D&D 5E (2014) The case for niche protection

[transtemporal]

Numberwang!

Wangernumb!

 

[Ancalagon]

The whole notion of niche protection though is a bit defeated by multiclassing....

That actually depends on the group. The first time I played a cleric was in a group I joined who didn't have one, and they said I had to be the cleric because no one else had made one. They also lectured and/or berated me every time I tried to do anything other than cast healing spells or turn undead.

When only the cleric can heal and the new girl joined a cleric-free party, the new girl got forced to play the healbot cleric. And I hated every minute of it. I didn't touch the class again for years.

Sometimes a "niche" can be a burden. I always try (when I am a GM) to encourage having more than one PC that can heal (our current campaign has 3/4 healers)

 

[Uchawi]

Classes are the best way to protect fantasy roles or concepts (niches), while more sub-classes and less classes work against it. There is a price to pay for simplicity just for the sake of simplicity and placing a hard ceiling on the amount of classes. And then you get all the white noise about bloat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

That actually depends on the group. The first time I played a cleric was in a group I joined who didn't have one, and they said I had to be the cleric because no one else had made one. They also lectured and/or berated me every time I tried to do anything other than cast healing spells or turn undead.

When only the cleric can heal and the new girl joined a cleric-free party, the new girl got forced to play the healbot cleric. And I hated every minute of it. I didn't touch the class again for years.

That's not the game forcing you though. That's jerk players doing that.

 

[dagger]

Multiclassing is an option, try it without it in 5e? That's what we are going to do...

 

[MechaPilot]

That's not the game forcing you though. That's jerk players doing that.

Jerk players making decisions based on game assumptions. If only the cleric can heal, and the perception is that a healer is needed, then the perceived need for a cleric will drive decisions. If more than one class can heal, then the perception that a healer is needed still offers choice while holding to that assumption.

 

[Ancalagon]

Multiclassing is an option, try it without it in 5e? That's what we are going to do...

I actually love the "soft multiclass" characters that can result from this - a fighter could have the outlander or the criminal background and widen her scope, for example.

 

[dagger]

Jerk players making decisions based on game assumptions. If only the cleric can heal, and the perception is that a healer is needed, then the perceived need for a cleric will drive decisions. If more than one class can heal, then the perception that a healer is needed still offers choice while holding to that assumption.

Sounds more like jerk players being jerks.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Jerk players making decisions based on game assumptions. If only the cleric can heal, and the perception is that a healer is needed, then the perceived need for a cleric will drive decisions. If more than one class can heal, then the perception that a healer is needed still offers choice while holding to that assumption.

I'm not going to say that the discussion back in the day, "Who is making what class? Do we have a cleric" never happened. In fact, it happened a lot. However, if no one wanted to make a cleric and the other players forced a player to do so, that's jerk players, not the game. I also disagree about game assumptions. Why? Because if you actually look at the mechanics of the game, combat was supposed to be avoided in the first place. Not only is this provable from things like not getting much XP for monster kills but most of it from treasure, getting XP from the monsters for "defeating" the encounter which includes avoiding it altogether, the fragility of PCs, the multitude of deadly monster traits (save or die poison, level drain, etc), but in the DMG it outright tells you that combat is a last resort when "all else has failed".

So the actual game assumptions tell you to stay out of combat in the first place. I understand a lot of player ignored that assumption and looked for combat, and thus felt like they did in fact need a cleric. But that goes back to player choices, not how the game was actually assumed to be played.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As Gadget said, I think that's more a problem of bad design and DMing than anything else. My group doesn't have a rogue right now, so I don't use a lot of locked doors (or rather, doors that can't be opened with the "barbarian's lockpick").

For my part, I always tell people to play what they'll have fun playing, and I'll make the party work. I dont't think niche protection is about punishing a group for not covering certain bases, but about making sure everyone has a chance to shine. Sure, it's funny when the rogue rolls a nat 1 on their stealth check and the clanking paladin aces the check. But when it happens again and again, that rogue's player is going to start not enjoying the game as much. Thankfully Expertise, I think, is a great form of niche protection.

Except when your party needs to make an arcana check and someone is forced to be a wizard. Or the only one who can heal is a cleric and someone is forced to play one.


It's one thing for fighters to be better than bards in combat, and bards better than fighters in social situations, but it's a very different game if bards could not fight, and fighters could not speak.