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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Impact of "fixing" the MAD classes?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4731522" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Yeah, I just totally disagree with you Sadrik on the subject of the significance of stats. I think you're getting WAY too far into number land and your view of the game is disconnected from what it is supposed to be about. From a game mechanics standpoint numbers are just numbers, but from a standpoint of player's identification with their characters and their visceral understanding of how their character works they are NOT just numbers! When you treat them that way you destroy the sense of belief of the player in their character, and that is really just bad for your game.</p><p></p><p>Now, do I think that there should be some tyrannically exact interpretation of each stat? No. As I suggested with defenses, it won't break believability MUCH if we were to allow STR, INT, and WIS to be reallocated to any defense, and if you look at it, that actually is ALL you need to solve all of your stat problems. Any combination of stats is now reasonably viable from a standpoint of having fairly balanced defenses. Maybe it is a bit of a real stretch to imagine STR contributing to WILL, but I'll live with that tiny bit of imperfection in return for what it gains players in terms of making the character they want.</p><p></p><p>But to just say that every stat is good for 'whatever' is not ever going to fly in my campaign, it just takes away too much in other ways, no matter what you think it adds in terms of better game mechanics. I also don't think it really adds all that much. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I didn't mean that it destroys all differentiation between Warlock and a Ranger, etc. But it does destroy ALL diffentiation between warlock builds. Literally 100% of it. Maybe a bit less than 100% if you consider some of the extra 'riders' that are ability based, but since at this point you don't really have any reason for a player not to spread some stat points around it is pretty easy for a warlock to be basically just as good at all warlock powers. The differential is certainly small.</p><p></p><p>Beyond that it seems to me there is a bit of a have your cake and eat it too here. Why should a given character have ALL possible options? The price of being really good at one set of things IS that you forclose certain other options. I don't think that is really such a bad thing. Same goes with melee vs archer rangers. If you are an expert archer, you just can't really be the tip top guy with a sword. Remember, even a staff wizard at 5th level is still 10x better than any normal person, better even than a 1st level fighter with a sword. Just not good enough to tangle with a level 5 monster using it. I'm pretty much OK with that.</p><p></p><p>In any case I won't be doing things like letting people switch melee attacks from STR to DEX etc. It just degrades the role playing aspect of the game IMHO.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 4731522, member: 82106"] Yeah, I just totally disagree with you Sadrik on the subject of the significance of stats. I think you're getting WAY too far into number land and your view of the game is disconnected from what it is supposed to be about. From a game mechanics standpoint numbers are just numbers, but from a standpoint of player's identification with their characters and their visceral understanding of how their character works they are NOT just numbers! When you treat them that way you destroy the sense of belief of the player in their character, and that is really just bad for your game. Now, do I think that there should be some tyrannically exact interpretation of each stat? No. As I suggested with defenses, it won't break believability MUCH if we were to allow STR, INT, and WIS to be reallocated to any defense, and if you look at it, that actually is ALL you need to solve all of your stat problems. Any combination of stats is now reasonably viable from a standpoint of having fairly balanced defenses. Maybe it is a bit of a real stretch to imagine STR contributing to WILL, but I'll live with that tiny bit of imperfection in return for what it gains players in terms of making the character they want. But to just say that every stat is good for 'whatever' is not ever going to fly in my campaign, it just takes away too much in other ways, no matter what you think it adds in terms of better game mechanics. I also don't think it really adds all that much. I didn't mean that it destroys all differentiation between Warlock and a Ranger, etc. But it does destroy ALL diffentiation between warlock builds. Literally 100% of it. Maybe a bit less than 100% if you consider some of the extra 'riders' that are ability based, but since at this point you don't really have any reason for a player not to spread some stat points around it is pretty easy for a warlock to be basically just as good at all warlock powers. The differential is certainly small. Beyond that it seems to me there is a bit of a have your cake and eat it too here. Why should a given character have ALL possible options? The price of being really good at one set of things IS that you forclose certain other options. I don't think that is really such a bad thing. Same goes with melee vs archer rangers. If you are an expert archer, you just can't really be the tip top guy with a sword. Remember, even a staff wizard at 5th level is still 10x better than any normal person, better even than a 1st level fighter with a sword. Just not good enough to tangle with a level 5 monster using it. I'm pretty much OK with that. In any case I won't be doing things like letting people switch melee attacks from STR to DEX etc. It just degrades the role playing aspect of the game IMHO. [/QUOTE]
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Impact of "fixing" the MAD classes?
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