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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 3598338" data-attributes="member: 1457">Right. People complained that 3E kept classes, and the argument was "well, classes help players learn their roles and know what to expect from other players. A fighter is a fighter." Then everyone just multiclassed anyway, cherry picking abilities by dipping into a class for a level or two. Not so. From a playtest/combat balance standpoint, there are still four clear roles. Melee, archer, and two caster classes (support or blaster). And not every character can do what every other character does. You have to choose. If anything, separating skills from combat ability makes things easier to balance. Saying rogues are balanced against fighters because rogues have more skills is comparing apples to oranges. The classes are *un*balanced. The fighter is much more powerful in a fight, and the rogue is much more powerful out of a fight. Total and complete imbalance. It's like saying a tank is balanced against a kitten, because while the tank can destroy the kitten in a fight, the kitten is more fun to pet. WTF? Two imbalances don't create balance/two wrongs don't make a right. Better to balance a set of classes across combat, then balance another set of classes within  noncombat, and let players make two choices from these separate groupings of classes. Sounds cumbersome and unrealistic to me. Why can't my fighter be sociable? Why does learning how to string a sentence together force the fighter to fall behind the combat curve (loses a +1 BAB). Dipping into rogue for just the social skills brings along a host of other abilities, including sneak attack (good, I guess) and a crummy hit die and BAB (bad). Also, with the way DCs scale, you can't get by with a single dip. You have to keep going back for more levels, or waste skill points on cross-class skills (which, again, prevent you from keeping up with escalating DCs).I think it's more streamlined. Instead of having to look over every class, and dip one level here, one level there, "oops I have to *start* as a rogue, to get the big skill boost, then switch to fighter for the BAB, armor, and feat, then to Ranger for free Track and the ability to use wands of Cure Light Wounds"... that's complicated. Much better make it as simple as building a value meal:Choose a combat role: "I want to play a guy in armor with a sword, so... melee."Choose a noncombat role: "I want my guy to have a silver tongue, so... social."Done.The decision to be a guy who swings a sword doesn't railroad you into being an uncouth social reject, and the decision to be a smooth talker doesn't force you to be an unarmored d6-HD guy who can't go toe-to-toe in a fight.  -z</blockquote>

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