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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6177687" data-attributes="member: 6681948">OK, to me, I want a game that does not encourage, or perhaps even enable, characters whose players will be bored or frustrated for a significant portion of the game.  I also want the ability to run a game which includes significant combat, social and exploration aspects.  So I want characters who have something to contribute in all three realms.  From your comments in prior posts, the character you ran was not a direct combatant, but he could contribute in combat and you were not bored in combat.  To me, that character does not "suck at combat".My logic would also say "I do not want characters able to trade away all of their non-combat abilities to further pump up their combat abilities".  That is, I do not want the game to enable a situation where all but one player "look down at their 8 Charisma" and complete absence of social skills, and just sit around while the one player who did not dump all social abilities in favour of another combat bonus plays solo for two hours.  I want all of those characters to have some abilities that allow them to contribute, to some extent, in that social encounter.If a player wants to choose options so that they focus on non-combat at the expense of combat, fine.  And if they want to focus on combat at the expense of non-combat, that's fine too.  But "at the expense of" is what I want.  I definitely do not want not "to the exclusion of", so that the GM's choices are reduced to "have no challenges of this nature", "leave one or more players bored with nothing to do when these challenges appear" or "ignore the mechanics and give the character who invested 100% of his character resources in other areas some kind of freebie so he can participate".  This includes "combat wombats" who sacrifice all skills in any non-combat role to eke out every possible combat advantage, then bitch and moan that they have no fun when a challenge which can't be solved by killing whatever stands before him comes up.  I don't want to have to choose between that player being bored (and whiny) or other players being forced to play a 100% combat game where the noncombat abilities they chose, at the cost of not being 100% combat-optimized, never come into play - leaving them frustrated because they never get to have the spotlight in combat (Combat Wombat is superior on all levels in that arena) and never get to have the spotlight where their skills shine, because that's no fun for Combat Wombat.Optional rules to swap out "to the exclusion" should be presented only with the clear statement that "this is GM option, will leave the character bored and frustrated when these situations arise, and is generally recommended only where these challenges will be minimal or entirely absent in the expected game".With that in mind, I would support a diverse array of choices of combat-useful options, whether sneak attack is a default, or one choice of many.  I would not support the default ability to build a Rogue (or any other character) whose only combat function is to hide under a table and not participate through a three hour combat session.</blockquote>

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