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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4125243" data-attributes="member: 5143">Not ALL non-combat builds make them useless in combat.  However, say you take the concept of a dexterous fighter who wields a rapier.  He doesn't know how to use it well, however.  He has the concept of a noble who carries around a rapier because its custom to do so.  Plus, he isn't very diplomatic or able to cast spells or very sneaky or rogue like so fighter was the best class fit.  He keeps his con low because he's a pampered noble who isn't very tough.  He spends all his feats on skill focus(knowledge(nobility)) and negotiator and such.Now, any game where there is a high focus on diplomacy and out of combat stuff, his is at a mechanical disadvantage to someone playing a bard with the same concept, since the bard has those things as class skills.  Anything he can do the bard or rogue can likely do better.  No point in him being around other than having an interesting personality.Meanwhile, any game that has a high focus on combat now has a fighter who has no strength modifier who can only do 1d6 points of damage per hit.  Which is a useless fighter at first level, nevermind 10th or 20th.  He is complete dead weight.So, now you have a character whose only purpose is for the player to make witty remarks and act like a noble.  Which you can do even if you are an 18 strength fighter with a greatsword.The same thing happens with the pacifist cleric.  Works great out of combat, since most of out of combat doesn't use rules.  During combat, his hold person won't do anything when confronted with the tarrasque attacking the city.  It won't stop the rampaging purple worm.  And when a party member dies due to poison the fact that the cleric was role playing his character by not facilitating combat by casting Heroes Feast won't be of much comfort.It doesn't limit what people play that much.  You can still play the above noble.  However, you have to write into his background that he actually spent time training in his rapier and built up his strength in order to be good at it.  He'll be just as good at the out of combat stuff as before.  However, he'll now be capable of surviving in a dungeon crawl when it happens.You can play a pacifist cleric in the same way you did before.  It will just likely require you ignore more of your abilities than before and be just as useless in combat situations.Frankly, since every D&D game I've ever played in ended up having at least two combats every 4 hours we played, I always considered it absolute madness to make a character who would drop dead at the first sign of an enemy with a CR higher than its own level.</blockquote>

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