Should fighters be skill monkeys?

[DEFCON 1]

A wizard is as good at front line tanking as a fighter? A fighter is as good a healer as cleric?

I'm sorry, can you post again but starting from reality?

You give examples where you quote game mechanics (such as effects of spells (and by extension what classes have access to those spells) and call it story. It's not story, it's design and mechanics.

The decision of WHICH narrative identifiers are chosen to be represented in the game through game mechanics is due to the needs of the STORY. That's my point. The STORY says we need to identify a character's "strength". So the game designers come up with a number to represent that "strength". The STORY says we need to identify a character's "health". So the game designers come up with a number to represent it and call it "hit points". The STORY says that a character can choose to "wear" various type of "armor" and thus it makes it harder for that character to "get hurt". So the designers come up with a number to represent it and call it "armor class".

But none of these decisions are REQUIRED for the game to run. You don't NEED any of it. The designers could all have easily decided that characters could "wear" anything they wanted (chosen by the player), and that every character would still have the same "armor class" because they didn't feel the story of the game needed a difference in the math and mechanics to represent what characters were wearing. Just like in the game presently it does not give us any math and mechanics to decide how much any character gets to talk on their turn. The game certainly COULD. If they felt the narrative of the game needed to have each character only be able to say a certain amount of words in a turn, they could add in math or mechanics to represent it. But the designers decided that this part of the story in the game did not require mechanical representation.

And thus, anything in the game COULD be removed if the designers felt the math and mechanics were unnecessary to represent it. Why are there "wizards" and "fighters" and "clerics" and "rogues"? Because the designers had them in the story and narrative of the game and they felt they needed to be represented by math and mechanics. It's NOT because they had all this math and mechanics lying around and them saying "You know... the game has all these dice rolls we've put into it... maybe we should decide what they represent?"

So when I said above that "There's a fine line between ALL the classes in the game. And that line is purely story and fluff based."... it's because anything math and mechanics-related was inserted due entirely to what the designers felt the STORY needed representation for. That could be for almost anything and everything that appears in the narrative (3Eish "rules for every occasion") or almost nothing (if there's a question with what happens in the story, flip a coin to figure out who gets to decide). Why is a "wizard" worse at "tanking" than a "fighter"? Because the authors decided their story wanted that to happen and put in math and mechanics so that it would. But had they not cared about which one could "tank" better, they could have just not put the mechanics that would represent it. And the players themselves could have just decided in the story "this time, my wizard is going to be the tank for the group."

 

[Blue]

The decision of WHICH narrative identifiers are chosen to be represented in the game through game mechanics is due to the needs of the STORY. That's my point. The STORY says we need to identify a character's "strength". So the game designers come up with a number to represent that "strength". The STORY says we need to identify a character's "health". So the game designers come up with a number to represent it and call it "hit points". The STORY says that a character can choose to "wear" various type of "armor" and thus it makes it harder for that character to "get hurt". So the designers come up with a number to represent it and call it "armor class".

But none of these decisions are REQUIRED for the game to run. You don't NEED any of it. The designers could all have easily decided that characters could "wear" anything they wanted (chosen by the player), and that every character would still have the same "armor class" because they didn't feel the story of the game needed a difference in the math and mechanics to represent what characters were wearing. Just like in the game presently it does not give us any math and mechanics to decide how much any character gets to talk on their turn. The game certainly COULD. If they felt the narrative of the game needed to have each character only be able to say a certain amount of words in a turn, they could add in math or mechanics to represent it. But the designers decided that this part of the story in the game did not require mechanical representation.

And thus, anything in the game COULD be removed if the designers felt the math and mechanics were unnecessary to represent it. Why are there "wizards" and "fighters" and "clerics" and "rogues"? Because the designers had them in the story and narrative of the game and they felt they needed to be represented by math and mechanics. It's NOT because they had all this math and mechanics lying around and them saying "You know... the game has all these dice rolls we've put into it... maybe we should decide what they represent?"

So when I said above that "There's a fine line between ALL the classes in the game. And that line is purely story and fluff based."... it's because anything math and mechanics-related was inserted due entirely to what the designers felt the STORY needed representation for. That could be for almost anything and everything that appears in the narrative (3Eish "rules for every occasion") or almost nothing (if there's a question with what happens in the story, flip a coin to figure out who gets to decide). Why is a "wizard" worse at "tanking" than a "fighter"? Because the authors decided their story wanted that to happen and put in math and mechanics so that it would. But had they not cared about which one could "tank" better, they could have just not put the mechanics that would represent it. And the players themselves could have just decided in the story "this time, my wizard is going to be the tank for the group."

That's both deep and meaningless.

Yes, the designers craft mechanics to have the game they want to play. It seems you call that "story", even thought that's not the word for it.

This is entirely true. Of every game, ever. So it's meaningless.

Chess tells one "story", and would be an entirely different game if the pieces had the same movement but a different priority of what could move based on what materials of the pieces were.

By "story", you really seem to mean "design decisions", and you can absolutely remove anything - because it's just rules - and at the same time you can absolutely remove nothing without changing the game. Changing the game isn't a bad thing. Pretending that the "story" (sic) has no impact on the game's identity is however not correct.

 

[Phion]

I agree that there is no logical reason as to why the fighter should have less skills/equal number of skills to certain classes, the fighter would have more time to pick up skills than a spell caster and they have no real advantages over more physical based characters such as the paladin, barbarian or monk. Having said this however it is far more fair compared to previous editions.

I would maybe say they should have 3 skills rather than just the two with a continued limited selection. Basically they should not be skill monkey's, but their build should reflect their time has been spent learning other skills (apart from just swinging a sword)

 

[guachi]

I think I'd be satisfied by simply giving all fighters proficiency in Athletics. It's kind of like the RSTLNE of 5e. It's almost an automatic for Strength fighters.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I think I'd be satisfied by simply giving all fighters proficiency in Athletics. It's kind of like the RSTLNE of 5e. It's almost an automatic for Strength fighters.

This is why it's on their list of available class skills.

 

[CubicsRube]

[MENTION=6785438]Warmaster Horus[/MENTION] and on a tanget to my own post, i dont see the reason that we should have a class skills list! What if i want my fighter to be proficient in medicine, or my cleric in animal handling?

I know, backgrounds etc. But it seems easier just to remove the restruction.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I know, backgrounds etc. But it seems easier just to remove the restruction.

The restruction is redindant at this point, anyway, with Backgrounds & optional feats opening up skills, and skill proficiency not adding up to a whole lot, anyway.