Thanee said:
If you think that every adventurer has to have good skills, why don't you give every adventurer some levels of rogue?
If you don't think the special abilities fit, go for expert.
Well, just to have some in-game fun between co-players, I'll debate these...
Being rudimentally functional with a skill that is used out of combat shouldn't require taking a level of rogue.
I'm quite adamant in that approach.
If a gaming system requires all PC's to either have a high INT or a level of rogue (at 1st level, mind you) to properly emulate a reasonably aware, and competent personality *gasp* out-of-combat, than there is something seriously wrong with the system, in my eyes.
Not wrong enough not to play it, but certainly wrong enough to contemplate a CHANGE.
(And expert is a NPC class - not a viable option, IMO)
If that doesn't work for you, spend your feats on stuff like Cosmopolitan.
The over-reliance on feats to fix an oversight in a gaming system is one of the biggest fallacies of 3E, IMO.
Feats are such a precious commodity to allow for interesting fighting tactics, to use them as a role-playing enhancement is a big screw-job.
Feats are NOT always the answer. (in my experience, seldom the answer.)
Now, if you got over twice as many feats as you currently do, or if you were allowed "flavor-feats", that would help the situation.
A single-class fighter (for example) has probably spend his whole time learning and practicing fighting, that's why he's a fighter and nothing else. Very unlikely, so single-class characters are unrealistic to start.
I don't agree.
A fighter is not a dumb lump.
Just because historically in D&D a fighter was a meat-shield does not mean that that sterotype must perpetuate.
Before you say it, CR : you should ALSO not be required to be a human or a brainiac to be good at anything outside of combat, either.
The insinuation that all a fighter does is fight is absurd.
They rle-play.
they interact with people.
They do more than kill stuff.
(and if you extend the example to compare paladins, and why the hell they are just stumps that fight well and have a few overrated abilities and no real skill to interact with people, than it really gets bad..)
Of course, the whole game concept is not highly realistic (hit points being the worst of it all).
But if the designers felt that, why did they even adopt such a flawed skills system?
I applaud the effort in 3E to join other game systems, and include skills, but over time, I'm more disenchanted with the way they implemented it.
Glossing over a gaming flaw with "It's not a realistic game, so why bother trying to fix it" is a cop-out, in my eyes.
If we can make it better, to not do so is a dereliction of our gaming duties! (the paladin in me talking)
I do agree somewhat, that the skill system is flawed. Either you are good at skills or you are very bad at skills, there seems to be no middle way. But you cannot simply give others more skills, because it hurts the balance and makes classes like the rogue obsolete.
This is the other commonly-held belief that is incorrect.
Since rogues ARE useful in combat (noone argues that too much), than everyone a couple more skill points per level (including the rogue) will not diminish his ability to dominate the skills arena. His list of class skills is really what sets him apart, and personally, I am not of the opinion that a fighter for example could not thru effort become a better bluffer than a rogue.
Rogues being too powerful?
Just because they can deal damage, doesn't make them on par with a fighter's combat capabililties. And skills are by far the weakest area to be good at, since there are so many ways to get good at skills (especially magic items).
One of the most common things said in the rogue camp is that they aren't as good as a fighter in combat.
I've never said they were, but that doesn't stop rogue apologists from stating that ad nauseum.
The point is not that the rogues aren't as good as the fighter in combat.
The point is that the rogue is quite near the fighter in combat capabilities.
While out-of-combat, the rogue stomps all over the fighter (and the paladin, and the...) so damn bad that everyone else might as well be a drooling simpleton with no social skills.
But you make a good point, Thanee:
Wizards truly are the ridiculous ones.
If you took your first level in rogue, than wizard, and have average stats with a high intelligence (sun elf), and just pump your magic item creation into stat and skill-pumping items, you would BE A
GOD.
How expensive would a item that casts multiple 1st level skill-pumping spells be?
Giving the wizard a choice of whatever skill-pumping spell he wanted from the 5, up to 5 per day?
Between that item or 2, and all the stat-pumping spells (Cat's Grace, Endurance, Bull's Strength, etc) the wizard could eclipse everyone in the party and literally be a paragon of humanity, unequalled in the lands!
