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<blockquote data-quote="Kraydak" data-source="post: 6148479" data-attributes="member: 12306">And none of the &quot;new mechanics&quot; have actually made it mainstream.&nbsp; Further, as seen up-thread, they are often disliked.You are welcome to try.&nbsp; I can't imagine it being anything but a waste of time, but hey, your time.&nbsp; On the other hand, focussing on giving Fighters narrative options (no success so far) blinds you to the possibility of explicitly not giving them narrative options, which has been historically decently successful.Kinda/sorta/not really.&nbsp; On one hand, you have 1/2e Clerics.&nbsp; A powerful class (not a heal bot!&nbsp; the lack of heals at spell levels 2 and 3, and the lack of Cure Wounds scaling saw to that), with a decent defense, but no offense to speak of.&nbsp; Then you have Wizards, with &quot;amazing&quot; offensive spells... that could be matched by a Fighter in a round or two.&nbsp; And the Wizard got actually just-about DnD Next numbers of spell slots.&nbsp; Wizards weren't helpless offensively (although Fireball and Lightning Bolt were both... difficult.. to deploy if played straight)... but were completely helpless defensively, thanks to not actually having any HP.&nbsp; A 1e/2e party that tried to engage in combat without a Fighter (or Fighter subclass) was bonkers.&nbsp; What Wizards *did* have was enough of an offensive punch to contribute on final boss fights.Actually, it is a good design goal (as long as the write-off isn't total).&nbsp; What we got in 3e was lots of combat, which resulted in Casters taking lots of combat spells, which meant adventure designers upped the fight difficulties, which resulted in casters doing full burns, which resulted in the complete sidelining of Fighters, and the 5MWD.&nbsp; And boring modules, because the Casters could contribute (heck, dominate) combat, while the Fighters couldn't contribute there.By having some characters be not-good at out-of-combat stuff and some characters not-good at combat, you (a) force module design to be more interesting (you'd see a lot less set-piece battles, and more plain &quot;how do you get past this&quot;) and (b) make your whole game-balance problem much, much easier.&nbsp; It also forces players to play outside of their character's specialty, forcing creativity.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kraydak, post: 6148479, member: 12306"] And none of the "new mechanics" have actually made it mainstream. Further, as seen up-thread, they are often disliked. You are welcome to try. I can't imagine it being anything but a waste of time, but hey, your time. On the other hand, focussing on giving Fighters narrative options (no success so far) blinds you to the possibility of explicitly not giving them narrative options, which has been historically decently successful. Kinda/sorta/not really. On one hand, you have 1/2e Clerics. A powerful class (not a heal bot! the lack of heals at spell levels 2 and 3, and the lack of Cure Wounds scaling saw to that), with a decent defense, but no offense to speak of. Then you have Wizards, with "amazing" offensive spells... that could be matched by a Fighter in a round or two. And the Wizard got actually just-about DnD Next numbers of spell slots. Wizards weren't helpless offensively (although Fireball and Lightning Bolt were both... difficult.. to deploy if played straight)... but were completely helpless defensively, thanks to not actually having any HP. A 1e/2e party that tried to engage in combat without a Fighter (or Fighter subclass) was bonkers. What Wizards *did* have was enough of an offensive punch to contribute on final boss fights. Actually, it is a good design goal (as long as the write-off isn't total). What we got in 3e was lots of combat, which resulted in Casters taking lots of combat spells, which meant adventure designers upped the fight difficulties, which resulted in casters doing full burns, which resulted in the complete sidelining of Fighters, and the 5MWD. And boring modules, because the Casters could contribute (heck, dominate) combat, while the Fighters couldn't contribute there. By having some characters be not-good at out-of-combat stuff and some characters not-good at combat, you (a) force module design to be more interesting (you'd see a lot less set-piece battles, and more plain "how do you get past this") and (b) make your whole game-balance problem much, much easier. It also forces players to play outside of their character's specialty, forcing creativity. [/QUOTE]

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