benefit:
You can use your STR powers with your CHA or vice verse (worded more precisely). Then down the line for the other three 1/2-classes.

At the very least, if they include a feat like this it can give the player a viable option to build their character with the uni-bloated stat standard in 4e and get full power selection and not be limited to 1/2 their powers.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My hope is that they include a feat that allows you to use all your powers off of one stat. Basically to open up all of the options for those 4 gimped 1/2-classes. The classes are not gimped in power but gimped in versatility and variability. Having 1/2 power selection is really a big limiter and they did not make the classes any more powerful for the hit.

Something like:

Cleric Training
Prerequisite: Cleric
Benefit:
You can use your STR powers with your CHA or vice verse (worded more precisely). Then down the line for the other three 1/2-classes.

At the very least, if they include a feat like this it can give the player a viable option to build their character with the uni-bloated stat standard in 4e and get full power selection and not be limited to 1/2 their powers.

Sort of seems like if you go that way then you just did away with the 4 'V shaped' classes. That might have been the best design from the start, but in essence that is result, all classes become single stat secondary. It really is much of a minor detail as to which stat you use, except if it is a choice then the choice is clear, nobody would CHOOSE to be a Chaladin since WIS and CHA stack on WILL defense and STR is kind of that stat that anyone who ever swings a weapon at all pretty much has a use for.

The situation may not be so clear cut with the warlock builds, but it does kind of wash out the flavor of the various pacts. Not a disaster of course.

In the case of rogues and rangers I think you actually are loosing a good bit though, and some other problems arise. High damage ranged attack capability is a VERY powerful feature for a character to have. The Archer ranger and the Sniper rogue pay for that with a significant loss of melee combat capability. If you merge the two halves, then you obliterate that disadvantage. Nobody would ever play a STR ranger if they can use DEX universally in place of STR, and if a rogue can have all rogue powers and not have to worry about CHA, then you'll have rogues that are universally max pumped in STR/DEX every time and fight equally with all weapons as well.

Granted there are secondary effects of various powers that your feat doesn't obliterate the distinctions for, but if a character can have really superior fighting skill, they'll pretty much always ignore that.

The final weakness with that is that rogue and ranger are the MC choices par-excellence. Monkeying with the stat balance of how their powers work is likely to create a whole bunch of nasty combos. A proper feat prereq can deal with that on the MC into those classes side, but on the side of MC out of them, it could get ugly.

 

[Sadrik]

Sort of seems like if you go that way then you just did away with the 4 'V shaped' classes.

What is that, V shaped? is that like a v8 vs. a straight 6? I think in this case I would take the straight 6.

nobody would CHOOSE to be a Chaladin since WIS and CHA stack on WILL defense and STR is kind of that stat that anyone who ever swings a weapon at all pretty much has a use for.

Welcome to Stat Polarity, I excruciatingly disfavor that limitation in the game. Oh, I can't have a WIS and CHA character because it doubles up my stat points. Oh how, I wish that was thought through better.

In the case of rogues and rangers

Rogues don't have the distinction of being a 1/2 class. Cleric, Paladin, Ranger and Warlock are the happy 1/2 classes. Multi-classing feats would not change I don't think.

The other option would be to simple give them the feat for free at character creation if they want it. Similar to what many people are doing with melee training and other feats from PHB2.

 

[CapnZapp]

To me, "fixing" these four classes will probably do more harm than good.

We already agree these classes aren't less powerful than other classes (on average), they're less versatile with fewer options.

So the problem is that they are boring, not weak, yes?

Then the solution isn't to remove MAD, but to give more powers.

Removing MAD means much of the interesting choices you need to make disappears (as explained well by AbdulAlhazred). Instead, waiting for Divine Power (for cleric and paladin) to expand the power choices seems a much better long-term solution.

And to that end, I have a question: can we use Martial Power as a gauge on to what extent AP/DP will solve MAD?

That is, do Martial Power in your opinion alleviate the problem for the martial MAD class, the Ranger? (Or was that book published "too soon" in the life-cycle of the game? Or is it even so that the Ranger suffers much less from its MAD than Cleric/Warlock/Paladin?)