Rule of 3. May 8th

[Gundark]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rule-of-Three: 05/08/2012)

So I caught some ribbing for simply saying "discuss", so..."talk"....have a "conversation"

 

[Savage Wombat]

So, no priests. You want to zap, choose your domains correctly.

Anyone else think he didn't actually answer the third question?

 

[GX.Sigma]

Love #2's implication of large amounts of customization including priest domains.

Wary about #3's implication that the ranger is supposed to be the best at archery.

 

[Henry]

So, no priests. You want to zap, choose your domains correctly.

Anyone else think he didn't actually answer the third question?

I think he answered it pretty decently -- short answer, they don't know yet, but their end goal is to make focused clerics good at certain things, but not good enough to outshine a class for whom a certain thing is their "schtick." I would suppose on a power scale of 0 to 1, where 1 is "super good", have an untrained person be a 0, a basic proficient person be at a .25, the cleric be at a .75, and the class for whom it's their zone of influence be at a .75, which with the right feats and such goes to a 1.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One possibility:

Background and Theme are breadth.

Class is depth.

If you're a Hunter background with the Archery theme, you have nature skills and can wield a bow. If you're also a Ranger, you're REALLY GOOD at those things. If you're a cleric, you're not REALLY GOOD at those things, but you're not bad at them -- you can do them. They are valid choices for you. They don't SUCK, they're just not what you're generally about, as a cleric.

This Ro3 reminds me again that domains and themes are really very similar concepts....

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Do not tinker. Do. There is no tinker.

A rather disappointing level of commitment to a fundamental design question that has been obvious before, during, and after 3.0.

For example, we're tinkering with the idea that a cleric's domain choice might steer play style slightly. Take the healing domain, be the best healer. Take the war domain, be a great melee cleric. Take the sun domain, be a great laser cleric. It's still in process, but that's one line of thought.

Tinkering? Why just tinker?

<rant>
The cleric has been a boring cardboard cutout of every other cleric since forever, because D&D designers seem to think it is important that a measly life-long dedication to an immensely powerful divine being does not tweak the standard boring kit of any cleric.

FREX: Turning could very easily be a domain ability or feat tree, and yanked out of the core mechanics.

FREX: There is no reason that the cleric needs good armor and weapon selection. They can take a level of Fighter if fighting is so important.
</rant>

 

[RangerWickett]

I had a player back in 2e with a Skills & Powers cleric to have all sorts of trickery and charm spells. She wore light armor. The rules let her trade out heavy armor for more spells.

I had a player in 3.5 who played a cleric in Eberron, as a cop in Sharn, with the illusion and travel domains so he could be tricky and fly around. He wore light armor too, even though the rules did not let him trade out the heavy armor for anything else. He just gave himself a crappy strength and preferred to fly around in a chain shirt, healing the party while invisible.

So as long as you have lots of options of things you can be good at, I see no problem in giving characters stuff even if they don't want to use it. I'm cool if all clerics get heavy armor proficiency, just as long as I'm not forced to wear it to be effective. I'm cool if all wizards can summon a familiar, just as long as there's no penalty for refusing to walk around with a frog in my pocket.

 

[erleni]

Love #2's implication of large amounts of customization including priest domains.

Wary about #3's implication that the ranger is supposed to be the best at archery.

Why? I'm just curious about the reasons behind this.

 

[Serendipity]

Nuts, I was really sold on the idea of separate cleric and priest classes. Alas, like a lot of the early speculation, it seems to have been dialed back or removed.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The main problem I see with all these character build options is that there will a big effectiveness gap between a character with the mechanically best theme, background, domain, and other class options, and a character with the worst.