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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6181239" data-attributes="member: 58197">I wouldn't put it quite the same way Majoru does, but I agree on the general thrust: One of the core premises of D&amp;D is that PCs are capable adventurers, with &quot;capable&quot; meaning &quot;can pull their own weight in a dungeon full of traps and nasty monsters.&quot; You can, of course, run a D&amp;D game that changes that core premise. Sometimes that leads to really awesome games. But for better or for worse, D&amp;D has never been designed as a general-purpose RPG, and I think it would be ill-served to try to be one. It's a swords-and-sorcery game and the rules are focused on supporting that genre (with a smattering of epic fantasy at high levels).Now, I rather like playing characters who aren't straight-up hackmasters. When I play a wizard, for example, I tend to be heavy on illusions and control, light on blasting. I had great fun playing a lazy warlord in 4E. Similarly, a rogue need not be a damage machine. I'd love to see a &quot;trickster&quot; rogue that replaced sneak attack with a bunch of maneuvers to put opponents at a disadvantage or lure them to their doom.But all these characters still contribute plenty in battle--they just do it in less-direct ways. I think it's a bad idea to design a class variant that is actually useless in a fight. When an option is provided in the rulebook, one should be able to assume the system supports that option out of the box. I do not expect that D&amp;D will ever, out of the box, support noncombatant PCs; far too much of the system is devoted to combat to make that workable. If a player wants a noncombatant character and the DM is willing to work with him/her on that, more power to them, but they should understand and accept that they're going outside the design parameters of the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6181239, member: 58197"] I wouldn't put it quite the same way Majoru does, but I agree on the general thrust: One of the core premises of D&D is that PCs are capable adventurers, with "capable" meaning "can pull their own weight in a dungeon full of traps and nasty monsters." You can, of course, run a D&D game that changes that core premise. Sometimes that leads to really awesome games. But for better or for worse, D&D has never been designed as a general-purpose RPG, and I think it would be ill-served to try to be one. It's a swords-and-sorcery game and the rules are focused on supporting that genre (with a smattering of epic fantasy at high levels). Now, I rather like playing characters who aren't straight-up hackmasters. When I play a wizard, for example, I tend to be heavy on illusions and control, light on blasting. I had great fun playing a lazy warlord in 4E. Similarly, a rogue need not be a damage machine. I'd love to see a "trickster" rogue that replaced sneak attack with a bunch of maneuvers to put opponents at a disadvantage or lure them to their doom. But all these characters still contribute plenty in battle--they just do it in less-direct ways. I think it's a bad idea to design a class variant that is actually useless in a fight. When an option is provided in the rulebook, one should be able to assume the system supports that option out of the box. I do not expect that D&D will ever, [I]out of the box[/I], support noncombatant PCs; far too much of the system is devoted to combat to make that workable. If a player wants a noncombatant character and the DM is willing to work with him/her on that, more power to them, but they should understand and accept that they're going outside the design parameters of the game. [/QUOTE]

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